Talking ESM, Work Culture, and Our Biggest Fears with ThePrimeagen
I have no idea what we just talked about. Butt vomit. We haven't actually started yet. I mean, you could use any of this, but
Speaker 2:Yeah, we have.
Speaker 1:Okay. We have. You know what we have?
Speaker 2:There's no rules. You know Chris will use it from everywhere.
Speaker 1:It's now 34 episodes in a row. I'd like to introduce Dax Rad. He's here with us today, and it's it's really nice to have you on, Dax. I can't say how much it warms my heart that you continue to show up.
Speaker 3:You did
Speaker 1:the thing. The thing. The thing where you just stare at me. Oh my goodness. I'm eating a Larabar.
Speaker 2:Maybe we could do an episode where I just say absolutely nothing the whole episode.
Speaker 1:I would no. No. Why? We would lose listeners. Like, I be talking to you and you just don't acknowledge anything?
Speaker 2:It's not that I wouldn't be here. I would be here and you would just be talking to me and I just would never respond.
Speaker 1:You would you nod? Would you ever like acknowledge that I'm I would talking make to
Speaker 2:facial expressions. I do all kinds of stuff.
Speaker 1:Prime is here.
Speaker 3:Hi. Hi. Did you guys do some good leg day today?
Speaker 1:I've got my my pre workout right here. I haven't worked
Speaker 2:out yet. Broke my toes, so I've been out of the gym.
Speaker 3:I broke my back. Okay, Mike Tyson.
Speaker 2:How are your weeds looking? Oh,
Speaker 3:Dude, there there is a bull thistle that is taller than me. There's Canadian thistle that was so tall that it had to be seven and a half feet tall.
Speaker 2:Oh my god. Wow. Did it just pop out out of nowhere?
Speaker 3:Okay. Canadian thistle. Okay. I'm gonna rant about thistle for a second, so you just calm down. Canadian thistle.
Speaker 3:Okay. So what happened in South Dakota is that we've just been getting rain, like, every day for the last three weeks or I was out of town. And so I could just never spray weeds. And so they just kept I have the most lush weed farm of all time, but no one's getting high and just getting angry.
Speaker 2:Right? You tried smoking it? Some
Speaker 3:bull thistle. By the way, did you know that if you put an at sign instead of just typing in the name like a rookie, if you put an at sign in your title, it'll actually link out to the person's
Speaker 2:Twitch account. Oh, shit. I didn't know that. Hot tip.
Speaker 3:Oh, wow. You should always at sign yourself in your own titles because when they click on it, if you have your social links properly set up, it'll also give you a little YouTube, Twitter Oh my god. Instagram.
Speaker 2:Wow. Tips from Pro
Speaker 3:right Wow. Know. I mean, you guys just gotta know what you're doing. What is this? Rookie hour?
Speaker 2:Yeah. Kind of. That's our that's our vibe, basically. It's on your mind.
Speaker 3:Can I read you a direct quote for my coworker?
Speaker 2:Oh, yeah. I like it.
Speaker 1:Prime works at Netflix by the way, if people don't know that.
Speaker 3:I'm gonna read you several great quotes of mine. This is just so good. I go, look at this thing. There's a decoding in protobufs where it tries to do a fixed 64 read. And if that fixed 64 read long to number exceeds the maximum safe integer, it just throws an exception, destroys everything, and cannot continue on.
Speaker 2:I saw your tweet about that. Yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And so his response is freaking JS. And I said, well, I agree.
Speaker 3:And he goes, I hate JS. And I go, I agree. And he responds with, who needs more than 53 bits? I say, well, who needs more than 53 bits? Save one.
Speaker 2:Do you know why that's the case?
Speaker 3:My assumption is that the early implementations of a garbage collection and all that, they saved space for something to
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 3:To, like, put crap in. But no. I just think it's stupid and annoying. And then then later on, I go, well, I don't really wanna rewrite this in Go unless if I have to. Can you, like, put a flag to stop using nanoseconds?
Speaker 3:And they're like, well, we could, but you could also just use a more professional language. It has that has a good and proper scheduling runtime and parallel processing proposition, aka Green Threads, an ecosystem that's more pro. And I don't think you end up with a bazillion NPM package of doubtful quality. JS makes sense for the web, and outside of that for tooling, it makes no sense. I don't see any value at all.
Speaker 3:JS feels like a hack on top of a hackish slash continuously involving language. Once you've tried anything else, unless you have to use TS or JS, I do not see a reasoning reason for doing so. This is
Speaker 1:all like internal Yeah. Just talking
Speaker 2:on Slack or something. Get this off their chest.
Speaker 3:Oh gosh. It was so good. And I was just like then I was just like, well, agree.
Speaker 2:What now?
Speaker 3:I didn't make the choice. I don't know what happened here. The problem is is everybody wants their cake and they wanna eat it too. You want to be able to distribute something in which you don't have to compile, but ultimately, you still have to run something stupid like TSNode or some sort of compilation because it almost never works. ESM is a complete disaster.
Speaker 3:I hate ESM. What is this? A TS Rantic Hour?
Speaker 2:I knew something was on your mind. Why do you hate ESM? Let's get into it.
Speaker 3:Oh my goodness. Okay. Okay. So here here we go. So the the whole point of ESM is that it's supposed to like save you from all this bullshit.
Speaker 3:Well, problem with ESM is that you have to mark yourself as a module and then all the rules that have that have applied to node up to date no longer apply. You have to include .js. That means if you use, say, I don't know, any library ever written in NPM and you mark yourself as a module, it's just like, I can't find I know what this import statement is, and you're just like, I have auto generated code in which I have no control over, in which just assumes they will do a dot JS for you, ruins everything, and you just chase bug after bug after bug. I can't just be patched in the world. Then when you patch the world, it breaks for the other person.
Speaker 3:Then they're like, Well, you can't do that. First off, it's the stupidest problem of all time. You literally import and you export. The export is just a POJO. That's all it is.
Speaker 3:Somehow we've derived a system in which two of identical things can't work together in a language that is dynamic. Like, kind of crazy world are we at?
Speaker 2:Yeah. At this point, you like have to use a bundler. But I feel I'm hoping at some point all that old stuff just dies and everything's ESM only. And I think things will be better then, potentially.
Speaker 3:Yeah. But I mean, that's like an impossible thing. That's like saying, I can't I mean, once everyone quits using Python two seven, everything will be great. Was like a decade ago.
Speaker 2:No. No. I agree. The thing is how many dependencies do you need? I need like 10 dependencies total, maybe, for like 99% of my work.
Speaker 2:I just need them to go ESM only. But yeah, like people just will stack it like a billion there's a what? Like millions of NPM packages that'll never be updated. But I'm kinda hoping they die for that reason.
Speaker 3:I know. But like if you need to use say, a protobuf, you now have to convince Google to update to their to ESM. They're not updating to ESM. Right? So you're gonna have to write your you're gonna have to write your own little fun protobuf version that is in ESM.
Speaker 3:I mean, they don't even work well. Right now, I'm literally using sed to replace things at runtime because it doesn't understand default exports in the own proto buff generator. And it's just like, oh gosh, I hate this language.
Speaker 2:If you compile with ESBuild because ESBuild handles a lot of those cases. Have you tried that? Yeah. No? No good?
Speaker 3:Some things are just incompatible. Because once you mark yourself as a module, generated code can't be on like, unadhering to those rules.
Speaker 2:Oh, generated code within your own I see. I see. Yeah. It's something within your own code base. Yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Because protobufs. Right? Yeah. Once you generate code, once you have to use say two languages and you want a schema to share between betwixt them.
Speaker 3:Betwixt them.
Speaker 1:I mean,
Speaker 3:you're in trouble.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:How big are you physically in real life?
Speaker 1:Dax is five ten.
Speaker 3:How big am I? Six foot and some change.
Speaker 2:Okay. I'm actually the smallest here.
Speaker 1:How much change?
