Max Meyer on Arena Magazine: techno-optimism, American manufacturing, and the culture war that isn't over

huge fans of Arena magazine um there are so many look it there he is we got to get him a new name tag okay we're we're building this as we go every every single copy of of Arena magazine Machine World which uh I believe is episode three or or Edition number three issue three issue 003 003 comes with a uh an Ander roll poster the grind that'll win that's great that's a great insert very nice Insight uh thank you for making print thank you again yes we're we're huge on printing our Brother printer is working overtime you clearly have a much nicer printer than we do um yeah we don't have much color mostly black and white but how are you doing Max doing great how are you fantastic uh how has the uh reception to 003 bin can you give us a little bit of overview on what you're building within Arena what your vision was for Machine World and uh maybe one of the articles in here that you uh were the most fond of well I had a very funny moment when I was walking uh on the streets in San Francisco last week and just saw the poster that we put in the front cover just in someone's office just laying around basically and then I got a then I got a and then I got a direct message from one of the subscribers who's like an accountant somewhere in Florida who had who who had you know had to frame it he wanted to show me the picture of framing the poster and so this one was this one was this one this one this one was very fun um it was the first magazine in which I did not personally contribute an article actually that sort of speaks to the the level of very fine submissions that we received um my favorite one is um it's called who wants to work in a factory yeah and we actually had our friend Alder Riley respond to a lukor Metro tweet that said everyone wants to expand industrial capacity but no one wants to work in a factory um and so you Alder does uh you know 3D printers uh and you know does a lot of this stuff in the Heartland and so it was it was uh it's it's a subject that's very appealing to me and uh you know he he he talks about the uh the sort of wonder in the eyes of the kids that get to see all this Tech stuff and you know his his big thing they actually do want to work in the factory the children yearn for it it's just the opportunity has been sort of taken away toally the course of many generations totally I remember an onion article from years ago uh that was joking that job satisfaction among crane operators was at an all-time high because you just wake up you go and it's very tactile you're moving things around and and and it's a joke but it's also probably very true uh my question is obviously you you monitor I think uh Tech culture very very closely I want to know it feels like obviously there's been this massive Vibe shift have we won do we need to be cautious about resting on our Laurels now or is there still so much work to do because we truly have not reshored manufacturing job's not finished job's not finished what's your take yeah I don't think that anyone should ever assume that they've won the American culture there remains a lot of uh you know anti-tech sentiment sure much of it much of it with with with much of it with reason um the whole Arena project is sort of trying to synthesize the tech culture with the broader American culture and there are ways in which these two things are sometimes at odds uh I think like 2010's Tech largely at odds with the with the American culture you know Google saying you know no we don't want to work with the we don't want to work with the military but it's but it's but it's but it's you know it's fine to work it's fine to work with the Chinese military um I think it's always incumbent on on the tech world to to clearly explain the um you know the benefits of this system to the to the to the broader Nation just because it's here it can't be it can't be sort of reconstructed somewhere else I've always been I've always been fascinated by you as a as a figure because on the one hand like you work deeply in technology you're at a venture capital firm you're deeply in in ingrained in the tech world in the Techno Optimist world and but at the same time you're building a shed on you know like R you took building in public to a new level by just just building this this uh extravagant uh I don't even think we can call it a shed what what what is it it's a structure structure yeah break down what you're building and like why and how that fits into the tech you know narrative that you're building yeah I set out a so I have an offgrid cabin and bu I'm building like a big steel building that that where I'll put my starlink but the offgrid cabin is very rustic at one point I tweeted out a picture of my my typewriter and my oil lamps and I was like this is where I write techno propaganda from uh inside an off grid cabin with a little solar battery and a starlink um yeah I think that I've been sort of I've been sort of nursing this concept of like you know techn lism where we can where we can where we can encourage you know technology broadly but we don't have to ad we don't have to give everyone like a internet connected toaster or whatnot we can rebel against the little elements and really the beautiful thing about technology is that it can it can give us our time back uh it makes every it makes the whole economy more productive it raises it raises it raises wealth standards for the every man and I think that that's something that's always good to to keep in mind I just happen to also you know have a very strong connection to Iowa where I grew up and love to spend the summer on my on my property up there how many uh undiscovered Luke fador are there in the world uh I think it's you know an amazing uh story of you know just just in general you split time between Austin which is sort of maybe a destination for for people like Luke but you also spend time in Iowa where I'm at imine that there are undiscovered uh people like that what's your read on uh kind of American uh untap potential broadly well I mean the legacy of the the big Midwestern research universities is really amazing you have you know the the University of Nebraska Purdue Iowa State University of Minnesota uh I mean they they invent stuff all the time they're massive Enterprises and there are tons of super talented people that are in them and basically you know one of the issues is that there's probably just some like Al misallocation that goes on based on the types of businesses that are the most competitive hirers in those States but I think the very good news