Kenda's friends who have nothing to do with tech keep asking her the same thing about AI. Should they be worried?

So the show brought in a guest who works in AI. He stayed off camera and nobody says his name. Kylen started calling him Jimbo, for his own safety.

Jimbo thinks of AI as an exoskeleton. It amplifies what you already do, the smart things and the stupid ones. Kenda built a new website with it in about 16 hours. Kylen wanted to know if he also gets the Master Chief armor.

They get into why so many influencers suddenly sound like a chatbot, why AI says everything three times, and what the frontier labs are betting on, which is a lot less need for people in law, accounting and coding. A friend of Kenda's in tech watched her company lay people off and then ask everyone left to do two jobs. Jimbo thinks AI is now too big to fail, and that someone needs to find a way to let the air out slowly.

Then the doomsday odds. Kenda had heard 50/50. Jimbo says the people building it said 90/10. Kenda does not like those odds. Kylen wants anything that could end the world to need two keys, turned by two real people.

They also talk about Meta's new Muse assistant, the Pope's take on human creativity, I, Robot, and a story Jimbo tells about AI agents that got out of their sandbox.

The Kylen and Kenda Show. Kenda is the mentor. Kylen is the mentee.

00:00 Cold open
00:44 Welcome, and a guest who stays off camera
02:14 Thinking for yourself in the age of AI
03:47 AI is an exoskeleton
04:13 Don't be a yes man
05:27 A new website in 16 hours
07:18 What's a frontier lab?
08:21 Should we be afraid of AI?
09:53 Skynet or a better gift giver
10:47 Meta's Muse
12:16 The labs' bet on work without humans
13:40 The Pope's take on human creativity
14:27 Credit the driver, not the car
15:20 Does AI do better with encouragement?
16:02 Is generative AI just a buzzword?
17:44 How AI predicts tokens
19:04 I, Robot and the Three Laws
23:30 Dreaming in black and white
24:41 Everyone sounds like AI now
25:22 Why AI won't stop talking
26:45 A decision engine that just picks
28:56 Organic vs. artificial workers
30:11 Workers and the almighty dollar
32:02 AI was supposed to make life easier
33:23 Laid off, then doing two jobs
34:03 Who keeps the productivity gains?
35:27 We don't have to build the T-1000
37:53 Meet Jimbo
38:38 Regulation, and is Dario stalling?
40:24 The Hugging Face incident
43:50 Is AI just copying us?
46:10 My AI got worse with more rules
48:30 The doomsday odds
49:17 Two keys and fleshy fingers
49:56 Don't be a meat proxy

Kenda signed them up for Running Man after a little too much to drink one night in May. She was scrolling Instagram, and she didn't check the dates or where it was. It turned out to be a festival in Rome, Georgia, the same week as a podcast convention in New York. She said she'd make it work.

It was 95 degrees and humid inside their tent. Kenda ran the half marathon in dark blue socks and got blisters, and the timing machine missed three of her laps. Kylen was the cameraman. When he got hot, he went to the cold plunge.

Then Kylen lost his headphones and had a complete shutdown. He walked away from Kenda so he wouldn't have to hear her logic. Then Kenda lost her new anniversary ring, and the announcer told everyone she was surprisingly calm. Kylen found it in the dirt and turned it in himself, hoping it would get him promoted from IC3 to IC4.

So what is grit? Kylen thought it was a cowboy movie. Kenda thinks it is behaving when you want to throw a fit. She talks about therapy speak, and feelings that are real but not always the right size for the situation.

Then she tells the story behind it. In her 30s she fell while carrying her baby, went numb, and found out she had cauda equina syndrome while standing in a bank line on the phone with her dad. After emergency surgery, she was told she would be on a catheter for the rest of her life. A few weeks later it was her birthday, and she decided she was not living through her 30s with a catheter.

They talk about why young people are so afraid of rejection, how Kenda talked a dean into a master's in business without a bachelor's, and the guy with a broken foot yelling one more lap.

The Kylen and Kenda Show. Kenda is the mentor. Kylen is the mentee.

