Encarta | I Spent 7 Days With LA’s Rich & Famous… Here’s What I Learned (#481)

00:00

He just come back to it. We're we're talking about a whole different topic. He's like

00:04

Big O Tires. Really? You could just own twelve Big O Tires, and that's it. Like, let me just come back with your example

00:11

of one of these, like, shitty

00:13

brick and mortar chains that are, like, you know, So easy, sweaty cash flow business.

00:27

Alright. We're gonna start the pod, but before we do, we have an announcement. We are looking to hire a new producer. This producer is gonna be the person who sits live on these podcasts helps us edit them and make the videos and, podcast popular, helps us get guests And so we're hiring. We're hiring. I I almost call him a band manager. It's like, you know, the band manager's job is to make sure that the band

00:50

blows up. Right? And so this podcast has grown a lot.

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It's time that we find somebody who wants to take it to the next level, booking amazing guests,

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helping us brainstorm great content segments and be like, guys, people love it when you do the blue collar side hustles. Let's make sure we hit those every week and

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you know, keep us on our a game.

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Make the audio, the video tighter, make the YouTube channel better, make it pop.

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We want somebody who's great at this.

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Ideally, we hire somebody who's already a fan of the show and is looking to basically hang out with us a few times a week, see how we operate,

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loves making great content. Loves getting content made and has the, I don't know, like, kinda like the taste and the skills

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to put out a great content product. And that's what we're looking for. So if that's you,

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you can reach out. You can email me.

01:36

It's sean at seanpourri dot com. So s h a a n,

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at s h a n p u r I dot com, and I'll forward it to our team, over at HubSpot. That is, that is vetting and interviewing everybody. So we're gonna hire somebody this Next few weeks.

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And it's a full time position.

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If you're an amateur, you've never done this before, you maybe you'll get notice, but you have to be really good. We're not looking people who are trying to take huge risks on. We're trying to find people who are the best.

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We've already had hundreds of people apply. So we really want the best people out there. If you've never done this before, you could still throw your throw your your resume out there and try to impress us, but make sure you do that.

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If you've already been there, done that, that that's awesome too.

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So check it out. Email sean at sean Prairie dot com.

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Alright. Let's get to the pod.

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Alright.

02:27

You ready?

02:28

For the greatest show I've ever done.

02:31

A lot of people have, we got a lot of good comments on the last show. People were saying someone asked me an interesting question.

02:38

They go, your guys' cadence is really good. You guys,

02:42

you talk really fast and it feels quickly. And then someone said, do you do something

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to one another, because we're Sean and I are remote, do you do something to one another to let each other know that it's your turn to speak? And I was thinking

02:55

I think we just have we just know each other well enough that we know how to do it. But there is something that we each do. At least I pay really attention to you when you do it, and I try to give you the signal, which is you open up your mouth when you want to say something. And then this you let it sit open for a minute. Do you know what I mean? The zoom hack, because you're like,

03:11

you're like,

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And the little, is without the without the sound is basically just set right now, but you know, because on the recording, they're not gonna see it. So it's a silent signal whereas if you're doing that in person, it'd be a little, like, strange.

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But, yeah, it definitely works. The hard one is during interviews. Because during interviews, the guest is talking, we don't know when they're gonna stop.

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They are opening up, like, probably a bunch of, like, paths you could go down. Like, oh, they mentioned three things. They say it was really hard. Then they said they met a guy who, who was the guy. And they said that it really changed the perspective. But how? What did it change? And so you're like and then we don't know who's gonna go.

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We're both pretty insatiable curious I have a bad habit of just, like, talking too much in general in life. And so then it's, like, we don't know which path we're gonna go, and we don't know who's gonna decide

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So a team interview, I think, is really hard. It's it's very that's very hard. The interviews are easier in person, but what we do is this now, which is us, I think it's way easier on Zoom because I've gotten so used to it. Also,

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I've recorded in studios like you have done lately. You're gonna talk about your trip in LA. I cannot stand when there's a third party there because I'm constantly trying to entertain her and him, like, the the, like, the person there. But, yeah, we it it what people don't see is we do a good job of opening our mouths just a little bit so the other person knows when it's done.

04:34

Pro tips for everybody. Yeah. That's what you learn after three years of, intense podcasting, one of the top ranked business podcasts in the world that you don't get these kind of insights anywhere else. Oh my god. Someone was like, you guys are so fast paced. I'm like, yeah. It wears me. I usually always take, like, a twenty or thirty minute nap. I just closed my eyes and lay down on this couch. That guy's definitely just listening to us on two x, and he's like, wow, these guys are strange.

