CD201 - MATT HILL - START9 - FREEDOM

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Created: 05/05/2026 18:34:33
Duration: 5764.206
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Happy Bitcoin Tuesday, freaks. It's your host, Odell, here for another Seal Dispatch.

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The show focused on actual Bitcoin

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and freedom tech discussion.

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I always skip last week because I had a long week in Vegas for the Bitcoin conference, but I'm

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back at home, ready to roll.

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Vibes are high. Good to be back with you guys. We have a great chat lined up. But before we get there,

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huge shout out to the freaks who continue to support the show with their hard earned sats.

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We have no ads or sponsors. We are purely funded

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by viewers like you

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with your hard earned Bitcoin donations.

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Top Zaps of last week were ride or die freak Mab twenty one with 10,000 SATs. He said great rip. Open mic with 7,777

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SATs. Great rip. More Nostro permables. And Pseudo Carlos with 5,000 SATs. He said great episode. Light yet serious, topical and deep,

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favorite guest episode in a while. Well, that's a big endorsement by Pseudo Carlos. If you haven't listened to the last episode, go back and listen to it.

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Freaks, today is Tuesday, May 5,

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sixteen hundred UTC.

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The current block height

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is

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is

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the current block height is nine four eight zero four nine. Sats per dollar is 1,225,

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and we are pumping. Bitcoin is at $81,600.

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As always,

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share the show with friends and family. All relevant links are at citadeldispatch.com.

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Search Citadel Dispatch in your favorite podcast app. Thank you all. Guys, we have returned guest,

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good friend,

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co founder of start nine, Matt Hill. How's it going, Matt?

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Hey, man. Doing good. How are you?

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Pleasure to have you. You don't you don't seem so excited.

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I'm I'm livid.

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Why are you livid?

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Well, I guess livid's probably the wrong word. I'm raging in the best way possible

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just at the world. Alright. I like that. Building with our friends, and

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this is it. This is the time. This is the moment.

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I'm aligned with that. That's my style.

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Channel the rage. Make it productive rage.

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Yeah. That's great.

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I'm happy.

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You know, I'm happy guy.

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Love it. You're

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bullish on Bitcoin?

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No.

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Do you you wake up with a pep on your step when we were over 81,000

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this morning?

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I

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want to feel bullish on Bitcoin, but I don't.

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Matt is

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Matt is

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start nine is a ten thirty one portfolio company. We are the largest investor in start nine,

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and we hold a retreat for all the founders we invest in. You have to be the only way to get invited as an annual retreat is if we choose to invest in and support your business. And one of our annual rituals is Bitcoin price predictions after a few drinks because why the hell not? And

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Matt was the only person in October that was correctly bearish on the price.

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So take that as you will.

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But it's actually because

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at least in part of those price predictions that I became bearish. Right? I was one of the last people to predict and everyone else in the room was calling numbers between like two hundred and five hundred k.

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And by the time it got to me, I was like, oh, fuck. We've topped.

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And we were at like Because you guys all calling crazy stuff. Yeah. We were at $1.20 and I was like, we've topped.

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And

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and what was your prediction?

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I I said we've talked. I I think it was one twenty five. Gave us a number for next October. Right? Wasn't that what everyone that's what we were saying? Yeah. I said I said it was we've already hit it. I said it was 01:25.

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We've never looked back. We've gone down since. So you haven't reversed now? You're gonna I

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don't know where we're going right now. I'm neutral.

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I'm not bullish.

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I'm not bearish. I'm neutral.

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Fair enough. Okay, I'll take a neutral neutral mad Hills is a is a bullish mad hill. Mostly not paying attention.

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Fair enough. Just focused in your lane. Yeah, I got my own world, know, Bitcoin is important,

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but adjacent to what I do.

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I think since we already brought up ten thirty one, interesting place to start before we start diving into your actual

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product, I mean, where we're at and what's coming. I think it's all very exciting. I think a really interesting aspect of start nine is that you

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are building

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out like a fully MIT fall stack. So to the freaks that aren't aware,

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MIT is the most permissionless license. It's like you literally can do anything with the code you want to do, you can monetize it, you can distribute it, you can modify it.

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And historically,

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long term, like historically, particularly coming out of Silicon VC tech land, open source in general was discouraged because it didn't have the lock in, but particularly MIT open source where

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literally anyone could do anything they want with the code was incredibly

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discouraged.

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And one thing I take a lot of pride in with ten '31 is that

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while a lot of people run away from open source, we run towards it, we think you can build very

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profitable, ethical, sustainable powerhouse businesses on an open source foundation.

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Obviously, you're the one actually building start nine out. How do you think about that aspect?

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Well, there's a few layers here, many of which we covered in a, I believe, three hour long Citadel dispatch,

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three years ago, where

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I was on one side of a debate against I think four people.

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You did well. At me. And it was because we had a, noncommercial clause attached to our source available license,

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thus disqualifying it from the strictest definition of open source.

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And on that call, I defended

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what we were doing as a strategic play, not a permanent state of affairs. Right? And whether the strategy was necessary or not was

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up for debate,

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but I tried to make it very clear to everyone that we we were very much in line with the principles of open source so much so that we didn't even like GPL because it is restrictive in that you cannot do whatever you want with it. And the only way to enforce those restrictions is via the violence of the state and that we didn't like that, but that we were moving towards a fully open future for the company in a strategic manner that aligned with the business goals. And people just couldn't wrap their heads around this idea that you can be principled and strategic,

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that you don't need to be where you wanna be immediately, that you can get where you want to go eventually.

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And that's how we do everything here. And so, yes, I mean, from a from a base, philosophic, and principle standpoint, information is

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and should be recognized as free. It is free. We need to recognize that it is and live in accordance with reality. Trying to violate the rules of reality

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can only be done via the use of force from a practical standpoint. IP never really did anything for people anyway. Right? Maybe for a a brief moment in time, but when it came to software, reverse engineering things was always very feasible for anyone who had a decent team and a little bit of capital,

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and now it is trivial. Right? Code is effectively free.

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I can't imagine

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putting writing software that is closed source and thinking that it does anything

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for you. You get none of the benefits of open source, which are numerous, and you get and you still are gonna get your code copied if someone wants to copy it trivially instantly for free.

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So, you know, you tell

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Claude reverse engineer this. You take a look at this. Don't make it obvious.

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Or make it obvious doesn't matter as long as you change the language as long as you you know I mean? Like, it's not gonna be bite for bite copy. So, software is is cheap and free. It always has been, but now it's really cheap and free. And so why not be open source? Right? It's not only is it

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true in essence, it's good in principle, and practically speaking, you get a lot of benefits by being open source. You get the open source community, you get open source contributions,

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bugs are gonna get found faster, etcetera, etcetera.

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Okay. So I mean, with the investor hat on, I'm about to take the investor hat off, but while it's still on, so then how do you make money in that situation if the code is free and open?

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Yeah. Mean, so take any traditional business in this world, Right? Like, let's just do a quick hamburger stand here. You can slap a patent on a particular recipe of your hamburger,

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but we all know that that's not what makes the business successful or not. What makes a hamburger business successful over another hamburger business is full spectrum of user experience, quality of the product, customer support, brand,

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trust.

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Right? That's how we've always, as humans, had to compete in business. This idea that you can think something up and then point a gun at everyone else saying you can't do this because I don't wanna compete with you, not only, again, doesn't work,

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but it's quite quite cowardly.

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So we just compete.

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Right? Like, we know that StartOS,

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as proud of it as we are,

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is not and could never be our competitive advantage. Our competitive advantage is our brand,

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our customer support, the quality of our hardware products,

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our warranties, ancillary services. So we're just gonna do good old fashioned business. And I know a lot of VCs are afraid of that because they want a cheat code.

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Right? They want the the shortcut and the easy button or some narrative they can sell to the next round and exit themselves. We appreciate

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you guys in that you seem to legitimately

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not seem. I know that you legitimately want to support businesses that are doing good things for the world and

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will make you a lot of money. And we are both of those.

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Love it. So, I mean, the the the key the key product here historically has been

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start OS,

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start start nine box,

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self hosting. I mean, you said Bitcoin is

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is just one aspect of your business. And I I take that as meaning that the key the key thread here that is start nine is trying to help people

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self host more of their lives, and Bitcoin is one piece of that. I think a lot of the freaks are obviously familiar

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on

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are probably very familiar with StartNine and StartOS.

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I run one myself. I actually, to the open source piece, didn't buy hardware from you. I flashed my own hardware with the OS.

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I think me and you have been for years, you more so than me because you've been building out Start9, but very focused on getting more people to self host things and move away from the cloud.

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Since we last spoke this year has probably

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the most viral electric moments

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for self hosting. It's like every

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I mean, specifically on the open clause side, mean, we saw people go out and buy $600 Mac minis very excited to buy to

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start self hosting. And to put aside

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with the validity of why they were doing it or

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how they were doing it.

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Just the excitement around it was something that was very unique to that I had never seen anything like that. Like that was very optimistic to me. What has it been looking like from your perspective since you've been a foxhole yourself?

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There's a lot to unpack there.

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Yeah. So, know, our

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essential thesis back in late twenty nineteen,

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once we

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fully understood what we were, what we were setting out to do,

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was that self hosting, right, open source self hosting open source software

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was going to not only be popular but necessary in the future

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because we identified problems

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with the current

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model of computing.

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Right? The as broad as a statement as that is, like, the way people use computers on Earth, we identified irreconcilable

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problems,

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problems that cannot be solved from within the paradigm,

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and therefore came to the conclusion that either we stick with the paradigm and the problems become existential

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over time, or we switch the paradigm.

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And when you set out to, you know, build a business around a thesis of a paradigm switch in how people use computers, it's it's audacious.

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Right? Like, we're crazy, but it sounded fun. And I've always wanted to do something cool and important. And so, basically, we we saw a we saw

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a horizon where people would

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want and eventually need to switch to self hosted solutions and decided that we were gonna be we're gonna help that. We were gonna not only build the foundation and the tools that make it possible for people to do that, but we were gonna provide the education as well. And so I come on shows like this, and I speak at conferences to try to help people understand what the problem is with the current information systems on this planet and how what we do is part of the solution.

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And so it's nice to see

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to see it working. Right? Like, not only are our products working really well

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and people are appreciating them, which has been really rewarding,

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But the understanding is starting to spread now too, and we have, in large part,

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the the emergence of AI,

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of agentic systems. Right? Personal assistance

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that are intelligent

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and connected as a,

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quote, killer app for self hosting. Right? Bitcoin is a killer app for self hosting and is one of the reasons why out of the gate, we were leaned so hard into Bitcoin.

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Right? Not only are we Bitcoiners,

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not only do we recognize that Bitcoin is

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a necessity in a fiat world and that if you don't fix the money, nothing else is gonna matter. But we also recognize that for the first time almost ever,

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normal people wanted to run a server. They didn't know they wanted to run a server. They thought they wanted to run a node.

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But you need a server to run a node. I guess you don't need a server to run a node. You could run a node on your laptop and close it up and not have it run twenty four twenty four seven, but nodes are better if they're always connected, especially if you're using, you know, lightning and other services. And so Bitcoin was this, like, was this kinda backdoor into self hosting. Right? It's the orange pill that leads to the red pill, and we're the red pill. And once you catch it, once you understand it,

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it becomes a little bit of an addiction,

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which is a good you know, like, it's very rewarding to take back control of your information systems. I remember in the very early days, a founder who is no longer with StartNine, when we had our first device, it was a old little Raspberry Pi running a super, you know, 0.1

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version of StartOS, and

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he he showed up the next morning and he was like, I was laying there last night in bed, and I looked across the room at this little device and it had a a little light on the front of it.

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And he's like, and I just felt so cozy

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and powerful knowing that that thing was working on my behalf while I was sleeping, keeping my things safe. He goes, I think we really have something here. Fast forward six years, and I think that people are starting to recognize and appreciate that feeling of independence, of control, of power, especially with AI. Right? It's not just about privacy and control anymore. It's about power. You can you can build

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cities now. Right? Normal people can build digital

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planets,

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and the question is, are you doing that for yourself? You

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are you doing that for someone else? Right? Everyone can grow food now, so

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it's nice to have a good garden.

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Would you agree though that the AI pieces, like, compared to the Bitcoin piece, I feel like it's accelerating

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self hosting movement significantly?

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I think it is, but it's also doing it in a much more confused way. There's a lot of confusion around

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confusion and misunderstanding

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around

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AI systems. You

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know, people think that by buying a Mac mini and installing OpenClaw on it

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and putting in their Anthropic server that they're doing local, you know, local

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AI stuff, and they're not. Right. Like, all your entire file system is being shipped off to Anthropic servers. It's like the ultimate invasion of privacy. Right? At least in the

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previous,

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you know, cloud computing v one,

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you had to explicitly put information into a UI

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that was connected to a third party server.

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And so whatever you typed into the Google search bar, for example, you know was

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recorded and

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being watched. But now when you put the AI on your computer and plug it into an inference engine, right, the the LLM provider, it goes the other direction. Basically, like, you're you're opening the door. Right? You're inviting them in. And so everything about you is now totally exposed. And so it's very dangerous. It's a very dangerous move. And I think it's really important to communicate

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the subtlety and nuance of these systems to make sure that people understand

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how to do it

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properly, how to do it safely with minimal loss of power. Because there is going to be some loss of power if you abandon,

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for example, the latest state of the art third party LLMs. Right? Like, not using Opus four seven has its own trade offs

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Right. Costs.

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And so you need to know when to use it,

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how to use it, and when to not use it, and how to use alternatives.

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And it's just not super democratized right now. People don't fully understand all that.

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And there's just to your point, I mean, there's so much nuance there that it makes it complicated for people to kinda grok comprehend.

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Yeah. We have to productize it and make it make it obfuscate

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the understanding to a degree. Right? Like, education is great, and I support the educators. I am a bit of an educator myself, but,

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you know, however much information someone wants, they should be able to obtain in the most consumable way possible.

