SPEAKER_04
While you're listening to this podcast, you're probably doing something else too. It's cool, we get it. When you're having conversations with your customers, the same is probably true for them.
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Learn how HubSpot can help your business grow better at HubSpot.com. Let's talk to Ben. Ben had a big night.
So here's the setup. Sean and I were chilling last night and we get a text from Ben and he says, hey, look who just followed me and it was MrBeast.
SPEAKER_03
So inside I was like, actually even outside, I was like, my wife is Katie. I was like, Katie, Katie, Katie? What's that? What's that start to happening? And she was like, what? And I was like, MrBeast, follow me. She's like, what's a MrBeast?
SPEAKER_00
I feel like I can rule the world. I know I could be what I want to. I put my all in it like days off on a road.
Let's travel never looking back.
SPEAKER_04
All right, let's do this. I've got a few things to talk about, but first Sean, let's talk to Ben. Ben had a big night.
SPEAKER_02
Why are we even talking? We are now the sideshow. We're the openers actually. For the main event, Ben, Ben made event Wilson.
What's up, dude? How are you feeling?
SPEAKER_04
Well, let's set the stage here. We're not even gonna tell them why. We're just gonna hype it up.
So here's the setup. Sean and I were chilling last night and we get a text from Ben and he says, hey, look who just followed me and it was MrBeast. And I think it's, so for context, everyone, Ben is our producer here.
Ben has a podcast called How to Take Over the World. It's fairly popular, but growing quickly. So your Twitter only has like a thousand or 2,000 followers, right?
SPEAKER_03
4,000, but still, yeah, you're not far.
SPEAKER_04
So we get this message and you said, hey, look who just started following me and it was MrBeast and Sean and I made fun of you saying like, you know, that's nothing, no big deal. Then you sent a text message to us saying, I've been on the phone with them for the past hour and a half and we were like, wait, what? And we don't really know, we don't know anything else. So, yeah, of course there's gonna be some stuff here that you can't talk about, but what happened?
SPEAKER_03
Yeah, so I got back from Utah with my in-laws on Saturday. So I was like feeling a little jet lag. I was about to go to bed early, getting into bed with my wife and I looked down on my phone and I've got a notification says MrBeast followed you.
And my first thought is like, oh yeah, MrBeast followed me like MrUnderscoreBeast, hey, give me my social security number and I'll then owe you $5,000. So I literally, I saw it and I just put down my phone and like keep just like chatting with my wife or whatever. And then I pick it up five minutes later and I look at it and I go, I actually don't see an underscore.
I don't see anything wrong with this. And I click on it and it's verified and it's MrBeast and he just followed me. And I was like, oh, that's weird.
Like you said, I only have 4,000 followers. Like it's not a normal thing for like, I just pick up MrBeast and then I get a DM like two minutes later and he's like, hey, I listened to your podcast. I think it's cool.
I would love to chat sometime. I don't want anything from you. I just like want to learn.
And I was like, so I respond, I say, cool, yeah, let's talk anytime. I'm free like anytime you want to talk next week.
SPEAKER_02
You sound like you're playing it cool, but inside what's going on?
SPEAKER_03
So inside I was like, actually even outside. I was like, my wife is Katie. I was like, Katie, Katie, Katie.
What's the start to happening? And she was like, what? And I was like, MrBeast, follow me. She's like, what's a MrBeast? And I was like, no, I got to call someone else. That's what I texted you guys.
Cause like, she doesn't get it. I need to talk to someone who gets it. Katie, leave the room.
SPEAKER_04
Like go get me a 12 year old stat who could have a discussion about this.
SPEAKER_02
Katie, get your nephew on the line.
SPEAKER_03
She's getting mad at me if I talk smack about her though. Once I explained who he was, she was very, very excited. She was very, very excited.
So I messaged him, yeah. And I'm like trying to play it cool. Like, oh yeah, cool.
I could make time, no problem. And-
SPEAKER_04
Should I run or crawl to you?
SPEAKER_03
And then he hits me with a Sean and he's like, how about right now? And I'm like sitting there, like in my boxers, in my bed. And I'm like, yep, I am 100% ready to talk right now. Call me.
And so he called me and apparently he does this. At night he goes for walks and he just calls people who he thinks are interesting. And he tries to like download their brains and learn anything that he can.
So we talked for like almost two and a half hours at the end and he's a very cool dude. And I learned a lot of cool stuff. Well, like-
SPEAKER_02
Well and? Yeah.
SPEAKER_02
What did you guys talk about?
SPEAKER_03
We talked about a lot. Like it was, you know, it was just like a personal conversation. So I'm not gonna share everything that we talked about, but I mean, for me, the coolest thing he did was, yeah, I've known for a long time that I need to take my podcast to YouTube.
And I got to ask him like, okay, so how should I do this? And he basically walked me through how he would do it. And how would he do it? General game plan. Basically, I was saying, you know, should I do segments? Should I do clips? Should I animate it? Should I do me on the screen? And what he said is do the full episodes.
You probably want to edit the scripts a little bit so that it's not quite so casual. Cause podcast, like you listen to as you're washing the dishes, like it doesn't matter that it's not gripping every second of the audio, but for YouTube, like it does need to be gripping every second. Like really needs to pull people second by second.
So he said, you need to edit your script a little bit for video, do animations, do it highly produced and do the full episodes, like 45 minutes to an hour long. That was the basic strategy. And then he gave me some comps, some channels that I should make it similar to and some homework to study up on.
SPEAKER_02
What did he want to ask you, right? Cause he called you. So, you know, was he looking for something? Was he just saying, hey, tell me about, you know, I'm walking around and I want to hear, I'm listening to your podcast and I decided I'd like you to say it out loud to me live. Go. Like what was he interested in?
SPEAKER_03
He was laying in bed and he said, Ben, tell me about my heroes. And no, he, yeah, he, the funny thing was, he didn't really know. So we were just like talking about random stuff.
And he's like, I just want to learn from you. So I don't know what's up, man. Like that's kind of how we went into it.
And I was like, I don't know what's up with you. And so then we just kind of started chatting about random topics. I asked him a lot of stuff.
He told me a lot of cool stuff that is not public information. And then at the end, he was asking me sort of about, like Guru is honestly very similar. I told you about that finance guy who's asking me
SPEAKER_04
and like wants me to be his Guru. The background is that very similar. The background of that is like this person worth hundreds of millions of dollars, hollered at Ben and said, just tell me what mistakes I'm going to make before I make them based off of like historical people.
So Ben's podcast is he basically reads three books on Titans of industry and he breaks them down into like a two or three hour podcast. So by in theory, Ben's an expert, three book expert on a lot of different people.
SPEAKER_02
And if you're going to listen to one, go listen to Edison. I think it's amazing. Sam, what's your favorite one? Edison to me is by far my favorite.
SPEAKER_04
What's the richest Roth child? I like the Roth child one, but I do think the Edison one is the most impactful because it like we all know the outcome of Edison. The Disney one people liked. I didn't like that as much because Disney like is not as interesting to me, but that one's probably the most popular.
SPEAKER_03
So interestingly, I for Disney, I almost did a follow up at the end of it because I listened to Mr. Beast's interview on Joe Rogan. And the stuff Mr.
Beast was saying, I was like, oh, this person is so similar to Walt Disney that it's almost kind of spooky. And maybe I should make a podcast just pointing out like a quick 10 minute one pointing out the similarities between Walt Disney and Mr. Beast. And when he got on the phone, he was like, I love the Walt Disney one that really resonated with me. And I was like, oh, that doesn't surprise me at all.
SPEAKER_04
Dude, this is why like you, you're pretty under monetized, but I think it's going to catch up soon because I think what's going to happen. And we said this six months ago, you make these comments like, oh, you remind me of Walt Disney. And so if I'm the person who, like if I'm Mr.
Beast and you said to me, I go, really? What, what mistake, like, what am I doing wrong? Or like, I'm thinking about doing X, Y and Z. Did Walt do this and like, did it work? It did not work. Like you're this weird fortune teller type of person.
