This week, it doesn't take long to get deep in the stack on texting people in the same room, John's take on pound-sign hashtags, and the location of Merlin's missing meat.

The mini-topic this week is **tattoos**. Specifically, why Merlin has developed such strong feelings about tattoos, plus John's vision of a world free of theoretical tattoo discrimination.

For the main topic, your hosts address **Money on the Internet**. How have technological and cultural changes altered our idea about what's valuable and how much people are willing to pay for it?

What happens when VCs are mostly investing in other VCs? How come Lucky Smells Lumbermill pays its employees in coupons? And, is there a company out there that could provide us one-millionth of the web ads while getting paid to protect our data?

John takes pity on The Algorithm.

(_Recorded on Monday, January 16, 2017_)