04:55

You know, he doesn't know he hit the button on his app.

04:59

So you just went to LA last episode. I asked you about it. You just said, I'm gonna do a whole thing where I tell you about I love these things because you're very observant. You, you you are you have great observations, and you don't ever leave your house. So when you do, you're extra you're you have great observations.

05:16

Boy meets world. And the the thing about you is you've got, like, a child's, like,

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awe of the world because, like, you're so sheltered and you live in such a bubble. And so you say these things that I'm used to, but I love just hearing it anyway.

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Sam, far backhanded compliment. One of the finest.

05:33

Yes. All those things are true. There used to be a website back in the day. I don't know if you remember. I don't know if it's still up probably is. Little big details. Did you ever see this website? No. And it's a great little blog. It's a Tumblr blog, actually. That's, like, the Tumblr's not even around anymore, but what they did was post two thousand seventeen. They would just it's like a swipe file, so they would just capture

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any example of, like,

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a small thing that a company did well. So

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like, on a Google doc, on a Google doc, when you go to share it and you don't name it, it just takes the first line of what you spoke about. And it makes that the title of the Google doc as opposed to just naming it untitled document. Yeah. Exactly. Or like it says, on Google, if you Google the word curning every word that shows up in the results has a large amount of kerning, right, like the the the font.

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Or it'll be like, you know, the error, like, the four zero four page of this

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site instead of just saying error, has this really fun,

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if I can pull them or whatever it is. And so,

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I love this website. Love the name, little big details.

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I love this site because it just gave me a bunch of inspiration when back in the day when I was, like, more of like a PM product designer type guy.

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But third,

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little big details are the secret of life. Right? I've said this before. It's the moments in between the moments. Like, it's not the big moments that matter. It's the moments in between those moments that matter. This is the product version of that. It's like,

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here's the little things. I remember the first time I used Slack and our designer typed a hex code. They were like, oh, yeah. It's gonna be color, you know, number eight eight three three four four f. And then it just it automatically swapped that to the color swatch so we could see it. Area added the color swatch to it in line. Right. And we were just like, what the like, it was a mic drop moment in our in our every like, our design team was like, okay.

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I fuck with this product. Like, they like, somewhere in this, a designer was like, you know, it'd be cool. It'd be cool if you could actually see the preview of the thing because nobody knows what these numbers mean. Like, I don't even know how they did it with the emoji size thing, and it was just, like, a little big detail. And there was a bunch of those with a great with great products like Slack.

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That that kind of like We were in the first hundred users of Slack or something. And so it was very clear that, like, this thing might become a thing because the care that they took to this. So anyways, The things I wanna talk about, the LA trip, they're not the big moments. It's not oh, I met with this famous person, and here's the the groundbreaking insight. I tried to find a bunch of the little big details. A bunch of the moments in between moments, I think were interesting in their own way. This is for two reasons. One, I don't really wanna brag or I can't really talk too much about the people I met and what they said because it'd be kind of airing out, you know, those private meetings. But two, think there's just a lot of interesting stuff in these, or at least I think there could be. So I wrote down

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a bunch of very vague, but slightly intriguing bullet points,

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and you could pick. But I will say, here's the structure. So I go to LA

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with Ben, business partner, Ben.

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We do three things. So we,

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here's the daily schedule. Morning is basically meetings in the workout. That was the goal.

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Midday

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was typically

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recording a podcast live in person with someone that we admired respected or thought was really cool. And then the evening was always a dinner with kinda like founder friends who were almost always people who had sold their companies

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told one or more companies,

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in the past. And we did that for five days straight. So we would leave the house at eight AM we would get back around midnight and crash and then do it all again the next day. Oh my god. And, for me, who's someone who's almost always at home,

09:11

on it. I have two little kids that are under the age of, you know, four years old. So, you know, I'm on a kid's schedule. Typically, this was crazy, but, was it was an awesome was an awesome experience. So now take it away. Alright. So you have a list of maybe twenty things. I bolded

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about

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half of them that in intrigued me. I wanna learn about big company CEOs talking about

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laundromats.

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Alright. So this is the story. We're out at,

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one of the kinda, like, after dinner. Just like, let's go hang at this other place. So we're hanging at this other place.

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And it's me, it's business partner, Ben, and it's our buddy Sui. And we're hanging out.

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And,

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Ben goes,

09:56

Hey, that's so and so. And we're looking for awesome. I'm like, I don't even recognize the name or the face. So I'm like, what are you talking about? He's like, we did a call with him two years ago. And I was like, what? He's like, yeah. We did a Zoom call for, like, twenty minutes with that guy. He introed us to this other guy. And I was like,

10:13

I don't I mean, I can't for the life of me remember this. That's just and this guy, by the way, doesn't remember us either. Right? Like, he doesn't recognize us either.

