Cyan Banister
speaker
346 appearances
3 recordings
2 series
first heard Jan 2025
last heard Apr 2025
Cyan Banister’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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Appearances
But what I'm doing is trying to immerse myself among the general population of people and trying to figure out what their problem points are. For example, going to a mining convention, not Bitcoin, but actual heavy equipment and seeing like, what are these people that are moving the earth thinking about going to a toilet paper convention?
I was curious, like everybody during the pandemic ran and bought toilet paper. Why did we have a shortage? I'm going to go to a toilet paper convention and find out things like that. And I just think that when a person sitting in front of me and they're giving me the pitch, I start daydreaming and I start seeing the truth of what they're telling me.
And if I feel it, then the feeling I call my lightning bolts. It literally feels like a jolt of energy in my body. And I feel like a tingle. And it's like, ooh, there's something here. There's something novel here. There's something different that I haven't seen. And then I try to figure out what is different about it. Is it the person? Is it the opportunity? Is it the timing?
Has someone tried this before and failed? Why is this person potentially the right person, etc. ? And so sometimes it's so overwhelming that I'm just like, I've written checks on the spot because it's like one of these things where I just feel arrested by it. And sometimes I go and marinate on it and chew on it for 24 hours. And if I still feel the same feelings, then I make the investment.
But in general, it's this weird intuition that this person is onto something and it could be big. For example, let's look at Pokemon Go, Niantic.
Yeah. And I went to work. I was working at AngelList at the time and I was showing everybody their previous game called Ingress. And I was playing it and trying to explain to them about how this world would be reskinned. And instead of these portals that I was playing at, there would be these Pokestops and then there was going to be Pokemon around and everybody's like, you're insane.
What are you talking about? And I could see it clear as day, but I couldn't understand why no one else could. And when I go out and start trying to explain this dream to people, this visualization that I see, and they continuously can't see it. And they came up with excuse after excuse not to invest in it, which was like, Nintendo is a corporate investor.
I don't do investing with corporate investors. These guys are spinning out of Google. Do they really have grit? There was excuse after excuse after excuse. I was just like, you don't understand. These people built Google Earth. They really understand mapping. And then the other thing was the insight that I had was that company was ultimately a mapping company. not a gaming company.
And trying to convince people of that, they're like, well, they only look at the bird in hand. They're just like, well, it doesn't look like that right now. So not interested. And so I think that that's how my mind is different and how I arrive at these decisions is I just really, really trust. And I really don't care if people don't believe me or think I'm crazy or stupid or any of those things.
And so for me, I don't have those kinds of fears that some people have. As a matter of fact, the more they disagree with me, it's almost like I feel like it's a sign. I'm like, huh, that's interesting. Or I look at the argument and I try to see if it has merit. Like I said, don't be contrarian for contrarian's sake.
If somebody's coming to you and they have a really good argument, they can talk me out of things for sure. Maybe it's something that I didn't see. But sometimes I weigh that piece of advice and I'm like, hmm, I still think that they can overcome that hurdle.
Uber. Uber. I lived in a hotel for a period of time. It was a nice hotel in San Francisco. And the front desk would arrange cars for me to get to the airport. And this was before Uber was even a thing. And so there was this livery driver that was my livery driver. And I really took a liking to him. So I got his card and I said, why don't I just start booking you directly?
And I'll just ride with you. You're just an amazing person. And he was an immigrant from Brazil and just a really good driver. And just, I really liked talking with him in the car. One day I was going to the airport and he says, you know, I'm not an investor, but if I was, I would invest in this thing called Uber cab. Have you heard of it? And I said, no, I haven't.
And he said, well, I'm their only driver. to me how Uber cab worked. And I said, okay, so they're paying you by the hour to drive around and pick up people who are texting some phone number. Keep in mind, there was no app at that time. It's just a phone number and you show up. And he's like, yes. And I said, huh, well, let me know when they're not paying you by the hour anymore.
And the reason why I said that was for years prior, I was thinking about how Uber why is it that I go out and I try to hail a taxi and I can't get one, especially if it's raining or if there's a big conference going on, you'd think that there'd be more taxis that would come online to meet the market demand. So I started talking to taxi drivers about
When you go get your car, what's the first thing that happens? And they say, well, I have to pay $100, $150 just to get the car to leave the yard. So they're already in the hole $150, right? So they're out there hustling, trying to get that $150 back just so they can be in the money.
So they're zooming around like crazy acting like, because everybody says I get in a taxi and they drive super fast. Well, that's why they drive super fast is they're trying to get to the next fair and the next fair and the next fair. So then I said, well, how do you become a taxi driver? And they explained the medallion system to me. And I was like, wow, what a racket that is.
Definitely seems like a protectionist racket. So go back to the driver that I'm in the car with. This is a livery driver. It's not a taxi. They are regulated by TCP licensing, which means they have to be drug tested and they have to go through proof of insurance and all sorts of things like that in order to be a livery driver. So they started with those for a reason.
And that was the first vision. A lot of people, the first objection I heard about investing in that company was not everybody can afford a black car. And I said, well, that's a short-term vision. The long-term vision is that everybody's car becomes available and comes online to drive. And they said, oh, well, strangers won't get in strangers' cars. And I'm like, but they do all the time.
They get in a taxi. You don't know that person. And that person doesn't even own that car. So he gives me Ryan Graves' business card and he says, call Ryan Graves. And I look at the business card and the phone number I think was in like Chicago or something.
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