How Tech Companies Engineer Addiction Using Casino Psychology at Scale

Welf von Hören [00:00:00] And I like the very simple definition of humane is that which helps us be as we wish we were right. So as humans, we are a certain way, and humane is that which helps us become as we would like to be.

Vance Crowe [00:00:17] I'm Bruce figure, a veterinarian living in Sylvia, Kansas, and you're listening to the Vance Crow podcast. Welcome back to the podcast. I'm glad you're here. Today I sit down with Vef von Oren. Vel is an app creator that has tapped into something that I think is very important. He noticed that so many of the habits that he wanted to develop, so many of the things that he knew would help his life progress were hijacked by all of the apps trying to grab your attention via whether it's social media or other things going on in your phone. And so he developed a technology that would allow you and help you to make better habits, to make better use of your time. Vef was suggested to me by Jim Rutt, who longtime listeners of the podcast know if Jim suggests somebody. I am very interested because he knows so many crazy characters. Jim is invested into Vef, and so he wants to see the potential app succeed. And so I was curious. I sat down with Vef and what you will see is he knows a tremendous amount about how apps are designed to grab your attention in ways that are subtle and you might not notice otherwise. He also talks all about transcendence and we even get into some debates about what is the future of social media and what happens if we don't find a way to get past its addictive properties. So we're gonna head to that interview in just a moment. But the Vance Crow podcast has some big news.

Vance Crowe [00:01:49] I wanted to celebrate with you, Ben Anderson, my executive producer. And I have realized that these Legacy Interviews that we've been doing where we interview people's loved ones, their parents, their grandparents, to to capture their family stories, their histories, the things that they want to be passed down for future generations, well, this work has exploded so much so that we are building out a studio. So we've been working with architects and signing leases and getting all of the equipment ready, and we are going to really expand the in-person Legacy Interviews. But there is a space of time between when you have these things planned and when they're actually built. And so Ben and I want to fill that time by doing some of these online Legacy Interviews with people all over the country. So if you've been thinking that it might be a nice time for us to interview you or your parents or your grandparents, this is a great time to get in on it because we've got so many slots and we're gonna try and fill 'em all up between now and when we get into the studio, probably early May. So if you're interested, go to store dot Articulate Ventures to buy an online interview that we'll do over Zoom. These are a great way to interact with your parents. Oftentimes, we get to sit in their kitchen or their living room, and it'll be a little piece of home that's added into the overall interview. Now, because we're trying to fill up these slots, we've decided to create a discount. So if you use the promo code Vance V-A-N-C-E, you'll get 20% off of the interview until we've sold out all the slots before our spot opens up.

Vance Crowe [00:03:27] So know that you can go to store Articulate Ventures to buy that and act now 'cause we are gonna be busy doing in-person ones in the future. And now without further ado, I am going to head over to the valve conversation. And if you're wondering why do I have a stocking cap on, it is because a blizzard hit the city of St. Louis. And not only have I had shoveling all morning to do, but I have a little 16 month old Violet who now loves sledding so much that she bangs on the door until it's time to go outside. So I've got some responsibilities. I hope you are out enjoying time with your family or getting some work done, and really enjoy and embrace this fantastic conversation with Vef von Orn. Well, Von Horn, welcome to the podcast.

Welf von Hören [00:04:18] Hi Vance.

Vance Crowe [00:04:20] So you were recommended to meet by one of my favorite people in the world, Jim Rutt, who said, Hey, Vance, I've been mentoring this guy. I've been trying to help him get his app off the ground because he thinks it's going to be rather groundbreaking. And so I thought, yeah, of course I'll have Wellon. So tell me a little bit about your app and what do you do in working with Jim Rutt?

Welf von Hören [00:04:39] Yeah, so the app's called Potential and the mission is to make technology that helps you make better choices, that helps you be more intentional, that helps you sort of live the life that he wanna live without being distracted by technology. And we think there's a lot of opportunity for technology to actually be in service of, you know, our values, of our aspirations, of our goals, and to help us on a day-to-day basis choose the things that are actually meaningful and important to us instead of doing what the attention economy is doing, which is basically optimizing for addiction, cheap dopamine and limbic hijack, which doesn't need anywhere desirable. So that's in the big picture, what potential is trying to achieve the app as it is today? We, we launched like almost months ago, and it is a mix of a daily planner and a habit tracker, and it is supercharged with integrations. And what that means is you can set your intentions, that's what it's centered around, and then you can connect your intentions with the apps and links and the things that you wanna do. And then that becomes a fundamental part of your, your digital choice architecture, so that when you unlock your phone, let's say in the morning, you see exactly the kind of choices that you want to choose from in the morning. And so in, in a way, it's, it's giving people back the power to make their own menus that they can then choose from.

Welf von Hören [00:06:12] So maybe I wanna exercise in the morning, so let me put my, let me put three different choices on that menu. And then in the morning I'm like, okay, maybe I don't actually feel like lifting weights, but sure I can do 50 pushups. And so that's, that's what the app is, is trying to do or is is doing today. And going forward, there will be a lot more integrations, there will be things like social accountability and our early customers are loving it.

Vance Crowe [00:06:43] You know, it's interesting, on this podcast we talk a lot about the voice of resistance. So that's the description of in your brain you want, you have all these good intentions, I want to exercise, I want to eat right, but eventually there's a voice that pops up that's like, Hey, didn't you run pretty hard yesterday? Or Hey, you know, you wanna make sure you eat, but you shouldn't be a punishment. And so it starts crowding in on the decisions that you wanna make. It sounds like you are creating technology

Welf von Hören [00:07:09] To

Vance Crowe [00:07:10] Have a better relationship with that voice, is that right?

Welf von Hören [00:07:13] Yeah, for sure. And for some people, you know, that voice is, is, is is a friendly sort of annoyance. Maybe sometimes maybe it's actually completely aligned with what they wanna do, and for others it's just screaming at them. Right. And for me, it's for sure, I guess louder than for the average person. And so just like we write the books that we need to read ourselves, right, we, we also build the technology that, that we need to use.

Vance Crowe [00:07:40] Yeah, that's interesting. Like, so tell me a little bit about your voice of resistance. Like what goes on in your head when you try and take on a habit and why, why go to these great links to build this technology?

Welf von Hören [00:07:51] Yeah, I think in general, I'm, I'm quite, my personality's quite high on, you know, creativity and openness, so that makes me really excited about a new, you know, a new practice, let's say a new morning routine. And then three days in I'm like, you know, it's kind of boring. And so, and and honestly there's, there's so many, so many different things that can get in the way, right? There's, there could be just forgetting about it, you not being obvious enough, it feeling kind of too hard or maybe, maybe, you know, sleep in and then actually the time that you intended for this is gone and now you're in the middle of catching up with the rest of your day or you're doing quite well and you're focused as you're working, but then you run into some resistance, right? You, I think that that actually both in getting things done and also just in writing is something that I observed is if I'm, if I'm able to have conversation with myself as I'm writing, it makes things a lot easier because I can be like, oh wait, I actually don't feel confident about what I'm, what I'm writing here, what, what, where am I going wrong? Right? And, and I can address it. And, and that helps you kind of keep, stay the flow. So yeah, there's this, yeah,

Vance Crowe [00:09:09] I think like the, the concept of the, the concept of journaling is one of those things that, you know, when you're a kid you kind of hear about journals or diaries and it kinda seems like something girls do, but it isn't until you get older that you realize most of what's going on in your head are not thoughts, you are not thinking, You are feeling things, you have these emotions and they, they could almost be as raw or as incomplete as just feeling colors, right? Like it's just, there's something there and you believe because it's the only conversation going on in your mind is the, is the one that's kind of always there, those voices that you understand it, but it isn't until you go to write it down where you're like, wait a second, that emotion that I'm feeling is completely disconnected from other things that are important to me. So like, you know, I could have something coming up on the calendar that I'm like, oh, this is dumb, I don't wanna do this. I I want to cancel right now. But if you actually sat down and wrote out what was going on in your brain, it really has to do with the fact that you have something else coloring so many of your emotions that then you're reflecting on it forward and that changes your behaviors even though the emotion and the behavior are, are completely separate.

