How to Build Future Knowledge and Intelligence Systems with AI by Zowie Langdon by Kazuki

How to Build Future Knowledge and Intelligence Systems with AI by Zowie Langdon

Kazuki

Nov 1, 2024 10:57 PM

Summary

(00:09) Introduction of Zoe Landon, a serial entrepreneur and technical founder focused on crypto, fintech, and second-brain technology. He explores mental models and augmented intelligence.
(01:10) Discussion about Zoe's current stealth startup in the P-game (play-to-earn) space, emphasizing the social aspects of learning and knowledge work using emerging technologies like LLMs (large language models).
(05:25) Zoe shares his journey from being a web developer, influenced by his father's programming background. He highlights the importance of the people running companies when choosing positions or projects.
(07:11) The conversation shifts to Zoe's memorable projects, including the Election Compass platform in the Netherlands and a cross-chain aggregation protocol in the crypto space, underscoring the impact and excitement of these initiatives.
(10:29) Zoe explains his interest in second-brain technology, evolving from using note-taking apps like Bear Notes to tools like Obsidian and Readwise, emphasizing the ongoing journey of knowledge management.
(18:56) Discussion about the future of AI and knowledge management tools, including the potential for proactive systems and the importance of retaining human decision-making and agency in the digital age.
(51:59) Zoe shares advice for aspiring founders, urging them to prioritize challenging reading and to pursue personal projects that could positively impact the world, advocating for a mindset focused on creating meaningful contributions.

Transcript

Hi, everyone. Welcome back to another episode of Grasp Talk. Today, we are excited to have Zoe Landon with us. Zoe is a serial entrepreneur and technical founder, currently running several experiments and startups focused on crypto, fintech, and second-brain technology. With a deep passion for exploring mental models, system theory, and augmented intelligence, Zoe has been instrumental in building cutting-edge technologies in crypto and beyond.

Besides founding startups, Zoe also hosts a systematic mastery podcast where he dives into topics like self-mastery, growth states, and also blockchains, and shares his knowledge and insights with a broader audience. Today, we will dive into his journey in entrepreneurship, his approach to scaling startups, and his thoughts on the future of technology and augmented intelligence. Thank you for joining us today, Zoe. Thanks, guys. It's really nice to be here. Thanks for inviting me.

Thank you. So, first of all, you are currently working on a stealth-borne P-game startup, and that's described in LinkedIn. Can you tell us a bit about the concept you're working on, or what area are you working in, if you can? Absolutely, yeah. That's a great question to start off with. It's actually not too far off from what you guys at Glassware are doing, in a sense. So, I've been doing stuff within the P-game space for a long time, and eventually I realized

that what I think is just generally a really interesting topic is the way that people learn from the internet. I have a user of Readwise and many of these tools like this, but I feel like what I really like, for example, about Glass was the social aspect, and I think what I eventually realized with the advent of LLMs, making it so cheap, basically, to deal with sexual information and many information, and generate it, and analyze it, and stuff like this.

I think that really made make sense for me, somehow, to start building something that uses the fact that most people, especially in the knowledge work sector, I think, have effectively a digital library in their pocket nowadays. We collect information everywhere, whether it's Notion, Obsidian, or Readwise, or Instapapers, you just mentioned, or Glass, etc. I think it's the right time to start building something in the area of aiding people on their self-directed learning journey.

We have great apps like Duolingo, and Brilliant, and stuff like this, but I think those are constricted to very specific niche topics, predefined sets of knowledge. I think what is this really interesting thing that I would also benefit a lot from, and I think a lot of people around me, so that's why I started just building something, is an intelligent system to help you do this effectively. I can't say too much, because obviously, I want to try and keep it moderately stealth,

but it's not too far off from what you guys are doing, I think, in a sense. Not the same, but maybe overlap in mission as well. Are you coding yourself, or do you have a team? Both. I actually really like coding, so we might go into that later, but in my career, I eventually, when I became a CTO, I made the transition from full-time coding to also doing more management, and I realized I really missed just working on code the whole day,

so I try to do that as much as I can nowadays. I do have a few people as well that help. When I look into your LinkedIn profile, I think you started your career as a web developer in the beginning, so just curious, what made your interest in software engineering? Do you have any trigger? Yeah, that's my dad. My dad was a programmer. It's an interesting transition.

He made a transition from being a base player to being a programmer, and when I grew up, I grew up in two households, and so I thought my dad's side was basically completely filled with computers, a lot of hardware, so as a kid, obviously, you play with whatever you can find around you, so that ended up being computers. Most of my youth was just done playing with computers and eventually more software, and then I started doing software engineering as a study, because that just seemed like the most obvious and logical

and most fun thing to do for me. I see, and so I think you can, yeah, you're changing to like jobs, so sometimes like you're starting your company or you work at some companies, so do you have any criteria or like, you know, things you're caring about when you're choosing jobs or like position? Certainly, yeah. I mean, most of the things that I've stumbled into, and I think this is, I mean, in my experience, just kind of a good way for a general founder

journey, I think, is to kind of stumble into things in a sense, like, you know, you start with a project because you find it fun, you meet people along the way, whether it's open source or not, and then you get into new things, so that's always kind of been the case for me, and I think it's a really nice way to discover new things that you find interesting or learn a lot of new stuff, and I think when it comes to selecting whatever position I would go into, one thing

that I had to learn the hard way, I guess, is to really get a good feeling for the people that are running the company, so I've been through situations where originally things look very good and you have a really great relationship, but then one of the founders decides to leave for, you know, all the right reasons, but it's really hard to understate how significant the impact of that might be, and especially if you're into like scale-ups and

startups, so I definitely really look at the people. I think, you know, initially I started out as being kind of like a technology purist in a way, and then I realized it really doesn't matter, like you can work in any programming language, I mean, obviously you can make bad systems in any language just as well as you can make good systems in more or less any language, so those are usually criteria I don't really focus on.

