YouSaid · the spoken record

Jason Maier

lines on the record: 65
first: 2023-07-12
most recent: 2023-07-12
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“Yeah, I think the example I use is like, you know, we all have a refrigerator in our house, and how many of us have the most up-to-date, efficient refrigerator, like that uses energy the most efficiently, like not many, right? Like if you bought your refrigerator more than six months ago, there's a better version out there that does the same job, but is more efficient. And I think it's just a description because a lot of people who are new to Bitcoin might not understand that the technology Bitcoin miners, like the actual computers that are doing this work is improving constantly. And so I go through a little bit of the history to say like when we first started using graphics cards or we first started using an ASIC compared to now, like just the efficiency, not like how much, what's the hash rate, but like what's the hash rate per kilowatt, you know, it's actually improved tremendously. Like, you know, orders of magnitude. And so just sort of speaking to this idea that like.”
2023-07-12 · We Study Billionaires · BTC138: A Progressive's Case for Bitcoin w/ Jason Maier (Bitcoin Podast) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Estate right now. And so they're buying up this land and they don't like they need this tool to be able to use it and make use of it.”
2023-07-12 · We Study Billionaires · BTC138: A Progressive's Case for Bitcoin w/ Jason Maier (Bitcoin Podast) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“He also brought up this issue right now, there's such a race for electricity companies to buy land that's going to be good for renewables, whether it's solar or wind. And so those electricity companies that are producing electricity are buying up that land in that real estate right now without much demand to support it. Because they know in the future they're going to need sort of socially, they're going to need to be able to provide like green electricity, but there's not enough demand in the locations where they are. And he was saying absolutely like, you know, location agnostic Bitcoin miners are going to be perfect for that use case. We buy a bunch of land. We want to build out infrastructure for solar. There's not enough demand yet. We're going to put in Bitcoin miners for a couple years until there is demand like locally in terms of residential commercial need for it. And that sort of Bitcoin mining provides the bridge for that company. So all of the electricity companies are competing for the same real”
2023-07-12 · We Study Billionaires · BTC138: A Progressive's Case for Bitcoin w/ Jason Maier (Bitcoin Podast) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Who ran sort of the Bitcoin mining contracts for that company. And it was an interesting exchange because the CEO was sort of like standoffish about Bitcoin. She didn't like it. She was a little skeptical of it. And the person who runs those contracts was in the meeting too. And he was also sort of playing that game and say, like, yeah, like we're not thrilled. I don't know, but I had a follow-up meeting with just the guy who runs the contracts and he told me when the CEO wasn't in the room, like, this is absolutely what we need. like we need a large like really absolutely and so like when he was by himself with me he was saying like this is exactly what energy companies need they need a large flexible demand that we need absolutely to be able to sell a lot of electricity to like bitcoin miners who are willing to give it back when we need it like it helps us it helps them like this is exactly what's needed”
2023-07-12 · We Study Billionaires · BTC138: A Progressive's Case for Bitcoin w/ Jason Maier (Bitcoin Podast) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“But in particular, like if you want to build out green energy sources, those are usually wind and solar. Those are intermittent, right? So you have peaks in producing electricity that don't always match the peaks in the demand. And so what can happen is the Bitcoin miners can come in, use that electricity that's being produced by the green source, monetize that energy, right? They're paying for that electricity. And then when that energy production levels off or goes down, they can power down as needed. And it's super helpful because like I said, you can't imagine a world in which solar and wind and all of that is being used at scale without some sort of stabilizing force. In preparation for the book, this actually isn't in the book, but I had an interesting conversation with somebody like the CEO of an energy company, like an actual person who runs a company that provides energy to consumers. And also in that meeting was the person.”