Speaker 3:Enough to call myself in the six feet. That's all that matters. I'm no Theo. My dad was six four. My grandfather was six five.
Speaker 3:I somehow came out as six foot. My son's probably gonna be six five. I don't know what happened.
Speaker 2:Oh, man. I I went the other way. My entire family is like five six and I'm five ten. So I'm grateful for what I got. Got lucky.
Speaker 3:Yeah. No. You gotta be. You did your above statistical average.
Speaker 2:I love I love that. That's good.
Speaker 1:That's awesome. My my dad is, like, exactly my height and my two brothers are my height. So I just assumed, like, all males in a family would always be the same height. And my wife thinks my young or my oldest is gonna be really tall, but I just didn't think it's like, I'm the ceiling. This is as tall as he can get.
Speaker 2:Can you get a prediction for your kids?
Speaker 3:Yeah. There's like growth plate predictions and stuff like that.
Speaker 1:But Oh, really?
Speaker 3:Yeah. You can do you can do like like they can do some basic guesstimation, but mine was off. I was supposed to be taller. Never quite made it there. High five myself.
Speaker 3:But let's go clapping. But, I mean, the thing is is that, like, I don't have a neck. As you can see, like, I literally start from a chin and meet the top of
Speaker 2:my chest within, an inch and a half. Okay?
Speaker 3:So no one knows what happened to my neck. But my wife, her neck is like a giraffe. She has, like, 17 inches of neck. And my son got her neck, but he got my legs. And if you don't know, my legs start right around here.
Speaker 3:So I I don't
Speaker 2:have this for while. I have no torso. Dude, finding pants and like shirt ratio is always so hard.
Speaker 3:Yep. Not only that, but my wife, when she sits down and I sit down, we are a half inch difference when we both sit up as straight as possible. And I am six and some inches taller than her. Wow. So she's literally all torso.
Speaker 3:So my son got her torso and her neck and got my legs. The kid's gonna be six foot twelve.
Speaker 2:I don't know what's
Speaker 3:gonna happen.
Speaker 2:Is he playing basketball? Crazy.
Speaker 3:I'm trying to convince him too. I love basketball, so I played a bunch of basketball, so I'm hoping he will.
Speaker 2:What about you, Adam? You played basketball too. Right?
Speaker 1:I did play basketball. I can't relate with you short torso people. I've got a very long torso and average legs.
Speaker 2:What are you doing in tech?
Speaker 1:Me?
Speaker 2:Yeah. People with your body proportions don't belong here.
Speaker 1:Yeah. I might get out. I think I'm a swimmer. I should be a swimmer probably. I did some swimming.
Speaker 1:I don't know.
Speaker 3:My brother-in-law was an Olympic swimmer.
Speaker 2:Really?
Speaker 3:What? Yeah. Got sixth in Beijing.
Speaker 2:Is he Michael Phelps? What? He
Speaker 3:lived with Michael Phelps and braced against him in the Beijing one.
Speaker 1:That is crazy. Wow. Yeah. Does he have a long neck?
Speaker 3:No. But he when he was, like, when he was in his prime super shape when I met him. Yeah. He was like he was like one and a half humans.
Speaker 2:Is everyone in your family physically superior to you?
Speaker 3:Yeah. Yeah. In every way. It's very it's very stable. Except for I can grow better I can grow better facial hair than everybody else.
Speaker 3:So I I do win. Right?
Speaker 2:Have you gone the full beard?
Speaker 3:Yeah. It's just that, you know, no. I mean, Dax, this is gonna hurt you a little bit. But no matter what you do and no matter how thick it is, it's just way too puby for me. I just can't handle it.
Speaker 3:You know what I mean? It's just like it's annoying, and I don't want any of that. So, you know, mustache I went with a mustache because it was awesome, and now everybody has a mustache.
Speaker 2:Yeah. I changed it up.
Speaker 3:Like, everybody has a mustache. I walked down the street and there's just every guy has a mustache. I'm like, how did this happen? Like, no one liked mustaches. I thought they're awesome and now they're just everywhere.
Speaker 3:It's crazy how life changes on a dime and all of sudden one day nothing's there and the next day they're everywhere.
Speaker 2:Maybe you set the trend.
Speaker 3:I don't think I set it.
Speaker 2:How many people are in your town?
Speaker 3:70,000. Do people like your neighbors know what you do?
Speaker 1:No. Do they know you're the Prime Engine?
Speaker 3:No. No one does. Nothing. What about your work?
Speaker 2:Like your coworker you were just talking about?
Speaker 3:Oh, yeah. I get messages all the time.
Speaker 2:Good ones?
Speaker 3:I'll get like sometimes. I I get mess I get all sorts of I get all sorts of things. I got people. I got I've been blocked by coworkers. I've I've received not so nice messages from coworkers and I've received great things.
Speaker 3:Right?
Speaker 2:How does that work with like when when you say blocked, are they blocking you on the work Slack? Like, what do you mean they're blocking you?
Speaker 3:Oh, yeah. I've been blocked on work Like, they refuse refuse to respond. Yeah. I have I've sent there's this one person which I I I had no idea. All a sudden, there's how I discovered it is Netflix UI engineering tweeted something, and then I couldn't see any of the messages.
Speaker 3:So I was like, oh, that's strange. That must be one of those, like you know, because on Twitter, you can do some sort of, like, mass blocking. Yeah. And sometimes, you know, you catch a stray bullet, and you're just like, oopsie daisies. So I reached out to him on Slack, and I'm like, yo, I don't I don't this must be a mistake or something.
Speaker 3:Hey. If I said anything, I'm I'm sorry. I I have no idea who you are. I've never even met you. Didn't respond.
Speaker 3:I was like, that seems a little strange. Maybe he just missed it. Maybe he's on a o. So I like, oh, two months later, I I repinged him. I was just like, hey.
Speaker 3:Yeah. If there is something, just like let me know. I'm glad to talk about this. I think it was my literal words and still nothing. So I'm like, that is super strange.
Speaker 3:I know someone he's friends with that I'm also friends with. So I reached out to him. They're like, oh, yeah. He hates you. And I'm like, what did I do?
Speaker 2:And so How does that work with, like, the company? Like, you just have employees blocking each other? Like, do they care?
Speaker 3:Netflix used to be a place that, valued really strongly direct feedback.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 3:And now I feel like it's it's less so. The next generation that's coming in, it doesn't seem to be as valued Mhmm. On that level. It just seems like we more avoid it. Maybe it's a cultural thing.
Speaker 3:Maybe now every generation feels that way. But the first commit I ever made in Netflix, this guy named Jerry Hamlet comes up to me and goes, he was just literally like, Hey, you're a fucking idiot. You need to fix this right now. I was just like, Porque Maria? It's just like we talked it out.
Speaker 3:It was great feedback and he was super harsh, straight to the point and it was fantastic. Right? And that's like my first two years at Netflix. Like, everyone was just like, woah, what's that? That's not right.
Speaker 3:Right? Like, direct. Right to the point. We called it no shit sandwiches. Hey.
Speaker 3:You're a really nice guy. I think you're really great. By the way, this is bullshit, but you know, a really cool person. Right? Like, there's, no bullshit sandwiches.
Speaker 3:No shit sandwiches. And so I don't know what happened. Something happened. Now people can't take feedback and everyone gets hurt.
Speaker 1:That's what I've heard about Netflix is the thing you described before. I mean, I've heard that you guys are known for being very direct, but that's faded.
Speaker 3:I think it's faded. I've been here for a decade. So, I mean, when people say, oh, no. It's the same. They just probably haven't been here for a decade.
Speaker 3:Remote work may have probably hurt that a lot. It's hard to have direct feedback when you can't see someone's body language when you you know, like, text is extremely easy to misinterpret. You know, there's all these barriers to entry if you're already upset at somebody to be like, hey, let's get into a Google Meets. Right? Like, you can't just walk over to their desk and be like, yo, let's hash this out really quickly.