And that, did he say something like that to you?
SPEAKER_03
Yeah, a little bit, a little bit. He got into the like, well, what mistakes should I look out for? Like, what do you think that, like, what do you think I need to be wary of?
SPEAKER_02
There's a, there's a Charlie Munger quote. That's like, tell me where I'm going to die. So I know I never go there, right? Like, I'll just make sure I never to go there.
It's kind of that. But I'm sure there's also the upside, right? Like, it's not just what mistakes, but like, how did they make their greatness happen? I think that's actually more of what people care about. How do they make their greatness happen? And then kind of draw parallels to my own life of like, yeah, I am just like Edison and the Rothschilds and Disney after all, you know, it's so similar, right?
SPEAKER_03
I think, you know, like for Mr. Beast, I think the parallels are super easy with Walt Disney. The thing, the only time that Walt Disney slowed down in his career, it was for like a decade.
And it was because Walt loved to be working on a new thing, but a certain point, everyone convinced him like, oh, actually you have this enormous multi-million dollar animation studio now. You just need to be working on pumping out more full length animations. And like, when he did that, the whole thing kind of went downhill.
And then he goes crazy and he starts obsessing over little toy trains and like really going off the rails. But those model trains then get bigger and bigger and becomes Disneyland. And that is when he comes out of his funk and starts innovating again.
And so for Mr. Beast, it's just like the, don't let anyone convince you that you need to be working on the reasonable thing. Like you need to follow your unreasonable passions because somehow great things are gonna come out of that.
SPEAKER_04
That's kind of the parallels. For context, Walt Disney, I can't imagine he was more successful than Mr. Beast was at Mr.
Beast's age. But how big was his business when you say things were going, were becoming unsuccessful and he started focusing. And what does focusing mean? Like was he the CEO of this company?
SPEAKER_03
Walt was essentially the CEO of Walt Disney Studios, yeah. And this is basically in the 40s and early 50s. And it was not huge, huge, but it was like hundreds to maybe just over a thousand employees.
That's how big Walt Disney Studios was.
SPEAKER_02
Damn dude. Well, Ben, I think this was cool as hell. So happy for you that that happened.
These are cool moments along the way and kind of like signals that like you're on the right track. Sam discovered you, I don't know when.
SPEAKER_04
He came on a year ago. It was a year ago.
SPEAKER_02
And you did this awesome. There's somebody put a Twitter clip up. You did some interview and you were like, you're like, I'm listening to my first million.
And I hear Sam say, man, I found this podcast I love. It's called How to Take Over the World. And I thought to myself, huh, there's another podcast called How to Take Over the World.
How cool is that? And then you're like, oh shit, he's talking about me. Ben Wilson, he just said my name. And then, you know, and then we basically, then I went down the rabbit hole after Sam said it.
I was like, that sounds like really interesting. I don't like to read biographies, but I think I'd like to listen to two hours and like, that's just, you know, like one commute. And I could like know the story of Edison.
I listened to the Edison one, I got hooked. I called you basically right after that. I think I DM'd you and called you.
And I was like, hey, let's partner. Like I think your thing is gonna blow up. Come work for us on our podcast.
And then we will help cross promote your podcast. And like, let's take this to the next level. And these are the little happenings that happen along the way.
And now, you know, Mr. Beast following, you know, Sam and my lead of recognizing your talents for what they are. And so, you know, honestly, like I think you have a great thing going.
I'm really happy for you that, you know, this happened. I think it's such a cool thing that happened.
SPEAKER_04
I think what would be cool. And I think this might happen, Ben. Here's what I'm gonna predict that's gonna happen.
In the next month, you're gonna record an episode with Jimmy, Mr. Beast. You're gonna record an episode with Mr. Beast. And I think you, if you, you should ask him. You should text him and be like, next time you wanna do a Sunday talk, can I just record it? And we're gonna talk about history.
And I'm gonna make it an episode. Do you care? And it's gonna be really cool because it's gonna be like when Elon Musk went on, or when like, I forget it was like Elon, Elon Musk went on a couple, like, he went on Waipo Wine. Hardcore history.
Hardcore history. And it's like, dude, well, hardcore history is like bigger than you, Ben. But even to the mainstream person, they were like, why is Elon Musk appearing on this nerdy, niche thing? And it blows it up.
And that's what's gonna happen. It's gonna be all the young people are gonna be like, why is Mr. Beast on this history thing? What is going on? Who is this? And I think that's what's gonna happen and your life is gonna change.
I predict that's, this is how that story's gonna play out.
SPEAKER_02
You should definitely reach out with some idea. You just need to, what is the idea of how he could join you on the thing? And like, just get that one thing right. And it'll be like an inflection point for you and what you do.
SPEAKER_04
Well, it should be why Mr. Beast is the new Walt Disney. And you're gonna be like, and I'm gonna tell you, I'm gonna, Jimmy, it seems Jimmy, right? I'm gonna tell you why, how you are just like Walt Disney, but I'm gonna do it in front of everyone.
And you can ask me questions and I'll explain to you why. That's why I think you are just like him. I think that'll be really cool.
SPEAKER_03
I think what I would want to do is, if he would let me, like go down to North Carolina and interview his parents, interview his friends, and actually kind of make a semi-documentary, audio documentary out of it, the making of Mr. Beast.
SPEAKER_02
That would be sick. And also, it could be like, this is the part one of hopefully many parts to come. And I'm gonna do this, I can kind of document your whole thing, how this turns out.
But you're only 20, what is he, 25, 26 years old, something like that? It's like, this is part one.
SPEAKER_04
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SPEAKER_03
You know what's funny? Part one, I was talking to him and I was talking about like,
SPEAKER_01
guys you call me. Just look at the smile on your face, bro.
SPEAKER_02
This is like, you know, wow, I have never seen this sort of deep happiness inside you. This is amazing.
SPEAKER_03
So I was talking about like, yeah, these guys call me up and think I'm their guru. And so like, I might do like a consulting business off of it, like coaching type of thing because there seems to be a market for that. And he was like, oh yeah, I could see that.
That seems like something I would have gone for when I was younger. And I was like, when you were younger, you're 24 years old. Like how much time is there of when you were younger?
SPEAKER_04
He's like, I used to be like just like that yesterday.
SPEAKER_01
He's like, yeah, when I was younger, you're like, I have a child. I'm seven years older than you and I have a child. All right, that's funny.
He just think about you in a very nice way.
SPEAKER_02
He did you a favor. He kind of like, shit on you in the most gentle way possible in a way that's helpful to you.
SPEAKER_04
Yes, exactly. Well, congratulations. That's cool.
I'm excited to see what's gonna happen.
SPEAKER_04
All right, Sean, I have. What else we got? I've got a few interesting things for you. Let me tell you the first interesting thing that I'm doing in my life and kind of an interesting business.
So I'm on this app called Intro. Are you using Intro?
SPEAKER_02
I don't use it, no, but let's explain what it is. It's basically like you call an expert for an hour and you pay for the time and you can do like a 15 or 30 minute call with them.
SPEAKER_04
Yeah, that's all it is. And that's not the point of the story, but that's like, that's all it is. It's just you pay money to talk to people, it's consulting and my buddy started it.
So he asked me to do it. So I said, yeah, fine, I'll sign up, whatever. So when you and I were in Miami, this man and woman, this husband and wife came up to me and like started talking to me about hypnotherapy because they knew that I was afraid to fly.
I've got like, I have a pretty hardcore claustrophobic thing. I don't take subways that don't fly. And I also have an addictive personality and I love sugar.
And so they like knew that and they were trying to pitch me and they, on like using their services and they kept emailing me and I just, I ignore everyone. I don't reply to email really. And eventually they book a intro call with me and I charged like, I put it at like two grand an hour and they're like, hey, you're never answering our emails.
And to be honest, when I met them, I did, you know, we do the nice thing when we meet people. Oh yeah, you know, this sounds great. Like, you know, maybe I'll do it sometime.
