The Boonafide Experience
The Boonafide Experience
S2 E7: Yon Hardisty CEO of Monkeybyte, CMO of Binx.Tv, CMO/Founder of Healthtek Creative, CEO of Forestr.org
Yon is a serial entrepreneur and technologist at heart. who has not only built businesses but used them solely as a vehicle to accomplish his goals in life. Whether that's developing a community that builds apps, tools, and services dedicated to enhancing social video streaming all over the world. to revolutionizing healthcare, and giving back to the earth by planting trees with his nonprofit.
This episode dives DEEP into the practical applications of NFT's, the good, the bad, and how it has the potential to not only disrupt the art/creative industry, but the medical and education systems as well.
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Binx
https://www.binx.tv
Good morning, and welcome to the Boonafide Experience Podcast. I'm your host, Kyle. But really, people just call me Boona. This is a business podcast with a hyper-focus on esports and the creator economy. If you're new here or returning and haven't done so already, please consider following and subscribing to your favorite platform of choice. And be sure to turn those post notifications on or the little bell. That way you're notified every time a new episode is dropped. All as mentioned in some of the previous intros to some of the earlier episodes, we have some exciting new announcements in May, except they were in April, because I just couldn't wait to pull the trigger. We're on two new platforms, one of which is a completely custom website done by me and the friends at Podpage. Shout out to them. I'll include the link below. If you're a podcaster looking to build a website, it's incredibly easy that links to all of your hosting platforms and their UI is just incredibly beautiful. We have everything house from previous episodes, that includes audio, video, transcripts, guest profiles, even a mailing list, guys, there's just no shortage of content here. And if you're on YouTube, and you're watching this right now, well, you would be since you're right now I okay. You will see that I have one of my Boonafide Gaming t-shirts on this is my merch store which can be accessed through the website. All the designs on these shirts, mugs, hoodies, leggings, everything in between is done done by my designer, he's been with me for the past three to four years has done everything from my gaming brand to my podcasting brand to merchandise is a flawless designer and I consider him a great friend of mine. His name is ArtBySaint. If you're looking to get any graphics done, I will put his information down below as well. second piece, that's just one. That's just one second piece. We are we are launched, we launched a brand new Patreon page to provide exclusive access and benefits that only are that only are available to my patrons. It says everything from wallpapers to early access to episodes to knowing who my guests are weeks in advance to even asking my guests a question. And you all if you're a VIP member for three months in a row on my Patreon, you will get access to something that I don't even have in house yet. And that is an exclusive Boonafide Gaming t-shirt, which you can only get by being a VIP subscriber for three months in a row. I know that's a lot to take in the website is www.boonafide.com. And the Patreon is patreon.com/bonafide XP. But if you're here for the podcast, I'm going to I'm not going to expect you to remember that. So we'll go ahead and put all those links down in the descriptions below. And with that being said, let's go ahead and get started with the show. All right, we're recording Good evening, Yon. How are you?
Yon Hardisty:I'm doing well. Nice to talk to you.
Kyle Warren:It is very nice to talk to you. I hope I hope the weather's well in sunny California.
Yon Hardisty:California you know it is it is has been Sunny, the seasons are changing and all my allergies are kicking in. We're getting a little worried because there's not a lot of water here right now. But but it is definitely green right now. Spring has sprung and it happened for that. Absolutely happy for that.
Kyle Warren:It's beautiful. It's cloudy and muggy here. But you know, I like I like thunderstorms. I like rain. I like all that. So it's it people cringe here in Texas for it. I don't mind I enjoy it. You might want to say I could probably live in Seattle, because it's like that all the time. Right? But welcome on to the podcast, Yon, it's a it's a pleasure to have you
Yon Hardisty:Honor to be here. Absolutely.
Kyle Warren:And for those who don't give a I'm gonna let him introduce himself, but just want to give people a an idea of where how we met and how our relationship started was through a service at my day job where we provide a dedicated resources. And now you know, to people that were just starting companies out whether they're first time business owners, multiple business, you know, serial business owners, and you know, Yon will tell you a little bit more about that. But we had an outstanding relationship kicked it off right from the start. And I got to be kind of like the point of contact and a business coach to help them put the pieces together. And so yeah, with that being said, Yon, tell tell the audience who you are and what do you do?
Yon Hardisty:Yeah, that's right. It was it was Forrester, Forrester, the nonprofit that we started talking about. That's right. It wasn't even kind of necessarily. I don't know, a lot of people don't think about nonprofits as businesses. I didn't think about a nonprofit as being a business. It was just kind of a Passion Play for my wife and I and in reaching out and working with you over the period of that year, that that that kickoff year was really a lot of learning about what was possible. And what was not. possible within the boundaries of a nonprofit itself.
Kyle Warren:Sure.
Yon Hardisty:And that that kind of now I've spent about 30 years, I started in programming virtual reality in the 1980s favorite book of mine of the Snow Crash, and that that led me right on over into programming in a virtual reality trying to make that world exist. And then stepped in the games from there, around in the, in the early 90s. But since then, I've launched a number of businesses and the primary one being Monkeybyte, that is game development and contractor house. And then most recently, BinxTV for esports streamers, and Healthteck creative for, for applying gaming technologies to the healthcare industry. But, but yours was the kind of the first one where I sat down and I had a desire to do something different, something more in the real world. You know, because a lot of the work that I've done for the last 30 years is you build something, you promote it, you put it out there, people would love it, or they'd hate it. But it's digital, and you kind of blows away with the wind. And with with forester we really it was something that it's all about planting trees and putting green into the ground. And, and re-greening the earth. And that was really, really something passionate and fun. And has has actually grown quite a bit since since we, we kicked it off. But it was a real interesting learning curve to go from the concept of incorporated business or limited partnership, and how that applies and moves into and relates to the nonprofit world as is. It's so wild and Wooly World over there.
Kyle Warren:It really is. And I remember when you told like, you know, I remember when you came through and we had our call, and you know, we get pitched all these like everyone's doing all these like crazy things with their businesses and you know, a lot of its e-commerce a lot of its consulting a lot of its this, you know, but you're like, I just want to plant some trees
Yon Hardisty:Get me in the ground. Not personally on the ground, because for software, we'll probably do that. But, but get my fingers in my hands under the ground, my wife is a great gardener. And so you know, everything she touches, flourishes and grows and goes green. And so, Forester was cool, because it is cool, because it allows us to kind of take public and private sectors of land, and help people plant trees, clean the land first, then plant the trees and then build a maintenance plan for how to take care of those trees. And we become part of that maintenance plan. And just encouraging people to green the earth around us. And it was Yeah, and we started talking about that and then and then got into you know, "Why this weird need to plant stuff?" and I started talking about Binx and in the gaming world that we've been in that I've been in and you've been in with these esports as well. And how kind of that transitions and then what happened last year with a pandemic it's actually it was it was a real interesting pull and push between our our gaming businesses and our healthcare businesses because the healthcare just obviously you know, with the pandemic exploded and drew a lot of energy
Kyle Warren:Alot of innovation, too.
Yon Hardisty:Alot of innovation Yeah, yeah, there we've we're seeing some really, really neat things and and with that industry really shifting there was a lot of a lot of talk and and and important talk but talk given to things like mobile first and things like really supporting communities nich and niche communities within within different segments of healthcare. And we really over the last year have seen our larger partners or enterprise partners come in and really go for broke when it comes to mobile really go for broke when it comes to niche communities like like we're talking about with with drug abuse or with or with you know, agoraphobia or or sexual issues or I mean you name it they really kind of focusing down what didn't happen before the Pandemic
Kyle Warren:What does go to broke mean?
Yon Hardisty:Go to broke?
Kyle Warren:Yeah, yeah, just just just to educate some of the thought the audience
Yon Hardisty:Just just just put the pedal to the metal, you know, really turn around and kind of not have to care for for the profitability of a target or an audience. profit, I should say up a product or an audience, but but for a cost. And saying saying, look, we're going to make this better. And we're going to we're going to go it no matter what the the resource or the allocation of need is for it. And that's something that we've seen in our Binx community, our esports community, almost all the members are just so passionate about their gaming, about their streaming about their craft. And that's something that we really enjoyed kind of bringing out and, and building and being in partnership with people on it. But I probably should step back, because I don't think that I explained what those two companies were.