Speaker 2:I mean, I've the what you're describing, that's pretty much how I've always worked. Like, it's been pretty harsh at times in direct and I've liked it because obviously it's stressful in the moment, but overall, it just brings everyone together. Like, you gotta, like, break and repair and that's kind of what creates good relationships. Yeah. When did you know is it going away?
Speaker 2:Because I feel like more as like industry wide, I feel the last five years have just been really weird. Like a lot of weird stuff has shifted in the last five years. I feel like it's gonna return back to how it was. But, yeah, when did you guys start to see that change?
Speaker 3:Okay. I thought Adam was gonna answer, but instead he's just eating.
Speaker 1:That that was a question for you, friend.
Speaker 3:Okay. Well, you said you guys. That's multiple. Okay. I just got done dominating, so I wanna give Adam an opportunity here.
Speaker 1:I have nothing to say right now.
Speaker 3:Jumped it in his actual face. Disgusting.
Speaker 2:Last week, he spilled a bunch of apples on the floor. It was a freaking disaster.
Speaker 3:Ridiculous, Adam. I've noticed about in the last five years too. That's a that that feels about right. Like, things things started shifting. I think when the world be I so okay.
Speaker 3:I'm not trying to get into any sort of politics, so I want you to know I'm not doing politics. But I think at some point in our country, the political became the personal. Yeah. And so it's just like everything has to be politicized. And I think right around then is when I started seeing a lot of, like, fracturing where people became really, like, intense about a lot of things.
Speaker 3:And then when everyone became super intense, it also there's this weird, like, distancing that also happened at our job where it's just like, if you say something, it's like you're attacking somebody. It's like, well, no. I'm not attacking you. I want this to be better. Like, I'm not trying to, like this is not we're not sparring.
Speaker 3:Like, life is not a spar. Sometimes it's it's just like co becoming better. I don't know what happened.
Speaker 2:Yeah. It's just a process. I have a pretty, like, cynical explanation for this. But I I honestly feel like a lot of these companies, the pressure kind of got removed in the last five years just because the amount they were all growing, how easy everything was. So I feel like it was easy to get distracted by things that didn't necessarily like lead to anywhere good.
Speaker 2:And I'm feeling that pressure come back on. And I have seen a lot of kind of what you're describing decrease as well. It felt for a while like, wow, this is just a world we're gonna live in forever. Like, it's just going in this direction, it's gonna continue to go in that direction. But I'm seeing a lot less of that.
Speaker 2:I feel like all the people that are influential and are, like, talking about things, it's less it's way less of that other stuff. So I'm hoping it's gonna get better.
Speaker 3:Okay. I'm gonna be right back, but I wanna hear more of what you're trying to say because you used a lot of general words in which mean nothing. It used to mean this and now that. And I'm like, I don't know what this or that means in this situation. Alright.
Speaker 2:Go empty yourself, we'll get we'll get specific.
Speaker 1:Maybe Prime would do, like, some really direct feedback for us in our podcast. Maybe he could just like bring back the Netflix directness. No shit sandwich. Just straight down the pipe. What do you think?
Speaker 2:I don't want it. Are we ready
Speaker 1:for it?
Speaker 2:No. I'm just kidding.
Speaker 1:You don't want it? I would have expected me to be the one that wouldn't want it. How long do you have to drink your pre workout before your workout for maximum effect?
Speaker 2:I don't know. I actually never I actually never
Speaker 1:Do you drink a pre never
Speaker 2:a pre workout person.
Speaker 1:Oh, really? Okay. It gets me in the mood.
Speaker 3:You ever took nitric oxide?
Speaker 1:No. I I do beet juice. Well, it's like beets and some other stuff.
Speaker 3:Okay. It's like boner medication. Similar effect. Nitric oxide. Something about okay.
Speaker 2:Pre workout has a bad rep, so I never explored it.
Speaker 1:It has a bad
Speaker 2:because people are always like
Speaker 1:Oh, really? I don't know.
Speaker 2:I always like hear people like go nuts and take pre workout and it's like it's I don't know. Enlighten me.
Speaker 3:Snort a line of pre workout. I mean, this is literally a bro life science where he like snorts the line of pre workout and then does, you know, cleans forever.
Speaker 2:Exactly. But but then Adam's talking about beet juice, which is a very different vibe than what I imagined pre workout to be.
Speaker 1:It ex it increases your blood flow
Speaker 3:To where?
Speaker 1:Do. Did you know that about beets? To your body, Dax. I mean To your whole body. It's it's psychological for me.
Speaker 1:Like, if I take it, I'm now I know I have to work out because I'm not gonna waste a drink. You know? Like, if I drank it, I'm working out.
Speaker 3:Okay. Hold on. We gotta I we rewind this for a quick
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 3:Quick second? How'd you guys get here, and where did you read beet juice as a pre workout?
Speaker 2:Adam just asked me about pre workout, and I was like, have nothing. I I don't know anything.
Speaker 1:I I was just I have to take my ninety minutes before my workout, so I have to figure out the math of, like, ninety minutes from now. And I just I was trying to figure out if I should drink it. So I asked Dax, how long do you have to drink your pre workout? I thought he took pre workout too. Thought it was probably a lot less time.
Speaker 1:That was where I was headed with it. He doesn't even do it. So
Speaker 3:So what you're trying to tell me is Dax doesn't even he doesn't even lift. Do you even lift?
Speaker 1:He doesn't even work out. Don't even think he works out. Because I don't stream anymore. He only used to work out
Speaker 2:when I streamed. My workout routine was watching Adam in between my sets.
Speaker 1:And now I work out and watch you.
Speaker 2:I know. You gotta get back to streaming.
Speaker 1:It's a circle of lash.
Speaker 3:This is a strange podcast.
Speaker 1:We ought to yeah, we're recording. Okay.
Speaker 2:Going back to what we're talking before. Okay. Let let me speak with more specific words. I mean, everyone blames everything on interest rates and it's kind of like an over overly used explanation of things. But, I feel like in the last couple years, stuff which isn't really easy in terms of like, if you're starting a company, it's really easy to raise money, extremely easy to boost evaluation next round.
Speaker 2:If you just have to do certain things, those things weren't necessarily tied to reality, right? They weren't tied to your business. Literally doing better literally becomes more becoming more sustainable. All the things that prior to that that we were doing and learned to do just became like detethered from that. And so I would see a lot of these companies get really, really big, completely devoid of reality.
Speaker 2:And I think when you have situations like that, that a lot of behaviors come up that people think makes sense. Like they focus on certain areas or they like think hiring in a certain way makes sense. So they think like caring about certain things makes sense. And there's like a return to reality where you figure out which behaviors actually made sense and which didn't. And I think in the moment, most people, a lot of it seems logical and it seems extremely illogical in hindsight when when all that stuff kind of goes away.
Speaker 2:So I feel like there's been a phase where especially some of these massive companies where, people were just focusing on stuff that just wasn't work related or like pushed the bar or like made the company better. And they're they're kind of they were kind in cushy situations. I think the focus was on like just other things. Right? I feel like I haven't seen that as much in the last, like, year or so.
Speaker 3:But it was harder to raise money. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think I mean, I I think I see what you're trying to say, but I do I I I I reject your hypothesis.
Speaker 2:Tell me more.
Speaker 3:Oh. I don't think the pressure or the difficulty of a job is related to the current feeling or zeitgeist of how people take feedback.
Speaker 2:I guess, yes. Maybe not taking feedback parts. But I guess what I'm trying to say is the overall culture of being able to what's it called? Like, cater to that, I guess. I think that's been something that's newer.
Speaker 2:That's like been a thing that's, again, in the last five years showed up.
Speaker 3:Because there was a gluttony of, you know, VC money all flowing in because every company could potentially be a billion dollar company and so
Speaker 2:Yeah. Every company had like, you know, five times more people than they needed, you know, like strictly speaking, like, a lot of people didn't have a lot of, like, literal work to do. Of course, all work inflates to whatever time you give it, so it felt like it did. But, yeah, I feel like we're entering a new phase now and I'm just not seeing especially in the again, I I operate entirely in, like, extremely early stage companies. I definitely see, like, a crazy focusing on on all on all sorts of things, right?