Welf von Hören [00:10:18] Yeah, totally. I actually, about two years ago before I started potential, I was designing and giving digital wellbeing workshops and emotional intelligence was one of the really big topics because it's like, well if we, if we hijack ourselves, right? If, if we have internal triggers that lead us to, to avoid what we are feeling, then we need to, we, we need to address that, right? We need to understand what's going on there. And actually if we look at our emotions, then we, we find out, oh, there's actually things that they point to that are valuable, right? There are needs that are maybe not met or there's things that are really meaningful to us that we're not living up to, maybe. So yeah, totally.

Vance Crowe [00:11:05] There seemed to be something, you know, right now I think that we're watching a cultural kickback on the idea of hustle culture. So for a while there was like Gary Vanerchuk and every, every, like Instagram video was about working harder, going more, doing more with your time, never sleeping, never resting. And we've watched, you know, that kind of burnout and now a new swing has come in that hustle culture is a mistake and you know, you should be more intentional. But there seemed to be something quite different about what you were doing than just avoiding hustle culture. Like the, the intentionality that you're bringing to things seems a little bit different. What motivates you, like in, in this situation to, to find a, a wave to ride that's not just this kind of cultural, you know, where's the culture headed?

Welf von Hören [00:11:56] Hmm. Yeah, that's, that's a really interesting question. I think intentionality is the way I think about, it's much broader than, you know, any specific memetic tribe than, for example, has culture. And so it's like if I, I think it's, it's central to what it means to be human, right? And if, if we think about especially our higher nature and our higher potential and what it means to, you know, self-actualizing and transcendent be in service of something greater than ourselves, which just happens to be the place just like flow where basically we feel the best and where we are actually most in service of the world at large in society. And so that's where it feels like there's a connection between being intentional to today in what I choose to do and living an examined life, kind of like time where it's spent leads to a life well lived, right? And if I can just act on the, on the best intentions that I come up with today, and I can do that tomorrow and I can do that throughout the years, then I think that's, that's deeply transformative. And I think it's, it's, it's almost like a Trojan horse that you can bring into our culture where there's not just hustle culture, right? There's also a lot of indulgence. There's, there's shitty values of fame and material pleasure and or fame, pleasure and, and sort of material possessions. And if you just bring in intentionality as like, do the best that you feel like you want to do that do the best that you know is right to do for yourself.

Welf von Hören [00:13:39] And if you just keep doing that throughout time, there will be more clarity, right? And so I think that's something that applies to, to many, many humans. And I think it's very different

Vance Crowe [00:13:50] Yeah. Throughout time, right? I mean, like, there's a reason that I was just reading and talking with a friend the other day about the fact that the school of stoicism hedonism and skepticism kind of all existed in the same orbit. So for people that don't know, skepticism would be you're challenging everything around you. You don't assume that anything is true. You question everything. And I think for a lot of people that says, well, we can break down the walls of, of the old way of living. And, and there's a lot of value in that because it, it allows you to create something new, but at the end of the, of the of the day, if you're skeptical of everything, there's no floor. And then hedonism being pleasure is the only thing that we have. There is no afterlife, there is no, so we should be embracing these concepts of pleasure, whether it's through really caring about the food that you eat or being intense about your day-to-day activities. I think hedonism often gets a bad rap that it's just people living vice filled lives. When when you really go and actually study what hedonism is about, it's really more about deeply appreciating the present moment for what that that is worth. Because there is nothing other than the present moment. And then stoicism being some balance of saying your initial drives are not the things that you necessarily will guide you to the life that you wanna live and that the, the life that you wanna live has to be more well considered. So to me it sounds like you are talking about out of those three schools, some blend between hedonism and stoicism.

Vance Crowe [00:15:25] Yeah,

Welf von Hören [00:15:26] For sure. And, and you can see, right, the, the examples that you gave is like, you can be intentional about how you practice your he hedonism, right? And probably having some stoicism in the, in the, in the equation, you can then pay more attention to what actually feels good, what is actually in, you know, aligned with a phrase I like to use is like, does this feel good on all levels of my being, right? Can I integrate what I value? What is sacred to me? What gives me joy? What can I value? Can, can you hold, can I hold all these things throughout time and throughout space, right? Can I look at all of these things and then make a choice that is not violating any of them, right? That is actually serving sort of the highest possible synthesis of all of them. And I think that's, I think that's possible to some degree, or at least it's possible to become better at that synthesis and to actually condition our bodies to use, you know, all of this, all of these emotions to guide us to the things that are, that are incredibly beneficial to us and and to the people around us. So yeah, I I, I like that phrasing of a mix of hedonism and historicism.

Vance Crowe [00:16:51] You know, you mentioned the flow state earlier on, and for anybody that doesn't know what the flow state is, what is it for you? What, how do you describe it and where do you find that flow state?

Welf von Hören [00:17:02] Yeah, I think the, the, the simplest, most catchy description or definition that I heard was when you feel your best and you do your best work. But I guess it's, it's actually a bit, it's a bit broader. It's, I think saying whenever you feel best is fair. So whenever you've fully immersed in some creative task, like you, you're writing blog posts and you've, or you're writing an essay and you're like, really, it's an expression of something deeper. It's, it's just, it's just flowing out of you. Or when you are hiking, when you're running, when you're in, in big nature, right? When you're listening to music maybe and you're, you're relaxing, you're sort of just gliding through presence. Actually for me, driving is, is a big source of, of, of flow state, right? Driving with, with classical music or something is, so I think it's, it's the sweet spot where, where you're challenged enough that it's that you're engaged, but it's not too challenging so that you're not overwhelmed.

Vance Crowe [00:18:01] Yeah, I think like when, when you're talking about the being engaged, the, the term I've heard for it is the zone of proximal development. So you're right at that area where, where you're good at something. So because you, you've done enough to be capable in this skill, but that whatever is required of your attention is just a little bit beyond your reach. And I'm the father of a, of a 16 month old child, and one of the things that I've discovered is little children, if not put in front of television or, or given all sorts of toys that distract them, are almost always seeking that zone of proximal development, right? They always want be listening for, what are the words I'm not understanding? How can I stretch and climb up on this object that's like just a little bit beyond what my balance is? And then you hit a, I think eventually as you get older and older, the zone of proximal development for most of the things around you are, you know, never pushes you to get out of your comfort zone. And so it's like this challenge, particularly as we live in a society where things become easier and easier and easier because of technology that we don't find the flow state which keeps our full attention. And instead we have to do what you described go looking for dopamine hits because, you know, we, we don't have anything in our lives that require enough effort that that actually grabs the full human potential of your attention.