Yeah, so I generally think the qualities of people, the reasons they're doing it mostly, and an ability for them to kind of open up or be honest about why they're doing it, I think is a really important thing for when you pick a founder, so yeah. Interesting, thanks, and do you have any like the project or your work, you know, you remember like vividly, like you have worked, you built, you know, your startup several times, and then it also worked at several companies, and also, I think, worked on several

projects, right? Do you have some specific project that you remember or your favorite project or moment? Oh, absolutely, yeah. I think, I mean, there's definitely a few really interesting projects. I think they're all interesting for different reasons, so if you don't mind, I'll go through two of them. So the first one is definitely something called Election Compass here in the Netherlands. I was, at that time, I was very young, and I helped them build their whole platform.

Basically, it's a platform that allows you to answer a couple questions. Depending on the country, there are completely different questions, usually aligned with political parties, and then gives you a recommendation based on, yeah, kind of an internal calculation that they've developed on what party is in the closest proximity to you, and this is actually really big in the Netherlands for some reason, like proportional, like relative to the population size, it's huge.

In other countries, not as much, but they had some really big projects in like Australia and the UK, and I found it really fun because I really, as just mentioned, I stumbled into this, and to be honest, I was way in over my head because the amount of traffic that they got was absolutely incredible, because it's around half of the population of Netherlands that used this tool like one month before the elections, and to be able to work on something that really

is useful for people, you know, like people actually use this to decide what to vote on, and I thought that was really cool. I was like, obviously, I was not in the limelight, no one knew about me because I was just building it, I was just the builder, but it was really gratifying to build something that really, yeah, helped people in a way, I guess, so that's definitely one of the most interesting projects, and then I would say

from a technical angle, the crypto, like the whole kind of last five years, except for the last one year, which has been more focused on like trying new things, I think crypto is, unfortunately, it suffers a lot from the fact that it's a, yeah, very speculative industry, but I think from a technological perspective, there's like a lot of interesting things happening there, like I was always into security and

like using cryptography for, well, beneficial systems for humanity, and I think there's just a lot of extremely interesting technology there, so one of the projects that I worked on was trying to kind of create a cross-chain aggregation protocol, not going too deep into the details, it's just, it's pretty complicated, basically, to do something across multiple blockchains in an efficient way, so those things are just very fun.

yeah, some of those things never see the light of day. So that's also kind of one of the downsides perhaps of the industry sometimes. So I'd say that those two things, but there's obviously a lot of different things you run into that are fun for their own reasons. Yeah, it's a good question. Okay, thanks. And then I'm curious, now you're working on like second brain technology and you are into second brain, like as long as I know, you know, from three years ago, four years ago,

and how did you get into second brain area or knowledge management or PKM space? I started with Bear Notes, I believe. It's a note-taking app for Mac. It's a really small app. I just really liked the UX for some reason, and I struggled with memorizing whatever I was working on. This was actually during the election conference times. And I remember trying to, they eventually came out with this X callback implementation.

So like you could build things based on, yeah, you're taking notes. It's kind of like an API. And I was playing around with that and then realized, wow, this is really cool. Like you can do some really interesting stuff if you have programmatic access to your notes. And this was like 10 years ago or something. And I didn't really end up doing anything with it. I built some like really small things for myself that I liked and they helped me and whatever. And that was basically it.

And then later, I think it was Obsidian and Notion, kind of that time where there was a friend of mine tweeted about Obsidian, how he thought it was much better than Roam. And I was like, what is this Obsidian thing? And I started getting into that and really I was blown away by the fact that, again, kind of a similar moment to Bear, but much more power, obviously, because Obsidian is really, at that time especially, it was like really, really great for people that

enjoy building stuff for themselves, like scratch your own edge kind of software. And I've always liked that. So I just ended up making notes and going into the Para system, this whole like second brain thing by Tiago Forte. And before you know it, you have like thousands of notes and then Readwise came out with their plugin and it just, you go into this rabbit hole.

And I think, obviously, you build up something of such a significant value that you obviously, you want to keep that, you want to kind of nurture it even to a certain extent, because it's taken me years to like build up all these notes and things like this. So you kind of get stuck into it, like it's something that you don't really leave behind, I feel. And I think it's quite beautiful because there's a lot of, and that's also what I really like about with regards to building, there's a lot of beautiful like lessons and information and what

like a personal journey is and people take notes. And it will be quite cool if you can like share that with others, or at least have something that you can maybe 20 years from now still find back somewhere in like your basement of notes. And then, I don't know, tell your children about it or whatever, or tell an interesting story, share something valuable based on that. So I just feel like that was one of the reasons I really realized like, oh, it's actually quite nice to build up this

second brain over the course of several decades, perhaps. So that's why, like how I slowly kind of got more and more into it. I see. And then I watched your video about, you know, like a power method and how you use Obsidian. And three years ago, I think, three years back, and then that was really amazing and very insightful and video, but thank you for that. But do you still use power method? Or, you know, how did you, how did, how, how to say, how to use Obsidian or note-taking app

or PKM? Has it evolved over time or since the last three years ago, or, you know, or is it the same? It's definitely evolved, yeah, a lot. I think what might also be more obvious in the videos is that I definitely, initially when I got into it, I was relatively like framework heavy, like, oh, I use Para strictly and Zettelkasten or what I call domain routes. I think it's really nice to have all these frameworks within your note-taking tool.

