AI transcript
0:00:01 Well, I have a different billionaire story.
0:00:01 That’s kind of crazy.
0:00:02 I want to tell you about.
0:00:04 So check this out.
0:00:06 This is, this is a wild story.
0:00:08 I’m just going to brace yourself.
0:00:17 Okay.
0:00:18 Let’s start with this.
0:00:21 I’m going to read you a snippet from an article first.
0:00:28 So in July, in early 2022, the courts ruled that this person,
0:00:31 Mike Lynch owed four billion in damages that are still pending.
0:00:32 Okay.
0:00:34 So court rules that Mike Lynch owes four billion dollars.
0:00:35 Next line.
0:00:37 At the same time, the U.S.
0:00:39 tried to extradite Lynch.
0:00:39 He was in the U.K.
0:00:42 The U.S. says, no, no, no, we’re going to come try you over here.
0:00:47 They bring him over and he arrives in San Francisco in May of 2023.
0:00:52 And he’s released on a hundred million dollar bail and consigned
0:00:56 to house arrest in a rental home with cameras installed in every room,
0:00:58 two armed guards on duty, on duty around the clock.
0:01:02 Now, what’s interesting about this is that that rental home with
0:01:04 cameras installed in every room and armed guards on duty around the clock
0:01:07 is my dad’s house.
0:01:08 I don’t know if you know this.
0:01:12 That guy stayed at my dad’s Airbnb when he was on trial.
0:01:16 Your dad owns an air, like a home in my dad’s actual house.
0:01:18 He will Airbnb out for periods of time.
0:01:21 He’ll go if he gets a booking, that’s like, you know, at the right price point.
0:01:24 They’ll go get to, he’ll go to like a motel and a hotel, like in, you know,
0:01:27 Fremont or something like that, go stay there for the night.
0:01:29 And then he’ll be like so happy that he made some money.
0:01:30 But my dad didn’t know this.
0:01:34 He gets a booking, man, this guy wants, this guy just booked three months.
0:01:38 And three months, by the way, is the max you can even do when you’re Airbnb
0:01:39 in your own house in San Francisco.
0:01:41 It’s like that you have 90 days.
0:01:44 So he’s like, wow, I got the whole year from one guy.
0:01:44 This is great.
0:01:46 So he’s like, where am I going to go for three months?
0:01:48 And he’s figuring it out.
0:01:49 I’ll go travel, whatever.
0:01:53 And then he texts me and he’s like, hey, can you check the ring camera real quick?
0:01:57 And I check the ring and there’s these bodyguards standing outside the house.
0:01:59 What? What’s going on?
0:02:04 And so he texts the guy and he’s like, hey, Mike, hope you got into the house.
0:02:06 OK, from the lock box.
0:02:09 Curious, what are these guards doing outside the house?
0:02:11 And he says, oh, I’m actually on house arrest.
0:02:14 I’m awaiting my trial.
0:02:17 And for the duration of this, I can’t leave the house.
0:02:18 You know, that’s why I wanted your Airbnb.
0:02:21 You have this nice backyard, hard to get a nice backyard in San Francisco.
0:02:24 So and my dad’s like, what the hell?
0:02:25 So he starts Googling the case.
0:02:26 We all start Googling the case.
0:02:27 And this guy’s story is fascinating.
0:02:29 And is this for autonomy?
0:02:33 Yeah. So I’ll give you the end of the story, which is which is kind of interesting, right?
0:02:35 I don’t know if you’ve have you heard the latest update on this?
0:02:38 No, but not the latest, but I know that it’s weird.
0:02:40 There’s a lot of weird stuff going on.
0:02:42 So I’ll I’ll start with the end and we’ll go back to the beginning.
0:02:45 The end of the story is at some point, my dad’s like,
0:02:47 hey, I got to go back to live in my house.
0:02:48 Your trial is not over.
0:02:51 The guy’s like, OK, OK, I’ll ask the judge if I can move Airbnb.
0:02:53 So he moves Airbnb, he finishes the trial.
0:02:55 He’s acquitted on all charges.
0:02:59 He’s a free man to celebrate him, his family, his lawyers.
0:03:00 They all get on a yacht.
0:03:04 He owns this 30 million dollar yacht and this person they used to work with,
0:03:07 the guy who was his character witness, his lawyer, his wife,
0:03:10 the lawyer’s wife, they all get on this boat and they start sailing.
0:03:15 And mysteriously, two months after being acquitted of all charges,
0:03:18 there’s a freak yacht accident and he dies.
0:03:21 He’s killed on this boat.
0:03:25 At the same time, 48 hours later, the other guy in the case,
0:03:28 his co-founder, who was also acquitted on the same day of all the charges,
0:03:32 is going for a run and gets hit by a car and also dies.
0:03:36 And so it’s kind of strange that this guy who was in this multi-billion
0:03:40 dollar fraud suit, the day you have 48 hours apart.
0:03:43 Just a couple of months after being acquitted,
0:03:46 him and the co-founder both killed in freak accidents.
0:03:47 Yeah.
0:03:52 All right, let’s take a quick break,
0:03:54 because I want to talk to you about some new stuff that HubSpot has.
0:03:56 Now, they let me freestyle this ad here.
0:03:59 So I’m going to actually tell you what I think is interesting.
0:04:01 So they have this thing called the Fall Spotlight,
0:04:03 showing all the new features that they released in the last few months.
0:04:07 And the ones that stood out to me were Breeze Intelligence.
0:04:09 I don’t know if you’ve seen this, but if you’re in HubSpot
0:04:11 and you have, let’s say, a customer there,
0:04:14 you can just basically add intelligence to that customer.
0:04:15 They estimate a revenue for that company.
0:04:17 How many employees it has.
0:04:19 Maybe their email address or their location.
0:04:21 If they’ve ever visited your page or not.
0:04:25 And so you can enrich all of your data automatically with one click
0:04:26 using this thing called Breeze Intelligence.
0:04:29 They actually acquired a really cool company called Clearbit
0:04:31 and it’s become Breeze, which is great because now it’s built in.
0:04:34 I always hated using two different tools to try to do this.
0:04:35 Now it’s all in one place.
0:04:39 And so all the data you had about your customers now just got smarter.
0:04:40 So check it out.
0:04:42 You can actually see all the stuff they released.
0:04:42 It’s a really cool website.
0:04:47 Go to HubSpot.com/Spotlight to see them all and get the demos yourself.
0:04:49 Back to this episode.
0:04:51 All right.
0:04:53 So now let’s go back to the beginning.
0:04:54 I Googled this guy.
0:04:56 So this guy’s story is actually pretty fascinating.
0:04:59 He is called the British Bill Gates.
0:05:02 And the reason he’s called the British Bill Gates is that this guy was brilliant.
0:05:03 So he grew up super poor.
0:05:07 Basically, he’s he’s so poor, but he’s he’s a hard worker.
0:05:10 He’s smart and he ends up getting a scholarship to go to school
0:05:12 because he and he said this.
0:05:17 He goes, there is a guy like a lord in the 1600s.
0:05:21 But when he died, he left his wealth specifically one purpose
0:05:22 for the education of poor boys.
0:05:25 And he’s like, I was a poor boy and I got to have the scholarship,
0:05:27 which let me go to a school.
0:05:31 And so when he’s 11, he gets into a private school.
0:05:32 He starts working really hard.
0:05:37 At 16, he becomes a janitor at a hospital and he’s mopping the floors.
0:05:42 And during the trial, he’s talking about his his childhood or growing up.
0:05:45 And he’s like, at 16, I used to work in this hospital, mopping the floors.
0:05:48 I was I was and actually, I still am a I’m a demon mopper.
0:05:50 So I could do that.
0:05:53 And the lawyer goes, your credibility is on the line here, Dr. Lynch.
0:05:54 And he goes, throw me a mop.
0:05:55 I’ll show you right now.
0:05:58 And the whole audience at the at the courthouse starts laughing.
0:06:01 He tells a story at the at the hospital.
0:06:02 He’s working his way up.
0:06:05 So he goes from janitor mopping the floors to porter,
0:06:07 which he’s he’s wheeling the people from room to room.
0:06:08 He’s moving the beds around.
0:06:11 Finally, he gets the prestigious job of serving tea and sandwiches.
0:06:15 And he says, the most important thing that happened in my life was age 16.
0:06:19 I spent a lot of time with people who were 95 year old, basically people on the way out.
0:06:22 And I used to sit with them and I used to serve them tea and sandwiches.
0:06:25 And these people had nobody to talk to at the end of their life.
0:06:29 And they opened up to me about their life and about things that they’ve never told anybody.
0:06:33 And he goes at 16, I thought that life is I’m indestructible in life.
0:06:35 You know, life seems like it’s forever when you’re 16.
0:06:38 And he’s like, every day I was reminded life is really short.
0:06:40 I want to really make something of my life.
0:06:41 Then he says, I get he gets into Cambridge.
0:06:46 He goes into Cambridge and he gets a PhD in neural networks,
0:06:47 a artificial intelligence and neural networks.
0:06:52 And this is he’s on this is this is way before AI neural networks were a thing.
0:06:53 So let’s fast forward.
0:06:58 He starts this company called autonomy and autonomy was basically like one of these
0:07:02 like machine learning, big data, take, take a bunch of data, find patterns
0:07:04 that the human eye is not going to be able to see.
0:07:08 And they sell this to both companies as well as governments and agencies,
0:07:10 sort of like a Palantir company.
0:07:12 So he starts this company.
0:07:16 He ends up selling it to HP for $11 billion.
0:07:19 So Hewlett Packard, who’s like a hardware company wants to go to software
0:07:21 and they get really hot and heavy.
0:07:24 And they the company was already public, but they offered a 60 percent premium.
0:07:28 So they said, we’ll give you 60 percent more than your stock price to take this deal.
0:07:31 He says, all right, you know, he’s like, if I had not taken that deal,
0:07:34 my shareholders would have been, you know, it would have sounded
0:07:36 like a herd of elephants stampeding towards me.
0:07:38 Why didn’t you take this deal?
0:07:39 So of course, I took the deal.
0:07:41 It takes the deal a couple of years later.
0:07:45 HP ends up writing off eight and a half billion dollars of that acquisition.
0:07:47 And they say, you guys cook the books.
0:07:51 So you you inflated your revenues, your profits, your balance sheet.
0:07:54 So they sue him.
0:07:56 And in the suit, the couple of things happened.
0:07:59 The the CFO pleads guilty for wire fraud.
0:08:02 So he’s in jail for, I don’t know, five, seven years, something like that.
0:08:06 The the co-founder volunteers to work with them
0:08:08 and he gets a pretty light sentence.
0:08:12 And this guy, Mike avoids, he tries to avoid being in court with these guys.
0:08:15 So he’s trying to avoid extradition, all the stuff for like a period of time.
0:08:16 Finally, they get him.
0:08:18 And what’s like the what’s the he says?
0:08:23 She says like, so HP says your revenue wasn’t what it really was.
0:08:24 Or you build people wrong.
0:08:26 What what’s it’s a very complicated thing.
0:08:29 So they said that, hey, what you misrepresented.
0:08:32 Your revenues and the profitability profile of this business
0:08:35 and something on the balance sheet that he said, she said.
0:08:38 So during the court case, they asked him about this and he says,
0:08:41 if you take a microscope into any kitchen, even the cleanest ones,
0:08:46 you will find bacteria, which is great analogy.
0:08:49 But the most guilty shit I’ve ever heard, to be honest.
0:08:51 So that sounds horrible.
0:08:52 So I don’t know all the details.
0:08:56 During the court case, they had 15 million financial documents
0:08:58 that they had submitted as exhibits.
0:09:03 And it was so complicated that during this case, one juror kept falling asleep.
0:09:07 And the lawyer looks over at him and he goes, I know this is not fascinating,
0:09:10 but you’ve got to tell me, can you stay awake for the next eight weeks of this trial?
0:09:13 The juror goes, that’s a negative.
0:09:16 I can’t get through it.
0:09:22 And so he ends up getting acquitted, which is amazing.
0:09:25 And by the way, him testifying and telling that story about him
0:09:26 and the janitor and they think it helped him.
0:09:27 And it was very rare.
0:09:30 Most people do not testify for their own defense.
0:09:32 They tell you don’t go on the stand.
0:09:34 So basically he has charisma.
0:09:35 He has some charisma, exactly.
0:09:36 So he gets on the stage.
0:09:39 Anyways, he gets acquitted.
0:09:42 Now, this death has all these weird circumstances.
0:09:48 So first, when I heard this, it just sounded like some real Epstein stuff, right?
0:09:51 I was like, wait, these two people get acquitted on the fraud case
0:09:55 and then both die within 48 hours of each other in these quote unquote freak accident.
0:09:58 Yeah. And like the accident that they described it was like,
0:10:01 basically, if I remember correctly, like a water tornado.
0:10:05 They’re like, he was sailing and there was like a tornado
0:10:07 that like tipped over this huge sailboat.
0:10:10 Well, the crazy thing is, yeah.
0:10:11 So then you read about it.
0:10:15 So this is me last night, just swaying as I read the details of this case.
0:10:20 So on one hand, OK, it sounded like he got killed.
0:10:21 No, he didn’t get killed.
0:10:24 The boat sank and the boat sank due to this like natural disaster.
0:10:27 OK, that sounds pretty what are you going to say?
0:10:31 Somebody caused a water tornado and a bunch of people survived it and people survived it.
0:10:33 Exactly. So he could have just as he survived.
0:10:37 On the other hand, there’s stuff that came out that was like
0:10:42 they didn’t secure like the sort of the ship in the right way as you would
0:10:45 when you had that forecast. So like, why didn’t they do that?
0:10:46 That’s a little bit strange.
0:10:50 Also, the guy who got hit by the car, the other guy running,
0:10:52 for it to happen in that time span.
0:10:55 And the lady who hit him, she’s this 49 year old woman
0:10:58 who hit him with the car, she was like, I couldn’t see.
0:11:00 And it was like, wow, OK, she’s cooperating with 40.
0:11:02 She doesn’t look like a hitman.
0:11:05 And if you go in the subreddit, the conspiracy subreddits, it’s like,
0:11:07 of course, they made it look like that.
0:11:09 That’s exactly how this works.
0:11:11 They make it look they look for a weather pattern
0:11:15 that could be could be believed and then they’ll sink the boat.
0:11:17 And then it seems like the boat sank due to natural disasters.
0:11:20 Or they find these people who don’t look like hitmen, but they’re hit.
0:11:23 And it’s like, all right, I don’t know what to believe in all this conspiracy
0:11:28 aside, incredibly wild story that this is how this all played out.
0:11:31 And by the way, during this time, so he sells autonomy
0:11:34 in 2011, something like that.
0:11:37 2013, he starts a new company, Dark Trace.
0:11:40 And Dark Trace is this cybersecurity company.
0:11:44 This name does not help this whole conspiracy.
0:11:46 That’s what I’m saying. There’s there’s more to it.
0:11:49 So if you look up what Dark Trace does, Dark Trace,
0:11:52 I think was started back when WikiLeaks happened.
0:11:57 And the idea was we’re going to go to like government agencies
0:12:01 and when Snowden and the WikiLeaks stuff to start happening, it was basically
0:12:05 I’ll make sure WikiLeaks and the Snowden leaks never happen to you.
0:12:09 And so they were working with all kinds of, you know, secret agencies
0:12:11 to try to prevent that from being possible.
0:12:12 And that’s what Dark Trace is.
0:12:16 Dark Trace was also a five billion dollar company that was a choir.
0:12:17 It was quiet for five billion dollars.
0:12:20 And so this guy was like really prolific as an entrepreneur
0:12:24 at the same time, this incredible, you know,
0:12:26 either tragedy, conspiracy or freak acts.
0:12:27 And it’s hard to say.
0:12:30 But isn’t that wild that this guy was just living in my dad’s house?
0:12:33 How much is your dad? OK, I don’t know.
0:12:36 The answer to this could be I don’t want to give too much information to my father.
0:12:39 But let’s just presume that this guy, Mike Lynch, is worth billions.
0:12:42 How much do you think he was paying per month?
0:12:44 So that’s actually a funny thing.
0:12:46 So my dad’s normal rate.
0:12:50 I think a normal rate on his every be like 750 bucks a night, something like that.
0:12:53 Because it’s a house with multiple rooms.
0:12:58 So it’s like it’s cheaper than it would be if you were if you’re a group.
0:12:59 And by the way, my dad’s super desperate.
0:13:01 So he’ll he’ll put it up for 750.
0:13:03 Someone comes in for five.
0:13:05 He’s like, oh, it’s still five. Five is great.
0:13:06 That’s a lot of money.
