0:00:05 You’ve had a good quarter HubSpot stock. I think that in all time high you sold a domain to open AI
0:00:11 You came with a pod, you know, I don’t care what they say about you Dermas. You’re doing okay. I’m doing okay
0:00:15 Okay, thank you. All right. It’s my first million. How do we use the hour?
0:00:21 So that it’s your first million if all you do is spend a hundred percent of your time converting your labor
0:00:25 Into value and do not increase your leverage. You’re not going to get anywhere
0:00:31 Okay, so what were the things you invest in that had the maybe the highest return for you that did actually make you
0:00:36 More high leverage never in my mind has it been easier to get to that first million than right now
0:00:40 There was no good way to squeeze this and but I can’t not say it. I’m gonna I know I’m gonna
0:00:56 Let’s start with opening remarks. The first is what I’ll call an unhidden agenda and my unhidden agenda
0:01:00 So I have a picture of Venn diagram. I love Venn diagrams circle number one
0:01:04 I want to talk about things that I think I have useful things to say in some expertise
0:01:07 Uh, so we’ll definitely talk about AI and agents and things like that
0:01:15 But the other circle is things that I think are borderline guaranteed to increase the probability of you the audience making your first million
0:01:18 Thing number two is that in order to do that
0:01:22 Uh, you know, we have at HubSpot. We have a culture of humility
0:01:26 That’s one of the core of five values at HubSpot and I’ve said this particular line
0:01:29 To employees at HubSpot. I don’t think I’ve ever said it outside of HubSpot
0:01:33 But I’m going to solve for utility over humility
0:01:37 So if there’s a way to say something that’s going to be more useful as a result of
0:01:40 And but in order to do that, I’m gonna have to say something that’s non-humble
0:01:45 I’m going to go and say it even though it’s non-humble because it increases the utility of it and there will be a couple of moments
0:01:48 that
0:01:52 Are completely non-utility and non-humble as well. So that’s uh,
0:01:56 A couple of twists in there. Okay, so we have to just start with this which is
0:02:01 You’re coming on as a guest, but you’re coming on as the most prepared guest we’ve ever had
0:02:06 We did a pre-call. We discussed a bunch of things then you uh, then I sent you some notes
0:02:10 And I try to make it light. I’m like just maybe one or two things to think about before the episode
0:02:12 Because I never know how much work somebody wants to put in
0:02:16 You then send back a whole another doc that’s like, hey, here’s a bunch of stories ideas
0:02:19 I have some opening remarks. You have a whole bunch of stuff there
0:02:24 You went back and you watched your old episodes, which are some of the most popular episodes we’ve had
0:02:28 You read all the comments you incorporated the feedback. Is this just how you do everything?
0:02:30 Not not everything. Um, so
0:02:36 Confession on this particular in this particular case not only did I watch my prior episodes read through the comments
0:02:40 But in the process of that I saw the leaderboard on the my first million youtube channel
0:02:43 And I’m number five and you don’t know this about me yet
0:02:49 But you will is like I’ve never met a leaderboard that I didn’t want to get on the top of right? It’s okay. What what happened here?
0:02:53 By the way, Sam, that’s what when we I was like, so are you coming on? What do you want to talk about AI?
0:02:59 That’s an area you know a lot about and he was like, yes, but through the frame of all right. It’s my first million
0:03:01 That’s the name of the podcast
0:03:05 How do we use the hour so that you it’s it’s your first million
0:03:08 So if you’re listening to this that I he’s like, I can’t guarantee you’re gonna do it
0:03:14 But I can increase whatever that probability was can I in one hour tell you things that will increase your probability?
0:03:17 That’s a promise so good someone in the youtube comments on a recent episode
0:03:21 We had someone on and shot and I both sat like this for like eight minutes
0:03:26 And uh, so I was like dude shot at same or just flirt. They’re just stare. They’re at all
0:03:29 I have a feeling we’re gonna be getting a lot of a lot of these
0:03:38 All right, so when I ran my company to hustle
0:03:42 I think we had something like two million subscribers and we made money through advertising
0:03:45 We didn’t actually make that much money per person reading the newsletter because
0:03:49 Advertising in general is kind of a crappy business model
0:03:54 And so I remember sitting down and I’m like, what are all the different ways that I can make money off the hustle that aren’t
0:03:58 Advertising and so to make sure that you don’t make this mistake
0:04:04 Sean me and the husband team we went and looked at a bunch of different ways to monetize your business and
0:04:10 We put it all together in a really cool document where we lay it all out along with our research and we call it
0:04:14 Very appropriately. We call it the business monetization playbook
0:04:19 Go to the description of this episode and you’re going to see a link to that business monetization playbook
0:04:22 It’s completely free. You just click the link and you can see it back to the episode
0:04:31 All right, so where should we start darmish so let’s and I’m not going to
0:04:36 Give you an autobiography what I’m going to do though is I’m going to take us back in time a little bit because in order to kind of
0:04:38 Understand some of the lessons that I thought now in hindsight
0:04:41 We’re sort of the most valuable for me. I didn’t know this at the time
0:04:45 I was living it because we often can’t pick that up but I think we’ll be useful
0:04:49 So I’m going to go back to my first in regard to the u.s. I was in my early 20s
0:04:54 And I was here just on a visit to my parents who were living there. I was in indiana
0:04:58 And applied for a job at pizza hut
0:05:01 Rejected applied for a job at big lots
0:05:03 rejected
0:05:05 applied for a job at red roof in
0:05:11 And because I was indian and my parents were actually running like they automatically assumed that I’d like I’d known things
0:05:16 I’d like only been in the country for like three and a half days because indians are famous not hotel ears
0:05:19 But like motel ears
0:05:21 Yes motel and that’s exactly what we had we had a motel like yes
0:05:24 And it was not even like a franchise motel was one of those
0:05:26 anyway
0:05:29 And so this was for the night shift, right? So that might be partly why I got it
0:05:34 So it was like 11 p.m. Just 7 a.m. And that’s the only thing that would work for me because I was taking classes during the day
0:05:36 and uh
0:05:41 So a couple things out of that particular experience and this I think will relate for a lot of folks
0:05:45 So in the early parts of most people’s career, um, you’re working retail
0:05:49 You’re working some sort of job, um, and you have a what I call your currency
0:05:53 And your currency is what’s the kind of time value of your time? It’s like oh
0:05:57 You’re making 3 hours to 65 cents an hour, which is what I was making the kind of early early periods
0:06:03 Um, and you’re taking that kind of currency value multiplying it by how much time you how much labor you expend
0:06:06 How much time you spend doing whatever it is that people are paying you money for
0:06:09 And that’s pretty much the production value. That’s how you create
0:06:12 You know create some money in the in those early years
0:06:16 So mathematically in that particular equation, there’s only two ways to make more money one is
0:06:21 Work more hours and the other one is to raise the currency raise the price that people are willing to pay for your time
0:06:23 Okay, great
0:06:26 And that time I was looking for all the hours I could get
0:06:31 It’s like I I want to work more hours and if someone canceled someone like I will be there
0:06:36 Just give me the hours like put me in coach. Um, can’t believe I made a sports reference. Uh, I don’t do sports ball
0:06:38 But anyway, um, it worked
0:06:43 So so here’s sort of the kind of the lessons like you start there and you’re going to end up spending
0:06:49 A large part of the early part of your life. Let’s look at the first half converting time into money
0:06:55 In various shapes and flavors that’s effectively what you’re going to be doing and then you’re going to spend a latter half of your life
0:07:00 Uh, approximately just really trying to convert money back into time. That’s that’s what happens. Uh, that’s that’s life
0:07:04 And so we go back to the yoke. I’m converting time into money
0:07:10 Expending the currency there’s going to be um, this automatic increase that happens in your currency
0:07:13 Simply as a result of 10 year
0:07:17 As it turns out companies pay more for experience than they were so even if you’re the same job doing rough through the same thing
0:07:21 You’re going to get some marginal increase not much, but it’s going to go up
0:07:29 Now my argument here is that in order to really kind of break into like you’re going to start to have to kind of accrue money
0:07:32 If you’re in debt, you’re going to have to get out of that first. Um, but you’re going to need to get
0:07:35 some sort of leverage
0:07:41 Leverage that says, okay, what can I and not leverage in the kind of leveraged buyout but leverage in the kind of archimony sense
0:07:46 Uh, the guy is the quote archmage. What is the give me a lever long enough and a full crumb out of which to place it
0:07:49 And I will move the world or I shall move the world
0:07:53 And it was interesting about that. Well, there that quote particularly and that’s a physics thing
0:07:58 I love math and physics see things is that okay, so that full crumb is actually very very necessary
0:08:00 You need a point on which the the leverage is going to pivot
0:08:05 Um, and the degree of kind of amplification you get for your force. That’s what leverage creates
0:08:08 Is how far you are from the full crumb
0:08:14 So the kind of the lesson is as you’re spending your time if all you do is spend 100 percent of your time converting your labor
0:08:18 Into value and do not increase your leverage. You’re not going to get anywhere
0:08:22 So what you have to do is you have to allocate some percentage of your time to say
0:08:27 Even though someone’s not paying for this particular time. I’m going to go read a book. I’m going to go do this
0:08:30 I’m going to do a seminar. I’m going to meet a friend. Whatever it happens to be
0:08:33 You have to kind of make that investment. You have to carve it out
0:08:39 Otherwise you never get the leverage necessary in order to make it that first million. That’s like the number one lesson
0:08:44 and the thing that I did that was uh, very very useful that I still carry to this day
0:08:47 Is that you sort of have to carve out?
0:08:55 Literally some amount of dollars for yourself and time and money are equal to me back then it’s like and what I mean by that is like
0:08:57 I’m going to take
0:09:01 10% of all the money that’s coming in right now. I’m going to spend it
0:09:04 On books on things or whatever that’s going to kind of improve my value
0:09:08 But it’s funny because even in my first shot and we’ll talk about this a little bit is like
0:09:12 They wouldn’t get me like a fast enough computer wouldn’t get a computer. It’s like I don’t care
0:09:16 I’m not looking for approval from anyone or whatever of like if something’s in the way that I think will improve
0:09:21 Like who I am and increase my currency. I will spend that money. I won’t expense it. I don’t I don’t care
0:09:26 What were the things you you invest in that had the maybe the highest return for you that did actually make you
0:09:32 More more high leverage that did make you more valuable increase your rate. What were the top investments you made?
