Riding Out: John Crain - SuperRare

Transcript

John, welcome to the Human Protocol podcast. Thank you for being here. >> Thanks, Simona. It's a it's a pleasure. >> And it's great to finally see each other, albeit remotely, after a little bit of time. When were you in Portugal? When did I see you? >> I think it was at least 2 years ago. It's been a while. >> Maybe three or four, something like that. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. It's been a minute. >> Yeah. Yep. Okay, so just for context for you to know and obviously anybody tuning in for the very first time, the reason why this podcast exists is number one, so I can chat to friends and also people I care

about. And then number two is to get the human story behind all of the big things that got built in this space that we tend to hear about and know about and tweet about. But I'm interested in the human arc behind it. How building and how the journey has impacted or has benefited or has made you grow as a person, you know, in all of these many years. So I want to take us back to PC. So pre-crypto you obviously you started you studied architecture and civil engineering then

did a stint in advertising >> and then came the crypto moment. What was that like? can tell me a little bit about that journey and where was that point where you thought this isn't really the path that I want to be on or continue on. >> Yeah, it was I mean it was very you kind of like non-traditional or nonlinear to you know to say the least. Yeah, I was kind of always interested in math and science and you know like design. Um so that kind of led to the you know architecture and civil engineering like I really like the math portion but also kind of just the aesthetic part of architecture and stuff. So that you know

seemed like a logical conclusion and then you know kind of quickly realized that that was not really you know the industry for me. There was you know lots of regulatory hoops and you kind of like it's it's a long path. Being an architect is very hard this is very there's lots of school. So I, you know, after school was kind of wondering what to do and there was, it was also kind of close. So I graduated 2010, so it's, you know, reasonably close to the crash in 2008. So there also weren't lots of like civil engineering or architecture jobs just cuz no one was building anything.

>> Mhm. >> There were plenty of coding jobs and I was like, well, it can't be that hard. like I had done some amount of like you know mat lab and like simulation programming and stuff like that and so I moved to New York and just kind of was like well I've got a few months of cash and I'm sure I'll figure it out and you know landed a job in advertising they called it like interaction design or like creative um creative technology and that was super cool. I learned a lot but again it was still like you know I could kind of tell you early on I wasn't going to be a lifetime ad guy.

>> Okay. So, I was going to I mean, one of the great things about New York is uh there's tons of, you know, things going on. At the time, meetup was like it's probably like the heyday of meetups. There's just tons of meetups happening all over the city. And one of those meetups was the New York Bitcoin meetup. And I was like, "Oh, this is super fascinating." Also, having gone through the 2008 crash, like that had kind of led me down sort of like a Austrian economics bent. So I was reading a lot of those authors and that was resonating with me and so I got pretty excited about Bitcoin and so for a while was kind of trying to find you know someone to pay me to to to work on it which yeah took quite a bit of time actually in

between I took a job for about a year at a eyewear startup. So I went from advertising jumped to the startup world that was also not you know didn't work out and then towards the end of that is when consensus had a hackathon and I went with uh Charles you know my brother and co-founder and so we did a project there and then I met Joe and he was like why don't you come back next week and we'll um see if we can find something for you to do and I was like oh this is great like I think there's like the right kind of crazy people there like these are like people with the crazy audacious ideas, ambitious but also, you know, cool people to hang out with. And so I was like, "Oh, this is clearly

where you like the space I should be." And yeah, so you kind of never looked back. >> What do you remember that feeling of finally that basically you didn't have in the other rooms that you were in? What was that feeling like? Cuz I think we I've definitely felt that feeling. What was it like for you to kind of be surrounded by these crazy people but with super interesting ideas and so on? Were you like, "Yeah, these are my people." >> Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. It's uh you know there like there are people who are like ambitious and you're kind of like questioning like the what exists today.