0:13:07 I got to say yes to this.
0:13:11 And we’re always telling him, we’re like, dude, like you’re like you’re old now.
0:13:12 Don’t inconvenience your life like this.
0:13:14 And he’s he’ll do it, whatever.
0:13:18 So when this happened, of course, my first instinct is, hey,
0:13:20 maybe you don’t want whatever.
0:13:22 So this seems like a pretty tense situation.
0:13:24 We don’t know. We don’t have a lot of information here.
0:13:26 There’s somebody who’s like, you know, on trials,
0:13:27 it’s like a criminal living in your house.
0:13:29 What’s going on? Maybe you should ask him to leave.
0:13:33 And my dad’s like, yeah, yeah, yeah, gonna do that.
0:13:36 Calls the guy. Calls me back.
0:13:37 Like, so what happened?
0:13:38 Is he agreed to leave?
0:13:40 Like, are you going to have to refund them or what?
0:13:42 He’s like, no, he’s paying triple now.
0:13:45 I was like, what?
0:13:47 Anybody that’s like, yeah, I was going to ask him to leave.
0:13:50 And then I just told him, like, this is really stressing me out.
0:13:51 Like, I don’t know what to do.
0:13:53 Can you just like, this is going to cost more.
0:13:55 And he’s like, sure, what do you want?
0:13:57 He’s like, how about triple?
0:13:59 He’s like, OK, no problem.
0:14:02 So my dad was over the moon about this whole situation.
0:14:07 The most Indian thing I’ve ever heard.
0:14:08 That’s first of all, that’s insane.
0:14:13 By the way, I have a friend who just rented out their home for a Netflix show.
0:14:15 And they were spent.
0:14:19 They the home was worth like five million dollars.
0:14:22 And the Netflix crew to be there and all this, they were spending,
0:14:25 I believe, two hundred thousand dollars a month.
0:14:30 That was the rental price for three months, which it’s like fricking insane.
0:14:32 And so your dad was almost getting.
0:14:34 Yeah, he’s getting that reality TV money.
0:14:36 And it was just one guy sitting in the house all day.
0:14:38 It’s kind of amazing. Wow.
0:14:39 First of all, there’s so many.
0:14:42 There’s so many weird things about the story.
0:14:45 When you looked into it, what do you think happened?
0:14:50 Well, I was I was I’m telling you, I was really thinking conspiracy.
0:14:53 And then I go into the subreddit and the top comment was so funny.
0:14:55 It goes, I’m sorry.
0:14:57 But if you let Packard arrange the hit,
0:14:59 they’d still be waiting for the correct driver to be installed.
0:15:01 And I was like, that’s true.
0:15:03 The HP is not ordering a hit.
0:15:05 So I don’t I don’t believe that’s the case.
0:15:07 I have studied history for a long time.
0:15:08 I’m into all this stuff.
0:15:10 Conspiracy theories are always fun to read about.
0:15:12 Here’s my takeaway with conspiracies.
0:15:14 One, they do exist sometimes.
0:15:17 So, for example, do you remember the O.J.
0:15:19 Simpson trial and how there was Mark Foreman?
0:15:24 He was the one of these police officers who planted the glove there.
0:15:28 Yeah, that is that’s an example of a conspiracy that I believe, like, was true.
0:15:31 The problem with conspiracies, there’s two problems with them.
0:15:34 One, secrets are really hard to keep.
0:15:36 You know what I mean?
0:15:40 Like if so, if 50 people know that they had to work together to do X, Y and Z,
0:15:45 it’s really hard, particularly over decades, to keep that a secret.
0:15:46 You know what I mean?
0:15:48 That’s just that’s a huge challenge.
0:15:52 And the second thing is that when you have to hire people to do these things,
0:15:55 they’re typically lower income.
0:15:57 Like, for example, someone who works at the security
0:16:01 as a security prisoner or a corrections facility.
0:16:04 They’re probably like they don’t have that many options.
0:16:05 They don’t make a lot of money.
0:16:09 And convincing this person to shut up for 50 years.
0:16:11 That’s really fucking hard.
0:16:16 It’s just it’s like logistically true to pull off a conspiracy like that is effective.
0:16:19 It’s really, really hard.
0:16:21 Or like, let’s say you’re doing it with like a bunch of military people.
0:16:24 So like 100 just infantry people are trying.
0:16:26 You think they’re going to be able to keep their mouth shut?
0:16:28 It’s just challenging, but it does happen.
0:16:31 And also with, like, for example, the Epstein thing is like, oh,
0:16:34 and then the camera stopped working that day.
0:16:37 It’s like, all right, this seems extremely suspect.
0:16:40 It’s like the guards happened to leave and the cameras shut off.
0:16:42 And he got his hands on a rope or whatever.
0:16:47 I don’t know the details, but like some of these they make you.
0:16:49 They make you do this, the goatee pinch.
0:16:51 What’s going on here?
0:16:53 Well, and then but there’s there’s a lot of times there’s.
0:16:56 Have you heard of the Kennedy curse about how they all die?
0:17:00 No, you know, there’s like Joe Kennedy with the patriarchy.
0:17:03 He had nine kids and roughly six of them died.
0:17:06 And then like the grandkids, they all died like died early.
0:17:08 You mean died early? Yeah.
0:17:12 For example, assassinations died in plane crashes.
0:17:16 And then you like a look at like the story of each one and you’re like,
0:17:17 oh, this isn’t a curse.
0:17:19 You guys are just risk takers.
0:17:22 Like this guy was flying a plane when he just got his pilot’s license.
0:17:25 And he was flying like a jet when he should have been flying like a much slower plane.
0:17:28 Or this person.
0:17:29 He got assassinated because he was president.
0:17:33 And like 10 percent of all presidents have been assassinated and been assassinated.
0:17:34 You know what I mean?
0:17:37 Like there’s like there’s often times there’s a story where
0:17:41 it like each one individually can kind of make sense, but added up together.
0:17:45 It may seem too good to be true, but they’re actually things make sense when you look down.
0:17:47 So anyway, that’s my opinion on conspiracies.
0:17:49 But this story is so fascinating.
0:17:54 I remember reading about Mike Lynch and this is a crazy state at your dad’s house.
0:17:58 And B, I also I kind of don’t know how I feel about the story.
0:18:00 I don’t know what happened.
0:18:01 Yeah, neither do I.
0:18:03 And by the way, for conspiracies, it’s like
0:18:08 for most things in life, you just either choose to believe or you choose not to believe.
0:18:11 Right. It’s a choice whether you believe in something.
0:18:15 And some things when you choose to believe them, they believe in them like luck.
0:18:16 Like I’m a lucky person.
0:18:20 I believe that because I believe that I’m going to do different things
0:18:22 than somebody who believes they’re an unlucky person will do.
0:18:27 And so it’s actually less important to figure out what’s true and what’s not,
0:18:31 as it is to figure out what’s useful to believe and what’s not useful to believe
0:18:34 in life. And so some things like, for example, conspiracy
0:18:37 are useful to believe only for their entertainment value, more so than anything else.
0:18:40 Or to say, I’m not going to take everything at face value.
0:18:44 I understand that there isn’t just like there’s an error rate in every
0:18:49 prediction or poll, just like there’s an error rate in every scientific process.
0:18:53 There is a conspiracy rate in every in a series of historical events where
0:18:58 some number between, you know, point one and five percent of all things
0:19:00 that have a conspiracy are actually true.
0:19:04 So choosing to believe for entertainment value is kind of where I land on it.
0:19:08 Single engine airplanes or helicopters
0:19:11 and boats like huge yachts, two things.
0:19:14 I don’t I don’t touch them.
0:19:17 I think those things are so I’m so afraid of those things.
0:19:19 Have you ever been on a cruise like a big ship?
0:19:21 Like it’s like it’s it’s frightening.
0:19:23 Do you know how many people die on cruises every year?
0:19:26 Like a huge amount because they jump off like, you know what I mean?
0:19:27 Like they get lost at sea.
0:19:29 They jump off. Oh, like they’re just going for a swim.
0:19:33 Yeah. Or they’re or they’re drunk and they fall over the side.
0:19:35 Like there’s like this website called like missing at sea.
0:19:36 I forget what it was.
0:19:39 And it was like all the people who go missing from cruise ships every year.
0:19:42 It’s like it’s like it’s like a it’s a huge number.
0:19:44 Like the dead version of Facebook.
0:19:47 It’s like it’s like people that are missing at sea.
0:19:51 Yeah, it’s like a pretty disgusting thing.
0:19:52 I’m not doing that.
0:19:53 I can’t stay on cruises.
0:19:55 So but this the story is pretty wild.
0:19:56 This is this is a wild story.
0:19:58 That’s why he stayed at your dad’s place.
0:20:05 Hey, let’s take a quick break to talk about another podcast that you should check out.
0:20:07 It is called The Next Wave.
0:20:10 It’s hosted by Matt Wolf and Nathan Lanz as part of the HubSpot podcast network,
0:20:14 which, of course, is your audio destination for business professionals like you.
0:20:16 You can catch the next wave with Matt Wolf.
0:20:19 And he’s talking about where the puck is going with AI creators,
0:20:22 AI technology and how you can apply it to your growing business.
0:20:23 So check it out.
0:20:25 Listen to The Next Wave wherever you get the podcast.
0:20:30 All right, where do I go from here?
0:20:31 All right.
0:20:37 So for the last 15 years, you and I have studied like making money.
0:20:38 Would you agree?
0:20:40 Like that’s been like the 90 percent of our waking time.
0:20:41 I have agreed.
0:20:42 I would agree with that.
0:20:42 That’s cool.
0:20:43 That’s great and everything.
0:20:47 But I think that I have kind of have I’ve learned how to do it.
0:20:50 Would you agree that you kind of understand like intellectually how it’s done?
0:20:52 I understand intellectually.
0:20:56 Yes, like it’s it’s hard, but there’s like three phases.
0:20:58 There’s understanding intellectually,
0:21:01 realizing you thought you understood intellectually,
0:21:03 and then now you actually know intellectually.
0:21:04 And then there’s doing it.
0:21:07 I think I finally got past the third stage.
0:21:10 And now I think the fourth stage is either is being done with it,
0:21:13 being getting over it or being less interested in it as you go.
0:21:15 Yeah, for sure, which, by the way,
0:21:18 like I actually think that that’s a great like arc.
0:21:23 And something that I’ve always loved about studying making money
0:21:25 is the idea of nothing to something.
0:21:28 And it just so happened to that capitalism making making money.
0:21:32 That is a very practical way of nothing to something like it’s a very straightforward way.
0:21:34 And we’ve studied it.
0:21:37 A new thing that I’m being a little bit obsessed with
0:21:41 about how someone goes from nothing to something is politics.
0:21:44 And not that like I actually care.
0:21:46 I don’t ever want to like become political.
0:21:50 I don’t want to become the president or pivoting to the all in podcast.
0:21:52 No, I don’t want to do any of that.
0:21:54 It doesn’t actually interest me.
0:21:57 But like when Trump became president, I was like, you know,
0:22:01 and that insane that like in his head, I think he was like,
0:22:05 this is just like a bit and that it but it kind of like came to fruition
0:22:07 that like he like became powerful.
0:22:09 And I’m like, that’s like insane how that happens,
0:22:12 how someone goes from nothing to something, particularly in the political arena.
0:22:16 And so I moved to this small town and I thought, you know,
0:22:17 like it’s only a 30,000 percent town.
0:22:20 I’m going to email the mayor and I just want to become friends with her
0:22:23 and just like learn about how she became mayor.
0:22:26 So I emailed her and I just said, like, hey, my name is Sam.
0:22:28 I have this podcast.
0:22:30 I have this internet company that I started.
0:22:32 And I’m basically just saying this to impress you.
0:22:34 But can I come in and just introduce myself?
0:22:36 And she did. She said, yeah.
0:22:39 And so I met went met with her and I thought it’d be funny.
0:22:41 I could just like do a little recap of this meeting.
0:22:46 But I said a few things that I look back and I was like, what the hell?
0:22:47 Why would I ever say that?
0:22:50 So set the scene. You go to her office, you guys go out to lunch.
0:22:52 You go for a stroll. What are you doing?
0:22:55 She’s like, you know, come over. We go out to lunch.
0:22:56 I’m like, no, I don’t want to go for lunch.
0:22:57 I want to like come to your office.
0:23:00 Like I want to see like I want to see where the sausage is made my friend.
0:23:01 Like I want to see it.
0:23:03 So I get there at like 845.
0:23:05 She’s walking in right about then for our nine o’clock.
0:23:07 So we just start talking.
0:23:10 We sit down. She’s nice. Her name’s Jennifer Tuker.
0:23:11 She introduced herself as Jen.
0:23:13 So I guess I’ll call her that.
0:23:14 We’re friends now.
0:23:18 And I just started talking to her and I kind of got nervous, you know?
0:23:19 Like I got.
0:23:21 Did you ever have to do a thing where you get married
0:23:23 and you have to meet like with the priests in advance?
0:23:24 Yeah.
0:23:26 Dude, you’re like, wait, can this guy cancel our marriage right now
0:23:28 if I say the wrong thing?
0:23:30 I was the exact same that the guys like you guys go to church.
0:23:34 And I’m like, dude, I go to church like every day, easily every day.
0:23:36 You know what I mean?
0:23:37 I had that like same energy.
0:23:41 A favorite part of the Bible. So many of them.
0:23:44 It’s hard. Yeah, it was like the same thing where I’m like,
0:23:45 just want to impress her.
0:23:47 But I’ve said she was like, how do you like the town?
0:23:50 And I was like, you know, Warren Buffett says this amazing thing
0:23:53 where he’s like, you got to build a business so good that a dummy can run it
0:23:55 because eventually a dummy will.
0:23:57 I kind of feel like this town is like that.
0:23:58 Like it’s so perfect.
0:24:00 Like there’s nothing to complain about.
0:24:01 Like any idiot can run it.
0:24:05 And I was like, shit, not that you’re an idiot.
0:24:06 It’s just, you know what I mean?
0:24:11 And so when you said that or I said that I said that you said the Buffett quote
0:24:13 about an idiot or yes.
0:24:21 I was like, wait, I’m sorry.
0:24:24 I didn’t I was like, I bet this in a nice way.
0:24:25 The town is like perfect.
0:24:27 Like there’s nothing to complain about.
0:24:29 And so I put my foot foot my mouth there.
0:24:31 And then she was like, oh, you know, that’s funny.
0:24:32 I used to work for Warren Buffett.
0:24:33 And I was like, oh, tell me about that.
0:24:35 Was he awesome? I heard he’s a real cheap ass.
0:24:40 And I’m like, sorry.
0:24:42 I don’t know. I don’t know why I’m like talking like this.
0:24:46 I don’t mean to say she starts telling stories about that.
0:24:50 And I’m like, it seems like if you work for Warren Buffett as an executive,
0:24:52 like you must have been like pretty rich.
0:24:55 Why would you quit that and take this crappy job?
0:24:59 And she like, again, kind of like laughed.
0:25:04 But like I was saying things that 10 seconds after I said it, I’m like,
0:25:06 what am I doing right now?
0:25:08 And she laughed at all of them.
0:25:12 And so it was really kind of funny to like see like my first interaction
0:25:14 went just horribly, but she was into it.
0:25:16 You remind me before you finish your story.
0:25:20 So my daughter is she just turned five.
0:25:22 So she just started going to school for the first time.
0:25:26 Like she’s going to TK transitional kindergarten.
0:25:28 And as a parent, you’re like helpless
0:25:30 because you don’t know what your kids like.
0:25:32 You kind of give her advice, but then she crosses the gate.
0:25:36 She goes into the class and you’re like, remember, like make friends,
0:25:37 ask people questions, they like that.
0:25:39 And like, you know, I’m trying to give her a way to socialize
0:25:41 because she’s smart, she’s fine in the school part.
0:25:44 But at the beginning, she was super uncomfortable with kids and she started to do.
0:25:48 And so, but I didn’t know as a parent, you never really know how they’re behaving.
0:25:50 And so we would run into these scenarios.
0:25:51 We’d be at a coffee shop.
0:25:54 And then there’s a kid who would be like, hi, like say her name.
0:25:56 I’m like, oh, do you know him?
0:25:58 Is that like a kid from your school?
0:25:59 I get really excited.
0:26:02 And then she would do what you just did, which is she would just suddenly
0:26:07 start saying and doing the funniest things like we’ll be standing there.
0:26:10 And I’ll be like, like, she won’t say anything first.
0:26:11 I’m like, say something.
0:26:12 Is he in your class? Yeah.
0:26:13 Okay. Like who’s this kid?