Like you're just trying to be polite. And I said, let's find a time.
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, let's find a time. And let's run away from potentially talking to each other.
SPEAKER_04
Yeah. And they booked a call with me and they goes, you said you're going to do it. We can't get you down.
So we're just going to pay you money right now. And we're going to sit down and do it. Hypno, what's it called? Hyp, what do you call it? Hypnosis? I guess a hypnosis session.
And I'm like, okay, I don't know what that's about, but I do it. And it kind of has changed my, like the game for me. And so, but- What? Yes.
And I'll explain to you what, I keep getting the words screwed up. Hypno therapy, what is it called? Hypnosis. They, this woman, so she has an app.
Her name is Grace. I think getgrace.com is like her app.
And then I don't know, I think like grace.tv, if you go to getgrace.com, I'm sure you'll see all about her.
Her name is Grace. And she told me, she's like, look, here's the deal. A handful of executives pay me a million dollars a year to do, to be their personal hypnotists.
I'm not going to pay you that or I'm not going to charge you that. But if you like it, you have to tell people about it. I said, whatever, fine.
But I'm not paying you a million dollars. She's like, that's fine. But you just let me give you five sessions.
And if it changes you, let me know if you want to talk about it. And so I do this, do this thing. It's totally worked.
And so basically what it is, is you know how you do breath work and meditation? You just like kind of like sit down and get quiet. And like you hear like a voice in your head. Like it's maybe it's your headphones.
It's Andy from Headspace. And he says like, all right, imagine like the sun is pouring on your mind or on your brain and it's leaking down to your body and causing you to like relax. And you're filling with like relaxation, whatever.
You basically do that. But then she talks to you while you're in that state, you know, that meditative state. And she says things like, you know, imagine yourself on a beach in your safe space and imagine like there's four year old you and you're explaining to him how you're trying to overcome like, you know, the sugar addiction or whatever the thing you're trying to overcome.
And so, and tell me what you say to that person. So you're basically just like, you're getting spoken to and you're sometimes speaking back in a meditative state. Not like that interesting.
When I did it, I was like, oh, like I thought I was going to be in a trance. But for some reason this has been wildly effective. I think it could be placebo.
I think it could not be, but I don't care. I haven't had sugar in like three weeks since I started this. And I like am like kind of an addict with that stuff.
And it's like to the point where I get sick if I think about it. It's been crazy fascinating. And she gets all these people to pay her a million dollars a year.
Is that crazy?
SPEAKER_02
Is that real though? Who's paying her? Did she name name? Who's paying her a million dollars a year? That sounds a little far-fetched.
SPEAKER_04
It does sound a bit far-fetched. On her website is the founder of Clearco. Clearco, what are they called? They're called like Clearbank or something.
Yeah, that guy is one of her testimonials. And then she told me other people who, I actually don't know if I'm allowed to say who those other people are. Oh yeah, so Grace.
But do you believe? Her website, yeah. Well, her website is gracesmithtv.com. And on there, you could see testimonials from people. So could she be like kind of pulling my leg? Yeah, I mean, I didn't like look at her financials.
Yes, 100%. But I don't know who, I mean, would someone lie about that?
SPEAKER_02
She looks way different. For some reason I imagine her to be like 70, but she's not, she's very young. So Grace Smith is the world's leading hypnotherapist.
It is a seven figure investment to work with Grace. Wow, that's amazing. You could work with her team for less or download the Grace app for free.
Okay, Grace app for free, that sounds promising. All right, so the founder of Clearbank, wow, she's been on whatever.
SPEAKER_01
So this is a TV show, the trip.
SPEAKER_02
It looks like Jimmy Kimmel, but it's not. It's called the Noite Contenilo Gentili. It's like the Noite Contenilo.
SPEAKER_04
It's the Brazilian version. It's the Brazilian version of Jimmy Kimmel.
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, so. Okay, so yours was around sugar or was around fuel or flight?
SPEAKER_04
We're gonna address the flying thing later, but I was gonna try and do sugar and it's actually been effective. I'm shocked to say it's been effective.
SPEAKER_02
That's kind of crazy. I like it and it makes me wanna do it, which I think is probably pretty common.
SPEAKER_04
She told me to tell you that you can do it for free too if you want.
SPEAKER_02
Oh, okay, great. How do I get over my, what do I even have? I don't have as many as you.
SPEAKER_04
Yeah, the problem is that you're like emotionally healthy. So I don't know if you have issues.
SPEAKER_02
Get over this happiness thing I got every day.
SPEAKER_04
Yeah, so I don't know if it's gonna impact you. I don't know. If you have any diet or-
SPEAKER_02
No, but yeah, it could be food. It could be food related. Do I really want that cheese pizza? Maybe I'll just never eat a cheese pizza again after I talked to Grace.
That could be kind of nice.
SPEAKER_04
It's just kind of interesting, but it could be a thing where it's like, man, I gotta meet this woman every week and if I tell her that I ate sugar, I'm gonna feel like an idiot. So I mean, that could be it. I don't know what it is, but it's kind of interesting.
SPEAKER_02
Well, I started using that, my body tutor after you had mentioned it on the podcast. So like- Did you really? They definitely had a bump. I signed up, I paid for it.
So I was like, all right, let's try this out. It's legit, right? For multiple weeks. It's super legit.
I mean, it's like, there's no like hocus pocus. It's like, just straight up. Here's a kind of like a coach who's a nutritionist who's like gonna really help you.
So I have this woman, Hailey, helping me. I don't know if she's the one same one you have. I have Heather.
Okay, so I don't know about Heather, but Hailey's amazing. And so, and a lot of it's just like the basic psychology of accountability, right? Like I tell her I'm gonna do something and I take a photo of every meal and I have to think to myself, am I gonna either A, be a big fat liar and just not take a picture of this like, you know, bag of cheez-its that I'm about to eat? Or am I gonna take a picture of it and be like, yeah, I know I told you I was gonna eat good and then I just ate bad, even though clearly I could have just not eaten bad. And so it's helped so much to clear up like, you know, just like, I don't know, let's call it 30% or 40% of just random bullshit mistakes that I would have been making.
Plus then there's the strategy, like, okay, she gave me this, I'll share a specific example. So like, she told me this thing, she goes, all right. I snapped a picture of a meal I ate.
She goes, like, whoa, big meal. And I'm like, yeah, yeah, and you know, whatever. She's got it, you know, her job is to kind of judge my meals.
Right? Okay, fair. And she's like, do me a favor. Before you eat, I want you to just on a scale of one to five, just take note, just like at the beginning here, I'm not gonna change anything in your diet, but just observe how hungry were you when you started the meal? Like if one is absolutely starving and five is absolutely stuffed, like were you starving when you decided to eat? Or were you like a two or a three on the hunger scale? And then when you were done, were you like, so stuffed I need a nap? Or are you like, you know, okay, I'm full, I'm done.
And she's like, don't change anything. Just like give yourself a number before and after, after every meal. So I started doing it and she's like, I was like, so what do I want? Like, you know, started at two and ended at four.
She's like, no, you kind of want to start at a three and ended at three. Like, you know, you basically want to be like, okay, it's been about three hours. I think I'll like, I'll eat now.
I think I could eat, I don't have to eat, but I could. I could definitely eat right now.
SPEAKER_04
Because you're creating like patterns and being consistent.
SPEAKER_02
And when I'm done eating, it's like, I don't stop eating when I can't physically eat anymore. I stop eating because like, cool, like I've had enough of my meal and I can move on. I know that there's going to be more food in a couple hours.
I don't need to like, you know, stuff myself to the brim here. And so literally these like very small like nuances. So I'd noticed, oh man, I really do tend to eat bad when I get to a one.
Cause then I'm just like, I'm redlining. I got to, I just like, my decision making is very poor there. So I'm like, normally if I like eat at a two and I finish at a three, I'm like very proud of like those, all those meals.
