Kind: captions
Language: en
The following is a conversation with
Michael Pollson, better known online as
the primagen. He is a programmer who has
entertained and inspired millions of
people to have fun building stuff with
software. Whether you're a newbie or a
seasoned developer who has been battling
it out in the software engineering
trenches for decades. In short, the
primagen is a legendary programmer and a
great human being with an inspiring
roller coaster of a life story. This is
the Lex Freedman podcast. To support it,
please check out our sponsors in the
description. And now, dear friends,
here's the
primogen. What do you love most about
programming? Uh what brings you joy when
you program? I can tell you the first
time that I ever felt love in
programming or felt that joy or that
excitement which was in college. It was
the second class in data structures and
the teacher that was teaching Ray
Babcock, he was talking about linked
lists. Now you you have to learn Java at
Montana State University when I went and
so he's off there kind of explaining
this whole linked list thing and all
that. And then he shows code and in the
code it's like abstract class node or
whatever it was. I can't remember what
it was. And then it had a private member
and that private member was of type
node. And I've never seen that before.
It is a class that is called node with a
member that is of itself. And for the
first time ever, I was like, "Oh my
gosh, like there's no end. There's no
way to iterate. This is not like a set
of 10 items. This is a set of infinite
items." And so like my mind kind of like
exploded in that moment. Like there's
actually you like what you can express
is huge. I can see what memory looks
like. Like I can see this kind of
hopping through space. And I just
remember being just so blown away cuz up
until that point everything was just all
right, I have a list of 10 items. I have
a list of 20 items, right? It was very
rigid and small. And the things I built
were really small and trivial. And all
of a sudden, I felt like I could build
like anything in that one moment. And it
was so amazing. I just remember sitting
in class for what I don't even remember
how long those classes were or anything,
but I just remember being just
completely like profoundly impacted by
this notion. And so I just sat there and
I watched I had the exact same
experience in heavens forbid my uh
software engineering class when we
talked about the decorator pattern where
you can keep on constructing these
objects in this recursive way. Not that
I think that's actually a good idea to
do, but just watching that and realizing
like there's so many weird and unique
ways you can solve problems and like you
can just anything your mind can think
of, you can just create that. And I just
remember getting just so excited about
the possibility that anything is
possible. Yeah, let's uh wax
philosophical about a link list. It is
pretty profound. For people who don't
know, a node in a link list doesn't know
anything about the world it's in. It
only knows about the thing it's linked
to, its neighbor. Maybe that's symbolic.
It's a metaphor for all of us humans.
There's billions of us on this planet
and we only know about our local little
network. Yeah. And it's kind of
beautiful and you realize like in that
little simple data structure, you can
construct arbitrarily large systems and
they they're like roots that go through
memory. And then of course that's where
you get all the programming languages
that allow you to uh dump junk into
memory and have memory leaks and then
there therefore create infinite pain as
you try to figure out where that uh
unfreed memory is. Uh for me, yeah,
probably it's so so beautiful the way
you put that. Link lists are indeed
beautiful. Recursion also for me when I
finally wrap my brain around what it
means to write a recursive function.
What was the what was the thing? What
was the like the one that taught you?
Cuz I think we all probably you probably
did factorial where you like, you know,
just do like a quick factorial of it. It
just doesn't hit home. What was the
thing that kind of made it hit home? I
don't remember the first
I remember mine first. How do you not
remember your first? It was magic. I've
had so many that just You were a list
guy. You're probably pretty used to the
recursion. Yeah. All I remember is just
surrounded by C of
parentheses. I mean, that's that's
really probably when I uh in high
school, I think it was either Java or
C++. Wow. How do I not remember that? It
must have been C++. And then college, it
was the generic bullshit software
engineering classes were
uh Java, but then the the renegades, the
cool kids were all using lisp. That's
that's when you're doing the AI, the
quote unquote AI at that time. That's
that was lisp. If you want to write a
chess engine, you would use lisp. And so
for me, probably the moment I really
fell in love with
programming was was lisp and writing
like a programs and uh chess engines,
all kinds of engines that play a game
and then I could play against that thing
and that thing would beat me. The joy of
being destroyed by the thing you've
created and oh
um game of life too, cellular automa,
that's when I I built that, you know,
all kinds of programming languages.
that's less about programming language
and more about the system you create.
And that just filled me with infinite
joy. Uh having now similar to the link
list situation, creating a system where
each individual cell only knows about
its neighbors and operates in a very
simple rules. But when you take that
system as a whole and allow it to evolve
over time, it can create infinite
complexity. So I I just man those are
many pthead moments where I'm just like
looking at the beautiful complexity that
can be created with cellular automa.
That's that filled me with just infinite
joy for sure. But yeah the par all I
remember is parenthesis. So my first
memories of my first are
drowned in a sea of
parenthesis. Oh man. Mine is I have well
first off mine was in Java. Though my
first was a little bit more rigid, kind
of a corporate, you know, a corporate
experience, but cold, meaningless. Yeah.
I was in a lab. Everyone was using
CentOS at that or CentOS or however you
say. I always call that CentOS, the
Freshmaker. And so it's just like I'm in
this very cold. That's nice. Thank you.