0:26:15 And then I’ll be like, hey, I like your watch, like your shoes, man.
0:26:17 Spider-Man, cool.
0:26:18 And then she’s not saying anything.
0:26:20 And then she’ll just go, why am I so tired?
0:26:23 And then she goes, I need to go to sleep.
0:26:27 And then she laid down on the sidewalk and like pretended to go to sleep in front of me.
0:26:29 And now I’m just talking to this kid.
0:26:33 And so this happened three different times with three kids.
0:26:34 Why am I so tired?
0:26:36 And she would say this thing out of nowhere.
0:26:38 It’s like a panic response.
0:26:40 And I feel like you just had your panic response
0:26:43 in front of the mayor where you’re like, Warren Buffett says.
0:26:47 And you just pared in some shitty, I’m like, I don’t even like Buffett.
0:26:48 Well, why am I breaking this up?
0:26:51 And I just called her an idiot.
0:26:53 Like you take an exit off the highway and you’re like,
0:26:56 this is not my destination, but now I’m stuck here.
0:27:00 And then she was like, she was like, she told me what her politics was.
0:27:02 I guess she’s like, she’s like, I’m a Republican,
0:27:04 but like I’m just barely right of center.
0:27:06 And most of our town is Democrat.
0:27:08 And I was like, yeah, but that doesn’t really matter.
0:27:11 All you do is like fill potholes and make sure the beach is make sure the beach is clean.
0:27:14 Like, why do your politics matter?
0:27:16 What are your beliefs have to do with this?
0:27:21 Yeah, I’m like one of those things where just 10 seconds after I said that, I was like.
0:27:24 Shit, I’m I’m blown this.
0:27:26 Like, I just am insulting you constantly.
0:27:28 I’m not meaning to.
0:27:30 You’re like, how long have I been on Twitter?
0:27:32 Like, I’ve just been on the internet for too long.
0:27:34 I can’t like function in society anymore.
0:27:40 Yeah. And so anyway, I just thought it was like a horrible meeting that I blew.
0:27:42 But she she she handled it well.
0:27:47 By the way, the last time I met with a mayor, it was in San Francisco.
0:27:51 And so I met with London Breed and she was just a council person.
0:27:53 Whatever district, I don’t even know what it was called.
0:27:57 Literally eight hours later, I met with her at like five p.m.
0:28:02 That night, Ed Lee died and she became mayor.
0:28:05 And so I told this woman as I was leaving, I was like, hey,
0:28:09 last time I last time I met with the last time I met with the mayor.
0:28:14 This woman, London, became a mayor because the real mayor died.
0:28:17 And I was like, shit, which means you’re either going to die
0:28:19 or and I was like, forget I said that.
0:28:24 It’s anyway, I just I believe it like the men in black pen at the end
0:28:27 to just flash her memory and just erase the entire conversation.
0:28:30 Yeah, man, it was horrible.
0:28:32 But anyway, I thought it was fun.
0:28:34 Have you have you been interested in politics at all?
0:28:36 Or are you just totally on the sideline?
0:28:39 I’m only interested in politics from a marketing point of view, meaning
0:28:42 it’s like something you watch in a movie.
0:28:46 It’s like when you watch the Hunger Games and you’re like, that’s ridiculous.
0:28:47 It’s so great.
0:28:48 Like this concept is so ridiculous.
0:28:51 People just sort of like fighting for the death for the amusement of others.
0:28:54 And then I watch like UFC 306 the next next day.
0:28:56 And I’m like, oh, I guess that’s kind of similar.
0:28:59 Or there’ll be like a politician who’s kind of like, you know,
0:29:02 actually catering to the rich, but just trying to keep the poor,
0:29:06 like the masses, you know, like just subdued enough so that they don’t revolt.
0:29:08 And then you see kind of what some of the politicians is.
0:29:11 You see, it’s interesting to me that this is real life,
0:29:12 that this is actually how things go.
0:29:15 Like I watched a full Trump rally the other day, like end to end.
0:29:17 I don’t know if you’ve ever seen all these,
0:29:19 but like I started where before anyone’s on stage and I’m like,
0:29:20 what’s the set list?
0:29:21 Like who’s the DJ of this?
0:29:23 Because it’s it goes Macho Man.
0:29:26 So it’s like Macho Macho Man.
0:29:27 This is like nobody on the stage.
0:29:28 And the whole crowd is there.
0:29:30 They’re all enjoying it.
0:29:32 And I was like, there’s like 30 minutes of just like a set.
0:29:36 And the whole that musical set, that playlist should be on Spotify.
0:29:38 It was Macho Man, the song.
0:29:40 That was the song that he came out to.
0:29:44 No, that was the one like the the warm up the crowd one before he comes out.
0:29:47 And it’s funny by it because Macho Man is by the village people,
0:29:49 which is like a gay band.
0:29:50 Yeah, but they played them all.
0:29:53 YMCA, they put all the hits, actually, another village.
0:29:57 And then you see the sun comes out, the daughter comes out, whatever.
0:29:58 Anyways, there’s a whole.
0:30:02 So I am interested only in the like the theater of the whole thing.
0:30:04 All right, let me tell you one other quick story.
0:30:06 I met the I met Ed Lee one time.
0:30:09 The guy I was working for, Michael Burch, he got invited to this thing.
0:30:11 And he was like, I don’t want to go to this political thing.
0:30:13 You should go as my proxy.
0:30:19 Ed Lee being the mayor of San Francisco up until like 18 or 20 or something.
0:30:24 Yeah. So so this was when he was the mayor and the room was Ron Conway,
0:30:28 who is like a big shot, super, super angel investor
0:30:31 invested in like pretty much every hit Silicon Valley startup,
0:30:33 probably the most respected angel investor in Silicon Valley.
0:30:39 And Mark Pincus, the guy who created Zynga, Jeremy Stoppelman, who created Yelp.
0:30:42 And it’s basically like eight of those people and then me.
0:30:45 And they were just they just assumed I was like, you know,
0:30:47 the scribe who’s there to write meeting notes.
0:30:48 And that’s kind of what I actually was.
0:30:49 How old were you?
0:30:51 I’m 25 years old, maybe 26 years old at the time.
0:30:55 But it’s pretty fascinating to see what happens to these views.
0:30:57 I thought it’s just kind of going to be a luncheon,
0:30:59 be some sandwiches, some small talk, whatever.
0:31:01 And a couple of things stood out.
0:31:04 One, Ron Conway is famous for taking notes.
0:31:05 I don’t know if you’ve heard this before,
0:31:07 but he carries with him a giant yellow legal pad.
0:31:11 And basically everywhere he goes, he’s just like furiously taking notes.
0:31:16 And he’s taking notes often for like, he’s actually like very quick with people,
0:31:19 meaning if you would, hey, Ron, I just wanted to introduce myself.
0:31:21 He’s like, what can I do for you, man?
0:31:23 And then you’re like, I just need an introduction, this person.
0:31:24 He’s like, tell me about your business real quick.
0:31:26 And you tell him and he’s like, cool, I’ll make the intro.
0:31:27 And he just like moves on.
0:31:30 Like he’s very quick because he’s a lot of people want his time.
0:31:32 But he’s just furiously taking notes at all times.
0:31:34 That was the first thing that stood out.
0:31:36 Second thing was Pincus and Jeremy Stoppelman
0:31:40 basically just ripped Edly a new one to his face,
0:31:42 which I thought was pretty amazing.
0:31:45 They were like, how do you expect us to run a business here?
0:31:47 They were like, it’s so expensive.
0:31:49 None of my employees can live in the city.
0:31:52 On top of that, if they did live in the city,
0:31:55 there’s just like incredible homelessness and like, you know,
0:31:58 drugs and open air drug markets in the middle of the city.
0:32:00 And what are you doing? What is this?
0:32:03 Like, and they, you know, they were not as hostile as that, but they were.
0:32:05 Very pointed.
0:32:08 And then I got to watch, you know, a politician do what a politician does,
0:32:10 where they say a lot of words that don’t mean a whole lot.
0:32:12 And is that what he did?
0:32:13 I was like, OK, cool.
0:32:17 So I see that even in the private off air, supposed to be productive meeting,
0:32:19 like, what is he going to do?
0:32:22 This guy is not going to, he’s not going to actually say anything of substance
0:32:23 nor is he going to do anything of substance.
0:32:25 And that was kind of my takeaway from the meeting.
0:32:30 Horrible takeaway. I mean, I mean, like, right?
0:32:33 And I don’t mean it like, I don’t think he had any malintentions.
0:32:35 It was just like, these are hard problems to solve in the first place.
0:32:39 Figuring out the solution and then actually being able to do anything
0:32:41 about the solution would take like so much.
0:32:43 It’s how I felt when I was in a big company.
0:32:47 So you would see something and you’re like, we should not do that.
0:32:48 We should do something about we should do this better.
0:32:50 And then you might even try a little bit.
0:32:53 And then the forces of bureaucracy are just weighing down on you at all times.
0:32:57 It’s just a lot easier to just like, say, effort and move on.
0:33:01 You’re like, well, my computer battery just is a low battery.
0:33:05 And I’d email my take longer than this computer battery has.
0:33:06 So we’ll just forget about it.
0:33:06 You know what I mean?
0:33:09 Do you remember we did an episode really early on in the podcast
0:33:12 back when we used to record in your office in that tiny room with a table
0:33:14 and one microphone in between the two of us.
0:33:18 And we had Daniel Gross come by and then it became three, three stooges
0:33:20 on three stools sitting around one table.
0:33:24 And one thing he said, he got acquired by Apple.
0:33:26 His company got acquired by Apple when he was really young.
0:33:28 I don’t know, twenty two years old or something like that.
0:33:34 And he got advice from somebody I forgot who was like some super legit
0:33:35 Silicon Valley person.
0:33:36 He’s like, Hey, we just got acquired by Apple.
0:33:38 What’s your advice for me when I’m there?
0:33:42 And he was like, the guy told him, he goes, don’t give yourself brain damage.
0:33:43 He goes, what?
0:33:45 He goes, you’re going to be in this company and you’re going to see
0:33:49 so many things that could be so much better and you’re going to try to do them.
0:33:50 And for the first year, you’re going to try to do them here.
0:33:52 Oh, you’re actually going to make a little bit of headway,
0:33:54 but you’re not going to actually get the results that you want.
0:33:56 And it’s still going to be so he’s like, basically,
0:33:58 you’re going to just keep ramming your head against the wall trying
0:34:02 to change this giant, enormous company.
0:34:04 Don’t give yourself brain damage.
0:34:06 Like find a way to enjoy your time there.
0:34:10 Meet cool people that, you know, learn from them, pick up the technologies.
0:34:11 But don’t try to change.
0:34:12 Don’t try to turn the direction of the ship.
0:34:14 And then he goes, and then I did exactly.
0:34:16 I made that exact mistake.
0:34:20 I went and tried to like turn it around and like change the way we did things.
0:34:21 And all that he’s like, that person was right.
0:34:23 I shouldn’t have given myself brain damage.
0:34:25 And that that he was a kid when we talked to him.
0:34:28 I think it was 25 or 26 or something.
0:34:32 He’s amazing, by the way, that was amazing then too.
0:34:35 Yeah, that he was one of those good finds early on.
0:34:37 Can I tell you about something that I read this week?
0:34:41 So I read about this in I think the Atlantic.
0:34:44 But have you ever heard of this podcast called Philosophize This?
0:34:48 Philosophize This is what you texted it just before this.
0:34:50 And I checked it out, but I had never heard of it.
0:34:52 All right, so let me tell you this story.
0:34:53 This is pretty amazing.
0:34:55 And there’s a takeaway in this article that is a little bit different.
0:35:00 But his name is Steven West, and he’s the he’s the host of this podcast.
0:35:03 And the podcast talks about like different philosophies and things like that.
0:35:07 Because the thing about philosophy is like, even if it’s interesting,
0:35:12 it’s pretty academic and like it’s not exactly applicable to like real life.
0:35:13 And it’s also snooty.
0:35:17 And a lot of people talk about ideas that don’t really change my day to day.
0:35:21 And he has this podcast that does the opposite of that.
0:35:22 Like it’s fairly applicable.
0:35:24 It’s fun to listen to whatever.
0:35:28 Now, the thing about that’s interesting about this guy is that he was actually
0:35:32 in his I think he got taken away from his parents at the age of nine.
0:35:35 And he was like homeless off and on for a little while
0:35:38 and then left high school at the age of 16.
0:35:43 And then starting in 2013, he started stocking shelves inside of a grocery store.
0:35:45 Like it was a pretty crappy job.
0:35:49 But he was able to like find meaning in these books.
0:35:51 He would listen to an audio book.
0:35:52 He said seven hours a day.
0:35:56 He goes, I would listen to an audio books on philosophy seven hours a day.
0:35:59 In the last hour of the day, I would do just a silly podcast.
0:36:01 It was manual physical labor.
0:36:04 But I loved it because I was able to listen to these books all the time.
0:36:08 And so by the time, like a few years, a few years had passed.
0:36:12 But he had listened to so many of these audio books that he kind of was like,
0:36:16 I devoured Western philosophy and like I felt like I knew all about it.
0:36:17 And I loved it.
0:36:22 And so he read Tim Barris’s four hour work week book about life design.
0:36:25 Do you remember like the concept of life life design, which is like,
0:36:29 you can build any life that you want to build, you know, but you have to map out
0:36:31 like, what does my day look like?
0:36:33 How much money do I think I need?
0:36:34 What does this all look like?
0:36:36 And he got really inspired by that, which is kind of funny
0:36:39 that this like deep philosophy nerd got into like Tim Barris.
0:36:42 And so he launched this podcast called Philosophize This.
0:36:44 It it kind of took off.
0:36:49 And so this podcast now has like two or three million monthly downloads.
0:36:54 The YouTube has 150,000 subscribers, but Steven West, the guy who is the host,
0:36:56 there’s not too much information out there on him.
0:36:59 Like I think he has a Twitter, but he basically just tweets out when there’s
0:37:05 a new episode. But what interested me a ton is that the article said the article
0:37:08 was written about this author who’s like her father was in a philosophy,
0:37:11 but he was kind of unsuccessful.
0:37:15 Like he just like studied all day and how the idea of a podcasting being
0:37:18 being possible right now, someone like Steven West,
0:37:21 he’s able to make a full time living doing this now based off of like just a hobby.
0:37:24 And there’s this quote there that says,
0:37:26 Steven doesn’t preen or preach or teach.
0:37:29 He just talks to you like a smart, curious adult.
0:37:32 And I read that line and that reminded me of something.
0:37:35 Do you remember what the old pitch for was at the hustle?
0:37:39 Yeah, you’re smart, no bullshit friend, right?
0:37:39 It’s something like that.
0:37:43 Yeah, you’re smart, no, no bullshit friend telling you what you need to know
0:37:45 about the world of tech and business news.
0:37:48 And that was also the line for the Milk Road.
0:37:51 It was like you’re smart, no nonsense friend telling you about all the news
0:37:54 that’s going on in the crypto world. No coincidence.
0:37:57 Yes, no coincidence, heavily inspired by the hustles, heavily inspired.
0:37:59 But there’s like now that line is used a ton.
0:38:01 And I’m sure I stole that from someone else as well.
0:38:04 And I read this biography about Gideon Gartner.
0:38:07 He’s the guy who started Gartner, which is a research firm
0:38:11 that is worth probably traded $40 billion, billions in revenue.
0:38:16 His whole stick early on was I want to treat my customers like they’re adults.
0:38:20 And I’m just going to talk to them in a fun way, but in a professional way.
0:38:21 And we’re going to keep things short.
0:38:24 And the idea is we’re going to treat you just like a smart adult and we’re your friend.
0:38:29 That’s kind of like an interesting takeaway, because in business,
0:38:32 there’s like you can come up with a new technology or whatever that takes off.
0:38:34 You can come up with a better product.
0:38:36 But one way, I think, to stick out is branding.
0:38:40 And branding is kind of a nebulous thing where it’s like it’s kind of challenging.
0:38:41 What’s a good brand?
0:38:44 And this whole idea of we’re just going to treat our customers
0:38:47 like smart adults and we’re going to be casual about them.
0:38:51 That is a shtick that I have seen work in so many different industries
0:38:52 and it has worked consistently.
0:38:54 He does that wonderfully.
0:38:55 You and I do that wonderfully.
0:38:58 That podcast founders, which I love, does that wonderfully.
0:39:01 There’s so many different content niches that do that wonderfully.
0:39:04 But there’s so many different brands that do that wonderfully with this idea
0:39:09 of like we’re going to be cool, but not like actual cool, but more like casual.