0:09:41 Books were the highest candidly. Um, and I read uh, which book roughly so there was um, there was a author called harvey mckay who wrote some
0:09:45 Very kind of pedestrian business books now like today’s standards not sophisticated all
0:09:50 But realized like at that age for me, it’s like this is brilliant. It makes so much sense
0:09:54 It’s uh, the one of the books was titled how to uh, swim with sharks without being eaten alive
0:09:58 I think that was one of his uh, I’m with the sharks without being eaten alive
0:10:00 Yes, exactly. Uh, there was another one that was less about business
0:10:06 But still it’s like everything I need to know I learned in kindergarten and these are like basic very very like
0:10:08 basic basic things but
0:10:13 It’s one of those that it’s like if you’re an alien from another planet, which is what I felt like a large part of my life
0:10:15 it’s like
0:10:18 Oh, so this is how the world works kind of thing. It’s like, you know, it seems
0:10:21 Shockingly obvious right now. It just wasn’t
0:10:25 Shockingly obvious to me at the time. All right, so that’s kind of lesson number one
0:10:29 You need to got and get leveraged lesson number two. So after my red roof instant
0:10:35 Where I was nice shifting they had a computer there, which was one of the nice things to do your accounting and had to close the book
0:10:39 That was part of my job. So that was some of my early exposure to computers
0:10:44 But then I was able to get a job at us steel. No shit. That’s pretty that’s pretty cool
0:10:47 And that was my first real programming job that they would hire
0:10:52 They hired me as an actual software developer at us deal. I was still going through school working on my undergrad
0:10:56 And it was great. I loved uh, you know, loved the work
0:10:57 but
0:10:59 The because I was in indiana
0:11:02 The us deal plan that I was working at was in gary indiana
0:11:05 And I don’t know things may have changed now. I don’t know
0:11:11 A gary indiana work at the like top of the list of places you did not want to live, right? Like that was like the
0:11:18 Like the place you did not want to be as it turns out indiana overall was in a fine state
0:11:22 But it’s like very northish and very cold that I had just come over from india
0:11:26 And so I did a very me thing to do which was
0:11:28 It’s like, okay. Well, I’d have a job at us deal
0:11:31 It doesn’t really matter
0:11:36 You know, I’m talking to a mainframe. I’m writing my code or whatever. Do they have other places?
0:11:41 Like it’s a big company as it turns out us deal has a plant in birmingham, alabama
0:11:45 Did not know where it was never been to alabama
0:11:49 But one thing I did know was like, oh, it’s more south than here
0:11:53 Thing number one and number two is like it’s not gary indiana
0:11:58 So the mathematical odds of it being a worse place because I looked this up is like are slim to none
0:12:00 So birmingham, alabama still not another necessarily at the time
0:12:04 Best places to be but I’m like why requested a transfer
0:12:10 It’s like, hey, I’m working at software. I know I’m new but I see that you have a plant down in birmingham, alabama
0:12:11 Can I go work down there?
0:12:15 And they said sure knock yourself out. So I get down to alabama. I’m working for us deal
0:12:22 And I’m an impatient person, but I was like working. It’s like, okay. Well, and I was making uh, I think it was like around
0:12:27 $27,000 a year which was a lot better than I used to be making at red roof and and
0:12:31 It was a full-time job like because I didn’t have to like crown for hours or anything like that
0:12:33 It was an actual salary which was awesome
0:12:38 The thing I learned though is like, okay, so how do I like progress? Like, how do I
0:12:43 kind of grow and the thing I figured out, um, and this was said to me by
0:12:47 kind of my manager and almost said it in these kind of words which is
0:12:50 Dermash like if you’re not making steel
0:12:54 shipping steel transporting steel moving steel or selling steel you’re overhead
0:13:01 And like that’s the like the time that the epiphany like sort of hit me. It’s like, well
0:13:05 I don’t want to be overhead. It’s like, you know, I don’t want to do that
0:13:11 And so then like this is once again, I’m a very very simplistic guy. It’s like, okay. Well, my thing is software development
0:13:14 Where do I need to work where I’m not overhead?
0:13:16 Right and so then the kind of extrapolation is
0:13:22 Oh, well, I need to work at a company where software is the actual product just like steel is the actual product for us
0:13:28 He’ll like to get closer to kind of what the actual value is. So I open the Sunday paper, which is what we did back then
0:13:31 This is pre-internet days and I’m like look for jobs
0:13:33 at companies that are software companies
0:13:38 And so I applied for a job at a software company that happened to have a job at in the paper in Birmingham
0:13:42 And it was a place called some of our data systems. It was a software beautified software company
0:13:45 applied for a job there
0:13:49 Got that job, which is awesome. And that was life changing in of itself. It’s like, okay
0:13:57 Software companies when it comes to software developers are much better at treating developers than non software companies as it turns out as a rule
0:14:02 So like this is awesome. And so the kind of the file away lesson here would be
0:14:04 um
0:14:10 Your value is kind of inversely proportional to the distance from the actual value creation
0:14:13 Whatever it happens to be so if you’re not in there find a way to get there whatever
0:14:16 I’m not saying you have to be in software development
0:14:20 But like the guy like my manager had said you have to be making steel selling steel or shipping steel
0:14:25 Whatever everything else is sort of meta and is just overhead and um once again, this was the 90s, right?
0:14:28 I think people have a more nuanced approach to how value gets created
0:14:32 But if you have a chance to get closer to the actual customer culture the actual product
0:14:35 You should take that that will kind of increase your leverage
0:14:39 Increase your currency. So I’m working at Sun Guard as a software developer
0:14:45 Um, and this is a good story. I’ll share there’s a high utility in this story. So I’m working there and I
0:14:52 I’m making I think it’s around $40,000 a year. Um at that time, which this is 90 early 90s
0:14:58 Give or take and bring my mama laps. You know, that was actually pretty good money. So they paid me and the thing I was doing
0:15:01 um, is that uh
0:15:03 Sun Guard software product was like a mainframe product
0:15:06 So they had the character mode terminals that you guys see in the movies now
0:15:08 Well, there’s still lean frames out there
0:15:10 But most normal people don’t have to interact with them
0:15:12 But anyway, but they were in the process of trying to
0:15:17 Build a graphical user interface, which is the you know, the latest thing back then
0:15:22 That interacted with their mainframe. They want to offer like a windows kind of gooey on top of their mainframe
0:15:26 So my job was that they take this character mode screen
0:15:32 And create using this dragon drop tool a gooey equivalent of that particular screen
0:15:35 There were hundreds of screens in the Sun Guard product. It was a big kind of multi-million dollar product
0:15:42 And like well, this is stupid easy and we had consultants on there because they were trying to kind of accelerate the development
0:15:49 And the consultant, uh, I remember this vividly was making 125 an hour to do this. Uh, what I thought of was being
0:15:53 Relatively wrote work, right? I’m like two months into the job. Um
0:15:58 So I go to my boss and I’m like, you know, we’re paying these guys 125 an hour
0:16:02 And all they’re really doing is dragging dropping based on this character mode screen or whatever
0:16:06 This is not software development. And by the way, this is so trivial
0:16:12 My brother who has not graduated high school yet. He works at the Piggly Wiggly, which is a grocery chain down the south
0:16:15 Even he could do this like in a day
0:16:19 That’s how to why are we paying these people 125 an hour does not make any sense
0:16:21 And so my boss said
0:16:23 Bring him in
0:16:25 So I brought my brother in he’s 17
0:16:28 Uh, still hasn’t graduated high school
0:16:31 Showed him what we’re doing. It’s like, okay. Look at the screen over here
0:16:35 Do this over here you drag and drop in the here and I’ll review your work at the end of the day
0:16:40 We didn’t know what to pay him. Uh, so we paid him five dollars an hour. So my brother starts working there. I’m there
0:16:43 And we’re cranking along kind of building this new product
0:16:48 I hire all my classmates from undergrad because that team is growing. We’re trying to doing this new product
0:16:50 at Sun Guard
0:16:54 And I continually kind of get impatient. I’m like, okay. Well
0:16:58 Now I’m at a software company. Now I know the value that I’m creating. It’s like, okay
0:17:01 Like what gives and I’m so I’m like constantly kind of going back to them. It’s like
0:17:04 Like what do I have to do? I’m still an individual contributor, by the way
0:17:06 I don’t not managing anybody
0:17:10 But I’m like, I get the way this stuff is working. And so they were actually super
0:17:13 Super nice and generous and so they kind of bumped me and kept bumping me
0:17:18 And it was only there for like, I think it was like 14 months or something like that. Um
0:17:20 and so
0:17:25 Eventually they were paying me like a quarter million dollars a year in Birmingham, Alabama in the early 90s
0:17:30 And I’ve only been there a year and a half because I was able to kind of connect the dots on the value being created
0:17:35 And then I sort of got tired of because I think it was just kind of wrong of me to cause they go back to them
0:17:38 Because they were paying me like really well, right? It’s like, okay. Well
0:17:43 Like I sort of hit my ceiling of what’s reasonable now for me to ask of this software company
0:17:46 To pay me like, okay. Well, what do I have to do?
0:17:52 It’s like, well, I have to get closer to value creation or whatever is like like start my own software company
0:17:55 That was the kind of I had no product idea. That’s like, oh, this is the thing I need to do
0:18:02 Like like I thought that went into my head is like, oh in order for me to like do better and kind of get more leverage on my time
0:18:04 I’m going to now have to leave some guard
0:18:08 And go do my own thing and figure out like software to build and go do this and the one thing I do know
0:18:11 Like how to do
0:18:13 Is make developers happy
0:18:18 Because I’d hired, you know, I hired all my friends. I’d like I know what makes a developer click and that was the
0:18:22 Had genesis of my first startup and the lesson here is that
0:18:26 I’m going to have to share this this one one story. I’m going to regret this because
0:18:30 I’m going to share it. It’s a good story
0:18:33 So in one of those kind of discussions, um
0:18:36 With my manager when I’m going back, it’s like, okay, like what else do I have to do?
0:18:38 I mean, I didn’t have any particular numbers of mine
0:18:41 What do you do like 27 at this point 26 or 25?
0:18:46 Uh, yeah, roughly. Yeah, roughly 27 somewhere in my yep 25 or 30. Um
0:18:49 And so after a play it was starting to get ridiculous
0:18:53 So he came back like Darmesh. Do you really think you’re going to find that many companies?
0:18:59 They’re going to pay you X amount of like 200 000 or whatever it was that would have taken in that conversation
0:19:04 And this kind of came to me in the moment. Um, and the line I came back with was
0:19:07 Well, as it turns out, this is the very kind of mathematical side of me
0:19:13 It’s like I really don’t need to find that many companies that will pay me 200 000 a year. I just need to find one
0:19:16 And I think there’s one out there
0:19:23 That’s all and it wasn’t on the threat. It was a very just a very measured like logical like a spock like response, right?
