Thank you for listening ❤ Check out our sponsors: lexfridman.com/sponsors/ep440-sa See below for timestamps, transcript, and to give feedback, submit questions, contact Lex, etc. 0:00 - Introduction 2:03 - Startup philosophy 9:34 - Low points 13:03 - 12 startups in 12 months 19:55 - Traveling and depression 32:34 - Indie hacking 36:37 - Photo AI 1:12:53 - How to learn AI 1:21:30 - Robots 1:29:47 - Hoodmaps 1:53:52 - Learning new programming languages 2:03:24 - Monetize your website 2:09:59 - Fighting SPAM 2:13:33 - Automation 2:24:58 - When to sell startup 2:27:52 - Coding solo 2:33:54 - Ship fast 2:42:38 - Best IDE for programming 2:52:09 - Andrej Karpathy 3:01:34 - Productivity 3:15:21 - Minimalism 3:24:07 - Emails 3:31:20 - Coffee 3:39:05 - E/acc 3:41:21 - Advice for young people *Transcript:* lexfridman.com/pieter-levels-transcript *CONTACT LEX:* *Feedback* - give feedback to Lex: lexfridman.com/survey *AMA* - submit questions, videos or call-in: lexfridman.com/ama *Hiring* - join our team: lexfridman.com/hiring *Other* - other ways to get in touch: lexfridman.com/contact *EPISODE LINKS:* Pieter's X: x.com/levelsio Pieter's Techno Optimist Shop: levelsio.com/ Indie Maker Handbook: readmake.com/ Nomad List: nomadlist.com Remote OK: remoteok.com Hoodmaps: hoodmaps.com *SPONSORS:* To support this podcast, check out our sponsors & get discounts: *Shopify:* Sell stuff online. Go to lexfridman.com/s/shopify-ep440-sa *Motific:* Generative ai deployment. Go to lexfridman.com/s/motific-ep440-sa *AG1:* All-in-one daily nutrition drinks. Go to lexfridman.com/s/ag1-ep440-sa *MasterClass:* Online classes from world-class experts. Go to lexfridman.com/s/masterclass-ep440-sa *BetterHelp:* Online therapy and counseling. Go to lexfridman.com/s/betterhelp-ep440-sa *Eight Sleep:* Temp-controlled smart mattress. Go to lexfridman.com/s/eight_sleep-ep440-sa
I followed Pieter in to the digital nomad lifestyle ~mid 2015. I joined his private slack community, found a remote software engineering role @ a Norwegian software company, and worked remotely for them for a year and a half, travelling through parts of Europe & Asia. It's nice to hear from the man himself that this lifestyle wasn't always sunshine and rainbows. The guilt I often felt when someone told me I was "living the dream" when in fact I was not (always) happy, was very confronting for me (at the time). This had me in tears, I've never been able to express this to anyone without feeling like a privileged idiot. Thanks for this conversation.
@blakec4624 - my son who is 21 is wanting to follow a similar path and has just moved to Valencia. I run my own tech businesses but I am wanting him to follow his own path. It is interesting to hear what you have said here. I hope that through your experiences that you feel stronger now because of it
He is a great inspiration for all makers and has also helped us to begin Thinkbuddy. He is one of the first people who created AI hype among individual makers, and the world has many products that owe their existence to Pieter, who took the first step and inspired others. Thank you! ✨
Lex, I cannot thank you enough for having Pieter. At the very beginning, I was tempted to turn it off because his speech pattern was all over the place, he wanted to speak about everything at once, then I realized that it's not his mouth that's doing that but his brain, he literally thinks the same exact way I do, he has a million ideas and experiments with things to learn how to do it himself instead of reading books. This whole podcast was the universe confirming that I am on the right track. I can't believe I'm also not alone in using Brown noise. I personally keep a fan blowing less than 5 ft from my head because the sound is a deep almost "bass like" humming sound, although it sounds strange but when you talked about how the world disappears when you have your preferred sound on, and you reach the flow state. It almost felt like I was explaining it myself. I have to say this is hands down my favorite guest to date (sorry Elon, Ilya, and Dr. Peterson)
I started with his mentality very early in my life when I was 14, building software stuff. It made me really happy. Now I’m 32, and I’ve done literally everything but that for the past 17 years. Now I’m back to building tech and software apps. The feelings of happiness, satisfaction and the sense of accomplishment are indescribable. Keep shoveling, never stop no matter what!
Me too man. I started out just hacking around and teaching myself and then went to university, jobs, startups and fell for all the unit testing, nonsense platforms like kubernetes (feel so dumb now). I need to do a 180 now back to the roots of being scrappy and move fast.
I didn't like lex until this interview, even though he had interesting guests. I watched his Trump interview. It wasn't long before that it seemed like Lex had Trump derangement syndrome and was a zombie child of the mainstream narrative, but Pieter has the same brain wiring as me so I see Lex through Pieter's eyes. This interview brought out a different side of Lex. I dunno. Maybe Lex is changing. He wasn't annoying when he interviewed Trump.
the GOAT levels changed my life maybe 5-6 years ago through his tweets/inspo/learnings about business and i will forever be grateful. THANK YOU Pieter!
HELL YEAH!! Pieter Levels, let's goooooooooo! I'm building an AI startup solo, currently at $5K MRR. Much respect for that man, been following since 2016 when I was working at a soul-sucking 9-to-5!!