Speaker 2:Like, before people, companies would be really excited to like hire a bunch of people and like do a bunch of like external facing things, and like brag about their fundraise, etcetera. I'm seeing way more focus on, yes, raise money but we're kind of back heads down and kind of on building. And everyone's I feel that there's a shift in being more sustainable and, not taking the next round for granted, which I think is good. I think that's a good natural state of things.
Speaker 3:Yeah. I'd be I'm I'm on that team. I like that. I'm just not sure if it has much to do with the feedback part.
Speaker 2:So where do think the feedback is come the feedback issue is coming from?
Speaker 3:I still I still think it's that, there's become a a bit of a an attachment to what you do is who you are.
Speaker 2:Mhmm. Identity. Yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Identity has gotten mixed up because, you know, we you know, everyone everyone so so okay. Now we're gonna get into philosophical prime. So sit down. Shut up.
Speaker 3:Okay. So did anyone here know what the word worship means? Oh, yeah. We're doing it.
Speaker 2:What the word worship means?
Speaker 3:It comes from the old English. Yeah. It comes it comes from the old English term, worth shape, meaning the worth of something shapes who you are. Okay. Everybody worships.
Speaker 3:So what is our culture worshiping? At one point, it may have been family, it may have been country, it may have been God, but now it's self. Self is currently the thing that we take our most worth from. Mhmm. Right?
Speaker 3:And at least in our culture, at least, that's why you do you, get rid of everyone that holds you back. All these kind of phrases exist is because what is the thing that's trying to drive our worth right now? Now it's ourself. And so I think that a lot of this is tying into this hypersensitivity because that means what you do is who you are. And when someone says this isn't good, what they're saying is you aren't good.
Speaker 3:Who you are, like fundamentally isn't good. And I think that that takes a huge I think that just greatly changes the culture. Personal opinion.
Speaker 2:Interesting. So what's a what's the right mindset to have? What what should you worship?
Speaker 3:Well, I think I know, but that's me. I God's the answer because at least you have a fixed point that can't change. Whereas if you have a point that changes, it's just whatever whatever is the popular opinion of the day.
Speaker 2:Yeah. We I mean, we we talked about a little bit about this in a few podcasts ago, but, I think there is a lot of benefits from worshiping yourself because you get to figure stuff out and you get you get a little bit more choice. But with that choice, you're like trying to reinvent literally every single aspect of what it means to be a person. And that's overwhelming. And I don't think most of us are set up to make great decisions there.
Speaker 2:I think there's a lot of wisdom in how we've been living and I think there's probably room for like some amount of change with that's with with a lot of that. But I think we throw away a lot of what works, and and like the newfound freedom that that we all have in like the modern world.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Yeah. I'm I'm not you know, absolute freedom is not necessarily absolute freedom. Right? A fish only works if it's in water, if it has a certain set of constraints.
Speaker 3:I think humans you know, like, I don't think our modern push I don't know. Now we're getting real weird. I don't think the modern push for, like, like ultimate say, anyone can use any drug is really great because there's a lot of people that are complete slaves to drugs living on the street, we're celebrating that as like a positive.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:I don't I don't feel like that's a positive win for society. I don't think it's positive win for the individual to say it's okay to do that because ultimately, it just leads to pure slavery. So ultimate freedom is not necessarily freedom. Right? It's a you can very well enslave yourself.
Speaker 1:I'm just realizing listen to you guys talk, like, how little I think about anything with depth at all because, like, you guys have thought about
Speaker 2:Well, what do you think about when you're sitting on your you're just staring at a wall and, like, not thinking about anything? Like, what what what's going on in your head? What's what's rumbling around?
Speaker 1:Just not deep thing. I don't know. I think I think about, like, what I have to do that day. Right now, I'm thinking about Japanese characters because I'm learning Japanese.
Speaker 2:Yeah. What's up with that? Why are you learning Japanese? Is that new?
Speaker 1:Just thought, we wanna go to Japan. Uh-huh. And I wanna watch anime and actually understand. No. Not really.
Speaker 3:I knew it was a lie at the moment he said we. I was like, that's definitely not a costume sport. This is a singular activity.
Speaker 2:I I tried with Liz too. We watched one episode of Death Note and she was like, not for me. And then she just never tried it again.
Speaker 3:So My wife and I loved, she really was into it, Alice in Borderland. So you got live action anime effectively.
Speaker 2:Is live action anime ever good?
Speaker 3:I thought Alice besides for like the classic you stare too long and just just like, run, bitch. Run. Right? Like, can't just like everyone just stands there like, oh. Like, don't just run.
Speaker 3:Right? Like, it works in one form, but it doesn't work in real life live action. But, yeah, Alice in Borderland was I thought it was great.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Check it out.
Speaker 3:Queen of Hearts. Great character.
Speaker 2:I'm I'm new to all this. I haven't really explored this that much. So I just watched Attack on Titan. I just finished Death Note yesterday. So I'm looking for my for my next one now.
Speaker 3:Wow. You're really going in on this.
Speaker 1:I know what a waifu is.
Speaker 2:I still don't. Kinda get it.
Speaker 1:What's a weeb? Can someone tell me
Speaker 3:what a weeb is? Someone obsessed with Japanese culture.
Speaker 1:Oh, okay.
Speaker 2:That's you. Well, now that you're learning Japanese
Speaker 1:I'm learning Japanese. So I guess I'm one
Speaker 3:of those That's the simplest way to put it. That's probably fairly one dimensional take on it, but that's the easiest way to translate it into old man.
Speaker 1:Is that so, like, with the stereotypical kinda like white guy with, like, swords in his bedroom, that guy, that's a weeb? Swords?
Speaker 3:I don't I mean, I also have three separate katanas, but that doesn't necessarily mean I'm a weeb.
Speaker 2:Oh, okay. I happen to fit
Speaker 1:potentially your exact
Speaker 3:description, but it's it's it's a little bit it's a little bit more than that. You have to be specifically interested
Speaker 1:in You really? Japanese culture.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I've been gifted three swords throughout my life.
Speaker 1:You've been gifted them Yeah. By different people? Wait. Three different people hang on. Three different people.
Speaker 3:Two two people two people, three swords.
Speaker 1:Two different people gifted you. Did you tell them did you make a list? No. Like, was this a Christmas list scenario? No.
Speaker 3:Completely independent
Speaker 1:gifting. Mister Primogen, here is a sword.
Speaker 3:Long before I was Primogen. My my gamer tag was kill Roy Jenkins during those days.
Speaker 2:So they give so one person gifted you a sword and then later followed up with a second sword?
Speaker 3:Nope. It was one sword and then someone gave me two swords.
Speaker 2:At once. Oh, at swords at once. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Were those people weebs?
Speaker 3:No. Neither of them were.
Speaker 1:Is weeb derogatory? Should I not be saying that out loud? I feel like as it's leaving my lips, it feels bad.
Speaker 3:I think you can just like a a simp, you can make it derogatory or not.
Speaker 2:Okay. Okay. Guys go to Japan?
Speaker 1:I don't know. That's what like, we wanna take the kids to Japan. Like, if we're going overseas, we've heard good things. It's very clean, safe. Kids can just walk around in Japan.
Speaker 1:Have we talked about this?
Speaker 3:Yeah. Kids don't can't necessarily walk around Japan. I I I in fact, I know
Speaker 1:Oh, they can.
Speaker 3:I know personally two people whose exclusive job is to fund paramilitary operation of rescuing children specifically from Japan.
Speaker 2:What?
Speaker 1:Okay. I'm gonna learn something different and we're not going to Japan.
Speaker 3:You should just never let your kids just walk around completely unfettered if they're young enough.
Speaker 1:Yeah. I think I think my wife saw it on TikTok. It was like the kids just walked around. Okay.