And they've definitely developed, like one thing that I, that I rely on the most that I think the strictest or like most valuable thing I do with Obsidian nowadays still is reflections. So I have these reflection templates that I use. They're like weekly or decision-making templates for like reflecting on certain decisions that were made. They can be weekly reflections, monthly or yearly. And it's just, I think when it comes to second brain stuff, that's probably the most valuable

thing I've ever done with it. And those templates obviously evolve, like the questions that you ask yourself to prompt yourself with the things you maybe need to hear sometimes, you know, it depends on where you are in life or what you're working on in that moment. So those questions certainly change. I also feel that I've become a lot less rigid when it comes to what tool I use.

So originally I thought I'm going to put all my tasks and my notes and everything I want to remember and my writing all in Obsidian. And now I think it's become a little bit more fragmented. I use like a weird, sometimes just intuitive, but not structured combination of Todoist, my calendar, Slack reminders. And I feel like as long as I do what needs to get done and I can find back what I need to find back, the system kind of works for me. It's not, it's hard to explain to others because obviously it's very nuanced as to when do you decide to use Todoist

versus your calendar for reminding yourself of something. But I think, yeah, I think it's definitely evolved to become a lot less rigid. And the amount of writing I do in Obsidian has certainly become less. I think I do more writing because I feel like writing is supposed to be shared with others. And that's one thing I think Obsidian lacks. So I do more writing in Notion actually. Interesting. Yeah.

And how do you think your, how to say, the system evolved for the next few years or five years? That was about the last three years, four years, right? How about the next three, four years? This is a super interesting question. So I do believe like there's obviously this trend of also of we don't have to really work and think for ourselves anymore to certain extents. You know, like, well, we'll have systems that collect all the information for us.

Basically they record our screens, record our calls, and they digest everything. And then, you know, you effectively don't really have to make your own notes anymore. I don't personally believe in that. I think, you know, if you, you do need to stimulate yourself, I guess, in a way to remember things the right way. So I do think that there's a big space still for manual note-taking and also manual linking of notes and writing and things like this, because that is actually the thinking process.

But I do think it's really cool. And that's also something you see pop up in Readwise Reader a little bit, which is an app that allows you to, like Instapaper, that allows you to read and similar to Pocket, but then they have this Ghost Reader feature, which I think is pretty cool, where effectively you have a couple of features that assist you in how you read. Personally, I think that's just going to go a lot further.

So we'll have effectively, like, yeah, what would you call that? It could be a tutor, it could be an assistant, and they effectively live inside of your knowledge management apps, but relatively seamless. So, you know, I don't think that we need separate apps for anything. I think also we can build a lot of things ourselves. So I do believe that, you know, tools like N8n, which I rely heavily on, or other kind of, like, very easy workflow tools will be used by a lot of people to integrate with these kind of systems.

But effectively what they will end up with is some form of an intelligent, like, yeah, kind of a note-taking co-pilot. And I think it will continue to go that way. I also feel that what is actually hugely potentially valuable is, so most of these kind of systems are initiated by the user, right? Like, they're prompt-based. So I think what will be an interesting development in the knowledge management space is where the initiation actually happens within the system itself. So it's proactive rather than reactive.

I think because people react very, very well, like, that's also why I believe at least many social media platforms and, like, push notifications work so well. Obviously, we are very reactive as humans. And I think if you have a system that understands you quite well and can be reactive with the right intentions, right, not to capture you for ad revenue, but more to capture your attention for, hey, this is a valuable thing for you.

I think that will be hugely valuable to, like, help stimulate the right habits for humans. So I would hope also, I guess there's, like, I sprinkle a little bit of optimism in there that I would hope that we get tools like that. But that's definitely a direction that I think is hugely interesting that we can now kind of build with reasonable cost of production, and that isn't as complicated anymore. So I hope that kind of gives an idea. I see.

At the same time, you know, we see AI trends, LLM trends, right? You know, Chachi PD, many LLMs, you know, came out these days. And how do you think AI or LLM impact, you know, how we use tools, like, as you mentioned, like, PKM, or also our intelligence, you know, should we, and as you mentioned, you know, how to say, if the LLM or AI works proactively, is that good, you know, what's the, how to say, how should we deal with AI LLM? You already, you tapped in a little bit, but, you know, could you,

do you have some thoughts around here? Yeah, what I, the thing that I'd like to double click on is, like, our own intelligence, because that's something I think is on a lot of people's minds, especially online, like, what I'm a little bit worried about sometimes, maybe even is that, especially with these, like, these, the system that would then self-initiate and prompt you, obviously, the big question of,

agency comes up, it's like, okay, but to what extent are we making our own decisions? Um, and, and obviously I don't, I don't think in reality, a lot will change because the extent to which we're making our own decisions, um, is already, it's already a pretty fragile concept, I guess. Um, so I think one thing that I do think is quite important is that we really do realize that augmenting our own intelligence might still be the way to go and not, you

know, not necessarily delegating everything to systems. Um, but the more we understand of ourselves, um, I do think with LLMs and like the more advanced they become, right? Like now with a one where it's not just a prompt, but it actually is like kind of like a, uh, kind of like a chain of thought thing that's going on. Um, I think the more intelligence, uh, is, is like externalized and we can rely on the system to help us.