Kyle Warren:Yeah, I mean, we it's it's okay, though, that's the that's, that's right on brand for what I do is we kind of tend to go places, you know, so let's, let's draw it back a little bit, you know, so yeah. What do you do with, you know, like, when it comes to let's start with Binx , you know, what is Binx and like, kind of what, what was what's the drive behind it?
Yon Hardisty:Sure. So, so, since the early 90s, we've been developing games, as a as kind of a contract house. And in the early 2000s, we started taking technology and the kind of bleeding edge technology and interests that the gamers the gaming community has, and applying it to the healthcare community, trying to the term of gamif.., I don't really like gamification in terms of education, but gamifying, and building engagement around people's health and well being. In 2015, we saw or... prior to 2015, we saw the really explosion of Twitch of esports streaming. And, and what we saw was a couple of really large, large corporations, Twitch, YouTube, etc, stepping into the.. Microsoft stepping into the world and making a real killing in and of themselves. But what we didn't like in watching that process, as game developers, as an indie game developer, was that the gamers, the people who we saw as the core and the real creators of this value of this market, weren't part of those valuations, they weren't part of where it went and how it was executed, eventually on it, and to some degree, they still aren't. And so around 2015, we launched Binx. And really, this was an attempt, it's an esport streamer community focused on streamers, specifically, but on a niche of streamers, specifically streamers that want to evolve, that want to kind of migrate into business, that want to think of themselves as this is their profession for the future. And we have the unique ability to, to create tools, services, games, even, and hand it to them and say, Here utilize these as tools to promote yourself to draw viewers to you to draw business to you to draw income to drive value to you not to Twitch not to Amazon, not to Microsoft to you. And, and that really was at the core of where we were as an indie game developer, because we wanted to draw people to us. And we saw a real synergy with with streamers around the world. And it's done really well. It's that community is vibrant, they're amazing people. We've got kind of concentric circles of memberships there. And we've also learned a heck of a lot from them, about what true and good gaming is, what true and good technologies are. And then my job is to step back. And this year, we launched a company called Healthtek Creative which takes some of the ideas and theories and thoughts of those technologies and applies them into the healthcare world as well kind of focuses what had been our, our 2000. The what we launched and the team that we launched in the 2000s and kind of formalizes it into a business in and of itself. And that's our last company, which is Healthtek. I like that. And then when you and I met it was because I was doing the Forester thing because I'm that kind of crazy. serial entrepreneur.
Kyle Warren:Yeah, it was, it was funny because like the year like we, I remember when, you know, the Account executive was like, he's like, you know,"you're gonna love this guy," you know, like, "you're gonna have like a two hour conversation." I'm like, you're gonna He's like, you're gonna love this guy. I'm like, "Why?" he's like, "he's doing all these things in esports and gaming, and, you know, content creation." I said, "Okay, cool." And then you're like, "yeah, I want to plant trees." I'm like,"who is this guy?"
Yon Hardisty:Like, I remember you kind of pausing. "I thought we were What?" Yeah, yeah. Well, you know, to give a shout out to LegalZoom. We do run our business practices through LegalZoom for banks, and we will be running our incorporation processes through LegalZoom for Healthtek, so it's been a good partner for us, but it's also for me It's kind of the same, it has a nice synergy because it's the same kind of service, where these are things that incorporating, letters of intent. I mean, just doing generalized business services are things that that were mysteries to me in the 80s, and the 90s, and are still mysteries to many people today.
Kyle Warren:Sure.
Yon Hardisty:LegalZoom and really makes it I don't mean to do an ad for them here, but they with you make it accessible, so that, you know, people would like me who have silly ideas about planting trees, and do it, you know. And so we've we've, because of the formalizing that nonprofit, we've built relationships with local businesses, with investors with with Caltrans, our local state landscaping people's, it's just, it opens up a whole bunch of opportunity to us and it all kind of does tie in, because that's the same thing we want. That's the same energy we want to share with the streamers in Binx. And with our, you know, the people who are on health and wellness journeys in, in Healthtek. And it all does kind of link together in a weird and wacky way.
Kyle Warren:in a funny way it does, I've noticed that, you know, through through this past year, there has been nothing about my life that was the same prior to 2020. And none of it makes sense. And especially in the beginning, it was terrifying. Like I like I like my complete foud.., like my foundation felt like it had just been completely disrupted. And it and it had it but it needed to, you know, it, it really needed to and so I'm starting to experience, I'm starting to get some taste and some experience of some of the fruits of that disruption A year later, you know, but it's, it's, it's wild, when it happens, you have no idea what's going to come from that, you know, yeah, no idea how you don't even know what you want to do. And or at least for me, I didn't know what I wanted to do it literally I questioned everything. What I wanted to do, who I wanted to be, you know, who I was going to hang out with, completely everything. So I love that. Because when
Yon Hardisty:The world puts its thumb on you and says By the way, you're staying home for three months. Right? Right. You know, that that's a whole different element. Yeah, yeah. It's, it's, uh, yeah, you're spot on.
Kyle Warren:To be honest, though, you know, I feel like during the pandemic, I, I felt like I thrived. Because I was for in a weird way, I didn't feel judged for not going outside to do anything because no one could do anything. You know? So I would always feel obligated to go to parties, I don't want to go to you know, like, because it was the thing to do, whether it's New Year's or Fourth of July or, you know, just any of these, like, major I never wanted to go but I always felt guilty about saying no, so I just went and it was great to be able to just enjoy New Year's on my own and just do exactly what I wanted to do. Not to say that there wasn't any challenges or hardships that was that comes with the territory, but I felt that I was able to adapt a little easier because, you know, yeah, I feel like the first 28 years of my life like I I felt like a fish out of water. You know, because a lot of what I wanted to do wasn't really glamorous, it wasn't really popular wasn't really nothing that interested me interested a whole lot of other people, which is why I love the internet. It's why I love internet based businesses because you can find a bunch of those weirdos like yourself, you know that that that find that common ground. You know and so I'll tell you like with the change in the way we're doing things and the way technology is advancing. I get more and more excited. You know I get in one of those excitements is, you know, I, I gave I gave two shits about crypto three to four years ago. But now that in this weird storm that I just went through, I found NF T's I'm like, this is actually a game changer.
Yon Hardisty:It is
Kyle Warren:Like this is a game changer. And like I've never felt that way about cryptocurrency I just said,"well, I see it but also I don't" It never really had a practical application to me. So I put 200 bucks away in it and then think about it for four years you know five years whatever the case whatever whatever year I put, you know, bought Bitcoin but now I see endless possibilities.
Yon Hardisty:Yeah, yeah, it's, it's, it's deep and in it. And it's unreal unveiling itself is so rapidly and so in such an interesting way that Yeah, the last time I felt this way about technology kind of affecting our lives. I was a college student in in CalPoly down the down the way here in San Luis Obispo and Netscape rolled out. And, and I just remember looking at the concept of the web and the visualized web and And this is just going to be the this is going to be huge, it's a huge way. But really it was one at that point that was already crashing was already moving forward, it was already doing its things and I was just sitting there watching, and I wasn't kind of in a place to be able to partake of it. This wave that's crashing right now well, if you want to go all the way down to the the blockchain basis of it, to the cryptocurrencies to the NF T's to what it's going to mean to to healthcare records to our own individual assets, and asset management, finance management, I mean, but asset management is going to be huge. It's happening right now. And it's, it's literally been the last few years of just this groundswell of happening, like you said, and I still don't feel like we're at the crest in the wave is not crashing it, it's you're still learning what all of this is, people like yourself, people that are that have held it and found an interest in it, or even a recent interest in something like an NFT are going to be the people who go, I got a great business idea for this.
Kyle Warren:Yeah,
Yon Hardisty:and become the next great business. Right? That's exciting as hell! I mean, that's crazy in and from, from a technologist point of view that that I kind of have a little bit I'm not the I'm not the best. I stopped programming when I saw some of my business partners and their programming talents. I just, they were just too good for me. But I have enough, I have enough knowledge to be dangerous about it. And it's fascinating. It's absolutely fascinating what, how the NF T's are rolling how that different industries are looking at utilizing blockchains and even currencies, and tokenizing our assets and our one of our assets being our health, our health information. Certainly.
Kyle Warren:Yeah, I mean, because you're my moment like that, from from my generation was when the iPhone came out. It was
Yon Hardisty:Right I was the mobile wave. Yeah. Yeah.
