#213 - Matt Dalio: Why America's Future Depends on Raising Builders, Not Consumers

0:00 All so we're j we were just talking about ~ the Middle East and Abu Dhabi and Dubai and stuff and I was fascinated by the conversation that that we had around the environment and and what you love about it and you said, Hey, we just really can't do that anywhere else in maybe the country or America right now. So I j I'm just like, Let me give Matt the platform for thirty minutes and just like tell us what he loves that's happening around the world and then maybe we can try to like relive or revive some of that in our country. I don't know. Yeah, you know, I'm I I I think there's a huge opportunity for ~ what I describe as like reverse innovation, like innovation, especially I spent a lot of time in emerging markets. ~ as you mentioned, I I I lived in Abu Dhabi and and ~ and and loved it. and when I look at the opportunity like if it let's take emerging markets for a second. When you look at emerging markets and you see the requirements for innovation that take place.

0:51 In other words, like in a place where there are no resources, you have no choice but To optimize for and design things for a place with no resources. And it turns out that that's actually kind of useful in a place that either has resources because there are innovations that apply, or thinks it has resources and doesn't, which is largely our education system here, including our healthcare system, by the way, as well. ~ And so I I I, you know, it's funny, I I spent the majority of the last 15 years focused on emerging markets and how you get tools to people and how you upskill people in those environments. and I've come back to America to kind of like bring what I have learned in these places because I've realized that in some ways America needs it as much as, if not more than, a lot of these places.

1:35 And if you don't have a stable America, if you don't have a healthy America, you won't have a stable and healthy world. ~ and so, you know, I in many ways I feel like it's kind of this like return the boon, you know, to find the the the secret sauce outside and and and ~ you know, even on a personal level, by the way, just it's because it's you funny. I'm I moved back literally into my childhood home. ~ so my kids are in in my bedroom and I'm in my parents' bedroom. ~ and there's the the the book The Alchemist. I'll I'll give away the the spoiler alert so hit pause ~ if you don't want it. But ~ he travels around the world looking for the treasure and he discovers in the end that the treasure is underneath the tree in his backyard. And I was out with my childhood friends I've known since eight years old, ~ in my childhood.

2:17 backyard making a tree fort with my kids with all of our kids running around making mud pies and I'm like, America, man, I I spent all these years trying to travel around the world to, you know, find the treasure and and here it is literally under the tree in my backyard. What do you ~ if we could break it down to like a small statement or a small idea, it's a big idea but something that's easy to communicate. What do you think the treasure of this country is?

2:59 Builders. and I and I don't know if it's we we are builders or we were builders and or or or right now some people are builders and a lot of people aren't builders, but like it what did we do? We we built the future, we innovated, well, you know, railroads, cannons, you know, ~ medicine. I mean, we for so long, where was the innovation engine of the entire planet? It was in this country. And you know, you you you you talk about different countries. I I lived in China for a a a year when I was eleven years old. I I flew to live with a Chinese family. My parents were here. I was there. I went to an all Chinese school and I spent about a decade working with orphans in in in rural China, ~ living here, but back and forth there. And I I look at what that country has done from when I was eleven years old to to now.

3:48 And I remember walking the streets of China when I was eleven years old. And I don't know why this like stuck so you know Deeply in my brain. I remember thinking, could could this country, could China ever be as great as America, like a developed country? And I remember walking ~ back to to my apartment, and there was the cracked sidewalk, and I was like, they'd have to rebuild every square meter of this entire country. And my conclusion was impossible. And you fast forward a couple of decades and they have built every single square meter basically of that entire country and they have learned how to build everything. Like they are on the frontier of what they build. And today I drive from Connecticut into New York on a regular basis and I drive by the FDR drive and so many other corners of of America and I see literally like crumbling concrete and steel.

4:40 And I I ask myself the same question: could we rebuild America to be a great nation again? And the answers we have to metaphorically and literally rebuild every square meter of this country and every ultimately the the the reason that China was able to do that was because they rebuilt and rewired the brains of basically every person in that country. And so they took a nation that used to ban ~ education, where where the teachers were like in the Cultural Revolution, put Dunce hats on and ~ and and beaten and killed. Education was was squeezed out of the entire country And then they valued it and they they imbued it through the entire it just I mean in ways that that that you know, China every five years produces more engineers than the entirety of America has.

5:26 Right. They i i it I mean, there's just so many statistics you could cite on on how ~ much capability they have put into their into their into their youth that then grow up to be the adults that then go on to create. And people think it's the the free labor, the cheap labor. It ain't. It it you know, the backflips that Chinese robots are doing is not cheap labor, it is cheap engineers that mean that you can do that. You know, Tesla being, you know, d demolished basically globally by BYD, it's not a coincidence that BYD has 100,000 engineers. So when you look at every little corner of every product they build, it's been produced by brilliance. And so if America wants to rebuild It's greatness, going back to your core question, which is like, what is America's greatness?

6:13 It's always been that it is a nation of builders and innovators. And if it wants to be that in the future, it needs to start with its young people and make sure that they are democratized, that everyone grows up capable of being a nation of builders and young people, not just this little corner and a dot on Silicon Valley, you know, where they're all they make so much money and they have so much power that people hate them because everyone else. doesn't get to keep up with that. You know, so y yeah, of course. But until we democratize it rather than demonize it, we're gonna be in a place where we don't have the skills. Yeah. I'll I'll s say just one last thing, sorry for the long ramble, but no ~ my my wife is from Argentina, so go go go Argentina. When the ~ I'll date this this this this podcast Around the end of those World Cup games.

7:03 Yeah. My wife included. And Argentina a hundred years ago there they used it was so rich. There used to be a saying that that rich like an Argentine was was one of the richest nations in the world. And now it's a mess in shambles. And at the end of the day it comes down to people. It comes down to, you know, did you prepare your people to build? And America can either go back to being great or it can become the next Argentina. And you know, sorry to my wife and her family, but I I hope that America becomes the America that it's always been. Awesome. All right. So we're talking about young folks in education. So let me give you an intro here and we'll set the table about what Matt's doing now and maybe unlock the rest of the conversation.

7:45 So ~ so today's guest is Matt Dalio, founder and CEO of Endless Studios and Endless, where he's helping the next generation become creators of technology rather than simply consumers of it. An entrepreneur since his teens, Matt's founded the China Care Foundation at just sixteen. And he spent his career building mission-driven organizations at the intersection of technology, education, and entrepreneurship, which makes me smile. While many people know the Dahlio name, Matt has spent his career intentionally building something entirely his own. Today we're talking about leadership, legacy, purpose, and what it means to build organizations that create lasting impact. So, Matt, welcome to the Not Necessary Entrepreneur, and I'm glad that we ended it based upon about building organizations.

8:27 So, ~ What talking about the young and about education and and rewiring the mind to learn different, because my brain goes to such a simple place. When you talk about you being an eleven year old and walking on that sidewalk and it was broken up and you said, could they fix it? They'd have to, they'd have to build it from the ground up, tear it down and build it from the ground up. And if you look then over the next 31 years of your life, not to date you, but the next 31 years of your life, the transition that you've seen in that country, my brain instantly goes to this place. Maybe it's a An idealistic place, but I'm like, why can't we? The the only why can't is because we don't have the people who can. But that you can change, that you can train.