So little things like that, or, you know, certain like, like, hey, give me a, I was like, yo, give me a grocery list. I'm going to Whole Foods, just give me a grocery list. And I'm just going to buy only that shit.
So I only have that to eat at home. Like, you know, let's make this simple. And so she gave me like an exact grocery list.
I went and bought all that stuff. And I was like, oh, this is great.
SPEAKER_04
So that means it's been really helpful. Yeah. My, my coach was like, anytime you want to snack, cause I would like snack a lot. She was like, get a baked potato, put it a paper towel over it and rinse the bake, get it wet and just put it in the microwave for five minutes and just eat that.
And I started eating that. I'm like, oh, this is delicious. This tastes wonderful.
And it's only 150 calories. So like I was like, what the fuck is a sweet potato? I didn't know what a sweet potato was. You know what I mean?
SPEAKER_02
That's what you call your girlfriend when you're in high school. Yeah.
SPEAKER_04
It's like Dave Chappelle when they do switching spouses when the black guy goes with the white family and he goes, what the fuck is a parsnip? Like, he doesn't know what a parsnip is. It's like, I don't know what a fucking sweet potato is. Who's Renee Zell Wisher? That's what he says.
Yeah, that's anyway. It's been a good service. I like my body tour.
It's good.
SPEAKER_02
Me too. Me too. This is not an ad.
We're not paid to do it. I genuinely like the product and it's helping me.
SPEAKER_04
Also, it's like $700 a month and I don't want to spend that anymore. But I said the only way I'm quitting is when I hit.
SPEAKER_02
It's like $200, $250.
SPEAKER_04
I do the thing where they call you every single day. Oh, OK. They call me every morning.
And I can't cheat because my wife and family knows that I'm doing it. And they're like, oh, you're going to tell Heather that you just ate that? I'm like, oh, fuck.
SPEAKER_02
Well, that was the biggest thing. I had to make a decision. Am I, is this 100% honesty? Or is this 90% honesty or 60% honesty? Like, there are levels to this whole honesty thing.
And so I was like, all right. I decided, if I'm going to spend this money, I got to do 100% honesty. I don't know this person.
I've never met this person. She's going to be my little confidant of every single thing I eat in the exact thing. Like, yeah, I did just put ranch on my potato.
Like, yeah, that happened. You know, like, I can't explain it. I just did it.
And so I'm like, I got to take the actual photo of the actual thing every single time no matter what. And I think that also, the commitment to actually doing it right is what actually makes you get a good result from things.
SPEAKER_04
Do you want me to keep going? You want to do another one? You want me to do another one? Yeah, let's go. All right. Have you heard of Aviator Nation?
SPEAKER_02
No. What is it?
SPEAKER_04
All right. So this is this week's Billy of the Week. So basically, have you heard of Tom Shoe's? Remember Tom Shoe's? Like, give one, buy one, give one type of thing.
You know, like the hits or shoes. Well, anyway, the guy who started it, his name was Blake.
SPEAKER_02
By the way, you go to Africa. Is everybody just running around to tell him shoes? They better be at this point.
SPEAKER_03
Yeah, at this point. Yeah. 20 years, Tom.
SPEAKER_04
Yeah. That's for sure. Tom Shoe's better be like the official shoe of like South Africa.
Everyone should have a pair of Tom's shoes. So her name is Paige. How do you say their last name? Mykoski?
SPEAKER_04
Like that. And so anyway, so this woman Paige and her brother is Blake. The guy started Tom's.
They got kind of popular and they got seed money because they were on like this thing called, you probably knew all about this, The Amazing Race. And so they like did that and got a little bit of seed money, whatever. So he starts Tom's.
The same day, she starts a different company called Aviator Nation. Now, you are not in the target demographic of Aviator Nation. It's mostly women, particularly young high school, and I think middle school girls.
It's like a status symbol a little bit. But basically, she taught herself how to sew just like on YouTube. And she started going just like fairs, like Venice Beach, flea markets, and things like that.
And she would sew like these interesting stripes on like old vintage sweatshirts. Nothing breathtaking, but kind of cool. And like she would be making like five or 10K a day every once in a while when she would go.
And it was kind of working. And she bootstrapped this business to the point of 16 years later, she owns 100% of the company. In 2020, it did 70 million in revenue.
2021, 110 million in revenue. 2022, it's going to double again. So it's going to be north of 200 in revenue.
And last year, she paid herself a $50 million dividend check. And she's buying a lot of. Oh my God.
Yeah, she's buying a lot of real estate with it. And in this article I read Forbes was like, we estimated that she's worth around $350 million. But she said the number is at least double that.
And she recently acquired her ninth property, a $15 million lakeside house in Austin. And she has other homes in Malibu, Venice Beach, Marina del Rey, and in an Aspen ski chalet. And she just.
SPEAKER_02
And she says that if she didn't subscribe to my first million, none of this would have happened. It's fucking crazy, dude.
SPEAKER_04
She said she reads the milk road every day.
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, she subscribes and shares with friends.
SPEAKER_04
Like, unbelievable. Yeah, I want a sweetheart. And have you ever heard of this business? I've never heard about this until Forbes did an article on it.
SPEAKER_02
No. And this, I don't know why, but I'm almost mad. I don't even know what I'm mad at, but I'm just like this.
Because you go to the website. You go to the website. And this literally could be like someone's school project.
This could be like an AliExpress demo site. This could be. And I don't mean that to kind of shit on it, but I'm like, what am I looking at? This is basically like a shirt with four stripes on it.
It's like, you know, like a sweater with a lightning bolt. It's like a dude wearing black shorts with a yellow stripe on the side. And the short.
Wow, the shorts are $168.
SPEAKER_04
Yeah. So and I forgot to add that. That's like the shtick, which is it's like sweatpants are $160.
So like the items of clothing are a luxury brand. Yeah, a little bit short of luxury. But like basically my friend Joe told me that his kids wear it or they always like are wanting it because they'll see girls in school wearing it and it's like $150 for a pair of sweatpants.
SPEAKER_02
And so it's a little mystery box for me. Like, how do you do this? How do you make something just like arbitrarily cool and in demand when it seems like there are a trillion, you know, like alternatives to this? And like, I kind of get it when it's like established brands. It's like, oh, yeah, well, you know, Louis Vuitton or whatever.
They have this like history of like being seen as valuable. So therefore people will continue seeing it valuable. This is just like some woman at her dining table was like, no, you know what? Three stripes on the hoodie, $800.
This plan will work. And like somehow it did. I don't explain this to me.
SPEAKER_04
This is like makes my head hurt. Listen, in that book, what's Peter Teal's book zero to one? He talks about like he's like, there's like basically like these. I don't remember the words he used, but he said like there's like a moat or like the truth, like you have to know something that no one else knows.
And basically you have to like figure out some a secret, some type of like technology that others haven't figured out. But he goes and Peter Teal is like this kind of like autisticy, like genius. And he's like, the fifth one is branding, which I don't know anything about that.
I don't know about cool, but I know that that's like important. That's kind of like what he says in the book. He's like branding is like a moat, but like, you know, I don't know anything about moats.
I just do technology. And I think that I've been chatting with a, remember how we had Sophia Amarosa on the, on the, on the pod. She's the one who started Nasty Gal and she's got all these other new projects going on.
And like a woman like her, just everything she does to me, it's just like cool. It just looks.
SPEAKER_02
Well, when I met, when we, when we met her, I was like, Oh yeah, like whatever you are selling on buying, like dig your vibe. You seem awesome. Like, you're wearing like six rings right now.
I don't even know one. I feel like I should own six now. Like, I don't know what's happening, but like I am drawn to your lifestyle, your charisma, your whatever.
And I think that's like the, you know, whatever, like, you know, that works for Nasty Gal. I think it works for like goop and shit like that, where it's like, there's just something about certain taste makers and trendsetters where you're like, exactly. All right.
I just want to like, I just want to drink whatever you're drinking.