Um, the more important it will be also just for in the markets, like the natural selection, I suppose, um, to really keep stimulating ourselves because yeah, we can, we can, it can either go very well and we end up all being all better for it or because we don't stimulate ourselves enough or we're not stimulated enough in the right ways. Um, it will become a lot harder to, to kind of like manage society.

Um, so that's something where I think, you know, in the long run, uh, it's, it's, it's probably quite, quite important to like keep, keep, keep an eye on that. Uh, because yeah, it's going to have a quite a lot of large social socioeconomical impacts. Um, I wouldn't say necessarily LLMs only, of course, it's like all the systems around this that, that are startups that are being built. Um, yeah, I think it's, it's pretty cool. Like it's, it's still really nice to be alive in this, in this time, right? Like the things like

protein folding, uh, going as fast as, as, as it's going, like that's, it's incredible. So it's hard to like, yeah, it's kind of like a combination of, of kind of, um, potential catastrophe, but also a lot of, a lot of optimism. Yeah. We, we see two, uh, Nobel prizes in for physics and chemistry, like related to AI. And that was, that was really impressive. Yeah. That was funny.

Uh, one of my best friends is, is actually a theoretical physicist and mathematician, and he actually was quite frustrated because it was like, we need, we need, we need Nobel prizes for physicists and not for AI, right? Like, uh, or like not to be too, yeah, but it certainly is, it's, it's extremely impressive, uh, for sure. Um, so I mean, it's a good sign where, where things are headed, right? Like we are basically, um, yeah, there's new players on the field.

Do you have any AI tools or AI tools that you're, you know, you're interested in or like you've been keeping watching? So not only like PKM or second brain, but anything. Good question. Um, sure. I think to be honest, I actually mostly rely on, uh, GPT and Claude. Um, I, I do use, so I use an it and a whole bunch. So, um, I would say that a lot of the tools that people are building, like you made a lot of founders that like, Oh, I'm building this email automation tool or like all

these kinds of things that yeah, everyone needs them, but they're also pretty obvious. Um, I think I just built them with NN and GPT, um, which is pretty simple. And I have an assistant and she's, she's great at, and it, and she loves it. So she helps me a lot with that. I think there's, there's a lot of power there. Um, when it comes to like specific tools, I wouldn't say as much. Um, I think you can build most of the things on these systems as anyways.

Um, obviously I use image generation, but what you, what you, what you see is that these, these companies like open AI and, and Antropic, um, yeah, they, they effectively. Eventually everything funnels in onto them. Right. Uh, and I mean, of course there's a few other companies. Suno is pretty cool. Uh, I think that's the one I think is so far has been the most entertaining for me, um, to try and see if like professional musicians can find the difference between.

Uh, real music and AI generated music. But, um, I think most of it eventually comes down to open AI and cloud for me. Yeah. Thank you. And I think you have encountered many, like, as you mentioned, like an AI tools or PKM tools and then so on, but you know, since you are so technical, have you, have you thought about, Oh, I can build this in a week or something.

I mean, since your bar should be higher, right? When you see technology, you understand technology and since you will be impressed by will be that the bar should be higher. Right. So yeah. Yeah. How do you see product? You know, when you see it, since you know, technology, yeah, I'm curious. I mean, I can imagine you guys have this as well, but like, you know, it's, um, I, when it comes to like, because I have founders around me as well, and sometimes smaller investments or things like this.

And of course, then you ask yourself, okay, what is kind of the defensibility of this? Like how, how unique is this? And in general, as you say, um, a lot of products, you kind of feel like, Oh, I guess I could build that myself as well. Um, I think one thing that I think is, is, is, um, quite a strong sign of, of something that I wouldn't be able to, to, to build myself. It's obviously, um, I mean, the size of the pain financially, like, yeah, I could build it myself, but how much time

will it cost me to maintain it? Uh, it's usually something that I, that I do think about. So a lot of small businesses I might still pay for. I could totally build myself, but it's, it's actually pretty hard to maintain. Um, when it comes to, to like new startups, uh, that I, that I see pop up around me and looking in, looking at like how durable, uh, might this be? Um, I'd say it's, it's largely also a business model thing.

Like I think like certain business models make a, uh, make a particular company really hard to get out of the market. Right. And it could also be their positioning. Right. So I don't know if you're a two sided marketplace or something like this, then, um, it can be a lot more difficult to, to compete with something like this. So I think it's not necessarily any more of the tools or the whatever software that you're building that, uh, in any case, unless it's like, you know, pretty cutting edge.

Um, but then we're talking about like, you know, things, uh, like Suna or like opening eyes, like an extreme version of this. Um, I'm definitely talking about those, but many of the other tools, it's really about like what position do they have in the market and how well have they thought about the business model? So that's definitely when I look at a tool. Also, I guess when you're going to put your information in there, you'd like it to still be there in three years.

Cause otherwise you have to deal with the fact that they're shutting down, which kind of sucks. So yeah, I guess it's, it's really, it's the business model, something that, um, either builds up value in terms of knowledge of people. For example, that's why I think the BKM industry is quite interesting because yes, you can export all your knowledge, but largely a lot of metadata is very relevant in these BKM tools.