9:07 So there's there's no reason aside from us today not having the people who can that prevents us from having it. We just have to train the people who can. So what's that look like? What do we need to do? Because that's where you're at. It seems like your brain is there. You're comprehending the world and who we for us to become this idealistic vision of maybe in the 70s, eighties, and nineties that we believed we were. It seems when I wake up and watch the media every day and all over the world, it seems like we don't believe we're that anymore. And and inside my organizations and my companies and the things I've been involved in building, it all started with an idea and a dream and a hope. And then you accomplished these enormous things that seemed impossible because we all believed.

9:48 So so I I mean I'll I'll tell my story briefly just 'cause I so I went to Harvard, I went to a ~ Stanford Business School, I went to, you know, a a grade high school. I had a great education. ~ the greatest education that I had was building the China Care Foundation. I was sixteen years old and I I was a kid who just wanted to help. I spent a summer in an orphanage, I discovered I could, I came back, I was able to raise a little bit of money, it was my Eagle Scout project, and like next thing you know, I'm Placing 50 kids in foster families, holy cow, changing their lives and then 50 surgeries. And then that became five children's homes and you know, a decade in my life and thousands of kids. And the process of learning how to build, learning how to find a problem, encounter a problem, encounter our corruption, and the orphanage leader that's trying to make us only work with her and go through and I, you know, and then the person that I'm with it storms out and like, and I'm 17 years old, like what what the heck is going on?

10:40 How do I deal? That is all. learning. And ~ so I the the process of building something is the best education for knowing how to build something. Process of doing something is, you know, in most cases the best education for knowing how to do it. Just do it. And then have mentorship and guidance and fail and then learn and iterate and try to, you know, not not cut yourself too many times. In a world of software, which is let's just be really clear, the world we are in, In a world of AI, which, whether you like it or not, is the world that we are in, that the ability to be fluent with what it means to create in a world of software, what it means to create in a world of AI, is kind of table stakes. It kind of is the core fluency that you need in this moment in time. And most people in our country don't even know what it means and looks like at a granular level, let alone understand how to teach it. And so like when you go to the educational system that's supposed to teach it, the educational system is rightfully still focused on how do I teach English and literature?

11:50 How do I teach math? How do I ch teach, you know, history? And so there's more time and attention focused on, I don't know, geology or or geography. than there is on like the tools that right now may disrupt the entire workforce and you know wipe away all of our jobs. And like it, as they say, the sentence is, it ain't going to be AI that's replacing your job. It's someone who's using AI that will replace your job and probably replace 10 jobs. So why aren't we teaching more people to be the power user of the power tools so that they're the ones with the jobs? Because if everyone is 10x times the per the as productive, they're all going to have super jobs. And if you have a tie an entire generation with that, They're all gonna know how to solve all the other problems.

12:32 So, you know, as I say, it's like if I could teach ~ solve one problem, it is to train the next generation to solve all the other problems. What does your brain, what you're building with endless, what does your brain tell you you need to do? Like what's the objective to train the next generation? Like what do you think the tool is, the objective, ~ maybe the objective resource, the action? Is your brain in a single where you're like, do this and we will unlock that? So So I I have a ~ I I just wrote a a a book manuscript and and I just put it online. It's at an endless future.com. ~ and my whole goal is to kind of edit it in the open. I'll probably publish it in about a year. And there are three parts to the book. There are three acts. The third act is you know, here's what we're doing, here's how we're thinking about the solution space.

13:15 But before we get to that, that's like 20% of the book. That's a fraction of the book, if that. ~ the the primary ~ chapter, the big act is the stakes. Where we talk about like, why is it so important to to teach young people the skills that will drive their individual future and our societal future? Like, what does it look like if we fail to do that? What does it look like if we succeed at doing that? And the, you know, one way of putting it is the way you just described it, it's that you know, in 31 years, we are a nation of builders again. We are a strong nation. And the other one is we are Argentina and China is now America. And like that, that will come down to, I believe. one core thing, which is do people have the ability to have jobs?

13:58 Do they have the ability to thrive? Do they have the ability to build? And so that's the the vast majority of the book. That's the where I spent the vast majority of the time ~ researching it, writing it. Then there's the ~ act two, which is like, okay, well let's look at the clues. Let's let's think about like how would you solve that? What are the the clues that we can lean on? Let's call them first principles that can kind of, you know, be our foundation stones or things that we can pull together, the the Lego bricks to to then assemble a solution. And the biggest there are really two core pillars that that that that I think the the solution boils down to. ~ the first is let's just look at how today's tech entrepreneurs learned and let's just reverse engineer it from there.

14:40 So like Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, Demas Asabis, the Nobel Prize winner in AI, like how did they all learn? And what I realized was ~ that most of our engineers on A prior product that we were focused on, an operating system focused on emerging markets, which is where my, you know, focus in in education really began. Almost all of our engineers learned to code by hacking their games as kids. Like when I interviewed engineer after engineer, I was just curious, you know, like my tell me your life story. It's almost like a podcast, right? Like that's my interview style. Tell me your life story. Where'd where'd you get your start? And I remember the first time I heard it, it was this like sheepish person was like, well, it's kind of embarrassing, actually, but I loved video games as a kid. And then I hacked them.

15:22 And that was just so cool. And then I discovered this in almost every interview. And so I I left with the question, well, then why aren't we teaching this way? If this is how all of these extraordinary tech entrepreneurs got started, why aren't we teaching this way? The irony is I don't play games. I don't have time for games. Like at this day and age, I'd say I've got young kids, like I've got other things to do. So for me, this is not like I love games. I just, you know, kind of, you know, used this because I want more people to play games. Not at all. I don't even want more people to play games. I want more people to build games. I want more people to Hacking d Sorry, but did the hacking come from your cu the curiosity about the game?

16:02 It it came from ~ a love of the game, which which there are three and a half billion gamers in the world and and the average gamer plus spends ten thousand hours playing video games. Like the i it is kind of like ~ you know, if there are three billion people under the age of twenty-five years old, we need to teach them all to code or or teach to create, not code. and and and we need to engage them for thousands of hours of what it takes to learn. Games do that. Games already do that. Now, if you look at the number one trend in games. It's UGC, user-generated content, Minecraft, Fortnite, cre Fortnite Creative, Roblox. These are all user-generated content engines. Why? For the same reason that my one year old loves building blocks and stacking them on top of each other, and my four and five year olds love assembling Legos and Magnetiles, and that I love building companies and building my kids' tree fort.

16:55 We like as humans building things. And expressing our creativity, whether that's I'm building a database in the back end to support the inventory system, or I'm building the 3D models to build a world, or I'm the person assembling those things to build levels, ~ you know, or I'm the designer designing an interface. We like creating and we like doing it collaboratively, by the way. We like doing things with friends, which is why the other greatest trend is multiplayer games, right? When you can do things with people that you like. And so the act of building a game across all of the disciplines, the many, many from sound to narrative to you know, all the different you know, marketing, data analytics, all the disciplines it takes to build and take to market a game.