Welf von Hören [00:19:21] Yeah. There's, there's so many interesting threats in what you just said. I think one of them is conditioning, right? And how if, if, if we wouldn't break children systematically in our school systems, then we would have a lot less need for numbing ourselves with dopamine and destruction of all sorts. And then also at the same time, what you said with, with, with challenge, it's like all the things worthwhile today or most many things for many people. And that's sort of this huge change that the internet brought about that we, I don't, I, I don't think we fully appreciated as a culture, which is like your life path is for you to make, right? And there's so many directions that you could take it in and, and it's not anymore that you, you know, you go to school and you go get a degree and then you go get a good job. It's like, sure, you can do that. But that's not where the most interesting, I think opportunities for, for development and, and, and contribution are to be found, right? And so where then that means it's on you to do it while you're, you know, still in the system while you're maybe studying while you're maybe working in your job, but it's not like there's, there's a boss telling you, Hey, if you don't start your blog, if you don't start your business, if you don't start writing that book by that day, then you know, something happens. So it's like all the good stuff in life has needs to have some sort of proactivity without external pressure to make it happen.

Welf von Hören [00:21:00] And so, like the internet has so many interesting things to learn and so many interesting things to offer and so many opportunities for creative expression, but we need to pro like we need to seek them, right? And so,

Vance Crowe [00:21:16] Yeah, I think that's kind of the, the interesting, you made me realize like there, that's kind of the, that the difference between a boss and a mentor is a boss tells you, Hey, we know what is in your zone of, of capabilities and we want you, we're paying you to deliver on that. And sometimes they're pushing you to get outside of your comfort zone. But a mentor is basically the person that prompts you to, to stretch and to do things that, that you feel are outside of your zone of, of, of capabilities. Because by doing that, like they, they watched you achieve your full potential and they, they're gratified by this, but then you're, you also have a guide, right? You have a light or a, or a force that's pulling or pushing you forward in a way that most boss employee relationships just aren't. Yeah.

Welf von Hören [00:22:07] Kind of like a coach, right? That tells you at the right time, like, Hey, pay attention to this, or dribble a li dribble a little bit harder or stretch a bit more. Yeah.

Vance Crowe [00:22:21] I've always thought that people that are in the world that you're in, which I think would, in, you know, which would include like helping other people discover their motivation and kind of live on it, puts you in a, in a tough position. Because if you're going to be teaching people or developing technology for motivation and, and inspiration, you yourself must be an example in that way. Do you feel pressure now that you're, you're doing a potential app to, to live to your full potential?

Welf von Hören [00:22:54] Yeah. I mean you can't really, it's, it's funny that you say that because we started this week we started putting out content on Instagram and TikTok to, to sort of test the waters, which is, you know, highly, highly ironic and, and cringeworthy in some way. But it's, you

Vance Crowe [00:23:15] Mean in the fact that you're reaching people through social media when what your app is largely designed to do is to help them get away from the, the sig the dopamine that you get from social media?

Welf von Hören [00:23:24] Yeah, it's, it's highly con like we, we get it, right? It's like we are very aware of the fact that this is somehow weird, but at the same time it's, it's like that's where the attention is. And, and we need to figure out how to become a media company that spreads the message that educates people on what does it mean to be, to live intentionally. And so, yeah, and especially like if you are also designing technology and if you're thinking about how to advance that, that relationship, it's like where, what's like, how should I live? Right? And how should technology serve me in this? It's really, it's a really interesting problem to work on. And I do fear, I wouldn't say pressured. I think there's, there's some freedom in, especially for someone like me who's like struggling to do certain things. I think there is some freedom in just a system that holds you accountable. And so I know that I'm gonna be able to, or I trust that I'm gonna be able to figure out, you know, what is asked of me at any moment in time and that the people around me and the people that are, that are paying attention are going to hold me accountable and that are going to push me. Right? And I think it's, once you realize that you can, you know, design your life however you, you like to, and, and, and for me that's sort of like, that realization came first and then it's like, oh yeah, right? And then you gotta live up to it, right?

Welf von Hören [00:24:55] And that's where the intention action gap comes in and where it becomes a bit challenging, but it's really an opportunity to be deeply intentional, right? And, and to really ask yourself, okay, like what, what is the good thing for me to do here? What is, what are all the good things for me to do here? And, and how do I prioritize them and how do I relate to them? And who do we need to become in this moment of time?

Vance Crowe [00:25:19] So what have you learned in this work that about the way our technology distracts us? What do you know about distraction that other people don't know? Because they're living in it?

Welf von Hören [00:25:32] I know that it works on you even if you know how it works. I think so. So that's interesting.

Vance Crowe [00:25:43] Say more about that. What do you mean?

Welf von Hören [00:25:46] Well, it's, it's, it, it's like the, the systems that through which it works. Like your limbic system is not where, where you rational knowledge of how of of, oh, it's, it's catching me right now. It's, it's not the level on which your rationality can, can step in and be like, oh no, I know how this works. I'm not gonna do this. It is, I think, helpful in some way to catch yourself, but then that self-awareness can also be painful because you're like, I know exactly what I'm doing here and I still get distracted. And I, and it's sort of painful as you're doing it. I think most people don't appreciate how systematic the manipulation through these attention products is. And also

Vance Crowe [00:26:39] Let's talk about that open that wide up. What, what do you mean by this? Yeah. Like, these are things that if you're, if you're just using the technology, you don't, you don't think about it at all. You wake up, you look at your phone for information, it feels like you need, you, you know, start your day and you access it every time your brain says time to access it, but what else is going on?

Welf von Hören [00:26:57] Yeah, I mean it's, it's, it's, it's kind of like you were living in Las Vegas without knowing that you're living in Las Vegas

Vance Crowe [00:27:06] And without knowing that, that, that

Welf von Hören [00:27:08] The people, the, the people that designed your, the city that you live in and the places that you go to every single day, they don't care about your wellbeing. They want your cash and cash in this, in this case means attention, right? And so just as the people that built the casinos in Las Vegas hired, you know, the smartest people that they could find psychologists and, and neuroscientists and, and behave with psychologists and and so on to figure out how do we make this as addictive as possible? The same thing is true here. And the difference is it's, it's at a much, much greater scale. It's at a much, much deeper level of intimacy in how we relate to this stuff. It's in, in general just the asymmetry between what you know and what your agency is within the product within. As you're scrolling Facebook and the agency on the side of Facebook, it's just, it's, it's, it's not the same. It's, it's not a fair game, right? It's completely uneven. And

Vance Crowe [00:28:11] Because you're not in, in the terms of like, let's just say Facebook or Instagram or TikTok, it's you and your attention and the way you allocate it and your voice of resistance and all of your tendencies versus hundreds, if not thousands of psychologists and people that are well read in things like propaganda and attention and habits and all of these things and all of those people working together and not, not just like focused on you, but using millions of people as test subjects that they can say, ah, look, we, we, we moved that attention by two seconds. We got them to increase it just by changing this slight thing. And those two seconds of attention aggregated over millions or billions of people ends up being a lot of time. And then you just keep doing that over and over and over again.