0:39:09 We’re going to be your friend.
0:39:10 You know what I mean?
0:39:14 All right.
0:39:16 If you’re listening to this pod, I already know something about you.
0:39:19 You, my friend, are nosy.
0:39:23 You want to know the numbers behind all of these things that we’re talking about.
0:39:26 How much money people make, how much money people spend, how much money
0:39:29 businesses make, you want to know all of this people’s net worth, all of it.
0:39:31 Well, I’ve got good news for you.
0:39:34 So my company, Hampton, we’re a private community for CEOs.
0:39:38 We do this thing where we survey our members and we ask them all types of
0:39:41 information, like how much money they’re paying themselves, how much money
0:39:44 they’re paying a lot of their employees, what their team, my bonuses are,
0:39:46 what their net worth is, what their portfolio looks like.
0:39:49 We ask all these questions, but we do it anonymously.
0:39:52 And so people are willing to reveal all types of amazing information.
0:39:54 So if you really cannot Google, you can’t find anywhere else.
0:39:57 And you could check it out at joinhampton.com.
0:39:59 Click the report section on the menu.
0:40:01 Click the salary and compensation report.
0:40:03 It’s going to blow your mind.
0:40:04 You’re going to love this stuff.
0:40:05 Check it out now.
0:40:06 Back to the pod.
0:40:15 Dude, when I went to Austin to record all those podcasts, I had a list of the people
0:40:18 that were doing the podcast with and I was supposed to be excited about them.
0:40:21 It was like, I’m going to do a podcast with Tim Ferriss and with Monish Pabrai,
0:40:22 Joe Lonsdale.
0:40:23 All right.
0:40:24 Then there was all these meetings in between.
0:40:28 And then there was one meeting that came up at the last second that I got
0:40:30 super excited about and it was to meet Tim Urban.
0:40:33 Tim Urban’s the guy who writes, Wait But Why, he’s wrote a bunch of books now.
0:40:35 And so he’s got this blog that I love.
0:40:38 So we go and we meet with Tim Urban.
0:40:45 And I’m like, dude, I go, isn’t it insane that you have this little
0:40:46 blog on the internet?
0:40:49 It used to just write whatever was interesting to you.
0:40:56 And then one day the richest, greatest entrepreneur in the world slid into your
0:40:58 DMs and was like, yo, I like your stuff.
0:41:01 It’s like, do you want to hang out?
0:41:05 And you’re referring to Elon Musk is a huge fan of Tim Urban.
0:41:06 Hey, this is awesome.
0:41:08 You’re awesome.
0:41:09 This is awesome.
0:41:09 I’d love to meet.
0:41:13 And the background being Tim Urban runs a blog called Wait But Why, which when
0:41:16 you and I were in our 20s, it was the hottest thing going.
0:41:20 And it’s still popular, but it’s like an intellectual blog, but silly.
0:41:23 It’s kind of the same description of what you said, right?
0:41:25 Yeah, it’s a guy who’s smart.
0:41:27 He’s writing about the stuff that’s on his mind.
0:41:31 And he’s honest to the way he writes it and he treats you well, whatever.
0:41:33 So he was like, yeah, it was crazy.
0:41:37 Then Elon meets him and Elon basically says, I would love for you to write.
0:41:39 I, he’s like, a bunch of people want to interview me.
0:41:40 You know, they want me on 60 minutes.
0:41:41 They want me on this.
0:41:42 They want me on that.
0:41:46 But I actually want you to write about what we’re doing with AI, with Neuralink,
0:41:49 with Tesla, with SpaceX, like all of these things.
0:41:51 I would love you and you, you could write whatever you want.
0:41:54 I’m not saying write something positive, but I like your writing.
0:41:55 I’d like you to write.
0:41:57 So then he wrote these series with Elon, basically.
0:41:59 He wrote a Neuralink series.
0:42:01 He wrote like a AI series.
0:42:03 He wrote like all these things and they were super popular.
0:42:05 And I was like, how crazy is that?
0:42:09 Could you have imagined that when you started just writing on your random blog
0:42:12 that one day the richest, most powerful entrepreneur in the world will just
0:42:14 slide into your DMs and just say that to you.
0:42:17 He’s like, no, he’s like, no, I obviously couldn’t have imagined that.
0:42:23 But he goes, I did always have a rule, which is my rule when I write is write for
0:42:23 equals.
0:42:26 And I said, write for equals.
0:42:28 That’s I immediately, I was like, ah, I love that.
0:42:28 What is that?
0:42:34 And he goes, it’s a big temptation on the internet, which is to create content
0:42:35 that you think is for the masses.
0:42:38 Let me tell you about how this all works.
0:42:39 I know you don’t know.
0:42:41 I’ll dump this down.
0:42:42 I’ll sort of water this down.
0:42:44 I’ll shave off some of the edges.
0:42:45 I won’t tell you about anything of the unknown.
0:42:48 I’ll tell you all the known stuff because that’s what you want because you need
0:42:50 a lunchable and you want your cracker and your cheese.
0:42:54 And then you want your, um, your ham and then you’re going to put those three
0:42:56 together and that’s your, that’s what you’re going to get for lunch.
0:42:58 And he goes, I also don’t want to go the other way, which is I’m
0:43:00 trying to impress all these people.
0:43:03 And therefore I’m going to act out of character, trying to write to impress
0:43:06 people who I think are more advanced than me.
0:43:09 And I’m going to, you know, fluff up my language, use all this jargon
0:43:11 and try to make it sound smarter than it really is.
0:43:13 Instead, I just sit down.
0:43:14 I just try to write for equals.
0:43:18 And he goes, the beautiful thing, he didn’t say all this, but the, the
0:43:23 beautiful thing of that is when you actually put yourself out there, you
0:43:25 will attract by definition, like-minded people.
0:43:29 You’ll attract the people who like what you do will be the people who
0:43:33 like you and then you could just keep being you, which is a lot easier
0:43:34 than trying to guess what other people might like.
0:43:38 And so there’s like this flywheel that starts and I would say this is probably
0:43:43 the most common mistake that I’ve made at every content creator makes is
0:43:48 this, this feeling that maybe I should bend art, my content to the masses, or
0:43:52 maybe I should bend it to impress these folks rather than just a simple
0:43:53 write for equals, three words.
0:43:54 I thought it was wonderful.
0:43:58 But my, and my point in bringing this up is that this goes beyond content.
0:44:01 This is about running your company a certain way.
0:44:06 And Tillman for Tita, you know, he’s this guy who, um, what does he own?
0:44:10 He owns Landry’s and a bunch of restaurant chains that are popular.
0:44:11 A ton of restaurant.
0:44:15 I read his biography and he, and he told the story.
0:44:19 He’s like, let me explain like a little bit about my philosophy.
0:44:25 And he apparently it was like 1130 or something at one of his restaurants.
0:44:29 And someone ordered an omelet and the rule was like breakfast ends at 11 or 10
0:44:30 30 or something.
0:44:34 And they like turned the customer down and he heard about this.
0:44:36 He goes, dude, the eggs are right there.
0:44:38 Just say like, I’m going to go scramble you some eggs.
0:44:39 Like, I got you.
0:44:39 Let me take care.
0:44:44 And it’s just this idea of like following rules versus treating someone
0:44:46 like a human and it’s like a huge deal.
0:44:47 And it’s real.
0:44:51 And what I’m saying is so simple, but it’s actually hard at Hampton.
0:44:53 We only have 20 employees, but I still have to remind people.
0:44:55 I go, just act like we’re a mom and pop business.
0:44:59 Like treat people a certain way where you’re like, they’re just like, you know,
0:45:02 you own like a corner bodega and you see the same people every day.
0:45:04 Like, oh, you want the usual, like I got you.
0:45:06 And that’s actually really hard to do.
0:45:09 It’s hard to teach people how to do that because they want to act a certain way.
0:45:11 But here’s a certain, here’s another good example.
0:45:15 Anon, our friend Anon, who runs a company called CB Insights.
0:45:18 I don’t know how big they are, but they’re around the idea.
0:45:20 They’re around, let’s say 100 million a year in revenue.
0:45:25 And so CB Insights makes a very professional enterprise level business
0:45:26 that costs $100,000 a year.
0:45:31 Their website up until recently, the homepage said, without data,
0:45:32 you’re just an idiot with an opinion.
0:45:37 And they have a newsletter that he sends once a week to all their
0:45:39 customers, as well as their potential clients.
0:45:43 And at the end of the email, he signs it with, I love you, Anon.
0:45:46 Or like, they would say things like, please buy a subscription
0:45:48 because I owe people money.
0:45:50 Like, they would use this like a lot of money.
0:45:52 Yeah, he would like use these funny things.
0:45:53 And I would see that.
0:45:57 And I’m like, not everyone’s shtick is to be funny, but everyone’s shtick
0:46:02 should be like to not change necessarily from just treating people like a human.
0:46:05 And so when I saw this line about philosophy, which is like a very
0:46:08 like lame thing, like I’ve tried to learn about it.
0:46:12 And it’s like they have like, like they don’t want you to to like approach
0:46:14 this topic because it’s very guarded.
0:46:16 And I love that this guy’s doing this.
0:46:19 And it reminded me that we should be doing this with a lot of different things.
0:46:23 There’s also another angle of this, which is a lot of people, when they go
0:46:26 into a business, we’ll start thinking about what industry do I like?
0:46:28 What product do I like?
0:46:33 And they when you’re told to kind of like follow what you like, you sort
0:46:36 of typically think, oh, I’m interested in health care.
0:46:39 Or, you know, I really like media.
0:46:42 And you just pick pick at this, like really like 9000 foot level.
0:46:47 And a different way to do it is work backwards from your customers.
0:46:49 So which customers do you respect?
0:46:50 Which customers do you love?
0:46:52 Which customers do you want to understand?
0:46:53 And which customers would you want to hang out with?
0:46:56 Right. So pick your customer and then work backwards from that.
0:46:59 So instead of picking an industry and trying to find a business, you could
0:47:02 pick a customer and try to find a pain point that could become your business.
0:47:04 I think with Hampton, you do a good job of this, which is.
0:47:07 You want to hang out with all of your customers.
0:47:08 They’re cool people.
0:47:10 Those are the type of people you like to hang out with, you know,
0:47:13 business owners and people who are somewhat successful and trying to do
0:47:15 interesting things in their life.
0:47:20 So you picked a business where you like, understand and are attracted to that customer.
0:47:23 And therefore you’ll always sort of stay in love with that business.
0:47:26 Another version of that that I found for myself is.
0:47:32 Most of the time for any business, you’re not building product most of the time.
0:47:36 Actually, as an entrepreneur, like when you sign up to start a business,
0:47:40 you’re actually signing up to try to grow a thing that you’re selling most of the time.
0:47:41 You’re selling most of the time.
0:47:44 Paul Graham wrote a blog post startups equals growth.
0:47:47 Like what is the differentiator between a small business and a startup?
0:47:50 It’s that a startup is designed to grow fast and a small business is might be
0:47:52 like a barbershop or a nail salon doesn’t have to grow fast.
0:47:58 And so if you’re going to be focused on growth, 90% of your brain and that
0:48:02 therefore selling, then it actually makes sense to work backers from what is
0:48:05 the type of sale I will need to do to make this successful.
0:48:09 So, for example, I’ve had ideas where I’m like, Oh, that would be a great product.
0:48:13 I would love to make that product and companies would benefit from that product.
0:48:16 But the problem is to do that product to make that product grow.
0:48:20 I would need to do enterprise sales, something I do not know anything about,
0:48:21 nor would I want to know anything about.
0:48:22 I’m not curious about that.
0:48:26 Right. And so actually, that business is not that product.
0:48:27 It’s enterprise sales.
0:48:30 And do I want to do enterprise sales every day for the next seven years?
0:48:33 Do I want to build a team that’s really good at doing enterprise sales for the next seven years?
0:48:36 I found for myself, for example, I love running ads.
0:48:40 Like the first time I started doing an e-commerce business and I was like, Wow,
0:48:42 I can just set up this one ad.
0:48:44 And this is like a money machine.
0:48:45 It’s a money machine.
0:48:46 He works all night.
0:48:47 I don’t even have to think about this business.
0:48:49 My calendar doesn’t need to be booked with calls.
0:48:51 I don’t need to send cold emails every day.
0:48:53 This ad will just keep hustling out there.
0:48:58 I’m sending out these armies to the corners and they’re selling for me.
0:49:02 Right. All I need to do is talk to the ad like, Hey, sweetheart, how are you?
0:49:04 It’s nice to see you this morning.
0:49:06 I’m like, thank you so much.
0:49:10 You take this tiny commission, the small CPM fee and in exchange,
0:49:14 you can sell 24/7 around the clock to every single city in every single country
0:49:16 and all around the world.
0:49:17 You are an amazing employee to add.
0:49:21 And so I work backwards from ad companies or content, right?
0:49:22 I love creating content.
0:49:26 So if the main way to grow this business is content, then don’t, I want to do that.
0:49:32 So picking your business based on what is the sales method is a far better way
0:49:35 to build a business that you love and that will actually succeed
0:49:39 than to pick the product or the industry that you think you that you think you like.
0:49:42 Yeah, I completely agree.
0:49:43 You said something earlier.
0:49:48 You said you you start studying how you make money and then you realize
0:49:50 you don’t know shit and then you kind of learn it.
0:49:52 And then you start and like, all right, I know it.
0:49:56 I just get to give myself 10 years and then I care less about it than I thought.
0:49:57 Are you in that stage?
0:50:02 In and out. So I think every, by the way, everything goes to that stage.
0:50:04 I want to know it.
0:50:06 I know it. Oh, shit, I thought I’d do it.
0:50:07 I didn’t know it at all.
0:50:10 And then you finally get to the point where you actually know it,
0:50:11 but you only know it in your head.
0:50:12 You don’t know it in your hands.
0:50:14 You don’t know how to actually do it, right?
0:50:18 It’s that example I gave one time on the podcast of I watched this guy
0:50:23 make this amazing, like, you know, scrambled egg and it was fluffy and it was perfect.
0:50:26 And it had tives and it was just looked so good.
0:50:30 And watching that, I was like, I I know step by step what he did
0:50:32 because he showed me step by step what he did with the camera,
0:50:34 with the audio, with the instructions on the screen.
0:50:38 But if I went and tried to make that egg right now, I’d make a horrible mess everywhere.
0:50:44 And so first you go from I intellectually know the blueprint
0:50:46 and I know it in my head, then I know it in my hands.
0:50:51 And then at a certain point, you still enjoy maybe the craftsmanship of doing it.
0:50:56 But the novelty of figuring out how to do it of solving the puzzle
0:50:58 that goes away because you kind of solve the puzzle more and more.
0:51:02 And I think a good thing in life is to sort of seek new puzzles.
0:51:04 So right now, for example, the puzzles I’m seeking,
0:51:08 the things I’m more fascinated about rather than how did this business
0:51:13 get to five million error or with 60% even a margins is the creative process.
0:51:16 How do the most creative people in the world who create dope shit?
0:51:17 How do they live their life?
0:51:18 What do they do? How do they think?
0:51:21 How do they? What is the conversation they have in their head?
0:51:24 Which is the same thing I used to ask about entrepreneurs.
0:51:27 I just find myself more gravitating towards creative people
0:51:30 who are living maybe a unique life or an artist based life.
0:51:31 And then what are they doing?
0:51:33 That’s where my current fascination is.
0:51:36 You’re drifting towards these beatnik artists.
0:51:41 I’m wondering how the politicians gain all this power.
0:51:43 Golly, we are sellouts, aren’t we?
0:51:46 No, we’re not sellouts. We’re grownups.
0:51:48 All right, where do we go from here?
0:51:50 I guess that’s it. That’s the part.
0:51:52 I feel like I can rule the world.
0:51:58 I know I could be what I want to put my all in it like the days on the road.
0:52:00 Let’s travel never looking back.
0:52:00 ♪ Why ♪
0:52:08 [BLANK_AUDIO]
0:00:01 That’s kind of crazy.
0:00:02 I want to tell you about.
0:00:04 So check this out.
0:00:06 This is, this is a wild story.
0:00:08 I’m just going to brace yourself.
0:00:17 Okay.
0:00:18 Let’s start with this.
0:00:21 I’m going to read you a snippet from an article first.
0:00:28 So in July, in early 2022, the courts ruled that this person,
0:00:31 Mike Lynch owed four billion in damages that are still pending.
0:00:32 Okay.
0:00:34 So court rules that Mike Lynch owes four billion dollars.
0:00:35 Next line.
0:00:37 At the same time, the U.S.
0:00:39 tried to extradite Lynch.