I'm in like this cold, rigid environment
uh with my Microsoft keyboard
programming away in Java and I still I
have just such this memory of despair
because I love programming. This was
after the linked list and I cannot
figure out recursion. And so I go to you
know the university store and I buy a
book and it's Dell and Dell learn Java
and it has a section recursion. And so I
open it up and I start reading it and it
just doesn't hit home. And I'm like I'm
spiraling into this like kind of I maybe
I'm not a programmer. Maybe I'm not
worthy enough to enter into this circle
of people who can figure out what what
the heck recursion means. And so Dell
and Dell is like I still remember this.
Their phrase their exact phrase was
every young budding developer solves
this recursion program and it was the
tower of Hanoi. And guess what? I don't
know if I can solve the tower of Hanoi
to this day. It's it's like a very hard
recursive problem. And I just sat there
and thought, "Oh my gosh, I'm not going
to make it." And I sat there in the lab
for 8 hours, 10 hours doing these
things. So worried, it's the week of
recursion. We have to do a lab
assignment. I'm not going to be able to
do it. And I just remember being like
genuinely worried about that. Uh and
then because I always my big problem was
is like, okay, do factorial. Why not
just use a for loop? Okay, what about
Fibonacci sequence? Why not use a for
loop? Like I don't understand what's the
purpose of recursion. I don't understand
it yet. It's so powerful. Why? It looks
like a really complicated for loop. And
so I just could not understand it. And
then lab came that day and it was I'm
going to give you a 2D array you have to
read from a
file. This is what a starting position
looks like. This is what an ending
position looks like. This is what a wall
looks like. I want you to find me a path
through the maze. And so I just sat
there like, "Okay, I guess I can just go
up and I can create like a visited grid
that's so I know not to visit these
places anymore." And all a sudden it
just started clicking. I'm like, "Well,
wait a second. I don't know the maze,
but if I just go up, right, down, and
left, and hop back every time I've been
to that square, don't visit it." Like, I
can just it will just go forever. And I
realized in that moment, I'm like, I
actually understand rec I've understood
recursion this whole time. I just never
had a problem in which it actually made
sense to use. And that was like my big
downfall is that I I was measuring my
understanding with the problems that I
had available which were just you know
list traversal which is not a good use
of recursion. And so I just I just
remember that freeing oh man recursion
it was a great moment in my life. I mean
it does require to be fair a leap of
faith like because people will tell you
those uh conformist dogmatic
Java instructors will tell you that this
is you know um that's important to
understand uh recursion but it takes a
leap of faith that this is something
this is a different way of looking at
the world and it's a powerful way of
looking at the world. I actually
remembered when
I think I first I think I remember my
first now. All
right. Uh I think it was uh dub first
search for one of the games maybe a
something like that and for that
implementing recursion understand that
you can search trajectories through the
the space of states and do that
recursively that was mind-blowing. just
imagining like
you can just see the possibilities.
Yeah. Just like numbers flying. It was
uh like the beautiful mind and then um
and that's when I also uh discovered
conspiracy theories. That was and I just
saw I saw the truth. Uh okay. Yeah. So
what were we talking about? Oh, what was
the most painful aspect of programming
for you? Uh like what what memories do
you have of uh deep profound suffering
in terms of programming in the early
days? Uh, I would say the biggest one
that I can really hold on to had to be
one of two
experiences. The first experience was
when I was at a place called
Schedulicity.
And am I not allowed to say the
place? There's I'm not sure if they're
even operating still at this point, but
they're in there something funny about
the name. I'm sorry. Oh, scheduleity.
They actually the name was so bad that
when you looked at their like paid for
Google ad terms that they would make
sure that they're at the top of the
list, the spellings were just insane cuz
no one knew how to spell the word
scheduleity. And so it was just like
this the Google optimizing for that is
just hilarious. Uh but okay, go back to
the thing. And the the thing that kills
me the most about programming, what I
actually considered the worst aspect of
programming is when you know everything.
And so when I was at this job, it's just
every single day I'd come in, there were
no surprises. There was no questions. I
didn't understand the codebase. Sure,
that's that's fair. I didn't understand
all the things about the codebase, but I
knew I was going to go in, I was going
to generate some sort of object from the
database. I was going to take that
object from the database, and I was just
going to map it over and just display it
on the web page. There's no creativity.
There's no there's nothing to it. It's
very like almost factory line kind of
work. And that was a very kind of
difficult moment for me which is I
didn't enjoy programming because like I
knew everything about it. I already knew
exactly what I was going to do that day.
I knew all the hurdles I was going to
have to go over. There was no unknown
unknowns if you will. It was just known
at all times. And it's just that is for
me that is the worst part about
programming is when you already know the
solution and it's just a matter of how
fast you can type and get it out from
your head to your hands. So, the absence
of uncertainty, the absence of challenge
was the pain. Yeah, that's pretty
profound. Prime I'm more than just good
looks. I want you to know that
it's a low bar. What do you identify as?
