Summary
Join host Aaron with Jesse Smith, a self-described "unconventional EA" (Effective Altruist) who bridges blue-collar expertise with intellectual insight. Jesse recounts his wild early adventures in Canadian "bush camps," from planting a thousand trees daily as a teen to remote carpentry with helicopter commutes. Now a carpenter, HVAC technician, and business owner (Tay River Builders), he discusses his Asterisk magazine article, "Lies, Damned Lies, and Manometer Readings."
Discover the HVAC industry's surprising shortcomings, the difficulty of achieving good indoor air quality (even for the affluent!), and the systemic issues impacting public health and climate goals, with practical insights on CO2 and radon monitors like the Airthings View Plus.
Jesse’s links
Lies, Damned Lies, and Manometer Readings, the Asterisk magazine article discussed at length
Tay River Builders, his contracting company
Willard Brothers Woodcutters, his wood store
And its viral Instagram page
The Airthings View Plus air quality monitor discussed (currently $239 on Amazon)
No they’re not paying either of us for this but they should
Transcript
Aaron: Okay. First recorded pigeon hour in a while. I'm here with Jesse Smith resident dad of EA Twitter. I don't know if. I don't know if you'll accept that. Accept that honor. Okay, cool. and I actually, we haven't chatted, face to face in, like, a while, but I know you have, like, a really interesting. You're very, like, unconventional EA in some respects. Do you want to, like, give me your whole like, life story? In brief?
Jesse: okay. So I guess one thing is that I'm super old for EA, right? like. And so being a dad and owning, like, a kind of normal business, I guess another is kind of more blue collar background, right? So, I was originally a carpenter also, then took on being an HVAC technician. So I, the businesses that I own Kind of like focus on a little bit of both those. yeah. So like my my background. I was raised in Canada. I left school, I didn't go to college. yeah. I went into, like, after a few years of, like a few years after high school, went into the trades basically.
Aaron: Okay. Yeah. Nice. Okay. Like. Yes, I think that. Yeah, that definitely, like, makes you at least, at least stereotypically. But I think also like, in real life, like, there just aren't that many, like, carpentry businessmen who are, like happen to, like, hang out on Twitter also. So no, this is like legitimately really interesting. And at one point, I swear, I thought you went to Princeton. You must have mentioned the city, and I must have interpreted it as the town.
Jesse: Yeah, my my brother, my brothers and I lived in Princeton for quite a while. Two of my brothers actually.
Aaron: Still.
Jesse: Okay around Princeton. I'm not far from Princeton. That's kind of the area where we work. it is where my dad went to grad school, so could have been that as well. so. Yeah. Yeah, but I did not attend Princeton.
Aaron: I mean.
Jesse: I worked on some of their buildings, but I have not attended.
Aaron: Maybe, maybe that was where I got the that like. Yeah, like like myth from. So I know I have, I got like a couple at least. Matt. Matt from Twitter sent in a question, but I as usual, I've done a minimal level of preparation. So also we can we can talk about talk about truly whatever, but like, maybe. Yeah. So how did you, how did you, like, find out about Yale's? Like one thing.
Jesse: Well, yeah. Okay. So there's some, I guess, some weird stuff. So I was fairly enamored with Peter Singer. Kind of just like starting with the book Animal Liberation. It would have been. I forget when he wrote that. Like it would have been years after he wrote it, right? Because I think he wrote it in even when, like when I was super young. But I probably read that in my late teens. Okay. And so, yeah.
Aaron: That's that's the 1975 book.
Jesse: So yeah, that sounds right. Yeah. I was going to guess the 70s. Right. So I was like.
Aaron: Nice.
Jesse: Nice or something. Right. So what.
Aaron: Year old?
Jesse: Yes, exactly. But so so when I was 16, I briefly dropped out of high school and I was working. This is really weird. I was working in these, like, bush camps in Canada. It's somewhat popular to do this. And so, like, I was 16, I celebrated my 17th birthday in a bush camp. That was like a tree planting bush camp. But this. Okay, so this is really weird. It sounds like this is like core blue collar, but it's not quite. The guy who owned the company I was working for was a friend of my dad's, and he was Baha'i and vegetarian. And so he had these vegetarian bush camps that we planted trees and did like some brushing out of. Right. So we ran like brush saws and stuff. And so I sort of I think that's kind of what, like I became a vegetarian out of those camps and was reading kind of Peter Singer's stuff at the time. And I think partly being there made me realize like, oh, this is going to not be that difficult. A lot of guys were really irritated by vegetarian bush camps, right? Like some of it was kind of core blue collar, mediating type guys. But like, I was totally fine. I was actually like super happy because it was kind of my first experience in a full time job. And I was nervous because everybody was like, oh, you know, it's going to be hell. And I actually thought it was great. It was much better than being in high school. I thought at the time, like, they just like everything was squared away, like they just fed you. You just had to go and like, try to put as it was piecework. So it was like $0.22 a tree or something. And after a few days, I think on my third day I put something like a thousand trees into the ground or something. Right. So I was.
Aaron: Like, Jesus Christ.
Jesse: I was like, oh, this is amazing, right? Like, all I have to do is like. Run as fast as I possibly can with these big bags of trees in the woods in, like, this beautiful setting. Eat the food they give me and then like, go to sleep and, like, read or whatever. Right. So like it was a it was a great experience. I know that's the total effect, right. What's that.
Aaron: No no no it's not it's not a digression. One thing is can you just define bush camp like for for us dumb American like, oh yeah, dumb like Americans or whatever.
Jesse: Yeah. So I, I don't know, I, I guess maybe I haven't heard the terms. They're in the US, but they must exist for some purpose. Right. So usually it's like somewhere remote that you are basically camped out of. In my case, it was literally like camping. It was tents, which I didn't mind at the time. So you'd be like, you know, in our case, it was big camps. Like, I think sometimes they can be as little as maybe ten people, let's say. Right. And this was like a pretty decent company. So they were running 40. The max I saw was maybe 100 people working out of this camp in the remote wilderness. The first year I did it was around an area called mica, which I understand now is a popular heli skiing destination. Like I have a friend who now skis and mica, which is hilarious to me, but it would maybe take you to the nearest town to mica was probably Revelstoke, which was in this case we could drive there, you know, maybe like a year or two later. There were ones that we were flown into, and in some cases there were even ones where I'm trying to think like I was in one in my like early 20s where they would helicopter. You would take a helicopter ride every day to the site, like so like you. So they would like, you'd see this helicopter coming in and like, they'd land in the camp and then they take you. But it was just it wasn't like it didn't feel like special operations. It was like the helicopter was rented from the, like, small towns Weather channel. Right.
Aaron: Well, that's so badass as like, I feel like the correct term for all this is, is very based.
Jesse: Yeah, I don't know. I mean, I like it seems weird now to describe this to people and it's not in people's experience. But it wasn't it didn't feel the helicopter thing. Maybe did initially felt weird. Right. Because like, I don't know anything about helicopters, right. Like but it didn't feel that weird at the time. And I knew a lot of people growing up who worked out of bush camps and then years later. So like probably around when I was in my early 20s is when I started my carpentry apprenticeship formally, like I had worked in construction a bit and then done the bush camp thing on and off. And so then I ended up doing some some remote wilderness bush camp carpentry work as well, maybe midway through my apprenticeship. So I worked on a it. An Indian reserve building, a water treatment facility that would have been like probably late 90s. Like I'm thinking like probably right before I moved to the US. And that was like that was months and months. That was actually not a good camp. One of the things I hate is that the first camp I went to was incredible, like incredible, like incredible food, like they would haul in saunas like you had you had a trailer with a sauna. And so, like when you're 16, you know, you're just like, oh yeah, this is like normal, right? And I've often thought like. And the food was amazing. Like the, the lead cook would make like she made it for my 17th birthday. She made me a cake. Right. But I was like, and I'm I'm sure I said like, thank you. But it should have been like effusive with praise, right? Because it was just like, yeah, incredible. And then if you, you know. And then I was probably in like over the years maybe 2 or 3 other camps and they suck. Like I remember showing up and being like hey, when is. And like, so this woman would, she would have like Indian night and Mexican night, like themed food nights and like you like they had generators and you could watch movies and like, it was just crazy. And I remember rolling into, like, this next, logging camps and logging camps are legendarily crappy, right? They just feed you food basically out of a warmed up can, right? I remember being like, hey, when's like Mexican night, you know? And they're like, what are you talking like just like nothing, right? Like no amenities. The sleeping was maybe a little better. And that you were you slept in a trailer, but that didn't feel like a quality of life improvement anyway. So that so that is that's Canadian bush camp experience.
Aaron: I guess that's. That is nuts. I literally just I yeah, this feels like highly optimized for just sounding like as badass as possible. And you wait. You. So you said this is like normal. Maybe it was like, normal for your. What was your reference class, like a 50 other families or something? Because this sounds incredibly abnormal to me as like a grew up with like a very like sheltered, like upper middle class, like American. Like there was zero chance I was ever gonna, like, fly into a bush camp at 16.
Jesse: Okay, so to be fair, the first one was not flown in. That was. That was driving.
Aaron: Okay. Oh, sorry.