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But at the end of the day, most people will not seek information or understanding. They will simply use products that do

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what they want, and so we need to make sure that our products are efficacious,

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easy to use,

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and also

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inherently

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private and secure, which is what we are working very aggressively towards right now. Not only, you know, with the latest start OS, but a whole bunch of stuff. We're doing more right now than I ever thought possible at this time, to be honest. Our timeline has accelerated dramatically.

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Yeah. I mean, what what I always say is I love BT sessions. I just did a panel with him in Vegas on the main stage about Bitcoin as freedom money. He does great education work. If someone if something requires a two hour BTC sessions video to use in the best with best practices, we've already failed. There's only a tiny subset that will go through that process. Like you need well designed ethical products that actually

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have sane defaults that actually move people in this direction. Otherwise, we'll never hit any kind of sovereignty scale. And it sounds like you agree with that. Yeah. And this is why we have a fighting chance also. Yeah. Right? Because most of the people and companies in the world

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that are both capable

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and willing

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to pursue,

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you know, the products that we are pursuing

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are not

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principled. They have their own principles. Right? They they are not the principles that we share. Right? They are building a

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with them in the middle.

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Right? Everyone wants to harness this and control it for themselves

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and basically just double down on the cloud computing model. And we are

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one of the very,

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very few

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teams in the whole world,

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organizations,

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companies, or individuals. There's like

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single digit numbers of people or companies working on what we're working on, and I think it's the winning model. I think it has to be. Otherwise, it's kind of a

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kind of a horrifying future. Right? Like, as we move into

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a world that is connected with robotics,

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powered by AI,

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if individuals and families

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don't have absolute control

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over those robots

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and those AI

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information systems,

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then

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it really just it it is sort of the

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the the despots

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wet dream. Right? Like,

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you you could end up with a world where

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really small numbers of people, potentially even one person,

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has

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has control

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over an entire nation

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and in ways that were previously never imaginable. Right? Like, we've seen dictatorships throughout history, but Right. It always required some degree of, like,

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loyalty and chain of command, which is why they always went, like, total schizo at at by the end is because they couldn't trust anyone around them. But that's because those people were humans.

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Right? We now live in an age where you could end up with a

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a dictator that doesn't have that problem. And we probably will.

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I'm sure. I mean, it'll definitely happen in some parts of the world. Right. Hopeful that it doesn't happen

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in The United States because, you know, we're sort of the

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we're sort of the beacon on the hill and have been for a few hundred years. And I think it's important we keep shining.

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Yeah. But there's even

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here,

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like, probably the realistic scenario is,

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you know, in America, what we like is the what we like, what we run on is like this tech oligarchy,

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this sort of like this, like, private public private partnership scenario,

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where you have the big tech companies,

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in particular,

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doing a lot of the surveillance and control mechanisms,

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people tend to opt into them rather than being forced or coerced into them. And then they,

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in turn, collaborate with

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corrupt politicians.

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I mean, the example I like to use that maybe is a little bit more benign of an example, but is really important to me as a father is family photos. Right? And I take my children's privacy very seriously.

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And to your earlier point,

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when someone is uploading their photos to Facebook, they know they're sharing it with Zuckerberg, they know they're sharing with a bunch of big tech companies.

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And people still do that, which is part of my belief that, you know, an overwhelming majority of people probably will do this and the things we're building are for the

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the sovereign few or the ride or die minority, however you wanna put it. And the key is to try and get that number up. But with these AI tools, if you just tell Claude to organize your photos on your desktop,

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the person in their head isn't thinking like, oh, Anthropic is getting access to all my family photos, like it's not clicking in their head, which makes it even more dangerous.

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Yeah. That that, you know, is what I was saying earlier is Yeah. It's not obvious that you're

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putting information into a third party server

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when you're running these local agents. So it's it's people have demonstrated,

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in my opinion, an inability I'm broadly speaking, people. Right? Demonstrated an inability to

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to think indirectly at all. If there's one degree of indirection, they can't see it.

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It it has to be obvious and in front of your face. Like, there needs to be an input and it needs to be like, you are handing this information to Anthropic and it needs to have a warning too. If any of those things are missing, then they assume it's private. And so, yeah, it's it's it's a product it's a product race. But like you said, you know, I've been disillusioned a bit with

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my perception

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of humanity

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in terms of what

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people,

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broadly speaking, will do to preserve their own freedom and lives over the past few years, especially. I wouldn't call myself a cynic. I think humans are glorious, and I think

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that

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that

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many of them are are

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just the most admirable outstanding

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beings in the universe. And but for being realistic,

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the world is not designed for, you know, free thinking, critically thinking,

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free humans. We are almost in every nation around the world trained to be not that, and human nature is very susceptible to these types of tactics.

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And so

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the reality is that we live in a world where most people will not reach for their freedom. They will not do anything

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that requires

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critical thinking, judgment, or effort

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even to preserve

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their their lives. It's very authoritarian based. People look for authorities to tell them what to do, and if they do what they're told and they die, then at least they can scream, it's not my fault. Right? Well, as they're dying. And there's a few of us that take responsibility for our own lives and for the lives of our loved ones.

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And I think it's really important that we have the tools to do that effectively.

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And that is where I focus is not on the everyone,

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but on those who are willing

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to get onto a lifeboat.

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I think it's important that they have lifeboats, that we have lifeboats available. And so we build lifeboats. And I think as problems

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get worse, we will see the number of people who are willing to, you know, who have sort of reached hold on a second. I got a barking dog in the background. You're good. He spotted an enemy

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traversing our house. Okay.

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So

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as the problems worsen,

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more and more people will, one, recognize that there are problems and reach their own threshold of intolerance

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and reach for solutions.

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And so,

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you know, from a business standpoint, that's a huge market.

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From a human standpoint, that's a lot of lives. And at the end of the day though, like you said, even if we don't get quote, like, mass adoption

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Yeah. In a in a high integrity way. Right? Like, is Bitcoin gonna garner mass adoption? Yeah. Is it still gonna be Bitcoin?

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I don't know. Right? Like, is, you know, custodial, intermediated

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layer eight Bitcoin Bitcoin anymore? No. Right? Just like gold isn't once it's been, you know, theatized.

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And so Bitcoin will garner mass adoption. I I think that's a pretty safe bet. Will it

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provide the world with the freedom it promised? I don't know. And we'll see. Right? We're gonna fight for that just like we fight for the broader computing paradigm. But the reality is is that even if all that happens, right, even if cloud computing sort of wins the day and centralized control over information systems increases and Bitcoin goes total custodial intermediated fiat,

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and, you know, it's abstracted three layers away, we're all trading paper Bitcoin that's hyperinflated and all the rest. Even if all that happens,

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I still think

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that building what we're building is going to be important because the few people who do adopt it without compromise,

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who use these systems,

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including Bitcoin,

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not at layer eight, right, but at layer one or two in private ways,

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and who use sovereign computing,

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who leverage the tools that are available,

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will at least have a fighting chance of saving everyone else. Right? Of of mounting a resistance in the final moments. Right? I know it's it's a bit sort of like

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Hollywood or, you know, but I think this is how things work. I it's always been

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a few

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very passionate,

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very intelligent

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fighters who have held the line for everyone else. Right? It's never been the masses. And so that's who we build for. That's who I build for. Right? In in the in the in the final showdown,

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will the fighters have the tools that they need

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to mount an effective

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resistance.

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And

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if the answer is yes, then we can, you know, things will degrade as they do, and eventually, they're all it'll come to blows and we'll see what happens. I don't want that to happen. I'm a very peaceful guy. I'd love for all of this new technology that just blows,

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you know, wealth and prosperity

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and freedom all over the world. Right? Bitcoin and AI by nature are just freedom, prosperous technologies.

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I would love for them to just be, quote, permitted

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to do what they do. But I don't know if the I don't know if the authoritarians

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are gonna

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do that with they're not just gonna roll over, you know. I'm not optimistic

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that they're not gonna put up a really nasty fight.

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Yeah. I mean, I think to your point, like, it's not cynicism.

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It's it's being realistic and pragmatic.

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And I think it's important for these conversations are important not to

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discourage people. I think it's the opposite. I I think

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if you don't set expectations

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correctly,

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and you don't operate under

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valid assumptions,

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then you're just then you're gonna get burnt out. Then you're gonna be disappointed. Then in ten years, you know, looking at, you know, if if in ten years if in ten years, 5%

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of the world population is on self hosted sovereign

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tooling,

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that is a massive win.

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But if you set expectations

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inappropriately,

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then you could end up in a situation where you're at that 5%. And somehow you've blown through all expectations that I currently have.

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And then you're disappointed in it because still the majority of people are using controlled and surveilled alternatives.

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Yeah.

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I mean, there's something to be said for creating noise. Right? So

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if we can get,

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like, white noise. Okay. So, like, if we can get

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5% of the world, it is a massive number, you you know, you're putting out there. If can get 5% of the humans that use computers on Earth to be doing it in a self hosted, to be running open source self hosted software on their own servers and connecting to it from client devices for their friends and family, we can get 5% of the world doing that,

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then

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those people aren't necessarily the fighters I was talking about. Right? That's like it's like two standard deviations out. It's like this extremely small group of people that are gonna actually fight in the in the showdown. But if you have this first standard set of deviation, right, this first set of people who are using this to preserve their privacy, to avoid censorship,

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to save costs, to secure their information in a better way. Like, they're not fighters. They're literally just trying to live peaceful,

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dignified lives.

364
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They actually provide the smoke screen and the noise for the fighters. Because if they're if the only people using Tor are literally the people that,

365
00:31:21.049 --> 00:31:24.570
you know, a totalitarian government is identified as terrorists

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or something like that, then they have no chance because the signatures are there. Right? Like, you're still using an Internet service provider. You're still using

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infrastructure that can be broadly surveilled even if it's encrypted, even if it's onion routed.

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And so you can leave these fingerprints everywhere that can lead to your demise. But if there's a lot of people, if you normalize

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the use of privacy preserving

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high security,

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dignified

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information systems,

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then you've you've created a enough noise that the few fighters can can hide in it and not get called out. And at the same time, you've created a private,

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you know, uncensorable dignified existence for the other millions of people that have adopted it. So it's win win. And so,

375
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yeah, we make products

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that

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can absolutely and should be adopted by wonderful,

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normal, peace loving people who just wanna live a private dignified life, but I also keep in the back of my mind that

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those people adopting this technology

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may indirectly

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be a strategic play

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for a less,

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you know, desirable

384
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circumstance

385
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where certain people need to go underground and fight.

386
00:32:45.020 --> 00:32:46.860
Yeah. I mean, a less extreme

387
00:32:46.940 --> 00:32:51.340
but existing example we see of that in the Bitcoin world right now.

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CoinJoins.

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I mean, CoinJoins, there was an attempt there was an attempt to add the noise element and normalize them that I think failed

390
00:33:03.565 --> 00:33:08.205
partially because of apathy, but also very aggressive government response.

391
00:33:08.205 --> 00:33:11.725
But the win, by the way, that no one talks about is

392
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Square launching payments on all of their point of sales,

393
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defaulting to Lightning.

394
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And as a result, because it's defaulting to Lightning,

395
00:33:21.520 --> 00:33:24.880
Square and the merchant has no idea where that UTXO

396
00:33:24.880 --> 00:33:31.945
history. They have no idea of that Bitcoin history. Now, the overwhelming majority of people that are going to their local square shop and paying

397
00:33:32.184 --> 00:33:35.945
with Bitcoin for a coffee might be using a strike

398
00:33:36.184 --> 00:33:48.129
or a cash app or something like that that gives them no privacy. Obviously, they're trusting a third party. But that the the the few that are going there and paying with Zeus or paying with Phoenix or something

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are getting significant privacy gains under the shield of the greater the greater noise that's happening in terms of people making those payments. And I think that's been a I mean, it's early days, but you can you can categorize that as that type of win. Yeah, of course. I mean, it's it's just normalizing the use of cash. Right? Like, if everyone in the society is using cash,

400
00:34:09.549 --> 00:34:10.670
then obviously,

401
00:34:10.829 --> 00:34:22.190
some people could use cash to, you know, do things that might not be legal. I'm not saying immoral. I'm just saying, like, all of this conversation is under the sort of backdrop of a runaway totalitarian

402
00:34:22.190 --> 00:34:27.495
government. Right? Like like, we're doing things that are good and wholesome and absolutely

403
00:34:27.495 --> 00:34:30.855
within, you know, moral natural rights might be

404
00:34:31.175 --> 00:34:31.975
illegal.

405
00:34:31.975 --> 00:34:34.855
And so if everyone in that society is using cash though,

406
00:34:35.095 --> 00:34:44.550
then you are able to do those things effectively. But if nobody's using cash and you're the only one, then you walk into a store and you try to use cash and it just sets off all these alarms. So,

407
00:34:44.950 --> 00:34:45.510
yeah,

408
00:34:46.150 --> 00:34:47.750
privacy is normal. Security

409
00:34:48.230 --> 00:34:52.710
personal security. Right? Not not where you're trusting someone else with your security

410
00:34:53.055 --> 00:34:56.575
or trusting someone else with your privacy, which is really just called confidentiality.