I'm enjoying asking the general
question. 38 male. Uh male, husband of
beautiful wife. Okay. You stream about
all kinds of programming. Uh but what
kind of programmer are you? Are you full
stack developer, web
programming? Uh, and maybe can you lay
out all the different kinds of
programming and then place yourself in
that in terms of your identity, sexual
identity as well? Yeah, I can get it. We
can put it all in there. Uh, plus I mean
obviously those two are very very
tightly coupled. I have seen you like on
the border of sexually aroused by
certain languages. I think you got real
excited about Okamel or
O camel. Let's go.
Thank you, Dylan Moyward. Okay. Wow.
Yeah, I did not expect that. That
escalated quickly. Anyway, what do you
identify as? Okay. So, first you let's
let's do the previous or the in in
between question first, which is the
different kind of archetypes. I think
that's a really interesting kind of
question because if you go on Twitter or
you're new, your thoughts are probably
that there is just web programming and
maybe there's some other stuff. Yeah,
like game programming, but you do like
game programming in JavaScript and on
the web, you know, like there's this
very kind of very myopic view of the
programming world and I bet if you ask a
lot of people these days like what is
the most popular form of programming
they'd probably say web if you said what
contains the most amount of repos how
many percentage of repos on GitHub are
web-based they'd probably say 90% or
some huge number but the reality is that
there's an entire embedded robotics
world you know you're familiar with the
ML side of things there's networking
there's going to be just like
performance operating systems compilers
there's just huge amounts a variation of
all these different type of programming
verticals that you can be. And so we
often talk about programming in
perspective of web or something that's
pretty narrow. And I think that's just a
social construct of Twitter more than
anything else that it's actually I don't
believe it's that representative of of
the entire kind of programming world out
there. And I think a lot of programming
is really really fun. There's some
really great stuff. Building a your own
language is just a very fun experience
to do. every programmer should just do
that once just to have a completely
different, you know, perspective on how
things work in life. But as far as what
do I do? Uh I've always looked at myself
as a tools engineer. So at my time at my
my jobs, typically I would start off on
the UI and then they'd be like, "Okay,
well, hey, we need a library for this
thing." So then I'd be the one writing
like the library. So in 2012, 2013, I
was writing a UI library for the web
that can behave just like an iPad. So
you can pinch and zoom on it, but it's
still a web page because we didn't have
any of that stuff back then. It was a
canvas. Had to do all the like matricy
operations and all that stuff to kind
of, you know, it felt like you're on an
iPad, but it actually wasn't on an iPad.
And this was iPad 2, by the way. So this
is a long time ago. And so every single
time I got into a job, it's like, okay,
hey, we need to do a library. Hey, can
you work on a build system? So back
then, there was no Grunt, there was no
Gulp, there was no any of those things.
So I had to hand roll my own JavaScript
build system. And so I always fell into
these positions of building tools for
developers to be successful. And I've
always really enjoyed that region. And
so as I went on to say Netflix, uh spent
10 years there, I'd say the majority of
my 10 years were building things for
developers to
use that they could be successful at
their job. And so I just I've always
really enjoyed that aspect because your
share your stakeholders and the people
that use your program understand
programming and they're going to say
like, "Hey, I need this." And typically
the thing that they need they actually
want. Whereas with people people want
stuff but what they actually need versus
what they actually want often are kind
of like this weird separation. People
you know that's like the old Henry Ford
quote. I just want a faster horse and
he's like no what you actually want is a
car. And so it's like this like you have
to play this game of trying to really
figure it out. Whereas developers it's
like I know you know what I'm doing. I
know what you want. Let's figure it out
together. That's actually that gives you
a really nice big picture view of
programming in general. So, I love the
idea of just kind of starting at the
interface like you need to pinch and all
that kind of stuff and then figure out
the entire thing that requires to make
that happen including maybe the side
quest tooling how to make it more
productive and efficient all that kind
of stuff. So the entirety the entirety
of the thing that's really cool. Okay.
So that mean that would be full stack
by the general definition of full stack
meaning like perhaps yeah versus like
systems engine like starting at the
bottom and trying to optimize a certain
kind of specific thing without seeing
the big picture of like what the the
resulting interface would would look
like. And a lot of people you know in
web programming they never go beyond the
front end of how the thing looks. They
kind of always assumed there would be
somebody some some uh grunt in the
shadows in the darkness of the basement
that will implement the back end. Some
gil foil out there will be doing the
back end. Yeah. Like I like to call
myself a generalist. Um just to kind of
give some ideas is you know at at one
point at Netflix I built the websocket
connection. So for TVs how websocket
works is code I just wrote. And so I you
know built the framing thing and before
that I was doing stuff with memory and
before that I built the UI for a tool.
It's just like I can just do the thing.