0:00:39 He was in the U.K.
0:00:42 The U.S. says, no, no, no, we’re going to come try you over here.
0:00:47 They bring him over and he arrives in San Francisco in May of 2023.
0:00:52 And he’s released on a hundred million dollar bail and consigned
0:00:56 to house arrest in a rental home with cameras installed in every room,
0:00:58 two armed guards on duty, on duty around the clock.
0:01:02 Now, what’s interesting about this is that that rental home with
0:01:04 cameras installed in every room and armed guards on duty around the clock
0:01:07 is my dad’s house.
0:01:08 I don’t know if you know this.
0:01:12 That guy stayed at my dad’s Airbnb when he was on trial.
0:01:16 Your dad owns an air, like a home in my dad’s actual house.
0:01:18 He will Airbnb out for periods of time.
0:01:21 He’ll go if he gets a booking, that’s like, you know, at the right price point.
0:01:24 They’ll go get to, he’ll go to like a motel and a hotel, like in, you know,
0:01:27 Fremont or something like that, go stay there for the night.
0:01:29 And then he’ll be like so happy that he made some money.
0:01:30 But my dad didn’t know this.
0:01:34 He gets a booking, man, this guy wants, this guy just booked three months.
0:01:38 And three months, by the way, is the max you can even do when you’re Airbnb
0:01:39 in your own house in San Francisco.
0:01:41 It’s like that you have 90 days.
0:01:44 So he’s like, wow, I got the whole year from one guy.
0:01:44 This is great.
0:01:46 So he’s like, where am I going to go for three months?
0:01:48 And he’s figuring it out.
0:01:49 I’ll go travel, whatever.
0:01:53 And then he texts me and he’s like, hey, can you check the ring camera real quick?
0:01:57 And I check the ring and there’s these bodyguards standing outside the house.
0:01:59 What? What’s going on?
0:02:04 And so he texts the guy and he’s like, hey, Mike, hope you got into the house.
0:02:06 OK, from the lock box.
0:02:09 Curious, what are these guards doing outside the house?
0:02:11 And he says, oh, I’m actually on house arrest.
0:02:14 I’m awaiting my trial.
0:02:17 And for the duration of this, I can’t leave the house.
0:02:18 You know, that’s why I wanted your Airbnb.
0:02:21 You have this nice backyard, hard to get a nice backyard in San Francisco.
0:02:24 So and my dad’s like, what the hell?
0:02:25 So he starts Googling the case.
0:02:26 We all start Googling the case.
0:02:27 And this guy’s story is fascinating.
0:02:29 And is this for autonomy?
0:02:33 Yeah. So I’ll give you the end of the story, which is which is kind of interesting, right?
0:02:35 I don’t know if you’ve have you heard the latest update on this?
0:02:38 No, but not the latest, but I know that it’s weird.
0:02:40 There’s a lot of weird stuff going on.
0:02:42 So I’ll I’ll start with the end and we’ll go back to the beginning.
0:02:45 The end of the story is at some point, my dad’s like,
0:02:47 hey, I got to go back to live in my house.
0:02:48 Your trial is not over.
0:02:51 The guy’s like, OK, OK, I’ll ask the judge if I can move Airbnb.
0:02:53 So he moves Airbnb, he finishes the trial.
0:02:55 He’s acquitted on all charges.
0:02:59 He’s a free man to celebrate him, his family, his lawyers.
0:03:00 They all get on a yacht.
0:03:04 He owns this 30 million dollar yacht and this person they used to work with,
0:03:07 the guy who was his character witness, his lawyer, his wife,
0:03:10 the lawyer’s wife, they all get on this boat and they start sailing.
0:03:15 And mysteriously, two months after being acquitted of all charges,
0:03:18 there’s a freak yacht accident and he dies.
0:03:21 He’s killed on this boat.
0:03:25 At the same time, 48 hours later, the other guy in the case,
0:03:28 his co-founder, who was also acquitted on the same day of all the charges,
0:03:32 is going for a run and gets hit by a car and also dies.
0:03:36 And so it’s kind of strange that this guy who was in this multi-billion
0:03:40 dollar fraud suit, the day you have 48 hours apart.
0:03:43 Just a couple of months after being acquitted,
0:03:46 him and the co-founder both killed in freak accidents.
0:03:47 Yeah.
0:03:52 All right, let’s take a quick break,
0:03:54 because I want to talk to you about some new stuff that HubSpot has.
0:03:56 Now, they let me freestyle this ad here.
0:03:59 So I’m going to actually tell you what I think is interesting.
0:04:01 So they have this thing called the Fall Spotlight,
0:04:03 showing all the new features that they released in the last few months.
0:04:07 And the ones that stood out to me were Breeze Intelligence.
0:04:09 I don’t know if you’ve seen this, but if you’re in HubSpot
0:04:11 and you have, let’s say, a customer there,
0:04:14 you can just basically add intelligence to that customer.
0:04:15 They estimate a revenue for that company.
0:04:17 How many employees it has.
0:04:19 Maybe their email address or their location.
0:04:21 If they’ve ever visited your page or not.
0:04:25 And so you can enrich all of your data automatically with one click
0:04:26 using this thing called Breeze Intelligence.
0:04:29 They actually acquired a really cool company called Clearbit
0:04:31 and it’s become Breeze, which is great because now it’s built in.
0:04:34 I always hated using two different tools to try to do this.
0:04:35 Now it’s all in one place.
0:04:39 And so all the data you had about your customers now just got smarter.
0:04:40 So check it out.
0:04:42 You can actually see all the stuff they released.
0:04:42 It’s a really cool website.
0:04:47 Go to HubSpot.com/Spotlight to see them all and get the demos yourself.
0:04:49 Back to this episode.
0:04:51 All right.
0:04:53 So now let’s go back to the beginning.
0:04:54 I Googled this guy.
0:04:56 So this guy’s story is actually pretty fascinating.
0:04:59 He is called the British Bill Gates.
0:05:02 And the reason he’s called the British Bill Gates is that this guy was brilliant.
0:05:03 So he grew up super poor.
0:05:07 Basically, he’s he’s so poor, but he’s he’s a hard worker.
0:05:10 He’s smart and he ends up getting a scholarship to go to school
0:05:12 because he and he said this.
0:05:17 He goes, there is a guy like a lord in the 1600s.
0:05:21 But when he died, he left his wealth specifically one purpose
0:05:22 for the education of poor boys.
0:05:25 And he’s like, I was a poor boy and I got to have the scholarship,
0:05:27 which let me go to a school.
0:05:31 And so when he’s 11, he gets into a private school.
0:05:32 He starts working really hard.
0:05:37 At 16, he becomes a janitor at a hospital and he’s mopping the floors.
0:05:42 And during the trial, he’s talking about his his childhood or growing up.
0:05:45 And he’s like, at 16, I used to work in this hospital, mopping the floors.
0:05:48 I was I was and actually, I still am a I’m a demon mopper.
0:05:50 So I could do that.
0:05:53 And the lawyer goes, your credibility is on the line here, Dr. Lynch.
0:05:54 And he goes, throw me a mop.
0:05:55 I’ll show you right now.
0:05:58 And the whole audience at the at the courthouse starts laughing.
0:06:01 He tells a story at the at the hospital.
0:06:02 He’s working his way up.
0:06:05 So he goes from janitor mopping the floors to porter,
0:06:07 which he’s he’s wheeling the people from room to room.
0:06:08 He’s moving the beds around.
0:06:11 Finally, he gets the prestigious job of serving tea and sandwiches.
0:06:15 And he says, the most important thing that happened in my life was age 16.
0:06:19 I spent a lot of time with people who were 95 year old, basically people on the way out.
0:06:22 And I used to sit with them and I used to serve them tea and sandwiches.
0:06:25 And these people had nobody to talk to at the end of their life.
0:06:29 And they opened up to me about their life and about things that they’ve never told anybody.
0:06:33 And he goes at 16, I thought that life is I’m indestructible in life.
0:06:35 You know, life seems like it’s forever when you’re 16.
0:06:38 And he’s like, every day I was reminded life is really short.
0:06:40 I want to really make something of my life.
0:06:41 Then he says, I get he gets into Cambridge.
0:06:46 He goes into Cambridge and he gets a PhD in neural networks,
0:06:47 a artificial intelligence and neural networks.
0:06:52 And this is he’s on this is this is way before AI neural networks were a thing.
0:06:53 So let’s fast forward.
0:06:58 He starts this company called autonomy and autonomy was basically like one of these
0:07:02 like machine learning, big data, take, take a bunch of data, find patterns
0:07:04 that the human eye is not going to be able to see.
0:07:08 And they sell this to both companies as well as governments and agencies,
0:07:10 sort of like a Palantir company.
0:07:12 So he starts this company.
0:07:16 He ends up selling it to HP for $11 billion.
0:07:19 So Hewlett Packard, who’s like a hardware company wants to go to software
0:07:21 and they get really hot and heavy.
0:07:24 And they the company was already public, but they offered a 60 percent premium.
0:07:28 So they said, we’ll give you 60 percent more than your stock price to take this deal.
0:07:31 He says, all right, you know, he’s like, if I had not taken that deal,
0:07:34 my shareholders would have been, you know, it would have sounded
0:07:36 like a herd of elephants stampeding towards me.
0:07:38 Why didn’t you take this deal?
0:07:39 So of course, I took the deal.
0:07:41 It takes the deal a couple of years later.
0:07:45 HP ends up writing off eight and a half billion dollars of that acquisition.
0:07:47 And they say, you guys cook the books.
0:07:51 So you you inflated your revenues, your profits, your balance sheet.
0:07:54 So they sue him.
0:07:56 And in the suit, the couple of things happened.
0:07:59 The the CFO pleads guilty for wire fraud.
0:08:02 So he’s in jail for, I don’t know, five, seven years, something like that.
0:08:06 The the co-founder volunteers to work with them
0:08:08 and he gets a pretty light sentence.
0:08:12 And this guy, Mike avoids, he tries to avoid being in court with these guys.
0:08:15 So he’s trying to avoid extradition, all the stuff for like a period of time.
0:08:16 Finally, they get him.
0:08:18 And what’s like the what’s the he says?
0:08:23 She says like, so HP says your revenue wasn’t what it really was.
0:08:24 Or you build people wrong.
0:08:26 What what’s it’s a very complicated thing.
0:08:29 So they said that, hey, what you misrepresented.
0:08:32 Your revenues and the profitability profile of this business
0:08:35 and something on the balance sheet that he said, she said.
0:08:38 So during the court case, they asked him about this and he says,
0:08:41 if you take a microscope into any kitchen, even the cleanest ones,
0:08:46 you will find bacteria, which is great analogy.
0:08:49 But the most guilty shit I’ve ever heard, to be honest.
0:08:51 So that sounds horrible.
0:08:52 So I don’t know all the details.
0:08:56 During the court case, they had 15 million financial documents
0:08:58 that they had submitted as exhibits.
0:09:03 And it was so complicated that during this case, one juror kept falling asleep.
0:09:07 And the lawyer looks over at him and he goes, I know this is not fascinating,
0:09:10 but you’ve got to tell me, can you stay awake for the next eight weeks of this trial?
0:09:13 The juror goes, that’s a negative.
0:09:16 I can’t get through it.
0:09:22 And so he ends up getting acquitted, which is amazing.
0:09:25 And by the way, him testifying and telling that story about him
0:09:26 and the janitor and they think it helped him.
0:09:27 And it was very rare.
0:09:30 Most people do not testify for their own defense.
0:09:32 They tell you don’t go on the stand.
0:09:34 So basically he has charisma.
0:09:35 He has some charisma, exactly.
0:09:36 So he gets on the stage.
0:09:39 Anyways, he gets acquitted.
0:09:42 Now, this death has all these weird circumstances.
0:09:48 So first, when I heard this, it just sounded like some real Epstein stuff, right?
0:09:51 I was like, wait, these two people get acquitted on the fraud case
0:09:55 and then both die within 48 hours of each other in these quote unquote freak accident.
0:09:58 Yeah. And like the accident that they described it was like,
0:10:01 basically, if I remember correctly, like a water tornado.
0:10:05 They’re like, he was sailing and there was like a tornado
0:10:07 that like tipped over this huge sailboat.
0:10:10 Well, the crazy thing is, yeah.
0:10:11 So then you read about it.
0:10:15 So this is me last night, just swaying as I read the details of this case.
0:10:20 So on one hand, OK, it sounded like he got killed.
0:10:21 No, he didn’t get killed.
0:10:24 The boat sank and the boat sank due to this like natural disaster.
0:10:27 OK, that sounds pretty what are you going to say?
0:10:31 Somebody caused a water tornado and a bunch of people survived it and people survived it.
0:10:33 Exactly. So he could have just as he survived.
0:10:37 On the other hand, there’s stuff that came out that was like
0:10:42 they didn’t secure like the sort of the ship in the right way as you would
0:10:45 when you had that forecast. So like, why didn’t they do that?
0:10:46 That’s a little bit strange.
0:10:50 Also, the guy who got hit by the car, the other guy running,
0:10:52 for it to happen in that time span.
0:10:55 And the lady who hit him, she’s this 49 year old woman
0:10:58 who hit him with the car, she was like, I couldn’t see.
0:11:00 And it was like, wow, OK, she’s cooperating with 40.
0:11:02 She doesn’t look like a hitman.
0:11:05 And if you go in the subreddit, the conspiracy subreddits, it’s like,
0:11:07 of course, they made it look like that.
0:11:09 That’s exactly how this works.
0:11:11 They make it look they look for a weather pattern
0:11:15 that could be could be believed and then they’ll sink the boat.
0:11:17 And then it seems like the boat sank due to natural disasters.
0:11:20 Or they find these people who don’t look like hitmen, but they’re hit.
0:11:23 And it’s like, all right, I don’t know what to believe in all this conspiracy
0:11:28 aside, incredibly wild story that this is how this all played out.
0:11:31 And by the way, during this time, so he sells autonomy
0:11:34 in 2011, something like that.
0:11:37 2013, he starts a new company, Dark Trace.
0:11:40 And Dark Trace is this cybersecurity company.
0:11:44 This name does not help this whole conspiracy.
0:11:46 That’s what I’m saying. There’s there’s more to it.
0:11:49 So if you look up what Dark Trace does, Dark Trace,
0:11:52 I think was started back when WikiLeaks happened.
0:11:57 And the idea was we’re going to go to like government agencies
0:12:01 and when Snowden and the WikiLeaks stuff to start happening, it was basically
0:12:05 I’ll make sure WikiLeaks and the Snowden leaks never happen to you.
0:12:09 And so they were working with all kinds of, you know, secret agencies
0:12:11 to try to prevent that from being possible.
0:12:12 And that’s what Dark Trace is.
0:12:16 Dark Trace was also a five billion dollar company that was a choir.
0:12:17 It was quiet for five billion dollars.
0:12:20 And so this guy was like really prolific as an entrepreneur
0:12:24 at the same time, this incredible, you know,
0:12:26 either tragedy, conspiracy or freak acts.
0:12:27 And it’s hard to say.
0:12:30 But isn’t that wild that this guy was just living in my dad’s house?
0:12:33 How much is your dad? OK, I don’t know.
0:12:36 The answer to this could be I don’t want to give too much information to my father.
0:12:39 But let’s just presume that this guy, Mike Lynch, is worth billions.
0:12:42 How much do you think he was paying per month?
0:12:44 So that’s actually a funny thing.
0:12:46 So my dad’s normal rate.
0:12:50 I think a normal rate on his every be like 750 bucks a night, something like that.
0:12:53 Because it’s a house with multiple rooms.
0:12:58 So it’s like it’s cheaper than it would be if you were if you’re a group.
0:12:59 And by the way, my dad’s super desperate.
0:13:01 So he’ll he’ll put it up for 750.
0:13:03 Someone comes in for five.
0:13:05 He’s like, oh, it’s still five. Five is great.
0:13:06 That’s a lot of money.
0:13:07 I got to say yes to this.
0:13:11 And we’re always telling him, we’re like, dude, like you’re like you’re old now.
0:13:12 Don’t inconvenience your life like this.
0:13:14 And he’s he’ll do it, whatever.
0:13:18 So when this happened, of course, my first instinct is, hey,
0:13:20 maybe you don’t want whatever.
0:13:22 So this seems like a pretty tense situation.
0:13:24 We don’t know. We don’t have a lot of information here.
0:13:26 There’s somebody who’s like, you know, on trials,
0:13:27 it’s like a criminal living in your house.
0:13:29 What’s going on? Maybe you should ask him to leave.
0:13:33 And my dad’s like, yeah, yeah, yeah, gonna do that.