And they still, that's still on your side, right? Also with glass, like you guys are building a huge database of knowledge. Um, that yes, is pretty open of course, but there's a lot of metadata and a lot of value in there. Um, and I think over time, yeah, that, that could be a good sign of defensibility. So that, that's how I try to look more and more at tools and a lot less in terms of the software, because, because we all feel, feel the fact coming that the more simple version of software engineering will be partially

replaced, uh, or at least a lot more redundant. So. I see. Do you invest in mainly in DevOps or PKM, knowledge management, second brain space, or do you invest in other spaces like entertainment? I don't know. Yeah. Crypto. I have a hard time. I'm generally, I don't think very well equipped to invest in a high variety of industries, because I do really believe that you have to invest in what you understand, of course.

And, um, so I do try to stay close to things around, for example, DevOps or also the people, right? Like if you, some, some founders do just feel like they have a lot of talent, um, and, uh, and also momentum and, and the knowledge needed. So then of course you can make a decision based on that. Um, I usually do only invest in friends, people that I know, uh, personally, cause I'm not a professional investor by any means. Um, and crypto, I think crypto more infrastructure stuff, um, actually has a

lot, has, has a lot. I mean, there's, there's a lot of good things missing there. Um, I, I don't believe as much in tokens, but, um, yeah, the industry has changed, but I do, I do think infrastructure is still something very valuable. And then the same goes for DevOps. Like, like, there's a lot of people that still need good tooling. Um, what I would really love to be able to invest in at some point is more hardware or just build in, in, in general.

Um, but it's, it's hard to do. Uh, it's, it's quite challenging. Um, hardware means like AI pendant or those hardware or more like, you know, car or Tesla or that kind of hardware. Uh, no. Yeah. Like I, um, pretty close to the pendant. Yeah. I would say the, uh, yeah, I wear an hour ring for example. So like these kind of quantified self, uh, technologies I think are super interesting, um, for, for both health,

mental health, uh, and, uh, and many other purposes. So I just think that's hugely interesting in terms of human progress in the coming years. Yeah. Yeah. I use Fitbit and keep track of, you know, my, my health data and that's, I love seeing these data. I, I, Kay and I love, you know, seeing logs and data, daily data. So yeah, we'd have keeping, you know, what books we read, you know, something like that. And yeah. Yeah.

There's something uniquely satisfying about just stats on yourself. It's hard to explain why, but it's super satisfying. Yeah. Yes. So yeah. And regarding daily life, you know, I'm curious, you know, you're passionate since you're passionate about philosophy and. like stoicism, Buddhism, and also self-mastery. And how do these philosophies impact your daily life and your approach to, I don't know, leadership, entrepreneurship? Wow. You guys really ask great questions.

Thank you for being so intentional. Yeah, I think initially when I started out as a kind of a founder, I mean, I kind of stumbled into being a founder, but I was, of course, also quite a, I guess you're kind of indoctrinated sometimes with the idea that there's a certain glory in setting up your own business and things like this. And I think over time, I realized that that's really not the, that's not really the purpose, like also not the most

enjoyable thing to do. So I feel like what I, what I'm directed by mostly, and what I've tried to integrate more over the years is to really only zoom in on what you, I guess a really nice way to put it is like, what would you do for free? Or like, you know, really are very interested in, and it's actually quite difficult because it's, you know, if you can reflect and you can spend a lot of time thinking about it,

to what extent is this an autonomous decision that really reflects my own curiosities? And I think reflecting and philosophy and thinking a lot and reading a lot about, you know, being human helps to build a certain intuition to say, to easily and intuitively say, no, this is not for me. And I think obviously lessons are part of that as well, but I think you can really, and that's what I love about the big game space in general.

Like you can learn so much from all the knowledge that has been built up by people over the years and the education system, and I think, I guess we also benefited from that, has done a great job of teaching us certain theoretical skills. But the whole question of like, what does it mean to have a good life is still pretty unanswered and it's pretty hard to answer and it don't really help you on your way to answer

that question. So I think that like, no, what I would be eventually pretty happy with, even though there's like, it's pretty cool to try and be a founder and build businesses, is just to try and be a good person, which is actually quite challenging because there's a lot of important decisions to make every day. So I try to integrate into everything I do instead of choosing the, you know, maybe the most objectively best route, maybe

there's also something to say for just choosing the route that seems to be what the right thing to do is. And obviously that's a huge debate on what that exactly means. But I do think that's, yeah, I'm definitely trying to stick to that a little bit more. But how do you, like, how do you know or how do you learn? So like, you know, philosophy or like, you know, stories, like put it in a story system. So do you learn, like, by watching movies, by reading books?

So where's a source of, like, knowledge? Or through your experience? Oh, yeah, of course. Yeah, yeah, through experience is one of them. I think, so I don't watch a lot of YouTube videos on these kind of things. I think it's, I don't know, I'm really bad at learning from audiovisual content, I suppose. Yeah, but books for sure. I think the act of, like, struggling through a philosophy book is really satisfying.

So I think that's a really big source of it. And I mean, this is also the kind of the original method of the Stoics, in a way, is having discussions, like, really having long debates with people that are interested in the same things. It's something that I, so that's why I walk around with my Remarkable a lot where I have, like, a workflow to make notes on my phone easily, because that's where a lot of my notes

come from, from conversations in the middle of them. Or transcriptions, of course. So that's why I try to, how I collect this information and then maybe, you know, reuse it for new notes or to just thinking topics for myself, or they end up in those reflection templates we spoke about. But I think by, yeah, by far books and sometimes really long-form articles seem to somehow be the best. Do you do, like, book reading club?