17:37 And you get to do that with other people, it's it's like the ultimate game. Except in the process of doing that, you are systematically able to teach the entire entrepreneurial journey from ideating to designing to building to deploying. to iterating to make sure that you then get the right product to hit product market fit to scale. So in the past, I think I thought about, you know, back in the days of Carnegie and JP Morgan and, you know, we've heard the men who built America in the early nineteen hundreds and late eighteen hundreds. We used to build physical things. So we we accumulated a lot of humans around this idea and we trained the old way and the current way of training that we're trying to we trained each other how to build physical things and do physical things.

18:18 This new modern age, what you're on the forefront of, we've got to do with tech. I yeah, I I there's a a complete ~ duality, like a yes and here. The first is ~ tech is just a a kid with a computer can get doing it. You don't you don't need a 3D printer, you don't need, you know, massive CNC equipment, you don't you know, you just it's a kid with a with a cheap device. And then the second is in the modern era of manufacturing, like who is innovating? Look at SpaceX, look at Tesla, look at you know it's software. There's yeah, exactly. Nvidia, they're software companies. At the end of the day, they they are tech enabled companies. It's not a person sitting there welding.

18:59 It's a person building a robot that welds. And so like the more tech enabled you are, the more capable you are of building. I I have a a a a chapter that that I'm in the middle of writing that I'll add to the manuscript, but it talks about rebuilding America. And I mean it literally, physically. How would you rebuild all of these square blocks? How would you build new towers? How would you build affordable housing? How would you build again? And at its core, all of those innovations, if you look at how China does it, again, people still think it's like someone sitting there, you know, screwing, you know, with the I just saw actually today an Instagram video of a robotic hand that is sitting there perfectly, like way faster than any human can do it, screwing in just like a ro like a human hand, except 10x the speed.

19:45 ~ I like i the innovators in this world are the people who are capable of creating that sort of thing. And we still think we need to train more factory workers and make more factory jobs rather than train more people to be able to be the ones creating the machines that are then the factory workers. If everyone had those skills, we'd build many better things and we'd have everyone employed. Yeah, I just sat here and imagined, you know, being building sales organizations and real estate companies and that that was the space that I came from and now it's expanding. But ~ I think so often about the abilities, and I'm like, if everybody could be an engineer, at times I make fun of engineers because I'm like, just deal with an engineer trying to help them process a sales transaction, and it'll take you ten times the length.

20:33 We'll get there, it'll be completely refined. But I imagine if all the people in my sales organizations had an engineering mind. Combined with the sales skills. Then you're talking about a capability that's elite. That's exactly right. That's exactly right. It's not that everyone needs to be an engineer. It it it's I'll use the example of Excel. Like it it it you know, back in the day it was a much more specialized skill and you learn how to, you know, operate these, you know, funky things called spreadsheets. And now it's just like, I mean, how do you how do you have a white collar job without knowing how to use Excel? Like, you know, the the salesperson needs to be able to track the funnel, track the pipeline, understand how to who they should follow up with. And the person who was more tech enabled, like we I was just going through a pipeline from one one of our our our team members, not an engineer, but he was sitting there vibe coding a custom solution for the pipeline so that it could pop up automatically for him.

21:24 It basically does with way more flexibility than Salesforce. What Salesforce does, and he spent, I don't know, ~ a a hundred dollars in tokens, if that, you know, I think you just use the default cloud subscription. And probably only and I bet with that hundred dollars in tokens and him coming and going and interacting with it, he accomplished it. It didn't even take him a full day to build the thing. Correct. And and that's the type of person that you want to hire. And if that's the type of person that you want to hire, then that's as someone who's trying to train themselves to be hireable, that's the skill set that you want to have so that you are the one who was hired. Yep. We need to develop this. So I let me go back, even though I like continuing the progression on from A to B to C. We're in chapter two of the book, but to go back in chapter one real quick, I didn't want to interrupt you, but you talked about ability and what my brain fired off on.

22:09 Let's talk about this inter s intersection or difference that's not intersecting between ability and then capability. Because they're different. Yeah, well, the irony of AI is it takes people without ability and it gives them capability. You know, like this person I just described was pointing out of that sales funnel, like he can't code, but he can make, you know, because he knows how to use this tool. And so AI has lowered the floor of capability or of ability to be able to have capability. Yeah. So what are we trying what do we need to train more? Does one come after the other? Because my brain's been on this for the past six to twelve months.

22:49 It's like, hey, without me being too complex and trying to simplify processes of turning people into the skills driven folks to accomplish the tax task and live the life they want, what do I need? Do I need to be developing ability in them? Or do I just need to input and download software that gives them the capability to do it? So what you always want is from when you're hiring people, the person who ha has themselves the most capability, the most agency. Like set a problem and then they're just off and running. And regardless of whether they have the software or tool that the goes in, right, they they just solve the problem. And nothing gets in the way. where we focus is is in younger people, right? Kind of, you know, let let's call it 13 to 25 years old.

23:37 And I and I will say that, you know, at that age, the way that people learn is really, really different. When you're young, the way you learn is really different than when you're older. So I'll use the example of like a language. If you're learning a language, like I'm if I'm gonna learn French, I want someone to sit there and be like, here is the translation, here is the grammar, here are the rules of conjugation. Now I go to my five year old, I want him to learn French. Like, I'm not gonna sit down and tell him what conjugation is. I'm gonna just let him play with you know some kids who speak French and he's gonna be speaking French in like no time. And Young people learn by doing and making and creating and immersing, right? Language immersion, or whether, you know, my my 16-year-old self immersing myself in building, I learned way more than I would have ever at that age taking an entrepreneurship class. And so ~ the way we look at this question is there's this kind of ~ people that talk about the chicken and egg problem of like they have to learn the foundational skills to be able to do the thing, and then you can enable them with AI.

24:35 I think it's almost really kind of the reverse. I think in re in reality it built goes in both directions and it's like ratcheting up. But I'll make the case for the reverse, which is if you throw a kid who doesn't know how to let's use the word code, right? Syntax, sit down with a keyboard and and actually type code into code, and they have to read a textbook this thick and they have to sit there and like understand what loops are, and you know, like good luck, right? That's the reason like 99% of young people today can't code. If you're like, well, here's a tool and you can just kind of talk to it and it'll unlock what you want. And then yeah, you can see the code and you can talk to about what's going on. And there's this module that you're trying to build that you don't understand, but you can then ask it what's going on.

25:17 So now all of a sudden you start to understand the code without actually having to type it. Now all of a sudden that makes that person a little bit more fluent. It's like my five-year-old suddenly speaking a language and then coming over and asking me a question what does this mean, dad? You know, when a and now all of a sudden that curiosity comes. And so now all of a sudden that person might be willing to watch the five minute video on YouTube that explains what, you know, what the for loop is, or you know. And so when you when you spark interest and you immerse, you suddenly have the ability to learn. And ~ you know, I think adults are that way as well, but I know kids are that way.

