Hustler Energy

A nation of hustlers gives thanks.

POD 162: The Hustler Ethos

Out FRIDAY AM Apple | Spotify | Substack

This week we start with the shifting AI landscape — Google’s Gemini resurgence, OpenAI’s monetization dilemma, and the rise of AI slop — before moving into a broader conversation about hustlers. We get into why America attracts them, how the term was coopted and branded, why competitive instinct sits at the center of real hustle, and how the changing nature of the economy will put a premium on hustling, for better or worse. Plus: Troy’s ‘eggsellent’ adventure at a Holiday Inn Express.

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Brian: I was meeting with a boss once and asked about his son playing football.

He told me the kid wasn’t going to make it. The reason: He’s on the kickoff team but his uniform was always clean afterwards.

It was a bit of a harsh assessment, but it spoke to how people are either hustlers by nature or they are not. I’m not sure what fuels the hustler. Some kind of childhood trauma? An insecurity that drives them to prove others wrong? In AB’s case, an unsatisfying stay at a downmarket Holiday Inn? I’m sure it’s a combination.

I wrote this week about hustlers in The Rebooting because they’re a group of people I greatly admire, although some of them can offend my sensibility by being too transactional and, for lack of a better word, sweaty. Still, I recall what you once told me when I complained about a seller (all of them, at least the good ones, are hustlers): They’re good at things you’re not.

Hustlers have an extreme bias to action. They seek out angles. They have a comfort level with disorder because their feral sense is that within chaos springs opportunity. They get to start. They do whatever it takes. They compete. They make something out of nothing.

America might no longer be the shining city on a hill that Reagan purloined from Winthrop. It is still the spiritual home of the hustler. This country has the most open system for hustlers, which is why we attract them from all corners of the world. You do not walk thousands of miles across a border without being a hustler. And despite all the rhetoric, and the other very American worship of fairness, we admire that drive, even if we don’t like the idea of competing with them. Hustlers are force multipliers.

This Thanksgiving, the most American of holidays, I’m thankful for the hustlers, whether that’s Biggie hustling on the corner, Elon sleeping on the factory floor or the Uber driver who lost a job and is doing what it takes for his family.

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Troy: Let’s talk about that Uber driver.

His is a modern American story of resilience, and a glimpse of the coming battle of man vs. machine — a preview of the agility we’ll need as AI overturns the old order.

This is a Thanksgiving story.

It was an $80 fare from the airport to the Ashbury Heights, where I am staying. Our driver was an affable Nigerian family man in his mid 50s named David. We traded dad jokes; “What do you call a man with no arms and no legs in a pile of leaves.” Stuff like that. He kept saying “Troy is in the house.” The ride made me grateful self-driving Waymos had not made their way to SFO. David was way better.

David drives to SFO seven days a week from Sacramento, the state capital two hours down the road. Tonight he would head back at about 1 a.m. The fares at SFO are far better than what he can get in Sacramento, even if it means waiting with 600 other drivers in holding lots ten minutes from the airport. He didn’t seem to mind. The wait lets him shoot the shit with other drivers. Sometimes he grabs a 20-minute cap nap to guard against the long days of commuting to the Bay.

Nine months ago David worked for the Federal government. The job was remote. It paid well. Health care was decent. Then his role was eliminated — “Doge cuts,” he said. A friend suggested he try Uber while he figured out his next move. David had a clean driving record. They didn’t have a second car but his daughter offered him her late-model Nissan Altima. David’s life changed. The Uber money filled the gaps. He told me he would get a third of my $80 fare. Uber would get the rest. Tips are his.

Unprompted he commented that he used to adore Elon, would hang on his every word. Seeing him onstage with a chainsaw changed his mind. “What’s the point of colonizing Mars if you don’t care about people,” David said.

Right before he dropped us off, he told us he hears a lot of tough-luck stories from fellow drivers in the SFO lot. “Everybody has problems,” he said. Then he added that if the three of us put all our troubles in a jar, shook them up, and each took a third back out, we’d still want our own problems back. “You know your own shit. You can deal with it.”

David said hustle is just a fact of life now. Agility is a survival requirement. “Count your blessings,” he insisted. “The world is a beautiful place despite all the troubles.”

Great meeting you David. Happy Thanksgiving.

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Alex: AI snobs.

There is a specific kind of elitism in the way we talk about AI “slop.” We label it garbage because it offends our sensibilities, but that critique is often just a marker of taste and class. We forget that for a massive amount of people, this technology raises the floor. If you don’t have access to experts or high-end production, “good enough” isn’t slop, it’s a miracle. At its best it’s this “democratization” tech has been pitching for years. Emotionally, I hate it but intellectually I understand the appeal of being able to generate a decent business card or infographic.

Also — the narrative dominance OpenAI is cracking. The danger to OpenAI isn’t losing users to Gemini but rather investors losing confidence. Google is surging because, in the end, this isn’t a startup disruption story anymore. It’s a fibre-in-the-ground-scale infrastructure play. In the end, the moat isn’t magic; it’s compute and distribution.

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