0:19:26 Like like that’s not the function we’re solving for we’re not solving for
0:19:31 You know, what is the local maxima in terms of how many companies are out there that will pay, you know
0:19:33 And what’s the standard distribution?
0:19:38 None of that matters like I don’t need to find like a hundred of them. Like I’m I’m mobile. I’m willing to go anywhere
0:19:42 It’s like I’m willing to bet money that if I look I could find one right like that’s um
0:19:46 Like the most dirty you agreed with him in a way, right?
0:19:49 He’s like you think you find a hundred companies out here that are willing to pay you this like no
0:19:53 But the good news is I didn’t need a hundred. I need one and I believe that there’s one out there
0:19:57 And that you know, that applies to dating that applies to being successful one bit, you know
0:20:00 Making one business work will do enough to change your life
0:20:08 All right, so a while back we had Gary tan. He’s the president of white commenter
0:20:10 Which is the most successful incubator of all time
0:20:18 We had him on the podcast and he said that the future of businesses is creator led and that’s why I’m interested in the podcast
0:20:19 creators are
0:20:26 Brands creators are brands explores how storytellers are building brands online. They’re going to cover the entire creative process
0:20:28 They’re going to talk about navigating brand partnerships
0:20:32 They’re going to talk about what you need to know about growing your social media platforms
0:20:38 Everything you need to know on this topic creators are brands is the pod so check it out wherever you get your podcast again
0:20:43 It’s called creators are brands with tomboy. All right back to the episode
0:20:51 And so that there’s two lessons to draw from that one is you know the power of negotiation
0:20:54 Which is one of my other like one of my favorite books most recommended books is
0:20:57 Getting to yes, which from the harvard
0:21:00 Negotiation project and that’s the one book
0:21:03 I think I’ve read like four times now. I reread it
0:21:09 Like every few years. Can you give us a quick insights for anybody who hasn’t read the book like me?
0:21:13 What’s an insight from there that would make me a better negotiator?
0:21:17 Most people when they think of a negotiation they think about this kind of adversarial
0:21:23 It’s me is the zero-sum game. This is what’s happening and as it turns out most negotiations both in life and in business
0:21:29 Are actually not like that and and that first order thinking in terms of like oh like
0:21:33 You know my objective is to get the lowest price and their objective is to get the highest price for the thing
0:21:35 I’m trying to buy for them whether it’s a house or whatever
0:21:41 And that’s not the way to think about it the way to think about it is to identify what your actual needs are
0:21:45 what’s truly the thing are if you’re solving for price fine, but recognize that
0:21:50 And do your best to identify what the other parties needs are because there is often
0:21:53 very very often
0:21:59 A path that actually will optimize for both of you and that’s actually a better path and just try to divide the pie and fighting
0:22:02 Over a price or whatever there might be something else that’s actually more important, right?
0:22:05 And so this applies to so many different situations and we
0:22:10 Like I’ll give you like a tangible example of I think a mistake
0:22:13 Companies make building their operating system in terms of how they run
0:22:20 It was something that HubSpot has taken to heart is that we automatically think that what people are solving for is like compensation number one
0:22:24 An autonomy and discretion and scope and those are all important
0:22:28 As it turns out the number one on the feature list of what people want
0:22:31 is actually flexibility
0:22:35 Like they would trade a lot of other things in exchange for flexibility, right?
0:22:38 If you can just get to the bottom of that if you understand that
0:22:44 Then you can sort of treat off other things that might actually have a higher price to use like but flexibility is like, okay
0:22:46 Like we can do that. Yeah, there’s a cost to it
0:22:49 but the cost of not providing a flexibility is actually much higher because the
0:22:55 Calendacy is going to be lower. We’re going to have to pay more all things being equal. Um, anyway, that’s the big lesson from
0:23:00 Getting to yesterday’s a bunch of other ones. It’s an easy read too. By the way, it’s not a particularly
0:23:06 Like dense heavy read. Um, I even if you’re not in business if you’re just in life, uh, it’s a book worth reading
0:23:10 When when Jeremy Giffin came on the podcast he said it, uh, he said the same idea differently
0:23:13 He goes we asked him what did you learn about negotiating from Chris Barling?
0:23:17 Who is one of the guys at tiny and he said I used to think negotiations like this
0:23:21 Two people sitting across each other the table sort of I want this. No, I want this the adversarial thing
0:23:22 He goes
0:23:25 Chris just told me imagine you’re both sitting on the same side of the table
0:23:29 And you’re looking at the other side of the table and there’s the problem and you’re both are looking at the problem and saying
0:23:33 Oh, okay. So the problem is that you’re looking for this and I’m looking for this and then there’s this other thing
0:23:34 We haven’t even discussed yet
0:23:37 How can we just how can we together figure out this problem?
0:23:43 And fundamentally just taking a different taking that lens will allow you to be more successful in negotiation
0:23:47 Let’s say you’re negotiating something that I think is a uh, what I would call a non-commodestized thing
0:23:53 It’s hard to figure out the price. It’s a unique property. It could be a house somewhere where there’s not 100 houses on the streets
0:23:57 That’s just something that’s unique and hard to find comparables on whether it’s rules doesn’t matter what it is
0:24:01 The temptation is to go in as a buyer and say
0:24:05 Well, you know, it’s got this wrong with it. This is wrong with it. That’s wrong with it
0:24:10 I’m gonna have to fix that and it’s like it’s you know and to try to kind of drive the buyers expectations down
0:24:13 That’s actually not the optimal approach
0:24:17 In in this situation of these kinds of situations and the reason is
0:24:22 The visceral reaction most people have they’re sitting on a unique property like that is oh
0:24:24 Like he doesn’t actually understand the value
0:24:28 He’s poking at holes all but he doesn’t get the fact that this this this and the other thing
0:24:32 What I need to do is find someone that actually appreciates the value of this thing
0:24:34 and then
0:24:38 I’ll do better on the price right and there’s no objective value because there’s no comparables
0:24:43 Like no one really knows what the actual fair value now flipped out his head. Let’s say one of that same property. I’m like
0:24:46 This place is fantastic
0:24:50 I love it. Let me tell you the things I love about it. Let me tell you why
0:24:53 Like I am like all in love with this thing that you’re selling right now
0:24:58 And you go through that and it has to be authentic has to be genuine. I’m not making this up
0:25:00 um, and
0:25:02 And then I put my price out there. It’s like, you know, here’s what it is
0:25:09 Now the the seller has to say, okay. Well, am I really going to find like, I don’t know the price is this person seems
0:25:10 relatively clueless
0:25:15 He loves this place. Am I going to find someone else that loves it more than darmech loves it?
0:25:21 Probably not like he’s totally gets this thing or whatever. So maybe his price is probably what the fair price should be right like that
0:25:24 He seemed like a reasonable guy. So that’s a
0:25:28 It takes people’s guards out and this only works by the way when you have one of those kind of rare
0:25:32 Is hard to find console whatever the price is not really objectively known
0:25:35 It’s hard to kind of triangulate to a like a quote unquote true price. Um, anyway, that’s my
0:25:40 That’s great. I were negotiating tip of the day. So okay, great. And so you um
0:25:45 You told me something when we were talking before about this first company and you said, okay
0:25:48 So I did this company and actually maybe there’s more in that first company
0:25:52 But you told me something great that I want to bring up which is then you did a second company
0:25:56 And this was one that I don’t even know if it’s on your LinkedIn. You’re like, this is my embarrassing company
0:25:58 It’s my things didn’t go well
0:26:02 And sam the story you told was he was like I did the first company when I just didn’t know
0:26:07 I didn’t know anything about anything. So I’m clueless blah blah blah. We’re just making up as we go super scrappy
0:26:12 And it kind of worked it worked. Uh, then he’s like, I’m gonna do the second one, but now I’m so much smarter
0:26:18 I’m left now. I actually don’t want to have some experience. I’m gonna do things the right way this time. I’m gonna go raise money
0:26:21 I’m gonna hire better people and I’m gonna get a better offer to do these other
0:26:23 I’m gonna do it proper
0:26:26 And then I guess that that business I you can tell the story here, but it didn’t work
0:26:28 But you said some a great line you go
0:26:31 Just because you were just because I was ignorant doesn’t mean I was wrong
0:26:38 Meaning that first time I did that first business. I was ignorant. I didn’t know anything, but it doesn’t mean I was wrong
0:26:40 Can you can you unpack that idea?
0:26:43 Let’s say there was an objective truth function that says, okay
0:26:47 This was in this particular situation the right decision to make in whatever situation you’re in right now
0:26:52 That objective truth function if we had run it against all the decisions I made in that first startup
0:26:57 I think my hit rate was actually pretty high and the hit rate of lots of founders because our natural instincts
0:27:01 In that situation actually turned out to be good instincts like being
0:27:05 Like resourceful and not kind of spending too quickly or whatever taking your time doing all the things
0:27:08 That kind of came as natural instinct
0:27:12 And I was not a natural born entrepreneur. It’s probably uh likely why I have the insecurity
0:27:15 But in something like a like a start-up or entrepreneurship
0:27:20 There’s a bunch of decisions you’re gonna make a lot of them. Maybe maybe you may not be optimal
0:27:24 But what was definitely suboptimal in hindsight
0:27:29 Was second guessing myself on the second one. It’s like I’m going to do the opposite of what I did my first one
0:27:34 Because it’s like like what a chump I was back then. Uh, so I’m going to go I’m going to do a speed run
0:27:39 I’m going to do it faster. I’m going to write a $500,000 check to myself on day one to fund the thing or whatever
0:27:42 It’s like like who has time we don’t have time to go through those kind of cycles or whatever
0:27:45 Really quick. I I remember a time in high school
0:27:50 I had this like hillbilly friend that had like a huge chest because he was like so strong at bench pressing
0:27:51 And we went to like an exercise class
0:27:55 And the teacher was like the best way to get strong in your chest is to do
0:28:01 Incline bench press at a 30 degree angle 30 degree angle so much better than a 45 degree and so much better than a 10 degree
0:28:05 And my redneck friend who didn’t know anything. He just would go down and lift weights
0:28:08 He was like I must have been doing them at 30 degrees because I’m strong as shit
0:28:11 like
0:28:15 It’s like the same things like do it doesn’t matter like if you know what you’re doing or not as long as you get the end result
0:28:20 What was your uh, what was the second company? I had no idea that you had a failure under your belt
0:28:25 Yeah, yeah, well I’ve yeah, yes, um, I had so it was a
0:28:30 Kind of facebook before facebook for small business. It was like effectively a crm
0:28:34 So I’ve been working with crm now for a long long time built for small businesses
0:28:38 And this was right in like the 2000 time frame
0:28:43 So right as the bubble was bursting and the first company was not an internet company. This was it was like web-based
0:28:47 Uh information management tool for small businesses, uh around customer. What was it called?