Speaker 2:That's that's a show probably. There's a reality show in Japan. It's it's a little bit it's little bit old. I forgot what it's called, but they basically take a kid, maybe like three or four years old, and they give them like a bunch of tasks, and they send them on their own. And the opposite camera crew like circling them, they're not literally on their own.
Speaker 2:But they just kinda like figure it out and you watch them. It's it's really cute. It's funny. But it makes Japan looks looks so nice.
Speaker 1:That's a show.
Speaker 2:Yeah. It's a show. It's it is pretty funny. You check it out. Maybe that's what you're maybe that's what she's seeing in
Speaker 1:Maybe.
Speaker 3:Japan is relatively safe, though, you know.
Speaker 1:Relatively safe? Okay. Yeah. I mean, I like the, like, the buildings look cool.
Speaker 2:Don't know. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Like, architecture over there.
Speaker 2:Have you been overseas before, Adam?
Speaker 1:I've been to Mexico. We went to an orphanage in Mexico before we had kids.
Speaker 2:An orf is that where you got your kids?
Speaker 3:No.
Speaker 1:That's it, though. I I guess I've been in Canadian waters up in Buffalo. We went to the the Niagara Falls.
Speaker 2:Interesting.
Speaker 3:I think
Speaker 1:we probably dipped into Canada a little bit.
Speaker 2:It's gonna be a big culture shock. Like, people that go from the West to Asia, it's like very, very different.
Speaker 3:Until you hit a squatty potty, it doesn't set in. Like, that's when that's like, when you're trying to figure out how to to book them down in a while, like, trying to be over something, like, dude, that's a whole different experience.
Speaker 1:I mean, my wife is really big into, like, we we're squatting now with the kids all the time trying to make sure we can, like, do that with our bodies because I guess, like, in the West, we lose that ability as we get older. Like, you just can't squat anymore. So I think can you squat, Bax?
Speaker 2:Yeah. I'm 31 years old with the
Speaker 1:Well, I don't know. Maybe he's sitting in a chair
Speaker 3:a lot. But he may not be able to squat. You may actually not be able to You have to maintain neutral spine. And how far can you go down while maintaining where's your butt wink at? You know, that's a very popular phrase.
Speaker 3:You know, if we know what we're talking about. Butt wink. It's where No. As you squat down, you'll remain neutral spine and then you'll curve.
Speaker 2:I squat I I when I work out, squatting is like my primary thing that I work on. So
Speaker 1:But like you can go to the ground? Yes. All five foot 10 of you can
Speaker 2:We're talking with six footers over here. You know, I was born in India. So the first toilets I used were the hole in the ground toilets. So Oh. Yeah.
Speaker 2:That's I my earliest I I think objectively they're worse, to be honest. I don't think it's like a you can go this way or that way thing. To me, I'm like, okay, I get that your body is like in a more natural state and like at home, we have little squatty potty stool things to like put your feet on when you use a toilet. But something about the hole in the ground, it's like it's like a lot of balance, a lot of things can go wrong.
Speaker 1:I mean, there nice ones? Are there ones that have like a nice rim around the hole or something? I don't know.
Speaker 3:I've porcelain Squatty Potty before. KTV.
Speaker 1:Okay. I gonna say like, what are the wealthy people in India? What what are
Speaker 2:they other thing is squatting? Toilet paper is not a thing, which I think is actually better because my friend said this thing to me once. Okay. Because you wash, you wash. You don't just finish and leave.
Speaker 2:You wash your butt with water, you know. My friend said this thing at once. He's like, imagine throwing up and not washing your face, just like wiping the vomit off your face. And he's like, that's not what you do with your butt when you poop, when you don't use a bidet.
Speaker 3:Butt vomit.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly. You just put vomit
Speaker 1:and you
Speaker 2:just wipe it off.
Speaker 3:And you
Speaker 1:know you didn't get all of that.
Speaker 2:So there's a phase where and to be honest, I still do this because we don't have a bidet installed. I I was like showering after every shit. I would just do like a quick like three minute shower. Just lower half of my body.
Speaker 1:This is fun. I'm glad I'm glad we're talking about this.
Speaker 3:Fascinating. Good time. Yeah.
Speaker 1:It's a really good time. Do you guys do
Speaker 2:you have bidets? Like, what's your what's your butt washing situation? Adam, I feel like you have a bidet. I feel like you have every fucking product Instagram advertises.
Speaker 1:We had one. We we didn't use it and we got rid of it. We it's like a when you put on top. It was like a The Tushy. Place to seat kind of thing.
Speaker 1:Tushy. Yeah. You know okay. Do you have a Tushy?
Speaker 2:No. Just like the it's it's like it's such an Adam product. It's like
Speaker 1:Oh
Speaker 2:my you see it and you would get it. I can see that in your house.
Speaker 1:I'm a consumer. Okay? I hope this economy go around.
Speaker 2:Prime's not sharing what he's doing. It's private.
Speaker 1:Yeah. He's not gonna talk about his bidet situation.
Speaker 3:You know, I'm just a classic westerner. I just I use toilet paper.
Speaker 2:Dry wipe.
Speaker 3:I I live a fairly healthy lifestyle. So I mean, I ghost wipe.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Me too. Wait. What? Were you wiping up there's something there?
Speaker 2:That's the best.
Speaker 1:You just clean pinch. Ghost wipe.
Speaker 3:Hey, just clean pinch it.
Speaker 1:How how do I not clean pinch it? How I never heard any of these phrases?
Speaker 3:How do you not know about these?
Speaker 2:They haven't
Speaker 1:made it into the Ozarks.
Speaker 2:Alright. Let's let's bring it back to some tech stuff.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Please. Yes. ESM was better than this. I enjoyed talking about JavaScript packages.
Speaker 3:Speaking of butt vomit,
Speaker 2:how's ESM going all day? What are you learning right now? I think you're learning actively.
Speaker 1:I mean, I've been working a lot with Astro. Like, we're rewriting stat muse with Astro. So that's been fun.
Speaker 3:How is Astro?
Speaker 1:It's good. I mean, stat muse is like the perfect use case. It's like millions of pages. They all just grab a little data, render the page. So there's no client there's not really much client side interactivity at all.
Speaker 1:So I think if you're doing something app like, like Dax does everything as an app, not great. I think they're working on that though too, aren't they? Like client side
Speaker 2:Yeah. Fred was telling me that, they're building like a heavy SPA right now on top of using Astro. So once they've released that, they're gonna like put out here's our learnings, here's here's how you should go about it. I think I'd be willing to try it. It's to me most stuff I build like
Speaker 1:maybe like one or two
Speaker 2:pages would benefit from the SSR side, but it's like a lot to accept into my day to day just for like those few pages. I tend to build like kind of SPAs. Just not for me, but for them on the marketing page side, everything else I do publicly, I've been I've been using Astro and I and I love it. It's so simple Been good.
Speaker 3:Delightful.
Speaker 2:Delightful.
Speaker 1:What about you, Prime? What what's Prime learning? OCaml.
Speaker 2:Yeah. I saw that. OCaml.
Speaker 3:Is that why you posted that
Speaker 2:you hate Russ because you finally see the glory of OCaml?
Speaker 3:No. No. No. I had this great rant, and it was gonna make it was gonna be a 100,000 view TikTok or Instagram reel. Felt really confident on it.
Speaker 3:And, in the middle, I did do that. That's part of by the way, super sweet secret to, like, growing socials is have a semi viral moment also refer to another social you do. Very smart move. But, the thing was is that you get this I get this all the time. I'm sure you guys get this too.
Speaker 3:Oh, but what should I build? Oh, I have this side project. Should I choose Russ? Should I choose this? Should I choose that?
Speaker 3:And it's always the same answer, at least for me, which is stop letting people tell you what you should enjoy. Mhmm. Like, pick the thing you really want to learn or do and do that because if you listen to me and you're like, oh, I better do Rust because Prime says Rust. You're going to take like three weeks learning it. You're going to hate your life by the end of it.