You just tell me the thing to do and
I'll just go do the thing. I don't worry
too I don't try to get super good at one
specific activity. Like I don't want to
be a Kubernetes engineer who's the
world's greatest deployer. But if I had
to go learn Kubernetes, I'd go learn it
and learn how to deploy some things and
then hopefully move on to like the next
thing if that makes sense. Uh I posted
about the fact that I'm talking to you
on Reddit and there's a lot of wonderful
questions. Uh somebody mentioned that I
should ask you about DevOps. Can you
explain what DevOps is? Is it a kind of
special ops of programmers? Is it Cal
team 6 of developers? What's DevOps? Can
you define what are you a DevOps
engineer? Well, people keep telling me
DevOps isn't real. There's actually you
want platform engineers, cloud
engineers, info engineers. Uh I just
often think I think the easiest way if
we're doing like just kind of like some
basic nomenclature. It's just DevOps are
the people that make sure that when you
launch a service and all that, it
doesn't just disappear, right? It's all
the kind of backbone of being able to
operate something at scale. Like you
really don't if you think about if
you're just writing a mom and pop like
website. People that do PHP that are
doing WordPress and all that, they're
going to build something. They're going
to hand it off to I don't know, Lenode,
Digital Ocean, some company. They don't
really need a really complicated build,
deployment, all this. It's just someone
with a simple website so they can sell
their goods. And so they don't really
need that. And so that's kind of how I
think of a DevOps is when things need to
scale. that's kind of the person you
hire. Yeah, those people are actually
amazing. Yeah. Of uh the time I spent at
Google, it's like, oh yeah, yeah,
there's all these fancy machine learning
people, but the the folks that are
running the compute, the
infrastructure basically that make sure
the shit doesn't go down. They're like
wizards and they're very incredible like
vertical of job. And obviously I'm using
a very broad term to describe I'm sure
like a bunch, you know, because making
sure stuff doesn't go down. And you
could also say that's like an S sur,
right? Site reliability engineer,
whatever. You know, the ones that wear
the the bomber jackets at Google. And so
when we say DevOps, I think people get
very particular about terms specifically
in this category. They're like, well,
actually, you're mentioning
infrastructure engineer versus, you
know, versus site reliability engineer.
It's just like, okay, yes, I hear you.
But generally, when someone thinks
DevOps, they think somebody that manages
the servers and their life cycles and
the reliability.
There's DevOps. Is it real? I'm not
sure. Okay. Did Verscell kill DevOps?
Wow, that's You're almost a journalist.
That's a headline.
Uh, let's go back to the beginning. All
right. Baby Prime. So, you mentioned
Netflix. You've uh Oh, I worked at
Netflix, by the way. For people who
don't know uh who uh the primigen is, he
mentions uh the fact that he has been
very successful and has worked at
Netflix and basically every other
sentence. Correct.
Almost as much as I mentioned Neoim. Oh,
great. Tell me more about Neoim. No,
please don't. So, Baby Prime at the very
beginning, you've had one hell of a life
and I think it's aspiring to a lot of
people. You've you've gone through a lot
of painful low points including meth
addiction loss and like you mentioned
you've come out of that to become a
successful programmer and a person that
inspires a huge number of people uh to
get into programming and just to find
success in life. So maybe I would love
it if you laid out just your whole life
journey from the beginning.
So, I guess if we're going to start with
this whole journey, I think it's
probably best to start when I was about
four or five years old. That was the
first time I was ever exposed to
pornography. Uh, and it's kind of just
earwormed me for a large portion of my
life. And so, I don't think there was a
day that didn't go by from when I was a
very young lad all the way up until I
was 20ome years old where I didn't think
about porn on the daily basis. And so,
it's just like every single day, even at
that young. And so it's just a very
mind- conssuming, time-consuming,
thought-consuming thing that kind of
plagued me from a starting at a very
young age. When I was 7 years old, my
dad died. Um, that was kind of a really
tough period of life. I I still think
about this time that I went over to
China and there's kind of some rules
that we were given and one of the rules
was just like, "Hey, don't talk about
God and if you do, use the word dad
instead." And I was just like, "Okay,
dad." It was like the first time I said
that word in like 17 years or some long
time. Like it was like so weird to say
that phrase and I was just like, "Oh,
that was just the strangest thing I've
ever said in my entire lifetime." It
just felt so weird. So, kind of rewind
as I got older, obviously was very good
at computers, good at accessing porn, of
course, uh played uh video games on the
internet. Fun fun kind of like side
quest story. I think the guy's name is
Lord Talk on Twitch. I can't quite
remember his name, but he built this
game called Grail, G R A A L, and Grail
Online. And when I was a young lad that
it was just like Zelda, except for it
also had a level editor and it had like
a seike language. And that's how I
discovered how to program is I looked at
these symbols and figured out what they
meant. And then I was able to make
things happen in the game. And that was
like a that's my introduction into
programming. So, thank you that guy,
whatever your Twitch name was. But all
right, so keep on going. As I got older,
I was super bad socially. I was not a
very great social person. I high school
was brutal. Got made fun of a lot. Uh
really didn't en I wouldn't say I had a
great time during high school. Uh
definitely felt very out of place or
offset or maybe misplaced, if you will.