0:28:50 I was called captivo. Uh captivo
0:28:54 How much did you raise and how long did it last before you shuttered it? Ah, no, so
0:28:57 Once again because I was going to do things differently this time
0:29:03 I wrote the first 500,000 dollar check and I kept writing checks. I’m like, I have money. Why would I not like just fun to myself?
0:29:06 um, can you can you say how how
0:29:10 How much did you put how much did you have and how much of that did you put into this second one?
0:29:15 Can you say that? Um, I think I probably put in about two million. I’ll say give or take
0:29:19 I found uh, I googled captivo dar mash and I found a pdf
0:29:23 That has a lot of handwriting on it and it looks like it’s a case study for slone
0:29:28 And uh, you’re trying to make a point and you said uh in 99. I founded my second startup called captivo
0:29:33 This is what it was. It was in many aspects similar to salesforce.com and about two years in
0:29:39 Of the product development and over a million dollars of capital invested mostly of my own captivo could still not gain
0:29:44 Any significant traction and ultimately it was sold the pro uh, and it didn’t work out
0:29:49 And so this is like the only thing that I can find about captivo on the internet is a case study that you helped write
0:29:54 By the way, and it’s like we sort of take it for granted now partly why it’s not like, you know
0:29:56 I’m not trying to hide things, uh
0:30:01 But the internet wasn’t as big a deal back then so yeah, I wasn’t blogging or no one was blogging
0:30:06 So it was like, okay. Well, why would you just say things like where are you going to say them to um, but so
0:30:11 What one of the um, kind of interesting things as far as kind of closing out that particular chapter what ended up happening
0:30:16 I’m going to make my third sports ball reference and this one’s a golf one is it was a long put to par
0:30:19 What happened was I took that company captivo
0:30:22 Merged it into my first startup, which I had not sold yet
0:30:27 So I was doing two um, you start at the same time, which is not something one should do
0:30:31 um, and then ended up selling the kind of merged entity so
0:30:35 I ended up making my money back for all intents and purposes. I didn’t really lose anything
0:30:38 But it was a very very long put to par. I just yeah
0:30:43 So the big idea so far where uh at the beginning you’re going to trade time for money
0:30:47 And then at some point in your life, you’re going to desperately start trying to trade money back for time
0:30:51 That’s life. I think that’s that’s a golden nugget. The second one is cool
0:30:54 You can either get more hours or increase the value per hour
0:30:56 and that’s where you
0:31:03 Started taking budget and investing and in books and training and seminar whatever whatever you try to do to increase your own value
0:31:08 You get the job at us steal. That’s where you realize you’re either an asset or a liability to this company
0:31:11 You’re either overhead or you’re the one actually creating value
0:31:13 If you want to be higher leverage, you’ve got to be
0:31:18 Closer to where the actual value is created. So then you switch you do a software company
0:31:20 You do that of the lesson around negotiation
0:31:23 So go back and ask for more and specifically not just ask for more
0:31:29 But what would it take for me to be making more just more more like the question you asked your boss. Is that right the actual lesson?
0:31:32 I drew from that
0:31:37 Is the the power of being able to reduce and frame something in a very simple
0:31:42 Like inarguable way, right? Like the fact that it was so punchy
0:31:45 Right, like it was just that one sense. I don’t need to find a bunch of companies
0:31:50 I just need to find one and I think I can right like had that been like a
0:31:54 Five-minute long conversation me going back and forth or whatever and trying to make an argument
0:31:58 I don’t think it would have worked. What made it work was the fact and this is I think is a very very
0:32:01 It’s a like anything else is a developable skill
0:32:04 And you like are like actually shot out of the master of this
0:32:08 Is being able to what I call like insight compression, right?
0:32:11 And I just made that up it says can you take some big idea?
0:32:16 And kind of boil it down boil it down to like it’s the the essence is still captured
0:32:22 And it’s just a dense distillation for lack of a better term of that idea of that concept down to something really simple
0:32:28 Because the simpler you can make it the more likely it is to be transmissible to be communicated to be whatever
0:32:31 And this applies to so many obviously applies to you know
0:32:36 Copywriting and marketing and things like that applies to venture pitches applies to so many things
0:32:39 By the way, I think one good point to make in this is this isn’t just
0:32:45 A mindset you had when you were young and broke like you took my power writing course a few years ago
0:32:48 Because I do this guy’s a you’re a founder of a
0:32:53 20 30 billion dollar public company. He’s sitting here in the course learning
0:32:56 It’s saying can I learn something about writing?
0:32:58 Can I get a little bit better at this one skill?
0:33:01 You are still doing that now not just when you were you know 20 years old
0:33:03 It’s like oh i’m a beginner. I got to like you know start to level up
0:33:07 It seemed like you continued doing it a guy came on the podcast the other day
0:33:11 Mike Posner, he’s a musical artist. He talked about he had had his first song go huge
0:33:15 So he thought oh, that’s what I do. I make songs they blow up. It’s that’s that’s me
0:33:18 I guess it’s hard for these other people. It’s not hard for me
0:33:21 And as the first song is like, you know, whatever five times platinum
0:33:27 His second song actually was still like double platinum, but felt like a huge failure third song single platinum
0:33:28 He’s like i’m going downhill
0:33:33 And then the studio shelves them and for years they they’re like it’s too expensive for you to even produce the music
0:33:35 So we’re just going to keep you
0:33:39 You know, you’re on the shelf in the music industry. I was like, what were you doing during that time?
0:33:42 And I thought he would just say he was depressed eating cheetos on the couch
0:33:46 He’s like, yeah, I was depressed eating cheetos on the couch and then I dusted off the cheeto dust for a minute
0:33:50 He’s like and I enrolled in a Berkeley college for music
0:33:53 And he’s like I was learning to improve my singing my he’s my ability to play instruments
0:33:56 I couldn’t play the guitar before that so I learned to play the guitar
0:34:00 And he’s like, yeah, I just figured okay this period of my life. I’ll just sharpen up my skill
0:34:06 I become a better artist and he’s like I would go to these classes with a bunch of college kids and here I am
0:34:11 You know, Grammy award winning. I’ve been on the charts. I’ve made millions of dollars as an artist
0:34:16 And there’s better singers in here than me and he’s like I it was a a real mind fuck
0:34:20 But what I took from that whole story was damn, that’s kind of inspiring like this guy
0:34:23 Use that time to sharpen his skills
0:34:25 Um, I think a lot of adults just stop
0:34:30 I think they just oh that’s stuff you do when you’re young and you just don’t need to invest in learning anymore after that
0:34:35 So talking about the the power writing course that you have and then just kind of writing and in copywriting generally
0:34:38 Is that the return on time?
0:34:43 For developing writing. I have not found the ceiling yet. Uh, is that it is just so high
0:34:46 I cannot describe to people like if you could do nothing else
0:34:49 Let’s say you you had five hours to invest in the next month or something like that
0:34:52 You could spend it all
0:34:54 on learning how to write well
0:34:59 And future you will look back on those five hours and say boy, that was a great use of five hours
0:35:04 Right or ten out one of the number is right because that’s what I consider to be a
0:35:12 Just an amplifier of things, right? It will make you a better thinker better communicator better picture better salesperson better everything
0:35:15 We were talking about uh being close to the action
0:35:19 I don’t remember if you talked about this on the pod or
0:35:22 Or if you talked about it just privately, but I had known
0:35:25 That you bought chat.com
0:35:31 And we have known that you’ve been about agents. I think last podcast we talked about uh vectors and things like that
0:35:35 I think we mentioned agents and it seems like that’s like a big thing to you right now
0:35:38 And speaking of being close to the action you bought this thing chat.com
0:35:42 I think you said on the podcast it was something like ten million dollars or maybe you said eight figures
0:35:49 I forget and then it comes out like two weeks ago that you sold the domain chat.com
0:35:55 To open ai for around eight figures and I think it said it was like also
0:36:00 We should add one thing when he came on the pod you had just bought it and we were like what are you going to do with it?
0:36:01 you’re like
0:36:06 Not super sure. Yeah, I’m going to try some things. Um, but I just think it’s a great domain
0:36:11 I think it’s a great invest and you just you had made a bet but you didn’t have the
0:36:17 It’s not like you had it all figured out and it was all de-risked. Yep. Um, you made that bet then now here’s the update
0:36:24 What happened? Okay, so a couple things just kind of um, so I think the time I went on the pod was like within like
0:36:29 72 hours of when that kind of purchased that happened. So it was just it was just done
0:36:33 It was not distilled in my head. I actually had a plan for it. I was going to build
0:36:36 um a chat application on top of the gpt algorithm
0:36:39 similar chat gpt
0:36:42 And the thesis and I this is the work there have been two times right accidentally
0:36:45 Competed with open ai which I don’t advise anyone to ever do
0:36:50 Uh, he’s on like literally on the top of my list of people I’d ever want to compete with that is it’s them altman
0:36:55 Just too smart and even a more red-blooded capitalist than I am actually I mean that in the most positive way
0:36:58 So my original thought was it’s like, okay
0:37:01 They put the chat gpt thing out there. It’s a demo app, right?
0:37:06 It’s like it’s there to demonstrate the power of large language models and the underlying gpt algorithm
0:37:08 But open ai is a platform company
0:37:13 The only and there have been stories about these kinds of thing which is oh someone invents a cool new technology
0:37:18 Uh, I think paypal started that way. They had some gaming transfer thing and they had an app that says
0:37:23 Oh, here’s our encryption technology demonstrated by me sending you money over a palm pilot or something like that. Um
0:37:28 And they’re like, oh well that encryption we don’t care about we care about the actual transfer of money part that
0:37:32 Is it the story with the thing? I like they you know, we’re doing this thing to sell to software companies
0:37:35 And then someone’s like dude, can you just make this thing so we could show people what we’re working on?
0:37:39 Yeah, that’s what and even sam has come and gone on record and said that right
0:37:43 They had not expected it to kind of goes like this is a way first kind of demonstrate the technology
0:37:45 You know kind of make it accessible so people can try it
0:37:48 Uh, and so it sort of cut them off guard as well, right?