0:13:36 Calls the guy. Calls me back.
0:13:37 Like, so what happened?
0:13:38 Is he agreed to leave?
0:13:40 Like, are you going to have to refund them or what?
0:13:42 He’s like, no, he’s paying triple now.
0:13:45 I was like, what?
0:13:47 Anybody that’s like, yeah, I was going to ask him to leave.
0:13:50 And then I just told him, like, this is really stressing me out.
0:13:51 Like, I don’t know what to do.
0:13:53 Can you just like, this is going to cost more.
0:13:55 And he’s like, sure, what do you want?
0:13:57 He’s like, how about triple?
0:13:59 He’s like, OK, no problem.
0:14:02 So my dad was over the moon about this whole situation.
0:14:07 The most Indian thing I’ve ever heard.
0:14:08 That’s first of all, that’s insane.
0:14:13 By the way, I have a friend who just rented out their home for a Netflix show.
0:14:15 And they were spent.
0:14:19 They the home was worth like five million dollars.
0:14:22 And the Netflix crew to be there and all this, they were spending,
0:14:25 I believe, two hundred thousand dollars a month.
0:14:30 That was the rental price for three months, which it’s like fricking insane.
0:14:32 And so your dad was almost getting.
0:14:34 Yeah, he’s getting that reality TV money.
0:14:36 And it was just one guy sitting in the house all day.
0:14:38 It’s kind of amazing. Wow.
0:14:39 First of all, there’s so many.
0:14:42 There’s so many weird things about the story.
0:14:45 When you looked into it, what do you think happened?
0:14:50 Well, I was I was I’m telling you, I was really thinking conspiracy.
0:14:53 And then I go into the subreddit and the top comment was so funny.
0:14:55 It goes, I’m sorry.
0:14:57 But if you let Packard arrange the hit,
0:14:59 they’d still be waiting for the correct driver to be installed.
0:15:01 And I was like, that’s true.
0:15:03 The HP is not ordering a hit.
0:15:05 So I don’t I don’t believe that’s the case.
0:15:07 I have studied history for a long time.
0:15:08 I’m into all this stuff.
0:15:10 Conspiracy theories are always fun to read about.
0:15:12 Here’s my takeaway with conspiracies.
0:15:14 One, they do exist sometimes.
0:15:17 So, for example, do you remember the O.J.
0:15:19 Simpson trial and how there was Mark Foreman?
0:15:24 He was the one of these police officers who planted the glove there.
0:15:28 Yeah, that is that’s an example of a conspiracy that I believe, like, was true.
0:15:31 The problem with conspiracies, there’s two problems with them.
0:15:34 One, secrets are really hard to keep.
0:15:36 You know what I mean?
0:15:40 Like if so, if 50 people know that they had to work together to do X, Y and Z,
0:15:45 it’s really hard, particularly over decades, to keep that a secret.
0:15:46 You know what I mean?
0:15:48 That’s just that’s a huge challenge.
0:15:52 And the second thing is that when you have to hire people to do these things,
0:15:55 they’re typically lower income.
0:15:57 Like, for example, someone who works at the security
0:16:01 as a security prisoner or a corrections facility.
0:16:04 They’re probably like they don’t have that many options.
0:16:05 They don’t make a lot of money.
0:16:09 And convincing this person to shut up for 50 years.
0:16:11 That’s really fucking hard.
0:16:16 It’s just it’s like logistically true to pull off a conspiracy like that is effective.
0:16:19 It’s really, really hard.
0:16:21 Or like, let’s say you’re doing it with like a bunch of military people.
0:16:24 So like 100 just infantry people are trying.
0:16:26 You think they’re going to be able to keep their mouth shut?
0:16:28 It’s just challenging, but it does happen.
0:16:31 And also with, like, for example, the Epstein thing is like, oh,
0:16:34 and then the camera stopped working that day.
0:16:37 It’s like, all right, this seems extremely suspect.
0:16:40 It’s like the guards happened to leave and the cameras shut off.
0:16:42 And he got his hands on a rope or whatever.
0:16:47 I don’t know the details, but like some of these they make you.
0:16:49 They make you do this, the goatee pinch.
0:16:51 What’s going on here?
0:16:53 Well, and then but there’s there’s a lot of times there’s.
0:16:56 Have you heard of the Kennedy curse about how they all die?
0:17:00 No, you know, there’s like Joe Kennedy with the patriarchy.
0:17:03 He had nine kids and roughly six of them died.
0:17:06 And then like the grandkids, they all died like died early.
0:17:08 You mean died early? Yeah.
0:17:12 For example, assassinations died in plane crashes.
0:17:16 And then you like a look at like the story of each one and you’re like,
0:17:17 oh, this isn’t a curse.
0:17:19 You guys are just risk takers.
0:17:22 Like this guy was flying a plane when he just got his pilot’s license.
0:17:25 And he was flying like a jet when he should have been flying like a much slower plane.
0:17:28 Or this person.
0:17:29 He got assassinated because he was president.
0:17:33 And like 10 percent of all presidents have been assassinated and been assassinated.
0:17:34 You know what I mean?
0:17:37 Like there’s like there’s often times there’s a story where
0:17:41 it like each one individually can kind of make sense, but added up together.
0:17:45 It may seem too good to be true, but they’re actually things make sense when you look down.
0:17:47 So anyway, that’s my opinion on conspiracies.
0:17:49 But this story is so fascinating.
0:17:54 I remember reading about Mike Lynch and this is a crazy state at your dad’s house.
0:17:58 And B, I also I kind of don’t know how I feel about the story.
0:18:00 I don’t know what happened.
0:18:01 Yeah, neither do I.
0:18:03 And by the way, for conspiracies, it’s like
0:18:08 for most things in life, you just either choose to believe or you choose not to believe.
0:18:11 Right. It’s a choice whether you believe in something.
0:18:15 And some things when you choose to believe them, they believe in them like luck.
0:18:16 Like I’m a lucky person.
0:18:20 I believe that because I believe that I’m going to do different things
0:18:22 than somebody who believes they’re an unlucky person will do.
0:18:27 And so it’s actually less important to figure out what’s true and what’s not,
0:18:31 as it is to figure out what’s useful to believe and what’s not useful to believe
0:18:34 in life. And so some things like, for example, conspiracy
0:18:37 are useful to believe only for their entertainment value, more so than anything else.
0:18:40 Or to say, I’m not going to take everything at face value.
0:18:44 I understand that there isn’t just like there’s an error rate in every
0:18:49 prediction or poll, just like there’s an error rate in every scientific process.
0:18:53 There is a conspiracy rate in every in a series of historical events where
0:18:58 some number between, you know, point one and five percent of all things
0:19:00 that have a conspiracy are actually true.
0:19:04 So choosing to believe for entertainment value is kind of where I land on it.
0:19:08 Single engine airplanes or helicopters
0:19:11 and boats like huge yachts, two things.
0:19:14 I don’t I don’t touch them.
0:19:17 I think those things are so I’m so afraid of those things.
0:19:19 Have you ever been on a cruise like a big ship?
0:19:21 Like it’s like it’s it’s frightening.
0:19:23 Do you know how many people die on cruises every year?
0:19:26 Like a huge amount because they jump off like, you know what I mean?
0:19:27 Like they get lost at sea.
0:19:29 They jump off. Oh, like they’re just going for a swim.
0:19:33 Yeah. Or they’re or they’re drunk and they fall over the side.
0:19:35 Like there’s like this website called like missing at sea.
0:19:36 I forget what it was.
0:19:39 And it was like all the people who go missing from cruise ships every year.
0:19:42 It’s like it’s like it’s like a it’s a huge number.
0:19:44 Like the dead version of Facebook.
0:19:47 It’s like it’s like people that are missing at sea.
0:19:51 Yeah, it’s like a pretty disgusting thing.
0:19:52 I’m not doing that.
0:19:53 I can’t stay on cruises.
0:19:55 So but this the story is pretty wild.
0:19:56 This is this is a wild story.
0:19:58 That’s why he stayed at your dad’s place.
0:20:05 Hey, let’s take a quick break to talk about another podcast that you should check out.
0:20:07 It is called The Next Wave.
0:20:10 It’s hosted by Matt Wolf and Nathan Lanz as part of the HubSpot podcast network,
0:20:14 which, of course, is your audio destination for business professionals like you.
0:20:16 You can catch the next wave with Matt Wolf.
0:20:19 And he’s talking about where the puck is going with AI creators,
0:20:22 AI technology and how you can apply it to your growing business.
0:20:23 So check it out.
0:20:25 Listen to The Next Wave wherever you get the podcast.
0:20:30 All right, where do I go from here?
0:20:31 All right.
0:20:37 So for the last 15 years, you and I have studied like making money.
0:20:38 Would you agree?
0:20:40 Like that’s been like the 90 percent of our waking time.
0:20:41 I have agreed.
0:20:42 I would agree with that.
0:20:42 That’s cool.
0:20:43 That’s great and everything.
0:20:47 But I think that I have kind of have I’ve learned how to do it.
0:20:50 Would you agree that you kind of understand like intellectually how it’s done?
0:20:52 I understand intellectually.
0:20:56 Yes, like it’s it’s hard, but there’s like three phases.
0:20:58 There’s understanding intellectually,
0:21:01 realizing you thought you understood intellectually,
0:21:03 and then now you actually know intellectually.
0:21:04 And then there’s doing it.
0:21:07 I think I finally got past the third stage.
0:21:10 And now I think the fourth stage is either is being done with it,
0:21:13 being getting over it or being less interested in it as you go.
0:21:15 Yeah, for sure, which, by the way,
0:21:18 like I actually think that that’s a great like arc.
0:21:23 And something that I’ve always loved about studying making money
0:21:25 is the idea of nothing to something.
0:21:28 And it just so happened to that capitalism making making money.
0:21:32 That is a very practical way of nothing to something like it’s a very straightforward way.
0:21:34 And we’ve studied it.
0:21:37 A new thing that I’m being a little bit obsessed with
0:21:41 about how someone goes from nothing to something is politics.
0:21:44 And not that like I actually care.
0:21:46 I don’t ever want to like become political.
0:21:50 I don’t want to become the president or pivoting to the all in podcast.
0:21:52 No, I don’t want to do any of that.
0:21:54 It doesn’t actually interest me.
0:21:57 But like when Trump became president, I was like, you know,
0:22:01 and that insane that like in his head, I think he was like,
0:22:05 this is just like a bit and that it but it kind of like came to fruition
0:22:07 that like he like became powerful.
0:22:09 And I’m like, that’s like insane how that happens,
0:22:12 how someone goes from nothing to something, particularly in the political arena.
0:22:16 And so I moved to this small town and I thought, you know,
0:22:17 like it’s only a 30,000 percent town.
0:22:20 I’m going to email the mayor and I just want to become friends with her
0:22:23 and just like learn about how she became mayor.
0:22:26 So I emailed her and I just said, like, hey, my name is Sam.
0:22:28 I have this podcast.
0:22:30 I have this internet company that I started.
0:22:32 And I’m basically just saying this to impress you.
0:22:34 But can I come in and just introduce myself?
0:22:36 And she did. She said, yeah.
0:22:39 And so I met went met with her and I thought it’d be funny.
0:22:41 I could just like do a little recap of this meeting.
0:22:46 But I said a few things that I look back and I was like, what the hell?
0:22:47 Why would I ever say that?
0:22:50 So set the scene. You go to her office, you guys go out to lunch.
0:22:52 You go for a stroll. What are you doing?
0:22:55 She’s like, you know, come over. We go out to lunch.
0:22:56 I’m like, no, I don’t want to go for lunch.
0:22:57 I want to like come to your office.
0:23:00 Like I want to see like I want to see where the sausage is made my friend.
0:23:01 Like I want to see it.
0:23:03 So I get there at like 845.
0:23:05 She’s walking in right about then for our nine o’clock.
0:23:07 So we just start talking.
0:23:10 We sit down. She’s nice. Her name’s Jennifer Tuker.
0:23:11 She introduced herself as Jen.
0:23:13 So I guess I’ll call her that.
0:23:14 We’re friends now.
0:23:18 And I just started talking to her and I kind of got nervous, you know?
0:23:19 Like I got.
0:23:21 Did you ever have to do a thing where you get married
0:23:23 and you have to meet like with the priests in advance?
0:23:24 Yeah.
0:23:26 Dude, you’re like, wait, can this guy cancel our marriage right now
0:23:28 if I say the wrong thing?
0:23:30 I was the exact same that the guys like you guys go to church.
0:23:34 And I’m like, dude, I go to church like every day, easily every day.
0:23:36 You know what I mean?
0:23:37 I had that like same energy.
0:23:41 A favorite part of the Bible. So many of them.
0:23:44 It’s hard. Yeah, it was like the same thing where I’m like,
0:23:45 just want to impress her.
0:23:47 But I’ve said she was like, how do you like the town?
0:23:50 And I was like, you know, Warren Buffett says this amazing thing
0:23:53 where he’s like, you got to build a business so good that a dummy can run it
0:23:55 because eventually a dummy will.
0:23:57 I kind of feel like this town is like that.
0:23:58 Like it’s so perfect.
0:24:00 Like there’s nothing to complain about.
0:24:01 Like any idiot can run it.
0:24:05 And I was like, shit, not that you’re an idiot.
0:24:06 It’s just, you know what I mean?
0:24:11 And so when you said that or I said that I said that you said the Buffett quote
0:24:13 about an idiot or yes.
0:24:21 I was like, wait, I’m sorry.
0:24:24 I didn’t I was like, I bet this in a nice way.
0:24:25 The town is like perfect.
0:24:27 Like there’s nothing to complain about.
0:24:29 And so I put my foot foot my mouth there.
0:24:31 And then she was like, oh, you know, that’s funny.
0:24:32 I used to work for Warren Buffett.
0:24:33 And I was like, oh, tell me about that.
0:24:35 Was he awesome? I heard he’s a real cheap ass.
0:24:40 And I’m like, sorry.
0:24:42 I don’t know. I don’t know why I’m like talking like this.
0:24:46 I don’t mean to say she starts telling stories about that.
0:24:50 And I’m like, it seems like if you work for Warren Buffett as an executive,
0:24:52 like you must have been like pretty rich.
0:24:55 Why would you quit that and take this crappy job?
0:24:59 And she like, again, kind of like laughed.
0:25:04 But like I was saying things that 10 seconds after I said it, I’m like,
0:25:06 what am I doing right now?
0:25:08 And she laughed at all of them.
0:25:12 And so it was really kind of funny to like see like my first interaction
0:25:14 went just horribly, but she was into it.
0:25:16 You remind me before you finish your story.
0:25:20 So my daughter is she just turned five.
0:25:22 So she just started going to school for the first time.
0:25:26 Like she’s going to TK transitional kindergarten.
0:25:28 And as a parent, you’re like helpless
0:25:30 because you don’t know what your kids like.
0:25:32 You kind of give her advice, but then she crosses the gate.
0:25:36 She goes into the class and you’re like, remember, like make friends,
0:25:37 ask people questions, they like that.
0:25:39 And like, you know, I’m trying to give her a way to socialize
0:25:41 because she’s smart, she’s fine in the school part.
0:25:44 But at the beginning, she was super uncomfortable with kids and she started to do.
0:25:48 And so, but I didn’t know as a parent, you never really know how they’re behaving.
0:25:50 And so we would run into these scenarios.
0:25:51 We’d be at a coffee shop.
0:25:54 And then there’s a kid who would be like, hi, like say her name.
0:25:56 I’m like, oh, do you know him?
0:25:58 Is that like a kid from your school?
0:25:59 I get really excited.
0:26:02 And then she would do what you just did, which is she would just suddenly
0:26:07 start saying and doing the funniest things like we’ll be standing there.
0:26:10 And I’ll be like, like, she won’t say anything first.
0:26:11 I’m like, say something.
0:26:12 Is he in your class? Yeah.
0:26:13 Okay. Like who’s this kid?
0:26:15 And then I’ll be like, hey, I like your watch, like your shoes, man.
0:26:17 Spider-Man, cool.
0:26:18 And then she’s not saying anything.
0:26:20 And then she’ll just go, why am I so tired?
0:26:23 And then she goes, I need to go to sleep.
0:26:27 And then she laid down on the sidewalk and like pretended to go to sleep in front of me.
0:26:29 And now I’m just talking to this kid.
0:26:33 And so this happened three different times with three kids.
0:26:34 Why am I so tired?
0:26:36 And she would say this thing out of nowhere.
0:26:38 It’s like a panic response.
0:26:40 And I feel like you just had your panic response
0:26:43 in front of the mayor where you’re like, Warren Buffett says.