I'm not sure what the right word is. And
so, of course, at that point, I just
always wanted to I wanted to be accepted
to fit in and all that. I did forget to
say one side story. After my dad died,
my brother, older brother, he got
started getting into drugs and along
with that he exposed me to pot. So at 8
years old, I was smoking some marijuana
uh for a while there until like maybe 11
or 12 and took a break and then again
did a lot of that as I got a little bit
older. But so I kind of got a lot of
these exposures fairly
young, 16, 15 through 18. A lot of
drinking and all that. when I graduated
or as I was graduating high school, it's
just like I had such sadness, if you
will. I was very sad about how
everything went. Tried to commit
suicide. Um, obviously, it was a very
poor attempt. And I'm still here today.
I'm very happy about that aspect. I'm
glad that I didn't follow through with
anything. Had to go to the hospital and
all that. And when I was done, I just
still remember kind of coming out of the
hospital and at like that moment, it's
kind of like something broken you. Have
you ever read the book uh Wheel of Time?
It's 14,000 pages or something like
that, but right around page 12,000, Rand
has to intentionally kill a girl, the
main character, and that's like the
moment he breaks and he gets into like
hard Rand uh uh Quindelar Rand, if you
will. For those that know Wheel of Time
will appreciate all that. Uh for those
that don't, it very confusing and I
understand. Not the Amazon movie show.
Not that not that Wheel of Time. So, now
that we kind of go back onto it, at that
point, it's just like something kind of
broke in me and it's just like I just
didn't care anymore. So all the kind of
social awkwardness, if you will, all
that kind of just died away with me, but
also so did everything else. And so I
started using a bunch of drugs, LSD,
mushrooms, meth, did a bunch of math,
did a bunch of that stuff, and then went
off to college and continued to do a
bunch of stuff. I took too much acid to
where for like quite a few years I had
like little squiggies on the side of my
eyes whenever I'd walk by high contrast
objects. And so it's just like that
whole period of life was just kind of
marked by
um just poor decisions. And then
sometime when I was about 19 years old,
somewhere in that range, I just had this
one evening where it's just I felt the
very dramatic and real presence of God.
And it's just like I kind of had this
choice like Froto uh on a razor where
it's like if I go either way, I'm gonna
fall off and I need to change my life.
you just you get to make the choice now.
Do you want to do that or not? And so I
remember going, okay, I do I do want to
change my life. Like I don't like this
experience. I don't like what I'm
living. I am still very sad. I still
feel very desperate. I still feel all
those things. I'm just like pretending
to be this other person.
And then I just went to sleep that
night. Nothing changed in my life.
Everything was still the way it was. I
woke up the next day the same person.
And I was just like, "Oh, that's just
like such a strange weird kind of
experience. And I just went about my
day. And then I remember I think that
evening I looked at porn and all of a
sudden I just had a conscious I just
like this deep profound like shame. And
I was like I've never felt shame in my
life, right? Like I I have no idea
what's happening now. And then all a
sudden when I smoked pot I just felt
deep shame. And when I hurt somebody or
did something wrong all it's just like I
got a conscious from that evening.
That's what kind of my gift was if you
will. And it's just like at that point I
didn't even have a choice. I had to
change my life cuz for whatever reason
I've kind of been changed in the moment.
And so from there I started actually
trying in school. I always kind of joke
around that I got 2.14 in high school. I
had a teacher handw write me a note
saying I was the worst student she's
ever had. All that kind of stuff. I was
not a really great
student. And then in that moment it's
just like okay now life's changed and I
start trying to learn. You know I try to
become a good student. And it turns out
it's really hard. Like I was I was
really bad. I still got C's. I went and
took pre-calculus and failed
pre-calculus. And I'm like, "Oh my gosh,
I used to be the smart math guy and now
I'm kind of the idiot failing." And so
it's like I'm just questioning myself
and all that. And I spent hours upon
hours in in like a studying uh math
learning center and then just at some
point years into this journey, I'm like
a year and a half into this journey at
this point. It's just like something
clicks and I go from being the worst
person to just immediately becoming the
best. Everything after that is just I
don't know what happened. All of a
sudden I was the best person at math. I
started going into my computer science
classes. I just really got everything.
It's just like everything at at just
years after trying just all of a sudden
became easier. And I'm not sure if it
happened over the course of weeks or
when the easier started, but it was just
first predicated by just a huge amount
of difficulty. And then this is kind of
where I started really desiring and
loving the process of learning was when
things started getting easier after all
those years cuz I just was motivated by
this desire to do something
not not thinking it was going to get any
easier. And then all a sudden it just
started getting easier and it was great.
And that's kind of really where I guess
I started having the biggest parts of my
life change. At that point, I started
really, really, really wanting to never
look at porn again because every single
time just such shame and I really wanted
to stop. And that was by far the hardest
addiction to quit. Like smoking
cigarettes was also a really hard
addiction to quit. Shockingly hard
addiction to quit, but porn by far was
just the worst of them all.
And then I think about 22, I was finally
done with all kind of addictions, if you
will. And then for a year, I just I just
worked in all that. and I think right
around maybe it was 21 and 3/4 somewhere
in that range. I'm not really sure where
I I stopped all the addictions part but
or at least the outwardly addictions.
And then at some point 6 months later, a
year later, met my beautiful wife.