Kyle Warren:I remember I remember where I was. I remember what I was watching. I remember watching, you know, Steve Jobs pull that out of his like regular Levi's jeans that he always wore for such a rich guy, you know, and I remember he's, he was such a masterfull presenter You know, he was just one of them. Not many people can do it, like could have done it like him. But he was just like"a phone, an internet browser, and an iPod.. in your pocket." And I just I lost it.
Yon Hardisty:I remember I remember how tiny that thing was to like, I don't I don't think I held up. You know, we held up our phones today. And they've gotten somewhat larger.
Kyle Warren:Right.
Yon Hardisty:I remember a tiny that thing was it was it was it? Yeah. No. Is that that's true. That was a that was another wave that. Yeah, again, built billion dollar businesses, multi million dollar businesses.
Kyle Warren:Yeah.
Yon Hardisty:And we're going to be seeing that again. I mean, we talked a little bit about this, we have within the Binx community, we have a game. We have a game that we're rolling out an update at the end of this this month. That's a crash Destruction Derby game. It's called Crash'em Derby. And it will be the first of our games that employs NFT's in the game. So the actual cars that you drop into the gameplay into the derbies themselves will be NFT's sourced off of the blockchain,
Kyle Warren:okay, okay.
Yon Hardisty:So each individual player, each individual member, will could have their own car, it could be in an NFT of their own, and they can take it to anywhere, anytime in any exchange and build value with that car system, the car themselves,
Kyle Warren:Wow.
Yon Hardisty:And you kind of take that as a metaphor and apply it to to healthcare, and this is what I stand back. And I looked at both companies. I you know, the derby is, is kind of our healthcare system, right, the car is our is our, our health care in our personal health information. And in the NFT allows us to transact that to hold on to portions of that. And, and that's, that's going to impact every single portion of our lives. And I think what we didn't know until recently, maybe maybe even until the pandemic kind of underscored a lot of thinking time, like you and I were talking about earlier.
Kyle Warren:Yeah
Yon Hardisty:We all got got time to kind of sit back and go, this has efficacy this has this has strength here. And and it's almost like we couldn't have this groundswell couldn't have caught on so effectively if a lot of people weren't sitting at home thinking maybe there's maybe there's a correlation there and I'm or I'm just being crazy, but, but there's a lot of industries that will be employing these these kind of NFT and the token technologies and whatever the lays beneath them. into some pretty amazing, I mean pretty amazing things to come. I'm really excited for it.
Kyle Warren:I am to and I'm seeing it really right now I it's obviously impacting the art industry. And it's, you know, that's where it's kind of like let's the first people to adopt. And I think it makes sense because artists are typically on that on the bleeding edge, you know that they're typically like, you know, like, they're typically creating what then becomes commercialized, then they go create something different because everyone's in their space and then they just keep they keep doing that because they want to get away, you know? So I feel like it because I have a couple artists friends and they're doing really well. And I contact contacted an old friend, you know, he's uh, he actually has been, you know, painting you know, painting shows, you know, painting the live music, he does digital art he does physical he does everything and I called him I said, "Please telling me you please tell me you're doing this like because this is going to explode." And he's got like three projects lined up. So it's, you know, I feel that it lines up I oddly with one of my passions is running my own esports team. That's like, my lifelong goal. And before that, before this happened, I'm like,"How's this gonna work?" You know, "How is this gonna happen? How do we even get here?" but I feel like in a weird way, my just I guess bullish passion, I guess or just you know, I don't know, you know, want to know, I don't even know what I call it. But just this strong investment of my personal time. And in this industry, I feel like esports is going to be one of the things that really benefits from this every now on a just to for people, because I have a lot of people that listen that aren't necessarily gamers or like people in business, gamers, or personal friends or, you know, relationship personal family is that the way I see this affecting, like the common person, or at least the area that I get most excited about is that we want a lot of things ethically sourced these days. And I read this article on LinkedIn that had no engagement on it. But it was one of the best articles, it opened my eyes, I said, Wow, we can actually try. Sorry, we can actually track where the meat has come from. And they can actually say without a shadow of a doubt, that is ethically sourced. And you can in the consumer, you and me can go verify that on a blockchain that hopefully as as this moves becomes a little bit easier to read and easier to understand. Because right now, it's still very, like, you know, you got to love it to really
Yon Hardisty:Well, that's a great, I mean, you and I were really espousing the the all of the positivity and benefits of it.
Kyle Warren:Right.
Yon Hardisty:Just like any technical wave that comes in, there's there's negatives as well. And there's so we probably should spend a little time and talk about, like, what what the pain points are right now.
Kyle Warren:Yeah
Yon Hardisty:That people are working to solve. But also, you know, there's some criticisms of digital currencies of NF T's. And certainly, we want to shed some light on that code biases. There's a wonderful Netflix show on that that's out there right now. It's
Kyle Warren:Oh, no, no, that
Yon Hardisty:definitely go see it is very interesting. But, but I think the idea of your artist friend is is an excellent metaphor for where this can go and how this should go. Sure. Because when I was growing up, in my generation, the Gen X generation, we were told, "if we were artists, just prepare to be poor, just prepare to not do something, you know, you want to be a doctor, you want to be a lawyer." Actually, they never wanted to be a gamer like me or programming, because that was also we were going to you want to be a doctor or a lawyer. I don't know. Something else. Yeah, but I love that the people who are moving forward this technology NFT a technology, are the very people who who stand to gain the most from it, the artists.
Kyle Warren:Yep.
Yon Hardisty:And that, that right there, I think encapsulates all in everything of what we have what we're going to see here, and hopefully, we'll be able to build upon. But yeah, we can dive a little bit into the negative, negative if you want.
Kyle Warren:I like to, I'd like to because I've read, you know, the biggest one that I saw was the environmental, you know, that's around it, because the system was built like that, you know, the system was built to be non environmentally friendly on purpose. Right?
Yon Hardisty:Right.
Kyle Warren:You know, because it it's by design and that's the funny part about this or funnier irony, you know, ironic I don't know however you want to look at it, but it was built to where you know, people have to consume massive amounts of energy but that also provides security which a lot of people want.
Yon Hardisty:And value, and value. Because the the that what it burns, you know, the gas it burns or the electricity that it burns allowed for the early blockchains to kind of plant their foot in something that had a known value. Because the whole concept was really built around not having value. Being fluid enough that that you that I that the next door artists that anybody could figure out how to use this, this technology without the technology getting in the way. Right. But the mining of it the burning of it the that that's definitely a an issue and continues to be an issue because I mean, we saw Coinbase go live yesterday. Yep. today. Yes. Yes. And and its biggest, its biggest market, its biggest currency is the Bitcoin. And it that however, unfortunately, it's also the biggest burner of those resources. Right,
Kyle Warren:Right.
Yon Hardisty:And so when we look when our technologists look at, at these different digital coins, coinages, we look at not only the market value, but we look at the efficiency of the transactions, how efficient Can you? Can you do this so that it doesn't impact the world? I think we've basically the the digital coin community has stepped beyond the need to plant its value in the burning of signing electricity or, or gas, whatever it might be.
Kyle Warren:Right.
Yon Hardisty:And so you look to something like Ethereum, which is the next best spoken about market. It's a much more efficient transaction medium. And so it burns less less calories, I guess. Yeah, gas. Yeah, let's just call it gas. It burns less gas. And then you look at something like XRP or the ripples. Yep, that's even more efficient. And some of the new things that are coming out like IMO's or case, they're, they're just getting increasingly more efficient. And so I think that that negative point is going to start to wear away as this as this wave starts to grow. The other thing that we find with with digital currencies, or the NF T's if we're trying to get people to that NFT core is is the the having to work with and work through wallets, and exchanges, and simply telling people what those are. What, why, why an exchange, why a wallet? Yes, you do need to remember your password, it's not going to come undone for you otherwise, that's how you lose a lot of money. If you don't do this right, the right way. Those kinds of pain points still exist. And as we in the gaming side are rolling out and utilizing games and the feedback from our streamer community. You know, this really technically savvy community, we're looking for those pain points, where are those pain points? That they see that they don't get? Because if they don't get it, the vast majority of the world won't get it?
Kyle Warren:Right. Right.
Yon Hardisty:And yet there's some people I mean there's there's good people working on each and every one of those those pain points in wallets you've got metamask is doing fantastic work over there. In kind of making that easier for people.