411
00:34:56.655 --> 00:35:05.935
Normalizing this stuff is really important, and there's a lot of angles by which you can do that. Right? There's the the sort of philosophic angle. Right? You have to convince people,

412
00:35:06.095 --> 00:35:13.210
including people in positions of political power, that privacy is good. And we have foundations for this. There are multiple many organizations

413
00:35:13.210 --> 00:35:17.290
around the world whose mission is to normalize

414
00:35:17.530 --> 00:35:32.435
privacy. You know, it's not that you have something to hide. It's that it's none of their business. And then you have product companies, and then you have educators, and so we gotta hit it from all angles, and my angle is predominantly the product, the technology angle. It's I think that we need to make privacy,

415
00:35:33.170 --> 00:35:34.050
security,

416
00:35:34.050 --> 00:35:35.090
disintermediated,

417
00:35:35.090 --> 00:35:39.570
non custodial technologies and products easier to use because they are

418
00:35:39.890 --> 00:35:44.290
traditionally very, very hard to use and required enormous amount of expertise,

419
00:35:44.530 --> 00:35:45.250
time,

420
00:35:45.330 --> 00:35:58.775
or money. And if any of those is too high, then nobody will adopt them. And so that's what I spend my days doing. It's just trying to lower the bar, barrier to entry, raise the bar of quality and lower the barrier to entry for uncompromising

421
00:35:58.775 --> 00:35:59.575
freedom tech.

422
00:36:00.710 --> 00:36:13.990
Love it. I mean, so on that topic, on the topic of the tools you guys are building out, you guys have been working for years to build and ship o four o, which is arguably the largest, the biggest, most significant release in your company's history.

423
00:36:15.855 --> 00:36:21.615
I'm running o four o. Why should people be excited about it? What is why should they care?

424
00:36:22.975 --> 00:36:23.615
So

425
00:36:24.095 --> 00:36:24.895
nobody,

426
00:36:25.375 --> 00:36:27.135
including us at the beginning,

427
00:36:27.615 --> 00:36:29.295
under

428
00:36:28.599 --> 00:36:38.120
stood what we were actually building. Okay? Like, because it hasn't been built before. We were setting out to build something that had no real precedent, and that was the codification

429
00:36:38.680 --> 00:36:40.440
of a Linux systems administrator.

430
00:36:40.775 --> 00:36:48.135
Right? We were trying to take what was an advanced high experience skill set, Linux systems administration,

431
00:36:48.295 --> 00:36:49.095
how to

432
00:36:50.135 --> 00:36:52.295
own, operate, maintain

433
00:36:52.375 --> 00:36:54.055
server infrastructure,

434
00:36:54.775 --> 00:36:55.975
and turn that into code

435
00:36:57.089 --> 00:37:00.450
so that everyone could benefit from that

436
00:37:00.930 --> 00:37:16.005
skill and knowledge and experience. As though you were had one of these people sitting next to you at your desk telling you which buttons to click on the command line. Like, what if you could have that? Right? Would that be valuable? Would it be valuable to you if there's this crazy experienced

437
00:37:16.005 --> 00:37:22.405
dev hacker Linux sys admin sitting next to you telling you how to take total control of all your information systems?

438
00:37:23.045 --> 00:37:26.005
And we attempted to build that in the form of an operating system.

439
00:37:26.870 --> 00:37:34.550
And so that is a that was beyond what we expected. We didn't know how hard that was gonna be. K? Because it's easy to bootstrap something like that.

440
00:37:35.110 --> 00:37:37.350
There are tools that exist that get you

441
00:37:37.830 --> 00:37:41.030
to step one. So step one of

442
00:37:41.934 --> 00:37:46.494
being a Linux admin, of of, like, self hosting your own in information systems

443
00:37:46.575 --> 00:37:49.295
is installing the software and running it. And that's

444
00:37:49.934 --> 00:37:50.734
easy.

445
00:37:51.375 --> 00:37:54.974
Right? That's not a hard problem to solve, to be able to basically

446
00:37:55.260 --> 00:38:01.340
plug in a device, select some piece of software that you want, click install, and have it install, and then run.

447
00:38:01.740 --> 00:38:03.740
Classic app store scenario.

448
00:38:03.980 --> 00:38:17.515
Yeah. And so, that was kind of step one of the problem was, okay, how do we make it easy? Rather than sending somebody to a GitHub read me, where they follow command line instructions to install and run something, can we turn that into a button from an app store?

449
00:38:17.995 --> 00:38:26.100
Took us like two months to solve that problem. No big deal. Right? Umbral solved the same problem. They were a little later than us to go to market,

450
00:38:26.500 --> 00:38:28.980
but we had the same idea at the same time, basically.

451
00:38:29.540 --> 00:38:32.740
And they kind of I don't wanna say stopped, but but that

452
00:38:33.140 --> 00:38:40.345
was kind of the that was their end game. Right? Was to make it really, really easy for somebody to discover and install and run

453
00:38:40.665 --> 00:38:43.225
a piece of open source software

454
00:38:43.225 --> 00:38:47.545
to self host that on their own server, and to do so in a very, you know, pleasurable,

455
00:38:47.625 --> 00:38:48.425
streamlined

456
00:38:48.425 --> 00:38:48.745
way.

457
00:38:51.369 --> 00:38:53.530
But that's like a small portion

458
00:38:54.010 --> 00:39:14.045
of what it means to be a Linux sys admin. That's the easy part. Getting a piece of software installed and running on your computer is easy compared to what comes next, which is maintaining it in perpetuity. Perpetuity. Okay. Because servers are finicky. I mean, you have examples of large companies with billions of dollars and the best biggest engineering teams in the world, and their servers go down.

459
00:39:14.365 --> 00:39:22.910
Happens all the time. And why does that happen? Because there's a lot of moving parts and software sucks. All software is crap. Right? At some level, it's all shit.

460
00:39:23.390 --> 00:39:28.670
And so it doesn't work. It's just like everything else in the world. Right? It just requires ongoing

461
00:39:28.670 --> 00:39:38.405
maintenance, dependencies break, networks go down, a lightning bolt strike something and fries that it's like the number of problems that are going to happen with your server are

462
00:39:39.204 --> 00:39:47.684
not infinite, but a large set. And so what happens when something goes wrong, when something doesn't go perfectly, or even when you just wanna make a change?

463
00:39:48.300 --> 00:39:52.780
It's not even about when something goes wrong. It's like, what if you just wanna change the settings?

464
00:39:53.180 --> 00:39:57.980
Right? How do you do that? If the answer is you have to get on the command line and open Vim

465
00:39:58.220 --> 00:40:00.060
to edit a YAML file,

466
00:40:00.380 --> 00:40:06.215
and don't, you know, don't put a comma in for God's sakes, because the whole thing will explode and you'll have no idea why.

467
00:40:07.095 --> 00:40:09.655
So we approached this problem holistically.

468
00:40:09.655 --> 00:40:15.895
We were like, we've really we mean it. We're not just here to bootstrap people onto self hosted open source software. We're here to

469
00:40:16.680 --> 00:40:18.520
empower you to use it forever.

470
00:40:18.760 --> 00:40:21.160
And that was a problem we were unprepared

471
00:40:21.160 --> 00:40:23.240
for. I mean, we have expertise.

472
00:40:23.240 --> 00:40:27.640
We we are these people, and and we build ferociously.

473
00:40:27.960 --> 00:40:31.560
And nobody has really attempted to build what we built, and so we underestimated

474
00:40:32.495 --> 00:40:36.655
how difficult it would be. It took us four full

475
00:40:36.655 --> 00:40:37.615
rewrites

476
00:40:37.695 --> 00:40:43.695
of the operating system to get it right. We scrapped v one and came out with o point two. Huge improvement.

477
00:40:44.015 --> 00:40:47.295
Scrapped o point two, came out with o point three. Really good system.

478
00:40:47.820 --> 00:41:01.500
Actually, held up beautifully for three years in the global market and very few problems. I mean, people were effectively self hosting for years with v three. We scrapped it, deleted it. We didn't preserve anything. We didn't build on top of it. We realized that we got some things wrong

479
00:41:01.765 --> 00:41:08.565
and that it wouldn't scale to the infinite number of use cases that people are gonna want in the future, like robotics and AI.

480
00:41:08.965 --> 00:41:13.205
Right? You wanna be able to connect all these smart systems together on

481
00:41:13.365 --> 00:41:35.545
private networks that span the globe and you wanna do it in a way that is totally censorship resistant, totally private, totally free, totally under your own control. And we realized that v three wasn't gonna get us to that to, you know, the dreamland. We realized it wasn't gonna take us all the way. It was only gonna get us to three fourths of the way. And so we had to rethink

482
00:41:36.185 --> 00:41:37.785
the whole damn structure.

483
00:41:38.025 --> 00:41:41.945
And thank God that we don't have sunk cost fallacy around here,

484
00:41:42.345 --> 00:41:45.465
and that we have tolerant investors

485
00:41:46.150 --> 00:41:48.070
who, you know, understood

486
00:41:48.630 --> 00:41:55.830
that we weren't just trying to cash in quick and that we were trying to build something that to last. And so we did it. We just rewrote it. And so o point four,

487
00:41:56.550 --> 00:41:58.550
from a UX standpoint, actually shares

488
00:41:59.035 --> 00:42:06.155
a decent amount of what you got in o three. It's not like you're gonna update o four and be like, oh my god, I'm totally lost and disoriented,

489
00:42:06.155 --> 00:42:09.835
like that we we did a lot right with o three. It was a really good operating system.

490
00:42:10.395 --> 00:42:11.915
But o four solves

491
00:42:12.819 --> 00:42:15.700
solves everything. We we think that we have now

492
00:42:16.420 --> 00:42:17.619
the foundation,

493
00:42:18.819 --> 00:42:22.340
the operating system that will take sovereign computing

494
00:42:22.500 --> 00:42:29.375
to any place it wants to go. There's nothing we can't do now. There's nothing we can't encode.

495
00:42:29.855 --> 00:42:32.735
If your service, your piece of open source software

496
00:42:33.135 --> 00:42:34.735
has some crazy,

497
00:42:35.535 --> 00:42:38.255
totally new and unprecedented

498
00:42:38.335 --> 00:42:55.600
kind of need where every time it starts, it needs to connect to TOR, but then actually connect to I two p, but then somehow resolve a domain name that, you know, kicks back and asks the user four questions that they need to answer. Otherwise, the whole thing explodes. We can encode that now.

499
00:42:56.214 --> 00:42:57.975
Right? There's there's like no

500
00:42:58.214 --> 00:43:00.694
there's case we can't accommodate,

501
00:43:00.694 --> 00:43:03.575
or at least that we nothing we've encountered so far.

502
00:43:03.895 --> 00:43:09.175
And we've we've done a a lot. Right? The marketplace is now expanding at a unprecedented

503
00:43:09.175 --> 00:43:11.255
rate. We've made packaging services

504
00:43:11.690 --> 00:43:12.890
really, really easy,

505
00:43:13.210 --> 00:43:20.490
especially with a, you know, AI support. It now realistically takes anywhere between five and thirty minutes

506
00:43:20.730 --> 00:43:39.255
to go from piece of open source software out in the world that I and others might wanna use on StartOS to fully packaged service for StartOS listed on the marketplace. We can get it there in thirty minutes now for most services or less. And this is not even require you to be like an advanced developer. This is just using our SDK and and OPUS 4.7

507
00:43:40.080 --> 00:43:41.200
fully contextualized

508
00:43:41.200 --> 00:43:46.480
with templates that we provide, and minutes later you have a service on the marketplace.

509
00:43:47.120 --> 00:43:50.560
So o four o is reliable, it is fast,

510
00:43:50.880 --> 00:43:56.095
it is, it has fail safes all over the place, it is feature full, but more than anything,

511
00:43:56.415 --> 00:43:57.535
it it is

512
00:43:57.935 --> 00:44:00.655
like a rock. It is very, very flexible.

513
00:44:00.815 --> 00:44:03.935
Right? It can it can do whatever

514
00:44:03.935 --> 00:44:12.100
the open source world needs it to do. And now that we have that, we get to down to go do those things. And I'm not just talking about more services.

515
00:44:12.580 --> 00:44:15.540
I mean, expanding into new devices.

516
00:44:15.619 --> 00:44:22.075
Right? We get to now have fun. We get to connect our world because the server was the necessary prerequisite.

517
00:44:22.474 --> 00:44:25.835
Right? It's the brain and data store of the whole

518
00:44:26.555 --> 00:44:36.620
system. If you think about your computer systems as like an organism. Right? The server is the brain. And now we get to, like, go have fun. Right? We get to build limbs and

519
00:44:36.940 --> 00:44:37.980
play with toys.

520
00:44:38.540 --> 00:44:40.940
So I mean, obviously, you've

521
00:44:43.835 --> 00:44:51.035
this release, you're calling zero point four point zero. And when you speak about it, it kinda sounds like a one point zero release.

522
00:44:52.635 --> 00:44:55.755
It will be once Yeah. Once we've

523
00:44:56.315 --> 00:44:57.194
battle tested it.

524
00:44:58.580 --> 00:45:00.260
Right? We call it o point four

525
00:45:00.580 --> 00:45:02.180
as opposed to one point o

526
00:45:02.580 --> 00:45:04.340
strictly as a

527
00:45:05.380 --> 00:45:06.420
defensive

528
00:45:07.460 --> 00:45:08.420
branding

529
00:45:08.580 --> 00:45:15.965
or, like, trust approach. Like, don't We're not ready yet, basically. Yeah. Like, in theory, it's it's ready, but you gotta like take

530
00:45:16.365 --> 00:45:20.605
you gotta you gotta we need thousands of people using it for a couple of months

531
00:45:21.244 --> 00:45:25.405
so that we can flesh out all of the lingering inconsistencies

532
00:45:25.405 --> 00:45:28.670
or small bugs. Like, it's production ready now,

533
00:45:28.990 --> 00:45:32.829
and we haven't even launched it to production. So not only is it 0.4,

534
00:45:32.829 --> 00:45:34.349
but right now it's 0.4

535
00:45:34.349 --> 00:45:38.510
beta dot eight as of today. We just came out with beta dot eight. And

536
00:45:39.965 --> 00:45:43.565
so once that's out of beta, then it'll just be zero dot four.

537
00:45:43.965 --> 00:45:45.485
But then we'll stay there

538
00:45:45.805 --> 00:45:54.845
for a little while until it's like, I mean, until you can punch it with a, you know, you smack it with a sledgehammer and it doesn't break, then we'll call it one point o.