Things just started falling more and
more into place. I loved more and more
work. I loved programming. I started
programming like 12 hours a day. I
watched the social network movie. And
after that, I was just like, I'm doing a
startup. And so like that night, I
started my first startup and I was just
like, so it was in PHP, by the way. PHP.
Yeah. 5.2 two or something like that. It
was great great times and I was just so
motivated to do that and I would just
program for sometimes I'd program for 24
36 hours straight and I just like
non-stop just that's all I wanted to do
at all points. I think my wife got a
little sick of me. I wouldn't she would
be like can you drop me off at school
and I'd be like no I'm programming. I
was not a very nice, you know, I didn't
think through things that well and I was
just so into it and I just did it
non-stop and that's kind of like how I
became me is that story if that makes
sense. Let's try to reverse engineer
some of the pain and some of the
triumph. You made it sound easy at
times. Let's try to understand it
better. Maybe when you were 7 years
old, what do you think about the pain
you've experienced there losing your
dad? What do you think? What kind of
impact did it have on you? What kind of
memories do you have of that time? The
best way I can kind of put it is that I
just never knew what a dad was. I was
young enough that I could kind of maybe
repress or just even have the capability
of remembering things long term cuz I
know most people don't remember a lot
from when they're young. And so I'm not
exactly sure. I probably as at one of
the best possible ages if I'm going to
lose a dad to lose a dad, you know, uh
if you're going to lose one, if you're
11 or 12, it's like a terrible age.
That's what my brother was and he fell
into drug addiction and never got back
out. And so I just kind of have more of
like a fuzziness and just kind of a
longing that I I just wish I had a dad.
What impact did that have on your
evolution, on your life, sort of having
that longing. I think that's why I was
so bad uh socially in the sense that I
was looking for approval, right? Like
something I needed approval. I think a
lot of people kind of desire that
approval or that loving figure and I
just didn't have that and so I think I
just looked for it in everything else
right like if I to psychoanalyze my
actions during the time it's not like I
was actively thinking that uh but yeah I
just always wanted something to fill in
whatever that was I felt I think a lot
of people listening to this will
resonate with your experience in high
school like being the outsider being
picked on uh struggling through a lot of
different complexities at home. What
advice would you give to them? Man, the
worst part about high school is that
you're surrounded by a bunch of people
your age and it feels eternal. Yeah. You
don't think like the people that are
around you, you feel like are the people
that will be there for the rest of your
life. At least that's what I kind of
like I thought and I didn't really even
realize this until many years later that
they are going to be some of the least
consequential people in your life. Yeah.
which is very shocking to kind of think
about especially if you're in it right
now right like right now they are the
everything that you're
experienc one day it all stops and then
real life starts to begin
it's just that's such a shocking thing
and if I could just tell myself that
maybe I would have been a much different
person that's so beautifully put I mean
it is a it's like a trial run you know
like at the beginning of video games
there's a little tutorial that's what
that is yeah And actually that should be
a chance uh to try shit out to take
risks. Uh because real life will begin
where there is more consequences after
that. Here you can you know if you like
a girl ask her out try shit. If you get
picked on, hit that guy back. Try shit
out. I'm not going to condone punching
another person. I will beat the shit out
of them and uh take some jiu-jitsu and
learn how to take him down. And then and
then and then that girl that rejected
you will be like, "hm, maybe I'll give
that guy a second chance. Be a bad
motherfucker." It's a chance to try
stuff out. This is a very motivational
speech for kicking ass. It is true
there. I mean, there is something very
true about that that I think especially
I I mean, I have no idea what the girls
experience of high school would be like,
but as a guy, there's definitely a lot
of like physical requirements in high
school. There's a lot of physical
measurement, at least where I grew up. I
think that might not be true in all high
schools, but if they're filled with
boys, it's probably true. And so, it's
just like, yeah, it probably does help
to do those things, to go to BJJ, to do
any of these activities because even if
you don't ever kick someone's ass, just
having some level of confidence in
yourself is probably a very valuable
thing. But just remembering that this is
such a short tiny moment in your life is
just like a huge help. I mean the way
you phrased it is exactly right. That's
what it feels like that this is these
are the people that will be with you for
the rest of your life and this is the
whole world. And so that means that
there'll be just tremendous amount of
impact. If somebody picks on you or if
you fall somebody low somewhere low in
the hierarchy uh in the status hierarchy
of this high school that means you'll be
low in the status hierarchy of the world
and you're fucked for the rest of your
life. And that that carries a tremendous
amount of weight. It's just why
psychologically it's extremely difficult
to be I I think it's underated often by
parents by society how difficult it is
to be a high schooler. How difficult
psychologically it is. How it actually
makes sense that some people would
suffer from depression and be on the
verge of suicide. It's very very
difficult. Yeah. I think it's even I you
know people always say back in my day
you know blah blah blah. I think it's
genuinely harder today than it's ever
been in the sense that when I was a kid
there was a qualification to people
meaning this is a cool guy this is not a
cool guy today there's a quantification
of people you have
32,514 people following you have 12 like
there people can visually they can
inspect your exact social value on
whatever platform you're on and that has
to be just so much harder and I can
imagine that there's a lot of of just so
much weight put on that that it's just
it feels probably way worse and way more
damning to be uncool because you have an
exact number of how uncool you are.