Kyle Warren:That's that's what I use to purchase my first NFT ever, you know, and yeah, it's it's simple. It's a it's like a two click thing and it really makes sense.
Yon Hardisty:Mm hmm. It's it's a great, we're, we're going to be actually kicking off with three different wallets and taking taking feedback of personally I like metamask as well, because it's got a visual component to it, it stepped me through it. It didn't freak me out. Well, it did one time when it lost a little bit of my money and and then I just didn't know where it went. And I lost my mind a little bit. But that's the kind of stuff that we kind of have to get used to as we're as we're learning this and we're walking it through because us as technologists, we're looking at the at the down to the chain level. Gamers and streamers are looking to how this impacts the game, how this impacts our their art and how they utilize it to build value through NF T's through their brand through both together.
Kyle Warren:Right.
Yon Hardisty:And together we're going to be the ones who introduced this to the general public. And hopefully, when some of these pain points are taken care of, so that our moms and dads and sisters and children don't lose their Bitcoin.
Kyle Warren:Yeah, what's funny what's funny is I listen to I listen to GaryVee, GaryVee is one of my one of my favorite people listen to you know, just entrepreneurial spirit. And he's he's very big on this and some an analogy that he came up with that, you know, really kind of snapped me out of it was like, you know, "remember when your parents were really concerned about connecting their credit card to PayPal?"
Yon Hardisty:Right
Kyle Warren:Now, and he's like,"now y'all are freaking out about connecting your wallet to metamask."
Yon Hardisty:Yep.
Kyle Warren:He's like, it's just "history repeats itself," you know? And I'd love to get your take, you know, because this is an argument that not neccessarily an argument, but just the point that you lived kind of through this as an older age than I did, but like when the internet boomed you know, was there a very similar? Like, are the pain points? Were the pain points then very similar to the pain points now?
Yon Hardisty:Yes, yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. I'm, I'm trying to think of a one to one correlation. I can't off the top of my head. But, but Yeah, I do. Remember. I have one.. One of my partners, and I saw we were in CalPoly, San Luis Obispo, California. And we saw the web break, and that's Netscape kind of come out. And then IE straight on behind that, we launched a company called Time Graphics is that our three initials and in graphics, it had this crazy frakkin idea to sell stuff on the web. And we thought it was cool, you know, oh, you know, you put up put up a picture of a my lamp. And, and let's try and sell it. And it totally crashed it totally. like nobody was interested. No business, anywhere was interested in it. Right? Nobody, no, we went to all the local merchants around our college school to try and get them to sell pizzas through us or, or put things online with us and nobody dug it. Additionally, no bank would allow us to take money. So they're there, none of the local banks would allow would allow us to connect the web to their banking system.
Kyle Warren:Very similar. Yep. Okay.
Yon Hardisty:Yeah, it was a it was a year before a small company called Authorize.net launched. And, and we were trying to write our own what are called gateways to get people to like, here's give us some money. PayPal hadn't hadn't really hit its stride, I think it was it was being kind of rolled out and thought about, but it hadn't hit its stride. But it's, it's similar in what you're talking about with connecting your, your, your credit card.
Kyle Warren:Yeah.
Yon Hardisty:If the companies aren't there, if they're not bought in or understanding what you're doing, not only do they not, are they not going to help you, they're going to work against you because they're scared. And and that's very similar to what we're seeing in the cryptocurrency world right now, the blockchain world if you step back from that, is, you know, is JP. Like, who cares what JP Morgan says about this?
Kyle Warren:Right, Right.
Yon Hardisty:JP Morgan came out, what, three years ago and said, Bitcoin is horrendous, I hate it. It's horrible. And then came out like six weeks ago, and it's like, oh, yeah, we invested a bazillion dollars in Bitcoin. And now we've got a credit card with it. You know,
Kyle Warren:I saw that. Yeah.
Yon Hardisty:I you know, it's there. There's a lot of things that happened back then that are just recurring with different a different mask on definitely. And, and that can also be kind of the last point that I see the last pitfall that I see with, with what we what we're talking about with this with with currencies and NF T's. And the blockchain itself is that is that code bias we talked about a little earlier, is that a lot of of that code, and that basis is written and created by people who look like us. And we are not the majority of the world. And so, you know, there's, there's a lot of value in that I, like I said, I wanted that, that, that show that code bias show on Netflix is a worthy watch, I have another friend of mine who watched it and gained a completely different perspective on it that he shared. He was just crestfallen. It's like, no matter how hard I work, no matter how hard I move forward, and I grow as a human being. Technology is now I've got technology to compete with technology's gonna, stamp on my freedoms gonna stamp on my, my hard won rights, or whatever it might be. And that's what he took away from it. And it's a very legitimate and interesting kind of perspective, I actually left that documentary and felt like, like, scales had been, you know, had fallen off my eyes, like, um, this is, this is we can do it better, right, now that we see this. Now that we know this and we can we can grow, we can expand our view of what is right is what is wrong of, of who is creating the technology, and really welcome those people in, you know, people of color women, younger people, you know, yeah, it doesn't have to be an old dude. Kind of revolution. And believe it or not, that that wasn't really kind of, of course, we felt that way.
Kyle Warren:Yeah, yeah.
Yon Hardisty:But it wasn't in our DNA. It wasn't like, oh, man, we shouldn't be doing this. And, and that's something with blockchain and with these new technologies, and as this wave grows, it's really really important that we we look at as inclusive technology. Yeah, as much as and that's something I didn't see in the rolling out of the first wave of web and the rolling out, or even, even to some degree of the rolling out of, like I said, the mobile technologies.
Kyle Warren:Yeah.
Yon Hardisty:You know, it, there wasn't a consideration of it. It wasn't even a thought the thought? And I don't think it was. I think it was, what they called it, it was an it was an implicit? Yeah, it was, it was, we, as programmers tend to think of the straightest line between A and B,
Kyle Warren:Right.
Yon Hardisty:And then we put our heads down, and we kind of go, and every once in a while, we need someone like this, these, like you, to smack us in the head and just say, "look up, you know, look at the world." And yeah, yeah, the technology is great. But apply it, you know, I apply it right, do it better.
Kyle Warren:Yeah, and for everybody.
Yon Hardisty:For everybody, for everybody. And for me, these kinds of movements, these kinds of changes of perspective, are critical, because I think we definitely get into our own our own rut.
Kyle Warren:Yeah.
Yon Hardisty:That's what you were talking about earlier, with the pandemic, kind of taking you allowing you to step out of that. And just think, just think,
Kyle Warren:Yeah, for real and just think and think a little bit differently. Like, because one thing I enjoy about, I love that because even the generation before me, I have a lot of love and a lot of respect for the generation before me because they are incredibly intelligent. I know more 16 year old entrepreneurs than I have in my entire life before this generation. You know, I was not thinking entrepreneurially at 16 years old. You know, I was I was partying, I was young before I this is all before I got sober. So I was getting high, I was getting drunk. I was like, I didn't want to go to school, but I didn't know what path I was supposed to go dow. And these kids are running. I had a client that was making six figures at 17 years old, you know, off of Roblox, you know, and I thought that was just the cool, I'm like, this is real, you know, and these, these young kids, not only are they intelligent, but they're loud. And not only are they loud, but they have tools to elevate and turn up that noise even higher. And so, like social media and these platforms, and I think that that younger generation probably has always been loud. But there's never been a way to fully express it to where it makes a dent in the other generations feel, you know, in the other generations way of thinking.
Yon Hardisty:That's a great perspective. It's a great perspective. I know, in my when I was coming, when I was growing up, we were still very much of the "you're going to have this one career. And you're going to do it" and as we spoke about earlier, it's not going to be art. It's gonna be a lawyer, Doctor, right? Yeah. I spent the better part of my mind last 30 years explaining trying to explain to my family what a gaming developer even is.
Kyle Warren:Right
Yon Hardisty:And, and but you're right, you're right, the human capacity, the mind capacity is fantastical. I mean, it is it is capable of doing so much. But as I was coming up, it was you had one job. And then the horror as we kind of stuck to your, your generation the horror was, was Wait, we're not going to be able to give you the the comfort of knowing that you're going to have one job for life.
Kyle Warren:Right.