Jesse: Subsequent ones were. Or potentially there was one where we took a boat to get to the camp initially, but yeah, it wasn't uncommon to be flown in, I guess. the I don't know, actually, it's a good question. I think if I'd been raised in a Canadian city, it would have been more unusual. But, you know, so some of the kids that I, it was very common at the time and I think it may still be for college kids in Canada, like kids attending university in Canada. Maybe go do this in summers, right? Because it makes you it's piecework. If you get proficient, it's fairly highly paid, right? It was a surprising amount of money at the time and even the remote work for construction was similar. Right. You're you're going to be well paid. You're not going to spend, like any money, right? In some I mean, yeah, there were some where there would be like something nearby that you could spend money on. But the first few camps I was in, we would go to some buffet for the Mica dam once a week and it was like $10 or something, right? And I was like, yeah, you know. Yeah. Like you just didn't spend money. So yeah, it was good for that, I guess. Yeah. I it didn't feel that weird aside from being very young, even by the reference. Like I was very young, I was like, I was very much not wanting to be in high school at the time. So that was a little bit weird. Yeah.
Aaron: Let's come let's come back to, actually. Yeah. So what was, so that's like, interesting that you didn't want to be in high school. Was that, because because, I mean, we've known each other sort of. I don't even think we've met in real life, which is very, very sad, but, like, feel like people in general who are, like, as smart and thoughtful as you generally are, the type that wants to stay in high school. So what was that situation like for you?
Jesse: Oh, I don't know. I, I yeah I, I just didn't like it, but it wasn't like it was common for kids. Okay. So I was in Ontario and Ontario at the time had a 13th grade as well. So it seemed like insurmountable, right. Like and it just wasn't uncommon. Like it, it just wasn't uncommon for kids that I was around to be like, okay. Like and also I think the US really limit this, limits this somehow in a way that that Canada, or at least Ontario didn't like. You could just leave high school, right?
Aaron: And yeah.
Jesse: People didn't. You know, you just were like, okay, I'm going to work like, I, I'm kind of tapping out.
Aaron: Yeah, yeah.
Jesse: And it wasn't like, also, I didn't really grow up in an area where. Not a lot of kids who I knew were even considering going to college, like in my friend group. There were. Maybe it was. It just wasn't common. Like in at least in my core group of friends, like there were other kids, I'm sure, who definitely went on to college, but it just wasn't in the US right now. You know, my kids, it's it's weird to look at, right? Because there is no doubt they'll go to college, right? Like there's there's this established pathway. I don't remember I don't think I talked to my parents about that much. I don't think we ever, you know, it wasn't it wasn't established early on in the way that people today and I'm sure it was the same with you, where they just it's just established that you will be attending a four year college.
Aaron: Yeah. I mean, I think I looked it up recently and it's like, I think something like half of like high school or like college age students at some point go to college. I forget the exact number. So it's like not universal, but I think it's pretty close to universal in some like urban, like relatively wealthier, like liberal settings. It's like basically, yeah, basically like 100%. yes.
Jesse: Like my daughter, her friends and my son, his friends, they will just all go to college. They may get weeded out at some point. I know that's also surprisingly common for kids to sort of struggle and then drop out or something like this, right? But the likelihood of them attending a four year college is is extremely high in that circle of kids. I think so, yeah.
Aaron: Oh, yeah. So something I just remembered. Sorry. This is like my ADHD brain is maybe not like the best made for a podcast, but that's okay. So like, yeah, you're making a lot of money in part because as, as is probably, I assume, been consistent through your whole life, you're extraordinarily athletic. I can just apparently, like, run and plant a thousand trees a day while, like, carrying a bag. I feel like that you shouldn't, like, take for granted or something like that is so sorry. I won't I won't ramble on too long. But at 16 I also had a blue collar job for about one week was that I was a, summer camp counselor Outlaw, and at first they didn't know where to put me. So like I, there wasn't any like youth group for me to go to. So they just like there was like this barn to like work on. And I was like, wow, I can't believe I signed up for this. Like, this sucks. So like, that that I guess to some extent like demonstrates. Yeah, I people's like personal preferences or like abilities or whatever.
Jesse: Like, so what did they have you do to the barn? What? Like what were you what type of work were you.
Aaron: Oh man. So this is so this is like nine years ago, where, like, I remember we were cutting stuff. Cutting wood, like what were we doing? I think I was like, a very small chunk of a project to either to, like, expand the barn or something, and like, what I was doing was, like, literally just, like carrying wood around, but like, wasn't it wasn't fun. It definitely wasn't fun for $2 an hour, just like how much I was making, or like, yeah, maybe someone could have paid me, like, a lot to be, like, very excited. I think I have photos on my phone, maybe I'll like link those in like the show description. And I was also I was I mean, I was an exceptionally tiny 16 year old also, so that might have something to do with it. anyway. Yeah.
Jesse: Yeah. That's interesting. Like, like also I can like okay, so I have some exposure to environments like this. And I think also in a lot of cases people sort of feel directionless. Right. Like, so you're probably being supervised by someone who has no clue what they're doing. Right.
Aaron: Like, I don't even remember, like something like.
Jesse: I find this commonly in construction is that people don't approach. It's like an oversight where people don't approach things like there's a kind of systematic way to engage in the exercise and therefore it becomes sort of more frustrating as a consequence, although like the physical demands are real and I, you know, it could be that it's like, you know like people find it physically demanding. But I also find that people find it, you know, in in bad environments, they find it frustrating and directionless and, and like, this kind of ties in with the stuff I say about HVAC that like, if everybody in the kind of hierarchy, if you're being supervised by people who are just completely ignorant, right, you end up, you know, kind of lost, right? So it could I mean, I'm not saying necessarily it's the case with you, but it could have been that you're like, what am I doing again? I'm moving wood.
Aaron: I mean, honestly, I think it was probably largely the fact that, like you, yeah, I would guess the physical demands had like and, like preferences, just like sheer preferences around that had like a lot to do with our differential experience.
Jesse: It could be. Yeah, it could be like I don't have. Yeah. So I ended up like, yeah, that ended up athletics and that kind of thing also ended up being kind of a like a big feature, at least by like a little maybe more later on. But yes, it was like the constant thing, like constant. Even my wife says that. Right. Like she finds it difficult sometimes to be my presence because I'm constantly in motion Ocean and doing stuff.
Aaron: Thank you for sitting. Thank you for sitting down. Also, I don't know if I can cut this out, but you're in a car right now. I should have mentioned that, right? Yes. Okay.
Jesse: I'm in my truck.
Aaron: Very, very badass. Okay, nice. yeah. No. Just like. Just like, jump forward. Now you run like, a gazillion miles a day and also do jujitsu all the time and also do, like, like carpentry. Like as, like the break in the middle or something.
Jesse: But yeah, that's so. Yes, that's pretty accurate. like, but keep in mind. Right. So I own the business and I end up doing a lot there, right. Like, so I'm not doing a ton of field work necessarily. If I'm doing field work for someone else, it often is HVAC. HVAC has, in my opinion, like extremely low physical demands, usually residential in particular. Like you can get into some stuff and like if an HVAC tech hears this, they'll get all bent out of shape about it. But in all, like I have experienced in like a lot of different subsets of carpentry and HVAC is like, yeah, okay. Yes, you had to carry something of a ladder like one time in your day, like. Yes. Okay, great. Yeah. You know what I mean? Like like yeah. Like like I did concrete formwork for years in my apprenticeship and that was, that was probably the most in terms of, like direct physical demands. That was pretty high, maybe the most. Right. So you're just slinging like 88, like 85, £90 sheets of form ply just all day long. Right. So that was more physically demanding. Framing is maybe like a big step down, but, you know, still moderate I'd say. yeah. So yeah. And so I did that and then started racing. The big thing that kicked that out like was racing Ironman like when I moved to the US, maybe a year or so later, I started training for Ironman and fell in with like a group of, like, mostly Princeton grad students or a lot of Princeton grad students who, who well, or maybe in some cases, older kids who like guys who had Would run under an undergrad program in Princeton. So like, really fast runners, right? Like so D1 runners. And there was this training group in Princeton, we would go out and just try to murder each other every Thursday night for like, like eight years or something. So that was super fun. And so that was like pretty eye opening. And then being able to do that and do carpentry at the same time.
Aaron: Yeah. I mean, we're gonna have to we should put up a notice. You mentioned your wife because all the the many thousands of ladies like, listening to this are gonna, are gonna get. Yeah, are going to get a little too optimistic.
Jesse: With what? What do you mean?
Aaron: No, sorry. That was that was a terrible. That was a terrible joke. I'm saying, like, you're coming across as, like a very like, you know, you mentioned like. Oh, yeah, like running, you know, running like these, like Iron Man triathlons with these like and like doing, like all this, like backcountry carpentry stuff. Like very like very sexy and like manly and so, like, we're gonna have to, like put a flag up just to say that. Like to say that, like, yeah, you're, you're you're a taken man.
Jesse: That's really funny. I funny. I don't feel like.
Aaron: It's, like.
Jesse: Almost.
Aaron: Over. Honestly.
Jesse: Yeah. It feels like the blue collar thing is more a detriment today, but I'm really uncertain. Like, people talk constantly about social status and things like that. And obviously like.
Aaron: Yeah.
Jesse: Collar jobs are way down on the what people think of as social status, I guess I don't I don't participate much in that discussion. Like, I have a lot of, I mean, aside, like trying to decouple from the fact that I am a carpenter and like, I have many sort of like when you start to unravel it I often think it's not like it's not clear to me like that, like I, that I understand what that means really. But it. Yeah. So but it is my understanding that those blue collar jobs are not like highly skilled people don't highly seek out men, and women don't highly sought out men in blue collar jobs.