Like I feel like that was like always very like [snorts] part of what drew me to Bitcoin is like well asking the questions like well why does money work like this? And you just cuz it is how it like that's how it is today doesn't mean that's how it should be. There are plenty of things that we used to do in the past that we were like oh wait this is a horrible idea. And so I think it was just the combination of like you know very smart people who are super technical building cool things and then also asking a lot of these you know sort of open-ended questions about you know just because this is how it's done today doesn't mean that's how we should do it in the future. and like let's you know like let's poke holes in the in these ideas ask some questions and yeah I was

immediately I was like these are my people this is what I should be doing. >> Nice. So then you went into Bogart >> with >> with Charles. You both went in and were like what was the idea that you pitched? Did you even pitch an idea at the time or were you like let's figure it out? >> Yeah. So we Charles did the hackathon with me and then he I think he might have still been in school. I think he had one more year of school maybe um or or maybe he had just graduated and he had an internship but so he didn't Yeah, he didn't start working at consensus and then I quickly like I met Kieran and the block apps crew and so started working on their software stack and um

>> was basically working with them for about 2 years. >> Okay. Yeah. >> And then came Pixura. >> Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. You know, I had been follow obviously like you know, we we were all around for the ICO boom which was super crazy and I was really fascinated by just the you like the code for the ERC20 contract super simple you know it's like >> I don't know how many lines of code it is but it can't be more than like 80 or something. >> Yeah. It's not many. And I was like oh this is amazing. It's like a very simple standard, but it allows, you know, like exchanges and wallets to like both interact with this distributed ledger in like a super cool way. You could think about like XMTP or like like for just

like some of these open protocols and it's like, okay, this is it facilitates like a market at a scale that's like much bigger than what you like people had imagined before you had the standard even though the standard is, you know, kind of like open and simple. And so I saw some of the conversation around like the early ERC uh 721 conversation. I was like, "Oh, this is very interesting." Um yeah, I was less, you know, like my background wasn't in finance, you know, that was just like obviously, you know, I was interested intellectually by finance, but like wasn't my passion. I was like, "Oh, this could be really interesting for like kind of like the consumer web." Like I was very curious about like when is crypto going to flip and we're going to see more consumer apps built and you know kind of felt like some of those

early consensus days with the year like the ERC 721 I was like this could apply to you know all of you know social content on the internet if you think about like what a Instagram post is. It's an image with like a title and some other metadata. So I was like oh this could be really interesting like what if people could trade social content? what like you know there's just like you kind of start having those like weird esoteric conversations which was very fun and so we just at first we kind of just started building simple software at the time there was no minting tools like there was obviously no marketplaces and so we were just building out kind of the base infrastructure and then we're you know I was going to meetups again just like talking to folks and

you was in New York talking to some of the art folks and I was like oh this is really interesting in college I was doing some amount of like you know or I guess just after college but I was doing like um using processing for like creative coding and kind of like you know I had been doing Arduino work at of ad agency >> and I was like oh this is really interesting like what if this is the tool to like actually facilitate the growth of a digital art market there had been you know there's been many attempts and it never really took off and it just felt like it was like so obvious that like it was to me it was like oh my god this is so simple and so Why is no one doing this? It's either a horrible idea or it's like it's actually going to

work. And um yeah, in the end it turned out to work a little bit. >> Just a little bit. >> Just a little bit. >> So obviously Pixuro was first because remember we did what was it? We did the bounty with faces of Ethereum with Pixura at ETH Denver. We launched it. >> And then there's that really nice NFT of the Pixura later super rare team in Prague. >> Yeah.

>> Did I send that to you or did I send that to Zach? I can't remember. But it was a really beautiful >> It might be in Zach's wallet. We'll have to ask him. >> Yeah, ask him because that was really, really cool. And that was obviously the first kind of collaboration where we were looking at, okay, how easy is this for anybody to do when we had several submissions to that bounty of just like anybody and everybody submitting self-portraits, portraits of other people in the ecosystem and so on. So that was super cool. And then from that moment, so this is what DevCon in Prague and then >> yeah, >> ETH Denver that year. What was the path from Pixora to Super Rare?

>> Yeah. Well, so we were actually running both in parallel. So we kind of had like Yeah, we're running both in parallel. So we like >> built the base infrastructure and then we launched Super's like oh here's an example of what you could do with the technology, >> right? >> I was not like digital art is going to be huge. This is going to be the thing, >> right? >> And I was like we need to build a platform there. Like this is a new technology. We need to make it easy for everyone to use. So we were kind of running both and then you know this is pre pre AI and vibe coding so as a team of like four people like it's actually extremely hard to maintain two different products and so we kind of had to choose and then there was just like very

clearly more of an like like more organic growth and like a real community building around super rare and so we made the call to like okay we're going to double down on Super Rare like you know we changed the name of the company from Pixar to Super Labs. But uh yeah, that was a >> So that was like >> it was a tough call. Yeah, >> you pick the winning horse though, like >> Yeah, yeah, I think we made a good choice. >> And so then obviously Super Rare were betting on that and then it's a family business. So it's basically you, Charles, your brother, Jonathan, your cousin, >> right? Like >> what did that fel feel like? Was that

easier to bootstrap and get going because you were already, you know, you have the family dynamics? And also, I'm interested when things get a little bit tough and we'll touch on that later. Does that affect the family dynamics or is it quite still a very kind of nice flow where the connection kind of persists and makes things easier? Yeah. No, it's a very good question. I think I think it can either go it's like can go one of two ways. It can either be like horrible or like kind of more like a superpower.