539
00:45:56.099 --> 00:46:00.099
But yeah, by the way, freaks, if you want to update to o four o right now,

540
00:46:00.579 --> 00:46:03.700
you have to just flash a USB drive. It's relatively straightforward.

541
00:46:04.420 --> 00:46:06.099
There's Matt

542
00:46:06.099 --> 00:46:15.865
hasn't made the quick and easy update button live in the in the UI yet. So you have to manually do it. And a little fun story there is I texted Matt asking him

543
00:46:16.265 --> 00:46:19.224
when he was gonna do that. And in the most loving,

544
00:46:20.510 --> 00:46:22.670
disappointed way possible,

545
00:46:22.670 --> 00:46:24.910
he he he basically

546
00:46:25.710 --> 00:46:46.645
responded in a way that made me go to the store and immediately get a USB drive and flash it because he he kinda made me feel bad. But what did I say to you? I don't know. It's just like disappointing. It was like, it was like, Odell, like, we're waiting. We're waiting that we're making sure that when everyone presses the big update button, it doesn't break things. There's a lot of moving parts here.

547
00:46:47.440 --> 00:46:59.760
You can flash a USB drive and and use that to update and don't be lazy, Matt. I actually say I went to the store. I didn't go to the store. As soon as I read that text message, I ordered a USB drive on DoorDash.

548
00:47:00.335 --> 00:47:08.415
It arrived like a half an hour later, and then I I upgraded. Yeah, if you want to update anyone listening, go to docs.star9.com.

549
00:47:08.654 --> 00:47:11.135
Click the updating to Oh, four o

550
00:47:11.295 --> 00:47:11.615
guide.

551
00:47:12.750 --> 00:47:14.350
Follow it step by step,

552
00:47:14.750 --> 00:47:32.185
and you'll have a good time. It'll work. And it's way better than o three five. Way, way, way better. It really is. And it's stable. I use it for multiple production servers. Like, it is it's ready to very stable. Yeah. So are we gonna release are you gonna release the big button to update soon? Or Soon. What are we waiting for?

553
00:47:33.305 --> 00:47:34.025
Soon.

554
00:47:34.345 --> 00:47:36.025
Soon. Okay. We

555
00:47:36.265 --> 00:47:41.625
need more test cases. Fair enough. Yeah. It's really stable, dude. It doesn't feel like known reason.

556
00:47:42.069 --> 00:47:43.990
Right? It's that I

557
00:47:44.950 --> 00:47:45.590
want

558
00:47:45.910 --> 00:47:47.990
I want two weeks to go by

559
00:47:48.470 --> 00:48:01.195
where there's no issues reported. Do you know what I mean? Yeah. And then and then I'll enter I'll put the big button in the UI. I mean, free, like, the mental burden thing is real with self hosting. It's not just like,

560
00:48:01.275 --> 00:48:05.275
stability is not a nice to have. And I'll go back to the same example.

561
00:48:05.914 --> 00:48:33.435
You know, if there's three hours of me trying to troubleshoot why I can't access my family photos, like, there's divorce on the line there. Like, my wife my wife will fucking kill me. And, yeah, you probably can you'll probably be able to sort it out if there's an issue, but those will be a long three hours. Right? And I think as people move more and more into self hosting, and move more of their lives to it, then they're going to really rely on these things. And you got to remove that mental burden. Stability is like the single.

562
00:48:33.915 --> 00:48:40.020
It's like the white whale too, because it's really hard to objectively measure. Well, what is stability? Stability,

563
00:48:40.180 --> 00:48:41.220
redundancy

564
00:48:41.540 --> 00:48:43.300
Yeah. Accessibility.

565
00:48:44.020 --> 00:48:48.820
Right? Like, you need to be able to access your information from anywhere in the world. Like, the cloud computing

566
00:48:49.140 --> 00:48:50.500
paradigm is awesome.

567
00:48:51.305 --> 00:48:56.745
It's awesome. We don't we don't have to think about anything. Right? You just you go anywhere in the world and you have access to all your stuff,

568
00:48:57.065 --> 00:49:02.025
and you never even it never even crosses your mind that the data could go missing. Right?

569
00:49:02.265 --> 00:49:10.980
Like, because you just trust and know that these companies are just backing it up on your behalf, that their server rooms are guarded and

570
00:49:11.380 --> 00:49:22.145
gotten good at it too. Like Yeah. If there was a massive issue with Apple Photos or whatever, iCloud Photos, like that would be people would freak out because they they've just come to assume that

571
00:49:22.545 --> 00:49:26.865
things match. Mean, you remember when we were growing up, like you would lose files and stuff.

572
00:49:27.105 --> 00:49:35.060
Like you'd forget to save like a Word document or something and you like lose it. The overwhelming majority of population now that they're in the cloud,

573
00:49:35.700 --> 00:49:40.180
the they can't even comprehend that. Like young kids now, like they can't even comprehend

574
00:49:40.420 --> 00:49:41.860
losing file history.

575
00:49:42.820 --> 00:49:45.095
It's absolute magic. Nobody

576
00:49:45.095 --> 00:49:50.455
thinks about how it works, and we can't expect them to. Right? That's the point. I'm all for the education,

577
00:49:50.775 --> 00:49:55.255
but I'm not banking on it. Right? What I'm banking on is that we can

578
00:49:55.655 --> 00:50:02.230
provide a near user experience to what the cloud model provides. We can never match it one to one.

579
00:50:02.630 --> 00:50:04.310
There's a fundamental

580
00:50:04.310 --> 00:50:05.110
extra

581
00:50:05.750 --> 00:50:09.030
part required to self host. Right? It's

582
00:50:09.990 --> 00:50:12.230
there's no way to get rid of it, which is

583
00:50:12.705 --> 00:50:14.865
basically you can't lose your master password.

584
00:50:15.745 --> 00:50:20.465
You can't you can't lose your keys. That's kind of the the one thing we can never

585
00:50:21.345 --> 00:50:36.060
overcome. At least, I haven't been able to think of a way that you can do that without re centralizing control over over the whole thing. So if the one thing that we need to educate on and normalize is holding private keys in a very secure effective way. And Bitcoin,

586
00:50:36.620 --> 00:50:40.300
Noster have done a lot to educate at least some people on

587
00:50:40.885 --> 00:50:44.165
what are what is cryptography and how do you hold keys properly.

588
00:50:44.165 --> 00:50:49.045
And so that is one thing I think that needs to be normalized in widespread education.

589
00:50:49.605 --> 00:50:50.485
But otherwise,

590
00:50:50.805 --> 00:51:05.060
I think we can match the cloud computing user experience. I think we can re obfuscate the server. Right? Because originally, like you said, there was computers and we had to use them. And then big tech came in and they were like, no. No. No. No. You don't need to do that. We'll run the computers.

591
00:51:05.140 --> 00:51:06.820
You just use remote controls,

592
00:51:06.900 --> 00:51:16.155
and we can make these remote controls, like, really, really easy. We'll we'll take on the burden of running the servers, which is where all the data are processed and stored. Right? Those are the real computers. Everything else,

593
00:51:16.395 --> 00:51:27.115
your laptop, your cell phone, are mostly just remote controls for those computers. And they obfuscated the server away. People don't even know what servers are. They don't realize that the whole meat of the operation is happening remotely somewhere else. It's just magic.

594
00:51:27.730 --> 00:51:33.330
So now we're reintroducing servers, bringing them back into people's homes, but we need to do it in such a way where

595
00:51:33.650 --> 00:51:38.770
the server is still invisible. It needs to be more like a router. It's like just something you just sort of plug in,

596
00:51:39.170 --> 00:52:06.170
and then you open up your phone and your laptops, and you're just doing cloud computing. You don't even need to know that it's all it's all happening through this device in your house or through some uncle Jim. And I think we yeah. I think we're getting really damn close, actually. My my family, my wife, and some extended family and friends were using they're all using servers, private servers that I run, and none of them none of them skip a beat. They're just using their phones and laptops like they always would, except they're connecting to private servers instead of

597
00:52:06.730 --> 00:52:09.050
third party cloud servers. So we're getting close.

598
00:52:10.194 --> 00:52:11.955
Yeah. So the big piece there

599
00:52:12.275 --> 00:52:18.915
with the o four o update that I just want to highlight is if you're using, if you're, if, if you're using

600
00:52:19.155 --> 00:52:22.675
your home server at home, that's always been

601
00:52:23.010 --> 00:52:30.370
a relatively easy connection problem to solve, right? You're on a local network, you have pretty much direct access to your home server.

602
00:52:30.690 --> 00:52:34.210
The hard piece to solve was the seamless I'm traveling around,

603
00:52:34.530 --> 00:52:37.330
I'm on my phone, I want to be able to access these things.

604
00:52:37.974 --> 00:52:38.855
Historically,

605
00:52:38.855 --> 00:52:40.615
you've relied on Tor for that.

606
00:52:41.095 --> 00:52:45.415
That's just a horrible experience. It's, you know, it's optimized for privacy,

607
00:52:46.055 --> 00:52:47.495
not for performance,

608
00:52:47.575 --> 00:52:49.015
you have a lot of latency.

609
00:52:49.910 --> 00:53:00.310
It's just it's it's a substandard experience. You use you use iCloud, and it's fast as hell and performant, then you use Tor, and it's it's garbage. You guys have implemented

610
00:53:01.030 --> 00:53:05.270
two different I believe it's two separate pieces. Right? It's start tunnel,

611
00:53:05.805 --> 00:53:08.045
and then a proxy service.

612
00:53:08.765 --> 00:53:12.285
How do you think about that? How does that change how people interact with their servers?

613
00:53:13.005 --> 00:53:16.765
Yeah. I mean, so the the problem, succinctly defined, is access.

614
00:53:16.765 --> 00:53:18.204
How do you access

615
00:53:18.890 --> 00:53:20.090
your server

616
00:53:20.890 --> 00:53:21.610
remotely?

617
00:53:21.690 --> 00:53:23.530
You go anywhere in the world without

618
00:53:24.410 --> 00:53:28.330
without introducing an intermediary, right, without compromising

619
00:53:28.330 --> 00:53:29.530
the essential

620
00:53:29.610 --> 00:53:32.970
characteristics of the system, which is privacy, censorship, resistance,

621
00:53:34.315 --> 00:53:35.275
security.

622
00:53:35.915 --> 00:53:36.475
So

623
00:53:37.115 --> 00:53:38.555
we, you know,

624
00:53:39.355 --> 00:53:41.435
thought long and hard, and we realized that

625
00:53:42.395 --> 00:53:51.420
one size fits all wasn't gonna work, that we really people need to choose because all of these things have trade offs. Right? Like, you wanna connect to a server,

626
00:53:51.580 --> 00:53:54.140
there's a few ways to do it, there's trade offs.

627
00:53:54.620 --> 00:53:59.180
And we don't wanna present too many choices because that creates decision paralysis.

628
00:53:59.420 --> 00:54:01.420
So we wanted to do the, you know, like,

629
00:54:01.900 --> 00:54:11.705
three here's three ways you can connect to your server, and here's why you would wanna do each of these ways, and here's what the trade offs are. And so, at present, those three ways to connect

630
00:54:11.865 --> 00:54:13.945
are Tor. This is for

631
00:54:14.905 --> 00:54:16.825
either public or private access,

632
00:54:17.145 --> 00:54:21.700
meaning you can publish a tour domain, like, can host your blog on tour. Right? And it's that

633
00:54:22.180 --> 00:54:25.140
space. Yeah. It'd be a way to anonymously,

634
00:54:25.140 --> 00:54:32.579
right, or mostly it depends on whether some whether you share the tour address from your identity or not, but it's a way to anonymously or pseudonymously

635
00:54:32.579 --> 00:54:33.140
host

636
00:54:33.425 --> 00:54:35.585
websites on the dark net.

637
00:54:35.585 --> 00:54:42.545
Or you can just use them for your private access and don't share them with anyone and nobody even knows that they exist. So this is for private or public

638
00:54:42.945 --> 00:54:44.865
remote global access

639
00:54:44.945 --> 00:54:49.930
where privacy and or anonymity are the paramount most important considerations.

640
00:54:49.930 --> 00:54:54.410
What the trade off is is like you said, it's slow, it's unreliable,

641
00:54:54.490 --> 00:55:07.095
it is incompatible with many remote controls, cell phones, laptops, and certain applications that you're gonna run on them just won't use Tor or won't use it properly, and so user experience degrades further. Option two.

642
00:55:07.734 --> 00:55:09.415
And this is for private

643
00:55:09.575 --> 00:55:10.454
remote

644
00:55:10.454 --> 00:55:11.255
access.

645
00:55:11.575 --> 00:55:12.775
Right? Not public,

646
00:55:13.015 --> 00:55:16.934
just private access from anywhere in the world, and this is using a VPN.

647
00:55:18.039 --> 00:55:20.200
Right? This is a standard

648
00:55:20.200 --> 00:55:24.119
technology. It's becoming increasingly normalized to use VPNs

649
00:55:24.440 --> 00:55:25.960
for outbound traffic.

650
00:55:26.119 --> 00:55:35.355
Right? For, like, you're using your remote control to access the Internet, and you want to hide your IP from the websites that you're visiting, that's how most people use VPNs.

651
00:55:35.595 --> 00:55:39.515
But you can use VPNs for the opposite direction as well. Right? You can use VPNs

652
00:55:39.515 --> 00:55:40.155
for

653
00:55:40.395 --> 00:55:44.555
inbound traffic. Right? We could think of it as reverse tunneling as opposed to tunneling.

654
00:55:45.339 --> 00:55:50.380
And so you can go anywhere in the world and then using your phone or laptop, access

655
00:55:50.619 --> 00:55:52.300
the server in your home

656
00:55:52.940 --> 00:55:55.340
in a way that it is not exposed to the Internet.