0:26:47 And you just pared in some shitty, I’m like, I don’t even like Buffett.
0:26:48 Well, why am I breaking this up?
0:26:51 And I just called her an idiot.
0:26:53 Like you take an exit off the highway and you’re like,
0:26:56 this is not my destination, but now I’m stuck here.
0:27:00 And then she was like, she was like, she told me what her politics was.
0:27:02 I guess she’s like, she’s like, I’m a Republican,
0:27:04 but like I’m just barely right of center.
0:27:06 And most of our town is Democrat.
0:27:08 And I was like, yeah, but that doesn’t really matter.
0:27:11 All you do is like fill potholes and make sure the beach is make sure the beach is clean.
0:27:14 Like, why do your politics matter?
0:27:16 What are your beliefs have to do with this?
0:27:21 Yeah, I’m like one of those things where just 10 seconds after I said that, I was like.
0:27:24 Shit, I’m I’m blown this.
0:27:26 Like, I just am insulting you constantly.
0:27:28 I’m not meaning to.
0:27:30 You’re like, how long have I been on Twitter?
0:27:32 Like, I’ve just been on the internet for too long.
0:27:34 I can’t like function in society anymore.
0:27:40 Yeah. And so anyway, I just thought it was like a horrible meeting that I blew.
0:27:42 But she she she handled it well.
0:27:47 By the way, the last time I met with a mayor, it was in San Francisco.
0:27:51 And so I met with London Breed and she was just a council person.
0:27:53 Whatever district, I don’t even know what it was called.
0:27:57 Literally eight hours later, I met with her at like five p.m.
0:28:02 That night, Ed Lee died and she became mayor.
0:28:05 And so I told this woman as I was leaving, I was like, hey,
0:28:09 last time I last time I met with the last time I met with the mayor.
0:28:14 This woman, London, became a mayor because the real mayor died.
0:28:17 And I was like, shit, which means you’re either going to die
0:28:19 or and I was like, forget I said that.
0:28:24 It’s anyway, I just I believe it like the men in black pen at the end
0:28:27 to just flash her memory and just erase the entire conversation.
0:28:30 Yeah, man, it was horrible.
0:28:32 But anyway, I thought it was fun.
0:28:34 Have you have you been interested in politics at all?
0:28:36 Or are you just totally on the sideline?
0:28:39 I’m only interested in politics from a marketing point of view, meaning
0:28:42 it’s like something you watch in a movie.
0:28:46 It’s like when you watch the Hunger Games and you’re like, that’s ridiculous.
0:28:47 It’s so great.
0:28:48 Like this concept is so ridiculous.
0:28:51 People just sort of like fighting for the death for the amusement of others.
0:28:54 And then I watch like UFC 306 the next next day.
0:28:56 And I’m like, oh, I guess that’s kind of similar.
0:28:59 Or there’ll be like a politician who’s kind of like, you know,
0:29:02 actually catering to the rich, but just trying to keep the poor,
0:29:06 like the masses, you know, like just subdued enough so that they don’t revolt.
0:29:08 And then you see kind of what some of the politicians is.
0:29:11 You see, it’s interesting to me that this is real life,
0:29:12 that this is actually how things go.
0:29:15 Like I watched a full Trump rally the other day, like end to end.
0:29:17 I don’t know if you’ve ever seen all these,
0:29:19 but like I started where before anyone’s on stage and I’m like,
0:29:20 what’s the set list?
0:29:21 Like who’s the DJ of this?
0:29:23 Because it’s it goes Macho Man.
0:29:26 So it’s like Macho Macho Man.
0:29:27 This is like nobody on the stage.
0:29:28 And the whole crowd is there.
0:29:30 They’re all enjoying it.
0:29:32 And I was like, there’s like 30 minutes of just like a set.
0:29:36 And the whole that musical set, that playlist should be on Spotify.
0:29:38 It was Macho Man, the song.
0:29:40 That was the song that he came out to.
0:29:44 No, that was the one like the the warm up the crowd one before he comes out.
0:29:47 And it’s funny by it because Macho Man is by the village people,
0:29:49 which is like a gay band.
0:29:50 Yeah, but they played them all.
0:29:53 YMCA, they put all the hits, actually, another village.
0:29:57 And then you see the sun comes out, the daughter comes out, whatever.
0:29:58 Anyways, there’s a whole.
0:30:02 So I am interested only in the like the theater of the whole thing.
0:30:04 All right, let me tell you one other quick story.
0:30:06 I met the I met Ed Lee one time.
0:30:09 The guy I was working for, Michael Burch, he got invited to this thing.
0:30:11 And he was like, I don’t want to go to this political thing.
0:30:13 You should go as my proxy.
0:30:19 Ed Lee being the mayor of San Francisco up until like 18 or 20 or something.
0:30:24 Yeah. So so this was when he was the mayor and the room was Ron Conway,
0:30:28 who is like a big shot, super, super angel investor
0:30:31 invested in like pretty much every hit Silicon Valley startup,
0:30:33 probably the most respected angel investor in Silicon Valley.
0:30:39 And Mark Pincus, the guy who created Zynga, Jeremy Stoppelman, who created Yelp.
0:30:42 And it’s basically like eight of those people and then me.
0:30:45 And they were just they just assumed I was like, you know,
0:30:47 the scribe who’s there to write meeting notes.
0:30:48 And that’s kind of what I actually was.
0:30:49 How old were you?
0:30:51 I’m 25 years old, maybe 26 years old at the time.
0:30:55 But it’s pretty fascinating to see what happens to these views.
0:30:57 I thought it’s just kind of going to be a luncheon,
0:30:59 be some sandwiches, some small talk, whatever.
0:31:01 And a couple of things stood out.
0:31:04 One, Ron Conway is famous for taking notes.
0:31:05 I don’t know if you’ve heard this before,
0:31:07 but he carries with him a giant yellow legal pad.
0:31:11 And basically everywhere he goes, he’s just like furiously taking notes.
0:31:16 And he’s taking notes often for like, he’s actually like very quick with people,
0:31:19 meaning if you would, hey, Ron, I just wanted to introduce myself.
0:31:21 He’s like, what can I do for you, man?
0:31:23 And then you’re like, I just need an introduction, this person.
0:31:24 He’s like, tell me about your business real quick.
0:31:26 And you tell him and he’s like, cool, I’ll make the intro.
0:31:27 And he just like moves on.
0:31:30 Like he’s very quick because he’s a lot of people want his time.
0:31:32 But he’s just furiously taking notes at all times.
0:31:34 That was the first thing that stood out.
0:31:36 Second thing was Pincus and Jeremy Stoppelman
0:31:40 basically just ripped Edly a new one to his face,
0:31:42 which I thought was pretty amazing.
0:31:45 They were like, how do you expect us to run a business here?
0:31:47 They were like, it’s so expensive.
0:31:49 None of my employees can live in the city.
0:31:52 On top of that, if they did live in the city,
0:31:55 there’s just like incredible homelessness and like, you know,
0:31:58 drugs and open air drug markets in the middle of the city.
0:32:00 And what are you doing? What is this?
0:32:03 Like, and they, you know, they were not as hostile as that, but they were.
0:32:05 Very pointed.
0:32:08 And then I got to watch, you know, a politician do what a politician does,
0:32:10 where they say a lot of words that don’t mean a whole lot.
0:32:12 And is that what he did?
0:32:13 I was like, OK, cool.
0:32:17 So I see that even in the private off air, supposed to be productive meeting,
0:32:19 like, what is he going to do?
0:32:22 This guy is not going to, he’s not going to actually say anything of substance
0:32:23 nor is he going to do anything of substance.
0:32:25 And that was kind of my takeaway from the meeting.
0:32:30 Horrible takeaway. I mean, I mean, like, right?
0:32:33 And I don’t mean it like, I don’t think he had any malintentions.
0:32:35 It was just like, these are hard problems to solve in the first place.
0:32:39 Figuring out the solution and then actually being able to do anything
0:32:41 about the solution would take like so much.
0:32:43 It’s how I felt when I was in a big company.
0:32:47 So you would see something and you’re like, we should not do that.
0:32:48 We should do something about we should do this better.
0:32:50 And then you might even try a little bit.
0:32:53 And then the forces of bureaucracy are just weighing down on you at all times.
0:32:57 It’s just a lot easier to just like, say, effort and move on.
0:33:01 You’re like, well, my computer battery just is a low battery.
0:33:05 And I’d email my take longer than this computer battery has.
0:33:06 So we’ll just forget about it.
0:33:06 You know what I mean?
0:33:09 Do you remember we did an episode really early on in the podcast
0:33:12 back when we used to record in your office in that tiny room with a table
0:33:14 and one microphone in between the two of us.
0:33:18 And we had Daniel Gross come by and then it became three, three stooges
0:33:20 on three stools sitting around one table.
0:33:24 And one thing he said, he got acquired by Apple.
0:33:26 His company got acquired by Apple when he was really young.
0:33:28 I don’t know, twenty two years old or something like that.
0:33:34 And he got advice from somebody I forgot who was like some super legit
0:33:35 Silicon Valley person.
0:33:36 He’s like, Hey, we just got acquired by Apple.
0:33:38 What’s your advice for me when I’m there?
0:33:42 And he was like, the guy told him, he goes, don’t give yourself brain damage.
0:33:43 He goes, what?
0:33:45 He goes, you’re going to be in this company and you’re going to see
0:33:49 so many things that could be so much better and you’re going to try to do them.
0:33:50 And for the first year, you’re going to try to do them here.
0:33:52 Oh, you’re actually going to make a little bit of headway,
0:33:54 but you’re not going to actually get the results that you want.
0:33:56 And it’s still going to be so he’s like, basically,
0:33:58 you’re going to just keep ramming your head against the wall trying
0:34:02 to change this giant, enormous company.
0:34:04 Don’t give yourself brain damage.
0:34:06 Like find a way to enjoy your time there.
0:34:10 Meet cool people that, you know, learn from them, pick up the technologies.
0:34:11 But don’t try to change.
0:34:12 Don’t try to turn the direction of the ship.
0:34:14 And then he goes, and then I did exactly.
0:34:16 I made that exact mistake.
0:34:20 I went and tried to like turn it around and like change the way we did things.
0:34:21 And all that he’s like, that person was right.
0:34:23 I shouldn’t have given myself brain damage.
0:34:25 And that that he was a kid when we talked to him.
0:34:28 I think it was 25 or 26 or something.
0:34:32 He’s amazing, by the way, that was amazing then too.
0:34:35 Yeah, that he was one of those good finds early on.
0:34:37 Can I tell you about something that I read this week?
0:34:41 So I read about this in I think the Atlantic.
0:34:44 But have you ever heard of this podcast called Philosophize This?
0:34:48 Philosophize This is what you texted it just before this.
0:34:50 And I checked it out, but I had never heard of it.
0:34:52 All right, so let me tell you this story.
0:34:53 This is pretty amazing.
0:34:55 And there’s a takeaway in this article that is a little bit different.
0:35:00 But his name is Steven West, and he’s the he’s the host of this podcast.
0:35:03 And the podcast talks about like different philosophies and things like that.
0:35:07 Because the thing about philosophy is like, even if it’s interesting,
0:35:12 it’s pretty academic and like it’s not exactly applicable to like real life.
0:35:13 And it’s also snooty.
0:35:17 And a lot of people talk about ideas that don’t really change my day to day.
0:35:21 And he has this podcast that does the opposite of that.
0:35:22 Like it’s fairly applicable.
0:35:24 It’s fun to listen to whatever.
0:35:28 Now, the thing about that’s interesting about this guy is that he was actually
0:35:32 in his I think he got taken away from his parents at the age of nine.
0:35:35 And he was like homeless off and on for a little while
0:35:38 and then left high school at the age of 16.
0:35:43 And then starting in 2013, he started stocking shelves inside of a grocery store.
0:35:45 Like it was a pretty crappy job.
0:35:49 But he was able to like find meaning in these books.
0:35:51 He would listen to an audio book.
0:35:52 He said seven hours a day.
0:35:56 He goes, I would listen to an audio books on philosophy seven hours a day.
0:35:59 In the last hour of the day, I would do just a silly podcast.
0:36:01 It was manual physical labor.
0:36:04 But I loved it because I was able to listen to these books all the time.
0:36:08 And so by the time, like a few years, a few years had passed.
0:36:12 But he had listened to so many of these audio books that he kind of was like,
0:36:16 I devoured Western philosophy and like I felt like I knew all about it.
0:36:17 And I loved it.
0:36:22 And so he read Tim Barris’s four hour work week book about life design.
0:36:25 Do you remember like the concept of life life design, which is like,
0:36:29 you can build any life that you want to build, you know, but you have to map out
0:36:31 like, what does my day look like?
0:36:33 How much money do I think I need?
0:36:34 What does this all look like?
0:36:36 And he got really inspired by that, which is kind of funny
0:36:39 that this like deep philosophy nerd got into like Tim Barris.
0:36:42 And so he launched this podcast called Philosophize This.
0:36:44 It it kind of took off.
0:36:49 And so this podcast now has like two or three million monthly downloads.
0:36:54 The YouTube has 150,000 subscribers, but Steven West, the guy who is the host,
0:36:56 there’s not too much information out there on him.
0:36:59 Like I think he has a Twitter, but he basically just tweets out when there’s
0:37:05 a new episode. But what interested me a ton is that the article said the article
0:37:08 was written about this author who’s like her father was in a philosophy,
0:37:11 but he was kind of unsuccessful.
0:37:15 Like he just like studied all day and how the idea of a podcasting being
0:37:18 being possible right now, someone like Steven West,
0:37:21 he’s able to make a full time living doing this now based off of like just a hobby.
0:37:24 And there’s this quote there that says,
0:37:26 Steven doesn’t preen or preach or teach.
0:37:29 He just talks to you like a smart, curious adult.
0:37:32 And I read that line and that reminded me of something.
0:37:35 Do you remember what the old pitch for was at the hustle?
0:37:39 Yeah, you’re smart, no bullshit friend, right?
0:37:39 It’s something like that.
0:37:43 Yeah, you’re smart, no, no bullshit friend telling you what you need to know
0:37:45 about the world of tech and business news.
0:37:48 And that was also the line for the Milk Road.
0:37:51 It was like you’re smart, no nonsense friend telling you about all the news
0:37:54 that’s going on in the crypto world. No coincidence.
0:37:57 Yes, no coincidence, heavily inspired by the hustles, heavily inspired.
0:37:59 But there’s like now that line is used a ton.
0:38:01 And I’m sure I stole that from someone else as well.
0:38:04 And I read this biography about Gideon Gartner.
0:38:07 He’s the guy who started Gartner, which is a research firm
0:38:11 that is worth probably traded $40 billion, billions in revenue.
0:38:16 His whole stick early on was I want to treat my customers like they’re adults.
0:38:20 And I’m just going to talk to them in a fun way, but in a professional way.
0:38:21 And we’re going to keep things short.
0:38:24 And the idea is we’re going to treat you just like a smart adult and we’re your friend.
0:38:29 That’s kind of like an interesting takeaway, because in business,
0:38:32 there’s like you can come up with a new technology or whatever that takes off.
0:38:34 You can come up with a better product.
0:38:36 But one way, I think, to stick out is branding.
0:38:40 And branding is kind of a nebulous thing where it’s like it’s kind of challenging.
0:38:41 What’s a good brand?
0:38:44 And this whole idea of we’re just going to treat our customers
0:38:47 like smart adults and we’re going to be casual about them.
0:38:51 That is a shtick that I have seen work in so many different industries
0:38:52 and it has worked consistently.
0:38:54 He does that wonderfully.
0:38:55 You and I do that wonderfully.
0:38:58 That podcast founders, which I love, does that wonderfully.
0:39:01 There’s so many different content niches that do that wonderfully.
0:39:04 But there’s so many different brands that do that wonderfully with this idea
0:39:09 of like we’re going to be cool, but not like actual cool, but more like casual.
0:39:09 We’re going to be your friend.
0:39:10 You know what I mean?
0:39:14 All right.
0:39:16 If you’re listening to this pod, I already know something about you.
0:39:19 You, my friend, are nosy.
0:39:23 You want to know the numbers behind all of these things that we’re talking about.
0:39:26 How much money people make, how much money people spend, how much money
0:39:29 businesses make, you want to know all of this people’s net worth, all of it.
0:39:31 Well, I’ve got good news for you.
0:39:34 So my company, Hampton, we’re a private community for CEOs.
0:39:38 We do this thing where we survey our members and we ask them all types of
0:39:41 information, like how much money they’re paying themselves, how much money
0:39:44 they’re paying a lot of their employees, what their team, my bonuses are,
0:39:46 what their net worth is, what their portfolio looks like.