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Ben,

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he's got, like, freaking the, like, you know what, China has the facial recognition software that this running at all times using AI. Yep. Ben has that. Ben has that. This happens like five or six times during the trip. You would see someone walking by and be like, that's that girl from Twitter. I'd be like, what?

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You know this.

10:38

And and so he does it. He's like, hey. Blah blah blah. And they're like surprise. He's like, hey, it's Ben. We talked two years ago on a Zoom call for twenty minutes. And he's like, You see the guy kinda, like, doesn't really know what's going on. They're having dinner, so we merged dinners. Wait. Did you really? Yeah. We just merge hangouts. They're was awesome. So they're they're best friends from business school. They went to Harvard business school together. One of them runs.

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One of them is now CEO of a public company. Can't say which one, but He's,

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such a funny guy. So,

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assuming multi billion multi billion dollar company. Yeah. Over one billion dollars. So,

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We're hanging out. And this guy who's the CEO of a multi of of a multi billion dollar company at the moment, he goes,

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He's like, yeah. He he he was like, oh, you do a podcast? What's a podcast? Oh, what is it called? Oh, yeah. I'll check it out. Right? And he's he's kinda like he's like one of those people that's, like, busy actually doing something. So he's like, was kind of detached from, like, the world of, like, Twitter and podcasts and, like, content creators and all this stuff. But as we're talking, he's like, oh, you know, one thing I did see? What's with all these, like, entrepreneurs who own laundromats?

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And HVACs and shit. Yeah. The they're just buying laundromats?

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Just making, like, a million dollars a year while owning a laundromat? Like, what? What is this? That can't be true. He's like, this is he's like, this

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Either this is not true, and they're lying,

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or this is true. And what the hell are we all doing? Why don't we all own, like, fifteen laundromats? He's like, it's a it could only be one of two situations.

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And so we had this hilarious conversation with this guy. But there's not a third situation of it is true, and it's kinda stupid. No. He was like, if it's true that these things are as, you know, sort of simple and cash flowy as pop as they sound.

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Why would we all not just own fifteen of these and call it a day? And he's like, and if it's not true, why the hell are they talking about it like it is? And, I just thought it was so funny because it was, like,

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smart person. It's kinda like when you if you took a really healthy person

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to, like, a grocery store and walk through the snack aisle, they'd be like, so this is all just sugar?

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You'd be like, well, yeah. There's like, so all the kids' food is sugar, and then all the adult food is like sugar and salt. Like, what,

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You eat this? Why wouldn't you just eat normal food? And you're like, I mean, I can't defend it. It's just the way I don't know. It's just what it That's how he was talking about, like, entrepreneurial content that he's run into on on social media just, like, in passing while he's, like, trying to, like, go see friends photos. He's like, why is this entrepreneur telling me that they make so much money so easily doing something so so so stupid and hands off? He's like, it's either not hands off. It doesn't make that much money, or we are all idiots, and it because it is hands off and makes that much money. And I just thought it was such a Like, it was so funny the way he was ranting about it. And he was just, like, kept and then every fifteen minutes during the conversation,

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he'd be like,

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He just come back to it. We're we're talking about a whole different topic. He's like

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Big O Tires. Really? You could just own twelve Big O Tires, and that's it. Like, you would just come back with your example

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of one of these, like, shitty

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brick and mortar chains that are, like, you know, so easy, sweaty, cash flow business. I went through this period. So I was public about this. I bought a property,

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to do an Airbnb because I was, like, you know, let's see if I'm interested in that. And what I've learned is exactly what that guy feels, which is

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if you can make money on the internet, or, like, through content or software or something like that, the business is so much better. You can create a huge amount of money from nothing. Right. You need nothing except you gotta work on it. With real estate and laundry method shit, you make we're talking, like, single digits. If you're really lucky, tens of thousands of dollars a month in profit, And it's a pain in the butt, man. It is so hard, and you have to have a ton of money to do it.

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Like, it it it's quite challenging. So I understand now I'm like, Oh my god. Like, I I have the skill set. This is so stupid to do this other thing when this other when this internet thing is so much easier.

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I feel I I totally understand what he's saying. And so the the other great story this guy told, so I'm gonna try to do this without giving me too much info. So he,

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you know, he takes over SEO of this company. He wasn't the original CEO. He becomes he gets hired as CEO or or become CEO.

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And now this company has, like it's, like, has big scale, but it's not profitable. So the stock was getting kinda hammered, and the company wasn't doing so well because it's not profitable.