Welf von Hören [00:29:01] Yeah. And, and the, the fascinating thing is I, there there's something about ab testing for ex extracting attention that just gets you further and further down to like the worst parts of our nature, right? And so if you, if you start putting up a website and you, you start out with just like, you know, maybe it's the one is takes the other one is pictures. It's like, oh yeah, people are go, like, people spend are gonna spend more time when there's pictures, then there's one with pictures and one with videos, and people are gonna spend more time on videos, right? And so, and the smoother you can make the experience and, and, and the more you can trigger psychological, you know, processes that people are un unaware of, the more you can, you can catch them. And if you do that across time and across hundreds of millions of people, and if you cross compare or if you have algorithms that cross compare what you clicked on and what gets your attention with, you know, what 10,000 people like you clicked on, it just gets you deeper and deeper into that rabbit hole. And then of course, there's all sorts of interesting opportunities to sprinkle some social validation on top and to not just get you addicted to paying attention, but get you addicted to the attention of others so that you actually become part of the system optimizing for how do I extract the most attention from the people that are following me, right?

Welf von Hören [00:30:34] And that's just where the system becomes completely psychopathic and fucked. And I think the, the scale at which it's, it's happening and, and the, the, the deli, the deliberate manipulation that's happening there, I think will, might like, I think there's a fair chance that future generations will look back on that as basically crimes against humanity. Because if you think about how to, how to debase human agency and dignity and freedom at a global scale, it's basically the best scheme that that I think anyone could be able to come up with.

Vance Crowe [00:31:15] Yeah. And I think, like as you're describing this, I think of if alcohol just hadn't been invented, we just hadn't figured out how to do it, and suddenly we like figured out how to put this in there and it was just like in society, or we had a choice whether or not we allowed into society, we would say like, no. Right? Like, why would we do this? Look at all the people that, you know, murder people while they're drunk or, you know, abuse people or destroy their livers and their lives and their potential. But because it's always been there, it's, you know, since the dawn of time we don't, we don't really have a, a mechanism in our society for saying like, no, that's not a good thing. But social media crept up on us in that same way, right? It was, I can remember when Twitter was just your cell phone essentially aggregating text messages, right? And, you know, you were just putting it into the system and no one ever imagined that eventually you'd get to a situation where I can be looking on my high resolution screen on my little box, and all it would take would be for me to flick my thumb to have an entirely new video with all the images that are designed for me. Maybe it's fighting, maybe it's a beautiful woman, maybe it's, you know, people disagreeing with one another or some kind of engineering schematic and that I could get an unlimited amount of entertainment at the literal flick of my thumb. Not even the press of a button, just, just the slight change of the pressure of my thumb on the screen. Yeah,

Welf von Hören [00:32:44] I think the, I think alcohol is a great analogy. I think maybe an even better one is sugar. If you think about, you know, you have 24 hours of your day and you have, let's say 2000 calories that you eat every day. Do we think that replacing, let's say fif, like do, do, do we think that giving young kids 50% of their diet, 50% of their daily calories not in, you know, nutrients and, and vegetables and, and proteins, but instead giving it to them in, in the form of the purest sugar we can find? Do we think that's a good idea? Now? Obviously not. And obviously a generation from now we're gonna have a generation of diabetics, diabetics that are gonna be dying of that sickness. And I think it's a pretty good analogy to translate that, you know, if, if if, if we are gonna spend 50% of our waking time, or if, if we have a generation of teenagers spending 50% of their waking time online in these sugar equivalent systems, instead of spending it, you know, in the real world meeting friends, it's gonna be bad.

Vance Crowe [00:34:01] Where do you think this all goes, right? Like if, if there is no intervention like the one you've created with potential where, where you're like, hey, we recognize you have to have technology or you're gonna have it in your life. And so this is a system to manage it. If people don't manage it, if society doesn't have some sort of interference mechanism, what happens five years from now as our society advances continuing to use technology at the scale they are?

Welf von Hören [00:34:25] Yeah, I mean this, I think the social dilemma is a pretty good view into that future. And then, and then, you know, a year later it becomes partly reality and you, you see a January 6th happening in the US and, and all sorts of crazy things. And I think it's really hard to tell where it will go, but it it can be good, right? And, and you, you can only just like, you can only extract so much, like if, if if you have any sort of ecosystem, you can only extract so much water out of it before things are gonna dry up and, and, and the, the basis of life is gonna be taken away. Similarly, you can't expect to just keep extracting from, keep extracting human attention without debasing things like mental health without debasing things like creative and meaningful lives, meaningful relationships, and ultimately things like democracy and, and our shared, you know, our shared reality, our shared understanding of the world and our shared capacity to do anything about many of the problems that we're facing, right? And so it's like we're very aware that, you know, climate change and many, many other problems are on the plate and are waiting to be addressed. It's just that social media and, and this sort of attention extracting paperclip optimizer is, is on a metal layer where if it, if it's taking away our, our agency individually and collectively, then we're just so much less able to do anything about anything.

Vance Crowe [00:36:02] Yeah. I'm struck by, so the, Matt Ridley is an author, he writes about technologies, he's a member of the House of Lords, he's been on the podcast a couple of times and one of my favorite things to hear him talk about is, hey, there's this gloom and doom about technology or that the world is getting worse, but that in reality, you know, just look at something as simple as dentistry, right? We can see that our modern technology makes it so a cavity doesn't cause you to have an abscess and an infection and die. You know, so many less people are dying in childbirth. But on the flip side of, of that rational optimism about technology, there is, there's gotta be some point where you go too far. And it's a weird one because it's easy for us to talk sociologically. Well, those other people ought to change their behaviors so that that way they're not caught in this. But I know personally the act of giving up your cell phone or using electronics after let's say 5:00 PM is an incredibly difficult thing to do. And so there's a tension between the value of, of technology making it positive, the negative of, of being distracted. And how, how, how does it, how does any of this get, I don't know, evened out.

Welf von Hören [00:37:15] Yeah. Well, what is it that you wanna do instead, right? If you don't, if if you wanna stop using technology after 5:00 PM what would you like to do?

Vance Crowe [00:37:26] So I run a network, the Articulate Ventures network, and we just did this experiment. And for me, I 100% wanted to be able to give myself a reason, to be able to focus a hundred percent of my attention on my daughter around the time when we were eating all the way up until, you know, through bath time and go to bed. And that was no problem, right? That, that it was easy, it was an easy trade off, you know, she is filled of wonder and I can always be interested in that. But the problem was once she went to bed and I was like, ah, you know, I'm, I'm relaxed, it's easy. That was when the equivalent of going to the, the freezer and getting the ice cream cream out and just gorging myself on it again, where you're like, oh, I'll just quickly look at this thing. I'll just quickly check my email or I'll just quickly do this Twitter. And before you know it, you're just flicking your thumb ever so gently and you're lost for an hour and a half.

Welf von Hören [00:38:18] I get it. So what in ideal words, you know, is, is there anything that you would enjoy doing after you bringing your daughter to bed that you would feel better about?