25:59 I also know that the way that adults tend to teach is the way that adults want to learn. In other words, like, you know, when you go to the language class, they teach the the five-year-old a lot more like they would teach a 55-year-old than they that than just, you know, let's go play kids. ~ and so So it sounds like we just need it's almost the curiosity is important, right? But it there and there the willingness seems to come. Maybe you you as a kid, maybe a 13 year old, what I found, there's different levels of work ethic and different levels of commitment, the people you've been influenced by, what you've been taught, maybe the cohorts and the friends that you spend time around. It's like a kid, we show up with a certain level of willingness already. But the other sixty or seventy or eighty percent that we know it's in there, we just have to have to get them more willing.

26:43 So I think what you touched on is You just have to get them participating and using a little bit. And if if you if you do, then the brain wants to learn and grow and be a part of something more. Totally. You you make them you you get them using it, you get them tinkering, and then you get them in an environment that they're excited about. So you know, I there are a couple of examples that come to mind, but you know, w ~ one example is the kid in in in inner city Bronx who went through one of our programs and and afterwards the teacher he like he wouldn't stop talking, he was just so excited. He was just like, Let me tell you all these things. And afterwards the teachers pulled me aside and they said, Matt, you don't realize that kid Is the hardest kid in the entire school. Every day from eight o'clock until four o'clock in the afternoon, he feels like he's failing everything in life.

27:24 And this is the first time we've seen him engaged. And so when you see someone who ~ you know, we tend to take that kind of person and say, I'm sorry, we can't help them, or let's go put them in, you know, the remedial class, or let's categorize them rather than we just needed to engage them. You know, and the other example that comes to mind is a friend of mine who who I grew up with is, you my my my entire life. and he dropped out of high school. ~ and he loved playing video games. And when he was doing it, he ended up ~ joining this is back when like Epic the the had had Unreal and the Unreal licenses like a million dollars. There was some competition to get a free Unreal license. And so he joined 12 other people that he met online.

28:04 He started building this game and he won the competition and won the million dollar license. And that got him a job at Rockstar. And now he's a tech entrepreneur because that was that was his journey. And so It like passion goes a long way. Absolutely. ~ what do you think that what's a lesson throughout your journey of life and that we can take this into what you're really doing with endless? Because I want to take, you know, we talk about the stuff up in the clouds, and it's like practically, what are you doing? Like, what's your vision to really build this? How's it going to stack? But if you go back, what's one lesson that you learned on your own? That'll that 11-year-old. See, there's something that was going on in your head when you're walking down that swat sidewalk in China that occurred to you at 11 years old.

28:49 You're like, what if? But what's there a lesson throughout this process of the education you've had through the nonprofit you built in China that you really had to learn on your own? The world didn't teach you, parents didn't teach you, the educa what is it that you learned on your own that's really significant today? I I'd say it's passion. ~ you know, when I was 11, I was just a normal kid, thrown into a weird circumstance for sure, but I was a normal kid. When I was sixteen, you know, the blunt, you know, reality is I wanted to get into college. My parents wanted me to get into college. And so it's like, great, go back to China, volunteer for a summer. And then, you know, and then I started to, you know, to do a little bit more and and it became my Eagle Scout project.

29:31 And, you know, but I became me through the process of doing that. I discovered my passions through the process of doing that. And I'll say the dual passions of realizing that I as a young person could make a difference. And like, why would I do anything else if I could make a difference? And and and I mean the circumstance that I could make a difference. And then the second is I love building things. It like it just was fun to like imagine we I, you know, I don't know, I had an idea for college clubs. I started a Harvard China Care club with a friend and then a friend of mine, you know, actually who I just messaged two minutes ten minutes before this. started Brown China Care. And then next thing you know, we had at the last club conference, we merged the the foundation into another organization, but the last one was 80 club members at that club conference.

30:15 And it's like I could imagine and then it happens. It was just, you know, what a delight. You know, it's it goes back to the love of creation. And all of that was something that I learned. I I remember that one of the other vivid memories I had as being a high schooler was me being like, but I don't have a passion. I don't have a passion. I felt numb. And today it's like God, I got a passion. I I got you I I I care too much. I sacrifice everything for it. ~ and and that came because of an experience that I had, a life experience, all that whole journey. ~ Yeah. Again, it goes back to that same thing. Passion gets you a very, very long way. What so what's the passion? I mean, with endless, but at at forty two, where's the passion? It seems like it's probably linearly focused, even though I bet you have a lot of peripheral things going on, a lot of things taking time and thing, but but is there a linear focus here?

31:09 So everything we do, it's funny you use the word linear, but i everything we do maps to this kind of line that I draw of an S curve, the skill curve from from novice to professional. And ~ I I describe that there are kind of five main phases in that, from I I'm just kind of playing, and then I discover playing and making are similar to like I'm taking courses and I'm much more deliberately learning, to I'm in a community and I'm building. To now I'm a leader, you know, in phase four along that that journey I'm and I'm building, and other people are part of my mini community, to phase five, which is we're actually building that with professional studios where students can go and build with professional, you know, prof ~ actually contribute to real professional games, the way open source is built. So that's the the the kind of five-phase journey along that line. Everything we do, which is a lot, too much. ~ is is basically kind of like this almost paper mache on top of it.

32:01 In other words, here's a piece of newspaper that I could attach the glue to and put on the line to make this very smooth experience where anyone anywhere can come in with any kind of device they have and have an experience that brings them along that curve. Hm. It sounds so simple. it's hard. It's not. I I I tried in in act three, I tried to make act three in the book as short as I possibly could because I didn't really want it to be, you know, about what we're doing. I wanted it to be about the case for why we're doing it. But it it it's I don't know, eight or ten chapters of just like here are all of the concrete things that are going into it. You know, we have a couple of organizations we work with. ~ a company, a nonprofit. We work with many, many partners, we invest in things, we donate to things, we're in this weird kind of, you know, the ability to to to to do those.

32:50 But everything we do is about, you know, basically creating that line from a novice to a professional. Hmm. All right, so the big idea, so many people ask me this often, and ~ and I'll pose it to you. They don't ask it in this way. I wish they did, because I'd have a succinct answer every time that they would, it would hit hard. They're asking, well, what would you do if you're me? They don't say it quite that way anymore. But what I would say is, well, if I'm you sitting in that exact seat today, listening to me, whatever you led you here, I would tell you everything that I've learned. over twenty two years in these businesses I've been in, and I would hope to just give you one or two takeaways that you could have a semblance of the success overnight and start building something and impact the world greater than I have.

33:37 And so So I look at that from from two angles. One is kind of the core of what we do, which is, you know, you've got a kid, do you want to teach them your you know, a a a a school district, ~ a country, we, you know, and and that is ~ a parent, again, take you know, thinking about their kid, that this the the skills of Silicon Valley are different than the skills of typical school. Teach the skills of typical school. I'm not saying those are not important, they are fundamental, foundational. also teach the skills that make Silicon Valley Silicon Valley. ~ and I would say, you know, as an adult, and then also yourselves learn it.