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And,

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so there's all these theories. So if you if you just listen like, the pundits,

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they would be like, it's a category problem. Like, this category can't be profitable because of a, b, c, and d. They're sort of like it's a lot more like

15:15

they're all theorizing about it. And they made it sound like it's just a law of physics that it's just not gonna work, bad category. Like,

15:22

like, like like grocery delivery. Yeah. Like, fifteen minute grocery delivery or whatever. Right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And so that was if you just listen to the smart pundits, you would have just been like, impossible.

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And if you listen to the original team, they'd be like,

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you know, like, yeah, it's we're working on it. It's like, no, you're not. Dude, every single customer, we lose.

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We lose money every time someone buys from us. Don't you recognize how big of an issue this is. Like, how did you let this go on for this long this way? And he's like, okay. So first act, this is, CEO,

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It goes to, like, the kind of, like, let's say the place where the the kind of the product is is is developed or made.

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Like, it has like a real world product. It's like a it's a it's a business that's like tech enabled, but it has like a real world world component. Yeah.

16:08

Similar to like an Uber or a

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like, Airbnb has, like, you know, there is the physical place.

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So the guy goes, and he's like, we're like, so what'd you do? And he's like, I just sat there.

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I just sat I got a chair, and I sat down in the middle, and I just watched for eight hours straight.

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He's like, I just looked.

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I just looked at what was going on. I had no preconceived judgments. I said, let me just watch what's actually happening here. How is it that we are losing so much money for every order that we get? Every customer that we get. We lose money. How is this possible?

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He just sits there and he watches.

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He watches, and he's like, oh,

16:47

Okay. I see.

16:49

We got too many people doing too little shit, and the manager is not doing what they're supposed to be doing he's like, I I'm like, that guy, you're outside for half the time. And therefore, this person is not doing what they're doing. And these three people are all trying to do the same thing. He's like, I didn't have to, like, like, it wasn't a theoretical problem, and it wasn't an inevitable problem. It was just a everybody's too distant from the thing problem. Everybody nobody just sat here for eight hours straight. It just watched what the hell is actually going on. And he's and they told the story how they actually, like, turned it around. Now it's profitable. And, like, so on and so forth. And so,

17:24

I think that's all I can say without giving too much away. But I just love this guy. I love the story. The two things that he that he said out loud was the, like, Hey. Wait. Wait. Wait, pause. Time out. Time out. We can all do some Big O Tires and and call it a day. Like, if it's that easy, we should be doing it. If it's not that easy, screw those people for saying it. And secondly, he's like, I'm just gonna go sit for eight hours and watch and just really get to a first, like, a, like, a,

17:49

clear understanding of what is actually happening before we

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come to any other conclusions. Will you ever do one of these things? So I I dip my

17:58

toes in it. And and my thing, like, it's on paper. It's successful. It's just like,

18:03

ugh, it's just, it's emotional baggage. What what do you think about yours? Or are you ever going to do anything like that? You mean, a business that has real world, sweatiness?

18:13

Yeah.

18:15

Yeah.

18:15

Yeah, like, for our ecomm thing, we ran our own warehouse for a while. So that was, like, you know, ultimately my problem. If it if things went wrong and I spent

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many weekends, you know, like,

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breaking down, palette and reorganizing the warehouse and making it work and looking at the numbers. I mean, like, why is this person's, you know, maybe we should measure their rates. And, like, this guy's picking eighty products per hour, and this one's picking forty.

18:39

Is it a person thing, or is this guy just lazy, or what's going on? Like, and then just dealing with all those issues. You know, one guy threatened to kill another guy today at work. Alright?

18:48

There's nothing in the handbook for that.

18:52

You know, this doesn't make me money, but I think you can lose me a bunch. Did you really have that incident? You had that incident?

18:58

You gotta call those,

19:00

Hey.

19:00

This one guy just threatened to kill the other guy? Like, what should I do? Like, it was a kind of a serious threat.

19:05

He's mad. Like, I don't think he's gonna do it, but he did yell it in front of everybody.

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And I was like, well, I think you gotta fire that guy.

19:14

Right now, and I don't know why you're on the phone with me. And then the other person, like, why are they Why does that guy wanna kill him? What did he do instead? Like, you know, can we just replace all these people with somebody else? You know, it was, it was not a

19:25

I mean, there's there it's a very hard thing. Right? It's hard, like, getting warehouse

19:29

crews that are happy, productive, and

19:33

kind, you know, and and reliable is not, like, a thing for anybody. I have a friend who runs at e commerce store and they go, I'm shutting down my warehouse tomorrow. Like, Where can I move? And we're like, oh, what hap what happened he is?