Vance Crowe [00:38:34] Sure. I mean, like, I, I, we run a book club, so I've got lots and lots of pages to read. And if you, if you get those pages done early in the month, you don't have the, the pressure of getting it done by the end. But it's oftentimes, I mean, that's, it's oftentimes the resistance is not that different from wanting to not wanting to go for a run in the morning. Right? You, you don't really want to do it. And so it's easier just to put it off and then eventually you put it off for so long you can't do it.

Welf von Hören [00:38:59] Yeah. Yeah. So, so that's where I like reference the work of James Clear Atomic Habits. Right. Have you read that?

Vance Crowe [00:39:07] I have, yeah, but go on. This is good.

Welf von Hören [00:39:09] Yeah, so I, I think I, I like to talk about, you know, you, you can go deeper into behavior of psychology, but I think it's, it's just incredibly useful the way he phrased everything and made it just easy to talk about. So basically the idea of atomic habits is you have small changes, right? That make over time create huge results. And so, and and also the idea of, of starting very, very small. So if you want to go for a run, he preaches even something like, you know, just put on your running shoes and call it, you know, check it off without even going for a run or, or if you want to start going to the gym, just, you know, go to the gym, work out for like five minutes and then go back home just to make it as easy as possible so that you can get started. So then, and, and here's these four laws of behavior change, right? There's, it's make it obvious, make it easy, make it attractive, and make it satisfying. And so basically what if, if we think about the voice of resistance and this sort of, it's so easy to not do it right. There's a little bit of resistance. I'm I'm not, I can go for around tomorrow, right? I can, I can, I can scroll to it or now I can, I can read tomorrow, right? Or I can read another time. And so one way of, of addressing that resistance is to just be like, okay, can I read one sentence? You know, before I go on Twitter, can I, can I take the book that I want to read and can I read one sentence? And just doing that and then, you know, checking in, okay, do I actually, maybe, maybe, you know, I can just, I can read another page, right?

Welf von Hören [00:40:46] And then before you know it, you've read the whole chapter.

Vance Crowe [00:40:51] Yeah, I mean, I think like the starting is always the hardest part, right? And it seems like such a cliche, but, but just being like, I am going to take the tiniest action to begin the motion in this direction. You always have to do it if you're, if you're ever going to accomplish it. But I, I agree with you when the, the starting as small as possible so that that way it doesn't feel so overwhelming.

Welf von Hören [00:41:12] Yeah. And, and one way we incorporate that into potential that can, can give you an idea of how we think about this stuff, is we have what we call fallback intentions. So you can set an intention, let's say lifting weights, and you can set the fallback intention of doing 10 pushups, right? And so instead of skipping it, so, and potentially you can, you can either open something to like jump into your morning meditation, for example. You can complete it and you can skip it, but if you have a fallback intention, you can skip it, you can only replace it. And so I'm like, I'm not gonna lift weights today. And then potential ask me, Hey, do you wanna do 10 pushups? And I'm like, sure. That feels easy, right? And, and, and you're anchored on the big thing. So you could say, you know, go run for 45 minutes, which might be the real thing that you want to do, but then if you have the fallback off go for quick jog for of 10 minutes, it's like, yeah, sure, okay, I can do that. And I, I really, it's, it's actually, it's, it's one of my favorite features and I, I think the reason it works for me is because I feel like I'm killing myself if, if I'm like, oh, you know, I'm just gonna put on my shoes and then I'm gonna go for a run. I'm like, how, you know, who am I? How old am I? Well, come on, I can do better than this. And so aiming at the real thing, but then having a fallback to the thing that's easy and have that just systematically happen, sort of just by me playing with the own, with the menu that I designed really makes a difference.

Vance Crowe [00:42:47] I, I think that's very insightful. How, how have you thought when you were building potential about adding in new features or making the right choices to make it better for many, many people to use it, not just you?

Welf von Hören [00:43:00] Yeah. Well it's, it's, it's definitely, it's, it's an evolutionary approach, right? So we, we, and actually in the beginning we didn't quite know what, you know, what's the value proposition here. It was really hard to know. It was something about intentionality and behavior change. And so we, we basically spent a year prototyping and, and interviewing people and testing it out and, and also just looking at what works for ourselves, right? And so there were some things where we're like, oh, this is, this is totally gonna change everything. And then we implemented it and I'm like, ah, I'm not really using it. And others are like, not really using it. So probably it's, it's not the, the, the game changer. And at this point we, we basically built an MVP, which, so it's tech speak for minimum viable product. And we just through in all the features that, that we thought are central to it. So you have the ability to schedule your day, you have integrations, you have an explore section where you can find new intentions, and you have the ability to share things with friends, and you have an insight section where you can sort of take a look at your behavior and have something like a habit tracker, right? And that's what we launched. And from there on, we're now refining it as we go along and, and responding to, to, to feedback that we're getting. So it's like, it's, it's really, it's, it's very intuitive I think is the

Vance Crowe [00:44:34] Short answer. If you were to take potential off of your phone right now, what habits do you think would, would fall away? Or what, what ones are you kind of using the app for to help you that that may not remain if you just didn't have this as a help?

Welf von Hören [00:44:49] Yeah, so my, my current morning routine, and, and the thing is I'm disclaimer, I'm posting my completions in the morning on Instagram after I com. Like I do my morning routine with potential, and then I take a screenshot and I post it on, on Instagram, both to hold myself accountable to create content for, for potential and to also sort of prototype social features, right? Because it's like, well if, you know, sharing the list of completions with my friends, that that's one way of doing it. But that morning routine is getting up at 6:00 AM working out for like 10, 15 minutes to get warm, and then doing a 25 minute stretching session, then doing breath work for like five minutes, and then doing my 10 minute daily meditation with waking up Sam Harris. And so every step, step of that is basically accompanied by my phone, right? My alarm goes off, I start a timer for my workout, I start the guidance for the, for the stretching, and then I start the guidance for the breath work, and then I start the guidance for the meditation. And that's one hour. And it's like, the difference between doing that and not doing that is, is massive for, for me personally. And the way potential fits into that is I unlock my phone, my alarm goes off, I unlock my phone, I go into potential, and waking up is already checked off because it's, it's integrating with Apple Health.

Welf von Hören [00:46:25] And then I tap and it starts a timer, and it, it has exactly the time that I want it to have. And then I complete that, and then I jump into the stretching and exactly to the stretching routine or the stretching program that I wanna do in that app, and so on and so on, right? And it, and then I come back to potential and it's wherever it's possible, it's automatically completed already. And so that only takes out, you know, maybe 10, 15, 20 taps or searches of like, you know, okay, let me think, keeping in mind, okay, I'm gonna work out first, so let me find my timer, let me set a timer and start it right, instead of just tapping it and it started, let me find the right app for the stretching. Let me find the right course, let me find the right lesson instead of just jumping into it and so on. And if you take that together, it's basically, it just, it just reduces way power depletion and that turns out to make a really big difference.