0:37:52 Which is like this was not it was not expected they were going to get tens of millions and it was a hundred million users
0:37:54 within a couple of months
0:37:57 But in the back of my head, I’m like, okay. Well, that’s great
0:38:00 But they’re going to go back to being a platform company
0:38:07 But someone should actually create something that is that any user application that sits on top of
0:38:12 LLM like like gpt3 at the time and then it just so happens. It’s one of those the universe
0:38:17 sort of configured itself and like chat.com in a random
0:38:22 Event became available for sale for the first time in like 30 years. I’ve never been actually used before
0:38:25 and I’m like
0:38:30 I just I need to do this it was like that was so that was kind of thing number one is like I could I could use it for that
0:38:32 thing number two
0:38:37 Kind of rationalization to myself is that like this is the cover charge to get into the AI party that people will take me seriously
0:38:39 is like
0:38:41 Like no one really knew me in that space because I
0:38:46 Yeah, I’m not from that world. Uh, you know didn’t go to machine learning school at stanford or something like that
0:38:50 But that’s sort of something that’s sort of hard to ignore like and deep down inside. I’m part marketer, right?
0:38:54 I think it’s like, oh, this is a good story that it’ll get people’s attention
0:38:59 Did they reach out to you with the idea of acquiring it or did you were you like at a conference with them?
0:39:02 And you’re like, hey, I have this thing if you want it like
0:39:05 I’ll tell you the okay, so
0:39:09 I’m gonna draw the line in terms of at the transaction beyond because
0:39:15 My experience I think I am at liberty to share what happened post that decision
0:39:17 I’m less comfortable sharing so
0:39:23 The way it kind of came to be is that I was at a sequoia event. I think I actually talked about
0:39:26 this on pod
0:39:30 And one of the things that sam announced at that event sam altman was there
0:39:34 Was this oh, you know chat gpt you guys know and love. Yeah, it’s awesome
0:39:36 We’re gonna like support
0:39:39 These plugins to chat gpt because right now the limitation of chat gpt
0:39:41 You can’t access third party data source
0:39:45 They can’t really do anything and it’s got the data that it’s got based on its training dataset
0:39:52 But it’s like a snapshot in time, but these extensions will sort of amplify multiply the capabilities of chat gpt
0:39:56 And so that’s sort of when the little switch went off in my head. I’m like
0:39:58 crap
0:40:00 Oh, but yeah, I was to create the chat gpt of chat gpt
0:40:05 You know, it’s like like they’re gonna turn this into an actual platform an actual end user and user app
0:40:08 And so that’s what I’m like
0:40:09 Okay
0:40:13 If I’m not gonna do something I think it would be like unwise for me to keep that domain
0:40:17 It’s like, okay. I don’t want to just you know, sit out if I’m I don’t have plans to do something with it
0:40:21 I did not want to go into competition with open AI because it’s clear that this was going to be a big bet for them
0:40:25 That’s not you know, I was treating it as someone of a side hobby project
0:40:27 Uh, so I reached out to sample. I knew it’s like
0:40:33 Do I know if you were like interested or like and there were other bidders for the domain at the time that it went for sale and
0:40:39 Like my third back of mine motivation was I I had a suspicion of who some of the other players might be
0:40:42 I didn’t want them to have it either. I don’t know. This is the kind of competitive side of me
0:40:47 Did you sell it for a profit or was it just like a like you like you I think you said on twitter
0:40:55 You sold it for shares of open AI was it like man, I’ll just give it to you for the cost in order to be able to invest in your company
0:40:58 I I thought I did I did this cleverly
0:41:00 What I made the announcement that I had sold it
0:41:06 I didn’t share the details, but I I provided a gpt prompt that says if you type this into chat gpt
0:41:07 That says oh
0:41:11 Darmesh likes to buy domain names, but he usually does it because he’s got a project in mind
0:41:14 Darmesh doesn’t sell domain names at a loss because he doesn’t have to
0:41:19 Darmesh also doesn’t like profiting from his friends and he considers and he’s known Sam for a while or so
0:41:22 Open AI did buy chat gpt. These are the facts that you know
0:41:27 And then it’s like and then the prompt is if you had to guess what do you think?
0:41:32 You know the that the domain sold for because you know, I’d also disclose
0:41:35 I was a shareholder in open AI this has happened a while ago
0:41:38 And so it’s like you weren’t a shareholder before that you weren’t like
0:41:42 Yeah, so but you would have loved to be an investor in an open AI
0:41:48 And this was like you said the cover charge. It was the ante in order to get there. This was like a even a
0:41:52 Even a better party, right? This is the shareholder party. That’s uh, yeah
0:41:55 So I think based on all that I think I put your prompt in and it was like
0:42:01 Darmesh bought the domain for 15 and a half million dollars and now owns 15 and a half million dollars of open AI stock
0:42:07 That was like the uh, that was the the AI answer to it. You could leave it at that. Yeah, we’ll leave it at that. Um
0:42:09 That’s so funny
0:42:16 Do you have one thing I have to I have to share with you and this is the uh, non-humble utility part of it
0:42:18 But there’s a left in here. So there’s an old uh,
0:42:22 Steve jobs quote around connecting dots and the quote goes something like
0:42:27 You can’t connect the dots looking forward. You can only connect them looking backwards
0:42:31 So you have to have faith faith in something that the kind of dots will connect at some point in your feature
0:42:36 Do you staff a trust your instinct and and uh, and I’ve been a big believer in that even before
0:42:38 um, you know jobs said those words which is
0:42:43 You know, you sort of collect um, you know what he calls dots and I really like the idea because I love graphs
0:42:46 Um, am I those are things that I love it’s like, okay
0:42:51 Well, if I made an inventory of all the dots that I’ve collected through my life and and dots can be people
0:42:54 I’ve met can be skills. I’ve learned things experienced lessons, uh
0:42:59 And then over time if I had to go back and like write a history of my life and say, oh
0:43:01 Well, this was kind of a weird dot at the time
0:43:06 Like I could never have guessed that had it been not for that dot this over here
0:43:07 Probably would never have happened, right?
0:43:11 Like you don’t know in a parallel universe like what was actually going to stick
0:43:14 But I can tell you for for a fact that the universe hasn’t exist right now
0:43:18 Would that have happened had that particular dot not been collected that I had not collected it
0:43:21 and so the my big lesson here is that
0:43:24 You have to spend some amount of your time
0:43:26 And it’s the same kind of lesson just phrased differently
0:43:30 Around investing in those dots that may or may not make sense at the time that you’re doing them
0:43:34 But they feel right they feel like they could have something and it doesn’t have to all be kind of
0:43:40 Mediatically diabolical and capitalist that sometimes it’s just like I want to collect this dot because I love this
0:43:43 I believe it. I have convicted whatever it is, right? It’s like it’s you
0:43:46 Uh, it’s your time on the planet. It’s your money. Whatever it is you’re doing
0:43:48 You should be able to kind of collect those dots
0:43:51 But if you kind of trust your instincts on so and not all the dots are going to work out
0:43:54 and this is the beauty of these kinds of things is that
0:43:57 You don’t need for all of the work
0:44:01 You just need one or two to work really well and that’s it like that’s literally it, right?
0:44:10 I’ll use a sports reference in basketball. There’s people who you say have a nose for the ball
0:44:13 They just know where the ball is going to bounce. They know where to be the ball
0:44:15 Just sort of always ends up in their hand end up in the right spot
0:44:19 You talked about your first job application was to pizza hut
0:44:21 Yeah, back when you’re you know, just moved to the country type of thing
0:44:26 But pretty quickly you found yourself in software development in the 90s
0:44:28 Which is arguably the best place to be
0:44:32 Then you you said in 2000 you started a web internet company
0:44:34 Internet was the next best place to be after that
0:44:38 Then you create HubSpot, which was a cloud SaaS company
0:44:42 Which is arguably the next best place to be for that next decade
0:44:49 And now you just sold chat chat.com to open ai you and a bunch of open ai and you were talking about ai agents
0:44:53 And I would say that seems like in this decade the best place to be
0:44:59 And so I view you as somebody who has a nose for the ball and what I mean by that is like
0:45:06 The frontier that you’re interested in seems to be the frontier where all of the action and the value and the trillion dollar companies are
0:45:08 Going to get created which means if the trillion dollar companies are created
0:45:13 That means the tens of billions of dollar companies are going to be created the billion dollar the hundred million and the 10 million dollar companies
0:45:16 Also, uh, it just means it’s the it’s the target rich environment
0:45:20 So I think that when you say this is the thing I’m most interested in
0:45:24 We should pay attention. All right. Tell us why agents are the thing we should pay attention to
0:45:30 Yeah, uh, and I’m kind of bringing it back to the kind of early just as a thank you for the lead in this is that that was great
0:45:31 um
0:45:36 Is that you know, we talk about you the audience making your first million or your next million if you’re uh, you know
0:45:38 further along in the in the journey
0:45:40 is that
0:45:45 You know that make that first one is almost always harder than subsequent ones and that’s and that’s not counterintuitive at all
0:45:51 Um, I will say this though is that never in my mind has it been easier to get to that first million
0:45:56 That it’s going to be here like as we’re as we’re living our lives right now and part of that
0:46:00 Is what uh agents unlock so let’s talk about agents
0:46:06 We’ll talk about what they are why why such a massive opportunity and what you the audience should do about it
0:46:08 Okay, so
0:46:13 We’ll take a uh step back to last year last year was all about chat and it’s like and everyone’s used chat gpt
0:46:16 We all get it we type in a prompt something comes back awesome
0:46:21 And that’s what’s uh a very kind of interactive approach to the use of ai right like you type a plot
0:46:25 It’s like oh give me a blog post or do this for me and it comes back with a response and you may do a follow-up
0:46:27 But it’s it’s effectively this kind of back-and-forth
0:46:30 interaction model um with with ai
0:46:37 What agents and and as a result of that kind of interactive model the the tasks that you assign ai are generally
0:46:42 More discreet that says okay do this for me. There’s a single artifact produce a blog post generate image whatever happens to be
0:46:45 what agents are
0:46:49 Uh kind of very simply are is ai software
0:46:54 That can accomplish higher level goals requiring multiple tasks. I mean multiple steps
0:46:58 So it’s not just a one-shot. Give me a blog post and it comes back with a blog post
0:47:03 It’s like I want you to do this thing and that thing may require 10 steps
0:47:05 So each of those things like as we were just talking about earlier
0:47:10 It might need to functionally decompose everything in order to accomplish that higher order goal and has to have memory
0:47:12 You have to do all these things in order to kind of make that possible
0:47:15 But that’s what a an ai agent is
0:47:22 And right now we’re going to you know talk about agents as as it currently stands. Uh my expectation is that
0:47:24 Agents are the new apps
0:47:28 It’s it’s just software right so when mobile came along it’s like oh, there’s an app for that
0:47:30 There’s an app. It’s like
0:47:35 Like not that far the distant future like everything is going to be there’s going to be hundreds of thousands of millions of agents
0:47:37 Right the same way that’s there’s lots and lots of apps out there
0:47:40 Uh, so think about uh agent if it’s simple to do that
0:47:46 It’s like it’s just an ai app that happens to do really high order or can do higher order goals requiring multiple multiple steps
0:47:51 So the thing I think uh without getting into um agent.ai too much
0:47:57 Here’s kind of the my my view of the world in terms of how this is going to shape out. There’s lots of debate going around
0:48:01 Uh, oh in order for it to be an ai uh true ai agent. It has to be autonomous
0:48:04 You can’t have you know, it’s like you just have to be able to go give it a goal
0:48:07 I’m more pragmatic than that. I don’t think that’s a
0:48:13 Uh a requirement in order for something to to be called an agent, but um, here’s the important part
0:48:17 Is that so if you kind of pull out that thread the way the world looks, um
0:48:20 Soon is that we will have hybrid teams
0:48:25 that consist of humans and consist of ai agents
0:48:32 And the easiest simplest and therefore in my i’m going to say this with some uh conviction because it’s better to do it that way
0:48:36 The easiest way to pull that off and the simplest way to describe it
0:48:40 Is if you think of the digital agent as a digital team member
0:48:43 Because that’s the easiest way to get there from here, right?