>> And yeah, I think it was beneficial for us, you know, with Charles, >> you know, like we were always close growing up. And so like, you know, we've had experience getting in fights for, you know, approximately at the time like, you know, 26 years or whatever. So, you know, we're kind of used to like, you know, volatile personalities. you can get mad at each other and then you like one's taking it too personally. So I think that was kind of like >> you know in in any sort of like business you it's like there's highs and lows people didn't get enough sleep whatever >> just not taking it personally if someone's you know you being an [ __ ] or what you're just like okay dude just go take a nap like I I don't want to deal with this right now and like if

you're you know folks you're not as close with it's harder to do that like it's not necessarily an easy >> tell them to take a nap. Yeah. >> Yeah. People tend to not like that. So, I think it Yeah, it was actually pretty helpful and we had >> both with Jonathan and Charles like we were always kind of tinkering with things growing up. >> Okay. >> So, we had built a number of different like Jonathan and I in college tried to build a few kind of like websites and services that had failed. um like immediately before launching Super Air, we were actually we had like a it was called blockchain jobs. So we had like a short-lived

um kind of like crypto job place like advertising uh site that like again it was kind of like it was working. Some people were posting on it but I was like I don't really want to get into the recruiting business. This is not a good fit for me personally. So we had experience with like we like wound wound that down and like you know so we'd kind of like gone through the motions before. >> Okay. So with cuz you mentioned kind of the the dynamics and that it really it really helped from getting that initial kind of traction on super rare. you then very I mean you've shared this before that then about 120 VCs said no.

>> Yeah. >> I am curious cuz 120 is a big number. How do you take that repeated rejection? Number one, do you take it personally? Number two, how do you kind of brush it off and keep going? And number three, were there ever moments for you personally and for you as a team and as a family going, are they right? Like, are we super off the mark here?

>> Yeah. Yeah. It's very hard not to take it personally. So, actually, I had some sales experience. So, actually, my first job out of I guess it was more like an internship. It was kind of like it was like, if this works, you'll get hired. And it ended up not working. So I had interned at like a software, it was like a civil engineering specific company called Act. >> Okay. >> So I was like trying to sell software again in like the downturn after 2008. So you know, no one was forking over five figures for um like no one was building anything. So like we don't need any new software licenses today. And so I had some experience there. Obviously, you know, it still sucks like you think you give a good pitch, you're like you're like my idea is great. what could what could be you should just give me

the money right now. It's gonna be awesome. And yeah, there you know there was a lot of like oh my god or are we doing the right thing? And I think there are actually like a few moments. I'd say there are probably like three different moments throughout the course of like the entire time. >> Okay. >> Where we would be like, okay, nothing is working. Like the numbers are like, you know, flat to down. Like is this really something we should do? And then there would be some sort of signal from, you know, like it was like the numbers are going up or there's like a few more big collectors and we like, okay, maybe we're not crazy. I remember the summer of 2019 like heavily debated just being like

should we just scrap this and do DeFi like this seems to be like working way better than everything else and we were kind of like and then after some soularching and then like there was some more activity we were like okay now we should just keep going but uh yeah it's very I'd say you have to be very stubborn luckily I'm a fairly stubborn person so I was just like no this I think this will work Okay. >> And I can't wait to prove you guys wrong. >> Okay. So, there's a little bit like, no, we're going to do it and then the signals, but also you all are going to see like >> Yeah, there there's some Yeah, there's some person out like, you know, like if that's your type of person. I think that's pretty helpful. Like, you have to be slightly delusional, I think, to

start anything cuz like statistically it's going to fail. It's like look, the numbers say you'll probably fail. So you have to be a little bit crazy like you know I'd say a lot you know a lot of the most interesting people are that's what makes them interesting. >> Very true. Very true. So we're obviously very glad that you persisted and that you are also a little bit crazy. Did everybody kind of feel the same way? Were you all on the same line or was there any kind of pushing and pulling of like yeah maybe we should pivot maybe we should do this or were you all kind of aligned of like no okay this is let's just commit. were committing to this road.