Vance Crowe [00:47:26] Yeah. And opportunities for distraction. I mean, one of the things I realized is in taking notes, right, I almost always now have a piece of paper and a pen, even if it's not my notebook. And that's because I have come to the realization that even if I'm talking to somebody that is fascinating, right? And, and I'm in this intense conversation and they tell me something to book recommendation or, you know, some something I wanna remember to do, if I pull out my phone to write that down, I still have every single like, detour possible on that that, that I can make. And all of a sudden I'm taken out of that conversation and put into something else. So being able to limit the, the amount of times that you have to move from one app to another, to, to, you know, jotting something down or starting something really does limit the number of off-ramps that you have off of your focus.

Welf von Hören [00:48:15] Yeah. And, and just thinking about that as you just described it, right? It's like with starting with the sort of aspirational intentions. So like, I wanna do this, I wanna do this, I wanna do that. And that's, it's, it's, it's, it's not defensive, right? There's, there's a lot of digital wellbeing tools out there that are sort of defensive that like block certain things that make it harder to unlock something. And we are intentionally not doing that because we think there's an opportunity to just make the good stuff easier. But then once you make the good stuff easier, of course there's still all the bad stuff, right? And so can we, for all of these pathways to distraction, can we put an intervention there that gives you a moment to reconsider, right? Where it's like, okay, do I really want to go to Twitter or do I actually wanna take a break? And if I wanna take a break, maybe going for a walk or listening to some music is a better idea. And we think that's, bringing these together is gonna create a system that you can refine over time where you can then at the end of the week and see, okay, actually this half an hour that I spent in the evening on Twitter didn't quite work for me. And looking back on it, I don't feel great about it. So what can I do the next time when I'm on that day, in that time of the day? What, what do I want to suggest to myself?

Vance Crowe [00:49:41] Man, it really feels like you have, I mean, it's a funny, I was gonna say the word potential pun intended with this app, because I think that's what people thought that their reminders would do on their phone or the little things like, you know, your calendar. Like, oh, well, I'll just put it all into this thing and, and you know, my day will get organized and I'll be happy with it. But I think there's very, very few people in this world that are happy with the way technology hijacks their day. And I think many, if not most people get done with a day and they feel very dissatisfied. You know, they don't feel like they built anything, you know, if all of your work is mental, kind of white collar work, you know, you could have made seven PowerPoints that are never gonna be viewed by anybody, but took you the whole day and, and you know, you, you commuted or you, you know, messed around on social media, you get all the way done. And there's just something hopeless about that in particular, if you're addicted to it in the same way that you, you are to drugs. And like, I remember the very first time I ever did a digital sunset, I remember I was eating like a beautiful prime rib, and I, and it tasted like sand to me because I was like, this is so boring. And the reason it was boring is, 'cause normally if I was eating by myself, I'd just have my phone out and I'd be checking things out. And you realize like, something has gone horribly wrong with my dopamine system that being without this makes everything seem gray and cold. I mean, it genuinely is an addiction that's similar to caffeine or, or nicotine.

Welf von Hören [00:51:18] Yeah, totally. And it's also, you can see how it's a pretty intricate system, right? The way we interact with technology is, is not sure there's, there's, there's the swiping, but if we think about doing the good stuff, we're not doing the bad stuff. It's like that there's a lot of moving parts. And so I think if you look at potential, you find that it's, it's, you know, it takes work to set it up. It's not like you just snap a button and you're ready to scroll it, it really takes, it takes a bit of thought, it takes a bit of iteration, and we really find that the people that are most aware of how their digital environment shapes their behavior and shapes them, they're like, sure, it's worth setting it up because it's going to pay back. Right? It's, it's, it's gonna be worthwhile. And so yeah, it's, it's, it's, it is really a bet that we're making that over time, more and more people are gonna come to the conclusion that actually it's really bad. It's like this, this, this stuff is, is fucking up. My, my dopamine system is making me less present and less creative, and I need to do something about it. And that then once

Vance Crowe [00:52:31] You have, and right now, and right now there's no other, where, where do you, what do you do? Go to a counselor, you know, like, there, there, there, it seems to me that there is no digital addiction people out there. If there is, that's just for the most extreme cases.

Welf von Hören [00:52:43] Yeah. I mean there, there's, there's like digital wellbeing coaches I think are cropping up and, and there's, you know, there's a whole field of digital mindfulness and there's some tools for that, but it's not, we think it's, it's not just done with replacing, with, with blocking off the bad stuff, right? Because then you're just sitting there and you're like, I'm feeling withdrawal symptoms, I'm not feeling well, I need to distract myself. Right? And, and you're gonna figure out, okay, how do I hack the system that I've built to get that dopamine shot? And I think that's actually a really good thing for people to do, to just do 30 day digital detox, right? Get rid of all the, all the things that you don't, that are not absolutely essential to living your life. Get rid of it and just for 30 days and notice your cravings, right? And notice how you're actually impulsive and you're like, ah, this is uncomfortable. And then you realize, oh, this is actually, it's deeply ingrained into my behavior.

Vance Crowe [00:53:40] Yeah. And those ones that are the most deeply ingrained are the ones that are the hardest to see. I I, I gave up caffeine in the month of December and I am now convinced. So I did, I went basically 40 days and then I did, you know, another 30 days. And I am convinced now that caffeine has a much, much larger impact on human society than we have any idea about. I think so much of our heart disease and anxiety and depression comes from the fact that people wake up and they drink 2, 3, 4 cups of coffee and they think, oh, it doesn't impact me, it doesn't impact my sleep. But they've been doing it for so long that they have no concept just how much it has impacted every single aspect of their lives until you get away from it for 30 or 40 days.

Welf von Hören [00:54:31] Yeah. I actually, similar to you in December, I was like, I am drinking way too much coffee. And actually for, for me, that's like one cup a day is, is too much basically. But I've been, I think over last year I've been drinking, I, I, I go, I went from drinking coffee maybe once a week to drinking coffee once a day and realizing if I don't drink it, I'm gonna be less able to do my work. And I was like, oh, this is not good. So I haven't, I think, yeah, since, since mid-December roughly, I, I haven't had any co any coffee and it's pretty remarkable how you're less, you're less anxious, you're more calm, you're like, oh, actually, maybe I should take a break. You know, maybe, maybe my body wants me to take a break and recharge.

Vance Crowe [00:55:25] I've had people notice that, didn't know that I was going off caffeine and talk about, Hey, your interviews, they seem a lot calmer, right? You seem like you interrupt people less. And I, it's, for a while it took me to connect those two things. I was just like, ah, it seems like people are, are happier with the interviews, but you start to realize there's so much about my day. In fact, like the fact that I wake up tired, the, the answer is coffee when you don't realize like actually, the reason you wake up tired is because of the coffee and the withdrawal symbols You're going, signals you're going through. I remember the first couple of times after the withdrawal symptoms went away where you're like, I've never felt this rested after waking up. I've never felt this at peace when waking up. In fact, things like meditation had to be overcome because either I was delaying my caffeine, so I would like, okay, I'm not gonna have caffeine until after I've meditated, or I'd have meditated with caffeine and I'm just sitting there rattling through it. And it was so complete that you just really don't understand how much of an impact it's having.