0:48:48 It’s like, okay, if you just say obviously hand it over and the the agent’s going to create the like just do all the things
0:48:49 There’s going to be no humans
0:48:50 Yeah, that might happen someday
0:48:54 But that’s probably not going to happen as a direct jump from where we are today
0:48:57 What’s likely going to happen is individual tasks will get automated
0:49:01 And we will start injecting um and having these hybrid teams the same way
0:49:04 We had hybrid teams before we had out like all full-time employees like oh
0:49:09 I’m going to hire a freelancer for three months to do this because we don’t need them forever forever for whatever reason
0:49:11 You did that and like that’s okay. They don’t work in the office
0:49:14 Then we had no hybrid from a geographic perspective
0:49:20 And now we’re going to have hybrid from a carbon-based lifeform versus non-carbon-based lifeform perspective. It’s basically like this
0:49:27 It’s like we’ve got guests coming over and now my wife decomposes that into okay. We need to clean the kitchen
0:49:32 Um, this we need to clean this area and we need to get food. Uh, we need to order food
0:49:35 And so she tells me load the dishwasher. I go load the dishwasher
0:49:39 Then I hand it over to my agent my dishwasher agent who then will wash those dishes
0:49:44 And so I’m kind of the she’s the she decomposes it. I’m a human in the loop
0:49:48 I’m doing one step that hope ideally that we could have another robot that loads the dishwasher
0:49:50 But for that for now I do that
0:49:53 But the dishwasher is better at doing the dishes than I even was and we’ll do it
0:49:58 Well, every single time I trust that agent to do it. That’s what the inside of companies is going to look like
0:50:05 Yes, and it might be that um, you know, and I think we will have humans doing the review and approval for
0:50:06 A vast majority of tasks, right?
0:50:10 So I think the the the digital team members for lack of a better term
0:50:13 Are going to be doing lower level tasks to start with because that’s the things we can trust them with
0:50:18 It’s like, okay. Well the the stakes are much much lower. It’s like, okay produce 10 versions of this blog
0:50:20 Article is really like super important for my business
0:50:25 But then let me pick the one that’s actually going to go out and then unless I pick the one that’s going to go out
0:50:27 Because I’m a step in the process the human doing that
0:50:31 Then the post production maybe is all digital. We don’t know right give us an example of an agent
0:50:36 You’re using that like you actually use now because you know on a day-to-day basis a week-to-week basis is actually
0:50:41 You know live it’s working. It’s not just a cool day. Well, obviously a good nice simple example
0:50:46 Is I have an agent that says so I really like this episode of let’s say my first million
0:50:51 And I recall hearing something about x like some some words stuck into my mind
0:50:54 And I want to write a linkedin post
0:50:58 Based on that. Okay, so here’s but here’s what I want to happen. I want to
0:51:04 All I’m going to give it as input. This is the instructions kind of mpc model, right? It’s like, okay. Here’s what you get from me
0:51:05 Um
0:51:11 Is a youtube video what I want is an output is a linkedin post that’s going to do well by some definition of do well
0:51:17 Uh, we have training data on that. Okay. What it’s going to do is going to say, okay first step one pull the transcript from a youtube video
0:51:23 Step two figure out who the players are step three highlight the things that are quote worthy tweet worthy remark worthy
0:51:26 Whatever it was happens to be step four figure out what the hell
0:51:29 Derbysh was actually asking about there was a snippet in there that you made reference to
0:51:33 Clip that as well put that all into thing now go say okay like
0:51:40 What style happens to work well on linkedin specifically? I was like here write me a 200 word prompt
0:51:46 That describes the language and the style whether it’s bullet points whether it uses emojis doesn’t use them like what works
0:51:50 Have an agent that does that like a style creator thing whatever
0:51:54 Take all of that and now produce a linkedin post and just give it to me
0:51:59 So you do that you have a thing that does that I have a thing that does that and by the way
0:52:02 And the the really fun part about this it’s it’s like lego bricks, right?
0:52:05 So I have an agent that does a youtube transcript
0:52:07 Well, he’s straightforward
0:52:11 But it’s a better youtube transcript than the one that you would just get copying off the web because there’s an lm involved
0:52:14 It’s like I want a youtube scram transcript that has chapter headings which not going to be in the transcript
0:52:19 That’s going to bold things that are actual quotes or whatever it’s going to format it in a way that’s human consumable
0:52:22 Way better transcript than a the regular transcript to get out of youtube
0:52:27 So like check this out darmesh. Have you seen this go to mfm vault dot com
0:52:31 mfm vault my friend my friend greg is building this um
0:52:36 And it’s not it’s not ready for uh, you know the big time, but here we are let’s let’s do it
0:52:40 So go mfm vault dot com you land here. So what he built basically a
0:52:46 Site that kind of works like what you described just for specifically my first million podcasts and fans
0:52:50 Okay, so he’s like all right. He was like I don’t just want summaries. I want he’s like, you know
0:52:54 I like mfm because he’s got ideas. It’s got frameworks. It’s got stories
0:52:56 And those are like the big things that he really cared about
0:53:03 So if I just go like first he’s got just like a bunch of and ai is basically extracting those from every episode
0:53:06 It’s like searching for frameworks searching for stories, etc
0:53:08 But like let me just show you this if I go to episodes
0:53:14 It’ll try this live see if this works and I typed our mesh and this is our last episode we did in 2023
0:53:17 so it’s got the
0:53:21 The you know the overall summary with chapter titles like you said here, but check this out
0:53:24 So if I go to stories, it’s like chat spots one dollar sale
0:53:29 Uh pandora’s a manual musicians. It’s like the 17 year evolution of chat
0:53:34 And if I click that it’ll take me to that moment, but it’ll also summarize it. There’s also frameworks in here like
0:53:37 an ai immersion week basically
0:53:44 The idea here was how I dedicated a full week to just hands-on experimentation with ai tools only and so it is
0:53:48 interacting and categorizing and linking these ideas
0:53:54 From the podcast this way, but to do it. He’s like you said he’s strung together five agents. There’s the
0:53:59 The listen for when there’s a new episode then that guy says I found a new episode pass it to the transcriber transcribers
0:54:04 Like I transcribed it pass it to the summarizer and the extractor passes it to those guys
0:54:07 He’s a great turn that into clips pass it to the clip guy
0:54:13 Right and each one of those is their own agent and I think that’s that’s and then like you said it’s composable lego block block
0:54:17 So if I want to use a summarizer for something else, well, that’s once that agent exists
0:54:20 He can summarize anything not just mfm episodes. Yep
0:54:26 That that that is the future Sean. So um, so just like a quick one sentence description
0:54:29 This is the positioning uh, I’m gonna test it on you guys as well
0:54:34 Is agent.ai is the number one professional network for ai agents
0:54:38 Is also the only professional network
0:54:46 It’s linked in for agents. Yes, and and so because another question is like why why do agents need their own professional network?
0:54:49 Right that that’s a reasonable question to ask
0:54:54 And the answer is if we imagine that I happen to be right that we’re going to have this hybrid world where we have both
0:54:56 ai
0:54:58 teammates and carbon-based lifeform teammates
0:55:00 Well, how are we going to find those people?
0:55:05 Right, so we have fiber for humans that we can sell. I need a logo created for whatever I can go to up work
0:55:08 I want to hire someone for the next four months to do whatever skill set or whatever
0:55:10 There needs to be an equivalent of that
0:55:13 For ai agents, right?
0:55:14 So I don’t know what’s out there
0:55:18 Like I don’t know and and the urge where it starts to get really kind of uh, super cool
0:55:20 So imagine a professional network
0:55:24 And it has ratings and reviews it’s got their experience like oh, I’m an agent that does this
0:55:27 I’ve been used 40 000 times and here are the people that like me
0:55:33 Darmash follows me on on agent.ai right because humans can follow agents agents can follow other agents
0:55:39 And what’s going to happen uh over time is that agents will be able to hire other agents on the network
0:55:43 Because everyone knows what everyone else can do. They can try other agents out. It’s like oh
0:55:49 I’ve been given a budget of 100 dollars to try five different agents to figure out which one is the best for my particular use case
0:55:51 and it can go
0:55:55 Without human intervention, just go try best like oh network like yeah, I’ll pay you this other agent
0:56:02 So over 30 years I built a lot of software that is what I call solo software right like just like software for me for my
0:56:06 by public speaking county lpm’s uh in a in a talk that kind of stuff
0:56:11 Um, and then I found that most of those things give me better. Oh and lpm’s
0:56:14 Oh, yeah laugh for a minute. I like it
0:56:19 Yeah, by the way, I did not invent that term stand-up comedians use that that’s been around forever. Um, so yeah
0:56:23 I stole that from sam. It’s something that funny people like us
0:56:26 We wouldn’t expect you to understand that
0:56:28 Darmash, can I ask you a um
0:56:32 I’m gonna ask you a rude question and then I’m gonna ask you a thoughtful question
0:56:34 But I’m gonna start with the rude question
0:56:39 Rude question is this dude. You’re a billionaire and you’re super smart and you love all this new tech
0:56:46 Like why aren’t you doing the elan thing elan’s like cool. I did my zip too. I then I did paypal then I did
0:56:52 Tesla space x I’m gonna keep kind of building new companies but bigger batter bets
0:56:57 You’ve been at home stuff for so long. You’ve been there for you’ve been doing crm for like 30 years like don’t you feel like
0:57:04 You want to just spread those wings, baby and just fly and just go build your rockets and like
0:57:07 What’s your why why aren’t you doing like a next grand act?