Aaron: That's interesting. I mean, actually, yeah, it's like maybe like discuss. Maybe not. Not just from like that the like, romantic angle, but like, just like social status in general is like pretty important topic. So like, you're you're a business owner in one respect, right? So, like, you could, get do you have any like, I guess further insight on, yeah. For someone who's like, sort of like grew up or like professionally and literally around like blue collar stuff, but like, now, like owns a literal business, like where whether you think, like, the status stuff has more to do with just like, money or like, like if you were just like, took somebody who's just like, you know working literal construction, but they were suddenly making $100 an hour instead of whatever. Like, would that, like, balance the status scales, do you think? Do you know what I'm getting at?
Jesse: Yes, I do, and that's what like people talk about this all the time. They say, oh, well, you know, like a college professor, you know, at an entry level in an entry level role where they may get stuck in some cases permanently is ostensibly higher social status than someone working in construction who could be there are jobs that actually pay towards like a very There are jobs that pay really quite well in that world, right? Or, you know, like moderately there are many. Like there are many. I mean, not a ton. So like, you know, I want to be fair here, right. Like, I think there's this separate trend in society to be like, why don't you go be a plumber where they make $250 an hour? I'm like, no, they do not make 250. Like there's a widespread conflation of, like what people are being billed by the hour in some cases with what people are being compensated. Right. Which is weird because they don't seem to make that mistake when you know they understand, like corporate employment at a deeper level than they understand plumbing employment, let's say. Right.
Aaron: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Jesse: But there are definitely jobs in the blue collar world that routinely kind of, pay sort of in the you know, like on the bubble, six figures. Right? Like it's rare to be over 150, but it's not that rare to have like 80 to 120 as a range for people in highly skilled jobs and competitive markets. Right. Yeah. So but yeah like so that is a thing. Right. And so the college professor ostensibly has more social status than the HVAC technician making, you know, double their salary or something. This is where I sort of start to think that, like, I sort of have questions about this, like how people kind of perceive that, I guess, like it seems at least weakly coupled with the amount of money that people make, but not entirely. Yeah. Although, you know, there is some domain specific stuff to like. It seems like people play different games with social status, and I'm not entirely sure about social status being a motivation for something like I get the ascendancy part of it. But when Mark Zuckerberg started jiu jitsu, he entered a room in which he was the lowest possible social status imaginable. Right. And so I think that's really interesting, right? Because, like, it can't be that Mark Zuckerberg is strictly motivated by the achievement of the highest possible social status, because he entered a world in which he had no status. Right? Like he was the lowest possible.
Aaron: There's got to be some. There's got to be some continuity between general society and Jiu-Jitsu world. No.
Jesse: Oh, I well, yeah I mean like people are oh my God, it's Mark Zuckerberg.
Aaron: Like yeah yeah.
Jesse: Beat the ever loving crap out of that guy. Right or something. Right. Like but I don't think like there are many instances of this. Right. Like people just enter other domains. I don't think Mark Zuckerberg went to jiu jitsu because he was motivated by social status. He would have just done something like he would have continued to be Mark Zuckerberg. Only Zuckerberg harder or something, right? Yeah, yeah. So I don't like I don't think I totally get this and I think people don't. I think there is a domain specificity specificity to status that people kind of like, don't acknowledge. Like if you talk to people also about like how the blue collar world might be structured. Well, it will have its own social status, right? Yeah. Yeah. Right. And so, like, people kind of like it's just a blind spot. Like it's like people go, oh my God, the blue collar world has status to like and and engages in thinking about this, right?
Aaron: Yeah. I mean, so, like one thing that I was maybe intuitively thinking and now, like, explicitly thinking, it's just like a you're like an extremely, like thoughtful and like, interesting person and like, I don't want to I feel like there's no way to say this and like smart person that like, doesn't implicitly like denigrate like people who like, do. Maybe I'll have to like, clean up this section so it doesn't sound bad, but like there's some way to like in general, you're going to find that like the more like intellectual intellectually, like motivated, like people. The people who write for Asterix magazine, for example, are are generally the type that do like to go to high school and in college or whatever. So I feel like in some sense like the, the combination of like having that extremely like thoughtful and smart disposition, plus like the badass flying out to mercury mines in Canada. I know it's not literally mercury mines. It's like it's like kind of like the best of both worlds.
Jesse: I'm sorry, I appreciate that. yeah, I appreciate your thinking. You're saying that. Yeah. Yes. I'm not clear, but. Yeah, I don't know. Yeah. Maybe I should try to go to college or something and round it out.
Aaron: Yeah. Okay. So, wait, so, yeah, in your, in terms of your, like, biography, you were so you were like circa 18 as a vegetarian in, a bush camp. What do you want to do? You want to, like, lay out the next story? Like, I don't know a couple of years or something.
Jesse: Yeah. So, let me think. So I was working kind of like. Okay, so one, I did go finish high school, right? So I had dropped out of high school. I only had one semester left. So I think right before like around when I turned 18 is when I went back to high school, I lived like kind of on my own in a city called Kingston and finished out the semester to kind of wrap it up. then let's see, I was kind of working like a little construction in Eastern Ontario and then out to the West coast for bush camps and stuff for a couple years. I think I shattered my heels in a construction accident when I was 20. And that was pretty like like that was sort of like negatively transformative, I guess. Right? So I was out of work for maybe six months. I had so my right heel was surgically reconstructed. I mean, this is going deep on stuff, right? So, and also like, you know, I was I was like drinking much too much. Right? So I kind of like, ended up drinking heavily probably, you know, that that was just kind of like a period where I'm just drinking way too much. Once I recovered, like, I think I worked a little bit there and then moved back out to the West Coast. And that started my carpentry apprenticeship short, really shortly after moving to Victoria, British Columbia. and then did that. And that's sort of where I lived before I moved to the US. I moved to the US, like 99, I think I came, I moved to the US because my my aunt's house had burnt down in Hightstown, and so I rebuilt my aunt's house for like, oh, like six months. It was a townhome in Twin Rivers, which is actually the site. Well, this is okay. So this is not a building science podcast, but one version of the blower door, which is used to test infiltration, was developed in those townhouses in, in Twin Rivers like Hightstown, new Jersey, by a Princeton grad student. Actually, I forget whose name escapes me right now, but yeah. So so, you know, that's a tool that we now run every day. Pretty much a blower door for testing, house for leakage. But yeah. So I rebuilt my aunt's place, pretty much like by myself too, which was really funny.
Aaron: Like, That's that's insane.
Jesse: It was like a little bit of subject, but I can remember doing stuff like. Like I was like, back then, I was just a complete maniac. Like a complete maniac. Like things that no one had ever seen. Like, I at one point, like, so I had she had a truss roof all the, all the homes there are like truss roof. Right. So it's like this big pre-assembled roof member that typically gets craned onto the roof. And usually when you do that, you have a crew of maybe like four dudes or something, right? And I sort of and you get this crane rental, right? So I can remember like, oh, I got a book, The Crane. And I had this like, it was like a four hour minimum or something. And like, I was super cheap too. So the crane operator showed up and goes as the rest of the crew inside. And I was like, it's just me. And, and he goes no. And I was like, yeah, it's just going to be me. And we're getting you out of here. Like inside the window. Like, trust me, it's going to happen. And I just like, I think I was like two and a half or three hours or something, and that was it. Like I knocked out an entire truss roof going up and down like. So I had to go down, lash the truss, give the guy like directions as I was like running back up onto the roof, set the truss like, nail it right. You know, like off, off like just this whole package. Yeah. Like I was a complete maniac. Like other, like other things. Like I, when I first got there, I filled the 30 yard dumpster every day, like, so I would fill a 30 yard dumpster in a single day with the refuse from the fire. Like, I was just, like, fill the entire dumpster completely by myself. So I would just call for a dumpster every single day for like, I think it was like 3 or 4 days in a row that I just filled an entire 30 yard dumpster, which like those huge, like, roll off dumpsters. Right? There's no way, like, right now, I know for certain there would be. There would be like, no, I think no way I could possibly do that now. Which is crazy to think about. Right? So yeah, I.
Aaron: Mean, yeah, this is like feats of physical endurance, not just endurance, everything, whatever. Or like kind of kind of insane here. yeah. Wait. And so, like, not not to, during all this time, were you, like separately having this, like, philosophical track where you were, like, reading Peter Singer or.
Jesse: Yeah, for sure, for sure. Yeah.
Aaron: Okay, cool.
Jesse: Yeah. Like, not just like I'm trying to think of what I was reading mostly. Then, like, Peter Singer really stuck with me. Oh, and there's. And the weird. Okay, so then, like, there's just this kind of weird Forrest Gump thing, so, like, my brother and I end up doing a project. We didn't meet Peter Singer, but we did a Peter Singer project at Princeton, right? For like, some, like I forget it. I don't know if it was even through the university or some other thing. So we ended up like doing some build project for like a community garden that was supposed to be endorsed by Peter Singer or something, right? And oh, and at the time, too, I was running with, I'll just say his name. Simon Keller was, a grad student under Peter Singer, so he was in that same running group. He's still a beast, too. He's in. I think he's in New Zealand now. he's a professor there. And he. And like, he can still like he's probably my age. I'm 51 and he can still throw down these, like, incredible runs on Strava. I follow him and he's just like a monster. Like he'll throw down like a, like a ten miler in the hills at like six minutes flat or something, right? Which is like really impressive. Like super, super impressive. Right. For a masters runner, it's just like. So I was running. But anyway, so I was running with Simon and a bunch of other like grad students too. It was really cool. And talking to him about that kind of stuff, like not all the time. Like someone was just like like it was probably like 90% bro talk. But then it was also like, you know, I had this kind of thing where we would talk about those ideas, right? And then also there was another one who was, at the institute. There was this woman at the Institute. We'd have dinner afterwards and talk about this stuff. And she was with you know, convent. She was with Daniel Kahneman. Right.