Welf von Hören [00:56:33] Yeah. And how subtle it can be. Right? There's like different levels of sensitivity. And I find myself being hypersensitive basically to most sensory inputs, including coffee, including noise, including my visual, digital environment. Right? Which just, just so happens to be both a blessing and, and, and a gift and, and a curse. But I, I feel like there's something about when you're sensitive, you're noticing, oh, actually no, no, this, this is bad. And when you're not so sensitive, you're like, eh, this is not so bad. But then there's, there's a subtle quality that you just, that just passes by. And then only when you, when you stop doing it, you're like, oh, right. I feel different.

Vance Crowe [00:57:17] So when I look into your bio, and I was reading about you, I see the word humane come up a lot. Humane technology, you know, humane computing. What, what does this concept mean to you? Because it, it seems like it's a nebulous idea, but it seems like you have a strong handle on what it means to you.

Welf von Hören [00:57:34] Yeah, so it's, I think it originally me, it was borrowed from Center for Humane Tech, right? In the work of Toan Harris. And that's certainly where a lot of inspiration for my work came from. And I like the very simple definition of humane is that which helps us be as we wish we were, right? So as humans, we are a certain way and humane is that which helps us become as we would like to be. And so in my personal philosophy, that's very tied up with, you know, human potential and very tied up with, okay, what, what are we capable of? And, and what is the most meaningful lives that we, that we could possibly live? And what does that ask of us? But yeah, I think that's, that's one way of looking at it. Another way of looking at, it's just friendly, you know, is it, is it a friendly technology? Is it friendly in, in, in the sense in, in the, is it acting in the spirit of a really good friend? And I think if you just apply that, it's like a tool can, a tool can be humane, right? Because it, it's just like, it's just getting the job done. It's not getting in the way. But I think there's something about retention mediating products that are different because there's some, like, if you're, if you like it, it's not like Facebook feeds get a job done, right?

Welf von Hören [00:59:08] It's not like our digital environments, our, our desktop and, and everything are consciously designed with, okay, I'm gonna help this person navigate their lives. And so if we have environments that are extractive, then that, that's not really friendly. It's, it just isn't. And so if we're thinking about then the alternative of, of humane technology, it's like, can we make friendly environments that know you well, but that, that you don't need to be afraid of, that they will exploit you, but instead that, that just is aligned with what you actually want.

Vance Crowe [00:59:42] So you have launched potential and it's been out in the regular marketplace, you said, for seven weeks. So just in time for people to, to have the New Year's. How did you guys launch this? How are you getting the word out to people and how's the reception?

Welf von Hören [00:59:57] Yeah, so we launched it on Product Hunt. So basically we launched a beta, right? So it's, it's still in, in, it's in public beta. And we launched it on Product Hand, and we, we missed the optimum. The launch did not go so well, right? It's like we, we didn't get into this top 10 on Product Hunt, so we didn't get any organic exposure and so on. So we were playing catch up, but we still had like a good number of people sign up. And since it's, it's a paid product, not everyone converted to a free trial. So, so we have a trial, 14 day trial, and there's actually a good number of people of those that signed up and that got the trial that then became paying customers two weeks later. And some of them are really, really excited about it, right? And, and tell us, Hey, this is, this is really great. And we have a small Discord community where we, you know, talk about different intentions, different tools, and how to integrate them with potential. And that's been really great. And we're now slowly starting to, to spread the word a bit more. And we're probably gonna launch not the beta, but, you know, do a proper launch a few months from now after going from, you know, a promising MVP to something that's, that's really worthwhile to, to launch with, with the big, with the big on. But we, we definitely in, in the, in the few weeks since launching, we definitely made already big steps.

Vance Crowe [01:01:32] And you were mentioning before the show, iOS 15 and, and something along those lines.

Welf von Hören [01:01:37] Yeah, iOS 15 Humane, we, that's a concept we published last year in June and was in, in the week after Apple introduced the new iOS. And we said, okay, there as potential, we think there's, there's some opportunities to make iOS to make our operating systems more humane and less distracting, and to give people more control over how they're being manipulated, right? And so we made a concept for, with, with different ideas. For example, what if your phone asks you, Hey, what's, what's this session on Twitter? What's this time well spent? Was this intentional? And then you get to read it, and then at the end of the week, you can see how much time and on what apps, what percentage

Vance Crowe [01:02:23] Oh, was

Welf von Hören [01:02:24] Well spent.

Vance Crowe [01:02:25] Wow. Yeah. And

Welf von Hören [01:02:26] Then I, and then imagine every, like imagine everyone does that, and then you aggregate these numbers and you put them on the app store and you're like, Hey, you're about to download Facebook, which people spend on average of 12 hours a week on, And 85% of that time is not where it's spent. Are you sure you want to continue downloading it? One idea, another idea is can you somehow text that, right? Because Apple and Google are the ecosystem providers, so can they reward apps that make time well spent and can they punish apps that don't? And then another idea that, that we're now working on that we're gonna publish this spring is attention settings. So the idea that you could say for every product that that uses advertising, right? That's a pretty simple de determinant For every product that uses advertising, there need to be options that you can turn off the hyper engaging features so that, for example, you can say, okay, I want to use Twitter, but I don't want to have an infinite feed. Show me, you know, 20 posts and then make me click a button to go to the next 20 posts, or just hide the explore section in ins in Instagram, or don't enable autoplay on YouTube and so on. And so basically just giving people the choice, do I want to use a version of this product that has highly manipulative design techniques or not?

Vance Crowe [01:04:06] I'm in total agreement on that. You know, YouTube for example, you know, I, I, I have YouTube premium because I hate the ads and I figure, hey, if I can pay $10 a month to get rid of all these ads, I'm totally fine with doing this. But they won't allow you to turn off features like the shorts feature, where it's like, it's essentially the TikTok where you can just scroll and they, I know it's on me to not touch it, right? But I do wish that there was a way for me just to turn that feature off so I just didn't see it. So that way I'm not tempted by it in the same way that I don't bring ice cream into my house, because if it's not there, I'm not going to eat it. If it's there, maybe I can avoid it, but also maybe I can't avoid it and I get myself into trouble that way. And so I'm totally with you. The ability to turn off features would be a very, very nice thing.

Welf von Hören [01:04:54] Yeah. And, and similar to ice cream, right? Do you want one spoon? Do, do you want one scoop or do you want a bowl of ice cream that just fill, keeps filling itself up, right? So that you just keep eating and eating and eating.