657
00:55:56.059 --> 00:55:59.980
It's not it's not using Tor. It's not exposed to the Internet. It's using a personal

658
00:56:00.515 --> 00:56:01.395
VPN

659
00:56:01.875 --> 00:56:02.915
for private

660
00:56:03.235 --> 00:56:09.635
access, and it is very fast. And there's two ways to do this. One is that most modern routers

661
00:56:10.355 --> 00:56:22.700
have VPN servers on them. These are aftermarket routers, not the one dropped off your by your ISP. Right? This assumes that you've Right. Leveled up and gotten yourself a real router, which everyone should do. And it runs a VPN server,

662
00:56:23.260 --> 00:56:24.620
and so you just turn it on

663
00:56:25.535 --> 00:56:27.695
and install an app on your phone,

664
00:56:28.015 --> 00:56:28.975
WireGuard,

665
00:56:29.135 --> 00:56:35.375
install WireGuard on your laptop, and then you go anywhere in the world and you it's basically as though you're home. Right? You have access to

666
00:56:36.095 --> 00:56:42.740
your LAN, your local area network of your home from anywhere in the world, only from authorized devices,

667
00:56:42.740 --> 00:56:44.660
which means you could give friends and family

668
00:56:44.900 --> 00:56:47.460
some limited access as well using

669
00:56:47.700 --> 00:56:52.180
the same technology. So if you wanted to, for your company or for your family,

670
00:56:53.095 --> 00:56:57.735
right, it takes a few minutes to set up. You have to get everyone's phone, everyone's laptop,

671
00:56:57.895 --> 00:57:06.615
and you have to install the app and then copy paste a config file in and click save. It's a few minutes. It's not like a heroic weekend long journey. It's a couple minutes.

672
00:57:07.530 --> 00:57:10.170
And you and your whole family are now connected

673
00:57:10.490 --> 00:57:15.850
from anywhere in the world to each other and to your home as though you were all in the house together. Okay?

674
00:57:16.170 --> 00:57:22.090
The second way to do the VPN, if you don't have a modern router with a VPN server on it, is Start Tunnel.

675
00:57:22.674 --> 00:57:28.115
StartTunnel is something that we built out of necessity because we realized that not everyone would have

676
00:57:28.755 --> 00:57:38.194
router with a VPN server on it. And there's a second reason for StartTunnel as well, which is is the third way to access remotely, which I'll get to in a minute. But you can and should think of StartTunnel

677
00:57:38.650 --> 00:57:40.090
as a virtual

678
00:57:40.090 --> 00:57:46.570
private router. VPR, I coined the term, Start Tunnel is the first instance of a virtual private router.

679
00:57:47.130 --> 00:57:49.530
You, again, should think of it as a router,

680
00:57:50.010 --> 00:57:58.835
except it's not a router sitting in your storage room broadcasting Wi Fi to your home. It is a router that runs in the cloud, right, on any

681
00:57:59.395 --> 00:58:06.435
VPS that you can rent from a VPS provider. There are many of them. And you rent this computer, right, that's running in the cloud,

682
00:58:06.915 --> 00:58:08.570
and you install

683
00:58:08.570 --> 00:58:13.210
Start Tunnel onto it. And what you have done is you've turned this computer into

684
00:58:13.210 --> 00:58:16.810
a router that is running remotely away from your home.

685
00:58:17.530 --> 00:58:26.035
It's not a full featured router. It's not a WiFi router. You're not producing WiFi networks from the cloud. Right? That's but it does certain things

686
00:58:26.595 --> 00:58:28.595
that routers do. Namely,

687
00:58:28.994 --> 00:58:31.155
is it allows you to create LANs.

688
00:58:31.315 --> 00:58:37.380
It allows you to create a VLAN, a virtual LAN. Just like the router in your house creates a LAN for the home,

689
00:58:37.780 --> 00:58:42.500
you can create as many VLANs as you want using Start Tunnel. Each one represents

690
00:58:42.980 --> 00:58:49.885
officially called a subnet, but each one represents a different house, basically, in the cloud. Second thing that you can do is add devices to these VLANs,

691
00:58:49.885 --> 00:58:54.685
just like you would in your house. Somebody comes in your house and asks what your WiFi password is, you give it to them, they have joined

692
00:58:55.085 --> 00:58:56.925
your LAN. With start tunnel,

693
00:58:57.325 --> 00:58:58.605
you can add devices

694
00:58:58.845 --> 00:59:17.975
to a LAN, and this is done using WireGuard and reverse tunneling. It's very easy to do. Same thing that you would do on your home router. You basically you go to your start tunnel instance. It's already running the VPN server. So unlike your home router, you don't actually need to, like, turn on a VPN server. It's inherent and running automatically with start tunnel. All you need to do is add devices.

695
00:59:18.215 --> 00:59:20.935
So you get yourself a start tunnel, a VPS,

696
00:59:21.015 --> 00:59:24.615
install start tunnel, and then you go around your friends and family and

697
00:59:24.775 --> 00:59:31.960
you add, you know, my laptop, my wife's laptop, my phone, my wife's phone, my my kid's laptop. You just add all these things in.

698
00:59:34.040 --> 00:59:36.120
Put the config files in everyone's phone.

699
00:59:36.520 --> 00:59:39.320
And now, you and your family, or you and your business,

700
00:59:40.360 --> 00:59:42.520
the individuals can go anywhere in the world,

701
00:59:43.215 --> 00:59:46.175
and they're all connected to each other through

702
00:59:46.175 --> 00:59:47.535
this virtual

703
00:59:48.335 --> 00:59:49.135
LAN

704
00:59:49.775 --> 00:59:51.535
that StartTunnel created

705
00:59:51.695 --> 00:59:52.735
in the cloud.

706
00:59:54.175 --> 00:59:58.255
And then that LAN, right, assuming you say say you have a server in your house,

707
00:59:58.950 --> 01:00:01.270
you add the server in your house

708
01:00:01.830 --> 01:00:04.550
to the LAN of start tunnel. Right?

709
01:00:04.790 --> 01:00:09.350
So now the server's on two LANs. It's on the LAN in your home, which is created by the router,

710
01:00:10.070 --> 01:00:12.390
and then you add it to the LAN in the cloud.

711
01:00:13.025 --> 01:00:15.905
So now your server's on two local area networks.

712
01:00:16.225 --> 01:00:23.905
And so if your devices, your cell phone and your laptop, are also on one of those LANs, it means that when you're home, you're connected to your server on the LAN.

713
01:00:24.385 --> 01:00:29.010
And when you go somewhere else in the world, you're connected to your server on the VLAN.

714
01:00:29.170 --> 01:00:32.210
So you're always at home with your server, no matter where you go in the world.

715
01:00:32.930 --> 01:00:36.450
Right? And this is what Start Tunnel one of the things that Start Tunnel does.

716
01:00:36.770 --> 01:00:40.130
Okay. That's number two. And it's the optimal choice

717
01:00:40.485 --> 01:00:48.325
for private remote access for you, your family, or your business. That is the optimal one because there's no compromise. The only trade off

718
01:00:48.725 --> 01:00:50.085
to that strategy

719
01:00:50.245 --> 01:00:58.010
is the initial setup time. But you have to actually add the devices to the LAN, copy paste the wire What is the trust you're putting into the

720
01:00:58.090 --> 01:01:01.050
server in the cloud? Is is that just uptime?

721
01:01:01.610 --> 01:01:05.370
These these VPS providers have, like, 99.99%

722
01:01:05.370 --> 01:01:06.330
SLAs.

723
01:01:06.330 --> 01:01:10.425
Like, they don't go down. You're not there a trusting privacy, like, tracking concern? Nope.

724
01:01:11.785 --> 01:01:15.865
They see here's what they see. They see a server

725
01:01:16.025 --> 01:01:18.825
that has electrical signals flying in and out.

726
01:01:19.065 --> 01:01:27.490
Right. They don't have They have IP addresses, but they don't know what traffic is. They they know where the Right. Those electrical signals are coming from. Correct. Yeah. So it's it's

727
01:01:28.210 --> 01:01:37.565
and some of them require a degree of KYC. It depends. Right? Like, obviously, if you're using your credit card, then but it's, yes, it's a trade off. So the optimal

728
01:01:37.805 --> 01:01:39.885
thing to do is to use your home router.

729
01:01:40.365 --> 01:01:43.725
But even then, you're exposing the exact same information to your ISP.

730
01:01:44.045 --> 01:01:48.045
Right. Right. So we've talked about this. I've talked about this before. Eventually,

731
01:01:48.205 --> 01:01:48.525
eventually,

732
01:01:49.190 --> 01:01:53.750
we need to take on the big boss. Right? Which is the actual meatspace infrastructure

733
01:01:53.910 --> 01:01:57.910
and how the Internet is generated through fiber optic cables and towers. Right.

734
01:01:59.030 --> 01:02:02.470
But it's not necessary right now because there's so much noise. Like,

735
01:02:02.870 --> 01:02:04.335
works. Tunneling

736
01:02:04.335 --> 01:02:08.015
works. Right? We can use their foundation

737
01:02:08.335 --> 01:02:09.775
of the Internet

738
01:02:10.175 --> 01:02:18.290
to do extremely private things. Eventually, we need to redo the Internet, like Yep. In the form of mesh networks and

739
01:02:18.690 --> 01:02:20.610
bottom up grassroots,

740
01:02:20.930 --> 01:02:36.705
you know, towers and cable laying and all the rest. But, like, again, it's not a battle for today, and it's not doesn't need to be. We shouldn't even be focused on that, in my opinion. Okay. So number three, and this is the exciting one. Right? This is the one that if we're being honest, most people are going to use is just clear net.

741
01:02:37.025 --> 01:02:38.065
Right? Just

742
01:02:38.464 --> 01:02:43.984
meet people where they're at. Like, how do you use the Internet? How do I use the Internet? How do we all use the Internet? We use

743
01:02:44.619 --> 01:02:45.339
even in

744
01:02:45.900 --> 01:02:47.420
we even call it the Internet.

745
01:02:47.580 --> 01:03:01.415
Right? It's it's Clearnet has become synonymous with the Internet, and they're not really the same thing. Right? Like, the Internet is a word that describes something a little broader than what I would call Clearnet. But Clearnet is a combination

746
01:03:01.415 --> 01:03:05.175
of TCP IP and the DNS system,

747
01:03:05.975 --> 01:03:10.055
and the certificate authority system. Those are kind of the three pieces

748
01:03:10.455 --> 01:03:15.175
that I would identify as Clearnet. So TCP IP is an information protocol.

749
01:03:15.810 --> 01:03:17.650
Right? Two is DNS.

750
01:03:17.730 --> 01:03:18.290
So

751
01:03:18.530 --> 01:03:22.290
domain name services. So the way that you com.net,

752
01:03:22.290 --> 01:03:24.530
these human readable domains

753
01:03:24.610 --> 01:03:27.570
and how those resolve to IP addresses.

754
01:03:27.570 --> 01:03:35.625
Right? And then three is certificate authorities, and this is how encryption is done and it's all a trust based system. So we decided to

755
01:03:36.265 --> 01:03:38.505
enable people to utilize

756
01:03:38.745 --> 01:03:39.945
this system

757
01:03:40.200 --> 01:03:41.560
called Clearnet

758
01:03:41.560 --> 01:03:49.000
from their home servers and to make it as streamlined and easy to do as possible. Like VPN,

759
01:03:49.240 --> 01:03:51.480
there is a small degree of initial setup.

760
01:03:51.720 --> 01:03:54.280
It's not as much initial setup as VPN,

761
01:03:54.765 --> 01:03:56.445
but once it is set up,

762
01:03:56.924 --> 01:03:58.525
there is nothing

763
01:03:58.684 --> 01:03:59.805
you have to do

764
01:04:00.285 --> 01:04:01.405
from then on.

765
01:04:01.645 --> 01:04:07.885
It just works. Right? Like, anyone on earth, including you, including your family, including your business,

766
01:04:08.204 --> 01:04:09.484
can just open up any browser,

767
01:04:10.150 --> 01:04:12.070
any client, any application

768
01:04:12.070 --> 01:04:14.630
for the phone, and utilize

769
01:04:15.750 --> 01:04:17.030
the resource

770
01:04:17.830 --> 01:04:20.550
that is offered by your server, whether that's a website,

771
01:04:20.710 --> 01:04:21.430
an API,

772
01:04:22.164 --> 01:04:34.644
a node on a network. Right? Those are sort of the three broad categories of what you can do on a server. Right? You can do a web service, you can do an API, or you can be a node on a peer to peer network. Those are the three broad categories.

773
01:04:35.289 --> 01:04:49.785
Regardless of which one it is, you are just gonna plug and play with the rest of the world because the world operates on Clearnet for the most part. So we have created, I think, an incredible Clearnet story with o four o. You're talking a couple of clicks, clear instructions,

774
01:04:49.945 --> 01:04:55.305
and boom. Your business is running on cloud.mybusiness.com.

775
01:04:55.465 --> 01:04:59.305
Your passwords are at, you know, passwords.mybusiness.com.

776
01:04:59.305 --> 01:05:02.425
Your blog is at blog.mybusiness.com.