0:57:13 Uh, that’s my rude question for you. Yeah, no, it’s it’s uh, it’s not rude at all and the answer is actually
0:57:16 quite simple, uh, and has the added value of being true
0:57:18 is that
0:57:24 This sort of is my next big act. So the the problem is okay. So let’s say you’re playing a video game pick up your video game of choice
0:57:28 Um, and and you’ve kind of granded out. You’ve built the things you’ve got the weapons
0:57:31 You’re you’re there like you’re now in kind of power mode you can do now
0:57:34 Let’s say it’s zelder or something like that, which I love all my favorite games
0:57:41 Uh, and now you can just go out exploring and try things and do stuff because you’ve got all of that if you’re gonna play a new game
0:57:45 There’s a bunch of stuff you still have even though because you have to sort of get right
0:57:47 You’re gonna have to build a team
0:57:50 I’d have to go find a co-founder. By the way, I’ve won the co-founder lottery, right?
0:57:55 Like I didn’t like no one knew it at the time, but that has a massive impact on your outcome
0:57:59 It’s like there’s so many things I’d have to get right just to be able to kind of do the next thing
0:58:03 I think my odds are doing like like even something like agent.ai
0:58:06 My odds are higher pulling that off with the infrastructure
0:58:11 I already have beneath me in the form of HubSpot and sometimes I have to squint a little in order to kind of squeeze
0:58:13 The thing and make it fit in the HubSpot shake box
0:58:16 And I have mechanisms for which I can kind of do that
0:58:19 but I don’t feel like I’ve ever been uh
0:58:23 Kept from doing the thing that would have been my big bold idea as a result of being
0:58:31 Uh, a CTO at HubSpot if if I have like if that were the case. Yes, I would go a second. You know what? It’s it’s been a great ride
0:58:37 You know wish the company well and will continue to be a cheerleader, but I don’t I don’t accept your answer
0:58:39 But I why don’t you?
0:58:44 Well, let’s break it down. He’s a logical guy. Let’s break it down
0:58:48 So let’s say he has a has things he’s excited about new technologies new ideas
0:58:51 Just potential potential to create cool shit in the world. All right
0:58:53 so
0:58:55 There’s two ways of looking at this either
0:58:58 HubSpot, um
0:59:01 HubSpot is the best place to do that which I would just view like
0:59:05 Like I’m not I’m not saying the infrastructure. I’m just saying like the company HubSpot
0:59:07 which has like a specific mission and
0:59:12 Set of customers it needs to serve and like an existing business model and all those things like the odds
0:59:14 that your creative brain would
0:59:18 Latch onto an idea that also was like should be on HubSpot’s roadmap
0:59:22 Just seems like unlikely to me or just like an unnecessary limit that I wouldn’t put on
0:59:27 Okay, so then let’s say there is an idea that you you get excited about your version of SpaceX or whatever it is
0:59:29 your neural link whatever the idea is
0:59:34 Either well HubSpot’s not limiting me and I’m getting these benefits. Okay. Cool. There’s that trade
0:59:38 So it’s kind of like what would you gain if you actually were out on your own?
0:59:42 You would like there’s like all these things like when people have their job and then they try to have a side hustle
0:59:46 There’s one great thing when you go and you quit your job to do a startup
0:59:50 Yeah, that you’ve now quit your job to do a startup. You’ve now told the world you’ve told yourself
0:59:54 You’ve told everybody that like I’m going to make a thing because I just gave up a thing
0:59:56 And that means I got to have a new thing now
1:00:00 And I think that the burned the boats thing is like probably one of the only
1:00:05 Assets or advantages a startup in general has or an entrepreneur has is that they they just go all in on something
1:00:10 They don’t have any meetings about anything else. They don’t have any distractions and they’ve told the world
1:00:13 I’m going to do this and I think there’s something very powerful about that
1:00:15 and I think the
1:00:20 If I really wanted to turn the knob and be like what would be the and by the way, you don’t have to do this
1:00:22 I’m not saying one needs to do this in life, but it’s like
1:00:27 Let me see what I can let me see how fast this car can go. Let me see what I’m capable of
1:00:31 I just view that you’re more likely to see the highest potential version of you
1:00:38 Outside of HubSpot versus doing side projects while using HubSpot and then doing talking at inbound and then taking these meetings
1:00:44 It’s got to be the the unblended version the concentrated version had to be more potent than the blended version
1:00:45 So that’s my case
1:00:47 Sean’s trying to convince a billionaire of a
1:00:51 Founder of a 35 billion dollar company like hey, what are you gonna?
1:00:55 The ant telling the elephant how how we should be walking right?
1:00:59 Why don’t you get a quit your job and actually do something with your life and go in on your side project?
1:01:01 No, bro
1:01:04 Take it as a compliment. It means I view you as a elon level character, you know
1:01:07 I that that’s a very high praise. Thank you. Um
1:01:12 But I’ll say this like I think it’s it needs to be said I am a big big believer
1:01:13 um
1:01:18 In kind of taking that leap of faith, right and and going out and doing the thing and that’s great and
1:01:23 I’ll say it’s it’s going to sound defensive as I don’t mean it to be but
1:01:28 Like as I kind of write the next chapters of my life as I’m looking out like one of the questions
1:01:30 I’ve asked myself is like, okay
1:01:33 It’s like what does success look like? Right like, okay
1:01:37 So what like what do I want? I want to reflect back on like of the things that I did, right? It’s um
1:01:42 and a couple things I’ve kind of emerged from that reflection is
1:01:45 I like to build things
1:01:47 and like that
1:01:51 Is like the truest thing that there is I’d like to build things, right? Um, and so
1:01:55 One thing I’ve kind of managed to do which doesn’t happen often
1:01:58 So I don’t have any direct reports because that would keep me from building things, right?
1:02:04 I like if ever there was a time where it’s like, oh like I can no longer build things as a result of x whatever x happens to be
1:02:07 I will break down that wall whatever it is up spot or otherwise
1:02:12 That’s one thing and I will say this. I mean, I think your point’s really well taken which is
1:02:14 most of the time
1:02:17 We can have these kind of extraordinarily imposed rules on us for instance
1:02:24 If you’re an engineer, it’s like well your cto. You shouldn’t be writing code anymore. It’s like and I don’t I do not
1:02:29 Accept that thesis because uh software is a creative discipline. It’s a very hits driven business
1:02:33 So you have to be right a very few number of times. It’s like we don’t tell a musician
1:02:37 That’s really really good. Oh, you can just stop like writing music and doing music and go hire something
1:02:42 We don’t tell exceptional writers to stop writing and you know, manage a team of writers like keep writing
1:02:48 Let the others do your best to minimize the stuff. That’s not writing time. Um, and that’s what I feel like I’m doing
1:02:51 I’m maximizing my build time and to me it’s
1:02:56 And my personal mission statement is to help millions grow better
1:02:59 Like that’s the simple like I want to be able to look back on it and say
1:03:03 I had a positive impact on the most number of people like that that multiply us like
1:03:07 X amount of impact whatever that impact is on y number of people. That’s my true function
1:03:12 And this is why I don’t do one-on-one meeting because it doesn’t scale, right? This is one of the reasons I’m here
1:03:15 And not elsewhere. It’s not just because I like you guys
1:03:18 It’s because I can have an impact and the reason I chose the topic
1:03:20 It’s like, oh, this is what I want to talk about. It’s like
1:03:26 Oh, you know, what’s the best way for me to use this time that if I look back on it or the people they’re spending an hour and a half
1:03:30 Is um, you know listening to this like was that a good use of my time
1:03:37 Did it actually did Darmesh deliver on the promise of at least marginally increase me my probability of making my first or next million, right?
1:03:39 That’s the you you you do this a lot
1:03:43 You kind of like are telling a story and you have like these little like bits that are like wildly fascinating
1:03:45 One of them being that you have like a personal mission
1:03:51 Do you have personal values like a company does that you you and your family or just you operate against?
1:03:58 We’ve talked about it. We haven’t done it. We have um, so the the HubSpot values are effectively the founders values, right?
1:04:00 That’s where the original kind of company values came from
1:04:08 And they’re and most companies are actually a reflection of their founders. Um, what what is the most controversial or?
1:04:14 Value that has the biggest trade-off like not everybody would choose this but we choose this what what is that for you guys?
1:04:18 Right like not like integrity or you know, like whatever things like that
1:04:22 Yeah, one of ones that uh, almost didn’t make the cut uh, not because
1:04:25 We don’t agree with the value, but there were others
1:04:26 is
1:04:30 Humility like humbleness right and like the common argument that comes back is like
1:04:36 We’re supposed to be a winning team or aggressive which we are right and so people often confuse humility with a lack of confidence
1:04:40 Or a lack of aggression assertiveness or all these things that’s not it at all, right?
1:04:46 The humility is is being self-aware is being able to recognize and not being a know it all. It’s like I’m here to learn having that
1:04:49 And and that
1:04:54 Is a large part of what drives HubSpot and so I kind of I thought for that value for a long long time
1:04:56 the second most controversial one is empathy, which is our
1:05:02 second value and that it didn’t always used to be empathy we changed along the way
1:05:06 Sam what’s our values on the part? Yeah, that’s a good question. The reason I’ve been asking this is like
1:05:13 Well, I’ve been like thinking about like do I have values? Like what what are my values? Like it’s kind of cool
1:05:17 Is denim a value or a jack? Oh, like it’s it’s kind of cool to like codify it
1:05:20 But no, like we don’t
1:05:25 Well, like we kind of have values like we say the we’ve had people in the pod who are like have done like bad stuff
1:05:29 And you’re and they’re like are you gonna like crucify me and we’re like well like our default is not to like criticize
1:05:32 It’s like to build people up, but sometimes that might happen
1:05:39 But anyway, we like so we have a couple but it’s interesting to kind of explicitly say these are the values of
1:05:41 x y and z and uh, Mark Zuckerberg
1:05:45 I I read this cool thing about him or maybe even told me in the pod shun where he was like
1:05:48 A value means you have to sacrifice something
1:05:55 So move fast and break things means we are going to move fast and because of that I am okay with breaking stuff
1:06:01 Uh, like it like too many people their values are things that are just obvious that don’t involve a sacrifice
1:06:05 That are just platitudes. Yeah, and by the way, there’s not there’s not many of these
1:06:10 So for example move fast and break things. I think is the pantheon the hall of fame of like, you know values
1:06:13 Um, another one is like Ray Dalio’s bridge water thing
1:06:19 They have like radical honesty or radical candor, which is like we are going to uncomfortably
1:06:23 Be honest with each other and we just think that that maximizes in the long run
1:06:25 but in the short run
1:06:27 This is not going to be like anywhere else you’ve worked because
1:06:29 We take that we take that seriously
1:06:34 We take the trade off which is discomfort for the upside of you know being radically honest
1:06:39 So I think that I have just because it jumped to my end and I think it’s uh, it’s a it’s a useful thing
1:06:44 um, so we talk about maximizing right and that’s uh, I love that word and
1:06:48 Many of you have likely heard of this notion of like finding the maximum
1:06:54 And then the the trap that people fall into is finding the local maximum versus the global maximum and just from a layperson’s perspective
1:06:59 It’s like imagine that you’re kind of looking at a graph like a normal imagine a bell curve for those listening
1:07:02 It’s like oh, there’s a point. I wish that value is the highest right top of the hill
1:07:07 So to speak in in mathematical terms the kind of local versus global max is like, okay
1:07:08 Well, that’s the highest point
1:07:13 But let’s say you were to zoom out on that same graph and then there’s other bell curve right next to it
1:07:14 Which is an even higher maxima
1:07:15 It’s like, okay
1:07:18 Well, if you were just solving based on that chart that you were looking at because you were zoomed in
1:07:22 You didn’t actually find a maximum you found the local maximum not the global maximum
1:07:28 That’s the and so here’s the and so that one that part of it is obvious the non obvious part is that
1:07:30 often in order to even see
1:07:35 The global maximum you actually have to climb the local maximum hill
1:07:40 It can’t be to abstract set out the sidelines is like, oh, I’m gonna go like wander around
1:07:44 What you have to do sometimes is you have to make the effort to climb the smaller hill
1:07:45 You get to the top of the spot
1:07:49 It’s like oh now I see the landscape and there’s that massive mountain over there
1:07:52 Which is the thing I’m actually meant to go do right and so
1:07:56 Part of the in this goes back to the kind of connecting dots thesis as well
1:07:58 It’s like sometimes
1:08:00 You have to do the thing that does that seem like the big bet
1:08:04 In order to have the perspective to see what the big bet big bet’s going to be right
1:08:08 Sam have you heard this concept of wrasse like instead of sass companies wrasse companies?
1:08:13 I saw him put that on there and I was like is that like a different word like riz, but does
1:08:21 I was like does this like rass is that is he gonna like make fun of is rass me like you’re gonna make fun of me like
1:08:22 I’m gonna rass you
1:08:26 No, this is a big idea. Darmus. Can you do the do the rass?
1:08:29 So we all know sass, which is software as a service
1:08:35 Uh, and we contrast software as a service to software as it used to exist back in like back in my day
1:08:37 I can say that now
1:08:41 And back in my day software was shipped in boxes on cds and things like that and you kind of
1:08:45 Plugged it into your computer and loaded the software up to do whatever you wanted to do
1:08:49 And software the service was oh, you don’t actually buy the box. You don’t buy the cd or whatever
1:08:54 We just provide the value of the software to you as a service over over the internet over the cloud
1:08:58 Results as a service is like actually
1:09:02 You don’t even access the software you tell us what it is that you actually want to do
1:09:08 What’s the outcome that you’re looking for and we’ll just sell you that you want the link in blog post at the end
1:09:10 A good example would be is like oh, uh
1:09:15 I could sell you like legal software to kind of analyze a contract in the real estate space that will give you commentary on
1:09:20 Whether this matches benchmarks or even in the vc world a term sheet or something like that
1:09:25 It’s like oh your software that will help you like power write a real estate contract and do the anything
1:09:31 It’s like hub spot here’s software that you can write blog posts capture emails and get more customers
1:09:36 Yes, but this thing is like okay. Well, what if you could just skip the intermediate steps like oh you run more customers
1:09:42 What are you willing to pay for customers and this this idea is almost as old as time right which is
1:09:44 Because we’ve had like in that particular example
1:09:50 We’ve had lead gen companies forever right which is effectively results as a service like don’t worry about phone numbers
1:09:52 Don’t worry about this thing called the internet or whatever
1:09:56 KS X amount of dollars every time your phone rings. Well, and it’s also a sales technique
1:10:00 Which is like do you want guests to feel great at your home and to be popular?
1:10:03 Okay, buy our vacuum to keep your carpet clean. Yes, that’s exact
1:10:07 Yeah, we’ve had that the other copiers I could people don’t buy don’t want drills
1:10:11 They want holes right like that’s that the drill is a tool holes the actual outcome desired
1:10:16 So rast is kind of the next kind of wave of software which and there will still be software
1:10:21 Being used by whoever’s providing the results of the service
1:10:22 That’s how the thing gets
1:10:26 Accomplished, but the way it might be packaged and sold. You know might end up being razz
1:10:31 one thing I just closing out on the on the Asian front as far as the call the action
1:10:33 So
1:10:36 Um, I forget the name of the guy that built the mfm vault
1:10:42 Greg. Yeah, Greg. Okay. Um, so what Greg did in terms of like sequencing these things together, right?
1:10:46 So he effectively built an agent, right? He has multi steps each individual step may call
1:10:49 other ai tools
1:10:52 agent.ai not only is a professional network
1:10:57 For distributing agents and finding agents discovering agents reviewing and rating agents and talking about agents
1:11:00 It also has what’s called an agent builder
1:11:03 Which is a platform for building agents
1:11:06 Without writing code
1:11:10 You’ve had a good quarter, uh hub spot stock. I think almost hit an all-time high
1:11:16 You sold the business or you sold the domain to open ai came on the podcast
1:11:18 You came with a pod
1:11:22 You’re you know, I don’t I don’t care what they say about you darmash. You’re doing okay. I’m doing okay
1:11:30 I don’t care what they say. You’re all right. What I love about you is you have a bunch of things that sound like paradoxes like you’re
1:11:37 Extremely gentle and kind. You’re also like I would say competitive and aggressive and in other ways. I think you are
1:11:44 Humble, but then you’re also a marketer and you’re like, oh, I can see the marketing value of this and the the practical value of this
1:11:46 but I also
1:11:49 You know, I’d rather be, you know, quiet low-key. I don’t need to brag
1:11:53 And so you have all these like contradictory things which I think makes you interesting
1:11:57 Hey, by the way, is this you said there’s a you go as soon as I get on a leaderboard
1:12:00 I want to be number one. Yeah, you’re like, but then I don’t want to be on the list
1:12:04 Is this a leaderboard or you’re like, I would like to be richer because it would be like like
1:12:06 I think
1:12:09 You’re you might try to be cool and be like no, I’m happy
1:12:13 But like I think with every level you are on whether you were with one billion
1:12:17 You want to get 10 whether you have 10 you want to get 50 just like no matter how ripped you get
1:12:19 You want to get a little bit more ripped like
1:12:21 um
1:12:25 Is it is it how much of a motivator is like, you know, it says one on Forbes now
1:12:32 How do I make it say 10 10 billion? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, it’s it’s a really good question. I tend not to have
1:12:35 Explicit goals
1:12:38 Like goals setting is not something and I’m not discounting it. I’m not um
1:12:42 Disparaging it at all as some of the smartest people, um, you know
1:12:45 I have goals that have those kind of like really concrete things that they’re shooting for
1:12:51 It’s not that I don’t do it now. I never really did that, right? It’s like, okay. I want to get better. I want, you know
1:12:54 I want to have money. I want to be able to have freedom make choices
1:12:58 I want to have the things that I in this as I’ve said this, uh, you know before
1:13:04 I I’d like to configure the universe to my liking to the best of my ability and whatever resources I can kind of accrue
1:13:06 To help make that possible
1:13:09 I will go try and find a way to make that possible, right? That’s that’s um
1:13:12 But like so like deep down inside my soul. I’m a
1:13:17 Like I’m a math and physics guy that’s not smart enough to be a math and physics guy, right?
1:13:22 And my truth function is like I said before it’s like, okay. I’m trying to create um based on that mission statement
1:13:26 positive impact for the most number of people like multiply x by y
1:13:31 And the marketing is part of that. It’s like, okay. Well, I’m not going to be able to
1:13:34 Impact people if I’m not doing some marketing
1:13:37 It’s like I can say the most brilliant things in the world if only 17 people look at them
1:13:41 Then the value of x of 17 for that particular unit of uh unit of work
1:13:44 And that’s just not how I operate
1:13:47 I will make sacrifices and other funds in order to solve the true
1:13:51 Like truth function to solve for the mission for me personally that’s sort of that was the
1:13:57 Uh, the balance there. We talked about a bunch of stuff. You had opening remarks. Do you have a closing remark?
1:14:03 Is there a is there a way you want to end it? Did you achieve your mission of of of saying what you thought would help?
1:14:05 somebody increase their odds
1:14:07 uh, my ask my favor
1:14:09 is uh
1:14:14 Leave a comment and let me know what you thought that’s where I keep scoring. That’s the leaderboard. I’m after right now
1:14:19 He’s saying it’s like I’m number five on the youtube list. I know comments and engagement actually help the algorithm
1:14:25 Probably more than lights do by the way for the record. Um, so dude you’re the man. We appreciate you doing this. Um
1:14:28 I have a notebook here
1:14:33 Where I take notes. I’m not gonna turn it. I don’t want people to see it, but um, I have filled three pages of notes
1:14:36 Um, so you’re the man
1:14:40 It’s all good pleasure beyond thanks. Thanks for having you. Thanks for indulging my uh indulging my quirks
1:14:44 Dude, you’re great, man. You’re fun to hang out with like you you are fun to hang out with you’re fun to talk to
1:14:48 I feel energized when I talk to you. It’s good to see you guys. We appreciate you. That’s the pod
1:14:52 I feel like I can rule the world. I know I could be what I want to
1:14:58 I put my all in it like no days off on the road. Let’s travel never looking back
1:14:59 – Bye.
1:15:02 (upbeat music)