Speaker 3:You're not going to enjoy anything you've done. Sure, iterators are great, but learning Rust sucks. It's just like you finally get to that point of learning it all and then you're like, I don't want to even write this project anymore. I'm not going to do this. Am I even a talented dev?
Speaker 3:No. You just chose a really hard starting point because you listen to somebody on the Internet who's been programming for twenty years. That's what happened. Okay? That's the problem.
Speaker 3:And so don't listen to everybody because here's the thing is I can say whatever I want to say. And if I say something that makes you think, Oh, I should stop learning it, then you're like letting me have way too much influence in your life. Cue the rust sucks tweet. I like rust. But by me saying that, there is gonna be literal people that are gonna be like, oh, I shouldn't learn rust anymore.
Speaker 3:Right? Which is stupid. Stop listening to people, specifically shit posters for lit like like how you should think about your life. You should do the things that make you want to wake up and do it again tomorrow. That is gonna be your most successful path forward is being excited.
Speaker 3:And that's like that that's truly it. And so Yeah. The whole thing was influencer suck. I, myself, suck.
Speaker 2:Yeah. We talk about this a lot of work where, like, there's, like, so much, like, and thinking and how do you build a business, etcetera. But the only that matters is that we're working on stuff we're motivated on because whoever's able to go the longest, the hardest just eventually wins. So, like, our only strategy is, like, assessing, like, what do we feel like working on. It might be one thing that seems like it doesn't exactly make sense from, like, a business or product wise, but some part of you is excited to work on that for a reason.
Speaker 2:And if you trust your judgment, like, it it kinda carries you long term. The other thing is, this is what I always say to people. When I'm like telling them about technologies or like ideas or I'm explaining something, I often say, you're probably not gonna understand this. The point of me saying this is not so you hear and you understand it. It's so later when you discover this stuff on your own, you can kind of connect the dots of like, oh, that's what he was talking about.
Speaker 2:Cause I remember there were so many times in my career where I was introduced to a concept and I just wasn't at a point where I would like really internalize it. Like someone showed me functional programming very actually my dad. My dad showed me functional programming very, very early That
Speaker 3:is so cool.
Speaker 2:Into my yeah. He was like, this is really important. And he was trying to explain it to me and I was like, I barely knew anything. So I was like, okay, okay, I guess. And it just didn't click for me.
Speaker 2:Three or four years later, then I got super into it. Then I understood what he was talking about. It did help things to click faster but if I just had tried to try to dive in there and like that was the way I tried to get into programming, it just it just would not really have happened.
Speaker 3:It's the exact same thing with life advice. Right? Like, when someone says your friends lead you astray, you should be very careful on who you spend all your time with. Like, it doesn't make any sense when you're 17. Yeah.
Speaker 3:You know? I I was off smoking meth when I was 17. Like, I wasn't like, I didn't I couldn't hear certain things when people told me that waking up early and going to bed early and being super rigorous about how you live your life, that you have two wills, that you have your lower animalistic will, and you have your higher will in which you have to fight against both these wills all the time. It's like I couldn't hear any of those words. You could have just told me all those words and I would have been like, oh, yeah, I understand that.
Speaker 3:But really, it was just like, wah
Speaker 2:wah wah wah. Right? Yeah. The tragedy is that now that you understand that, you can't even save anyone any time because they kinda have to go through that same journey. That's what's so frustrating.
Speaker 2:Like, your kids, whoever you're trying to, like, teach, you can tell them this stuff, but it's not gonna save them any time. They're gonna have to go through the exact same journey or like a similar journey Yeah. You went through.
Speaker 3:And You may be able to save them time because, right, once they start discovering life is harder or more complex than they realize, and then one of the things you've said lines up
Speaker 2:It clicks faster.
Speaker 3:Maybe they'll just go, oh. Yeah. You know, the the that's I mean, that's wisdom, right, which is you know what problem to solve. And so, they start you know, they can get wisdom faster. I did not get wisdom very quick.
Speaker 3:A lot of intelligence, absolutely no wisdom.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Similar path for me too. The same thing with the waking up early thing. Like, there was a time where I just did not understand why that mattered, And I lived my whole life that way. And then at some point it clicked and I was like, I I you always feel like an idiot because you're like, oh, this is what they were talking about.
Speaker 2:Or like, this makes so much sense. But yeah, feel like if you're if you're not cringing at who you were five years ago, you're just not growing enough. Outside it's gone for me.
Speaker 3:I also don't like to use the word cringing. Like, think cringing I was just thinking about this earlier because I never listened to any like, I'm not really big on consuming content. But I decided to try to understand this whole kick drama with XQC. And I'm like, I'm gonna I'm gonna be like a pop culture guy for a moment and try to understand this.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 3:And I watched like four clips and one of them had Pokemon, and she just kept saying the word cringe. And listening to her was the very act of cringing. And so I just realized that when someone speaks like that, there's it's like speaking Latin. It's actually just purely a written meme. Right?
Speaker 3:When someone when someone writes it, I feel like you can that's fine, and you can read it, but you can't say it out loud.
Speaker 2:And when someone's like,
Speaker 3:oh, man, I'm cringing. You're like, no.
Speaker 2:Stop it. Like But I was using that word, like, prior to this whole thing.
Speaker 3:It doesn't matter. Okay? You know?
Speaker 1:Yeah. Every time you say it, that's how it goes.
Speaker 2:Feel like I learned all the words I needed to learn when I was, like, 14, and I just haven't really increased my vocabulary since then. It's like, you don't need it.
Speaker 1:Just read more books.
Speaker 3:That's sad. You should.
Speaker 2:I should read more books. Is that what you said?
Speaker 1:Yeah. Dax has read 10 books. He's only read 10 books. He stopped. And then now he wonders why his vocabulary is not increasing.
Speaker 2:So I was calculating with Liz yesterday. You know, she's read like 22 books this year already? Wow.
Speaker 1:Sweet.
Speaker 2:She definitely thinks she's better than all of us.
Speaker 1:I mean, she is, objectively. But I bet her vocabulary is
Speaker 2:increased By way, a I checked her, I checked her Audible badges and, she doesn't have the one that you have where you've checked it.
Speaker 1:The one where you keep checking back? Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Which I was like, this is actually perfect. Adam would have that and she definitely would not have that.
Speaker 1:I have that one on her.
Speaker 2:Yeah. I've read zero books this year.
Speaker 3:Really? I've read two books this year. Well, actually, I mean, I've read three books, but I've read or two books this year. Two to three books this year.
Speaker 2:I think I've read zero.
Speaker 1:I've read a few. Yeah. I mean, I listened to
Speaker 2:a few. Audible.
Speaker 3:I'm about to finish my third book.
Speaker 2:Is it?
Speaker 3:So my book so far has been Wheel of Time book one, two, and now almost three.
Speaker 2:Is that sci fi?
Speaker 1:Is it fiction?
Speaker 3:It's fantasy.
Speaker 2:Fantasy. Okay.
Speaker 3:Yeah. So imagine just different Lord of the Rings, if you will.
Speaker 2:I like that. Is it good? Yeah. You recommend it? Yeah.
Speaker 3:Oh, it's great. It's great book. Great book. The writer, he's amazing. Dude, it's like 10,000 pages for the whole series.
Speaker 3:I'm on book three. I read to my kids. I refuse to let my kids read kids' stories because kids' stories are stupid and they're just one dimensional. It's like I want my kids to have to carry a few characters for days as opposed to being like, the dog goes whoop. The whoop goes whoop.
Speaker 3:I'm like, no.
Speaker 2:No. No. No. No.
Speaker 3:Like, I don't care that a told b and b told c, I'll meet you at the top of the coconut tree. Like, we're just not doing that. That's for a baby. Okay? That's for a baby.
Speaker 3:I'm reading you a real book. So we read through Lord of the Rings. They loved it. We read through The Hobbit. They loved it.