777
01:05:02.425 --> 01:05:03.705
So you can just build out

778
01:05:04.210 --> 01:05:06.770
effectively your own little corner of the Internet

779
01:05:06.850 --> 01:05:08.690
that's running on your own server

780
01:05:09.250 --> 01:05:10.370
and replace

781
01:05:10.610 --> 01:05:17.010
SaaS companies one by one by one. Right? Like, ultimately, if people take nothing else from this entire

782
01:05:17.925 --> 01:05:19.205
conversation here,

783
01:05:20.165 --> 01:05:21.685
I would want them to take this,

784
01:05:21.925 --> 01:05:23.525
which is self hosted

785
01:05:24.725 --> 01:05:25.525
open self

786
01:05:26.085 --> 01:05:31.685
hosting open source software services on your own server on Clearnet is a fucking decapitation

787
01:05:31.685 --> 01:05:32.245
move

788
01:05:32.530 --> 01:05:33.970
of the entire

789
01:05:34.050 --> 01:05:37.970
software as a service Silicon Valley hegemonic

790
01:05:37.970 --> 01:05:41.330
monster that has emerged over the last twenty years. Like,

791
01:05:41.490 --> 01:05:52.335
all the things that we think of when we say big tech and invasion of privacy and censorship and costs and oh, there's been another breach and all of this shit can be roughly encapsulated

792
01:05:52.335 --> 01:05:54.015
in the scammy,

793
01:05:54.255 --> 01:05:59.935
sell to the next dumbest investor and eventually dump on the public's head VC

794
01:06:00.015 --> 01:06:01.135
driven

795
01:06:01.380 --> 01:06:02.500
centralized

796
01:06:03.380 --> 01:06:08.900
information system that Silicon Valley has turned out over the last twenty eight years is completely

797
01:06:08.900 --> 01:06:12.339
decapitated and made made impotent and useless

798
01:06:12.980 --> 01:06:15.460
by individuals, families, and businesses

799
01:06:15.539 --> 01:06:22.785
putting a server in their home, installing open source software on it, and hosting it on the public Internet. Gone. Take Zoom, for example. Okay?

800
01:06:23.105 --> 01:06:39.110
Massive company. Zoom's not even a company. Aren't they owned by Microsoft? I don't remember who buys who anymore. It's all one giant company under the hood anyway. But they're not owned by Microsoft, but sure. Zoom is a massive company. Huge valuation. I don't know what it was. It's in the billions of dollars. Right? Obviously, that's easy nowadays. So

801
01:06:40.390 --> 01:06:44.435
what does Zoom do? It allows you to do meetings. Right? Remote meetings, team meetings,

802
01:06:45.555 --> 01:06:53.955
video conferencing, chat, the whole deal. Right? And it can even record things and store them for future use, analyze them with AI, whole deal. And they are doing this. They're spying on all your calls.

803
01:06:55.010 --> 01:06:55.570
We

804
01:06:55.810 --> 01:06:56.850
with o four o,

805
01:06:57.329 --> 01:06:58.130
you can

806
01:06:59.650 --> 01:07:02.370
I wish I could just do a demo here, but I'll

807
01:07:02.530 --> 01:07:14.375
I'll put a video on X? I'll do a screen recording and put it on X of how to eliminate Zoom from your life and make the company obsolete in ten minutes. K? That's what I'll just call the video. You can, in a few buttons on StartOS,

808
01:07:15.095 --> 01:07:15.895
produce

809
01:07:16.055 --> 01:07:17.815
a self hosted

810
01:07:18.375 --> 01:07:19.175
alternative

811
01:07:19.175 --> 01:07:27.170
to Zoom so that you and your friends and your family and your colleagues and your work can do video conferencing together

812
01:07:27.250 --> 01:07:32.770
exactly in the same way that you would using Zoom with no loss of user experience, no added effort,

813
01:07:32.930 --> 01:07:33.570
nothing,

814
01:07:34.290 --> 01:07:42.375
in about five to ten minutes on your own server, and it works flawlessly. I do all of my team meetings, all of my family calls with my parents. This is Jitsi.

815
01:07:42.695 --> 01:07:43.335
Yeah.

816
01:07:43.575 --> 01:07:48.135
But but, like, Jitsi is notoriously difficult to set up and get working properly.

817
01:07:48.615 --> 01:07:52.240
Right? Like, you have to you have to do the the the video

818
01:07:53.200 --> 01:07:55.520
turns you have to do the turn servers,

819
01:07:55.680 --> 01:07:57.760
you have to set up the UDP

820
01:07:58.480 --> 01:08:06.675
port forwarding situate, like, up a self hosted Jitsi that actually works and you can do meetings with, 50 people and stuff like that, it's like good luck.

821
01:08:06.994 --> 01:08:10.515
I do this from my house now with a button. It's nothing. It's so So

822
01:08:11.075 --> 01:08:12.994
we have, as of today,

823
01:08:13.714 --> 01:08:14.275
eliminated

824
01:08:14.835 --> 01:08:17.635
the reason for Zoom to exist in the world,

825
01:08:18.460 --> 01:08:21.179
and yet it is nobody is doing it,

826
01:08:21.820 --> 01:08:26.619
and millions and millions of people are still using Zoom. Yeah. It's a $32,000,000,000

827
01:08:26.619 --> 01:08:27.340
company.

828
01:08:27.579 --> 01:08:29.659
Changing behavior is hard,

829
01:08:30.805 --> 01:08:33.445
But the more Zoom spies on people,

830
01:08:34.085 --> 01:08:35.925
the higher their prices go,

831
01:08:36.885 --> 01:08:46.739
the more people who will be like, how do I how do I not use Zoom? And they might platform hop to some other thing that spies on them and charges them money. But eventually,

832
01:08:47.140 --> 01:08:49.140
given enough time and enough pain

833
01:08:49.300 --> 01:08:51.540
and enough information available,

834
01:08:51.940 --> 01:08:53.460
I think people may discover

835
01:08:54.420 --> 01:09:05.015
that they can just do it themselves. It's like imagine going from restaurant to restaurant to restaurant. Everywhere you go they poison you. Every single time you go out to eat, you end up vomiting all night long.

836
01:09:05.415 --> 01:09:06.775
At some point,

837
01:09:07.255 --> 01:09:11.175
you would hope, right, that people would go, maybe I'll just cook.

838
01:09:11.940 --> 01:09:15.219
Maybe I will cook a meal at home for myself.

839
01:09:16.100 --> 01:09:23.620
And then when they do it, they realize there's these things called ovens that make it really easy. Like you don't actually have to like make a campfire.

840
01:09:23.620 --> 01:09:36.304
Right? Like you can you can do this. It's easy and it won't make you vomit all night. And so that's where we're at with this now, is you can think of, like, Start Nine and Start OS and all the things that you can do with it

841
01:09:36.625 --> 01:09:37.344
as

842
01:09:37.664 --> 01:09:42.050
not only cooking for yourself, it's actually bigger than that. Growing your own food,

843
01:09:42.530 --> 01:09:48.449
but using modern technology that makes it easy. You don't need to be an expert farmer. You don't need to be a chef.

844
01:09:48.770 --> 01:09:55.250
Just grow your own food and cook it for yourself. It's like a button here and a button there, and every all these restaurants just die.

845
01:09:56.005 --> 01:10:00.485
Die. Wouldn't you love to see that happen? It's like an old fashioned hanging

846
01:10:00.805 --> 01:10:06.005
when the guy was actually a bad guy. You know what I mean? Like, I would love to see

847
01:10:06.405 --> 01:10:10.005
and witness and be a part of the mass execution

848
01:10:10.005 --> 01:10:15.979
of these Silicon Valley SaaS companies. I just they do not belong on Earth. They have no business. I'm down. Let's kill them all.

849
01:10:17.179 --> 01:10:21.099
So, I mean, that sounds awesome. Option three sounds by far the easiest.

850
01:10:21.420 --> 01:10:29.474
What are the like, what is the trade off there? Why would someone choose option one? You know, they're running a VPN on their router versus

851
01:10:29.554 --> 01:10:33.635
option three where it's just built in clear net support on their

852
01:10:33.954 --> 01:10:35.235
server? These

853
01:10:35.235 --> 01:10:42.110
these sort of two trade offs, I'll call it, to option three. One is that you are losing a degree of privacy by

854
01:10:42.110 --> 01:10:43.390
engaging in

855
01:10:43.950 --> 01:10:45.070
the DNS

856
01:10:45.070 --> 01:10:47.150
and certificate authority world.

857
01:10:47.310 --> 01:10:50.590
These are these are worlds that are based entirely

858
01:10:51.155 --> 01:10:54.675
on top down trust. So when you register a domain name,

859
01:10:55.075 --> 01:11:03.395
they need your address, they need your phone number. If you lie to them, you can go to jail. Like, it's like a serious thing registering a domain name. Right? Like so when you put

860
01:11:04.120 --> 01:11:05.400
your website

861
01:11:05.800 --> 01:11:06.840
or your

862
01:11:07.080 --> 01:11:09.559
personal file storage system

863
01:11:10.440 --> 01:11:11.560
on Clearnet,

864
01:11:11.560 --> 01:11:28.135
you are advertising the value you're doing this. Yes. You you are announcing that you're doing it to everyone and everyone on earth. This is not like subpoena stuff. This is like pleb stuff. Everyone can see that you are doing this if they care to look. Right? So that's number one. Number two is a degree of security.

865
01:11:28.455 --> 01:11:31.655
Right? When you put something in a public square and everyone can see it,

866
01:11:32.400 --> 01:11:36.480
it's possible someone's gonna attack it. Alright? Now now application

867
01:11:36.480 --> 01:11:47.280
security is pretty damn good. Encryption works. Rate limiting works. So the idea that somebody's gonna visit your, you know, personal cloud storage website and brute force your password is probably pretty low because,

868
01:11:47.805 --> 01:11:51.565
hopefully, you've chosen good passwords and using a password manager,

869
01:11:51.965 --> 01:11:57.244
but there's also built in, you know, rate limiting into almost every piece of software that you could install.

870
01:11:57.645 --> 01:12:21.114
And we think a lot about stuff like this. We remove the foot guns. Right? When you when you self host open source software on your own server, there are a lot of ways that you can fuck it up. A lot. Even very experienced people leave doors open. And this has been one of the things with like Open Claw, you know, when people are like, I got my Mac mini. I'm like, build out digital worlds for myself and, and it's like,

871
01:12:21.355 --> 01:12:24.795
backdoors everywhere, like, know, security vulnerabilities,

872
01:12:24.795 --> 01:12:26.795
leaks of privacy. And so

873
01:12:27.770 --> 01:12:31.449
we think that StartOS is actually the ideal

874
01:12:32.010 --> 01:12:32.809
system

875
01:12:33.130 --> 01:12:34.330
for agentic

876
01:12:34.330 --> 01:12:35.289
development

877
01:12:35.370 --> 01:12:41.450
because it has all of these guardrails and protections and best practices built in. Right? So for the same reason

878
01:12:42.265 --> 01:12:50.425
that a human running bare bones Linux to self host all their stuff is gonna make a ton of mistakes, spend infinite amount of time, and it's not gonna work anyway.

879
01:12:50.665 --> 01:13:06.570
Same thing with an AI. Right? Like, AIs are gonna screw stuff up on a bare bones Linux system as well, not as much as a human would. But because they're building so much more and so much faster, the the net destruction could actually be greater than if a human was doing it because at least they're doing it slowly and can't blow it all up at once.

880
01:13:07.225 --> 01:13:13.145
So StartOS, I think, can emerge as, like, the preferred operating system of AIs.

881
01:13:13.145 --> 01:13:18.425
Because it's like, we we have all the recipes for them to accomplish what the user wants,

882
01:13:18.920 --> 01:13:29.239
but with assurances that it will be done properly and work well and not leave security and privacy gaps all over the place. But anyway, if you put something on Clearnet,

883
01:13:30.199 --> 01:13:33.800
you know, you're setting up a booth at a public market.

884
01:13:34.725 --> 01:13:36.805
And if you're only using it for yourself,

885
01:13:37.045 --> 01:13:41.844
like if your intent is not actually to distribute things in that booth, then why'd you put it there?

886
01:13:42.565 --> 01:13:49.525
Right? That's kind of question. Do a friends and family VPN at that point. Yeah. It's like if you want to put a website, like your ecommerce store,

887
01:13:50.360 --> 01:13:52.360
that needs to be on the public internet.

888
01:13:52.520 --> 01:13:56.439
Otherwise, people aren't gonna be able to access it. You can't be like, oh, I'll get a v like,

889
01:13:56.760 --> 01:14:20.110
you don't want them to have VPN server access to your land. So if you're gonna, you know, maybe can't expect them to use Tor, otherwise, you're not gonna get any sales. Exactly. Tor is good as a fallback in case of censorship. That's what Tor is useful for. So if you have a blog, for example, you put it on the clear net, and you also mirror it on the dark net. So that way, someone censors you, then you get to go on social media and be like, they censored me. Check out my censorship resistant alternative.

890
01:14:20.110 --> 01:14:24.269
And now, not only did your website survive, but you're also really cool. So,

891
01:14:24.750 --> 01:14:26.510
you know, that's what Tor is for.

892
01:14:27.790 --> 01:14:40.435
But you wanna sell stuff or you wanna you wanna have a blog, you know, that belongs on the public Internet so that people can actually access it. But if you want your, you know, your passwords and your private files and your family photos and stuff like that,

893
01:14:40.835 --> 01:14:43.875
why put them on the public Internet? You know, you can.

894
01:14:45.219 --> 01:14:59.784
And in almost all cases, you're not gonna get attacked because nobody cares about your website. Again, application security is pretty robust. So the idea that someone's gonna brute force their way into your private photo, you know, website is minimal.

895
01:15:00.585 --> 01:15:01.784
So realistically,

896
01:15:01.784 --> 01:15:02.184
look,

897
01:15:02.585 --> 01:15:05.385
like I said, even for private access,

898
01:15:05.704 --> 01:15:07.544
most people are gonna do Clearnet because

899
01:15:08.025 --> 01:15:18.180
it's just so damn easy and convenient to do. And I'm not gonna I'm not gonna tell them they're wrong. I'm not. Is it slightly less private and less secure

900
01:15:18.420 --> 01:15:22.020
than private VPN access? Yes. But in reality,

901
01:15:22.500 --> 01:15:24.580
is that gonna be used against you? Probably not.

902
01:15:26.105 --> 01:15:26.985
Makes sense.

903
01:15:29.145 --> 01:15:37.065
I mean, like, this conversation, I can I can chat with you for hours, but I'm trying to be conscious of time here? And there's two more pieces I wanna cover

904
01:15:37.440 --> 01:15:43.360
before we wrap. Do you sell hardware on the website right now? You sell the server one.