SPEAKER_04
Well, if you Google this woman page, she kind of has that vibe. She's like the Jessica Simpson version of Nasty Gal. Like maybe a little bit, like maybe like a little bit less like edgy, but like still cool.
You know, like, like just a little bit more like she always looks like she just
SPEAKER_02
got back from Coachella. Yeah. Oh, you just got back.
SPEAKER_04
Like she's not going to do Coke with you, but like she'll have like really good peach iced tea, but it's still like cool. And like, you're always like, you're like, Oh, what the fuck is this? Hibiscus stuff? Like that type of vibe. And anyway, I like her.
I love this woman page. I've been reading all about her. This company is really, really cool.
And you're in the, you're in the e-com space. A bunch of our friends are in the e-com space and it's really hard right now. And I read about this woman and I was like, Oh, well, she sure makes it look kind of easy.
It's kind of interesting.
SPEAKER_02
I think that's why I have such a big reaction to it because I'm an e-com. And I'm just like, how, how the, oh, how do you do this? You know, you ramped up to 200 million in sales with like the most competitive common category, like shirts. Oh, no.
Yeah. Okay. What makes your shirts good? They're just cool. You know, I'm like, yeah, yeah, but that doesn't count for a hundred million.
And it's like, actually it can. If you really are cool enough and you build that grassroots thing, what I want to learn, and I don't know if there's a way to even like figure out this backstory without doing a bunch of work, but like the, there is something to like the foundation of cool, right? So like, how do you build a frame of foundation or like a ladder that will, that will like, you know, started, it sounds like she went to festivals and she's in the, for the first store was in hate Ashbury and in San Francisco. And it's like, with the right group of people, you start getting going and then it kind of like spreads from there.
And I've never understood that when it comes to fashion. I don't, I never understood. But her brother has that too.
SPEAKER_04
So if you Google Blake Meosky and you see like his house, like he's got like a vintage, like a vintage like Toyota Land Cruiser truck with like a golden retriever and like a cool like Pennington, Pendleton, whatever it's called, blanket, like laying over the hood and like skis on top of the truck in front of their Malibu, like even though it's like, you know, they're just wealthy. So it's maybe it's easy to like have all that cool shit. There is like a sense of style that he's just always had.
I think part of the cool thing is you just, you're just good looking to be honest. I think that's definitely like a factor. I think we got to the root of it.
Right. I mean, like Brad Pitt could wear anything and then I could wear the same clothing and just like, he just looks better. He's just better looking.
I mean, of course, like he's cooler, but there is a few other things I think that that are a little bit more learnable and replicable when it comes to that. But these people definitely have it.
SPEAKER_02
It reminds me. So yesterday I was talking to my mom and my mom's in town or my mom's like visiting my house and I started doing this thing. I did a podcast with my mom where I was like, I really want to hear my mom's story.
Like, because we all talk to our moms, but we don't like really talk. It's like surface level stuff where it's all about the kid and moms are great because they're like, you know, they're all about you. But like, how often do you really sit down and ask them questions about like them and how they grew up and what made them them? So I recorded this podcast with my mom because, you know, parents are getting older and I just always wanted to have it.
It was amazing. And one of the things she had told me, I don't know if I shared the story of the podcast before, but she had told me like her trip to America, like how she got here. And like, and it wasn't hardship.
Like it wasn't hardship. Like, oh my God, we were smuggled in and boats and like we had to like, you know, walk through the Rio Grande with just our nose above the water. Like it wasn't hard like that.
It was hard in the way that's like very relatable and that just unknown. You just don't know what you don't know. And then you're in a situation and there's nobody to help you.
And so she talked about like she got on the plane and like she saw the seat belt. They're like, fashion seat belt, ma'am. And she's like, you know, like a plane seat belt is not like any of the seat belt you've ever seen.
And she's like, she was like, and she's just like clacking it together over and over. And it's like goes in and like she was so happy. Like, oh my God, like thing number one done.
Like I could do this. And then she was like, all right, I'm flying to America. Like I don't want to miss my stop because she'd only ever been on a train.
So she's like, why to wake for like 16 hours of a flight being like, when are they going to announce like the America stop? And I need to get off this, this plane. And like she didn't know that a plane just like goes to one place and that's it. And there was like so many things like when she got to the place that she got to JFK or something like that, she needed to transfer to Pittsburgh.
She just didn't know. She was like, I think I'm in America. Like I didn't really know beyond that.
Like I have to get to Pittsburgh. What is a Pittsburgh? And she's like, she was like 20 at the time. And to put it like her 20 is like today's like seven year old.
Like because she had never been to a restaurant. She couldn't speak English. She like, she told me once she's like, yeah, right before I went to America.
She told me yesterday she goes, I went as like our school thing. We went to a restaurant and I'd never eaten outside of my house. And so I was like, okay.
And she's like, there was like a fork and knife on the table and I didn't know, like I knew what they were, but I didn't know how you hold them. And she's like, I'm looking around and everybody's doing it so fast. And I'm like, okay, what are they doing with their like, how do they pick this up like this? And she's like, I basically didn't eat.
I paid for the most expensive meal of my life. And I didn't know how to get the food into my mouth. And I was so embarrassed to use my hands.
I just didn't do it. And so I was hearing these stories and I was like, we all have these moments where like the world seems too mysterious for us. Like this is like, I don't know what this, this black box is like completely foreign to me.
And I don't know how to operate it. And like her trip to America had like five of these, like she was talking about like, when she finally got off the plane and the American guy had met her and it was like, okay, you clearly look like completely panicked. And he was like, are you, do you know like where you're going? Like, do you have family to come pick you up? And she's like, no, like, why did you have to come?
SPEAKER_03
Do you have somebody's phone number?
SPEAKER_04
Was she able to college or something?
SPEAKER_02
She was even younger. She was actually, she was 17. She was, she started high school three days later in America when she came.
And so she, she came because if you come right before your 18th birthday, you're not an adult yet. So you have to do way less paperwork. So her dad like put her on a plane at 17 was like, go, you're like, you're about to turn 18 in three days.
Like you need to get over there. And so her brother was here, but here, uh, you know, like, she didn't know how to get to his house. She didn't know like all the steps it takes to get there.
So this guy was like, do you have her phone number, his phone number? And she was like, yeah, yeah, look, I have a phone number. And he's like, okay, let's go to this pay phone. And he's like, um, and she was like, I don't know what this is.
Like, I don't know what this device is. I don't have money. And I don't know how to do this.
So he pay, he puts quarters in and he calls. And then she's like, she talks to her brother and brother's like, well, you're here. Like, I didn't even know you're coming.
Like, okay. Stay exactly where you are. Don't move.
I will go to the airport and I'll find you at the phone booth. Do not move like one step. And she's like, okay.
And she's like, the guy who had helped me like set up the phone call, he had to go catch us next flight or he was like, she speak English. She could like read English, but she couldn't speak it. She had never practiced speaking.
So she like, you know, it was here and she's like, oh shit. And so she was like, I, she was like, I'll never forget. She's like, I was trying to, like, I was done with the phone call, but I didn't understand how to hang up the phone.
I couldn't like, I couldn't, I couldn't understand what she was saying. I couldn't figure out how to get the pay phone back. Like what was the original starting point? I didn't remember.
And she's like, I remember I just like left it hanging, like the cord hanging, the phone to swing. And I like walked away and I was so scared. Like the police are going to get me for what I just did.
And she's like, everything was so new. Like, you know, on the way home, we stopped at a 7-Eleven and I was like, this is a palace. Like look at how much stuff is here.
Look how bright these lights are. I've never seen lights so bright in my life. And like, you know, every little thing was so amazing.
And so I say this for two reasons. One is if you haven't done like the kind of like podcast with your mom, go do it. It's amazing.
Even if you don't have a podcast, you don't need to publish it.
SPEAKER_04
Well, few people are going to have it as good of a story as that.
SPEAKER_02
I don't know. Like I feel like everybody's got a story when you start to dig in. And then for my mom, it was almost like, she didn't think about this stuff.