Yon Hardisty:Whereas your your your you guys were like, "We
Kyle Warren:Yeah. didn't want that anyway." We're cool, but it was horrific for us. But then you're right, you look at the youngest. I've got a 16 year old daughter, and she she has she's entrepreneurial in spirit, you know, and doing things online. And you're right there. They're utilizing what has always been up here, but now
Yon Hardisty:They don't even it doesn't even faze them. And that has tools. They have tools and and kind of they don't even know like, what is one job? What are you talking about one job, I'm going I'm doing three jobs, but I'm but they're the jobs I love, you know, they're doing nails and taking care of dogs or whatever it might be? is I never I never, never actually put that together with kind of the flow of technology and how technology has become this tools and services oriented approach as a positive. I mean, there's negatives, but as a positive.
Kyle Warren:Yeah, and I mean, because I'll tell you like my mom, she just retired, she got a full pension. You know, she you know, and she's she is she's living out at like she's living life. I mean, she's got a lake home, she, you know, and my dad's about to retire as well. He's, you know, the same age, but I look at that, and I just say, I don't if I do what I love, and maybe you know, I have some more years to do that, but I just can't imagine myself retiring. Like, I don't want I, you know, if I'm doing what I want to do, I don't, I don't want to stop, you know? I may probably take longer breaks to enjoy the present moment a little bit more. But I don't want to stop. I don't know, it's just not I've always been a worker, I've always been a doer, I've always been, you know, that's been one of my things. And so I just, I can't ever see that. And so I just wonder, you know, by the time I'm 50, 60, 70 years old, what's the technology going to be like for life expectancies in? Will you be able to work here at 80, 85, 90, even 100 years old? By the time I get to that point?
Yon Hardisty:I'm sure you know, I'm sure. And I think what we're seeing, what we're speaking about is the kind of swap of, instead of living to work, it's working to live.
Kyle Warren:Yeah.
Yon Hardisty:And and that's, you know, we used to say that I, my, my mother is in her late in her mid 70s. She'd kill me for that. She's 26 forever. But now she's in her late 70s.
Kyle Warren:It's her 50th anniversary.
Yon Hardisty:For the 50th time of 29.
Kyle Warren:Yes, yeah.
Yon Hardisty:But But she's, she played Scrabble, and she loves Scrabble. And we've known this in in technology, that the beauty of the mind can be helped moved and, and sharpened and remain sharp through gaming, you know, through that. Whether it's chess, whether it's Scrabble, whether it's frickin Doom, you name it, depending on how you come at it. You can sharpen that. And you can utilize these tools that literally keep the mind sharp, which keep you moving, which keeps your health, your health and wellness journey together.
Kyle Warren:Sure.
Yon Hardisty:And that's the shift of some people in the past would have called that work. Right, right. Right, you and I call that we do still call that work, but maybe our children won't, maybe they'll just call it This is us kind of utilizing our tools to live to be 150 years old.
Kyle Warren:Or maybe we're redefining the definition of the word work to begin with, you know? Bbecause like I look at, I look at kind of like, you know, a lot of the cryptocurrency technology and NF T's were redefining what things mean, we're redefining what is right, what is wrong, you know, we're seeing recent, like, you see things like, you know, with what Dave Chappelle did, with what Taylor Swift is doing with some of these major record labels, you know, they did sign their life away to these record labels and into these companies, but... they have influence. And and they realize that if the consumers aren't going to watch, they don't have a business. So it doesn't really matter. What's in writing. And, to me, that is a very fascinating topic, because like, what is the legal world even look like? What is what what does this whole I mean, it's, I don't even know what you call it, you know, but what does this look like? What is whatever we're talking about even look like? What does influence look like? What does? What does the.. What do economies look like in the future? And it's my take that people are going to be building their own economies. And it's going to be personal economies versus the economy. So I mean...
Yon Hardisty:I don't I don't mean mobile from the sense of a mobile phone or something, but mobile companies as well, the ability to pick up and move and, you know, we're seeing this through the pandemic of people of them selling out desert area land plots, like never before, because we can work from where we want to work from. So yeah, no, I totally agree there. Is this kind of move toward there's not kind of there is this move towards the nation of one, you know, the the the the the assets of one the assets of shared and chosen communities, as opposed to counties, cities, national national nationalities even. And that's, I understand how that's absolutely terrifying for the the powers that be,
Kyle Warren:Right.
Yon Hardisty:And I totally okay with that.
Kyle Warren:They've been powerful way to long
Yon Hardisty:Well, and yet, what is power, right? Just like you said, with Taylor Swift, I heard she'd she You're, right, she re-recorded herself. Yes. And then she owns them. I mean, that's brilliant. That's like, but But why didn't you know, why didn't the early singers do that? Or, oh, you know, why didn't that happen in the 1950s? That I think is is an interesting thing to look at as well as what was the mindset that felt like you could sell of yourself these aspects? And and what has what's shifted to now I'm, you know, as a technologist, I'd say... technology. But I know that's that's probably too very much too simplistic.
Kyle Warren:Now, I can make the argument that, you know, I, at least just based on my experience, you know, my entire life before I really started in this journey of creating content and doing things for myself, you know, I always secretly didn't want to, like take ownership of anything.. Like, I always felt really comfortable knowing that if the market took a turn for the worse that the company would have my back, you know? That the company would take care of things that people would take care of things, I always put my stock and other people and not in not in myself, and I didn't it the idea of content creation before I got into it was such a just a far fetched, like, what? I mean, it didn't make sense to me, because I put my security in my parents, in my friends in my job, you know, in my apartment complex for you know, like, it was literally an everywhere but me. So, I would argue that, you know, the enablement of like, we get to change what value is, you know, in technology maybe enables us to do that, because I look at Paris Hilton, back in the day, I used to judge Paris Hilton, you know, but you look at her, then she started what's now known as personal branding. I mean, she was ahead of the curve, and she's also now doing NF T's and is, I'm starting to I put that together, and I said,"holy shit, you know?" It's, it's this idea that, like, we can create our own value, and we don't need anybody else. But I would trace it back to a lot of social issues that didn't, that we didn't break through, until recently, to allow us to feel empowered to do that. I feel like we've had this entire time. You know,
Yon Hardisty:It's like, de de-industrialization of our brain, you know?
Kyle Warren:you said a way better than me, yeah.
Yon Hardisty:Yeah, I think you're spot on that there's this. There's, there's a beauty to the collective, there's a beauty to doing things together. And in certainly a power you can you can move mountains and do amazing things collectively. But if you have a collection of individuals, if you have a collection of, of strong, purposeful, humans or beings, you and then you come together, you're going to I mean... there's no limit. There's no limit whatsoever. And I think that you're right, it's you if we look back, and there was this, we're, we're grandchildren I guess of the of the Industrial Revolution, where it was, you come together for the one person at the top, or the one purpose at the top, if it's a nation. But there wasn't this kind of sense of value in self. And I think, you know, my Gen. I know, my generation, I know, my parents generation suffered for that. And yeah, and my grandparents too. Yeah.
Kyle Warren:Yeah.
Yon Hardisty:I wouldn't, but yeah, they're their lives and just, you know, they wouldn't see it as suffering. But in perspective, you know, this is coming out. And, yeah, if I draw that line down to my 16 year old child, holy crap. She's, she's so much more powerful as an individual than I was within my, her grandmother was her her great grandmother.
Kyle Warren:Right. That's okay.
Yon Hardisty:That's beautiful. That's almost spiritual. And, yeah, it's, it's kind of an exciting thing to be right here. And right now, and right, this moment watching, watching this all happen, and, and I don't doubt that there'll be another I think in the future they should get into the technological wave that comes in the next 20 years that you and I probably be sitting down, virtually, you know, on Mars. You know, one of us will be on Mars, I don't know, but one of us. And we'll, we'll get deeper and deeper into this, but the one that we have right now, I think is beautiful, because it is it is really putting the power, of value, the power of, of motivation into the hands of the Creator, and by the Creator, I mean, the artist, or the streamer, or the business or the business person, you know? Patting myself in the back a little bit. You know, or the podcaster or the, you know, the, the that person who wants to create a craft, in and of themselves, there are tools to allow you to value that and to gain value from it, to live from it. That's fantastic. And it's funny because when we roll back to like doing businesses, I always think you and I talked about this before where you know, I always I've seen businesses as a vehicle to get done what I want to do, sure, or what my partners and I want to do, or what are investors so that we don't have investors but generally investors want to do and, and you know.. This technology, the NFT, the the blockchain, these are new vehicles. These are new new approaches to do these things without even having to incorporate yourself or to worry about legal terms. And I'm taking a thought at our at our friend right now. legal legal NFT's would be very, very interesting.