Book club? Yeah, actually, my, one of my best friends is the founder of Reading Rhythms. So I've been doing a lot of these, Reading Rhythms is this, yeah, reading party that they have in New York, and they're doing it, like, more across the US now. And so I've been really inspired by that. It's just sometimes I bring together a group of friends and we have a two-hour format where we just read a book, have a cup of tea, and discuss these topics in the meantime.

And I think that's just a general recommendation for anyone that is, like, into this stuff. It's just to get a group of six people together, use the format, and it's super fun. It's great fun. Yeah, actually, Kagan and I, and also some other people do book club. And we've been doing it for four years, five years. We love it. Yeah, we read a book every one week, every week, or every other week, and discuss, you know, about the book.

And in that sense, you know, I'm curious, you know, how do you decide the books to read? How do you discover books to read? For either book club or, you know, for your personal growth? Is that from Amazon recommendation list or, you know, we're always looking for good books, you know? Yeah, I was actually just about to ask that to you guys as well, because I was like, how do you keep track of the books that you select for the book club?

So I'd love to reflect that back to you as well. But what I usually do is Goodreads, honestly. I have a love-hate relationship with Goodreads. As, you know, as being someone to build software, the fact that it's so ridiculously slow is sometimes quite frustrating. But there's a lot of people on there, and I think they do a great job. I follow a few people that are really, really avid readers. And I think that's a great way to, like, find a few profiles,

follow them, follow their reviews. And they're generally really high quality reads that I find through that. And otherwise, there's recommendations. I also don't, I'm a firm believer in not finishing books. So I'm like, I personally just think it's much more fun to pick up the book that somehow seems to suit the moment the best. And then, you know, I guess I'm reading 30 books at the same time, and I probably will finish only six of them or something

like that. So it's really like, just pick them up, try it, put them away if you don't like it. And sometimes you feel like it sticks, and then you do end up finishing it. That's how I usually go through it, because it's really hard to just go off of recommendations sometimes. What about you? Almost the same, yeah, through, sometimes Amazon recommendation lists, and also sometimes from Goodreads, and sometimes, you

know, Kay and other, like, smart people, great people knows what to read next. And I just follow that, and yeah. Also, yeah, I just for like some, like, great reviewer, or like, smart people. And so maybe, like, word of mouth, or maybe sometimes, YouTube. So some smart people's YouTube recommends some, like, old biography. So that's how I get to know it. True. Yeah, podcasts. Yeah, but yeah, I think, yeah. And I heard, you know, Kay, you know, usually keeps a list of

books, you know, when someone recommended him a book, and he keeps notes, and he counts the numbers. He has three times more than he, oh, it's time to buy a book. Yeah, so I like that habit. Maybe you are, you know, keeping the track of, like, you know, books to read, like, on Goodreads. So, and so, yeah, I do it. So in Japanese, Goodreads. And so, yeah, when I got recommended, so I book, you know, register it.

Then, so next time I register, you know, from other people, so, oh, this is the time to buy. Smart move. So you actually have a tool for this, so, like, track it, because I do the same, but I try to do it in my head. And when I feel like, oh, yeah, I've heard someone recommend this book for, like, I don't know, five times in the next six months, I'll just immediately buy it and start reading it. But you actually have a tool for this, then.

Yeah. And we should have it at Glass Stupa. Yeah. And it was about book, right? And books. And how about, you know, web content? And how do you discover things to read every day? Like a web article, PDF, or tweet? And I think I'm curious about your information consumption process. How do you discover information and web content? And yeah. Yeah, this is a, I honestly don't have a great system for this yet. So I'm actually really looking for, yeah, whatever could be

a better one. Maybe that's also why I'm building what I'm building. But I'm not very active on social media. So sometimes I open Twitter, but I can't say that I get a lot of good potential reads from that. I do have a few newsletters that I filter through. And then if I find an interesting topic in there, I'll select it. But mostly I'm dependent on people recommending me something. So yeah, I'll have friends that say, like, oh, I read this

really interesting article. They send it over to me, and then I'll start reading it. That usually is the best way. And then I do have a, in ReadWise Reader, I have a log of a lot of stuff that I want to read. And every now and then, when I have a moment, then I open it, scroll through it a little bit, and see if there's something that seems to be fitting to what I'm working on right now. But I am a really firm believer in reading something that

is kind of time relevant. So if it's relevant to whatever I might be engaging with, let's say, this month, then I will give it a much, much, much higher priority. Because also, otherwise, it doesn't really stick. I don't think that's how human memory works anyways. So I try to do it that way. What I would love is to have, like, a really smart... app that recommends me the right things to read based on my total environment.

That would be pretty cool, so that I don't have to think about that myself, because I really don't have a good answer to that question. Is that what you're building now? Might or might not be a part of it, yes. Okay, interesting. And how about personal advice? Do you keep a tracking of advice you get from other people? Like, people recommend you content, but at the same time, when you meet your mentor or advisor, consultant or someone, you know, personal coach,

and they might give you great advice or lessons, and then do you keep track of these too? Absolutely, yeah. I'm also a big believer in therapy, so I try to record all of these sessions, and then I do analyze those insights as well and store them. And then I do believe that knowledge is something that you can store and recall, say, if you're lucky, you could do it in one go. Otherwise, you need to maybe see it twice or three, four times.