>> Yeah. I mean, it was we would all heavily debate and so there was lots of argument. There'd be a lot of debate, but then it would be like, >> okay, if we're going to decide there can't be like no grumbling or like, well, I want to just like we're either going to actually all choose to do this or like we need to keep discussing it, but like it's not going to work if you're like, >> you know, your brain's somewhere else wishing you were doing something different. you need to you actually get on board. So I think we we were able to do that but yeah there was certainly lots of uh debate and discussion.

>> Okay. Do you so when obviously we get to the point where things start taking off. Tell me about that moment because you just mentioned 2019. When does the hockey stick situation start happening? Yeah, we I remember very distinctly. So, it was October 2020. >> Yeah. >> You know, like CO's also like in full swing, so everything's pretty weird. But that was our first million dollar volume month. And I think that was the first moment of like, oh my gosh, like it might actually be working. Like this is I feel like still like you're like, I

think it's going to work, but you're like also maybe it's not. And then at that moment it was like, oh wow, maybe like this is, you know, that was the first kind of like real big month where we were like, yeah, there's like the psychological psychologically like the $1 million mark is a big number. >> Hell yeah. And like you say, I mean, the community was forming already. I mean, I remember you guys when was it again Prague with the iPads and you did the exhibition and the like >> it was forming and it was growing. But like you say, from that of people being really passionate but still kind of smallish numbers to then going to 1 million and that's in the space of what less than a year.

>> Yeah, I think it was just under a year. Yeah, it was about a year I think cuz I think Prague was November 2018. So then it would have been about Yeah, just under a year later. Yeah, they started to move. It was like and then from that moment on it was it was very wild to be a part like we would have all hands and I'd be like well the revenue doubled and it wasn't from anything we did differently you know like we should all expect a big pullback at some point and then it' be like the next month it' be like well it happened again and I would just like to reiterate that it's this is not you know we didn't figure out like a new ad strategy that's going great like this is just more people are showing up And so we should all be prepared for,

you know, a change of weather at some point. But >> do you feel that kind of keeping grounded was really important to not just go, "Oh my god, we're so successful. This is like we always knew it. Let's pop the champagne. All of the VCs were wrong. This is like going to go on forever." >> I think so. And I think partially too, you know, we had spent so long doing it truly on our own. Like, you know, by the time we had raised money, the company was, I mean, we were paying ourselves basically nothing, but like the company was, you know, lightly profitable before we ever took any outside cash.

>> And so, yeah, I mean, it was like you we still very vividly remembered just like, okay, it's another month and we got one less collector than the month before. like, hm, this is inspiring. >> Yeah. >> And like you say, it definitely keeps your feet firmly on the ground to be like, look, we know what that feels like, so let's not get carried away here. >> Yep. 100%. One of the things that I remember at the time because obviously then you just superhero just became the thing but one of the things and when was it that I was also on the superhero council that was

pretty much for those couple of years the 2020 2022 something like that. Yeah, I think it was 2021. Late 2021. So maybe was 2021 through 20 that might have been through 23 maybe I think is when the council like we did like the you kind of like a turnover. >> Yes. Yes. And during that time like obviously it's getting a lot of attention and a lot of traction but there's also the little criticisms around it being a gatekeeper, right? So >> yeah, >> managing that balance of >> quality and access which obviously tend to like there is definitely a ven diagram but how did you deal with those

criticisms and also did you feel they were warranted or did you just go look this is what ensures that this doesn't turn into a you know for lack of a better word some of the marketplaces that emerged were just like everything and anything and whatever. And I'm also curious >> I'm also curious how you handled that criticism and did you ever have any conflicts not internally but external with people who were going after you for this?

>> Yeah. No, it was always very ch I mean it was it was certainly challenging and yeah, it was interesting. On the one hand, you're like part of the beauty of crypto and why Bitcoin's attractive. You're like look, it's open. It's permissionless. Like this is like the natural ethos. >> When we first launched, we actually did not anticipate having it be kind of, you know, curated or like, you know, gatekept. That was not where we thought the market kind of started to form >> and you could see you could see you know there's other like if you look at other platforms like you know kind of like any type even outside of NFTTS

>> yes >> they're structured differently if it is more of an open ecosystem versus you know something where there's you know some sort of vetting involved you like even like you can think about like >> first dibs for example like it's not Etsy. You can't just go sell stuff there. You have you have to be a verified vendor. >> And there's pros and cons to that obviously. >> And so you there was certainly internal and external conflict. You know, you people say plenty of mean things about Superhero and me on X, which at first was challenging cuz you know, my background is more, you know, individual contributor. I like to put my headphones on and, you know, be in a dark room and code.