Kyle Warren:The legal space around this is probably the biggest challenge to face. But it's also the most fascinating because while we're jumbling around all these definitions, what is how does the law even coming to? Yeah, it's Wild
Yon Hardisty:I think I had, it wasn't my thought someone else saw a meme or video on it somewhere. Where they were saying, you know, there was the information age and the companies of Googles and sons that made billions off it, there was the social age that made billions off of it. And then now we're, we're seeing, from their perspective, from the more legal perspective, they're seeing a boom in the utilization of blockchains and NF T's and cryptocurrencies in asset management. And not not necessarily just finance management, but asset management. And they're saying that's going to be, you know, Umpteen multiple times what these others are, because it gets right down to the things that we as humans, I think, intrinsically think of is ours, right? Yes, this this desk, this house, this we you can take, I can take this desk, and I can take this house, and I can put each into a NFT Yeah, you know, it's the same NFT
Kyle Warren:Yeah, exactly.
Yon Hardisty:It's, it's, it's a, it's, it's non fungible, and it's, it's, it's really, really quite, quite intense.
Kyle Warren:It is. And I
Yon Hardisty:thought about it until this talk, I hadn't even thought about it from the perspective of like, You're, you're expanding my view for the day, spirit, spiritual technology.
Kyle Warren:I feel like this is the tech I can't sometimes I just sit back and I and I just I reflect and I'm like, I'm living in this time. I couldn't imagine living in another time, like the thought of me growing up, you know, with with, if I just copied and pasted who I was, back in the 60s, back in the 50s. I couldn't, it literally makes me sick to my stomach. It makes me sick to my stomach because I get to see all this in. And I feel like, you know, in my own way, I've suffered long enough with technology that hadn't caught up to my interest. Because I always loved movies like iRobot, I always liked the Jetsons, I always liked these things. But there was always a very slight, it wasn't strong, but there was a subtle, like depression of like, "we're nowhere even near that. And that's what I want." But the way in a weird way that I see this is that this is the start of something very similar to that. It may not, I may not see it in my lifetime. But to me, this is like that one step that allows us to get closer to these like digital realities and like decentraland and virtual reality and like, what is this stuff even, you know, Ready Player, like, hopefully going to get to a like a Ready Player One where the whole world has gone to shit. But, you know, that kind of that framework is really neat.
Yon Hardisty:You know, go back one more book, like a little further the Snow Crash, you got to try if you haven't read Snow Crash, Neil Steffensen, you gotta read Snow Crash?
Kyle Warren:I will.
Yon Hardisty:It's not so dystopian. But it still is technically cool.
Kyle Warren:Okay.
Yon Hardisty:You know, there is a dystopia to it, but it's not like you know burnt landscape.
Kyle Warren:Right.
Yon Hardisty:And, and I was talking with a friend recently, and we were he was talking about Musk and his things and what
Kyle Warren:Yeah, fascinating guy. Yeah.
Yon Hardisty:Fascinating. But if you if you want to understand the path that he's taking in the path that he's walking, read, Red Mars, Green Mars, Blue Mars are getting on audio books, it's on. I'm listening to it on audio books right now. And again, I read in the 80s. But again, it's it's word for word. I mean, he it's like somebody it's like he's following the path of this of this booklet to get us out into this other place and I can't you know, he's doing fantastic. I... go with it. So but yeah, but I think that that kind of harkens back to what you're talking about, about you know, if you were to take yourself out and put yourself a couple decades back 10 years back would we have that were two or three years away from going up into another planetary I wouldn't.
Kyle Warren:insane Yeah, it's it's insane. I actually if you haven't listened to his recent podcast with Joe Rogan that's that's really the only time I listen to Joe Rogan. Nothing against him. I just like when when I get To see Elan musk chat for three hours uninterrupted. That's a, that's a great time. You know, I will I will sit down, I'll listen to that through and through in one sitting. Um, you know, what wanted to get your thoughts on, you know, like we've been talking about NF T's we've kind of been touching on the gaming world, you know, you obviously like to disrupt, you know, the medical industry as well, you know, how do you see NF T's playing into, like the medical industry, like what value Do you see that being? Like, like, like, yeah, yeah, what are your thoughts on that?
Yon Hardisty:Well, I touched a little bit about it earlier, I mean, we're talking about about using NF T's using blockchain and currencies to kind of draw back value and assets to the individual, right. And I gotta say, it's very, very early days when it's in relation to healthcare. But I think that because of the pandemic, just like our vaccines, these things, his considerations have been sped up. And so if you think about one of your assets being your personal information, what the NFT allows you to do, and the wallets allow you to do and how they kind of tie together a little bit, and I think will more and more in the future, is they allow you trying to encapsulate your information in this into a digital form that has that tracked, background. It can't be lost, it can't be, it can't be copied. It's It's yours, and it's yours alone. But then you have the through the use of wallets and exchanges, and, and possibly healthcare exchanges in the future, literally, I think they're called exchanges, you'll be you're able to let loose just snippets of this information. And in the healthcare industry, what we do is we look at, we try as best we can not to have too much information all in one place for your for customer security. And so the NFT solves just an amazing amount of solution.. of problems for that. Because you hold on to that information. It's in a secure, it's in something you know, is secure. And we can ask you for one data point, maybe two data points. But we wouldn't ask them together. And we'd always ask permission for it. And kind of at some point tell you why. Right?
Kyle Warren:Yeah. Yeah.
Yon Hardisty:And then and then in the best case scenario, the way the world as I see it, we'd give that back to you. We'd Forget it, we'd become no nothing companies. So we'd ask for that information, we deliver service, and then we give it back to you. And we'd say we don't want to know this. Because the thing that I've seen for the last 20 years that has held up technical innovation in the healthcare industry more than anything else, is a fear of, of, of overstepping individual boundaries.
Kyle Warren:Got it. It makes.
Yon Hardisty:Yeah, I have never worked. I've worked with some large companies, I've never worked with a company that has wanted to overstep those boundaries. Now they want some information to deliver a service.
Kyle Warren:Sure, sure.
Yon Hardisty:But that's a real, it's a real tricky thing. And when given the choice of, of, well, in order to deliver that service, you need to secure this information that's inherently insecure. They say no, no, we will pass on the service. And that's hogtied the healthcare industry from a technical standpoint, over the over the past decades. And so what I where I see NF T's and blockchain concepting really, really being powerful is is that it it, it puts the power in the in the individual, but it also takes them takes the fear out of the industry to deliver services. Because because it's all encrypted, here. It's it's given through encryption, it's given back with a service through encryption. And the only thing that the healthcare company technical company has to worry has to think about is the service
Kyle Warren:Right
Yon Hardisty:You know, so So for instance, I could, I can have a service sitting out there in the world that provides diabetes care. I don't know what it might be, but it provides a diabetes service. You can come to that and say, I'll take that service. Here's my proof that I'm a diabetes, I have diabetes. Yes, yeah. Except service, and you're done. And I don't need to know who you are. And that's, that's a big, big point. But just the fact that you're able to give that piece of information allow me to provide that service means that my whole business model changes. My whole business model is 100% focused on service provision which Frankly, I think, I know it doesn't sound like this. And It certainly doesn't feel like this to a lot of people, especially in this country. But healthcare companies, I believe that is the core value that is their core value. That is where what they want to do. And so the NFT, the blockchain allows them to let technology sit where technology needs to be so that they can focus on healthcare service. And that's really powerful.
Kyle Warren:Yeah, that, that, yeah. I mean, talk about expansion to something I didn't know. Because it's in the way, the way I see it, you know, to add on to your vision, say, where to live in that vision, where, you know, it's a service based company, that to me frees up a lot more money for data, data security, data protection, servers to hold other information on, you know, that to me saves a whole lot of money. And I feel like that could eventually if I mean, of course, you know, depends on the business owner in the in the in the the powers that be, but that could in turn, you could I could argue make healthcare more affordable.
Yon Hardisty:Absolutely.
Kyle Warren:Right, because I'm not spending millions and billions on data security, that's not really that secure, as you may mentioned earlier.
Yon Hardisty:Absolutely. Yeah. No, I didn't, no doubt about it, you know, that that that provision of service, that focus that comes after not having, I mean, the worry, that's there is proper, right?