And then if you're interested in it, most of the time it will stick. When it comes to behavioral change, so wisdom, I think it's actually much, much harder. So you might be able to see it on the background here. I have these cards that I put all the way in my house, all over the place, cards with small messages. And sometimes there's also other wisdoms that I get from people, and I'll just write them down.

And I believe that if you see something, like, I don't know, a couple of months, every day for a couple of months, then it will stick. And then actually behavioral change becomes a lot more feasible. So that's what I try to do. And I have, therefore, in my weekly review, I also have a list of things that I try to remind myself of, so I force myself to go through it every week. Because otherwise, I've tried to not do it for a few weeks,

and it's actually funny how fast I forget it. Like, it's quite surprising. Like, two months, and I've totally forgotten these kind of wisdoms to try and live by and stuff like this. So yeah, it's personal. And it would be beautiful to have a way also to, yeah, like a feed of sorts, this kind of thing. And I guess also Glass offers something of this as well. Like, you learn certain wisdoms. You can share it on the platform.

I do think there's a space for that. Yeah. Yeah, thank you. And you said card means, like, it's a post-it or something? Small card? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, they're post-its or printed cards that I found somewhere. Yeah. I see. But you also wrote a message or advice on obsidian, like digital not taking up. Yeah. Yeah, I think, I mean, there's also a space for physical note-taking, which is why I think, for example, the Remarkable is very interesting.

It's like, it's not, some people are really good at it to, like, have a tool like obsidian and to, I don't know, visit a note every day or have these daily notes. Personally, I'm not really good at it. So I don't use obsidian for that. I use them more for, like, intense sessions of, like, note-taking or searching something, but not for, like, reminders and stuff like this. I don't know. Do you use obsidian as well?

I have used it, but I use it for notes eventually. I try to make maps connected every time, but I gave up for notes. It's funny, there's this, it reminds me of the bell curve meme, where, like, you use, eventually start, you'll use obsidian and you think that's the way to go. And then eventually you settle with true mastery back on Apple Notes, where you started. I think there's something to that, for sure.

I'm still on the peak. I don't know which side, you know, I'm the top or I'm the lowest. I have no idea. By the way, do you prefer reading physical books or Kindle eBooks? Has that changed over time? Since, you know, when Kindle came out, people say, oh, no, I prefer physical book, you know, every time I choose physical book. Nowadays, you know, people, you know, now people have Kindle eBooks and it's easier and convenient to carry.

And what's your, you know, reading behavior and platform look like? I mostly do Kindle, yeah. But I do think there's a lot to say for physical books. The main reason is that I just don't like carrying them with me all the time. But I do, there's something to having a physical book if you think you're going to read it twice. So then usually that's a sign for me to start buying it. Or sometimes if you're in a bookshop and something really speaks to you,

obviously, it's a nice way to prompt yourself again. I do think because we live in the digital realm, it's easy to forget how useful it is to have a good physical space because we are pretty much built, pretty optimized, basically, as physical humans to opt to engage with a physical space. So I do think there's something to having these prompts around you to stimulate you instead of having a completely empty space.

So I try to buy physical books for that reason, to kind of like stimulate certain thoughts, perhaps. But when it comes to real reading, it's hard to beat a Kindle because it's just so extremely efficient. Yes. And so when you are reading articles and when you, you know, when you, you know, finish reading, you know, books, so there are so many advices, right? And so you are trying to apply those advices into your daily life.

But how do you evaluate those advices? Like you change your behavior, you change your customs. I think you are reviewing some advices, so every week. But so, yeah, do you have any thresholds? Or, yeah, I already finished this one. I changed my behavior. Yeah, that's also a good question. So it's definitely the weekly reviews. So I believe in checkboxes. So every weekly review has a certain amount of checkboxes that I can go through.

So then it's nice. Exactly for the reason I just mentioned that behavioral change is so hard. So, you know, oftentimes I'll feel at it, let's say six weeks in a row, and then it will start getting better. Because, I mean, you look at that checkbox and you can check that checkbox and you're like, I want to check it next week, you know, and then you keep trying and keep trying. And eventually, okay, yes, I finally got it.

And then you try to get to a streak. And then, yeah, if you check it for two months straight, then you can kind of archive it. And that's how I try to go through them. But you do notice, like, I try to rate things based on areas of life. So like physical or being able to regenerate or, I mean, physical health. Or it could be amount of reading, etc. And these can go off track or they're on track and doing really well.

And this kind of, like, goes all over the place because it depends on the phase of life. But it's a nice way to kind of do these check-ins and then also see if the behaviors actually stick. And then there's a decision log. So just whenever you make an important decision, I just record it with a date. And then a month later, I can check, like, you know, are the second order consequences of that decision preferable or not?

And then I'm living in the second order consequences a month later so that I can really evaluate whether it was a good or bad decision. I think that's a great method to also do behavioral changes. Do you have other methods do you use daily basis? I'm curious about your, you know, like you shared a lot of insight, you know, insightful methods and a way to retain knowledge and review yourself on a daily basis.

But, you know, is that something else, you know, do you have the method you use? Let's say you think it's, you know, really common for normal for you, but, you know, other people say, oh, this is really unique to you or something like that. If you have. It's a good one. I'm not sure. I do believe in the, I do it for cold showers, but you can do it in any way you like. There's a lot of people that go for runs, for example.