>> Yes. And so, you know, I was always more of an internet lurker than like a content creator. Like that was never, you know, what I was doing much of. So, that is challen it's you kind of just have to get used to it and you're like just kind of ignore the haters and like, you know, just you stop listening to to what they say. So, yeah. I mean, that there that was challenging. There was like, you know, there's like community. It was interesting like also just like managing a community is extremely hard. I'm I mean you're you know very familiar with all that like there's big personalities people get in fights there you know often it's like there's some truth to both sides here but you can't just like that's not that's not a resolution so what do you do about that and yeah there

there's many learnings along >> there's definitely the mediation side of community building is intense >> it's very intense yeah >> it's very intense and also to your point. You try to see both sides and you try to kind of like manage the conflict, but it is very time consuming. It's incredibly hard not to get personal in >> the heated. It's like so it's emotionally draining. You like wake up and you have like a 100 text messages and like six tags and you're like, "Oh my gosh, I just wanted to have a coffee and like now I'm like I'm deep in a hole already. Like, can we pause, please?"

That's not how it works. How did you deal with that that stress of to your point waking up especially as the community was taking off and more and more and more people were coming in. How did you handle that? Did you how did you handle it? >> Yeah. >> You know had a had a lot of coffee and I don't know. I just like I guess actually like I feel like surfing potentially is a good analogy where it's like there's a lot of it could be very stressful and it's like there's like you deal with a lot of you know kind of just like nons it's like there's the fun part of surfing is very short. So you get these

like short very intense highs and it's very long lows where it's not fun. It's very challenging. You're like why am I doing this? So, I think there actually is some amount of like mentally you've kind of trained a little bit where like you're like you're used to like this is pretty horrible, but I know where I would like to go and I think it's still worth it to get there. So, I'll just kind of like suck it up and deal with it. You know, like every day isn't a good day. Otherwise, you wouldn't have good days. You would just have all, >> you know, like there's the yin and yang concept. Exactly.

>> And again, to your point with surfing, who wants a flat situation? >> Yeah. Yeah. So, uh, I yeah, there wasn't any I didn't have any like special secret sauce. It was just like, okay, this is horrible, but you know, it's it's Tuesday, so I guess that's what I'm doing today. >> Clear my schedule. I'm managing. >> Yeah. >> With and again, with the success and with the NFT boom, so much money flowed through the platform.

Number one, I want to know what that responsibility felt like to kind of have all of this money going through a platform that you built and make sure that everything is okay. Obviously, maybe more on Charles's side. And then also after we touch on that the amount I think it's what 280 million like almost 300 million getting paid out to gone super rare right do you have stories of people's lives that got impacted do you want to share any that have stuck with you because for a lot of people that was lifechanging I mean we had Brandon who was on the Bounties

Network platform who get got very early access to super I think you guys had just started out because he was on bounties in 2018. So I would imagine yeah it was before the the curation but even those sales that he made initially changed his life. These are monumental kind of moments in people's lives. Like do you have any stories that you would like to share? And also how did that feel? Did you feel like [ __ ] I built that thing that enabled this? >> It was I mean yeah I mean there there's there's a number. I would say maybe one of the most humbling was talking to I think it was Carlos Marcial at ETH

Denver. I don't know if it was the first year, but it might have been the second year and just like hearing how it had been for him and his like, you know, just like like finding a community that appreciated the art and then like like making money with art is [ __ ] hard. It's like >> it's very challenging. Like the art market is super competitive. You know, people do it at a loss, right? It's like it's an ultra ultra competitive space. And yeah, it was, you know, it's very humbling to hear somebody be like, "Oh my god, this is awesome." I'm like, I was able to make this much money and it, you know, like I was able to like go buy this house or do like it uh it's very humbling. You're like, "Wow, I just thought I was going to build like a cool