Like it was only like halfway through when I got to like the interesting bit because it was all like just so buried in her head. You know, what does she remember from 40 years ago? But then she did remember once I got like on the right trail. But the other thing is like, when I hear the story about this woman who, you know, just put stripes on a t-shirt and like grows it like crazy.
And I'm saying that kind of like, to me, it looks so simple, but obviously there's more to it. I just don't know what the more to it is. And I'm sure there's people who listen to this podcast and they hear these things.
I hear us talk about many things and they're like, I feel like you guys say it like it's so obvious, but it's like completely not obvious to me. It's like, where do, how do I hang up the pay phone? Like how do I connect the seat belt? Like, I don't know. That's okay.
Like there is that everybody's got that black box. And then like later you look back and you laugh and you're like, I can't believe it.
SPEAKER_04
You and I, you're not an immigrant, but you and most all of my friends, and I think you as well, all of our friends are either immigrants or kids of immigrants. I feel like I'm like the only like not one of those that I'm close with. I'm close with my wife is that my family's that you're that.
And what you, what you notice talking to these people and a lot of you and I are friends with a lot of immigrant entrepreneurs or children of immigrants and their entrepreneurs. And you, you like, I often wonder, I'm like, how are these people succeeding when there's, it's they're coming from a place where things were much harder. You know, like I didn't learn how to, I didn't have to learn how to, you know, use a pay phone.
I just knew. And you hear the story about your mom and you're like, well, that's why they succeed so well because well, she had to learn how to use a fork. Like that's like, I imagine like pretty humiliating and you're frightened.
You're frightened. You get on a plane to like, you know, it sounds like to her, it'd be as, as if you sent me to the moon. Mars. You know what I mean? You're like, what the hell? Like, I don't know. I don't know anything.
And it's like, well, okay. I like landed it. I found my brother somehow.
Like what's the worst that could happen? They're going to send me back to this place. I mean, like, you know, it can't be that bad, uh, failing, failing at least. And so when you talk about people who are like, well, I don't know what to do.
It's like, yeah, but like it's kind of straightforward. You just can't really be afraid to do it because like the worst that's going to happen is not that bad. Like, you know what I mean? Right.
If this woman from India can come knowing nothing and she ends with like this big family and she's, your parents are pretty successful. Like it can work out if you just kind of take a little bit of risk. It's pretty inspiring.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_02
I think that's where two common immigrant traits come from. Number one, like a willingness to grind it out in a way that's like, nothing is beneath
SPEAKER_02
You know, like, okay. Like she was like, you know, two weeks later, I had a job as a waitress. Like the person who had never been to a restaurant now was hired as a waitress in America and couldn't speak English.
And she's like, my brother was like, how the hell did you get a job? And she's like, I don't know. You said we needed a job. And so like I just kept going to different places every like hour.
I just went to a different place to interview. And this one liked me and they just gave me the job and like, okay, I have to go at like four in the morning before school and like, help clean the stuff. And then I'm going to go at night and like, that's what I'll do.
And so you get this like grit side, but then you also get the like, kind of like why are immigrants so cheap? It's because like they've operated with no safety net before. And so now when they have some resources, they're like, don't squander them. We remember what it was like to have no resources with no back, no net to catch you if you fall.
And so like, yeah, don't like spend too much. Even once like a lot of immigrant parents end up in America, like they end up getting rich, but they still live very cheaply. And I think it's because like, if you've lived, it's like, you know, somebody who's like, I don't know, they like grew up in the woods and it's like, why do you sleep on the floor still? It's like, I just do.
Okay. Like don't ask me too many questions. It's like, I know I have a bed now, but like I don't need, I don't need the bed.
I don't want to use that right now because I feel like, you know, anything could happen right now.
SPEAKER_04
And so a lot of my, the same fear. And a lot of my friends, so my mother-in-law is from Haiti and I would talk to her. So she, did I tell you how she started this pillow business? I don't know how big it is exactly, but I imagine mid six figures.
And she took, she asked me to, to take, drive me two hours to the airport. And I was like, why? She's like, I want to ask you how Shopify works. I think I want to create an online store where I sell these pillows.
And I'm like, all right, whatever. I'll explain to you how to do it. But I, like people ask me this all the time, I never follow up and they never do anything.
And so she calls me six weeks later. She's like, all right, I got my first sale now what? It's called my God. And I was talking to her and the way that they would describe it, you know, my in law, my in laws as well as my other, other immigrant friends.
It's kind of like what's interesting is when you take like these immigrants and you put them in America where there's like a pretty strict rules and laws like in like mostly the government can't take things from you and like your stuff is mostly protected. It's like, well, this is easy. This is an easy mode.
Like, like we all know the, we all know the rules and we know that people are mostly all going to follow the rules. Like this is easy. This is just a board game.
Like you just got to play it. And so I'm always inspired hanging out with those types of people.
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, for sure. Me too. You said something just now, which is like, I think is an important little thing, which was I tell people to stuff all the time and like very few take action.
Like most people just don't do anything with this. I've been kind of, I've been admiring. There's been a bunch of people who have built cool shit for us that like I just want to call out is kind of awesome and I don't know where it leads.
And I like that they did it knowing not where it leads, but something good is going to happen. I'll give you give you a couple of examples. Somebody created this thing.
I don't know if you saw it. They put it on product. It's the MFM ideas system.
I wish I knew the link off top of my head, but if you go to product and you search my first million, basically he went and indexed like, I don't know, 30 or 40% of all of the different ideas we've said on this podcast. Well, we're like, oh, Mailchimp, but for inside your company because you need to write internal newsletters, blah, blah, blah. And so they'll take that idea.
He timestamped it. And so you can go to the website and it'll be, you'll just be like, give me an idea and it'll give you an idea. And then it says, listen to it and you click it and it opens up and spotify or whatever some player, like exactly where we talked about that idea.
And I was like, wow, this is so awesome for us, but also for anybody who's a fan of the podcast. And immediately I was like drawn to this person and it's such a, it's such a hack to stand out just by like doing a useful thing. And there's so much energy that gets spent like reading books, listening to podcasts, like asking, asking people for advice, you know, and it's like, dude, you know, instead spend actually like a one third of the time and actually like build something or make something that's like kind of interesting.
That will get you so much further. There's another guy who built this thing called write like Sean.com. Have you seen this?
SPEAKER_04
That was really good. It was great.
SPEAKER_02
This guy created this thing. He trained GPT three like the AI model or whatever to on a bunch of my Twitter threads. And he goes, oh yeah, I trained this AI to write like you.
So watch, you can just type in any topic and it'll spit out a Twitter thread. And I was like, okay.
SPEAKER_04
Yeah, I did it. It was awesome. It was great.
SPEAKER_02
It's actually awesome. This guy, someone put it in there. Let me find it.
SPEAKER_04
He put in, I'm gonna pull this up pretty amazing how the, the language like it is, it is like you, I put something in there and like the cadence sounded exactly like you.
SPEAKER_02
So, okay. So this person, where's the one? Somebody wrote how to pick up girls or whatever. Like somebody wrote how to be happy.
And then he goes, you don't find happiness. You create it. Most people go through life searching for happiness.
They think that when they find the right job, right relationship, right house, they'll finally be happy. But the truth is happiness comes from then. Here's how you create it yourself.
Number one, do something that makes you happy every day. It doesn't have to be big. It can be small.
Like this is a fucking computer that's writing a very realistic, you know, looking thing. Here's another one. Why we don't do public math, right? That is somebody's a fan of the podcast.
He goes, we don't do public math. Think about it. When's the last time you did math in public? I mean, really did math.
In addition, subtraction, multiplication, not mental math, but using your fingers, a calculator or a piece of paper. When's the last time you saw someone do math in public? It's almost like we're ashamed of it. We don't want people to see us struggle at math.
We think they'll think we're stupid. But the truth is math is hard and it's normal to struggle with it. So let's start doing public math.
Like it like changes our whole perspective by the end. Let's try to practice public math, period.