Yeah. The challenge
there and the task the quest is to
remember that just because your social
circle on social media and uh in high
school thinks you're
uncool, it actually might mean you are
cool. Yeah. And you need to find that
cool and grow it and let it flourish so
that when real life begins, you can
fucking come out of the gate firing on
all cylinders. That's a great way to put
it. I I I think if anything, high school
is really bad at picking out the cool
people that like uh the whatever the
system, the hierarchy that forms, it is
so it's such a basic bitch hierarchy.
Like you're good at very generic shit.
That's how you rise. Your parents bought
you an expensive car. Expensive car,
right? Materialistic shit. Yeah,
exactly. It's a greedy search. See, they
didn't have a proper search, so they're
just hitting that local optima. But the
herist, I mean, even the objective
function uh for that greedy search is
just a really shitty one. Yeah. Where
those people that win the game of high
school are very often not going to be
the people that win the much more
exciting, beautiful game of life. So, do
epic shit and uh try stuff out. The
weirdos are the ones that are going to
succeed. The weirdos in high school, uh,
probably because they also get bullied
and they get to be tormented more
psychologically and get to explore their
own mind and think through what it means
to be a human being more. Cuz if you're
winning in high school, you're not being
challenged. Yeah. You're not
self-reflecting. You're not trying shit
out. So, there is some degree to like
being tormented as long as it doesn't
break you. the porn
addiction. That's another powerful one
that I think will probably resonate with
a lot of people. And it's interesting
you say that's one of the hardest
addictions um to uh overcome. Let me say
it this way. Some addictions have a much
bigger societal look and porn is just
not one of them, which makes it super
hard. None of your friends are going to
cheer you on. If you go on Twitter and
say, "I quit porn." They're going to be
like, "Well, that's good for you, but
not everybody." You know, not every, you
know, no one makes that argument with
meth, right? No one's going to be like,
"Well, not everyone has to quit math,
okay? It's actually a fine industry and
people who, you know, are the ones
producing it, they're good also, right?"
Like, no one's going to make that kind
of argument. Whereas with porn, you're
going to have like a whole thing and
friends friends are going to think
you're dumb for doing it or whatever.
It's like you have it's a much more
difficult one in just like that. So, it
feels accepted. And I think it's also an
addiction you can practice, participate
in privately, and hide it from the
world. There are certain addictions that
are harder to hide from the world for
prolonged periods of time. Yeah. And
porn addiction is probably one you can
just have for many years and then it can
deepen. That's probably like a serious
issue. Boy, am I glad I grew up before
the
internet because the it's porn is so
accessible, so so easy to go deep into
that addiction. Uh I mean what can you
speak about what impact it had on your
life? Maybe some of the low points but
also how to overcome it. I'd say as far
as impact goes is that you will have
such a long and broken look at women by
the very like I can again I'm only
speaking from a a male's perspective
that porn in its just like most basic
thing is that you use another person for
your own
uh desire or your own want. It's not
something that is deeply needed. There's
no need there's no like need for porn.
It's purely a want-based activity or a
lust, however you want, whatever word
you can fill in there. And it is purely
an objectifying activity. Like someone
else is on display for your own
enjoyment. And so I think you carry this
around. Like I do think that the women
that I dated during high school or the
women after high school and college,
like I looked at them as a means to an
end. I think porn greatly kind of
shifted that kind of perspective in my
head that I did not give the value that
was desired to another person. It really
devalues
uh humanity just in general is my
perspective of it and that it makes
people into commodities and I don't
think people are commodities. I think
everyone has value and so during that
for me that's kind of like the great
effect of porn is that you know it's
just consumerism gone wild or
materialism maybe you could ask argue
gone wild and it's extremely hard to
quit just like you said because I can
look at porn and then I can go out to
lunch. Mhm. you know, no one's going to
know. No one's going to have any ideas.
Like, it's a very private. It can be
very short session. It doesn't have to
be something that takes like, you know,
you can't take acid than go out to
lunch, right? You're going to be you're
going to your whole day is going to be a
very different day. And so, there's a
it's very quick, easy, accessible, and
then obviously there's like all the like
the science and you know, statistics
like men make worse decisions for some
period of time after looking or being
exposed to sexualized images. There's
the whole dopamine effect that's just
like you constantly need more and more
dopamine. That's why people typically
don't just watch five minutes of porn
and call it a day. There's like, you
know, the hundth tab joke that's always
made on the internet. It's because you
it's just this this constant dopamine
cycle you're constantly doing. And all
that stuff is great to say. And I'm sure
statistics and science and all that
stuff is really great arguments for some
amount of people, but for me it just
comes down to like is it really a good
thing to do? Like is it really actually
something we want is to value people in
such a profane or kind of just like
disregarding way. Like I just really
think it's just bad for the soul. Even
if all the stats said it was great for
you, I still say it's actually bad.