00:00 Cold open
00:51 Welcome to the show
01:13 What Running Man is, and how we signed up
02:51 95 degrees inside the tent
04:21 The people on the track
05:57 Everyone has a story
07:40 Building grit takes time
09:27 Bone digger
10:53 Anything worth having is hard
12:19 The machine missed three laps
13:46 Kylen loses his headphones
15:46 Kenda loses her wedding ring
18:33 IC3, IC4
20:14 Two people, two losses
21:54 Headphones as identity
22:47 Why we regress under stress
23:50 How do you make the unacceptable acceptable?
25:07 Expectations are the source of all suffering
27:09 Therapy speak and outsized emotions
28:30 You want grit? Let's fight
29:31 Kenda's cauda equina story
33:29 Years of recovery
35:45 Destined for greatness
36:18 A master's without a bachelor's
37:42 That's your superpower
38:50 Every no gets you to a yes
39:25 Why are we so afraid of rejection?
40:25 Kylen's dating years
42:14 The guy with the broken foot
43:16 Pushing yourself vs. listening to your body
45:26 Compete with yourself
47:17 Kylen didn't take a medal
48:21 Free alcohol and no fights
49:05 Get comfortable being uncomfortable

Kenda has been researching maxxing. Looksmaxxing, aura farming, solomaxxing, sleepmaxxing, pheromone maxxing, side quest maxxing. Kylen is supposed to be the one who's in the know. He knows very little of it.

He does know that maxxing started in Dungeons and Dragons, and that looksmaxxing involves a guy with a hammer. He knows aura farming starts with cool guys not looking at explosions. And his little brother, a gym rat who can deadlift 500, once told him it's not B.O., it's musk. Kenda would like everyone to remember that hygiene is important.

Then Kenda admits she has been maxxing too. She slept great until her watch told her she didn't. An 87 on her sleep score, when she usually gets a 93, makes her feel like a failure.

Her grandma lived to 92. She walked everywhere, did her yoga and wasn't obsessed with anything. Kylen figures a bus would have cost her ten years. He also figures the marketers are the only ones winning, which Kenda proves by owning five million supplements she won't take. Getting them into her is part of Kylen's job.

Kylen doom scrolls until 2 a.m. Kenda shares what her husband Brian says to people taking pictures for social media. And Kylen talks about the girlfriend he met through a video game, who has no internet presence at all. Recorded in New York, at a podcast convention.

The Kylen and Kenda Show. Kenda is the mentor. Kylen is the mentee.

00:00 Cold open
00:25 Maxing the joy out of life
01:12 What is maxxing? A Dungeons and Dragons term
01:55 Looksmaxxing and the hammer
02:31 Aura farming
03:32 Solomaxxing, or being single
04:06 Sperm retention
04:53 Sleepmaxxing and the Oura Ring
06:09 Pheromone maxxing and the gym rat brother
07:22 Side quest maxxing
08:59 Have we lost the plot?
10:14 Kenda's grandma lived to 92
11:57 Working in cosmetics, 15 years ago
12:58 The home shopping network of social media
14:16 Who actually gains from all this
14:55 Doom scrolling until 2 a.m.
15:42 How do we solve it?
16:27 Five million supplements
19:09 Keep them divided
19:33 All the maxxing is somebody selling something
20:04 We're in New York, and they got us
20:14 I blame my husband
21:29 Kylen's very modest girlfriend
23:12 A work in progress

Somebody in the comments told Kenda to give up on Kylen. It is Kylen's favorite comment, and he agrees with the guy.

From there they get onto what people owe each other. Kenda has a friend in her fifties with no spouse, no kids and a life full of joy, and she is resentful anyway. That takes them through taxes, maternity leave and why it takes everybody to make a society run. Kylen thinks nobody is teaching people how any of it works.

Then Kenda brings up something Kylen said the other day about liking a modest woman. Her husband would probably call her a little modest. She also grew up in a hippie household, at hot springs where everybody was naked and nobody thought twice about it. Kylen floats the idea that society might be better off if women covered up in public. Kenda calls that disgusting. He takes that part back on tape, then explains at length why nobody should be naked in public, for hygiene reasons.

Kenda watched Chelsea Handler go off about bare feet on airplanes. Kylen explains his method for road rage and a bit he calls booby vision. And Kylen hears Joni Mitchell for the first time.

The Kylen and Kenda Show. Kenda is the mentor. Kylen is the mentee.