I met Pieter a couple times there in Bali Dojo coworking spot in 2017 doing the 6am shift. I was also in a similar depressed mindset, but also this whole new way of life was giving me energy. I loved those all night coding sessions
It's great to watch an interview with a developer who hasn't been conditioned into adopting low-quality tools and processes. The fact that he feels bad for using PHP and JQuery, and pushing straight to production, in spite of his success, shows just how strong the conditioning is.
i mean... he is a solo developer. those practices work when you're the only one manipulating the codebase as you will likely be able to fix any errors and/or rollback immediately. This doesn't scale and that is the main reason teams cannot work in this manner. Nothing wrong with it if you're on your own though, but inherently... yeah not a good idea. This is coming from solo dev who also pushes to prod and will just cp stage/* if there's an issue LOL.
I have had the privilege to chat with Pieter back in 2016 on X when he only had NomadsList. He was an inspiration for me then and still is today. His simple words of advice were the following, "You need to learn shit yourself. If you don't have the willpower to do that you'll never get anywhere. There's no shortcuts in life."
Yes they seems like they could be good friends and have a lot in common with mutual respect... wish we all could treat each other on this ballenced level
Living nomad is amazing and Pieter hits the nail on the head. Loneliness, boredom, anxiety but also inspiration, romanticism, new people, new places, new ideas, new motivations. Couldn’t recommend it more if you’re a bit stuck!
Love this guy. Literally my main motivator for like some months now. I always loved the small scale big MRR project-approach. Have like max 3-4 friends/partners and make enough for a great living. No manager, legal, bureaucracy bullshit, just straight moving fast and thinking out of the box. Peter and Lex, thank you.
@@armaganvideos you can find them but you have to hang out in programming discord servers. I found a few like that and am working with two of them on one idea
He and his products changed my life forever. I have been able to travel across the world to places I had never dream of, working for top companies remotely and among other things build my house and life mainly because of him. Pieter, thank you.
Amazing conversation. This episode inspired me and made me laugh when you said "i think a lot of people in this world are laying in a room right now listening to this and feeling like a loser" as i was *literally* lying bed, in a foreign country, alone, feeling like a total loser, and questioning what I'm doing with my life. I love the spirit that Pieter passes. And thank you Lex for always sharing the honest spectrum of the feelings you feel. Thank you both for making the world feel less lonely.
Throughout the interview I loved how he combined grind, gym, traveling, self-sufficiency, and automation to live on his own terms, and how he was for renewing the entrepreneurial spirit in Europe, but in the back of my mind I though I wouldn't wanna go exactly his route. That made the final message of "do your own thing" all the better. The guy also seems authentic and quite down to earth. Rare to see these days.
Can't you make friends online and with the ppl in the hostel. Are you learning Jap or Chinese or Indonesian. BTW what is a good solution for a wearable keyboard, i have those neck wearable tablet holder thingies which a pit a bluetooth keyboard on but I often need to type and to see the screen at the same time hahha.
Man, I have been working in the shadows for six months on a project that only 3 people know about. This podcast was so beyond inspirational and encouraging, being a self-made person and remote worker myself. This nearly 4-hour hang was medication for my soul. Thank you Lex and Pieter!
There are only few things these days that you expect to happen, or you remain waiting and your eyes light up when you see it. One of it is definately watching Lex talking with high mind individuals. What a way to become useful, this is truely a meaningful work. ThankyouLex❤🇳🇵
Okay now this is exactly what i was looking for. Pieter Levels with Lex omg 😂 maybe one day Lex i will sit down with you as well. You are one of the people I would love to meet along with Pieter.
I like that you take all types of different guests with all types of different opinions. But seeing you vibe this much with a guest - really fun to listen to!
I've followed Pieter for years. Awesome to see have him on with Lex! . Pieter is one of the most innovative developers in the world. He is as RAW as you can get. Solo, Nomad, Indi hacker, visionary
Lex, some of us non-native English speakers sometimes find it difficult to understand without subtitles, and even autogenerate ones miss out on the important aspect. Please only upload on YT once your team has prepared the subtitle.
2:34:58 The level of love between these two as Lex compliments Nomadlist UI is so endearing. Levels keeps trying to justify its appearance as if it was bad, but Lex is so steadfast with saying "No man, this is great". Very sweet!
This is one of my favorite conversations you’ve ever had! I took what you guys said about the best place to start coding is to actually work on a project, and only a few hours in it makes so much more sense when you can apply it to something useful for yourself. Thank you for that.
I thought I knew Pieter on a level that Lex didn't know him. I'm so glad you had him on Lex! You are so plugged in to society. It's crazy how well you pick people.
Bro I swear I really started listening to him a week ago, and I started building my first serious app, and Ive been hooked, coding all day, and now this comes?? what are the odds
Great stuff this is my favourite interview you have ever done. His attitude is brilliant as a frustrated worker who deals with layers of company strata. I found myself saying 'yes' most of the time he was talking
Great conversation. Pieter is a beast at shipping. Used to do all my coding with vanilla Javascript, PHP, and HTML. It was something that always confused me why all the latest tutorials would be about why you should use the latest framework when I was able to get it working faster coding from scratch.
Lex and Pieter- hard to explain how much I enjoyed this. I’m not a dev but am full of ideas - I make music so appreciate the need for speed. Thanks for the work - both of you.
Pieter: There is a lot of cool stuff behind the normie filter. Mr. Friedman: yeah but the Nazis, the doom, the apocalypse... Pieter: You can dive into deep convos with anons. Mr. Friedman: yeah but the Nazis, the doom, the apocalypse... Pieter: you ok man? Now I understand why the normie filter