Yeah. You have to look at the long-term
big picture psychological impact it has
on your relationships with human beings
in general. That's my more generally
than just porn. Uh, my problem with the
the quoteunquote sort of manosphere
is I
think sleeping with a bunch of women is
great, wonderful, but the problem is is
making that the primary objective of
your life. Similar with porn is you
devalue one of the most awesome things
which is intimacy. That's true for deep
friendship. That's true for
relationships. And I think porn does
that like in its purest darkest form
which is like the thing that matters is
the sex not the like the deep connection
with another human being. I think again
going back to high school and uh the the
manosphere the objective function if
it's to get laid which helps with status
and confidence and all all that is
wonderful I think again can be an
addiction but the thing that's even more
awesome for a lot of people is a deep
friendship or deep intimacy with a with
a romantic partner like that's also
fucking awesome and both of those are
great. It's objectively better to have
like I would say that there's no
universe that exists or there should be
no argument possible that exists that a
guy who has meaningless sex has a better
or a more meaningful life than say me
and my wife who've been together for 15
years. We have a very like I can depend
on her in all circumstances. Whereas if
you live that other life it sure it
could be it could feel great but there's
no meaning to it. There's no val there's
no actual real value to it. That's
absolutely correct. I do think that
getting
laid can have a tremendous positive
impact on the confidence of a young man.
I think just there's a certain number of
sexual partners from which you can
collect a lot of data and you can free
you
about like not to be so nervous about
the opposite sex, not to be so nervous
about human interaction. And that will
allow you to see the world more clearly
and to actually find that one partner
that with whom you could be deeply
intimate with. Sometimes like the
nervousness around like this society
uh constructed like value in getting
laid can cloud your judgment. And if you
just release that by getting laid a
bunch of times, then like you could see
the world clearly that getting laid is
not as nearly as important as you said
as finding the right human, including I
should put in that pile not just like a
romantic partner, but like friendships,
like deep lasting friendships. Well, I
mean, I think you're right that our
society puts a lot of emphasis on
getting laid. And I'm sure that's true
among any group of males uh throughout
any point in history. I'm sure that's a
very common joke that's never actually
like never stopped at any point. So, I'm
I'm sure that exists, but and there's
there's probably some truth to the sense
that after you've you know who was it?
Uh Jim Carrey, I hope that everyone can
get rich so they realize that money
solves none of your problems. Yeah. Like
the realization that this thing that
society told you is hyper important is
actually not the important part. Like it
is a very important It's a great sign
that your relationship is healthy. Like
if me and my wife were to have no sex at
all for months on end, like something's
gone wrong, which means what, you know,
we are no longer like on the same plane,
something, you know, but it's not also a
good identifier. Just because you're
having a lot of sex doesn't mean you're
having a good relationship. And so it's
kind of like a unique kind of um I
forget the the right term here, but it's
a unique way at looking at the problems.
And our society puts so much emphasis.
And maybe that's why porn was so hard to
quit. But I my guess is it's just all
the dopamine effect that it is.
Uh but for me like the the most
important part and the thing that
actually has real reward is having that
having just my wife. I do not look at I
try I desperately try not to look at any
other woman. I'm hopefully not going to
get caught Mark Zuckerberg at the White
House like that. Um you know like I
don't look at porn. My wife has complete
confidence in me that there is not going
to be a situation in which she has to
question me in any kind of sense and
that builds a much more deeply I I would
argue a very deep relationship because
the trust is that much bigger. I think
the deepness of the relationship is
probably proportional to the trust you
have in each other. Mhm. It's very hard
to have a deep relationship with no
trust. Yeah. And uh a
probably a prerequisite maybe a
component of trust is vulnerability to
where you like take the leap of being
vulnerable with another human being and
that vulnerability when reciprocated
builds this this really strong trust and
it's a beautiful thing. Yeah. I I I
personally just given my position
uh that's even more challenging, you
know, being vulnerable with the world
and there's a bunch of people out there
that want to hurt you for it and
um but I think it's worthwhile anyway to
be vulnerable. It's always worth the
risk is always worth it in in some
sense. Like obviously everyone has a
different kind of life they have to
filter through their actions with,
right? because the person that has no
say social following or anything, their
riskreward profile could just be local
impact which could be just as you know
damning or harming to them. And so it's
always worth the risk though in my
personal opinion cuz like finding my
wife is been obviously the most
impactful or changing thing in my life.
So or second most. I'd argue that one
night with God would probably be the
most impactful thing that led to
everything else, but then the wife would
be the next most impactful. I mean I'm
like cleaning up after myself and stuff
now. changed man. I'm a changed man. Can
we try to reverse engineer that moment
of you finding God? What is it at 19?
Because it feels like that was a big
leap for you to escape to escape the
pain to escape the addiction or the
beginning of that journey. Uh what do
you think what do you think happened
there? I think it just felt like I just
there was no line that I wasn't willing
to cross. Like everything was fine and
just like it just all a sudden just in
that moment it's just like I had a I
guess some sort of deep fear and
understanding like I am going down a
path. Is this really the path you want
to go
down? And I don't know what the result
of that path would be or anything like
that. I don't tend to speculate on
things I I don't understand. I just know
that in that moment I had the
option and I just chose I I didn't want
it anymore. Right