Kyle Warren:Right.
Yon Hardisty:They're worried about our security, they're worried about our information. And, and that is proper, and it's a good thing to be worried about it.
Kyle Warren:Yeah.
Yon Hardisty:They're worried about it. But there are people who could specialize in that, and that alone, and just specialize in that as a technology as a technologist, right? And in free, the psychiatrist, free the the clinician free, the the, the the health care provider from having to worry about it, they're going to have time they're going to have ability, they're going to have money, to be able to do all kinds of other things.
Kyle Warren:Right.
Yon Hardisty:Either reduce the cost of care, or provide more service for their cost of care, or both.
Kyle Warren:I see this both, you know, because, Yeah. I look at health care overseas. And there's they pay that, you know, there's certain things that they pay, like nickels for that we're paying dollars for, you know, but at the same time in Europe, like it, may you it's free dental care, but it may take you six months to get an appointment. And it may not be that good. So to me, like it's like a healthy blend of like if you know, if I were to I mean, living in a perfect world, if I were to run in this world or run a company, in that world that to me would allow you to provide more services, and means more money to your doctors, to your specialists and also reduce the cost to the end user, which is the primary, which is who we're serving anyway.
Yon Hardisty:Absolutely, absolutely. I mean, simply if you take no other no other benefit, but for the there's no need to file paperwork.
Kyle Warren:Yeah.
Yon Hardisty:Look for paperwork, it's there. It's in, in the users pocket, you know, on our phone, we walk in with our pleat sig, our complete medical record, there's no, there's no, you're not going to find that I have a problem with with some vaccine that, that it's all right here, you know, I using the phone because that's what we have now. I'm sure in the future it will be a chip on our brain or something to that effect, right? But but the concept of it is that we internalize that we take back that ownership. And and it's always been our desire. And I feel it's also always been the healthcare industry's desire for us to have that ownership.
Kyle Warren:Yeah.
Yon Hardisty:But But, you know, it's, it's, we're in those middle, those middle stages.
Kyle Warren:Yeah, yeah,
Yon Hardisty:Those early days,
Kyle Warren:I think. I think so too. And this is something, you know, we'll start we'll start to like wrap things up. But there's one more topic and it may go for another, you know, however long it goes because I I find it very fascinating. And, you know, I haven't graduated college, and I don't know if I intend to, you know? I just I'm halfway towards my degree, but I'm like, I'm like, do I even really need it now? You know? I'm in that kind of spot. But one of the most useful classes that I had was it was from that that you know, that that college course that you have to take, it's mandatory. It's like take better notes in college or like get more productive or like make sure you know, like that class that no one ever needs but you're required to take I there was a there was an entrepreneur. He is a professor was a serial entrepreneur and also an entrepreneurial, entrepreneur mindset coach. And what he did was he did the very bare minimum to teach us what was written In the curriculum, but then what he would do is he would explain a lot of the way things are, you know, the way the society is give us real world examples of what he was trying to teach us. And he basically just teach us how to become, you know, like, what businesses and what it could be in the future. And, to my point, is one thing he mentioned, and I'm starting to see it is, technology is going to grow so fast, and it's going to replace a lot of, you know, we'll call them bullshit jobs that don't really need to be jobs. And they're going to force people to do a lot more research a lot more, have a lot more intellect. And you're going to see this divide of people who are doing really well. And they have so much comfort, they don't know what to do with it. The people who are barely living, and there's going to be a disappearance of the middle class. Now may not happen tomorrow. But that's kind of the way I see this going. And I kind of you know, based on our conversation, I would like to know your thoughts on that, like your What do you see? Do you agree that you disagree with that? You know why?
Yon Hardisty:So yes, I think you're you're spot on, technology has outstripped the educational system. It hasn't outstripped. It hasn't outstripped the need to be educated. So there's, there's delineation there. And what's what I feel if we actually if we look at a professor or a teacher, an educator, kind of like we've been talking about an artist or a streamer, right? They'll be able to take back the value in the ownership of the edu.. of their knowledge and how they share that with individuals. For me, what I believe has been outstripped is the is not the value of getting an education or or taking the time to have an education. It is the structures of education that we see today. And the pandemic's a beautiful exemplar of that, right? I had, I know that a lot of children do like the structures because they, they they like that, that interaction, they need that interaction. They need that physical
Kyle Warren:Sure
Yon Hardisty:Real Life touch. But I've also seen a lot of students mind my youngest daughter included, that if blossomed, with with at-home learning, that have shortened the time that she's in high school, she's going to graduate early, because she took extra courses, and spent time doing it through a computer, right?
Kyle Warren:Yeah.
Yon Hardisty:In essence, the the structure of the high school was stripped away, and she blossomed. And I think I think we're where we're going to see where that hits on the, the disparity between the haves and the have nots is in time, is in, you know, that giving, giving people time to find where they're going to blossom, and giving people time to get that education. The nice thing about the structure of education, UC's, the high schools, the great schools is that it It forces those who, who need to learn that way to be in a structured environment where they spend time focusing on their education and nothing else.
Kyle Warren:Right. Right.
Yon Hardisty:For those like, like my daughter, and yourself, many others, who will do take that time themselves, the structure doesn't need to be there. And so I think over the next couple of decades, we're going to see, we're going to see more and more people accept the value of getting an education outside of the structure of a school. But the problem is, you have to have time to do that. And you have to have... I guess time time is really it, you have to have time to do it, you have to have time to focus on it. And if your time is spent worrying about eating, living, paying your rent, taking care of your children, if your time is spent doing that you're not getting the education, you're not getting the benefits of the structureless education, let alone the structured education which we know people don't get if they don't have these things.
Kyle Warren:Right.
Yon Hardisty:So it will be interesting to see how how, how technology kind of plays into that I believe, I hope that technology allows more people to get the educational value out of their lives. Because it it can fit into people's lives a little bit more, who don't have a lot of time.
Kyle Warren:Got it.
Yon Hardisty:Having said that, though, I think that any any society worth it's worth its bones today needs to really think about giving time to people back to people, you know, and and, and for this exact purpose because those people will find their value using NF T's and others they'll hold on to that value. And then when they come back together collectively as a nation or as a society, or as a group or as gamers on an esport team, they're going to come back 100 fold, because of their education because of what they've learned. And because they have this ownership and passionate about what is theirs. And if technology helps that happen, man, like you said, We've been living in the best time ever, if that's the case, I mean, I'm not saying we're there, I'm not saying, you know, it's pie in the sky is a lot of work to be done. But yeah, I wouldn't, I wouldn't, I'm loving it.
Kyle Warren:I think so to it, and you look at, like, I look at it to say you were to, I'm just gonna take this scenario, where it's like, if you look at my generation, it's mixed with people like me, with also people that like, still don't want to venture outside Facebook, or, like, don't know how to work a zoom call, you know, where is my age, you know, you know, I'm 29, you know, it's like that, that kind of give or take five years on each side is still kind of in that age group, you know, where it's just like, they're either really, you know, unique and have their own way. And they have this great perspective, or they're just like, you know, they still have some of that old school mentality, and they're not quite bought into what's happening. If I look at, you take my society, my generation, and copy and paste that 20 years later, you would have almost you would have chaos, because there's a bunch of people who still just want the comfort of a nine to five job, there's people that still want to be told what to do. I mean, not like, in a bad way, you know what I mean, like, there's people that crave that structure, and that that need that. But if you look at generation One, and two behind me, or before, I was, whatever the word, whatever the term for younger is, we're seeing a surge in entrepreneurs, so what it really matter?
Yon Hardisty:Yeah.
Kyle Warren:Is gonna be, you know, that generation of doers?
Yon Hardisty:And that, that looks back to the code bias discussion I had with a friend who's, you know, you have different minds to the, to the discussion, we had talked a little bit about the what's what are barriers to NF T's and barriers to technologies? I almost feel like our generation, your generation and my generation, yours more so because we're mine is just like lifting its head up. But you guys are you guys are aware, right? You guys are here and
Kyle Warren:Right. aware is is to figure out how to message these technologies in such a way that those have different perspectives, and those of older generations, can handle it and can understand what the youngsters are doing. You know, we've, we've seen a couple of waves of technology, we've seen how this rolls, you know, we're hopefully we're learning from our experiences. And I think it's upon us to kind of point point to the
Yon Hardisty:And that's cool. That's fantastic. But I think correlations between the two and and show where they can meet and where they can support each other. Because you're right, I, you know, my, this kind of discussion will blow by my parents minds, my grandparents would would have had a coronary by now. And, and my daughter, you know, she just doesn't get we don't get it. that us in kind of the, the coming of age of technology, our roles is to is to connect those two together is to explain to this, why that does it and explain to them why they do that.