But I do think it's nice to start the day with something somewhat challenging. Some people do the hardest thing. Like what is it? What's it called? Eat the frog or something like the hardest thing first. That's a, I think it's a really great way somehow to feel quite motivated and begin of the day. So no matter how tired you are, you know, get under the cold shower. And eventually you don't even think about it anymore.

You're like, I just do it. I mean, you do think about it when it's winter here and that's because it gets quite cold. But yeah, I think that's the only one I can think of right now that has given a lot over the years. Because it kind of forces you out of your own head because you stick to the routine. I see. Yes. I'm kind of opposite. Like I start with small tasks. So that, yeah. So yeah, it motivates me. It's funny because I recognize that I have the same when it comes to work.

Then I'll do the heaviest thing last in the day. And that's also why, and being a night owl kind of helps because then you kind of extend way into the late hours, finishing that big task that you postponed during the day. Or at least that's what happens to me a lot. I think there's something to say for that, for sure. But when it comes to, yeah, just like physical stimulus, I guess, it's nice to do in the morning.

What about you, Kei? I do take a shower in the morning every day. Cool. And I walk to the office every morning. Is it cold shower? Hot water or cold water? Hot water, that's fine. I don't want to. Cool. That's a funny answer, yeah. Yeah. How about like an exercise? Do you have an exercise habit? Do you go jogging, swimming, playing sports? No, I really was never into fitness or anything like this. I also tried running and somehow it didn't really stick.

But I realized that I think gymnastics is really cool. I have the rings even in my own house in the background. So I think it's really fun because it gets quite technical. Calisthenics and gymnastics is all about body positioning, leverage, the way the muscles develop. And also the connection, I guess, between your brain and muscles is something that we focus on a lot. So I know it's nice. It's a nice thing to nerd out on, but still not being behind a desk.

And that's something that stuck over the years. I think it's nice, again with physical stimulus, to have something in your house that prompts you to do it. Oftentimes when you walk past it, do the thing. I think it's a nice and healthy habit, especially if you work a lot and you are coding the whole day, sitting behind a desk. It's sometimes hard to actually move. So then having this right next to your computer is quite handy because you're thinking about something.

You can take a break, figure out what the problem was, then get back to it. And then you realize, oh yeah, actually that's the solution. Thank you for that. Since time is running out, I'd like to ask you for advice. Since our audience are lifelong learners and aspiring founders, they love acquiring knowledge and applying it to their daily life or daily work. Do you have any advice to those people? Yeah. I don't believe in general advice because it supposes or implies that there are general solutions.

But I do think something that I think stuck is twofold. One is to really prioritize reading very difficult stuff. I think it's easy to get lost in the ocean of content, and there's a lot of it. But I think if you don't read any articles and instead of reading 50 books a year, you read three really difficult ones, I think it's actually more valuable oftentimes. And it's quite a great experience to struggle through something quite hard.

So I think that's nice. It's something I try to do more often. Not always succeeds, but it always somehow gives back more. So that's, I think, what I would recommend to anyone, especially if you want to build something. I think it's the second one also that kind of translates nicely into that one, which is to really ask yourself a lot, what do you want? And to really also allow yourself to answer the question of what would the world be much cooler with?

And in what situation would I think the world would be a lot cooler? And is it something I could build? And if you have an idea, then just for the heck of it, just get started. And maybe read the difficult book to get you to build it. And then you usually end up in better places. It's a very small chance you're not going to end up in a better place, I feel at least, if you take the risk of just trying to build something you think the world would be cooler with.

And not because everyone else does it or anything like this. And it's hard because there's always some part of that because we're not completely autonomous decision makers, of course. But I feel like that's something that is always given back a lot to try and do. Thank you. Really great advice. And thank you. And this is the last question. And since Grassroots is a platform where people share what they're reading, learning as a digital legacy, we want to ask you what legacy or impact do you want to leave behind for future generations?

So something that I would love to be able to do is to just tangibly help 100 people. And if I can do something bigger, it would probably be to change the way that people learn from the internet. That would be a pretty cool legacy, if possible. We'll see. Beautiful. Yes. Thank you. And what about you? Oh, so, you know, since the idea of Grassroots came from my near-death experience. So when I was 20, I had a subdural hematoma.

So the left side of my body was paralyzed. And at the time, I was almost dead. So I was so scared. But at the time, I thought, you know, I really want to leave something for other people so that I could feel a sense of contribution. And since then, I've been thinking about how I can leave something while I'm learning, studying something. So that might help others. So that could be my good legacy so that I can feel a sense of contribution.

I realize a sense of contribution matters to me a lot. So, yeah, that's why, you know, that's how we got the idea of Grassroots. But, yeah, that's my answer. Wow. Amazing. That's inspiring. And Kei loves, you know, logging information and sharing. And we love reading, learning, and sharing. That's how we teamed up. Awesome. So, yeah, by learning, by keep learning, we are leaving our digital legacy for future generations.

So, yeah, you can see our digital legacy from Grassroots. That's a cool motivation to learn as well. To learn to give. Yeah, learn for others. Yeah. Of course, for ourselves. Yeah. Yes. So, yeah, thank you so much for taking time and also sharing great advice and insights. And we really enjoyed and learned a lot from you. Thank you. Yeah, really appreciate it. I also love the questions. So, thanks a lot. Thank you.

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