Aaron: Oh, wow.
Jesse: So that was pretty cool. So I was also like reading a, a ton of like at some point there, I started reading a ton of Kahneman. Shiller I was probably more enamored, actually, of like, behavioral economics and, and that kind of stuff for some period there. So yeah, but that was like really that was super cool. Like there were a few people like that who were just really interesting grad students and institute and that kind of stuff. Yeah.
Aaron: If you're listening to this, you should you should follow Jesse on Strava. I'm sure we'll we'll link him. it's very impressive. I can't say I keep up with you every single or like, I don't like, religiously. Scroll your feed. I'm sorry. I don't know if that's gonna get me canceled, but it's, like, also quite impressive.
Jesse: It's not. I mean, it's not crazy, like, it's not. Yeah. So I run like, I run a fair bit, but it's not like, you know I just run.
Aaron: Just run. Okay? Yeah. And also, you know, build crazy shit. And you. Jujitsu. okay. Wait. Cool. Wait. Where to? Where to go from here? Do you have any? I don't know. yeah. Is there anything you're, like, jumping out as, like, the interesting direction you want to, like, go in either. Like in terms of, like, keep talking about, like, I don't know how you got from one club to the current situation or like, intellectually or.
Jesse: Yeah. So I guess my thing on Twitter in life, right, is like the HVAC thing. And you know that sort of what I like. I wrote that asterisk article so we could talk a little bit about that possibly. So like in part HVAC is sort of it's sort of proxy for two, a couple of catastrophic risks. Right. Like global warming obviously is one. Right. Global warming Just in like basic terms, we end up kind of electrifying everything. And then so converting fossil fuel devices to heat pumps is kind of one of the things, although like recognizing that we I think most people are kind of. It looks like I think most people are kind of in agreement that global warming is not it's probably not likely to be severely catastrophic for humanity and almost definitely not likely to be X risk level. Right. Then the other is like sort of indoor air quality interventions that can mitigate pandemic risk. And there you get into things that are, you know, potentially, you know, definitely catastrophic risks and potentially now X risk level threats. Right.
Aaron: So that's you want to do you want to wait. So I have a confession to make which is that I haven't read I haven't read the article. I feel really bad. Do you want it. Okay. I'm going to try to find it. Do you want to, like, give an introduction to like that. Let me just like what it's.
Jesse: Yeah.
Aaron: What it's about.
Jesse: So I, you know, maybe around that time period like going to 2018 2019 okay. So I had this experience. Right. So in 2010 my company, you know, there was the the sort of housing bubble kind of pops. Right. And I, you know, I'd been reading Schiller, so like, I don't want to be like, oh, I'm like a genius, but, like I had the strong sense, like the sense that people had in kind of like February and March. EA had around February and March around Covid right? Which every EA was like, oh, jeez, this is going to be bad. Like, like, but you also had it was also a surreal sense. I think people had where you're like, okay, how much should I talk about this? You know, like my wife was like, you're starting to freak people out right? Like kind of thing.
Aaron: And think it's March. March is pretty late. I was like, like, I have to do any individual work myself. But like, it was like I was just like, like going on like other people's takes, mostly on Twitter. And like, March was still pretty early relative to the rest of the world. Yes. Yeah.
Jesse: Yeah. Like, it's a wild time, right? So I can remember the thing that really cemented it for me was one of the E. Like what? Like one of the 80k podcasts which I think dropped on Valentine's Day. And after that, I was just freaking out, right? Yeah. Like, you know, there it was definitive because I remember I can't remember the woman's name was someone from Hopkins, but, you know, she was very much like, yeah, there's no way at this point to contain this. Like it's just impossible. Like, I'm going to summarize and people should just go listen to the podcast, right? But like, she was like, this is just coming. Like you're going to see a bunch of waves. She laid, laid out kind of what she thought the next few months was going to be like, and it was just dead on. Right. And also it was just like, you know, like like so I think I don't know if it was like my feeling after that was like, oh, this is really bad. Like, this is going to be a big deal. And I probably listened to that the day after it dropped or something. Right. So, so like all of February, I'm like talking about this. And then my wife is like, hey, you can't like, you gotta tone it down. You sound like a crazy person, right? But, like, that's the real feeling. Was the same sort of feeling I had in like 2007 about housing in the United States, which is like, wow, you know, not not an EA thing. But I was like like Shiller had written about this and really called it and laid out a case. And then there were a few guys working in like, you know, in hedge funds who were also laying this out. And I was like, oh, yeah, like, this is going to be like really bad. So I had kind of like set the company up to be like, okay we're going to just segue. We're going to just transition into kind of energy rebate stuff. And that's what we were doing, like strictly carpentry and general contracting. And then we transitioned over to this energy retrofit thing where we would partner with HVAC contractors, and we brought like insulation and air sealing in house. And we still have like crews that do this. and it sucked like it it was we'd always had HVAC problems on job sites and it was like, oh, in the same way that I talk to homeowners all the time and they think they're having these kind of uniquely bad experience right? Rather than just the default experience, which is just overwhelmingly negative. So over time, I just realized like that there was a very specific problem within HVAC where the level of competence was just very, very weak. And I started just going to these training classes and doing things. And and it was just really obvious. And then Covid kind of rolls around. Right. And you're like, oh, okay. You know, somewhere pretty late in Covid, it looks like indoor air quality interventions. Like, I don't think we figured out the indoor air quality interventions or I didn't until it was like, you know, people started talking about going back to school. Harvard reached like they had what's his name? Joe. Something he had like healthy buildings. Right. He wrote that book, but he had, like, this whole blueprint for, like, sending kids back to school. And I was like, hey, that's really cool. Like, I like what you're. I like what these people are saying, but there's no fucking way. Like, there is no way you are going to do this across the current workforce, right? And so people would say things like, oh, training, training. And I'm like, no, you don't get it. Like this is extremely bad. This is not something that you can do with the workforce you have. Even the most remedial things that you are proposing are not doable, right? Like they are not going to happen. You need to figure out other things. And if you look at like the interventions that were successful, there were things like Hepa filters and Corsi boxes and this type of thing. And if you look at the interventions that failed, it was like, you know, anything that involved touching centrally ducted HVAC equipment, just like didn't wasn't able to be worked right, like it didn't feature as a solution. And so like I was like like just telling people that all the time and they were like, oh, training, training. The workers are going to need training. I'm like, no. And then I wrote that article and then then things like, I felt like at least the feedback on the article was like, oh, we we by the time I wrote that article, like, I like it was fairly recent. So like Covid was kind of like we had vaccines, we had other interventions. But like people were like, oh, this actually makes a ton of sense, right? Like this. This is what we experienced during the pandemic. Like we had things where text would just say filtered like filters can't be installed, the manufacturer doesn't allow it, or something like this. Right. Like that was the classic example.
Aaron: Yeah. I was about to ask you for, for like more specific examples for like Luddite or not Luddites. I don't know if that's the right word. Whatever the right like analogous term is for, for Luddites with respect to like not Luddites, but like ignorant people or whatever. so, so like filters couldn't be installed. Is there, is there something that's like, is there some like technical thing that like people just like couldn't do or like. Yeah.
Jesse: So there was okay, so one thing that I encountered over and over again and I would actually like engage in Twitter conversations about this. Right. Was the building, the the building facilities, guys say that you can't put a Merv 13 filter in our equipment. It's not built for it, right? Well, so I don't know for certain that every single piece of equipment ever made doesn't contain this in the instructions. But I have read the instructions for dozens possibly hundreds of pieces of equipment, and it's never been contained in any of the pieces of equipment that I've read. Right. Like, it's just it's something that, like, doesn't exist. And also, like, I know enough about equipment, like equipment. You're supposed to do what's called a static pressure measurement, right? So you actually put filters in and then you read the pressure that they're introducing into a system you don't you like. There are just many things that can be installed into a system. And if the static pressure becomes too high as a consequence, they don't say, you can't do this filter. They say the static pressure should be within whatever parameters right? It's just not a thing. Right?
Aaron: Yeah. Yeah.
Jesse: So but that was a common thing that people were told over and over. Like I would be willing to bet that that has been falsely claimed in hundreds of systems in public schools.
Aaron: So so this is a just to be like more specific. So. so I yeah, I don't know what I'm talking about. So like there are these filtering things, they're like rectangles and we're talking about rectangles. Yeah. We're talking about rectangles. Cool. And like people were saying, okay, we need to use one of the worst ones that like doesn't do filtering as well. Yes. Okay. That's like that's kind of silly. Prima facia.
Jesse: Yes. It is really silly. Right. Like it doesn't it. It is very silly. Right. Like and you can kind of like the other thing is like I think there's a thing too, where norms around bullshit are much stronger in the white collar world. Right. And sort of so white collar people like parents of, of kids going to those schools, they go okay, like, I'm going to take this thing, this idea that I read about Merv 13 filters, which like the difference in Merv 13 versus Merv 11, which is effectively the next step down, is really high, right? Like Merv 11? Probably. I think it's like less than 50% effective or what we think against droplets. Right.
Aaron: And then.
Jesse: Okay. Yeah. You end up you end up jumping from like half to 90% or over 90% as you go with Merv 13. Right. You could probably look this up. Yeah. But like so that jump was very significant. And most people don't have Merv 11 filters even though they have Merv eight or some other like. So essentially the filtration in most systems is like zero, right? So the parents parents or whoever would go to the facilities people and they'd say, hey, can you put this in? And they'd say, no, you can't because the equipment can't handle the pressure. Right? And that would be like the end of the conversation, basically. And then maybe the parents would go online and like bemoan this, and hopefully someone caught it and said like, hey. So the other thing was that like, it's mandatory when you have a piece of equipment that you've installed to measure static pressure, right, like the the manufacturer will say most times they'll say you must measure static pressure unless they have some external thing which that measures it for you, which they mostly don't have. Right. So you would say something like, okay, did they measure static pressure. And then whoever it was would say yes. And then you'd say, okay, take a picture and show me the holes you drilled to measure static pressure. Right. Which is like I was really used to doing that kind of stuff in bullshit environments, right? Like you want to do that kind of thing. You'd be like, okay, sure, show me the holes, right? If you can show me the holes where you drilled for static pressure, show me how you did it. In most cases, people making the claim literally don't know how to measure static pressure. Like, which is kind of like a basic HVAC piece of knowledge that you're supposed to.
Aaron: I don't know how to. I don't know how to know.
Jesse: Yeah, but if someone if you are given a set of instructions and like one of the final steps of the instructions is to, like turn on a piece of equipment and measure static pressure like this is your job, right? Like this is.
Aaron: Solidly.
Jesse: In your bailiwick. Right. So this kind of thing. So like this. And also this is totally unsurprising to me because I've already gone through like at this point, Covid hits like I've gone through ten years of bullshit, right? Like being bullshitted regularly. Like I have all these kind of, like, workarounds when I'm in the field for, like, managing this problem either, like making someone, like, not bullshit me anymore or just in most cases, just doing it myself.
Aaron: Yeah. Wow. Oh, man. There's so much. So one a lot, a lot of directions to go in. do you have a sense of, like, what? The fun. Any of the, like, more fundamental causes of this are? Because I just, like, imagine like there are some parts of like, the industrial American economy that are just, like, very competent and like, do you, do you like, have a good sense about, like what sets those apart from like your experience?
Jesse: Yeah. No, it's a great question. Like so. And then the other thing is like I think people sometimes get this case confused, right? They think that I'm doing this thing that I'm not doing. Like, I agree with you. Like you, the default is almost high levels of confidence. Like you talk to people who whatever like Program. Program stuff, right? They'll they'll inevitably bitch about their colleagues, right? Like they're like, oh, everybody around me is so incompetent. And then it's like, it's like two people or something like that in an office at ten. And like, of course, like this is like and mostly they can fulfill. They're just kind of shirking. They can fulfill like what I'm saying is very different. I'm saying the trades are somewhat bad. I think they are worse at competence than like currently than the white collar world. Right. And you see this reflected like I, I this is not my area of expertise. But you see like productivity numbers I don't think like so construction has no productivity gains on a per worker basis since the 1970s. Right. People interpret this to like they have a regulatory argument here. And I think the regulatory argument is pretty good. But I also think it's partly explained by sort of declining caliber of individuals. Right. So I think partly what's happening is the thing that we talked about earlier where there's this kind of like default expectation. Now, I don't know this empirically. And so like I want to say very specifically, this could be completely wrong. Right. Like I could be completely wrong with this. But my suspicion is that partly a society that's gone from like, you know, in, I think in the same time period of like where you're measuring productivity losses, like 15% of kids to like 40 to 50% of kids attending college, construction like, is damaged by having all the smart kids attend college, in part. Right.
Aaron: There's not many. There's not that many. Jesse's.
Jesse: I don't know necessarily if that's the case, but yeah, like so I think part of it is that there are some other things though, too. Like I argue that within the trades that HVAC is uniquely bad. Part of that is because the cognitive demands are higher. Right? So there is no doubt that in HVAC the cognitive demands are higher than other trades, right? And I think people find that surprising. I think if you say like, okay, my guess is I hate okay. So like, just to be clear, I hate IQ discourse. Like I think it's detestable. Like, I think it's I think it's a really like I think there's some stuff there that's real. Right. And I yeah. Like I'm not disputing like I don't think people are blank slates. I think there's probably a genetic component to IQ. I think, you know, all these other things like yeah, yeah. But like the worst people in the world are talking incessantly about IQ. Right. Like the worst.
Aaron: I agree with.
Jesse: Most racist people are are extremely hung up on IQ. But I do think there's a thing probably where like it could be that being a good HVAC technician demands an IQ that's, you know, at least the kind of like median IQ of like it could be that it needs a 100 IQ. And there's just this, this is horrible. Like this is I should not talk about this, but there it could just be that the median entrant has an IQ of like that's ten points or five points less than what's actually required to fulfill the demands of the job, right?
Aaron: You know that. For what it's worth, I mean, I'm a very I feel like I'm not the person to judge what the reaction to this is going to be, but like, this sounds totally reasonable and plausible to me.
Jesse: Yeah. Well, yes, but I like I want to be careful with it. Like.
Aaron: Yeah. Like I'm not.
Jesse: I'm not like I'm not broadly endorsing like IQ discourse, like the horrible cesspit of like IQ discourse. But I do think there like I think people end up in these roles, and they, it's just that the they're being outpaced by the stuff. And then there's this like, you know, maybe it would work if you had a kind of institutional discipline where you're like, okay, yes, this is your life now. Like, we're doing this thing no matter what your capacities are, we're going to pull you up. And I think the industry is sort of like in somewhat indifferent to this. Like they kind of like the tolerance for fraud. And grifting is extremely high. The tolerance for were dishonesty. Like you could potentially build an it's like something that was, you know, not great cognitively but had very strong norms around honesty. And you don't end up with that. Like, yeah. So it's just really bad. And you don't see that like, you, you don't see that nearly as much with carpentry. Right? You don't see that nearly as much with with other trades. Right. In my opinion.
Aaron: I mean, there's a bunch of bunch of things. it's like my first reaction is, okay, like, this sounds like a problem the market should solve. Like, you should be, you should be having like, some entrepreneur. And maybe at some point I'll get to that. My case for you trying to trying to beat this person, but like, you should, yeah. Like have some entrepreneur saying okay, like I'm going to like, like explain the issue and like, raise wages such that, like the most talented, potentially cognitively talented people are going to, like, be in my business and I'm going to say like, oh, are you like a rich hedge fund? Like, we'll make your office air quality like excellent or whatever. and so like my question is like why that dynamic hasn't worked or proliferated.
Jesse: Well, I think that's a great question. It's one of the things I talk about. One of the things I talk about is that, so like, that guy also doesn't get a good HVAC system, right? Like, and to me, this like, demonstrates in weekly demonstrates that there's actually an endemic problem, right? So when people do like really bougie HVAC, it tends to just expand the grift a little bit. So they end up with like UV lights that we know empirically do nothing. Right. Not that you this is not an indictment of UV generally, but like the things that we're installing in HVAC systems, we just we just know that the most common devices right now are not sort of scientifically validated in any way, and airflow is probably much too fast for them to be successful. Right? And it's also noteworthy that, like most people working in UV, taking it seriously very quickly abandoned like inductive as an effective means to like, end up with like a material impact on viral transmission. Right. But those guys will buy that stuff like they're they're buying it hook, line and sinker. They're buying other things that are like oh, how can I break it down? Like the really common thing to see in cold climates was. So there's this bullshit statement that boilers produce wet heat. So a boiler is a device that heats water and then circulate it. It's common to the northeast as you get like further up. Right. So like in areas that didn't have kind of default in cooling systems like Vermont. Right. Vermont has a ton of boilers and they just distribute hot water through baseboards usually. Right. Or maybe in floor loops or things like this. Right. So so people describe these as having as being a wet heat. Right? Which is just fucking meaningless garbage. Like it just has no meaning, right? Like, the boiler doesn't release water. It's just.
Aaron: That's what it sounds like. It's like. Like as a layperson, I would imagine. Oh, it's like. It's like hot air that's also humid. Like, that's what I imagine.
Jesse: Right? You imagine this, these characteristics. Right. And so then they would end up like and there are benefits to boiler systems. Like having warm feet is an advantage. But like when you go into these systems that are super bougie, it's just people start connecting boilers to air handlers and then blowing air across a boiler coil. And this ends up being like thousands and thousands of dollars extra. Right. And it has no advantage over a furnace, which is just a device that blows hot air, right? Yeah. Like you end up with like just reams and reams of like pseudoscientific garbage or multiple zoning systems, which in principle should work but then tend to catastrophically fail, like at a really high rate, like so people are like, oh, I'm going to take my air conditioner. I'm going to like, chop it into these tiny zones so I can achieve whatever temperature I want in every single room individually, right? And those like catastrophic. Like I'll be going to a job on Tuesday. That is almost definitely one of those systems having catastrophically failed for like a super rich person, right? We end up doing like a fair bit of that kind of stuff through around Princeton, right?
Aaron: Yeah, yeah. So man, that's. Yeah. That's interesting. So interesting man. I feel like I always want to you're going to say no, but we've had this discussion before. Like I will yell at you to like, try to make $1 billion.
Jesse: Yeah. Like, I don't like I don't know, like, it is interesting. Oh, yeah. Sorry. And the other thing I want to talk about was the effect of like that. So it could be true that people end up in like, if you're smart, right, you end up in like on the bubble jobs that just pay a lot more like HVAC sales is actually insane. Like it's actually an insane. So like when we're talking about like, oh, blue collar jobs don't pay that much, right? There's also this filter in which the smart blue collar people tend to end up either in training or sales. Right. And salesmen just like. So it's like there are some companies, HVAC sales companies that if you are less than 150 K a year, you're probably fired because your numbers are just too low. Wow. Right. So they're like, you know, they'll be like 7 to 10% commission. And if you're bringing in less than a million and a half, then they're like, I'm sorry, you're on the chopping block. Like you just have to be bringing in 2 million as a minimum, ideally 3 or 4. Right? There are 3 or 4 B starts becoming exceptional, but there are lots of like like production companies built around this. They don't want people to be less than a million, right. Like that's just totally unacceptable. You're just on the chopping block. So I think partly what happens is that anybody with who's articulate and smart tends to gravitate towards those types of jobs because they're just so much more lucrative. And it's interesting to me that also, like, they're still pretty dumb right? Like, like it's interesting because, like, you could talk to people who do, like, you know, with graduate degrees in engineering and it's not like I don't know where the ceiling is, but it's like, not that much higher than the HVAC sales ceiling, right?
Aaron: Yeah.
Jesse: Like, if you've got a good a graduate degree from a good college in the United States in engineering, like there's a good chance that you might go towards some kind of technical sales. Yeah. And it doesn't appear to be that much better than HVAC sales, which I find kind of interesting. Like, I know, I know people who make, you know, like 3 to 5, right. That's a shock. Like, to me anyway. Like, I don't make that much money. Like, that's a very high amount of money in my world.
Aaron: 300 to 500,000, to be clear. Yeah. Yes. Okay.
Jesse: Yeah. To me, that's a lot, right? Yeah.
Aaron: Yes. Likewise.
Jesse: Right. And somewhat like. And to be honest, like some of those guys come from real trades. Like some of those guys can't put together a spreadsheet, right? Like it's insane. So.
Aaron: Yeah. Wait. Okay, so this is interesting. So, I guess like one. Yeah. From like, the capitalism perspective, it's like, what are you trying to sell? Like is one issue that like consumers, whether whether like individuals or just like, businesses can't really tell the can't easily tell the difference. Like I have an indoor air quality monitor. Like would I be able to like, see the difference between like a good HVAC installation in my apartment and a bad one, like based on. Yes. Okay, okay.
Jesse: Yeah you would, but you're also in the minority of people who are are, like, watching this, like I push. Yeah. You know, like the air things view. Plus I push people all the time on now. Right. Like that's an incredible nice. And so it also frames directions. Yeah. Like if someone calls me and it's just a call, I'm like, try to get an air things before I go to your house. Right. Like if you have any concerns about indoor air quality really they.
Aaron: Should sponsor you. They should sponsor pitch an hour.
Jesse: No, seriously. Right. Like it's insane. Like I've probably sold like, off of, like, I've probably got people to buy air things off Amazon. Like, I don't know, many, many people have bought those devices and some of them like I'm like I'm like like I'm totally Mr. Poverty. Like I'm like, oh, you know, maybe you can share it with a friend or someone else who's interested, and then they'll buy like two just for them like, you know, so it's like.
Aaron: Yeah, there's, there's I feel like the kind of person who, like, cares enough, cares a lot about indoor air quality is like usually willing to spend $200 to like, measure it or it's like usually not the constraint or something. No. That's interesting.
Jesse: Yeah. And also that I think there's probably a case. Right. Like radon alone looks really bad and I think I don't know for sure. Like but to me everything's view plus looked like the first consumer facing radon that measured it in real time. Right. And that was like to me that looked like an incredible breakthrough. Right. Like I, I don't recall something prior to that that was like I mean, it probably existed, but like, yeah, like The View Plus just looked like knocking out of the park. Radon kills a lot of people. Radon kills a lot of people. I think there's probably a justification for like based on the economics of the thing to for people to buy these. Right. Like at 300, it's right now they list for like 300 bucks on Amazon. Right? When they're not on sale like 300 bucks. If you can materially take action to reduce radon levels, that alone looks pretty good. And we've done that right. Like we've found radon in quite a few cases. Like also there's a there's a weird thing where people so when when you buy a house usually the I, I don't know if it's the state law or the lender, but you're generally required to measure radon, right, as part of the terms. And then if you discover something you go back to the seller. But the seller, it's usually while the seller is in the house. So if they're like halfway savvy and evil, which for some reason, selling a house makes a very sizable fraction of people completely sociopathic, Right. Like so. They'll just open all their windows, right? Which is incredibly unethical. Like incredibly bad, right? But I'm almost positive it happens all the time because I always encourage people to get a radon test. Like for years before The View. Plus I was like someone would say, oh, I bought the house. Radon tested fine, and I would just say, get a, get another run, another radon test, right? Like for years I said that and now I just say get a view plus. Right. But there have been many surprises in houses where people have done gotten a view plus or gotten a second radon test. Right.
Aaron: So this is like, this is actually like, like encouraging because back in the day, of FTX being supplying infinite money to a certain set of people who are like, aligned with effective altruism. I asked for a grant to basically give out these devices. I got turned down, which is like, I think maybe fine, but like maybe now, maybe like if this is like maybe now the grant like the grant makers would have like, listened to this episode and said like, wow, Aaron. Like you're were actually really prescient. We should have given you $30,000 to give these to whoever you need.
Jesse: That's really funny. Yeah. So, like, for radon specifically, one can come up with like, you could easily come up with a couple of criteria for, for determining whether it's more likely. Right. Like the presence of a basement. Right. Or a substantial below grade foundation would predict that the presence of an HVAC system in the basement also predicts also predicts it. Right. And there's a lot of interaction. This is totally overlooked, but there's a lot of interaction between the HVAC system and radon that people don't like. Totally understand that. I also have had worked on for many years before The View Plus. Right? So yeah, so you end up like with a lot of depressurized foundations where the depressurization is induced by the equipment that's located in the basement. And so that's pretty bad. Those are two kind of like major predictors. yeah. So you could narrow I radon.
Aaron: Yeah. Yeah.
Jesse: Radon. So you could potentially limit this further. It's it is interesting. You know, like also publicly. Right. In the pandemic, I was very surprised that CO2 didn't take off in kind of restaurants and things like that. I was very surprised. I was confidently predicting in like late spring of 2020 to my wife. I was like, when we go out in restaurants, they're going to be CO2 monitors, like everywhere. There's just going to be CO2 monitors. People are just, I said, like, I can remember being like finally, honey, CO2 is a proxy. The time is here. Like CO2 is a proxy. Like had been widely used. Like it was like kind of like office buildings. I worked in a place that had they didn't, like, brought in the ventilation system, like cycled on and off to CO2 levels much higher, like back in the day, like, you know, whatever. Four years ago. Five years ago, it was like 1200 PM was the yeah was the cycling default. So they just tried to keep it like below 1200. And then by the time Covid like mid Covid it was like I think people initially were eight and then maybe six or something like that. Right.
Aaron: Yeah. Just just to be clear. So proxy for just like air quality in general, like including in a pandemic, the potential for viral stuff or.
Jesse: Yeah. So I think proxy for like respiratory disease transmission.
Aaron: Oh okay. Okay.
Jesse: Right. So people people have talked about that for years. Right. yeah. Maybe you could say proxy for occupancy levels or something. Right. But nah, probably not. Probably more like disease transmission risk. It's not clean, right. Like it's not like. But that was like how people talked about it with CO2 as a proxy, right? It's not clean. Like maybe people are sick. Maybe they're not sick. So maybe you're just exhaling there or sorry.
Aaron: There's also that the potential direct effects of CO2, which I know is like kind of controversial.
Jesse: Yes. Yes. Slightly controversial. My guess is it's better to think of it as a proxy for like a bunch of other things. And we just happen to be measuring CO2. Like, it could be, you know, it could be other things as well as disease transmission risk. It's not clear. Sitting in a room with elevated CO2 you know, if you're when you're by yourself, it probably doesn't there. Maybe there's some cognitive effects, you know, and maybe those aren't directly CO2. They could be some other thing. But like.
Aaron: Yeah yeah yeah.
Jesse: Like it's not. Yeah. That's less clear. But as a as a risk for like I think it's a pretty good way to think about under ventilated spaces. There's a trade off there with filtration as well. So like that got difficult people I think there was initially a lot of pushback on using CO2 because there were potentially school interventions. So like when people are talking about opening school, there were potentially school interventions where you'd go in and just like filter school classrooms like crazy, and they had no window and no access to ventilation. And we were like, yeah, that's probably okay. But if we put a CO2 monitor there, the CO2 would be really high, right? But the net result of not making things transparent was and this wasn't obviously the solitary contributor, but in not doing that right, like in refusing to adopt CO2 monitors widely like we didn't open schools. Right. Yeah.
Aaron: Yeah. Wait. So sorry, what what's the trade off between CO2 stuff and filtration? Like they seem to. Yeah. Can you explain that?
Jesse: Yeah, sure. So when you filter air. Right, you're just recycling it, right? You can't filter out CO2, right?
Aaron: Right right right, right.
Jesse: When you're running a filter, you're just you assuming that the filter is as effective as replacing the air with fresh air at reducing disease transmission. And that's probably pretty close to correct. Right. So filtered rooms, assuming the same volume of air of clean air is filtered, they probably have the same transmission risk as a room in which we're just replacing that same air. Right. Ventilation versus filtration.
Aaron: Yeah.