Vance Crowe [01:05:12] And

Welf von Hören [01:05:12] That's the same thing with Infinite feed and, and pages, right? If, if you just keep scrolling, that's, that works. Another thing is, if you, if you could just turn apps into gray scale mode so that you don't see the colors on Twitter, for example, you know, I, I want to see colors on my Maps app because that helps me navigate the word, and actually it's useful there, but I, I don't care about seeing colors on Twitter and actually not seeing them would probably be good for me. So these are some, some examples of what we think attention settings could do. And we think that's something that, you know, both as ecosystem providers, as the app stores, that's something that you can demand of product, let's say that use advertising or that are at a certain size. And if, and we think it might even be possible that it can be demanded by legislators so that if, if Apple and Google are not proactively going, are going to do it, that it's possible to bring out a concept and bring it into, into Congress or something and be like, Hey, these are the simple rules and these are the simple ways in we could, in we, in which we could give consumers back control over how they're being manipulated. And we think it could make a huge difference in public health, in, in sort of the mental health

Vance Crowe [01:06:37] No scale. No, I don't like this, I don't like this at all. I mean, I really like what you're doing, right? You're giving an option and people can find a market-based reason, but if we let the government control any aspect of social media and what you're allowed to do and what features, I mean, the only reason the US tech sector is as big as it is, is because the government hasn't regulated bys in the same way that they regulate, you know, Molecules and property and all these other things. So I, I actually, this is all the more reason for me to cheer for your app, for the potential app, because I think this is the market-based solution that allows you to keep the government out of these things, which eventually, in my opinion, if you let them in, they will be the, the, the DMV, right? All of a sudden Twitter will be a place that you go to stand in line and somebody stamps something. But I, I appreciate the sentiment, right? Which is, if we want to stop a problem that when you aggregate millions and millions of people together, is a sociocultural problem that I think is on par with allowing nuclear weapons out out into the public, right? It's, we've seen that the, this is the way propaganda can spread. We understand that this is the way fear and anger and distrust and, and all all of these negative things, but the only solution in my mind that's, that's stable and sustainable is something like what you're doing. So I'm really, really glad that somebody like you is out there doing this.

Welf von Hören [01:08:07] Yeah. That, that's, that's a really interesting take. And you know, I I, I think the ideal outcome would be for Apple and Google to just really open the ecosystem so that players like ourselves can, can do that. Because there's, there's a lot of things that we just cannot do that we could do really, really well if Apple would let us, right? And where we are sort of working within the bounds of what's possible within the ecosystems, the, the preference after that would be for Apple to do it. Because Apple is in a position where, you know, you and me, and basically any, anyone who uses Apple products, the lifetime value for Apple of that customer is so much higher. If we get to live intentional, productive, and fulfilling and healthy lives, then if we're distracted and, and sort of, you know, just getting by, because if we're, if we're spending eight hours a day watching dumb shit, we're not gonna buy, you know, the new MacBook Pro every three years. And so we think that that's, that's actually a pretty good business case for Apple to be like, okay, a, people want to be more in control of, of, of their behavior and of, of their, of how they're being manipulated. So let's give them the tools that that makes that happen. And b, it's gonna be good for our business because these people over time are gonna get shit done and change the world, right? And they're gonna buy more epic products because those are the products that help them do that. And then sort of the third way is, if they're not gonna do that at a meaningful sort of depth, then what if we think about something like food labels, right?

Welf von Hören [01:09:49] Can we just label like, Hey, this has highly addictive stuff in there and, and, and demand that that label is shown on the app

Vance Crowe [01:09:58] Store,

Welf von Hören [01:09:58] Right?

Vance Crowe [01:09:59] Oh, man, you just walked into you, you like, so you wouldn't know this, but I actually worked in the agriculture and food space and labeling is, is something that I think is, is also another fool's errand because the, he who sets the definition controls the argument. And as soon as you give a group the power to make labels, the, the labeling becomes an entire political animal that is uncontrollable and, and we'll get wildly out of control. But I take your point, right? Like giving people information, which about how these systems work is a valuable thing to know some, some level of, of honest and clear knowledge of what happens when you continue to use this.

Welf von Hören [01:10:42] Yeah. Now the thing is, of course you can do labeling kind of well, and you can do labeling in, in a, in, in a way where, you know, in incentives are, are fucked up and, and the power gets hijacked. But I think it's like the competency is there, it would be possible to put together a, you know, a group of, of organizations and people that are not caught up with the vested interest of the attention economy to define those things.

Vance Crowe [01:11:08] Okay. You wanted to go down this path? I'm, so you're talking to a guy that worked for Monsanto, right? So I know, and, and, and you're a European, so this is like, we're in different cultural spheres, but I I genuinely think that that e even the most trusted bodies, like when they went to do the GMO one, right? There's only two kinds of people that show up for that labeling conversation. The people that love GMOs and the people that hate GMOs. Because all of the people in the giant middle section of, of this bell distribution on how do you feel about things like bioengineering, they don't care. And so by inherently, the only people that are gonna show up are the ones that are intransigent about their position. And, and so this becomes a power struggle. And that power struggle will never end it, it will go until one side is completely defeated. And, and I think that this would be true, just as true in in smoking or alcohol or anything that somebody would say, people have a right to know what is in here. One, once those rights turn into laws, those laws become extraordinarily political in nature.

Welf von Hören [01:12:20] I, I get that. And I, and I think I'm glad you bring all of that up because I'm, I'm gonna send you a copy or, or I'm gonna send you a draft of, of the, of the campaign to, to see if you have ideas, but, huh, yeah, it's, it's, it's tricky. It definitely is tricky. Although I think like isn't an argument that could be made that in, in the digital, it's less about loss, it's more about, you know, being able to opt out. And so just being able to opt out of a list of persuasive design techniques or features would be great. And, and we're, we're actually alongside with, with that launch, we're also gonna bring that feature into potential where you can say, for example, okay, and you know, we think we can do it and people will, it's in people's best. It's, it's in people's best interest to have the option. And of course we want to then make features that people actually want to turn on, right? So we want to make suggestions that are actually so good that, that you want to turn them on and we want our social features to not give you the anxiety, but to give you encouragement, right? So still, we give you the option to turn off all social features so you have one button and you see no other person in the, in the app period. And we can do that because our incentives are aligned with your wellbeing, right? Our value proposition is, is genuine and just giving the option to opt out and hopefully having competent set of people be able to, to define those, those criteria

Vance Crowe [01:13:58] To me, like I've been in the Apple ecosystem because I want a high quality product. I use a lot of the features that I think most people that have Max don't even know exist. But on the other hand, by being in that ecosystem and their, their total control over what you can turn on and off and how you can turn it on and off, if there was another operating system that allowed me to escape from that, I would instantly. And so I think you're right, encouraging tech companies to see that there is a coming wave that will crest when people have more options to be able to control their lives so that that way their tech isn't controlling them. I'm, I'm in total agreement. And the more that you can add this into your apps, the more they will eventually try and steal them when they're successful.

Welf von Hören [01:14:46] That's, that's the goal.

Vance Crowe [01:14:48] Well, wealth, this has been a fantastic conversation. I had no idea why Jim wanted me to inter to interview you, but he again is batting a thousand on that, and I see a hundred percent why he invested in you. So if people wanted to download potential, is there, is there anything they should know?

Welf von Hören [01:15:06] Yeah, so you can, you can go to potential app and you, you find the app store and the place, the links there, you can use the code vans to get in after signing up. And we are really, really, really listening to feedback. So if there's anything that you run into where you're like, Hey, this is not going smooth, or actually it's not solving my, my problem, we are really attentive to that. We, we try to respond to all the feedback and to really develop this through our time together, because that's another thing, right? The, the, the, the space where we could take it is so huge and there's so many ways that, that we could go as opposed to the ab testing to the bottom of the brainstem, right? And so it's, it is really a, a collaborative effort figuring out, okay, how do we, how can we make something here that provides as much value as your phone possibly could?

Vance Crowe [01:15:58] Fantastic man. Well, wealth, thank you so much for coming on, man. Thanks

Welf von Hören [01:16:02] Fans.