34:19 Like absorb it, try it, practice it, make the time for it, do it. The the second is, you know, more I think to to the audience of the podcast, which is, you know, what's the entrepreneurial journey? And I'll go back to that same word, which is, you know, find something that you love. ~ either you're early in the journey and you're thinking about it, you better love it because it's it's not like it's, you know, two times harder than you think it will be. It's like a hundred times harder than you think about you know it will be. Like I I am, my God, I did not expect this to be this hard. and then you know and and if you are already in the journey, I'll say that there are many, you know, many ways of of structuring and restructuring what you are doing.

35:06 So that it's something that you can love doing. Because the moment that you stop loving doing it, like it's not your burn rate that is going to kill you. It is your your burn rate of your energy that is going to kill you. So, you know, I I Endless has kind of two chapters. You know, chapter one, which is ~ actually I'm currently writing the pr the the prequel to it about, which is about the operating system, the the how you get access to technology to kids in emerging markets. That's where we all started with. ~ and that one I I I You know, on entrepreneurial journey number one, I learned a lot. I made a lot of mistakes. You know, and one of which was I just totally burnt myself out because I thought my energy was infinite. I thought there's no chance I will ever burn myself out because God, I had passion. ~ and in you know journey number two, I am so diligent. It it's not like let me go hang out and relax, so diligent about the ac the actions that it takes to be able to to to burn on a marathon type timeline.

36:04 You know, whether that is the sauna and cold plunge I do or the meditation or the journaling I do religiously, or literally the religion of like I go to church to listen to the, you know, sermons, like the the like these actions, you know, being present for my family. My family's been one of the greatest blessings because they're like the counterbalance of like they I got no choice but to be present for them when I when they when they're when they're there. And God, do they make me dil, you know, d delighted. And so like those things all allow the candle to burn more slowly. But we live in an era where the culture is like, let the bonfire burn, make it burn with all the brightness. And there are times when that is necessary. Let's be very clear. But there's also something so powerful.

36:44 I was just speaking to you know a a VC about this yesterday. Kind of we're not raising. We don't want to raise. I we've got ourselves profitable and I want to keep it that way and not change a thing. But I was asking advice on like how many things is too many things and and how patient can I and should I be. And and like the blessing of being able to just watch the garden grow is like, wow, what what a what a blessing. And so I will say that has been my experience of it, right? Everyone has their different experience, but it's just a really different counter-cultural, counter-trend version of what entrepreneurship looks like. So we talked about time. Everybody's, it's the most valuable thing we have. You look back on life and it goes decades go by like that.

37:24 But what do you think something that founders in this entrepreneurial space, and you were just on the phone with somebody in the VC space, probably a a higher level person that probably wanted to give you some money and you have to fight them off. But what's something that you felt that you've learned now that you and us that we should spend less time worrying about throughout these journeys? ~ Growth versus cash. Right. Like I I it there are so many different kinds of businesses, right? So so but at least the venture business is all about growth.

38:05 It it is all about the hundred X ~ company in the portfolio being offset, you know, or being the offsetting company for all the losses. The entrepreneur has a different optimization function, which is a, this is my baby and I'm gonna make it work. ~ and B, depending on the person. Some people want to just, you know, do it, spike it, exit. Other people want to make it their life. And I was just listening to a podcast and it was describing, like, you know, if if this is your thing, like you don't get many opportunities to have an outsized success. Like, why would you want to give that up? Why would you want to exit that? ~ and so just cash flow makes such a such a huge difference.

38:53 ~ which is so different than the the the typical venture, let me raise more money so I can lose more money. Hmm. Yeah, there's debate on cash flow. Every time I hear somebody bring that up, ~ I want to counter them and say, Why is cash flow so important? Because there's nothing passionate about cash flow. I mean, it's it's almost like blood running through our veins and arteries. You need it to keep living, but there's nothing passionate about cash flow. I I spent the past ~ four years. I I I've been living in the UAE. We've had wonderful partnerships there. and spent the four past four years chasing contracts that would allow us to to to build the core underlying tech to scale, to deliver the value proposition, to be on the ground, iterating it and making sure that we were building the right thing, grinding through some very, very hard journeys of of ensuring.

39:48 the survivability, cash flow. And so, you know, I it was not my passion. Right. It was I I'm going to do this because I'm passionate about what I'm doing. And so it is four years later that we finally now get to go and do the thing that I set out to do in the first place, which is to say, come one, come all, let's open up. Let's get everyone in this. But we're in a totally different position today because I spent the past four years. Four years is a long time in startup land grinding. It is a long time to grind and endure pain. But doing it so that we could be in the position that we are now in, where we have the tools, we have the methodology, we have the team, we have the curriculum, we have all the things that we need in order to be able to start saying, okay, now come one, come all. And so good.

40:37 So yeah, it it's just a Totally different way of looking at it than I'm gonna chase a venture vanity metrics company. Yeah. You mentioned operating system earlier. I I processed that originally when people would talk about operating systems on these PCs that I grew up working on. Right. So I was fortunate enough to hear this is gonna be boring, so I'll get past it quick for the younger generations, but the AOL, the dial up, that was the first sound, right, on like a Windows ninety-five computer. And An operating system, that's what I've, and then it gets upgraded, and there's a new Windows version, and now you have iOS. So it was the operating systems that technology, the brain of technology and how they worked.

41:20 But what I've been talking about over the past few years is what's our operating system as humans? Every individual, when they ask me a question, what I know is they're going to ask me a question, and most likely all of us, we aren't actually answering a question with the same dictionary in our hands. So we almost need to understand, hey, what operating system are you running on? So I know how to engage and answer the question to help you elevate to the next one. So what's the what's the mat operating system right now in 2026? So everything I'll I'll I'll use a literal version just because he we started there and and I I I I'll get past it quickly because it I'll probably bore people, but I love it.

42:06 ~ Linux used to be this like crappy operating system. I remember going to the basement of my, you know, college computer science la, you know, and and and seeing this like Red Hat Linux and being like, I'll I'll use this computer over here. And that computer at the time was Windows, because that's what everyone used back then. ~ and and Linux has come a long way since then. and Linux is also this flexible toolkit. It's whatever you want. The metaphor I use is like a jet engine. And, you know, usually it had like this crazy cockpit with all these little knobs and dials, but like you can just as easily just put a joystick on that jet engine. And so what we had to do is we had to build an operating system for people who'd literally never used a computer before. So we had no choice but to make it literally the simplest operating system, desktop operating system in the world.

42:50 And it turns out it was it actually isn't that hard. Just make it like a smartphone. Everyone knows how to use a smartphone already. Put your all your icons on your desktop. And there the reality is that we had to touch every layer of the stack all the way down to like, I mean, the deepest layers kernel. ~ and in order to really do that, the way the update update systems work, the way the applications were installed, I won't bore people, but like we had to change all of that. And then the changes we made, we actually pushed into the core upstream Linux desktop so that now when you download the big the most popular Linux desktop in the world, it is full of top to bottom the changes that we literally advocated for and made. and so anyway, real operating system. The operating system that you run matters to back to your point.