Speaker 3:Right?
Speaker 2:The Hobbit is kinda like meant to be a kid's book in originally. Right? It's like a nice balance between the two.
Speaker 3:So then we went through Wheel of Time. They loved Wheel of Time. It's a great book. The Midriol, they they know Ninneave, Egwyn, Alayne. They're like, they have everyone, Matt, Perrin, Rand, Morien, Lan.
Speaker 3:Right? Like, they have, like, twelve, fifteen characters, and they're loving it.
Speaker 1:You know, Dax and I haven't read it. We don't know any of those characters.
Speaker 3:I'm saying a lot of names so that you go, oh, wow. Oh, have to carry all this. I think that's all I like 12 characters in there.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:You know? So why limit them? Why make them have to have dumb stories that don't challenge them at all or make them have to keep on going? And by the way, TJ, who's in your chat, sat in the room while I read, I think, book two to my kids because he was over at my house a while back.
Speaker 2:So you read to him also.
Speaker 3:Yeah. He just because he's like, I like I like Wheel of Time too. You
Speaker 1:have you have six kids?
Speaker 3:No. I have four.
Speaker 1:Four? Why do I think you have six kids?
Speaker 3:I'm not a happy Mormon family. Okay?
Speaker 1:That's why did you think you had
Speaker 2:six kids? Six just now. And so I was like, wow. He has six kids.
Speaker 1:Oh, can I talk about something deep while we're talking about kids? This is like my I don't have a lot of deep thoughts. So when I have one, wanna share it. So my biggest fear, like, easily biggest fear in life is like, I've loved what I do. Like, I love programming.
Speaker 1:I love my job, just everything I've done in my career. And my biggest fear is that my kids won't love what they do. Like, that they won't find whatever it is for them that was because most of my family has it. I mean, most people I know don't love what they do.
Speaker 3:Most people don't love what they do.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Feels pretty rare.
Speaker 3:It's a
Speaker 1:rarity to love what you do. Is the and now that I'm saying it out loud is the answer I feel like Prime's answer to this is like it's a you problem. Like, you can love whatever you do. It's not like a magical is that what you would say?
Speaker 3:No. I wouldn't say you can love whatever you do because I don't think it's possible to love all things.
Speaker 1:But Okay.
Speaker 3:This is my my fundamental theory. Work is meant to satisfy. It's not meant to be your identity or where your values driven from.
Speaker 1:Mhmm.
Speaker 3:And I think there's a I think there's a problem. Because even like in the most idyllic world, old writings, all that, even in the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve worked right there working. Like, work is a universal concept that's like, here's something that everyone at all points, even in the perfect world, even in a theoretically perfect world did. So therefore, there's something about work that is fundamental to human nature. But the moment that it's it you make it more than what it is, you you ruin it.
Speaker 3:Right? Yeah. Anything can be you know, if you make your kids the meaning of your life, you ruin you, like, you can ruin them. You can ruin yourself. You
Speaker 2:can greatly
Speaker 3:make them dysfunctional due to your actions. Right? Like, overvaluing something is bad. And so I think work has been largely overvalued and it's who you are. Me me personally.
Speaker 3:So I just get satisfied with what I do.
Speaker 2:I mean, Mila's and I have kids, but we do talk about this concept where I think it's less about the work and I just can just get really like passionate into like things that I am doing. And I think the only fear that I have is I'll have a kid that's like unable to find that like curiosity or the intensity for anything. I would find that very hard to relate to. So it doesn't have to be literally work, but it can be like anything potentially. There's a lot of things out there.
Speaker 2:I feel like for most people, there is something that they can get that excited about. But I do know people that just kind of are like not that into really anything. And I just I have a hard time really into something
Speaker 1:like that because I'm
Speaker 2:pretty different. I gotta get into like literally everything.
Speaker 3:Alright. I'm gonna read you my biggest fear since we're on this biggest fear thing.
Speaker 2:Yes. Are you ready? Yes.
Speaker 3:Alright. So have you heard the song Cats in the Cradle with the silver
Speaker 2:Yes. Sure.
Speaker 3:Alright. So I'm gonna I'm gonna I'm gonna just read a couple excerpts. Alright. My son turned 10 just the other day. He said, thanks for the ball, dad.
Speaker 3:Come, let's play. Can you teach me to throw? I said, a, not today. I got a lot to do. He said, that's okay.
Speaker 3:And he, he walked away, but his smile never dimmed. It said, I'm going to be like him. Yeah. You know I'm going to be like him. Next section.
Speaker 3:Go all the way down here. I've long since retired. My son's moved away. I called him up just the other day. I said, I'd like to see you if you don't mind.
Speaker 3:He said, I'd love to dude, hold on.
Speaker 2:I'm gonna
Speaker 1:I did not know this was in this song.
Speaker 3:Okay. I'm trying to calm down. This is like my biggest fear. Right?
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Let's see. Hey. Let's see. I'd love to I'd love to, dad. If I can find the time, you see my new job's a hassle and the kids have the flu.
Speaker 3:But it's sure nice talking to you, dad. It's been sure nice talking to you as let's see. And as I hung up the phone, it occurred to me he's grown up just like me, my boys.
Speaker 1:That's tough.
Speaker 2:Which which, are you afraid that that's gonna you're gonna be the father in that situation?
Speaker 3:I don't wanna be the father.
Speaker 2:You know
Speaker 3:what I mean? I don't wanna raise a kid who doesn't, you know, like, he loved me, but I never quite could love him because I valued things disproportionately. Yep. Sorry. No.
Speaker 3:I didn't realize it's gonna hit me like that, but I get just like, dang it. I don't wanna be on Twitch like this. Okay. Can you not clip this?
Speaker 1:It's It's Stax. It's Twitch.
Speaker 3:You're good. Luckily, there's
Speaker 2:ads going up right now. Lucky
Speaker 3:man right now.
Speaker 2:No. I mean, that I I didn't even know it was in the song. Only I only, like, know the, like, the hook.
Speaker 1:Yeah. I did I had no idea.
Speaker 3:Yeah. The song that's, like, super deep. Yeah. And terrifying.
Speaker 1:Yeah. That's kids stuff. Kids stuff's hard, Dax. You'll find out. You'll when are you when are you guys having a kid?
Speaker 1:Let's let's get let's get that going.
Speaker 2:Very soon, real realistically. Like, we're actually just talking about it yesterday. I think we're both pretty ready. We used to know, like, get a few practical things in order over the next couple months or so and probably start then. When did you guys have your first kids?
Speaker 3:Adam, you were really young, right?
Speaker 1:I'm doing the math. No. We got married at 20 and 20 '2, but we didn't have kids until '26 and '28. Is that right? Yeah.
Speaker 1:26 and 28.
Speaker 3:Okay. Wife was 24 and I was 27 when we had our first kid.
Speaker 2:Yeah. In a lot of ways, we wish that we were able to do it like three years ago. I think that would have been ideal just because the age I'm gonna be when they're adults. Like I wanna like be able to like I mean,
Speaker 1:three years
Speaker 2:isn't a huge deal but yeah, think the window is like where you guys had it would have been ideal but
Speaker 1:But it's nice it's nice being married for a little while before you have get you kinda have this unique chapter. Like, we were married six years.
Speaker 2:That's true.
Speaker 1:I don't know. We're very thankful for those six years. And then it's just a whole different life. Feels like totally different life. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:I think you should have kids quick as possible. That's me personally. Jump jump off the cliff. Right? You can't you you don't want you can't prepare emotionally enough to be able to jump off a cliff.
Speaker 3:You just have to jump off the cliff.
Speaker 1:There's definitely no preparing for it. Yeah. There's there's nothing you can do to be ready for it.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Well, we got a dog first So we're scaffolding.
Speaker 1:We had a dog when we had our first kid, and the dog now is with my parents.
Speaker 3:So When you when you don't have kids and you have a dog, you go, oh, look. I just I care so much about this dog and all this. All the
Speaker 1:pictures of
Speaker 3:it. And then all sudden, you're just like, who? Oh, yay. Yeah. Indy.