2023-07-12 · We Study Billionaires · BTC138: A Progressive's Case for Bitcoin w/ Jason Maier (Bitcoin Podast) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Response is when that demand for electricity goes up, then Bitcoin miners can instantaneously and in a dynamic way power down and provide the energy that they were using back to the grid so that people who need it can use it. It's really like fundamentally like a dynamic system, right? Where a Bitcoin miner can power up or power down almost instantly. And it's not unique to Bitcoin mining. There's other industries that use a lot of electricity that provide demand response like aluminum smelting and iron, you know, all of these other examples, but they're just not as good as Bitcoin, right? Because Bitcoin can power down immediately and almost like instant response to a spike in demand. They can stay off as long as they need to to sort of satisfy that demand and then power back up when they're needed. So this is critical because, well, for lots of reasons, right? Like you have just general electricity and people need it, then Bitcoin miners have been using it, but they can give it back.”
2023-07-12 · We Study Billionaires · BTC138: A Progressive's Case for Bitcoin w/ Jason Maier (Bitcoin Podast) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, I mean, I think demand response is a critical component to sort of what makes Bitcoin valuable in sort of the electrical grid sphere, right? Because as I said before, every ounce of energy, every little bit of electricity you produce has to be consumed immediately, right? Like it's transported to a consumer. A light bulb turns on a toaster turns on. Like that's immediate. You can't really store it. The battery technology isn't sufficient for that scale. And so what you end up having is in a situation like you described where you have this heat wave and a lot of people are turning on their air conditioners and it might actually be a matter of life and death like if you can get into air conditioning and be comfortable and be safe. That uses a lot of energy like all at once that possibly the people operating the grid didn't anticipate or they don't actually have enough potential to create that much electricity as it's needed. And so the demand”
2023-07-12 · We Study Billionaires · BTC138: A Progressive's Case for Bitcoin w/ Jason Maier (Bitcoin Podast) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, and that's, I mean, I think that's sort of a consistent theme, right? Whenever you're talking to somebody who's completely new to the Bitcoin sort of realm, like it takes hours and hours and hours to learn about Bitcoin, right? And so for a lot of people, I would imagine this book might be their first touch to actually think about it deeply. But what you're saying is right. Like every conversation you have, they'll ask a question and then it puts you in this whole other direction, right? Like, oh, now I need to explain proof of stake versus proof of work and why like this system isn't sustainable and why it doesn't actually help people and all of that. It's hard, right? You have to have bite-sized pieces and you have to sort of meet people where they are and you can't try to teach them all of it at once, right? These are sort of lessons that you learn as a like, you know, I've been teaching for 20 years teenagers trigonometry against their will, right? So you learn these tricks. Like, all right, I can't teach you all of Bitcoin at once. We need to break it up a little bit. So, yeah.”
2023-07-12 · We Study Billionaires · BTC138: A Progressive's Case for Bitcoin w/ Jason Maier (Bitcoin Podast) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“This energy use for Bitcoin is important because of all of the things that it provides us. And it also has opportunities to do the things that you want to do, right? Like if you're a progressive person and you want more like green electricity out there, like this is a method to actually achieve that goal. That's sort of like broad overview of the chapter. I go into a lot of specifics trying to explain things that most, you know, the book is targeted towards a lay audience, right? So they haven't really thought about like what what does it mean to balance the energy grid? What does it mean to build out infrastructure? What does it mean that the energy produced has to equal the demand at all times? Like those are novel concepts to people. So I try to just explain that in the best way that I can to that target audience.”
2023-07-12 · We Study Billionaires · BTC138: A Progressive's Case for Bitcoin w/ Jason Maier (Bitcoin Podast) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Important part of it. Like, there's no path that I see to increasing sustainable green energy without Bitcoin playing a major role, right? To sort of build out that infrastructure and to support the buildout of sustainable green energy. These are things that perfectly align with like progressive values, so things that people care about. And they have never viewed it through this lens. They've absolutely only viewed it through you should feel guilty about using energy lens, which is very powerful as sort of a political message, but it's not accurate. So you just have to find a kind of”
2023-07-12 · We Study Billionaires · BTC138: A Progressive's Case for Bitcoin w/ Jason Maier (Bitcoin Podast) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Away from this knee jerk reaction, which is like energy use equals bad. That's just as a starting place, like that's where a lot of progressive people might just think, right? That's maybe layer one thinking about it. Like, oh, if you're using energy, then you're wasting it or you're not, you're doing harm to the environment. In order to really combat that, you have to get at it from the angle of what's the energy being used for? What's the use case for this energy? Why is it important to use it? And therefore, like if we have a reason to use the energy, then we can actually have a more meaningful debate about is it worth it? Like, is what you're saying is providing actually worth that energy or not? And do you need to use it? That's sort of the starting point, right? Like what's the energy being used for? And then you can get into say, all right, well, there's no reason that we can't be more efficient when we use the energy or we can't use more green energy or sustainable energy if we want to mine Bitcoin or do anything else, right? Like this is an.”