43:31 Like you run Chrome OS, it's a web browser, you can't actually do any real things on it other than what's in the web. But like real power software, like a real game engine requires access to the GPU. You can't do that in a Chrome OS. So anyway, I just say that because the literal, you know, the operating system you use matters. ~ case is is a is a is a huge one. ~ but in terms of, you know, my operating system, like what powers me, ~ the the metaphor that I'll I'll use is is Maslow's hierarchy of of needs. ~ we all know Maslow's hierarchy of needs, kind of the the the base, and then from there you can get to the level up. ~ so if you have oxygen, then you can work about worry about water, then you can worry about food, and you can worry about one day self-actualization.

44:14 I have a digital Maslow's hierarchy of educational needs, which is you need electricity to be able to have a device, and in our case, the ~ to go really up the stack, you need a computer, because that is this the tool of the knowledge economy, ~ to be able to have elect internet, to be able to then have the skills, to be able to have the job, to then be able to be self actualized. And not everyone in the world has all of those things. In fact, five billion people on the planet don't have a computer. In this country, when COVID happened, we discovered 30 to 40 percent of America didn't have either a computer or internet connectivity. There are 800 million people without electricity. Everything that we do is basically how do we solve that entire stack?

45:00 We are right now focused really on the skills and income piece, because that's the utmost important and most universal and in a world of AI, most urgent place in the stack. But we have not forgotten or given up on. The lower levels of that stack, which is if you don't have internet, good luck, if you don't have computer, good luck, if you don't have electricity, good luck. And so we've partnered, we've built, we've, you know, we've done all sorts of ~ things to keep that alive, almost in kind of let's call it a hibernation mode is a little bit too extreme, but kind of slow burn mode, while we crack the skills piece. Because if we can really crack the skills piece and have the sorts of nationwide rollouts that we are already piloting, literally with countries to do.

45:42 And then have more of those, and all of a sudden that creates the demand for the things lower down the stack. But my operating system at every, you know, every day I wake up is basically how do I solve with my time something up and down that stack with most of it being in the skill piece. And most of that skill piece is literally just that S curve of like, you know, anyone anywhere can go, you know, one step further. So entrepreneurs in all the communities around this country that listen to this and they're tuning in to say, hey, let me listen to this Matt guy. What's he what's he got to say? What's he building? So recently I was there's we're here in I'm in Cincinnati, Ohio, northern Kentucky, southeastern Indiana. It's it's about two 2.1 million MSA, 33rd largest in the country. There's a lot of people that fit into those around this country, and there's a lot of entrepreneurs in each one of those locations.

46:29 And there was something that a group of entrepreneurs and business leaders a few years ago identified in education, is that They weren't kindergarten ready. There were a bunch of these kids that weren't even kindergarten ready. So then that became the focus. So for someone who cares about the future, who cares about previous next generations, who cares about where does the average entrepreneur that has access to some funds, who's built some wealth, where do we go? Where do we start? Because you said 13 to 25 year olds. In your brain, for a guy like me, And the thousands of other people like me that are going to hear this, that are entrepreneurs that are building something, where can we go to make the biggest impact?

47:10 What can we do? So it's actually great question. You're realizing I need another chapter of my book. another section on the website, which is, you know, who do we support? Because there there are a lot of people doing really cool things and and we we we have a foundation and support a a lot of people really concretely. So there they're I I'll take the yeah in answer to your question, both age wise, where do we focus and then also what organizations? I'll say the coolest company foundation I found out there is called Hack Club. It's just doing extraordinary, extraordinary stuff. They they as an organization teach and engage more young people than. all American states in computer science except for four of them. And by next year it will be literally all states. And the year after that they expect it'll be twice as big.

47:50 ~ so anyway, that it's such a such a cool organization. ~ but there are there are a bunch of them. From an age perspective, you know, we we focus on the whole S curve because it's really it's about skill, not age. ~ but obviously the two correlate. When when you get closer to the workforce, that's when it really matters because you're launching someone into like a job. And if they don't have the skills to be ready for a job, like do like what college is supposed to be doing and you know, very expensive and you know, not necessarily doing it, like that it we think that that's the most important air age. But I'll also say at the other end of the spectrum, we don't do anything with 10, 11, 12 year olds. But if you look at the like the the the greatest entrepreneurs, the greater you'll get Bill Gates, he learned to code when he was 11 years old and 12 years old. You look at Elon Musk, same thing. ~ you know, my dad learned to trade the markets at 12 years old, and that's what he did for his whole life.

48:41 you know, he was talking to Carlos Slim and he has accounting little notebooks from when he was 12 years old. And so, you I lived in China for a year when I was 11 years old. It shaped who I am and what I'm doing. What you do pre-pubescence versus po, you know, in your older years really, really makes a difference because you form identity. It's like fluency of language. Henry Kissinger learned ~ came to the US at 13 years old. His younger brother was two years younger, came at 11 years old. His younger brother had no accent. Henry Kissinger had a very strong accent for his entire life for all you know 90 years that followed. So, you know, both of those are important, which is why we we have structured our organizational capabilities to be able to kind of span. We haven't fully gone that young yet, but someday we will.

49:24 Yeah. It's cause I think there's a lot of people. I look around and I talk to We're so busy on our daily objectives and running our companies and and jobs that we're in and inside your own families. It seems like there's not enough time and so often we recognize there's these problems that seem like, Man, why aren't we fixing these? And it's like, where do I go to get involved? And it seems so complex. You just give money to something and say, Well, I guess I did my part. But it seems like to me, the most impactful people in the communities and in organizations were the ones that were like boots on the ground. face to face, handshake to handshake that were actually that were engaging with people. Yeah. What what we're currently, you know, kind of the way I I look at ~ our way of solving that is we are currently in the process of taking what we have done in kind of these deeper dive deployments with with these various partners and making it kind of a kit and a bundle and an online, let's call it SaaS platform with the different tools and it kind of all the pieces that are necessary for anyone anywhere, right? Like you you go to Kentucky and someone there in Kentucky, whether it's a school, a school district, a teacher, a nonprofit.

50:27 are able to just take it and and run with it so that the answer in the future to your question for the person who is in Kentucky, an entrepreneur, you know, who's got who's, you know, wants to help their community, can literally just go to a us the the teacher of the school, the nonprofit, and say, let's do this, let's roll it out. So that's our answer to it. ~ but you know, I I will say that, you know, I t today I was just walking put pushing my my my kid around while I was on a phone call, my one year old and and I saw some litter. ~ and it I I picked up the litter. And I I think culturally or or or literally, ~ when we live in a world where most people throw litter on the ground, we end up with a littered world.

51:08 And when we end up with a culture where people say, I'll pick up that one piece of litter or those four pieces of litter, we end up with a clean world. And I think that we live in a society, we used to live in a society that was about, you know, we're gonna build a great nation, we're gonna build a great cult, you know, ~ Country, we're going to build a, you know, I I I contribute to my society. And everyone did their small part. And today I think we live for many, many reasons ~ in a culture that is a lot more, I'll use the word greedy, but a lot more about how can I, you know, focus on what I need. And it they're not at odds. You can do what you need.