Speaker 3:Indy's great.
Speaker 1:And, like, that's the dog on the head. That was great.
Speaker 2:And, like, that's yeah.
Speaker 3:Like, Seth, you realize that you you are capable of so much more caring. You just haven't unlocked that level yet.
Speaker 2:Yep. Yeah.
Speaker 3:This is the Elden Ring reference. Trade in those runes and you gotta up level that and you just don't know caring has more levels. And then it turns out it even has more levels than you realize. And every time you
Speaker 2:have a No. I believe it. It's like every it just shows you how much more capacity you have every single time. It's always surprising. The thing with the again, the thing that thing you were reading, do you think your kids will move away?
Speaker 2:That's what always makes it hard. Because my my family I moved away. I live in now in Miami, my family's in New Jersey. It just makes that whole thing pretty much guaranteed at that point.
Speaker 3:I think if you're in a city, it's kind of like I I don't know. It feels natural. But I feel like if you because you don't really I don't know. It's it's hard for me to find a home in a city
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 3:If that makes sense. It's hard to feel home.
Speaker 2:It it depends on the city, though, because here, like, nobody leaves. Like Liz, we moved here because my wife has, like, a 100 family members here. Nobody leave culturally, like, nobody leaves. Pretty much people live with their parents till they, like, get married and then they move out twenty minutes away. I really like that because people have roots here.
Speaker 2:I think when I was in New York, everyone you've met Mhmm. Is gonna be gone in ten years. And we all know that we're like not gonna be here forever. There's like this like temporary vibe to everything. Whereas here, I'll meet someone and it's like, they have their grandparents have been here forever and like their network is massive and you just meet so many people that have been here and there's like roots and like everyone kind of knows each other through that.
Speaker 2:I really like that. And it's a nice balance with it still being with some of the benefits of the city. But And and and and other city I've been in has hasn't just has not been like that.
Speaker 3:Yeah. That was my same vibe, which is that's why I find it so hard to be home in a city is that you go to like you know, I've only been in San Jose. San Jose was the biggest place I ever lived. And it's just like everyone you meet there will be gone shortly.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Nobody that you meet there grew up there. I met, like, three people that grew up in San Jose. And, you know, it was very, very few people grew up in the Bay Area. Was all transient. You You know?
Speaker 3:Everyone comes in. They all come in. They all go. Like, you just have no permanence, you know, in some sense there. It's just like a very you come, you consume, you leave.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Whereas, like, in South Dakota, it's like it's just different. People, you know, there's families here. I just went on a hike with a guy who's who like, their family owned half of Rapid City at one point. And he went and showed me this, like, cool spot. He's 92 years old, and we went hiking and we drove through these, like, private properties.
Speaker 3:And he's like, I know those people because, you know, my mother used to teach there, but, you know, I guess, it's like, we go to this special spot that's super hard to get to because you'd have to walk for miles in federal land, or you can walk, like, a mile and just do it through all this private property. It was super cool. And it's just like these are like the rare things you get to do and everyone there has been there forever. It just feels like you can establish like a home feeling.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Yeah. I was definitely craving that. I think it at least for me, I feel like I got to a certain age and that was like extremely what I wanted. It is impossible where I was living.
Speaker 2:How how old were you when you left San Jose?
Speaker 3:So I moved to San Jose at 27, four weeks before I had my first kid. And we left San Jose the day Gavin Newsom announced lockdowns for COVID.
Speaker 2:Oh, nice timing. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Was that coincidence?
Speaker 3:No. It was motivator. Yeah. Because I we didn't wanna be there. It's like, hey.
Speaker 3:Hey, everybody. How how would you like to have three kids and net like, we lived next door to a park and police were driving around, like, roughing people up who left to go walk around the park. And so it's just like, okay.
Speaker 2:Jeez.
Speaker 3:I'd rather live in South Dakota where there's just, like, land. No one lives there. You know? Yeah. Say no one lives there.
Speaker 3:There's enough people to live there, but you can have space. You can walk around. I can, like, not be confined in a house with two Labradors and three kids and a beautiful wife in 1,800 square feet and just be there for the next two months. Like, that'd be great. I'd go nuts.
Speaker 3:I personally would just go nuts. So I just was like, I we gotta get out of here. This ain't it.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Why South Dakota? Are you guys from there? Or
Speaker 3:My wife's family grew up in South Dakota. So they're like multiple generation people, just like the Miami story you had.
Speaker 2:Yeah. It's it's something I've never had. There's like a giant family. It's it's super nice. They're just like a default set of things you get to do.
Speaker 2:Especially when we move because we're like, when when we were gonna have kids, like, having kids in the city by yourself is very difficult and having like the family support is really useful. We want all the help we can get.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Having kids in the country by yourself is also really difficult. Just having kids is really difficult. It's really great, though. I feel like I feel like we've we've said it all.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Prime, you've said it all.
Speaker 3:Thank you. I've been known to talk.
Speaker 2:No. Our our editor is very good. You will cut this up well.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Is your editor Adam? No. Our editor is pretty great.
Speaker 2:No. Just we have just talked a lot and Chris has always found a way to magically put together in a way that was cohesive, so
Speaker 1:Okay. Well, neither of us have listened to the final product. So do we know that, Dax? Is it cozy?
Speaker 2:That's not true. Remember that one time I listened to, like, three episodes?
Speaker 1:Yeah. You did listen to
Speaker 2:because I was a little in the car and this is the only time that I can listen to our podcast because if anyone ever hears me doing this, they can make fun of me.
Speaker 3:Yeah. That's weird. I literally don't like to listen to my own. I never
Speaker 1:Oh, yeah. Do you ever watch, like, your own YouTube videos? Or
Speaker 3:No. My entire side channel, I haven't watched a single one. Or maybe I've watched one. You know, I have a 170 videos on there and I haven't watched one.
Speaker 1:Wow. That so the idea with that one is just like, you literally don't have to do it. You just cut out parts of your stream. Like, Flip just cuts it up.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Just off it's just whatever you say on stream.
Speaker 3:Whatever I say. And, you know, sometimes I feel like I'm gonna get in trouble with it, but we'll see what happens.
Speaker 2:Hey. I mean, you still have your job. That's impressive with everything.
Speaker 3:I still have a job.
Speaker 2:Thank you.
Speaker 3:Alright. I gotta pee again and I gotta go.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much. Thanks for coming. I gotta get
Speaker 3:a self
Speaker 1:promotion. Go stream. Go do that.
Speaker 3:Bye.
Speaker 1:See you. I feel like we didn't even introduce Prime. We just kinda, started talking.
Speaker 2:That's true. Did it.
Speaker 1:Do we need to make an introduction
Speaker 2:you to before? The introductions?
Speaker 1:Oh, let's do it. Yeah. After the fact, let's pretend like Oh he's still god. I'm gonna be so bad at it. You will do like a very professional job.
Speaker 1:Could you please do it?
Speaker 2:No. Because last time we tried, I did the bad job, and you did the good job.
Speaker 1:Did you do a bad job? Did Teej. Would you try?
Speaker 2:Have you
Speaker 1:tried to introduce Teej, and you did a bad job? Okay. So today, we've got a special guest. The Primogen's here. The Primogen that works at Netflix.
Speaker 1:What I don't what am I gonna say? I don't don't don't use that, Chris. That was terrible. Never mind. No introduction.
Speaker 2:That was fine.
Speaker 1:It was a bad idea. It was terrible. It was bad. It's the fixed hair. I fix my hair and then I try and say things all serious.
Speaker 1:No. Just no. We're just gonna go. It's just gonna be straight into whatever we were saying. I have no idea what we just talked about.
Speaker 2:Me neither. Came all over the place.
Speaker 1:Cool. I'm gonna stop the recording now. Good luck, Chris. Godspeed. Godspeed.
Speaker 3:This is a strange podcast.