0:39:49 We ask all these questions, but we do it anonymously.
0:39:52 And so people are willing to reveal all types of amazing information.
0:39:54 So if you really cannot Google, you can’t find anywhere else.
0:39:57 And you could check it out at joinhampton.com.
0:39:59 Click the report section on the menu.
0:40:01 Click the salary and compensation report.
0:40:03 It’s going to blow your mind.
0:40:04 You’re going to love this stuff.
0:40:05 Check it out now.
0:40:06 Back to the pod.
0:40:15 Dude, when I went to Austin to record all those podcasts, I had a list of the people
0:40:18 that were doing the podcast with and I was supposed to be excited about them.
0:40:21 It was like, I’m going to do a podcast with Tim Ferriss and with Monish Pabrai,
0:40:22 Joe Lonsdale.
0:40:23 All right.
0:40:24 Then there was all these meetings in between.
0:40:28 And then there was one meeting that came up at the last second that I got
0:40:30 super excited about and it was to meet Tim Urban.
0:40:33 Tim Urban’s the guy who writes, Wait But Why, he’s wrote a bunch of books now.
0:40:35 And so he’s got this blog that I love.
0:40:38 So we go and we meet with Tim Urban.
0:40:45 And I’m like, dude, I go, isn’t it insane that you have this little
0:40:46 blog on the internet?
0:40:49 It used to just write whatever was interesting to you.
0:40:56 And then one day the richest, greatest entrepreneur in the world slid into your
0:40:58 DMs and was like, yo, I like your stuff.
0:41:01 It’s like, do you want to hang out?
0:41:05 And you’re referring to Elon Musk is a huge fan of Tim Urban.
0:41:06 Hey, this is awesome.
0:41:08 You’re awesome.
0:41:09 This is awesome.
0:41:09 I’d love to meet.
0:41:13 And the background being Tim Urban runs a blog called Wait But Why, which when
0:41:16 you and I were in our 20s, it was the hottest thing going.
0:41:20 And it’s still popular, but it’s like an intellectual blog, but silly.
0:41:23 It’s kind of the same description of what you said, right?
0:41:25 Yeah, it’s a guy who’s smart.
0:41:27 He’s writing about the stuff that’s on his mind.
0:41:31 And he’s honest to the way he writes it and he treats you well, whatever.
0:41:33 So he was like, yeah, it was crazy.
0:41:37 Then Elon meets him and Elon basically says, I would love for you to write.
0:41:39 I, he’s like, a bunch of people want to interview me.
0:41:40 You know, they want me on 60 minutes.
0:41:41 They want me on this.
0:41:42 They want me on that.
0:41:46 But I actually want you to write about what we’re doing with AI, with Neuralink,
0:41:49 with Tesla, with SpaceX, like all of these things.
0:41:51 I would love you and you, you could write whatever you want.
0:41:54 I’m not saying write something positive, but I like your writing.
0:41:55 I’d like you to write.
0:41:57 So then he wrote these series with Elon, basically.
0:41:59 He wrote a Neuralink series.
0:42:01 He wrote like a AI series.
0:42:03 He wrote like all these things and they were super popular.
0:42:05 And I was like, how crazy is that?
0:42:09 Could you have imagined that when you started just writing on your random blog
0:42:12 that one day the richest, most powerful entrepreneur in the world will just
0:42:14 slide into your DMs and just say that to you.
0:42:17 He’s like, no, he’s like, no, I obviously couldn’t have imagined that.
0:42:23 But he goes, I did always have a rule, which is my rule when I write is write for
0:42:23 equals.
0:42:26 And I said, write for equals.
0:42:28 That’s I immediately, I was like, ah, I love that.
0:42:28 What is that?
0:42:34 And he goes, it’s a big temptation on the internet, which is to create content
0:42:35 that you think is for the masses.
0:42:38 Let me tell you about how this all works.
0:42:39 I know you don’t know.
0:42:41 I’ll dump this down.
0:42:42 I’ll sort of water this down.
0:42:44 I’ll shave off some of the edges.
0:42:45 I won’t tell you about anything of the unknown.
0:42:48 I’ll tell you all the known stuff because that’s what you want because you need
0:42:50 a lunchable and you want your cracker and your cheese.
0:42:54 And then you want your, um, your ham and then you’re going to put those three
0:42:56 together and that’s your, that’s what you’re going to get for lunch.
0:42:58 And he goes, I also don’t want to go the other way, which is I’m
0:43:00 trying to impress all these people.
0:43:03 And therefore I’m going to act out of character, trying to write to impress
0:43:06 people who I think are more advanced than me.
0:43:09 And I’m going to, you know, fluff up my language, use all this jargon
0:43:11 and try to make it sound smarter than it really is.
0:43:13 Instead, I just sit down.
0:43:14 I just try to write for equals.
0:43:18 And he goes, the beautiful thing, he didn’t say all this, but the, the
0:43:23 beautiful thing of that is when you actually put yourself out there, you
0:43:25 will attract by definition, like-minded people.
0:43:29 You’ll attract the people who like what you do will be the people who
0:43:33 like you and then you could just keep being you, which is a lot easier
0:43:34 than trying to guess what other people might like.
0:43:38 And so there’s like this flywheel that starts and I would say this is probably
0:43:43 the most common mistake that I’ve made at every content creator makes is
0:43:48 this, this feeling that maybe I should bend art, my content to the masses, or
0:43:52 maybe I should bend it to impress these folks rather than just a simple
0:43:53 write for equals, three words.
0:43:54 I thought it was wonderful.
0:43:58 But my, and my point in bringing this up is that this goes beyond content.
0:44:01 This is about running your company a certain way.
0:44:06 And Tillman for Tita, you know, he’s this guy who, um, what does he own?
0:44:10 He owns Landry’s and a bunch of restaurant chains that are popular.
0:44:11 A ton of restaurant.
0:44:15 I read his biography and he, and he told the story.
0:44:19 He’s like, let me explain like a little bit about my philosophy.
0:44:25 And he apparently it was like 1130 or something at one of his restaurants.
0:44:29 And someone ordered an omelet and the rule was like breakfast ends at 11 or 10
0:44:30 30 or something.
0:44:34 And they like turned the customer down and he heard about this.
0:44:36 He goes, dude, the eggs are right there.
0:44:38 Just say like, I’m going to go scramble you some eggs.
0:44:39 Like, I got you.
0:44:39 Let me take care.
0:44:44 And it’s just this idea of like following rules versus treating someone
0:44:46 like a human and it’s like a huge deal.
0:44:47 And it’s real.
0:44:51 And what I’m saying is so simple, but it’s actually hard at Hampton.
0:44:53 We only have 20 employees, but I still have to remind people.
0:44:55 I go, just act like we’re a mom and pop business.
0:44:59 Like treat people a certain way where you’re like, they’re just like, you know,
0:45:02 you own like a corner bodega and you see the same people every day.
0:45:04 Like, oh, you want the usual, like I got you.
0:45:06 And that’s actually really hard to do.
0:45:09 It’s hard to teach people how to do that because they want to act a certain way.
0:45:11 But here’s a certain, here’s another good example.
0:45:15 Anon, our friend Anon, who runs a company called CB Insights.
0:45:18 I don’t know how big they are, but they’re around the idea.
0:45:20 They’re around, let’s say 100 million a year in revenue.
0:45:25 And so CB Insights makes a very professional enterprise level business
0:45:26 that costs $100,000 a year.
0:45:31 Their website up until recently, the homepage said, without data,
0:45:32 you’re just an idiot with an opinion.
0:45:37 And they have a newsletter that he sends once a week to all their
0:45:39 customers, as well as their potential clients.
0:45:43 And at the end of the email, he signs it with, I love you, Anon.
0:45:46 Or like, they would say things like, please buy a subscription
0:45:48 because I owe people money.
0:45:50 Like, they would use this like a lot of money.
0:45:52 Yeah, he would like use these funny things.
0:45:53 And I would see that.
0:45:57 And I’m like, not everyone’s shtick is to be funny, but everyone’s shtick
0:46:02 should be like to not change necessarily from just treating people like a human.
0:46:05 And so when I saw this line about philosophy, which is like a very
0:46:08 like lame thing, like I’ve tried to learn about it.
0:46:12 And it’s like they have like, like they don’t want you to to like approach
0:46:14 this topic because it’s very guarded.
0:46:16 And I love that this guy’s doing this.
0:46:19 And it reminded me that we should be doing this with a lot of different things.
0:46:23 There’s also another angle of this, which is a lot of people, when they go
0:46:26 into a business, we’ll start thinking about what industry do I like?
0:46:28 What product do I like?
0:46:33 And they when you’re told to kind of like follow what you like, you sort
0:46:36 of typically think, oh, I’m interested in health care.
0:46:39 Or, you know, I really like media.
0:46:42 And you just pick pick at this, like really like 9000 foot level.
0:46:47 And a different way to do it is work backwards from your customers.
0:46:49 So which customers do you respect?
0:46:50 Which customers do you love?
0:46:52 Which customers do you want to understand?
0:46:53 And which customers would you want to hang out with?
0:46:56 Right. So pick your customer and then work backwards from that.
0:46:59 So instead of picking an industry and trying to find a business, you could
0:47:02 pick a customer and try to find a pain point that could become your business.
0:47:04 I think with Hampton, you do a good job of this, which is.
0:47:07 You want to hang out with all of your customers.
0:47:08 They’re cool people.
0:47:10 Those are the type of people you like to hang out with, you know,
0:47:13 business owners and people who are somewhat successful and trying to do
0:47:15 interesting things in their life.
0:47:20 So you picked a business where you like, understand and are attracted to that customer.
0:47:23 And therefore you’ll always sort of stay in love with that business.
0:47:26 Another version of that that I found for myself is.
0:47:32 Most of the time for any business, you’re not building product most of the time.
0:47:36 Actually, as an entrepreneur, like when you sign up to start a business,
0:47:40 you’re actually signing up to try to grow a thing that you’re selling most of the time.
0:47:41 You’re selling most of the time.
0:47:44 Paul Graham wrote a blog post startups equals growth.
0:47:47 Like what is the differentiator between a small business and a startup?
0:47:50 It’s that a startup is designed to grow fast and a small business is might be
0:47:52 like a barbershop or a nail salon doesn’t have to grow fast.
0:47:58 And so if you’re going to be focused on growth, 90% of your brain and that
0:48:02 therefore selling, then it actually makes sense to work backers from what is
0:48:05 the type of sale I will need to do to make this successful.
0:48:09 So, for example, I’ve had ideas where I’m like, Oh, that would be a great product.
0:48:13 I would love to make that product and companies would benefit from that product.
0:48:16 But the problem is to do that product to make that product grow.
0:48:20 I would need to do enterprise sales, something I do not know anything about,
0:48:21 nor would I want to know anything about.
0:48:22 I’m not curious about that.
0:48:26 Right. And so actually, that business is not that product.
0:48:27 It’s enterprise sales.
0:48:30 And do I want to do enterprise sales every day for the next seven years?
0:48:33 Do I want to build a team that’s really good at doing enterprise sales for the next seven years?
0:48:36 I found for myself, for example, I love running ads.
0:48:40 Like the first time I started doing an e-commerce business and I was like, Wow,
0:48:42 I can just set up this one ad.
0:48:44 And this is like a money machine.
0:48:45 It’s a money machine.
0:48:46 He works all night.
0:48:47 I don’t even have to think about this business.
0:48:49 My calendar doesn’t need to be booked with calls.
0:48:51 I don’t need to send cold emails every day.
0:48:53 This ad will just keep hustling out there.
0:48:58 I’m sending out these armies to the corners and they’re selling for me.
0:49:02 Right. All I need to do is talk to the ad like, Hey, sweetheart, how are you?
0:49:04 It’s nice to see you this morning.
0:49:06 I’m like, thank you so much.
0:49:10 You take this tiny commission, the small CPM fee and in exchange,
0:49:14 you can sell 24/7 around the clock to every single city in every single country
0:49:16 and all around the world.
0:49:17 You are an amazing employee to add.
0:49:21 And so I work backwards from ad companies or content, right?
0:49:22 I love creating content.
0:49:26 So if the main way to grow this business is content, then don’t, I want to do that.
0:49:32 So picking your business based on what is the sales method is a far better way
0:49:35 to build a business that you love and that will actually succeed
0:49:39 than to pick the product or the industry that you think you that you think you like.
0:49:42 Yeah, I completely agree.
0:49:43 You said something earlier.
0:49:48 You said you you start studying how you make money and then you realize
0:49:50 you don’t know shit and then you kind of learn it.
0:49:52 And then you start and like, all right, I know it.
0:49:56 I just get to give myself 10 years and then I care less about it than I thought.
0:49:57 Are you in that stage?
0:50:02 In and out. So I think every, by the way, everything goes to that stage.
0:50:04 I want to know it.
0:50:06 I know it. Oh, shit, I thought I’d do it.
0:50:07 I didn’t know it at all.
0:50:10 And then you finally get to the point where you actually know it,
0:50:11 but you only know it in your head.
0:50:12 You don’t know it in your hands.
0:50:14 You don’t know how to actually do it, right?
0:50:18 It’s that example I gave one time on the podcast of I watched this guy
0:50:23 make this amazing, like, you know, scrambled egg and it was fluffy and it was perfect.
0:50:26 And it had tives and it was just looked so good.
0:50:30 And watching that, I was like, I I know step by step what he did
0:50:32 because he showed me step by step what he did with the camera,
0:50:34 with the audio, with the instructions on the screen.
0:50:38 But if I went and tried to make that egg right now, I’d make a horrible mess everywhere.
0:50:44 And so first you go from I intellectually know the blueprint
0:50:46 and I know it in my head, then I know it in my hands.
0:50:51 And then at a certain point, you still enjoy maybe the craftsmanship of doing it.
0:50:56 But the novelty of figuring out how to do it of solving the puzzle
0:50:58 that goes away because you kind of solve the puzzle more and more.
0:51:02 And I think a good thing in life is to sort of seek new puzzles.
0:51:04 So right now, for example, the puzzles I’m seeking,
0:51:08 the things I’m more fascinated about rather than how did this business
0:51:13 get to five million error or with 60% even a margins is the creative process.
0:51:16 How do the most creative people in the world who create dope shit?
0:51:17 How do they live their life?
0:51:18 What do they do? How do they think?
0:51:21 How do they? What is the conversation they have in their head?
0:51:24 Which is the same thing I used to ask about entrepreneurs.
0:51:27 I just find myself more gravitating towards creative people
0:51:30 who are living maybe a unique life or an artist based life.
0:51:31 And then what are they doing?
0:51:33 That’s where my current fascination is.
0:51:36 You’re drifting towards these beatnik artists.
0:51:41 I’m wondering how the politicians gain all this power.
0:51:43 Golly, we are sellouts, aren’t we?
0:51:46 No, we’re not sellouts. We’re grownups.
0:51:48 All right, where do we go from here?
0:51:50 I guess that’s it. That’s the part.
0:51:52 I feel like I can rule the world.
0:51:58 I know I could be what I want to put my all in it like the days on the road.
0:52:00 Let’s travel never looking back.
0:52:00 ♪ Why ♪
0:52:08 [BLANK_AUDIO]
Episode 636: Sam Parr ( https://x.com/theSamParr ) and Shaan Puri ( https://x.com/ShaanVP ) talk about the rise and fall of Mike Lynch aka The British Bill Gates and his mysterious death onboard his $30M dollar yacht.
—
Show Notes:
(0:00) The British Bill Gates Dies in Freak Yacht accident
(14:51) The Kennedy Curse, conspiracies and coincidences
(20:49) Sam bombs his meeting with the mayor
(33:50) Branding to attract equals
(44:36) Work backwards from the customers
(48:00) Knowing something in your head vs your hands
—
Links:
• Philosophize This! – https://www.philosophizethis.org/
• Wait But Why – https://waitbutwhy.com/
—
Check Out Shaan’s Stuff:
Need to hire? You should use the same service Shaan uses to hire developers, designers, & Virtual Assistants → it’s called Shepherd (tell ‘em Shaan sent you): https://bit.ly/SupportShepherd
—
Check Out Sam’s Stuff:
• Hampton – https://www.joinhampton.com/
• Ideation Bootcamp – https://www.ideationbootcamp.co/
• Copy That – https://copythat.com
• Hampton Wealth Survey – https://joinhampton.com/wealth
• Sam’s List – http://samslist.co/
My First Million is a HubSpot Original Podcast // Brought to you by The HubSpot Podcast Network // Production by Arie Desormeaux // Editing by Ezra Bakker Trupiano