51:49 it didn't take me ~ you know, more than a second to pick up each of those pieces of litter. And I still got to have my phone call and I still got to push my child, I still got to do it all, you know, and I still got to get my brain going so that I could have a, you know, an energized, clear headed conversation for this. ~ but I I would say that it, you know, really doesn't take that much for each person in their own little community to do their part for their own little community. Mm. Do you think it's important that we find purpose so that we're inspired to do it? I I I think the there's this chicken and egg problem of like you don't care unless you're close to something and and until you're close to the people that you're ~ that are are affected by it.

52:30 ~ and so you don't take the step until you see them. But if you step into it and you get a little bit closer, all of a sudden you really care. And like for me, you know, I I I it I went to an orphanage as a sixteen year old. not really caring much because I just didn't know much. And then I held a dying child and realized I could do something about it and literally save that child's life. Or like met a little girl who was a six-year-old girl who had this giant hairy navus, this kind of black hair across her skin, but was this of course her face was this wow, vibrant little girl, and discovered that there was I asked about her, discovered there was a family that didn't have the money to they would adopt it or they got they were ready.

53:12 They were ready to they just couldn't fly because they couldn't afford the cost of the ticket to pick her up. And we provided the financial aid. And that girl to this day is my goddaughter. And like I remember when she came home and she was she was, you know, watching Lelo and Stitch was her favorite movie, which by coincidence is about adoption and never giving up on family and like when you're family, you're family. And today, like my kids have a little ~ this Tony Box thing with this little character that they put on and it tells the story of Lelo and Stitch. And it's like, You know, the i it the the the the I don't know, the circ the the cyclicality of it is i is beautiful and yet it wouldn't have happened if I hadn't gotten on that plane and met that little girl.

53:53 And so ~ who who I ~ is actually probably gonna be coming out here in a couple of weeks to to to come visit me. ~ the you have to take the step to be able to ex to to care. Yeah. And then it's the best thing in the world. So when this book comes out, what's the intention behind writing it? What do you hope that the average person who doesn't know Matt, who just sees it either on Amazon or they listen to it on Audible, I'm assuming it's going to be there. and or someone says, Hey, you should read this book, what's the intention behind you hope is left with that person every time it's read?

54:36 So I'll say the first thing is you can check it out now. It's an anendless future.com. you could you can download the PDF, dump it in an LLM, and ask it any questions you want. I've got it so you can hit click play and and and it'll it'll you can listen to it. the the I I think there are two two goals I have for it. the first is I don't think that society fully recognizes how much control we have over our future and what The lever is certainly one of them that we have to kind of press. I use the meta metaphor of like the acupuncture point. Like I got back pain up here from a climbing accident. And it wasn't, and I tried yoga and all the things and I had back pain and just wouldn't go away. And it wasn't until one day I'm on my foam roller and I feel under my armpit rather than around my back this tight muscle.

55:24 And I got acupuncture there. I was like, that's the spot. And all of a sudden I could hold my hands even again and the back pain went away. And that doesn't mean that's the entirety of health. I still have to take care of all my health and go do yoga and running and all the things. But I couldn't have felt better if I hadn't released that muscle. And in a complex system, like a body or like the world or a country, we need to identify what is the one spot that we have to put the needle and then go, maybe there are a couple of them, but we certainly have to try to identify what they are. And In a world where I I I I actually use in in the kickoff in the book, I talk about these two globes. And I'm literally looking at the bright globe here and the dark globe over in the corner there. And like which humanity are we gonna have, a bright world or a dark world?

56:09 What is going to determine the answer to that? And from my perspective, it is really, really clear that until we have the next generation capable of ~ having jobs at at a at a baseline and solving all of the other problems. We won't have we could end up in a really dark world. And and I I'll I'll say there's a great book that I spent actually a lot of time talking about in the book called The Fourth Turning. and it talks about the cyclicality, the cycles of of of the world and how there's this hundred-year, eighty to a hundred year seculum cycle. ~ Of good times and bad times, basically, or crisis and awakening, which is kind of an internal reordering of society, like the hippie kind of movement of, you know, the 60s and 70s. And if you look at where we are today, which is 80 years post-World War II, almost to the, to the, to the to the month practically, it is it it's right on schedule.

57:10 And they wrote the fourth turning in the late 90s when everything was good. And they're like, there's gonna be a crisis coming in the mid-2000s. And so you know, they wrote it ~ in in the prior quarter. And so it it is ~ terrifying to be on the precipice of a crisis. And ~ and yet there's probably going to be a crisis. There's probably going to be something harder tomorrow than there is today. And there were many things that it could be. It could be AI taking jobs, it could be war with China, it could be the global debt crisis, it could be many things, the next pandemic, who knows what it is. But ~ the interesting thing about the fourth turning, if if you believe that cyclicality, and you know when you read the book, it's just a very, very compelling case.

57:57 You just see it. I mean, literally, it's you the the the Romans talked about it, you know, ~ do they found the same cycle? They there's a first turning always after the fourth turning. In other words, the crisis happens, there's a restructuring of society. It's kind of like it all burns down and then new things grow back. And what grows back is probably more important than what the crisis looks like because it's what you are left with. And what grows back, I believe, is going to be decided by whether humans can have jobs, whether there's, you know, elites that have, you know, they're trillionaires and the rest have nothing. You know, the mother who describes, I used to be able to feed my ch child olive oil and now I'm feeding them Crisco because I can't afford olive oil anymore.

58:41 Like that is a reason for anger. And there are a lot of Angry people that if they won't have a job, they won't be happy. The re French Revolution happened at 20% unemployment. Imagine what will happen in a world of AI where it's taken away all the jobs. Yeah. So I believe we have to. Like how how the alternative is like the way of framing is how can we possibly have a good outcome if no one has the skills to have a a good job? And yet we live in a world where now the d default consensus is I'm better off not going to college. More people, more high schoolers don't want to go to college than do want to go to college. The first time in American history that that's happened, or in recent history. ~ you know, since basically college it you know stood as a strong institution.

59:29 And and yet it's the number one pathway up. I'm not saying you have to go there in many cases of people who have been very successful without it, but it's the number one pathway up. And it's broken. So, if we believe that an argument that maybe we're in the fourth turning. What do you do? What does the individual do? So the first is is shore up. Save up, make sure you're safe, like individually, make sure you are doing whatever you need so that under any circumstance, like I will use the word financially, you're okay. There are many other forms of okay.

1:00:12 I mean safety, you're okay, but but that like you are secure. And caution, ~ i in an era of greed, greed and fear, right? They way we were back and forth. We live in in right now a Booming, wow, I I you I'm missing the wave, or I could be on the wave, or if only I ride the way, ride the wave a little bit longer. And I'm not going to give market investing advice that, you know, because I'm far from qualified to do it, it's not what I do. but I'll say, do whatever it takes to be safe. The second is beyond that, ~ I think there are powers that be that will determine it way beyond any individual's power to to change it. In other words, who knows what Trump does, who knows what she does, who knows what Iran does.

1:00:54 Like it it ain't up to us, right? It it's we're gonna we're gonna ride the wave other people create. and what I would say though is, you know, and I and I write this in the book, that the fourth turning is kind of destiny, but what happens in the first turning is not. In other words, like if a school district or a state or a parent trains their children to be thriving in the first turning. When they grow up t five years from now, ten years from now, fifteen years from now, like that that individual Or that's school system of individuals will be prepared to thrive. Mm. Isn't that how life goes? The things that we're earning and the life we're living in this decade, it was developed in the decade prior.