website." Like that was this is uh you know, it's it's you know, it makes your eyes tear up. You're like, "Oh my gosh, this is so cool." Like I feel lucky to have done it. Like I didn't know I was going to do that. I was I wasn't like I'm I'm a genius. I'm going to set out and everything's perfect. Like I think you know no one's startup people like to present like that but that's actually not true. like everyone's testing things and nobody really knows what's going on, I would say. So, yeah, that was very humbling. And then I think when it really started to explode, it was certainly super stressful. You know, there were a few times where you'd get like, you know, luckily we never really got like there was never any like awful kind of like black hat hack that happened, but we did have a

few scenarios where like some white hat folks would reach out and be like, "Hey, I found this bug and like fixing those knowing it's live." And you're like, "Okay, we need to fix this as fast as possible. this guy found it. You know, you're there's a shock clock on when somebody else is going to find it. Yeah. Those are just like you get those you'll like get this, you know, the the notification, you read the message and you're just like stomach drops. You're like, my god, like we it's just like well make a fresh pot of coffee cuz we're not going to sleep tonight. And yeah, that was just uh yeah, I mean it's super stressful. It's it's certainly not fun. It's like it's like both. If you're like, I should

really enjoy that things are going well. And you're like, there's so many things to stress out about right now. It's [snorts] hard to it's hard to enjoy the good times. >> It's like, well, in the episode with Patricio, he was saying the same thing about POAP, right? Like he wasn't fully able to enjoy the moment because there were such highs and such lows that being present in like the really good stuff was also kind of hard. I would say like 2021 and 2022 were some of the least fun years ever. Like it's like it's cool, everything's going great, but it's not actually fun cuz you're just like, "Oh my god, there's so many things going on.

Like we have a bunch of employees. There's a ton of people in the community. Like you're very tapped out. >> Did you were you ever kind of close to feeling a little bit burnt out at the time? Because like you say, those are technically on paper >> the years of like success. Were you ever just like >> Yeah, I'd certainly you have moments of like burnout and stress where you're just like >> but again you kind of just like you know it's like you have you like you take a mental vacation. You're like imagine if I just quit and everything went away.

Wouldn't that be nice? And then you're like, "Well, that's not reality, so maybe I'll just get back to work." And uh, you know, you're just, you know, it's like the old saying of like, how do you eat an elephant? It's one bite at a time. You're just I feel like that's the thing I got the best at is like you just have a some everything is just like what does Elon say? Like the [ __ ] funnels up where it's just like you just get all the problems no one else can solve or doesn't want to solve and you're just you're like, "Okay, well yeah, that sounds terrible. I guess how would we start to fix that problem?" and you're like, "Solve that one." You're like, "This is also quite terrible, I see. So, how are we going to start fixing it?" And then you're just like,

cuz it's the only way to do it, right? Like, there's not really another choice or if someone knows how else to do it, they should tell me because it's not very fun sometimes. Did you find in those moments that like the surfing helped to kind of balance you back out or get you back in the room after you had these fantasies of quitting and so on? Like was that your equivalent of touch grass in those moments? >> Yeah, definitely. Yeah, absolutely. I mean like exercise like if you're doing anything stressful having kind of like regular exercise is just generally you good for humans.

>> Yeah. having you like you know pretty much been surfing forever. So it's like you know it's just like a nice it is a little bit of a mental vacation. You're out in nature doing something kind of like physically strenuous but also fun. Yeah I would say yeah it probably it probably did help with my you know sort of mental stability. And now that we have discussed the very very good times even though they were very stressful for you then we obviously had the boom everything is going a million miles an hour everybody's you know lifech changing money flowing through the platform you guys like all hands on deck for those two years when the drop

happened. You were very very honest in at the beginning of 2023 where obviously this like boom enabled you to hire a lot of people and you know build build build to grow. You were very honest and shared the slack message that you sent when you had to lay off 30 of people that you had worked with and said I take full ownership of this mistake. What made you want to share that very publicly? And also, I'm not going to ask you what that felt like because I'm sure it felt horrible, but what

>> it does, >> what did it change you in any way like that moment of having to do all of that? Because like you say, you were, you know, you're were a lurker, then suddenly you get propelled into Twitter conversations and people knowing who you are and being a public figure and then managing all of this this big team at this point. What did that feel like internally for you and what changed for you? >> Yeah, it Yeah. You know, it's I feel like you know the best learning experience are always the most. It's like you learn the most in the difficult times. Mhm.