2023-07-12 · We Study Billionaires · BTC138: A Progressive's Case for Bitcoin w/ Jason Maier (Bitcoin Podast) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, it's interesting, like you said, it's chapter three, which is in a sense like the real first chapter, right? There's sort of like why the book and then why Bitcoin. And then like I dive into the issues, the energy issue is probably number one, as you said, for a lot of people who find themselves knowing very little about Bitcoin if they've only heard one thing. It's probably that it's like a waste of energy or uses too much energy, especially if they're left leaning. I found it was important to get that conversation out front pretty early in the book. And it's the longest chapter of the book. And it's the most, you know, the editors kept wanting to break it up. I was like, no, I like it. It's like it's supposed to be the longest chapter. It's the most important one, especially for the target audience. And I think it's, you know, I break it up into a couple of different sort of themes through having the conversation about energy use and the environmental impact. One is just trying to steer people.”
2023-07-12 · We Study Billionaires · BTC138: A Progressive's Case for Bitcoin w/ Jason Maier (Bitcoin Podast) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I got so that first conversation did not go as well as I wanted it to. And sort of since then, I've gotten on this kick. That was sort of the kickoff to say, hey, it's fun to explain Bitcoin to people. It's fun to answer like well-intentioned questions about it. It's fun to sort of help people see the value in it. And that got me on this path that eventually led to the book that I wrote. And, you know, it's been history since, right? That was like sort of one of the defining moments on the journey.”
2023-07-12 · We Study Billionaires · BTC138: A Progressive's Case for Bitcoin w/ Jason Maier (Bitcoin Podast) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“To me in the office, saw it almost immediately and just essentially gasped like her mouth had dropped open. And she was like, what are you doing? Like, I don't want my kid's future ruined for this fake money. You're ruining the environment. Like this is just, you know, Bitcoin is obviously bad. Like I can't believe somebody that I respected would be into it. Like this whole like sort of monologue. And I honestly did not expect that. Like I honestly was like, oh, there are people who kind of give me a hard time about being into Bitcoin, but certainly they're not going to attack fundamentally the value proposition or something in that way. And so I didn't know what to expect. I didn't expect that. I didn't know how to respond. And I think that I opened the book by saying like, I did not have a good response. Like I sort of answered the questions and had the conversation, but I was not anticipating the animosity, you know, for Bitcoin.”
2023-07-12 · We Study Billionaires · BTC138: A Progressive's Case for Bitcoin w/ Jason Maier (Bitcoin Podast) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So, as you said, I'm a high school math teacher. That's been my dream since I was a little kid. So I'm currently, like my fiat job is sort of my dream job from when I was little. But like, as you might imagine, like being in the education business, a lot of my coworkers, like me, they're left leaning, left of center, liberal progressive. I had been into Bitcoin for a while. I sort of gotten into it through a mathematical lens and sort of understood a little bit of the computer science behind it. was really excited about it. And there was this moment where I like I had a couple of people I knew in real life that were into Bitcoin, but not many. And I had found this poster online and I liked it. So I printed it off and I said, you know, I'll put this up in my office at work. And I talk about this in the book. I did not know really what to expect. I kind of expected people to sort of like dismiss it or kind of claim that I was an idiot or falling for a Ponzi scheme. You know, that's kind of what I expected. But what I got was the teacher who sits next.”
2023-07-12 · We Study Billionaires · BTC138: A Progressive's Case for Bitcoin w/ Jason Maier (Bitcoin Podast) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT