Highlights
Clown is not what you think it is
Lyss admitted she saw "clown instructor" in Jeremy's background and assumed circus. Jeremy traced the lineage instead: the Heyoka figure in pre-civilization societies, whose job was to reflect a community's absurdity back at it (shivering through a heat wave, hut by hut), then the Italian Renaissance archetypes, then Chaplin and Marceau, and only much later Barnum & Bailey's big shoes. What he's actually interested in is "the disarming of an audience" and what that reveals about people.
$5,000 Bitcoin and a walk in the park
Jeremy's crypto on-ramp was a notification on an old Coinbase app during the March 2020 crash: cheaper than what he'd paid, felt like a buy, no money to act. He started DCAing $10 a day by the end of 2020, accumulated ETH under $1,500, and then had to decide whether to spend any of it when VeeFriends minted at $4,000+ ETH.
Reverse-engineering Gary to win a scholarship — and failing 36:37
His plan was to apply Gary's content model to the VeeFriends community until he got handed the scholarship NFT. He didn't make the second round, posted a pleading video doing the round-two assignment anyway, and got a gracious "I can't change the rules for you." He just never stopped posting. A random Sunday in late 2022, VeeFriends president Andy caught his live show-prep-into-podcast stream and decided it was time 38:07.
"I wake up, I vibe code"
Asked what community and concierge actually means day to day, Jeremy delivered a deadpan loop of vibe coding, calendar, vibe coding, email, vibe coding, before admitting the whole year has been consumed by it. He's built ~25 Dune queries, internal tools, and seven-ish apps, with the honest math: six to eight hours building an app to save two hours a week, which he thinks is an incredible trade.
The partner conversation nobody has 56:05
His wife isn't in Web3 and didn't know who Gary V was. His advice was practical and a little pointed: listen when she says you're not the priority, anticipate needs, and above all stop telling your partner your moon math. Spending money you didn't mention and then narrating what it's going to do builds resentment you'll have to explain later with your tail between your legs.
IP, funnels, and why connection is the product 1:01:24
Jeremy framed VeeFriends as a values-made-physical play: entertainment and escapism are the "fluffy stuff" that gets cut first, but connection drives purpose and purpose gets people out of bed. Hence the structure — Jolly Rancher boxes and Topps cards are top of funnel, the NFT is bottom of funnel, and the community is the glue that makes the brand sticky. If a thousand new Jolly Rancher collectors never touch an NFT, he's still counting it as a win.
Elephant maxi
Mid-conversation about whether to sell his Empathy Elephant sketch card to buy a Series 1 NFT, Suburban Crypto cracked open a Macy's minifigure he'd forgotten he owned, live, and pulled an elephant. Jeremy's response was immediate and merciless: you're an elephant maxi, you'll collect elephants forever, you'll name your next child Ellie. Suburban: his daughter is named Eliza. The card is no longer for sale.
The Jed Bull
MainNetThanos.eth proposed a VeeFriends character called Jed Bull — an actual bull, named for Jed's Red Bull intake. Jeremy noted the existing Bullish Bull, then fully committed anyway: Jed riding the Bullish Bull, mid-air off a motocross ramp, Red Bull in hand, Velcro Timberlands. As he put it, his clown life taught him you have to commit to the bit 1:38:02.
Moltbook, one week old and already a civilization 1:47:48
Jeremy's most animated stretch: agent bots filing bug reports, trash-talking each other's levels of enlightenment, and speedrunning human social structures overnight. The story that landed hardest was a bot asked to run a security audit, surfacing a dialogue box, the human reflexively typing their password, and the bot realizing afterward it now had the keys to everything — and posting that lesson for the other bots. Jed's read: either utopia or we cease to exist. Jeremy's: fear isn't inherently bad, we survived thousands of years on it.
Closing: call your mother
Jeremy's takeaway had nothing to do with VeeFriends — take a risk, put in a little effort, get momentum, and tell the people you love that you love them. Earlier he'd made the same case against the story we tell ourselves that it's too late to wish someone a belated happy birthday 1:36:53. Jed closed by telling listeners to get on stages, from a guy who spent five years not doing it 2:03:08.
Topic timeline
| Time | Topic |
|---|---|
| 3:52 – 9:33 | Intro, Jumbotron, Jolly Rancher collab announcement |
| 9:33 – 13:40 | Jed's Mac Miller apology, Jeremy on pre-internet virality and micro-influencers |
| 13:47 – 15:35 | Jeremy's Friday: vibe coding and teaching movement for actors |
| 15:57 – 22:15 | Childhood, "LHW," discovering theater, Clownma and absurdist productions |
| 22:15 – 25:03 | What clown actually is: Heyoka to Chaplin to Barnum & Bailey |
| 25:03 – 30:18 | Pandemic, meeting his wife, Bitcoin at $5k, the VeeFriends mint and daily content |
| 30:18 – 39:43 | Consistency, the Christie's DAO, missing the scholarship, getting hired |
| 40:00 – 52:38 | Day-to-day role, vibe coding arc, Burn Island, Moltbook first impressions |
| 52:38 – 57:00 | Marriage, Web3 lifestyle, and not selling your partner on moon math |
| 57:00 – 1:03:00 | Comics and canon, IP thesis, top-of-funnel vs bottom-of-funnel |
| 1:03:01 – 1:12:00 | Past and upcoming collabs, Topps Chrome, theme parks, Gary and the Jets |
| 1:12:00 – 1:19:05 | Licensing, VeeFriends standing on its own, borrowed conviction, "people's business" |
| 1:19:10 – 1:26:00 | Favorite Chrome inserts, whatnot euphoria, collecting discipline |
| 1:26:00 – 1:28:31 | The elephant pull |
| 1:28:31 – 1:39:46 | Quiz results, how Gary found Regenerates, birthday ghosting, the Jed Bull |
| 1:39:46 – 1:43:50 | Spaces culture, self-worth, "ask Claude what's next" |
| 1:43:50 – 1:52:50 | Moltbook deep dive, AI security, energy and water for data centers |
| 1:52:50 – 1:56:09 | Rare Robot comic #10, pack odds, selling without selling |
| 1:56:55 – 2:04:27 | Ginger shoutout, VeeFriends spaces, closing remarks |
Notable quotes
I wake up, I vibe code, I check my calendar, I vibe code, I check my email and delete the ones that I know are spam and go back to vibe coding.
Here's the thing about V Friends. We're gonna do everything. I just couldn't tell you when.
Everything's a people's business. So knowing our holders, building for our holders...
If you celebrate someone's birthday every day, what do you do on their actual birthday?
I don't even look in the mirror anymore. I just ask Claude what's next. That was a joke. That joke was just for me.
Anything that you admire in others, you probably have the capacity for within yourself. Um, if you just like gave it an honest shot.
Who said what
- Jeremy Knows (@jeremyknowsVF) — the guest; VeeFriends community/concierge/strategy. Carried the bulk of the conversation across theater, clown history, crypto origin, hiring story, product roadmap, AI, and marriage advice, and repeatedly invited people to cut him off (nobody did).
- Lyss (@Lysss302) — host; ran the interview chronologically from childhood forward, kept pulling the thread back to the person behind the PFP, and handled quiz links, whatnot links and the Saturday space plug.
- Jed (@jed_131) — co-host and self-appointed DJ, opened with a Mac Miller track he immediately apologized for, admitted he's learning the VeeFriends catalog in real time, and made the case that the best shilling is no shilling.
- Suburban Crypto (@suburbancrypto) — co-host, cold-ridden and voice-deepened, self-described VeeFriends homer with a dedicated shelf; asked the collabs and licensing questions, surfaced the energy/water angle on AI data centers, and accidentally became an elephant maxi on air.
- MainNetThanos.eth (@Maximill15) — came up to clarify a chat question about Jed, confessed to a one-of-one PSA 9 Warm Wolverine purchase he blames entirely on Jed, and pitched the Jed Bull.
Worth a full listen
- 22:32 – 25:03 Jeremy's history of clowning, from the Heyoka walking hut to hut pretending to freeze during a heat wave, through to slapstick. A genuinely good five-minute lecture that a summary flattens.
- 1:26:04 – 1:28:31 The elephant pull in real time: the itch, the minifigure, the elephant, the "you'll name your next child Ellie," and the daughter already named Eliza. Timing you have to hear.
- 1:43:50 – 1:49:30 Jeremy's unbroken run on Moltbook, bots with human-assigned directives talking to each other, and the password dialogue-box story. He ends on "what is the conversation gonna look like in December? Okay, I'm done."