>> So yeah, I think I had known it was like you can you know like you can you have an intuitive sense. It was just like okay the market hasn't been doing well. The team is really big and you know it's not a unique situation for startups to be in where it's like you know people are like often hiring a team for their first time. So they're not good. You like people are bad at hiring potentially like they're hiring the wrong person or maybe too many folks and like the organization itself is kind of growing and evolving. You have one process that works at one size and then when you have a team that's bigger, you actually need a new process. So you're trying to like balance like you can't just spend all

day making new processes. So you're like, "Okay, we want to do this and then do a little bit of this." Yeah, it was very mentally I mean it was super stressful like you know you become friends with a lot of the people you work with so you're like there's like personal relationships which you know you're like h I wish you could not take this personally but like of course everyone is and that you know like you can you can try your best to make it you know a smooth transition for people but obviously nobody is excited about getting let go anytime so it's that's certainly hard and And then like you're also like in your head you're like why' you overhire? Like why do you suck at your job so much? You should have known this was going to happen. I don't know

if I assume other people have these voices in their mind. They're like you know >> you don't. >> No I do. That's you're like yeah it's like you shouldn't have let this happen. So it's kind of how I felt. It's like how did I let this happen? This is like obviously I should have seen this coming. You cannot see everything coming. But uh yeah so that's it was tough but like and then you ask like how's it changed you? I think you just get like I don't know you're you're like look you can't you can't do everything right. It's not super helpful to like beat yourself up over everything. It's just like again you're like okay this is terrible like how do we solve this problem? We'll just do the first step and we'll do the second step and then you just have to move forward. But yeah

certainly a learning experience and you know letting go of a big part of the company is certainly a not a fun activity. >> No. Is there anything that you wish you knew when you started that you basically know now by going through all of these experiences and these highs and these lows and these super difficult moments? Is there any kind of I don't know thing that you not necessarily wish you knew but that you definitely know now versus when you first started.

Yeah. I think like one of the things I had to learn is like you know in general like I like people and like you just have to say no a lot and like you just have to stop feeling bad when you say no. It's like you know now I have kids so like I have to tell them no all the time and they're crying and like you're like I do kind of want to you know give you that thing so you stop crying but like also you need to eat your eggs so you can't have granola yet. So that's just how the rule that's this is the rules. And it's hard like I mean I don't know everyone's different but it was like I had to kind of get good like get better maybe not get good is not the right word but like just get better at saying no or

like there's you know everyone's not going to like you. It's like no one likes to be told no. Like it's like you kind of have to get used to being like that's okay. Like I can be the guy, I'll be the bad guy. Everyone can be mad at me. like that's just sort of part of the job and you have to you do have to do that and that's not like that's something like I you would have been very helpful to have known you know 9 years ago but uh I do know now so that's that's good >> that's the main thing right like all of these things just teach us to be better versions of ourselves or rather like do things easier or like put some boundaries in place etc. Speaking of

that, and continuing on from from this last piece, is there any non-negotiable piece of John's human protocol that you now have that you didn't have before? It can be about working or having arguments at 3:00 a.m. based on something or any kind of boundaries or rules that you now have that are a consequence of this 9-year 10ear journey. >> Yeah. I think I mean I think probably like the main thing is just like you kind of get better like the decision making is really like one of the key parts of you know it's it's very important for many

things but I think just you know kind of thinking through getting good at being like I don't know it's almost like like to one extent you you like you know intuition is like good to listen to >> but also it's like okay this it would feel good to say yes and this seems like a good idea on the outset, but like maybe like let's reverse it. Let's stop talking about why it's a good idea. Like why is this? And I think um uh Charlie Munger, you know, he kind of famously is like he'll work backwards from like why what are all the reasons I shouldn't do this or how is this going to go wrong?

And like first figure out cuz it's so easy to be like it's going to be amazing. It's this will happen. It'll be super fun and it's we'll make money and everyone will love us. you're like, "Let's think about why it could go wrong and kind of like really dive into that because yeah, you it's like people it everyone gets distracted by shiny objects and there's lots of, you know, cool [clears throat] >> new things in the timeline." And so I think that's probably one of the core things where it's like okay it's great to look at what's going to be good about this, but like let's also give just as much attention to like really how could it go wrong and what would it mean if it goes wrong and like where are we going to be then if it does go wrong which is

like something I had not really done before and like now it's just like it's much more natural as part of the decision. You're like, "Do we want to build this new thing? Like, it's going to do this and this and this." And you're like, "Okay, but like what is it going to do potentially that would be bad?" And you're like, "Oh, well, actually, maybe it'll do that and maybe it'll do that." And you're like, "Oh, if it does that, that'd be really bad." Does that outweigh >> the potential good like Yeah. So, I'd say that's probably the biggest thing. That's a really good method to apply to like again releasing a new feature or like starting something or like doing something even just in person. Should I do that? Is that a good idea or what could possibly go wrong?

>> Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. I mean you Charlie Mer. I didn't make it up but it's like kind of like he has a good book. Um everyone should read it. So, but he talks about that and it was kind of like we sort of like ended up there and then like reading his book I was like oh this is a very good lens for you know many facets of life. >> Okay, we'll add it to the show notes and make sure people read it. >> Perfect. >> Okay, two last questions. One is is there anything that you have never said publicly and would like to share? It can be anything. It can be about life. It can be about you. It can be about super rare whatever.

>> H I have This is a tough question. I haven't really thought about it. >> I told you to think about it. >> You did. I know. But I Yeah, I forgot. >> Were you surfing and you forgot? Yeah. >> Um Okay. If you think about it when we release the episode, you need to share it in whatever you share the episode or in comments or whatever. Share it. So think about it and you'll be like all right this is the thing that I want to say. >> Okay. >> And the other thing is what still inspires you >> in your like continuing >> to the super rare journey for you individually being here because again >> we've been through the motions of this

space for a very long time. What still inspires you? >> Yeah. Well, this this luckily this is the easier question. See, so I think what's still exciting you like we went through there was like the huge you kind of like speculative boom and um you know then subsequent crash and now like you know there's still a very active community and I think >> part of the original inspiration with you know like crypto and then also in kind of like art and just like you know being in more like you know it's like you could say like super and like arts arguably part of like you kind of like the creator economy of people like building and making things is I still think

you know at the base layer kind of like NFTTS and crypto as well like it facilitates value transfer in a way that we haven't had before and I think there's still huge potential for you know like artists or like you know indie game developers who are also you know arguably artists or like people who are making things there's I think it's going to unlock mass massive potential. So, it's like people are going to be able to make a living even with, you know, like like podcasting or like a lot of these new sort of jobs or things people do that weren't really possible before. I think, you know, crypto and NFTTS are still going to help to grow this economy much bigger so more

people can actually do what they love versus like, you know, go get a job at JP Morgan or, you know, whatever kind of like the safe path that we've been told to do is um what we should be doing. I think there's still huge potential to support millions of people around the world um you know and building a better life for themselves and kind of like actually being able to do what they feel you know sort of called to do or what they would like to do and I think that's super exciting. So even outside of just like NFTTS and art, [snorts] I think they're like we really haven't seen like a breakout kind of consumer, you know, kind of like creator platform on cryptos. Like if you look at all the consumer apps, you know, it's like pumpf fun and FOMO are super popular right

now, you know, I don't know, is like public trading sort of like a part of the creator economy? Maybe. It's, you know, it's super interesting. But I think there's many people again still outside of just finance where this technology can be very valuable and you know help them live a a better life. >> Is that what essentially fuels you energy-wise to continue doing what you're doing? >> Yeah. Yeah, definitely. I think that's like, you know, it's like seeing that potential and really you like wanting to, you know, kind of add value there.

>> Right. Well, we're getting close to closing. Is there anything else you would like to add? I think this has been a lovely conversation. >> Oh, maybe one thing I could share, the thing I've never said publicly out loud, but sometimes just like as somebody who operates, you know, Super is like, you know, it's all about original authentic art, but like, you know, sometimes I love just a really good kind of like, you know, knockoff print that just fits a space like in a room perfectly. Even if it's not the original, I think it's acceptable to go ahead and buy the knockoff print.

>> Okay. [clears throat] All right. Buy that knockoff print. >> Exactly. >> Treat yourself. >> Treat yourself. It's okay. >> It's okay. All right. John says it's okay. All right. >> Great. Well, thank you so much, John. This has been a pleasure and so nice to catch up and dive into what it's been like to build so far and looking forward to our next interview. I don't know in a few years time when we're all when crypto is everywhere and we're doing things off the beaten path that has been set up for us and in our lovely alternative universe.

>> Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, thanks for having me. It's a pleasure. Good to catch up. >> Great to catch up. Thank you. [music]