SPEAKER_04
How does how did how did how can I make one of those? Because I would like to do that for my stuff. It just still write emails for me. So what do you do? You just like tell GPT three to read all of your tweets and it gets to know you.
SPEAKER_02
We should just get this guy. So this guy odd little pickle is his name. Is his like Twitter handle.
I told him because I put it in my newsletter. I was like, check this out. This is awesome.
And it like crashed his site and it ran up a thousand dollar bill before it crashed the site. He's like, ah, no, my side project. I was like, dude, I'll like I'll pay your bill.
Just let me own the thing and I'll pay your bill. Like it's my it's right like Sean. I'll buy it off you and then you don't have to worry about this stuff.
SPEAKER_04
And so I think it'd be cool to like, like I love John Steinbeck. I've been reading it. You know, you don't even know who that is.
Do you? Famous American author, whatever a classic American author like, you know, like the he's like from the crew that wrote like a catcher in the ride that type of crap. I would love to like write my marketing emails like those guys. And I think it'd be cool if I could if I could figure out how to like teach GPT three.
What, um, you want to go to different time in the background?
SPEAKER_02
I don't know if you could hear it.
SPEAKER_04
It's all right. What topics you want to go to?
SPEAKER_02
Um, well, there is a couple others on this like GPT three thing.
SPEAKER_02
Like, um, so basically that like this, the AI has gotten really, really good at really specific things. Like I don't know. Have you played with Dolly? That's the other one that's like incredible.
SPEAKER_04
That is the craziest shit on earth. That is way crazier than GPT three.
SPEAKER_02
Dolly is basically the pick. It's the picture version of this. You just type in any concept.
It's like, um, Sam Parr surfing while smoking a cigarette and it'll generate like 12 pictures. Like AI illustrates Sam Parr on a surfboard smoking a cigarette. It'll give you a bunch of variations.
Dude, I told it to do wild shit.
SPEAKER_04
I said, do real life grown up Cartman and Bart Simpson. And it made a real life. Like a, it looked like a photo of photograph of what a grown up Cartman from South Park, a cartoon looked like.
It was crazy.
SPEAKER_02
It is so impressive. This is like the demo version. It's not even the real version.
I'm going to start doing a thing. Um, there's this company I want to invest in that does this with voices. And so, uh, basically he sent me a clip of, um, of Gary V.
Reading the milk road. So it was like, you know, it goes, good morning. You know, it is like the Gary V voice.
It read the thing and it sounds exactly like Gary V. And then he's like, here's Jordan Peterson doing it. Here's Joe Rogan doing it.
Here's Gary V doing it. And he's like, if you give me like 16 hours of like your podcast audio data, like I'll just, I can make your voice like a synthetic voice. So then you could like, you could just type something and, um, it'll do, it'll record the audio for you the way you talk.
And I was like, what in the world is going on? So this stuff is so amazing to me. It's really captured my fascination. And it's just the beginning.
Like this is going to get so much better and has all kinds of crazy implications. Like, Hey, you're not going to know what's real and what's fake. Like cause fake and real are going to be like indistinguishable, like a, like a deep fake video or like a Photoshop photo, but for everything, for voices, for videos, for drawings, for whatever, uh, Twitter threads.
Like it's not unreasonable that like most of the content you read on the internet is just going to be written by computers. Like you're going to go on Twitter. It's just going to be auto-generated content from brands and, and, and people that are, you know, just plugging it into the, to the AI and AI is spitting out good content for us all to consume.
Like we may not have Hollywood at some point. It'll just be like computers making movies and the rest of us just like, you know, wall, what's that movie where they're like fat people sitting in wheelchairs and just like sucking down slurpees and watching stuff. It'll just be that cause it's like, oh, we don't need to do the work to make stuff anymore.
So the computers make awesome movies. We just watch them.
SPEAKER_04
Dude, let me, let me tell you a quick story. Has we kind of wrapped up real quick about, you know how like, you know, it's not for a little while, it's been not cool to live in a city lately and it's been cool to live in like a less popular places like in Portland, Austin, that type of thing. Last night I went to a wedding.
I went, it was my wife's buddy's wedding. So they weren't like, you know, my friend, they weren't like what I thought, like, you know, our startup eating nerdy friends. And I sat at this table and listened to my table.
I didn't know who any of these people were. They were, we just started chit chatting. The person next to me started a business that had raised $30 million at a start.
And these, all these people are about 28 years old had raised like $30 million. The person next to them had a company that in two years hired 300 people. The person next to them had a startup that they sold for $140 million.
The person next to them had a VC fund that had a billion dollars raised. And they, this person graduated college in 2009. So however old you are 33 with that.
And then the person next to them was a partner at one of the biggest management consulting.
SPEAKER_02
And so it's like mostly like, and then there's some poor like English teacher in the middle who's just like, what am I, what is this? Come on, come on, let me do it here. Well, why, I'm the one doing real work out here.
SPEAKER_04
So no one was douchey at all. So the reason why I even knew that was because they like had seen Sarah post about me and they're like, Oh, you do the podcast about startups. I was like, Oh yeah, okay.
So you must be in startups too. Yeah, I work at this company. Oh, what do you do there? Oh, I actually started it.
So like they're trying to, they're being cool about it. So it was pretty inspiring to be around these people. I'm used to like, you know, sometimes being like a big shot sometimes amongst my, my like non entrepreneurial friend group.
And I go around these people and I'm like, Oh my God, like this is like incredibly motivating. I actually think that there's a world where it's a little unhealthy because you're like, you know, like this money shit doesn't actually matter that much, but it's so it's kind of bullshit that I'm like comparing myself to others, but it's incredibly, incredibly motivating. And that's something that I miss about San Francisco.
And we had that for a little while.
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, that is, that was the best part about San Francisco by far. Like people would be like, how's San Francisco? It's like, Oh, well, the city is basically Gotham City. You know, it's cold.
It's not actually like warm California weather. You know, it's super expensive. It's, you know, all these things.
But the upside is like, you know, if you want to hang out with some of the most ambitious, interesting people who like look at the world a little differently and are kind of crazy enough to go pursue it, you're just going to keep bumping into them like everywhere you go, regardless of what you're doing. And sure enough, your brain will start to change to be more like them.
SPEAKER_04
Dude, what's funny is I feel like our friends weren't even ambitious. Like, you know, like Jack Smith is not an ambitious person. He just like works on interesting things and just so happens that they become huge money making operations or like we have a few friends that are ambitious, but then we have a bunch of friends that's just like, I don't think.
SPEAKER_02
Jack, I think is more of an outlier. Jack is more like just like curious and mischievous more than he is ambitious. But I don't think most people are like Jack.
I think Jack's a bit of an outlier.
SPEAKER_04
I don't consider myself to be ambitious. Do you consider yourself to be ambitious?
SPEAKER_02
You are ambitious. Yes, you are.
SPEAKER_04
I don't consider a lot of our friends to be ambitious. I'm just like, we just like doing interesting things and it just so happens that the output is.
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, but yours is like, okay, Jack's is like, I like doing interesting things as in like, he'll build a ergonomic chair in his garage to like see what that's like. Your version is like, I like just doing interesting things that are highly profitable. And like, there's a caveat.
There's like an important caveat to your like, you're not like just reading novels from like, you know, 18th century. You're like, okay, how do I, you know, spin up this thing that's going to get to six figures in revenue very quickly? Right. Like that's, that's your version of what's interesting.
It's what's interesting to you is kind of the hook, right? So like what's interesting to people like, okay, Furkan, I would say is very ambitious. He's not very money minded, right? Ambition is not money. It's like, but he's like super interested in new tech.
And so, you know, our office would have like, oh, he, you know, here's just why, why doesn't the TV remote work? Oh, sorry. I changed the T. I like took the chip out of the TV and put a Raspberry Pi in.