905
01:15:44.000 --> 01:15:50.720
Twenty twenty six server one. But how should people think about if they wanna they wanna start self hosting, how should people think about buying

906
01:15:51.005 --> 01:15:53.485
prebuilt hardware from you versus

907
01:15:54.284 --> 01:15:58.445
either buying or recycling older hardware and installing

908
01:15:58.684 --> 01:15:59.965
StartOS on it?

909
01:16:01.485 --> 01:16:05.885
The principle at stake here is how mission critical is it? K. So

910
01:16:06.150 --> 01:16:07.510
if you're playing around,

911
01:16:08.390 --> 01:16:25.964
you don't need it. You know, you can use a piece of crap and or a VM even within an existing laptop, you're just playing around. But if you're planning on setting up, like, mission critical infrastructure for yourself, your family, or your business, you need really high quality hardware. And so you should not skimp on that. If you have really high quality hardware already,

912
01:16:26.364 --> 01:16:31.804
then just flash start OS, and you're good to go. There's no reason to buy from us. If you don't have

913
01:16:32.204 --> 01:16:33.405
quality hardware,

914
01:16:33.724 --> 01:16:40.140
we sell some, and we sell it at a very reasonable price, especially considering the current costs of SSDs and

915
01:16:40.220 --> 01:16:46.620
RAM. We're actually very competitively priced, significantly cheaper in fact than, you know, even people that are doing the same thing as us like Umbral,

916
01:16:47.434 --> 01:16:55.114
and was a much more powerful device, by the way, and we're still cheaper. So, yeah, we have great hardware. We warranty it. It comes with a two year warranty,

917
01:16:55.275 --> 01:17:12.550
which is uncommon, and it also comes with access to our support, which is a private support server. This isn't like some public channel on Telegram where scammers and spammers are gonna be trying to fish you at every at every turn. We have a private support server that's gated to and is only accessible by paying customers

918
01:17:12.790 --> 01:17:17.555
where you can come in and ask questions day or night and get one on one support

919
01:17:17.875 --> 01:17:34.910
from highly qualified technical people that start nine employees, and your device is warranted. So buying from us has huge benefits. Warranty, support, high quality hardware, great team. You're also contributing to open development of an important piece of open source software in start OS and others as well.

920
01:17:35.310 --> 01:17:42.270
So, yeah, I'm happy when people buy from us, but you are in no way obligated to and I'll give you a high five if you if you don't do. I don't care. Like, just

921
01:17:42.895 --> 01:17:44.494
take control of your information.

922
01:17:45.215 --> 01:17:51.614
Yeah. I will say the hardware is incredibly competitively priced. I mean, four terabytes SSD,

923
01:17:51.614 --> 01:17:53.054
32 gigs RAM,

924
01:17:54.014 --> 01:17:55.054
Ryzen seven,

925
01:17:56.239 --> 01:17:58.480
twelve ninety nine, I mean, I think

926
01:17:59.280 --> 01:17:59.840
SSD

927
01:18:00.080 --> 01:18:03.280
freaking. That SSD is on Amazon for almost $700.

928
01:18:03.360 --> 01:18:10.719
Yeah. It's a Hardware is crazy. Right? Samsung Evo Plus four terabyte NVMe SSD. Go look it up. Almost $700.

929
01:18:11.235 --> 01:18:12.675
Just for the SSD.

930
01:18:13.955 --> 01:18:21.235
Yeah. So it's very competitively priced. We're not cutting margins here. Putting my investor hat on, are we charging too little for

931
01:18:22.275 --> 01:18:23.314
that hardware?

932
01:18:23.635 --> 01:18:32.239
No. We're good. Don't worry. Okay. Sorry, freaks. Goodbye before I encourage Matt to increase the price. We're we're here for the

933
01:18:32.720 --> 01:18:34.000
the long run,

934
01:18:34.240 --> 01:18:34.960
you know.

935
01:18:36.640 --> 01:18:38.560
We're not gonna penny pinch right now.

936
01:18:39.365 --> 01:18:42.085
No. I agree. I'm I'm mostly kidding. I know. Okay.

937
01:18:42.325 --> 01:18:46.085
On the hardware piece, you've teased it. It's now public information.

938
01:18:46.485 --> 01:18:52.325
You guys are coming out with a router. When will we get it and why people should be excited about it? And third piece,

939
01:18:52.565 --> 01:18:54.245
are you currently on the router right now?

940
01:18:55.040 --> 01:18:55.679
No.

941
01:18:56.080 --> 01:18:58.800
Okay. So I'll I'll do them in order. Alright. So

942
01:18:59.200 --> 01:19:01.920
years rewind a few years. Okay.

943
01:19:03.520 --> 01:19:07.600
We get asked all the time, which router should I get? Because some people realize

944
01:19:08.025 --> 01:19:12.345
that just accepting the router that is dropped off by your ISP

945
01:19:12.345 --> 01:19:18.905
and for which they charge you $10 a month for, by the way, is just a horrible decision if you care at all about privacy,

946
01:19:18.905 --> 01:19:20.105
security, and cost.

947
01:19:20.860 --> 01:19:23.420
Like, why would you pay $10 a month for something

948
01:19:23.980 --> 01:19:27.980
that, you know, can be bought in many cases for under $200?

949
01:19:29.340 --> 01:19:31.099
And why would you

950
01:19:31.660 --> 01:19:33.260
put a knowing open

951
01:19:33.340 --> 01:19:37.545
access point and backdoor into your entire home? Right? Busy spyware.

952
01:19:37.785 --> 01:19:57.170
It literally is. These routers just give blanket visibility into your entire LAN. They could see every device on your network, how often you're using them, what they're connecting to, like, everything is just crazy that people put these backdoors in their homes willingly. And so some people realize this, and they know that they need to get a different router. They need to tell their ISP to take a hike with that thing and go get their own router.

953
01:19:57.570 --> 01:20:03.489
And so they were asking us constantly, what router should I get? And so we take customer support really, really importantly,

954
01:20:03.489 --> 01:20:04.769
and we ourselves

955
01:20:05.010 --> 01:20:19.215
were asking that question of ourselves. Like, we were comparing routers and setups, and so we we just pavement bound it. We tried a bunch of different routers, and, you know, each of us kind of, I like this one because of this, and that one's more featureful, but it's harder to use, and this one has a interface from 1992.

956
01:20:19.215 --> 01:20:26.070
And so, eventually, we just realized that routers We realized that there was no really good router on the market, that the the trade offs were

957
01:20:26.469 --> 01:20:41.014
way too much. You want something really powerful, it's unusable. You want something really usable, it sucks. It's not powerful enough. And there was no good balance. Nobody had managed to create a good router. And so we're like, well, maybe we should make a router. So we set out to do it almost

958
01:20:41.655 --> 01:20:42.775
obligatorily.

959
01:20:43.015 --> 01:20:47.735
I wasn't I wouldn't say we were excited. We were like, alright. Well, we're gonna build a router and we'll see what happens.

960
01:20:48.135 --> 01:20:57.020
As we got into designing and as I learned more and more about networking, because I'm not formally educated in, like, networking. I'm not a network engineer. I'm an application developer.

961
01:20:57.580 --> 01:21:18.669
I realized how cool routers were. You know, like, me, like everyone else, is sort of this black box that makes Internet happen in your house, And you don't realize what's happening under the hood and what could be happening if you were if you knew what they were doing. And I was like, oh my god. You can do a lot of really cool things with routers around privacy, security, access, control,

962
01:21:18.670 --> 01:21:22.269
right, being the overarching concept, would say, is just control

963
01:21:22.349 --> 01:21:24.510
control over information,

964
01:21:24.750 --> 01:21:26.110
over how information

965
01:21:26.909 --> 01:21:31.949
travels around and who can see it and when they can see it and all the rest. And so I started to really

966
01:21:32.935 --> 01:21:38.375
fall in love with routers. It's like, oh, this is a cool device. Nobody ever told me. And then as we designed it,

967
01:21:38.775 --> 01:21:40.135
because we weren't tainted

968
01:21:40.455 --> 01:21:41.255
by

969
01:21:41.335 --> 01:21:42.455
preconceived

970
01:21:42.455 --> 01:21:44.695
user experiences or interfaces,

971
01:21:44.695 --> 01:21:55.499
we we got to start from first principles and just create. So I was like, alright. What is a router? Right? What is the essence of a router? And what we decided is that it was two things.

972
01:21:55.980 --> 01:21:57.340
It was your gateway.

973
01:21:57.659 --> 01:21:59.900
It was the thing defending

974
01:21:59.585 --> 01:22:06.545
your home against the brutal outside world, against the Internet. Right? And it was also your gateway

975
01:22:06.545 --> 01:22:19.269
to that world. Right? This is the gate, the giant doors to the city. It's like how you get in and out of the city, and you want it to be really secure. You want the border to be secure. Right? So that's number one is that it's a gateway.

976
01:22:19.590 --> 01:22:20.709
And number two

977
01:22:20.870 --> 01:22:22.709
is it is a police force.

978
01:22:22.870 --> 01:22:27.985
It's local domestic security. It's like this is the thing that controls

979
01:22:27.985 --> 01:22:30.385
all the movements within your territory.

980
01:22:30.625 --> 01:22:52.355
Which devices can see which devices, what they can do, how they access the Internet. Right? Like, all of these things. And so it's it's both a guardian and a a traffic controller. Right? It's the thing that sets the rules. And so we came at it from that perspective. We were like, oh, we can create something really cool using those themes. Right? Like, how do we build a coherent,

981
01:22:52.355 --> 01:22:53.474
easy to understand,

982
01:22:53.795 --> 01:23:05.235
easy to use, but no loss of control? We wanted to satisfy the ultimate power users as well. So a very tough line to walk between easy to understand, easy to use, but infinitely capable and powerful.

983
01:23:05.869 --> 01:23:11.070
And so we identified a baseline operating system that we could build on top of and that was OpenWRT.

984
01:23:11.070 --> 01:23:18.590
We just selected OpenWRT because one, it's open source and everything that we do must be open source. And two, it is the ultimate

985
01:23:18.670 --> 01:23:20.190
power. OpenWRT

986
01:23:20.190 --> 01:23:20.989
can do anything.

987
01:23:21.745 --> 01:23:33.425
Anything at all that you could think about doing with networks, it can do. Right? And it has, like, really clear ways of doing it. It's an old project that is very tried and true and works great. The problem with OpenWRT

988
01:23:33.810 --> 01:23:35.409
is that nobody can use it.

989
01:23:35.810 --> 01:23:37.249
It is so powerful

990
01:23:37.730 --> 01:23:39.729
and built for engineers

991
01:23:39.810 --> 01:23:50.304
that is essentially inaccessible to anyone who's not a network engineer with a lot of time to burn. And the stakes are really high too. If you make a mistake with your router, your Internet goes down.

992
01:23:50.625 --> 01:23:57.184
Yeah. It's a fucking mess. Yeah. It's it's a disaster. It's not like some ancillary device. It's the I've done to the Internet.

993
01:23:57.585 --> 01:24:00.144
So you you can't mess it up.

994
01:24:00.625 --> 01:24:04.545
And so nobody uses OpenWrt because it's too too much power, too much risk.

995
01:24:05.140 --> 01:24:12.820
But we saw it as a huge opportunity because we're like, okay. We could do anything with this. All we need to do is build some really easy to understand abstractions

996
01:24:12.820 --> 01:24:19.700
on top of OpenWRT and a new user interface, and we'll have ourselves the ultimate router. Easy to use, maximally powerful,

997
01:24:20.235 --> 01:24:26.155
beautiful. And so as we started designing this thing, I just got increasingly excited. And I was like, oh my god, we have a hit.

998
01:24:26.554 --> 01:24:39.969
We have a hit product here. Like, this is this is now when somebody asked me what router should I use, I can, like, you know, I bar is very high. My standards are very high. Do not I didn't I don't even say this stuff about start OS, because start OS is it's amazing. Don't get me wrong. But like,

999
01:24:40.610 --> 01:24:50.530
it has still has a long way to go. We like we one shot at this fucker. Right? Like, start WRT, which is what we're calling it, is the ultimate router operating system. It's fully open source,

1000
01:24:51.305 --> 01:25:10.640
easy to understand, easy to use, maximally powerful. It will run on any piece of hardware that is capable of running OpenWRT today. So if you have a router at home and it is OpenWRT compatible, you can just flash start WRT and take your whole control of your networking to the next level. I can do that right now. It's stable enough to do that right now or No.

1001
01:25:11.200 --> 01:25:25.505
Well, it it is, but we haven't released the binaries yet. Okay. Fair enough. The code is literally closed source right now. We haven't even, like, opened the repo because we haven't shipped it yet. It will be. And all the extensions that we did to open w r t are MIT.

1002
01:25:25.905 --> 01:25:29.105
So open w r t itself is not MIT, but our

1003
01:25:29.345 --> 01:25:33.139
wrapper around it is. So it's open source. But, you know

1004
01:25:33.460 --> 01:25:40.820
okay. So soon. Very soon, Matt. I promise. We then took it further and wanted to extend the concept of open sources as far as we could.

1005
01:25:41.219 --> 01:25:42.979
So we are the first

1006
01:25:43.540 --> 01:25:45.139
risk five based

1007
01:25:45.345 --> 01:25:46.785
wireless router

1008
01:25:46.865 --> 01:25:57.345
on the market. So RISC five, for those who don't know, is an alternative instruction set to the two dominant instruction sets that all computers run on today, which is

1009
01:25:57.585 --> 01:26:00.865
x eighty six sixty four, also known as AMD 64,

1010
01:26:01.400 --> 01:26:04.679
and ARM, also known as ARCH 64.

1011
01:26:04.840 --> 01:26:05.880
These are the two,

1012
01:26:06.280 --> 01:26:10.519
you know, baseline low level instruction sets that pretty much all computers, cell phones,

1013
01:26:11.000 --> 01:26:16.175
other electronic devices run on. RISC five is a rapidly emerging

1014
01:26:16.574 --> 01:26:19.534
new instruction set that is based on an open standard.