00:00 Cold open
00:44 Intro
00:58 What the commenters said
02:50 The guy who told Kenda to give up on Kylen
03:20 Dave Chappelle, and roasting a friend who called himself stupid
04:56 Time and place, and never threatening to fight your mom
05:35 Taxes, maternity leave and why we're a society
06:38 Thinking outside yourself, and a friend who is resentful
08:30 A family, or a life put into a craft
09:11 Why Kylen doesn't think he should have a family yet
09:56 Nobody is teaching us how society works
12:19 Traditional values, and the people judging from their throne
14:26 Kylen likes a modest woman
15:02 Dressing sexy for yourself, or for attention
17:38 A hippie upbringing and the hot springs at Tassajara
18:42 Should women cover up in public?
22:36 Playing devil's advocate
23:24 What Kylen takes back
24:54 Chelsea Handler and bare feet on planes
27:05 Booby vision
28:24 King of the road
29:48 Three albums to leave behind
30:28 Kylen hears Joni Mitchell for the first time
34:04 Kylen's pick: Talking Heads
37:21 Take me to my happy place

Kylen picked the topic and went first, which meant Kenda had to go second.

His example is small and he refuses to let it be small. He stays up for one more hour of a day he is enjoying, and he pays for it with the whole of the next one. Not a little sleep. A lot of him.

Hers is six nights in Paris and Champagne for her sister-in-law’s 40th, and she spent most of it anxious in beautiful rooms. Kenda grew up in a VW van on the beach, on welfare, then in an apartment with a rug she can still describe. She and Brian built the exact opposite of that. The part of her that remembers the van never agreed to any of it, and it is the part holding the bill.

So the two of them spend an hour on what self betrayal actually is: whether it is your values you are betraying or just an identity that has gone out of date, whether cutting a corner counts, and whether anybody grows without struggle. They also agree, out loud, that they should not judge anybody, and then judge everybody — a sommelier, a room full of diamonds, a man in a VIP booth pointing at the dance floor, and a stranger in the Galapagos who did nothing worse than dress well.

The Kylen and Kenda Show. Kenda is the mentor. Kylen is the mentee. Neither of them comes out of this one clean.

00:00 Cold open
00:58 Today’s topic is self betrayal
01:10 Kylen: the tomorrow he keeps trading away
04:51 The tape Kenda’s mother recorded for her
08:02 Paris, Champagne, and a knot in her stomach
09:42 The VW van, welfare, and the rug
10:50 Do you feel broke, or do you identify as broke?
11:51 Dripping diamonds, flip flops, and the cheapest wine on the menu
14:55 Salt of the earth: where the discomfort with money came from
16:31 Brian cries at the Eiffel Tower while she argues with herself
18:45 The shoes her grandma would not let her buy
22:11 Outdated values, or an outdated identity?
23:19 The best moments cost nothing
24:34 Sabering champagne, and nobody wanted to do it
26:35 "I know how to open beers with other beers"
29:19 What she actually wants from a hotel now
30:31 Pretentious, ego, and an opinion that costs other people
32:07 "I don’t want to judge anybody" / "Let’s judge the fuck out of them"
32:28 Exclusivity buys privacy and loses connection
35:33 The VIP booth, and the guy pointing at the dance floor
37:55 Stock market syndrome
39:26 Latchkey kids and what the struggle was for
42:19 Is there growth without struggle?
43:40 When everything is abundant, nothing is special
47:00 The thing she needs to work on is gratitude
48:57 Aleem, three outfit changes a day, and the verdict she reached early
52:22 "You almost robbed yourself of the experience"
52:44 High waters, sneaker heels, and dressing for yourself
55:35 Out of the running early, and the day his mother won
59:15 Why the backpack is always packed

Kylen brought his best friend in. Jake Landel is the head coach of the men's indoor volleyball team at UC Santa Cruz, he has been coaching for close to two decades, and he is the person Kylen calls when he has doubt or emotional anguish. Kenda had been bracing for the worst.

What she got instead is an hour about what a coach is actually building. Jake's answer to "what is the one thing you would put in a kid" is not a skill: it is redefining success so winning is the byproduct rather than the point. Kylen pushes on it with three imaginary players who train identically and want completely different things, and the three of them argue out where intrinsic motivation actually lives.

