I did want to ask you about,
because it's in the news every single day,
and I know this is a huge issue for you.
It's the least funny thing to bring up in the world,
but I think about Ukraine every day,
just because it is such a big part
of the news.
And I know that this is where your people are from,
is Ukraine and I watch, follow the news every day.
And I think we're watching people love to armchair
quarterback and talk about how in the 1930s and 40s
we really should have stood up to fascism.
And if I were alive then I really would've stood up.
We really needed to stand up to Hitler in '36 or '37,
and I really do feel like we're seeing this play out
right now, and when people are indifferent about it
or indifferent about Putin or in in any way,
I think you understand that this is the defining fight
right now in the world.
And 25 years from now, people are going to
be seeing this as a very important outcome.
For the world.
That's for the entire world.
For the world, yes, correct.
I didn't mean to get all heavy, but I just thought
I kind of felt like I know this is important to you
and wanted to talk about it
especially with the way the news has been unrolling.
No I appreciate it.
Personally with Putin getting incredibly desperate
and back on his heels.
It's one of these situations where I think
everybody wishes and it's weird how this war
is affecting some people and other people are like
it's just a war over there.
It doesn't affect me.
And I understand that 'cause I look
at most wars over there and they don't affect me.
And I keep trying to go, even if I wasn't from this country
even if I had no association with it
you have to look at this war as a defining moment
for the West on so many, I won't go into politics
but what this will do to China if X person wins.
You know what I mean?
Like there's so many players here and I was like
so just look at it strategically
as like this is a very important war.
Not should you care about the people or the refugees?
If you don't have time for that, I totally respect that.
You have bills to pay, you got food to put on the table.
I get it.
But just remember that this is the breaking point
for whether or not democracy lives or where democracy falls
on the global scale.
And that's the only thing that I ask of people
just keep reading the news.
Keep getting yourself invested.
You don't have to do money or time.
I mean other than information.
That being said, you look at what's happening
in Iran right now, no one's talking about that either
because that's not on the global scale.
Right, that country's gonna handle.
That's not anyone's problem because it's isolated,
it's not gonna trigger a nuclear war.
They look at Russia and Ukraine and the only
and people got upset like why is,
because when it was popular I got pushed back of,
this is only popular
because they would give some BS reasoning, they don't talk
about other wars or other natural disasters this way.
And I was like, that is true.
They should all talk about everything that's happening.
But this has not happened in a very long time
since the '80s where there was this fear
of a bigger problem.
But I go back to, I was talking about the woman
in Iran right now or what's happening there either.
So there's a part of me that goes, you can only
solve so many problems otherwise it becomes overwhelming.
The idea of how do I help there?
What do I do there?
How do I assist there?
What can be done becomes insanely overwhelming.
And so I think that's where our focus just kind
of naturally went to logistics, going back to like logic.
Like how do you deal with things?
And as much as I want to deal with emotion
and take every kid in and save every mother
and go in there and like give him when a hug
that's not the best use of time or energy at this point.
And so we try to solve problems with logic.
So we try to go logistics on everything.
Otherwise I would get incredibly overwhelmed, which is news.
So what's the logic and logistics you use for Ukraine?
You and Ashton raised a ton of money.
Honestly, we wanted to bandaid a problem
until the government stepped in.
'Cause realistically a wars a billion-trillion dollar
solution by all means, it's not millions.
And so it was like 24 hours in and we realized
that people were just not, people kept calling
people were just so confused to what they can do.
People in general, as human beings want to feel like
they're a part of something.
They want to feel like they're a part of a solution.
They want to feel good about themselves
they want to feel like they did their job.
And it was showcased,
in social media when it was like, repost this photo
and that means you stand with these people
or turned your profile picture into this.
And you saw that people naturally were doing
the easy way, like, if I click this, that means I'm for it.
So I made a difference and I feel good about myself.
So the thing that Ashton and I wanted to do was to
make sure people feel good about themselves
because it does take time, it does take effort
but also people want to post it, repost it, and showcase it.
Cool, we did this with COIVD,
with Quarantine Wine where we were like, okay,
how do we raise money but also make people feel people
like they're a part of something big or greater?
So we did it through that
and it was successful on that part.
And so when we started this process
we just had to bandaid a problem and make people feel
like they're making an immediate difference, right?
So if you were like, hey give me $10,
I'm gonna go and buy a bunch of blankets and toothpaste.
By the time I do all that, things will already
be different 20 times over where the war is
people are super generous at donating.
So there's tons and tons of warehouses
full of blankets and toilet papers and all of
the necessities that are needed during a crisis moment.
But getting it from point A to B is always difficult.
And so we are part of this company called Flexport
and they just do natural, they fly cargos.
They fly, they ship cargo, they're just a cargo company.
There was a natural disaster in, oh gosh,
I don't remember where it was, maybe Puerto Rico
but I don't remember where it was.
And they pivoted and started doing like an NGO version
to try to help
because they realized that there was containers just sitting
on the side not being moved full of blankets
and all like the emergency things that people need.
So we facilitated that.
So essentially what we did was we put point A to point B,
with vetted NGOs
on both sides that already had everything ready to ship.
We didn't need your money for the product,
we just needed your money for the shipments.
That makes a lot of sense to me because I think
there's a sense it can lead to apathy.
People, I think most people are good.
I think there's.
I think most people are great, yes.
Americans are very generous people.
For a minute.
Historically, they do want to help.
There's just an apathy that comes from is this really
gonna get where it needs to go?
Exactly.
And I know I felt it myself, like I really want to
help, but is this really-
No one trusts anybody.
Look what's happening everywhere right now.
Like all of unfortunately all of these big NGOs
the CEO is caught doing, taking 10% off the top
or this COO's caught stealing the money.
It's happening all the time.
So I don't blame people for not trusting or being tentative
about donating their hard earned $5, $10, let alone
100 or 1000.
So we wanted to be super transparent.
So we just kept posting videos about it
and then showcasing this said plane going
or the said cargo ship going.
And so we were like, this is what and we did
an outline of how much money buys one flight round trip,
how much money buys two cargo So you knew exactly
where all the money was going.
And then the housing of the refugees with airbnb.org,
that's already existing,
so it's using existing infrastructure and amplifying that.
Do you have any family in Ukraine?
I have distant family.
We were the last of my family to leave.
So we were in '91.
My family left, I have to think about it
right after World War II.
So my family was in the Holocaust, right?
So the ones that survived, some left in the '70s,
some stayed and then that was
like one of the migrations was the '70s
and then the other one was like late-'80s,
early-'90s, right at the fall.
And so we were right at the fall
but we were the last of my immediate family to leave.