Kyle Warren:I had that exact thought. And I just say I felt that I get the blessing of still learning how to love of growing up playing with dirt. You know, like I wrote a skateboard, you know, we hung out at the jungle gym, you know, we did these, like physical activities where technology was great.
Yon Hardisty:Scrape the knee?
Kyle Warren:Yeah, yeah, it was there. But it wasn't, I mean, we didn't depend on it, you know, it was like a luxury and it was a nice to have, and it was a, we didn't depend on it in any way, shape, or form. And unless it was a landline, so we could, you know, call and dial one if we were to dial out of state, just the wildest thing. But, you know, and, uh, but also you combine that with, you know, I get the perspective of understanding, you know, what the difference between dial up and high speed actually means, you know, that perspective is unique to my generation, because we suffered just long enough, you know, to really understand how massive this actually is.
Yon Hardisty:Yeah.
Kyle Warren:Now, my designer, he lives he lives in Europe, and we can have a video call, we can discuss projects, he can share his screen, and we can accept payment like that. Well, there we go like that. And so, to me, I felt that same I say all this to say I'm agreeing with you is that like I feel that it's our responsibility to like number one. To the earlier generation is still teach them how to have soft skills, because that's still a very important thing. I don't care how good technology gets, that's the only place that I'm old school because it's, it's a basic fundamental of being a human being. I don't care how good technology gets, even if we live in the metaverse, you know, people are still going to want to like talk with good people. And you're still going to know how to do business deals and transactions and just be an overall good person in general.
Yon Hardisty:And a good portion of that will always be in the real world, it's not going to be technology, I've also got a child, an older daughter, that's, that's in university right now. And hurting a lot because she can't be there. Because as we strip away the as we're talking about technology, kind of stripping away elements of of education, one of the real beauties of the structured element educational system that we have, is that physical debate, that physical interaction, that those relationships that you build, and that you bring, you bring together in those spaces that we don't necessarily have in in in the digital world. I mean, I think we're trying to recreate some of these things. And you know, we're doing it right here. We've seen it with Zoom, we've seen it with these different technologies, but there's really nothing like that tangible experience. And again, we need to make sure that as many people as possible, have the have the choices and the time to be able to see what works best for them. And that educational experience.
Kyle Warren:I like that.
Yon Hardisty:Yeah.
Kyle Warren:I like because I think we're we're, we're just scratching the surface on that, that fit education into your own time with YouTube. I mean, with the way YouTube prioritizes monetization, it's to put out valuable content, right? I mean, some people without valuable some people, it's, you know, it's, you know, whatever. But like, I was having a conversation with someone else, like, Can't remember who it was, it was actually a client of mine, he was like, you know, if it wasn't for YouTube, I wouldn't have known how to do this, you know, and so we're starting to see that like the the people who are really taking YouTube seriously, and the people who have cemented themselves as a trusted name for the long term, you're starting to see like pockets of like, I can go listen to Gary for 20 hours a day, you know, because he's on 18 different platforms. And I can go listen to Harris Heller for this, I can go listen, you know, I can go listen to MKBHD for anything tech related, because he's a trusted source, and he does the work to educate the people. And so I just, I feel that we're just like, YouTube is like the very scratch of the surface. But we're starting to see that because I've learned more off of podcasts and YouTube videos than I have in my entire education system. Like, I'll be honest with you, like I have learned more in such a short period of time, because it's on my time, like you said, and I've gotten to learn on my terms, learn exactly what I want to learn when I want to learn it and not have 5% of the lecture be the only thing I care about, and have this other hour where it just goes through one ear and out the other, you know, so anyway, it's To me..
Yon Hardisty:Systems, systems need societal systems need to be put in place to value that. I'd say you've got time, the time you've spent learning what you've learned, is as valuable as the person who goes to Harvard, and sits in the classroom and learns maybe the exact same thing on their own. I mean, in that structure, yeah. And I don't know, I don't know the pathway to that.
Kyle Warren:Right. That's Yeah.
Yon Hardisty:But I do know that my daughter's, you know, in that age, that younger group, they don't, they don't even care about the valuation. They don't they don't. They're going to, they're going to do it.
Kyle Warren:Right. Right. Right. Right.
Yon Hardisty:And so it's up to us to figure out how we reward that monetarily in value in love, whatever it might be, in just respect. What does it take? What's the pathway to valuing the way that you've learned, versus the way the Harvard student or the Yale student has learned? And, and, you know, in such a way that it gives it equity? amongst the two.
Kyle Warren:Right. I see, yeah, because we're we're seeing this with companies where you look at a job posting and it says, you know, a bachelor's or equivalent experience, you know, we're starting to see that it's not fully there yet. And secretly, I'm sure they will still do wish you have a they probably still want you to have a bachelor's. But, you know, if you have the right skill set, you know, there's a potential being hired. I love Elon Musk's take on that. You know, he's very similar. He's like school teaches you how to do things that you don't want to do. And that's valuable, right? No, I didn't want to go to school. I went to school, but I learned a thing from school. I I did things that I didn't want to do. And that's helped him in his business. Right. So I find it's just a fascinating topic because you we start to understand, okay, how do you how do employers how to business owners, how do people track that time? How do people know that you know, and that's where my disconnect is like without the degree without the valuation? What is the valuation? How do we even track that? How do because employers are taking a risk, and they're spending a lot of money, especially up front with hiring people, they need to know that they have a quality person, you know,
Yon Hardisty:Well, yeah. I see another NFT value!
Kyle Warren:Right? That's my mind was going through that, like, I'm like, yeah.
Yon Hardisty:I get my data point from a school or I get my data point from a YouTube video. It's still a data point. It's still something I've learned. It's still time of, and it's it's irrelevant where I've learned it, it's a skill,
Kyle Warren:right?
Yon Hardisty:Yeah, yeah We're onto something here! Let me go start a business. I'm tired. I'm gonna go plant a tree.
Kyle Warren:That's right. Awesome, man. Well, I did this Yon, this has been an absolute like treat. I you know, this is honestly the first podcast where I've really dove deep into NFT's I where I've really dove in deep into anything crypto, because I've mainly interviewed people in the esports and the gaming world and the content creation side. And so this is kind of like my, my little intro to like, Yeah, I did one more was on a mindset and positivity. But that was kind of like, it's the first one I really gotten to dive into the weeds and I feel like they're gonna, they're gonna they're gonna have a some synergy. I don't see it yet, but I feel it. So this has been a treat.
Yon Hardisty:I'd love to come back in a year and see if any of our our perspectives have changed. I mean, I
Kyle Warren:For real.
Yon Hardisty:it's not often I get to feel like a little baby. But when talking about like, blockchain or NFT's or digital currencies, I'm you know, I'm a I'm a I'm an infant in comparison to some of the minds that are out there
Kyle Warren:Sure
Yon Hardisty:it is. It is fantastic. And, and very interesting to kind of watch as it as it gains a swell. Yeah, I'd love to do this again.
Kyle Warren:Absolutely, man. So Yon is there for the for the audience's listening. Is there any place that you know, they should go to learn more about you about your businesses? Like what what do you what do you want? Where do you want to direct people?
Yon Hardisty:Go to Binx Check out, Binx, that is a wonderful community of streamers, a wonderful community of gamers. The whole concept of the community is that it's gamers and streamers helping each other, be better. And, and I you know, I don't take any, any real ownership in that, because the members of that community have done that and do that on a daily basis. And I've watched them, I've stood back and watch them, create support groups, create, teams, create great games create great products, and it's just a really positive place to be. And in, in, in, in social media, and in gaming. sometimes that's hard to find positive places to be. And so you know, if you want to find anything that kind of exemplifies my partners, the people that I work with our team, and our community Binx.TV is really the play sport.
Kyle Warren:I like it, man. I like it. Well, yeah. And again, it's been an absolute treat. I'll go and put that link in the description below for any who do you want to go there but I guess till next time, man.
Yon Hardisty:Absolutely. It's been great.
Kyle Warren:Have a good one. Have a good one.