Jesse: So there was hesitance to make this transparent. Like people didn't want to distribute CO2 monitors across across classrooms, like in the early summer of 2020. Right? Or through the late summer. And they didn't want to do this, right. Because they thought, oh, that's going to be confusing. And then like, you know, they didn't really go back to school anyway, right? Like it just kind of didn't materialize. I was very much in the pro transparency camp for this stuff. Yeah.
Aaron: Yeah yeah.
Jesse: Yeah. And I continue to be surprised at the lack of public facing CO2 monitors.
Aaron: I mean, also like notoriously like us spends a lot of money on public education. Like one one $300 device per classroom would not break the bank of most public school systems, as far as I know.
Jesse: Yes, that and also like it was weird, right? Because I think parents easily would have done that. Like the cost of parents alone was probably really high, right? So I think like the whole thing I found bizarre, like I found it truly bizarre. And then and, you know, like I sent my kids in with CO2 monitors, not the view. Plus what was the the right? Like I said, I emailed my son's teacher and he was like this is incredible. Like, I can't believe that there are. Solutions like there are engineering based solutions to this problem had not occurred to him. And this was like months like this was well into the fall. Like I forget when school was partly open, but it was probably like November when they were going back to school like two days a week or something, right? And he he had never he had never considered that there could be, you know, solutions that were engineering based to addressing this.
Aaron: Yeah. Yeah. That's wild. And going back to the ventilation thing. So, the trade off. So like, the, the best of both worlds is just you pipe in fresh air, like, and then maybe you circulate internally, right? Like, you might want to also, like, have a, have a standalone filter. So like maybe it's. Yeah, maybe I don't fully understand like why there's necessarily a trade off or is it just like.
Jesse: You would have, you would have had classrooms in which you couldn't, you didn't have a window. I think this is I think this is probably somewhat rare. Right. So if you can open a window, you're probably fine, even if the window itself passively doesn't let in enough air. You could just put a fan in the window and now you'll just start driving.
Aaron: Yeah, that's what I, that's what I, I personally well I used to now I have an AC thing but that's what I used to do. I used to have a fan blowing either in or out like of a window to like. Yeah.
Jesse: So, so yeah, you could, you could if you have a class. So the counterargument was there may be some classrooms where there is neither ventilation nor a window. Right. And in those classrooms we'll have to filter. Right. I think this might describe a very small number of classrooms. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Like, have you ever been in a window?
Aaron: Right. Yeah. Yeah. Like, maybe there's a few in, like, a basement in college, but, like, it's just not that common.
Jesse: Not common. Right. Like, it also felt like you could probably, like, get out of that somehow, right? You could move to a library or something or whatever, right? Like, yeah. Yeah, there was just there was some there were classes eventually held outdoors. Right. Like, and that obviously would have been like massively successful for Covid purposes. Right. A little bit over the top. But like, you know in, in like September it's fine. But like yeah. So that that was one of the counterarguments. And so like people there was a common argument against displaying CO2 to room occupants because it might confuse them. And you'd have to explain the filtration thing.
Aaron: Oh, God. I mean, I feel like there's like this this version of argument gets like, made in a lot of different settings, just like don't don't measure and or provide people like true information because of x, Y and z. And like it's not literally impossible that this never checks out, but I'm always so skeptical of it. I mean, like, one thing is like blood testing. Like, I feel like, yeah, if I could have a continuous blood monitor for like all my biomarkers, it's like, yes, like that would turn up some like quote unquote false positives, but like you can just account for that. And like in general knowing like more true information tends to be better.
Jesse: Yeah. I mean, I think in this case, like I can't speak to the, the biomarkers thing because I probably don't know enough about it. But like in this case, I think, well, yes, I think the default assumption should be we should just be honest and transparent with people where possible. Right. Like like, you know, there are just many examples of this like just endless, right? Like not wanting to cause a panic is another one, right?
Aaron: Like yeah yeah yeah yeah.
Jesse: Right. Like we don't want to give people true information about what this could be because we don't want to cause a panic. Right. Like that seems that seems really weak. yeah. Yeah. So but a lot of it seems to center even. I think the, the CO2 thing sort of centers around, like, we don't want to make people alarmed, right? I don't know what the next step in this is like what people do when they're alarmed. Right. Like they might, like, retaliate in some way.
Aaron: Yeah. I mean, I don't know, I don't I feel like it's not gonna I can't imagine like, people rioting because there's like a little air monitor on the on the, on the like side of the room.
Jesse: Right, right. And there were like, you know, and as it stood like, I think like, I mean, people talk about this a lot, right? Like with Covid, I think that was like, you know, obviously a huge failure. I, I think to some extent there's some things going on that people like maybe they overrate. Like there wasn't a lot there was transparency. Wasn't as good as it could have been. There's some other stuff though, too. Where to be fair. So that was an argument given by people in public health. So I feel confident in saying like, I think that was a false argument that was advanced by people who should have had the expertise to, like, do that effectively. I think there's another thing in Covid that people do where they go, like the playgrounds were closed, right? And I like I don't think the playgrounds being closed in all of those cases represents like the consensus view of public health. I think it represents like a kind of like.
Aaron: I got you, I would say.
Jesse: Like a narrow minded, like petty bureaucrat somewhere.
Aaron: Yeah. It's the kind of thing where, like, if you're shutting down all of the county's buildings, it's like that's technically on the checklist of, like, things to shut down. Yeah.
Jesse: Right. Right. Exactly like the beaches, right? Like people go, why did they close the beaches? Like, public health is just science is wrong about. And you're like, well, in the beach case, like, I'm like, that just looks like something where, like somebody got a hold of something and and like like it doesn't, it doesn't reflect this other thing. Right? Like this thing of.
Aaron: Like.
Jesse: The science being wrong. Right. So I, I'm cautious with I'm cautious with the argument in some areas. Right. Because I think it's like people over, over make, make it too much. Right. Like it wasn't like a consensus perspective, let's say. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Funny.
Aaron: Yeah. And interesting. okay. So wait, so we got here from like, okay, why isn't the market solving the AC or HVAC, which stands for hold on because I didn't know this at one point, so I will I'm sorry. Yeah. This is going to get me canceled among among Jesse's colleagues since we're heating ventilation and air conditioning in case. In case I'm not the only one. There we go. Okay.
Jesse: Yes.
Aaron: so if we got if we we subsidized air monitors, would that have the downstream consequence of fixing the competence in HVAC, HVAC.
Jesse: Yes. So I think generally making many things transparent would be extremely useful. And that's one of the things. Now in general. Right. Like the focal point for people purchasing HVAC services. Right. Isn't always indoor air quality, right. So but yeah that would go a long way. I it's a big ask right. Like, you know it takes a level of technical sophistication that's high. But I think like I pushed for this in many areas. Right. So not just indoor air quality but like installation standards right now. Like we just have the capacity to make installation standards transparent because so much is recorded. Right. Like we just have like temperature and pressure in various forms being recorded. It's the most kind of central thing to HVAC installations. Right. And so we can't we have this information that we're able to provide digitally to people. And then we just don't do it right. Like yeah, they don't know that it exists and we don't tell them. Right.
Aaron: So yeah like I'm so I like where would I go to find this information for like I have an apartment. Like what.
Jesse: Oh it's really hard to do. So like, you won't ever be given the information. Like so when we install, let's say we install an air conditioner, right? One of the things with an air conditioner is that it? So you have refrigerant moving through piping, right. And that's a big part of of like air conditioning. Right. And so there are a few things that should happen with that piping. And it's actually it's actually a very diligent process that has to be followed. Right. One is that we want to pressurize the system, which is partly to test for leaks and then partly to purge it with, with nitrogen. Right. So we pressurize the system with nitrogen to ensure that there are no leaks. It's a very high pressure, maybe like we do like 500 psi, right? When we do that test at 500 psi. That is something that we can record. So we can record any loss of pressure to the system if we pressurize it. Right. And we can just we'll just have a digital file. That file could be consumer facing. Right. That would be very simple to do. Then we release the nitrogen and we do what's called an evacuation. Right. So we draw the system to a very very low pressure to get any like any impurities out of the system and also ensure that it doesn't leak a second time. Right.
Aaron: Yeah.
Jesse: Back. That's called a vacuum test. Right. And so we put it under a vacuum and we hold that vacuum for some period of time. So both of those could be made transparent with incredible ease. Right. And this would solve like okay. So one of the things that's happening with global warming is refrigerant has a very high global warming potential. We're phasing out, one refrigerant right now and going with a somewhat lower global warming potential. Right. And so like what appears to be happening is we have endemic leaking of refrigerant, and much of the gains of electric electrification are being clawed back by leaking refrigerant in systems. Right. And that's really bad. Right. So like, we have this policy direction that's like, oh, we have to do this thing, right? But we have, like endemic leaking refrigerant problems that are clawing back the gains of electrification. So everybody converts to heat pumps, but heat pumps require refrigerant, and then we leak the refrigerant and then we kind of lose the game.
Aaron: So I'm an idiot. Is refrigerant generally a liquid or a gas?
Jesse: It's both.
Aaron: Okay.
Jesse: Right. So it's actually doing a thing. So it's not an idiot. It's like it's you're making refrigerant is making a phase change. Well, two phase change.
Aaron: Well, that makes sense.
Jesse: Yes. Yes it does. Right.
Aaron: Okay, there we go. So you have this very smart.