is that the internet has totally surfaced a lot of the Luke farer types to the to the rest of the world um yeah it's on the order of tens of thousands in in the midwestern us I think that are for that you go one rung below Luke then hundreds of thousands Luc is you know A++ yeah totally uh do you see you know is that uh is that is that all a focus for you of sort of uh tal Talent Discovery you obviously spend time at abbc you know you're sort of I imagine splitting time between Arena and 8 um is that something that that you feel is part of your mission is to try to get those people to work on problems that you find important yeah I got a great I got a great email from from a from a subscriber just the other day that I that I shared with his permission on X uh and he said you know he's he's he's a he's a consultant doing local Consulting in in in Houston Texas and he said that he was feeling really down about the way that Doge was being portrayed and he' always wanted to do something in manufacturing and he said that he opened up Arena magazine and it gave him some inspiration and he's thinking about doing it and I said you know let us know if we can let us know if we can help with your pivot so yes like the the the the the the cardinal goal of doing this crazy print publication is to mind infect people to work on the right things the cool things the pro Amer things uh and I think that that is also a core duty of you know it's not just media people I think that the I think that the the the Venture capitalists are also trying to mind infect Founders and Engineers to work on the right things as well yeah is uh there's this idea of a silver tsunami it's been sort of Meed to death at this point this idea that there's all these people running sort of important uh small businesses and manufacturing companies and widget companies here in the US and they're retiring and the mb's figured that out and said you know these are our companies like that's my $5 million eida you know manufacturing business like I'm going to take it over who's the right people to take it over uh is is there an opportunity that for Silicon Valley to sort of participate in that and sort of um you know bring sort of more like the the idea some of the robotic stuff that you're seeing at Y combinator and bring that uh to the Heartland uh or or is it an opportunity for everybody well I think it's an opportunity for the business owners that have been doing real things for all these decades to secure the bag uh and uh there's you know you sort of love the wealth transfer going on of selling these selling these you know $5 million ebit da businesses I don't know 10x ebit da starting offer to the to the NBA um I think it's I think it's I think it's great I think I dislike the the meme of it where like it's like we're all going to take these things over and it's actually not that hard to run these businesses yeah um there's the very famous uh John Collison tweet where he's you know the the the world is a museum of passion passion projects and like every little thing is like that um but one hopes that there are like some interesting ways to integrate AI into these things um but I'm also sort of a believer in the like um you know um Octavian choosing his successor the street boy from Rome uh and I think that you're going to see a lot of these situations where you know where someone talented will find a Mente who will take it over yeah and that and that you may actually see a trend of just outright transferring these businesses um a very European thing actually but I think it could happen yeah it's it's it's great if a business owner run something for you know 30 years and they can sell the business for $10 million and buy a boat and a lake house and sort of sail off into the sunset but at the same time you know giving you know transferring the business not not a direct transfer but sort of creating a uh you know something like a seller note that allows them to take it over and and get you know continue to be paid out for for what they built yeah exactly exactly uh I want to go to self-driving cars there's an article in here what a world of self-driving cars might be like by Andrew Miller uh and I want to talk about the Aesthetics of self-driving cars I found it very striking when Tesla announced the Cyber cab how different the design was to the Whos uh which are these kind of knobby bumpy uh Jaguars and Elon uh you know announced the future should look like the future uh what what does your platonic idea of a self-driving car look like well I think that eventually you're going to see a diversification based on consumer Choice which is what happened with with regular cars so I don't have a platonic I deal myself I want the people to decide uh you want to be car Livery by four humanoids um as for the like the future should look like the future I agree with that and one of our big things with arena is that like the futuristic aesthetic is better by just relying on the stuff that already exists basically and I and that's why I admire the design of of the Cyber cab it's not that different from what their actual cars look like and so the key thing there is that it doesn't seem so far off and ridiculous I'm in favor of the Jetson stuff as well but only if it can actually be done and what I worry about is like uh lying to people about like what it's going to look like because it's not going to be all it's not going to be all you know cyber Punk sure sure I'd like a autonomous uh horse and buggy personally uh with a humanid robot my farm is my farm is 10 miles down the road from the largest Amish settlement west of the Mississippi and so I drive past the I drive past the horse and Buggies all the time uh there are there are horse parking lots that might be a big thing you know techno lism you know yes maybe maybe maybe like maybe maybe maybe the founders fund office maybe the ABC office will need like a horse post for the Techno for the Techno leites to show yeah yeah there's nothing better I can imagine than just riding a horse with a starlink on it that's the best that's the dream yeah with with Optimus with an Optimus that's actually sort of like you know uh guiding the horses for you you can sit in the back autonomous uh well this is fantastic Max thanks so much we'll have to have you on back uh soon congratulations the launch of Arena it's a fantastic magazine everyone should go subscribe it where can they find it what's the what's the URL Arena mag.

com Arena mag. com thanks for stopping by we'll talk to you soon thank you Max great to see you by cheers and up next coming into the capital of capital The