1015
01:26:19.775 --> 01:26:22.494
This allows us, us being humanity,

1016
01:26:23.054 --> 01:26:25.695
to develop chips, microprocessors

1017
01:26:25.695 --> 01:26:33.880
that are open source, whose schematics are published on the Internet, and then go further and do boards as well. So, you know, motherboards

1018
01:26:33.880 --> 01:26:36.440
whose schematics are published on the Internet,

1019
01:26:36.680 --> 01:26:38.040
all running open firmware.

1020
01:26:38.520 --> 01:26:43.415
So in theory, risk five is, at present, I think, our only real hope

1021
01:26:43.655 --> 01:26:47.255
for a fully open source hardware future

1022
01:26:47.255 --> 01:27:00.170
where our phones, our laptops, and all the computing devices in our lives are fully open source and therefore can be fully trusted, especially with AI systems now being thrown at the code bases to discover vulnerabilities,

1023
01:27:00.489 --> 01:27:01.849
malware, or bugs.

1024
01:27:02.250 --> 01:27:12.485
So we are pioneering risk five. We are all in on risk five. If we're wrong, we're dead. Okay? So put your investor hat back on, and I you know, we're we're making a huge bet

1025
01:27:12.965 --> 01:27:14.965
on risk five as a technology,

1026
01:27:15.365 --> 01:27:17.205
and on the fact that people will care.

1027
01:27:17.685 --> 01:27:37.994
And if we're right, we're gonna be the risk five company. Right? Someone's like, oh, I heard about this risk five thing. It's open it's open source all the way through hardware so Intel doesn't have a backdoor into my computer. Where do I get a risk five laptop? Where do I get a risk five server? Where do I get a risk five router, etcetera. I want them to think of Start Nine. Awesome. We're gonna pioneer this and be a household name in the risk five industry.

1028
01:27:38.315 --> 01:27:41.594
And so the router is our first risk five device, open hardware,

1029
01:27:41.914 --> 01:27:43.274
open firmware,

1030
01:27:43.755 --> 01:27:50.650
open software, all except the WiFi module. WiFi modules cannot be had open source. It is there does not exist.

1031
01:27:50.969 --> 01:27:54.809
And so that is the one piece of the entire hardware software stack

1032
01:27:55.050 --> 01:28:10.775
that is not open source. There's also, like, one blob in the boot in the bootloader that is currently closed as well that we are working to extricate and put in with an open source piece but again, negligible compared to the amount of closed this that most computers

1033
01:28:10.935 --> 01:28:13.335
have. It's like tiny. So anyway,

1034
01:28:13.815 --> 01:28:14.695
fully open source,

1035
01:28:15.180 --> 01:28:17.900
maximally powerful, easy to understand, easy to use.

1036
01:28:18.540 --> 01:28:21.500
Best router in the world. I think we have the best router in the world. So

1037
01:28:21.980 --> 01:28:25.340
it's now on presale. What router.start9.com.

1038
01:28:25.340 --> 01:28:26.699
Please contribute to the project.

1039
01:28:28.235 --> 01:28:30.315
Router.start9.com.

1040
01:28:30.315 --> 01:28:36.074
I'll put that in the show notes. It is a Bitcoin only BTC pay self hosted BTC pay crowdfund.

1041
01:28:36.715 --> 01:28:40.075
That's fun. 54 contributors $14,000

1042
01:28:40.075 --> 01:28:40.555
raised.

1043
01:28:41.160 --> 01:28:45.159
Yep. Which is nothing. We've we have not advertised this at all.

1044
01:28:45.800 --> 01:28:47.320
When when?

1045
01:28:49.800 --> 01:28:52.120
The router will ship this summer.

1046
01:28:53.795 --> 01:28:56.675
It'll be inboxes on the way to you this summer.

1047
01:28:57.875 --> 01:28:58.834
It's done.

1048
01:28:59.395 --> 01:29:02.195
It's done. We're just putting together the operational,

1049
01:29:03.635 --> 01:29:06.369
you know, polishes and and sourcing

1050
01:29:06.850 --> 01:29:14.530
the, you know, the Wi Fi cards and stuff like that. There's actually a problem in the world right now. There's a problem in the world right now. I don't know if you're aware that the FCC sort of, you know,

1051
01:29:16.130 --> 01:29:20.955
effectively banned Wi Fi routers in The United States. Well, because, like, they have to be made here. Right?

1052
01:29:21.195 --> 01:29:25.035
And none of them are made here. None of them are made here. So the FCC said

1053
01:29:25.995 --> 01:29:28.875
that they will no longer issue certifications,

1054
01:29:29.435 --> 01:29:30.955
which you need. Right?

1055
01:29:31.195 --> 01:29:32.235
Because radio waves.

1056
01:29:32.780 --> 01:29:37.180
Correct. So they control the air. This is not freezing. Right? This is proprietary

1057
01:29:37.180 --> 01:29:40.699
stuff right here, this air. And so you need their approval

1058
01:29:40.780 --> 01:29:43.820
to use that air, and they will not give you that approval

1059
01:29:44.635 --> 01:29:47.835
unless your Wi Fi router is manufactured,

1060
01:29:47.835 --> 01:29:54.155
is the language, in The USA. Problem with manufactured in The USA is that it doesn't have a definition. It's extremely vague intentionally

1061
01:29:54.155 --> 01:30:01.070
so that they can do selective enforcement when they feel like it and let it go when they feel like it. This benefits friends and hurts enemies.

1062
01:30:02.910 --> 01:30:07.230
So manufacturing in The USA, we don't know what it means. We assemble these in The USA.

1063
01:30:08.270 --> 01:30:14.030
Seems like manufacturing to me, I'm not quite sure. We can't get a lawyer to give us a straight answer because they're all terrified of being wrong.

1064
01:30:15.125 --> 01:30:26.724
And the lawyers whose job it is is to interpret the law, refuse to interpret a law that doesn't already have an interpretation. This is just called a loop. Everyone avoids responsibility, so we have to make some judgment calls here about how we are going to actually

1065
01:30:27.445 --> 01:30:28.885
do this because

1066
01:30:29.510 --> 01:30:30.950
the device as a whole

1067
01:30:31.190 --> 01:30:33.110
does not have an FCC certification.

1068
01:30:33.350 --> 01:30:37.190
The Wi Fi module that we're using is FCC certified.

1069
01:30:37.590 --> 01:30:38.870
The board

1070
01:30:38.950 --> 01:30:40.710
is FCC certified.

1071
01:30:40.950 --> 01:30:47.165
But the second you put the WiFi module into the FCC WiFi module into the FCC certified board,

1072
01:30:47.405 --> 01:31:01.150
the whole new thing is not now FCC certified and needs to be. And so there's a very good chance, very good chance, depending on what kind of legal advice we can conjure up here, that Start Nine will not be selling WiFi routers this summer,

1073
01:31:01.470 --> 01:31:03.390
and that instead we will be selling

1074
01:31:03.790 --> 01:31:05.150
wired routers

1075
01:31:05.230 --> 01:31:08.110
with no WiFi card in them, and we will be selling WiFi cards.

1076
01:31:11.965 --> 01:31:23.244
That you install into the wired router. I it's not exactly what you do with it. We sell The user is making a decision. Got it. We sell routers that are not Wi Fi, therefore, do not need the certification.

1077
01:31:23.640 --> 01:31:25.239
You can still use Ethernet.

1078
01:31:25.400 --> 01:31:29.160
Routers without WiFi are a very viable product. Right? Like, we're selling a

1079
01:31:29.640 --> 01:31:31.480
wired router. No WiFi.

1080
01:31:31.880 --> 01:31:33.480
We also sell WiFi cards.

1081
01:31:33.720 --> 01:31:37.400
And so if you buy both and put them together, I I can't stop you.

1082
01:31:38.914 --> 01:31:42.754
And that that unfortunately is how we may have to proceed in this environment.

1083
01:31:43.074 --> 01:31:49.635
Sort of like your website getting censored and telling everyone it's there on tour, you know, we think this gives us an opportunity to look cool.

1084
01:31:50.449 --> 01:32:05.425
Fair enough. Right? Like, we're gonna do what we gotta do, but I'm not I'm gonna turn lemons into lemonade as best I can here and be like, alright, look, you know, I'll sell Wi Fi router, so I guess you have to buy a wired one and a Wi Fi card and you know what I mean? Like, these fucking idiots, man. It's such a so stupid.

1085
01:32:09.585 --> 01:32:10.784
It's fucking insane.

1086
01:32:11.105 --> 01:32:12.544
Well, I appreciate

1087
01:32:12.784 --> 01:32:19.130
I appreciate all the work you guys have been doing. You've been fighting the good fight. And I know it's not easy. So thank you.

1088
01:32:20.330 --> 01:32:33.744
Thank you for supporting us. Most don't. I don't know if you're aware of the early fundraising efforts. It's so degrading. I hate I hate the roadshow. I hate the pitch because It's fucking worse. I know what I'm doing is important.

1089
01:32:34.625 --> 01:32:37.425
I think what I'm doing can make you a boatload of money.

1090
01:32:37.905 --> 01:32:45.985
I understand it's not traditional SaaS with a home run. I understand it's not some pie in the sky narrative that you can sell to the next round and eventually dump on the public's head in an IPO.

1091
01:32:47.230 --> 01:33:00.030
But, no, we got shoved out of a lot of rooms, and it's nice that we, you know, have quite a few actually, mostly from the Bitcoin space, almost entirely from the Bitcoin space. Individuals and a couple small entities

1092
01:33:00.590 --> 01:33:11.215
that saw what we were doing, saw the opportunity that nobody else wanted to take, and gave us a chance. And it's starting to pay off. We, you know, had a huge 2025.

1093
01:33:11.934 --> 01:33:14.094
Now that we're expanding into the router market,

1094
01:33:14.574 --> 01:33:32.985
we are this is a whole new ballgame. Right? This is not the personal server market, which is a few crazy people on the side of the world. We're gonna expand, by the way. Router market, everyone's got routers, and we have the best router in the world. So I think it's a huge, huge business opportunity here. And then, like I said before, we get to start having a lot of fun. So I'll tease it. It's not this summer,

1095
01:33:33.465 --> 01:33:35.385
but we now have a working

1096
01:33:35.785 --> 01:33:36.745
assembled,

1097
01:33:36.745 --> 01:33:38.825
fully functional prototype

1098
01:33:38.905 --> 01:33:43.625
of a risk five based, fully open source security camera

1099
01:33:44.025 --> 01:33:45.145
that is connecting

1100
01:33:45.710 --> 01:33:52.429
through a fully functional running start WRT start nine router to a start OS server

1101
01:33:52.909 --> 01:34:02.794
with video software installed, such that this person who has this prototype set up can, at this moment, go anywhere in the world and watch live security footage of their home

1102
01:34:03.195 --> 01:34:09.434
in such a way that nobody on Earth, except now everyone on Earth because I'm saying it on this call, knows that the camera exists.

1103
01:34:10.410 --> 01:34:12.090
Alright. There is zero

1104
01:34:13.530 --> 01:34:14.329
zero

1105
01:34:14.330 --> 01:34:19.690
third party involvement, zero third party cloud storage, no custodianship, no intermediation,

1106
01:34:20.410 --> 01:34:21.370
fully open source,

1107
01:34:22.155 --> 01:34:23.594
fully self contained

1108
01:34:23.915 --> 01:34:25.595
security systems.

1109
01:34:25.595 --> 01:34:27.195
So Start Nine is

1110
01:34:28.075 --> 01:34:29.435
in in effect

1111
01:34:29.515 --> 01:34:30.554
about to

1112
01:34:30.955 --> 01:34:34.155
burst into the home automation,

1113
01:34:34.315 --> 01:34:36.955
home security ecosystem and market

1114
01:34:37.300 --> 01:34:38.980
with an unprecedented

1115
01:34:39.460 --> 01:34:40.180
product.

1116
01:34:40.740 --> 01:34:43.780
Right? Security systems that are 100%

1117
01:34:44.020 --> 01:34:49.380
self contained and under the control of the of the owner with zero subscriptions

1118
01:34:49.665 --> 01:34:56.064
forever. It's an upfront capital cost, a few minutes of setup, and you have a badass home security system

1119
01:34:56.704 --> 01:35:01.344
that is backed by the server, processed through the router, and expressed

1120
01:35:01.610 --> 01:35:07.209
in the form of IoT devices, the first of which will be a security camera, but we have others in the pipeline as well.

1121
01:35:07.690 --> 01:35:09.449
That's freaking awesome. I need that.

1122
01:35:10.090 --> 01:35:13.210
I do too. That's why we're building it actually. It's I literally

1123
01:35:13.210 --> 01:35:29.305
personally need it. Yep. Everyone else can benefit great, but I'm I'm building this for me. I mean, that's why ten thirty one exists. Sir, this is always a pleasure. It's fucking awesome. Great chat. I know we went over time. I appreciate you. As we do and should. Yeah. All good.

1124
01:35:30.040 --> 01:35:33.320
I, do you have any final thoughts for the audience before we wrap?

1125
01:35:38.600 --> 01:35:42.920
I love it. Well, thanks again for joining guys. Router.start9.com.

1126
01:35:44.025 --> 01:35:45.865
Also, just start9.com.

1127
01:35:45.865 --> 01:35:47.225
If you wanna get a server,

1128
01:35:47.865 --> 01:35:48.985
highly recommend.

1129
01:35:49.225 --> 01:36:00.580
I'll put all relevant links in the show notes. Got a great conversation lined up for next week. We're just gonna keep gonna keep grinding, keep rolling. Give me your feedback. If you have any all relevant links, still dispatch.com.

1130
01:36:00.660 --> 01:36:02.820
Love you all stay humble stack sides. Peace.