1:01:41 In everything, in our physical health, in our mental health, in our lives and relationships, everything. I haven't seen many things. I mean, there's tragedies that happen that fast, but other the things that we're in control of, which I do believe is the vast majority of our lives, you know, what I'm not gonna we all have loved ones that tragic things happen to. I could go out here tomorrow and I'm going through a green light and someone else makes a mistake and comes through the light and then my life's over. Those are things that aren't in our control. But there's so many things that are. And if we would just focus on turning ourselves into another higher level of capable human beings. Go to elite in as many categories as you possibly can. Don't compare yourself to somebody else on on Instagram or what celebrities are doing. Turn yourself yourself into a better form today.

1:02:26 And I think if we wake up every day and we put our head down and we do that consciously, you're probably gonna be ready. That's right. That's that's exactly right. If you can make sh you have to survive the fourth turning and then you have to build the skills to be strong for the first turning. And and accept that in these moments it's gonna be hard. Because in some of my greatest moments in life, and some of the biggest accomplishments, there's still hard moments. It's called life. It's all around us, right? And the things that I love, the people I love, there's still hard things every day. And accepting that part of it that I have responsibility in to still take actions to determine my outcome as much as I can, it makes it a lot more simple.

1:03:07 The the fourth turning talks about the the this it has seasons, right? So the the the high you know, ~ spring and then you have the summer and then you have the fall and and then the winter is the fourth turning. You know, it it it it it's funny actually, the the the book The Game of Thrones was written within months of of the fourth turning publishing and they both talk about winter is coming. And you know, i it winter's hard, winter's cold, winter's, you know, sometimes brutal. ~ but it's a it's a season. And when you know that it's a season and that spring comes afterwards, it's a a lot easier to endure it. It's a lot easier to prepare for it. When when things are good in the fall, you know, you harvest because you know the winter is coming.

1:03:48 And so being aligned with the seasons historically has always been important for our survival. Those who didn't didn't. ~ and so, you know, I I think that just thinking of this as seasons of history is actually a very powerful way of of preparing and being ready. So be positive. Don't get down in the negative places from listening to Matt today saying we're in winter and be scared. And but but the reality is that ~ we can talk about this in history and as societies and as the world, but we all live in different seasons than our lives where you're at too. And so we can we can win this battle based upon our individual lives, our companies, our families, and realizing inside those, there's seasons happening out here in the greater world too, and you have to have your eyes on all of it.

1:04:34 Yeah, I mean you you you mentioned ~ you know death. My my my brother was a huge longevity guy. It's just kind of, you know, h his thing. ~ and ironically he died at the age I currently am in a in a car accident and just kind of driving home one day. And you know, I i i and and wow that rocked my world, and and his little daughter's world and and ~ as you say we we you go through hard things and then you take them forward and you know you internalize them. I've internalized my brother and you know live with him as part of my life and with his little girl I saw last weekend. and you know so I I I life can be hard.

1:05:20 ~ and in the grief, as that example, like people laugh again, people smile again, people come out of it again. Yeah. Hundred percent. ~ and you'll smile a lot today. You'll find things when you're off of here, right, right there. Right. Even thinking about the idea of smiling and spending time with your kids. And you talked about you're back in Connecticut in the in the family home and spending time with the kids that you knew since school. Like it's ~ in the hardest moments I've found, if we can just get through and try to just fight and just be so determined and realize, like, hey, let me figure out the best way through this bad scenario. And I think what we've all taught ourselves that kept going is like it's gonna get better again. It just is. And if I think if we have that optimistic nature about this country, about what's possible, if we do believe, hey, like it can get better. Like we can do this thing even in the midst of hard, really difficult times, like, all right, let me take care of my responsibility, get to work, get involved in the communities, build these relationships, and go out here and make a little difference if it's to your point just picking up a piece of trash, because when I do that walking into one of my buildings, I still pick up pieces of trash.

1:06:23 And there's there's people that it's their job to do it. But it's my job too. And every time that I see myself doing something so basic and so small, it's worthwhile and I feel like it's making a little bit of a difference. The the the one place I'd push back a little a bit, but it but it's actually you asked why I wrote the book, is because I I I don't think it's optimism alone that's gonna get us there. I I I think there is this thing. We have to train the next generation to thrive. Like o optimism, but they don't have the skills. Good luck. You know, you could be pessimistic and they grow up with the skills and they will come out, you know, hardy and, you know, capable.

1:07:08 I like I live. and I like it. I'm like, what's my brain do with that? Here's what my brain does is that I said, okay, Matt pushes back on that. But it's so easier to take action and believe when I'm optimistic. I I totally agree with that. I totally agree with that. It it Optimism alone, I agree with you, but there has to be action combined with it. That's right. It it was interesting. ~ you know, I talk about hard things in the book, but but we just had the company retreat and we had a government kind of giving feedback on the book so that I could incorporate it and and and one of the things I heard a bunch of times is actually how optimistic it was. Because it I when you know what can drive a better f future, then you can be optimistic because you know what you can do about it.

1:07:48 So good. I could sit and talk to you forever, man. ~ it's awesome to to listen to you. But at some point we got to wrap this up because you have kids to spend time with and smile and you have companies to build and you've added another chapter to the book. But I I appreciate you spending this time and ~ just somebody that's developed your brain with your experiences around the world, you have a complete understanding about what you're gonna do with Endless. I I have a feeling. I don't know what it's gonna become because I'm not the one sitting there on a board or involved in it, but I think it's gonna make a big a difference out here. I really do. And when I walk away from this conversation, it'll get my brain turning a little bit more about like, hey, let's us re engage a little bit more. Like let's look for these areas to make a difference. Even if we don't have all Matt's time now to put this complete linear focus on that, like let's go out here and do our part a little bit more.

1:08:30 And I'm gonna be pumped about following this. So ~ what do you want us to know? W w as as anybody still listening at the end of this and as we put out reels and YouTube shorts, ~ When you woke up today, what'd you what'd you want us to know? Us, the world, the people you talk to? What do you what do you want us to know the rest of the day? I I I think the the the cycles, the the world can go through a tough time. We may be in a fourth turning of of of crisis. There is a first turning afterwards. There always has been, there there always will be. The nature of that first turning, the nature of w what it looks like when the world is, you know, kind of reformatted and reconfigured and is rebuilt, ~ I believe will be determined by one really important variable, which is Do young people have the ability to have jobs in that world?

1:09:20 And if they do, they'll go build amazing things. If they don't, then we have no reason for optimism. So it it it is it it is, I believe, the defining variable of whether or not we should be optimistic about the future. And if we can go do it, then we can be. All right, man. Thanks for bringing the message to us today. Much appreciated. We're better off for taking this hour. Thank you. And and read more at an endless future dot com and give me feedback 'cause that's why it's out there and you know, comment and and I got my email on there and anyway. So so please Tell him what tell him what extra chapters he's missing. Yes. Or or which chapters to delete. Disagree with me. Thank you.