I was like, why can't I use this beer tap? Oh, because I put a fucking like drone that floats above it and like, you know, what is this? Where's my computer? It's like, oh, I needed a place to put my 3d printer and like eight out of 10 of those turned out to be just like, you know, money sucks. Like there, there was no commercial value in the Raspberry Pi or the many drones or the 3d printing or any of that stuff. It was just like the fifth one where he's like, yeah, I'm playing around with this like crypto thing and this thing called Ethereum just came out.
And it's like, just happened to be that that one was like, one that turned out to be extremely profitable and like, you know, change the world in a bigger way. But, you know, the interest was in, let's say for him, tech or like our buddy Xavier is just like, dude, how do I provide electricity to people in Africa who don't have it? Right? That's ambition in a different way. Right. And that was inspiring, right? Like I was like, holy shit, you're the biggest solar provider in Africa.
SPEAKER_04
But I guess what I mean is like in New York, I noticed that the ambition is like, let me crawl up this ladder and climb to the top of the ladder because I want to be number one and I'm going to kick other people off the ladder and make sure I stop on their faces. I'm going up so they can't get as high as I am. Right. Whereas it seems that maybe I'm just being like, just, I just think our shit don't stink, which is it's more like, let's create new ladders. You know what I mean? Let's just make our own ladder.
SPEAKER_02
It's like, here's the test of New York. It's like, do you know which finger can take the least amount of pressure before it gives up its grip? It's like, yeah, step on the ring finger. They're done.
Whereas in San Francisco, it's a little bit different. In San Francisco, the virtue signaling is different. Like what you get rewarded for is different.
You get rewarded for, I'm solving some big problem at scale, billion users, billion dollar prize. That's what you're going for. And it's okay to be like your high status if you're broke, but going for a big, big prize.
Whereas in New York, you don't get high status for broke. Like it's like, no, you can't do it.
SPEAKER_04
San Francisco, it's like the guy with the biggest ratio of wealth to poor looking is like the winner. You know, like you have to be like the most raggedy looking dude with the most
SPEAKER_02
amount of money. Yeah. Yeah. Make the most money and then give up all your possessions and live on the street. Like that is the like peak, right? That's like Jack.
Go look at Jack Dorsey. It's like, okay, you build two multi-billion dollar companies, but then you grow a homeless man beard and you like pretend you don't care about it. You give all your money away and you wear a tie-dye T-shirt and like, you know, you carry around a notebook and like that's while you walk barefoot.
It's like that. That's the highest status like person you can be in Silicon Valley.
SPEAKER_04
What did you think of the Peter Lovells podcast?
SPEAKER_02
I thought it was dope. Like I think he's great. I like him like, you know, I always liked his content, but I like him.
I didn't know him. And I like the way he thinks. I like the way he acts.
I thought he was pretty honest. Like he didn't come on here and try to perform. And he got the vibe.
He got the, you know, I think he's a hit. I like him.
SPEAKER_04
There's a handful of people who we were friends with and who we've talked to publicly who I think I would put in the category of like, oh, they've kind of figured it out. And of course that they're flawed and they make mistakes and they're not always happy and whatever that just like a normal humans. But like in general, they've kind of got it figured out.
I would say Darmesh is in that category where it's like, oh man, you've like, you have a lot of the boxes checked of like, you seem happy. You seem like you got a good family. Your career is good.
Jack Smith, our good buddy is another one of those people. He started a company that he sold for $800 million, but like he's not that like, he doesn't really care about that and he'll never tell you about it unless you ask about it. But he's happy and healthy.
And then this guy Lovells, Peter Lovells, Peter Lovells, I would put him in the same category where it's like, you kind of like seem like you know what you want and you stick with it and you have principles and you're achieving exactly your ideal life. And that makes me happy.
SPEAKER_02
You know the, you know, the tell that I figured out, like the, what's the quickest way for me to pick up on is that person like those people, like our, for some of our favorite people, I like that. I put Suley in that category. I put Furkan in that category.
I put a bunch of Ramones in that category. It's what percent of your like kind of when you talk about yourself or what you're doing, what percent, there's two tests. One is what percent of a conversation do you talk about yourself versus your ask questions or you're interested or curious about other things, other people, other things.
And the second is when you talk about yourself, what percent is talking about the past stuff you've done versus stuff you're interested in doing or the future. And it sounds very simple, but I'll like, if you go to their bios, very few of them even have their last company in their bio. Whereas if you go to my bio, it's like sold Bebo, right? Like number one, the first thing I write in there is like sold the thing, you know, like I've done something cool.
Please ask me about it. I love to tell you about my wins. And like, you're fairly,
SPEAKER_04
you're, you're fairly close to being in that category of like, I feel like you know what you want. And even if you don't get what you want, you're still mostly happy. Yeah. And the thing
SPEAKER_02
that's helped me is like, I'm getting away from doing that. I'm getting away from basically trying to like seek validation in some way. And then the second, that's why we talk about our past, right? To like kind of like give ourselves some status or get some validation from others is like, you know, here's my background.
Here's what I've done. Therefore, please give me some respect and whatever else. And once I picked up that these other guys do that very differently, I started to shed that it's like somebody will bring something up in conversation.
I think of an anecdote where I can tell them a really cool story of how I've done that. And I'm just like, well, that doesn't actually add to the conversation. They're already convinced.
Why do I need to do that? I don't need to, I don't need to perform here. It's fine. And so I like let that go.
And that thought never used to be let go. It always used to be something I would immediately jump in at any opportunity to kind of like, you know, hey, can you validate my parking here? Here's my ticket stub. Can you please punch a hold on it? And like, that's how I felt like I was doing stuff.
And then I noticed these guys don't do that. And I talked to, I remember asking Suley, I go, I feel like you never, I kind of have to brag for you when we meet people because like, dude, they don't even know who you are. They don't know you're like, how much of a hitter you are.
SPEAKER_04
And you want to look and Sean wants to look cooler that he's associated with Suley and bring it.
SPEAKER_02
Why did I bring this guy to this meeting? Because this guy's fucking awesome. And like, hold on, you didn't do it. You didn't brag.
Let me brag. Yeah. And, and I was like, I was like, why do you do that? I was like, I was like, I also feel like you don't even talk about or think about like all the stuff you've done in the past. And like, he was like, he's like, yeah, I mean, I don't, I don't know, I don't really do, I don't really feel the need to.
He's like, you know, I heard Kobe Bryant give a talk once and he's like, it was after Kobe retired. And he was talking about like the new shit he was into. He's like, because I don't know if you know, Kobe started like making little mini movies and like, he like got really into storytelling and movies.
And like, that was like, what he wanted to do, right? Create stories and movies and stuff. Yeah. And so he was like creating, he created like a production company. And Kobe had said something that was like, I need my next 20 years to make my last 20 years like a footnote, like the next 20 years need to be the best thing I've ever done.
And this is coming from one of the greatest hall of fame basketball players. Whereas if you see what most players do when they retire, they go put on a suit, they put on 30 pounds, and then they go sit at an ESPN desk, and they talk about how the players these days don't get it back in my day. We used to be so great.
And like they, and they never like move on to the next great adventure. And they don't, they think it's, it's implicit that the best work of their life was behind them. And that's why they gained the weight.
That's why they aren't as happy. That's why they're nostalgic for the good old days. Whereas somebody who looks at it like, oh, this next chapter is my best chapter.
And that's a different, that person's going to like go through life a little differently. And so he told me, he's like, when I heard that, I thought the same thing like, oh, yeah, great. My next company, it needs to make my last company be this like little afterthought, like we'll put it in the appendix of like stuff I'm done.
And if I think about it that way, then I won't put so much emphasis on it. I won't use it as my crutch as like a way to get kind of respect or attention or anything like that. I'm going to only make my new thing the way I do it.
And I really respected that. I was
SPEAKER_04
like, that's great. Have you heard the song, uh, Gama Feels Good to Be a Gangster? Of course. Basically, uh, and one of the lines he says, real gangsters don't flex nuts because they know they got them.
And that's, that's what we're talking about here. You don't flex nuts because you know you got them. Yeah, exactly.
Exactly. I think that's the episode.