Jesse: You have this kind of process that's like, really bad and would likely be fixed by that. I have a couple of other ideas like the adoption. There's a new technology that both technicians and the industry fails to adopt called a like a press, like it's a press tool that crimps fittings versus like either flares which are very finicky, or brazing, which is not quite as bad, but still sometimes pretty bad. So the the HVAC industry refuses to adopt press fittings as well. So now, like very little is compatible with press fittings, in the field. So you have to kind of like cut stuff off and make press fittings, which is also really bad. But yeah, so you have these things where like you can just measure things. And if you made that transparent to customers, like they would just get the digital file and it would prove that the system at the time of installation was free of impurities and not leaking. Right. And it's totally weird to me that this has like no traction, like it has no traction whatsoever. Right? Like nobody anybody making the digital platforms knows that technicians, even if they want to use the digital platforms, will not want to show those platforms to their customers, right?
Aaron: Yeah. Yeah. It's like it can't, it can't it can't only benefit you as a or like not immediately as a provider I guess potentially it could. Right. Because like you could say like I'm going to provide this service that my competitors aren't, but like, people don't really know about it. yeah. No, I mean, like, I'm a huge I collect data on, like, everything I possibly can. So, like, I want to know. I want to know all this stuff, like about like my, like, environment, like health, like whatever. But, like, I feel like most people aren't like that.
Jesse: Yeah. And it's also weird because like, okay, so the blower door, which we mentioned earlier, right. So in 2010 when we started doing energy retrofits, they I was like, this is the coolest thing ever because we got like a couple blower doors and those test homes for leakage. Right? You put a big fan in the front door, you test the home before you start the work, right? You depressurize the home to like -50 pascals relative to the outdoors, and you measure the airflow across the fan. It's very slick. Like you can do this like I got it down to like five minutes or something, right? Wow. Like I can could test out in, like, five minutes. You set up this fan very fast, right? And then at the end of the job, you would also test the home, right? And you would see what kind of leakage reduction you'd gotten at the time, too. I had read. Adil Gawande, who I really liked, like, I really liked. He wrote a lot, I think, for The New Yorker. And he had some like it wasn't super empirical, but he had, a book on testing. And so, like, I was especially enamored of the idea of, like benchmarking. And then so the people working for me and I was in the field a lot then, and we just like went to work on taking these numbers down. Right. And like, even now, like I have a guy who like, I post the pics of the blower door sometimes in this like long Twitter thread I have. But like, you know, they went out to a job last Thursday. They spent a day there. They reduced leakage in the home by like I think it was like 26 or 27%. That's really typical, right? Like 1 to 2 guys will reduce leakage in the home. Working in an attic and like by like, you know, somewhere between 20 and 30% is pretty routine. Sometimes they'll get like 50 or 60 even, right? So like that kind of stuff was super motivating. Like we worked really hard to figure out, like what was working best. And the same thing is true of like, if someone gives you this digital file and you're like okay, how quickly can I make this number go down? Right?
Aaron: Or yeah, yeah.
Jesse: Right. Like it's very like I found that like kind of like kind of intrinsically motivating. Right? Like where you're like I just have this number and I want to hit it as fast as possible or whatever. Right?
Aaron: The economy tends to be very good at optimizing for changing numbers, either either higher or lower. Right. If you could get some sort of price on that, that the problem is that there's not like I would guess you're not economically capturing it like all like that value that you're like, you could just do like a worse job on reducing that number and like you would get paid the same amount, right?
Jesse: Yes. Correct. Yeah. That's absolutely correct. Yeah. That's true. Yeah. The incentives aren't like they're not great. But nevertheless like there's an intrinsic quality to doing it like like that. I felt that was like, oh man. And also speed like speed was definitely part of it because you make more money if you go fast, but also that you could be like give, like just send the owner two pics at the end of the job. Like you take a picture of the the little computer, the manometer at the start of the job and then you take it after, right? My guys do this. This is what they do systematically every time they hit a job, right? Like yeah. And like yeah, sure. Like it's maybe slightly against the incentives, but at the same time, you know, like we partly came up with systems like invented the systems for retrofitting buildings. We've done like, I think over 2000 retrofits in in like insulation type retrofits in homes. Right. Like it's a lot and like, it's also weird because like, everybody kind of reports like, I don't think there's anyone in our league for like those reductions. Right. And that's also weird because it wasn't like rocket science, you know?
Aaron: Yeah. Okay, so why aren't you richer? Sorry. Maybe we'll cut this part out. No, but. Okay. Sorry. I feel like that was a very autistic way of asking the question. Like, you have all this insight, and there's a gigantic market which is, like the United States of America is probably willing to spend quite a bit of money on air quality. How can I convince you to become a billionaire?
Jesse: Yeah, I don't know. Like, it's a difficult market, right. For. Well it's not, I don't know. Yeah. No, it's a good question. It's fair. Like, you know, partly like time. Right? And like, how much time am I prepared to put into this stuff? Like.
Aaron: That's, like, totally reasonable. Yeah.
Jesse: Yeah. Like I spent a lot of time doing other stuff. Right. So. But, like, you know. Yeah, we, I guess we could be a little more financially successful. We are doing more things like, we're we. It's taken a long time because I wanted to feel technically like really good about it, but we are adding, you know, HVAC stuff at rate like we encounter the same problem like anybody encounters, right? Which is like it's really hard to get technicians who are. Yeah like kind of committed and that type of stuff. It's hard to scale the business.
Aaron: You want to you want to plug your companies like their names and your websites.
Jesse: Oh yeah. I'm sure. Yeah, yeah. So like, my company is called Tay River Builders. the wood store I also own, which you haven't mentioned yet, is called Willard Brothers, which Willard brothers, you should search on Instagram because my youngest brother runs a really good Instagram page for our wood store and furniture shop and sawmill and kiln. Tay River is kind of my side of things. one of my other brothers runs the carpentry and building construction, and I do. I manage the insulation air sealing guys and then do the HVAC.
Aaron: So I will, I will link, I will give you as much advertising as possible. I will link this and my all all seven people listening to this. Well we'll see.
Jesse: Yeah. Exactly. Yeah it's cool.
Aaron: No no I wasn't I wasn't meaning to say like wow. Like you should be making you should really be squeezing their business out for another like 10%. I guess I was really wondering, like. yeah. Like, why are you just, like, literally the only person in the world and like, you were like, with, like the combination of like knowledge insight, experience, etc. who could like, like who could potentially try to like, create like a large industrial, I don't know, like, scale things up, like three orders of magnitude if that makes any sense.
Jesse: Yeah. That's interesting. So that is not super uncommon. Like it's not uncommon to have mixed residential and commercial HVAC companies that are doing say 50 to 100 million. It's not super common, right. But that's what the private equity wave has bought a ton of those sorts of companies. Like I am in a weird position like I'll acknowledge like I'm in a weird position because most of the people who think about things the way that I do Don't stay in the field for as long as I have.
Aaron: Maybe that makes a lot of a lot of sense.
Jesse: Yeah. They like they transition. Like I have friends who you know, inasmuch as they're similar to I am. Yeah. Which they probably are. Right. They teach one of my friends is pretty high up with ACA, which sets standard Air Conditioning Contractors of America set right standards. He does a lot of teaching a class that is targeted towards other like trainers. Right. other friends work for like utility or clean energy programs.
Aaron: yeah. Cool.
Jesse: It's not common for people to stay in the field, which I think partly speaks to the like norms. Right? Like you get into the field and you, you know, you are sort of like really constantly swimming against the current, even like another like one of the better texts text. I knew who didn't work for me, but worked for another big company and was like a true standout, right? he just took a job like maybe a year ago, representing, like a a Chinese, like, mini split heat pump manufacturer like. And he, he worked for a long time in the field, in all fairness.
Aaron: But yeah.
Jesse: It's just not that common in the. And that's also a distinction between other trades. Like you see there are many like there are many standout people framing houses. Right. Like you can find many examples of people and they're going and they're circulating in trade shows. It's pretty hard to like there is a weeding out thing. People just don't stay in the field. Maybe I could probably come up with a couple examples, but it does seem, I mean, somewhat rare.
Aaron: I mean, maybe one other thing. Just like people really don't like doing entrepreneurship. Like it like it requires like, a lot of risk tolerance and like a lot of initiative. It's like I'm imagining like the person you just mentioned, like the standout tech or whatever like in principle could have tried to start a competitor to you, right? But like, people don't like doing that.
Jesse: that's yes. That's true. Yeah. I think there is an aversion like it's a different it's definitely a different skill set, whatever it is like of the many high volume companies, many of which have been acquired by private equity, the technical sophistication of those companies is shockingly poor.
Aaron: Like, wow.
Jesse: It is crazy. And I know a lot of them, right? Like, like I've had meetings with them like we do some of their work like it is you will constantly like it's almost like I have a friend who does this like sales for another company. And it's pretty like all we do is laugh all the time, like it's just a wave. It's just wave after wave of just incredibly dumb things being said constantly. Like like hysterically. Right? Like just a complete lack of understanding of anything whatsoever. Like, it is really quite funny. A lot of the time.
Aaron: Wow. So I'm not going to lie, I am kind of running out of steam, so we might have to have a part. Part. I feel like there's. So you could provide honestly like dozens and dozens of hours of podcast content. so this this might have to be approximately part one.
Jesse: Yeah, I actually have to run to I got to get back, knock out some stuff. That's cool.
Aaron: Do you want to give a, like, a last message for for part, part one of an hour with Jesse.
Jesse: I'm like, happy to do this. Yeah. It was. This was really fun. I like I it's cool to think that this in some way overlaps with EA.
Aaron: So. Yeah. Awesome. Awesome. Well thank you. Thank you so much.
Jesse: Thanks, Aaron. I'll talk to you later.
Aaron: See ya.
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