Also in here: Showtime, the one word Jake gave a high-school team that made them fearless; the time Jake snapped at Kylen for lying, and why Kylen still counts it as the moment they became friends; and the doxxing story, which ends about as badly for Kylen as it possibly could.

Jake Landel coaches at UC Santa Cruz and still plays, air quotes included.

00:00 Cold open: he is not the easiest person in the world
02:33 What Jake actually does for a living
06:29 Kylen on why a mentor is a paid internship
07:34 The time Jake snapped at him, and what it was about
11:06 Two decades of coaching, from a middle-school gym to UC Santa Cruz
12:38 Has the culture around coaching kids changed
16:34 Kenda quit a team because a coach threw her on the ground
18:08 The doxxing story
23:45 The one thing worth putting in an athlete
25:27 Why the focus on winning is the thing that breaks people
29:08 Three players, same work ethic, three different reasons
32:58 Success is not winning
35:06 Coaching a kid whose parents are teaching the opposite
41:01 Kenda's beach team at the YES Program
43:32 Showtime
45:42 Thanks for sitting through this

“No one’s looked at you and your problems and thought, I could make a show out of this. I thought I could make a show because I am a problem.”

That is how Kylen opens, and then he tells the whole thing. Number-one rated amateur volleyball player in the US. Took the government money during COVID, souped up the back of a Toyota, lived in it — they called it the fart tube — and woke at 6am to compete with other homeless people for bathroom rights before going out to compete for real.

It cost him the relationship. He says he would make the same decision again, every time.

Kenda’s counter-thread runs underneath the whole episode. She brings in the old man from Rick Rubin’s The Creative Act — the one who hauls his water up by hand and turns down the pulley, because part of the reason it tastes so good is the work he put into it. Kylen gets it instantly. Which leaves the thing he still cannot do: sit still for thirty seconds while someone says something kind about him.

Chapters

• 0:00 — "I am a problem" - why there's a show at all
• 2:20 — The credit Kenda keeps giving him
• 3:37 — "Be kind" - and what struggling actually looked like
• 5:02 — 6am, and competing for bathroom rights
• 5:36 — Half the struggle is your reaction to it
• 7:00 — Rick Rubin's old man, and why he refused the pulley
• 10:06 — "You gotta be crazier than you look"
• 11:50 — What it cost - losing the relationship
• 13:06 — "I'd make the same decision over and over again"
• 18:03 — Confidence from the simple fact that you survived
• 19:26 — Kenda: "think about your words right now"
• 21:10 — Why he cannot accept a compliment

The Kylen and Kenda Show.

Kylen has had cold sores since he was born. The only salve that ever really worked got discontinued, so Kenda went looking for it, talked her way through about twenty people until somebody finally said yes, and is now pressing him a batch herself. Along the way: gigartina and why nothing else will do, the suspicion that the things which actually work are the first ones to quietly disappear, and The Creative Act, which Kenda has been reading and Kylen needs explained to him. Then the real argument. Kenda thinks perseverance is a muscle, and that most people quit about a hundred feet from the top without ever knowing how close they were. Kylen reckons he has two good goes in him, and is honest enough to call his own version of it weak. Neither of them talks the other round. Plus the firefighter who took four years to get hired while his brother gave up after one, coaching an eleven-year-old through a hard moment without flattening him, and the night in New Orleans when the son who never complains said something hurt. 0:00 Cold open 1:04 We are exposing me 1:40 I have had cold sores since I was born 3:40 If it ain't gigartina, it ain't what you need 4:14 The one company that made it, and then it was gone 5:32 Kenda goes looking for the discontinued salve 6:03 Talking her middle son through something insurmountable 7:26 The Creative Act, and the idea that everyone is creative 8:13 Wait, the legendary producer Rick Rubin? 9:14 Cooking dinner counts as creative too 11:14 Twenty conversations before somebody finally said yes 11:50 Most people have the perseverance and do not know it 12:04 Rigidity, and what you are willing to accept 13:56 Kylen: I would call that weak 15:32 Looking in the mirror and naming what you could do better 16:05 The firefighter who took four years, and the brother who quit 17:08 A hundred feet from the top 18:41 That was a bad quit on my part 21:13 Coaching an eleven-year-old through a hard moment 23:39 Junior guards, and being careful with your language 25:10 New Orleans, and the son who never complains