19:46

Someone just shit all over the floor in the warehouse for no reason.

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Like, what did he do? She goes, she goes, she goes, she what did she why did she do it? I was like, wow. Just

19:57

for a woman to just shit on the floor in a warehouse. He's like,

20:02

what what happened?

20:04

What did it take to Was it at Was it a spike shit or was it an accident shit? I mean, the the intent matters. I Was it I asked all the wrong questions, apparently, because I didn't I didn't ask I had ten questions, but that wasn't one.

20:18

What about the NBA player? Alright. MB maybe player. So we meet an NBA player in

20:23

LA,

20:25

This isn't my story. I wasn't there for this, but Ben, related to me is very funny. He's like, he talked about, like, yes. So is it

20:33

it sounded like what do you say to these guys? Right? So, like, they get a bunch of fanboys,

20:37

and you don't wanna be a fanboy. In general, I would say there was really two learnings. The first was,

20:43

we go to this thing. There's a bunch NBA players,

20:48

but who cares?

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Like, you know, they're cool. I I think they're cool. I think they're it's cool what they do, but, like,

20:54

this event, you know, it's like, it's hard to, like,

20:57

do you do? They're not they're not gonna be your friend. Like, this is, like, you're very unlikely. Like, what do you think is gonna happen here? Like, you go in excited? Oh, this person's gonna hear. You know what they're thinking. You know what they're which is like, damn, Sean. You're pretty tall. You ever lace up. Like, you know, we we we need we need a

21:14

fist Like, are you interested?

21:16

Like, that's what you want to happen. Right? Yeah. Exactly. It's like

21:21

we we've been waiting for this you know, this Indian guy with no athleticism. Like, you know,

21:26

would you like to become my best friend and come on the road with us? Like, you know, what what what's gonna happen here? Or, like, meeting Drake, it's be like, Hey, you're really, like, you're really good at speaking. Do you happen to have a mix tape on here that I could check out? You wanna just let us get the get the studio quick?

21:39

Yeah.

21:42

That's what that's what you want to happen. So

21:46

I think the realization was we got excited to go to this event, but it's also, like, Cool. This event is cool, but

21:53

that's not gonna happen. Nothing's gonna happen. That's awesome from this event. In that way,

21:58

Two things happen. We meet a team owner, again, Ben runs facial recognition

22:02

software. He's like, that guy's a minority owner of the Philadelphia seventy sixers or something like that. And I was like, How do you know the minority owners of this? He's like, I recognize him from something I read. And I was like, and nobody's talking to this guy because nobody knows this all kinda, like, older looking dude. So we go up to him. We're like, hey, you're blah blah blah.

22:19

Normally, when Ben does this, the person is so elated.

22:22

That somebody kind of knows them, that fan of theirs. They're, like, nobody's talking to them otherwise. They're kind of, like, they know they're actually pretty dope, but nobody at the cement knows they're dope.

22:31

This was the opposite. This guy just totally big dog us and made us seem like we were pieces of shit. So we're like, oh, cool.

22:38

I asked you ten questions. You gave me exactly ten words as answers. So one word per question.

22:45

And, you left your AirPods in the whole time. And then you looked at us at the end, like, if you ask one more question, I'm gonna fucking slap you. And so we -- Yeah. We had that. -- farted and walked away. And then we had the basketball player experience where Ben takes a foot Ben's like, oh, look, I got this photo with this, like, famous NBA player.

23:01

And

23:03

We had a realization. The realization was this.

23:05

It's dope

23:07

if these guys were our friends, but it's not gonna happen this way.

23:11

The only dope situation is not that we meet them and we're a fan of them, and we they recognize us as a fan, but that they're a fan of what we do and we're a fan of what they That's the only cool version of this is do something dope so that they have respect for you as you have respect for them. So you should actually spend your time instead of chasing them to meet them and get a picture with them and whatever.

23:33

Just do dope shit become a magnet where other people who are awesome will respect you and wanna meet you and wanna talk to you and or have something that they, you know, some common ground that Pier versus fanboys. Yeah. So, like, showing them your calves was not gonna, like, cut it. Like, oh, like, I run a five four forty. Does that do anything for you? Can you jump high? Can you jump high? Those calves are, like, a great.

23:55

Yeah.

23:57

23:58

I wear

24:00

I wear a fitbit.

24:02

We have so much in common.

24:04

So okay. So next thing was, every player's like, Right? We're so so I have nothing to lose at this point. So we're like,

24:10

so, like, what's it like? Just like having,

24:13

you know, tons of chicks that wanna be with you? Like, how do you do that? How do you navigate that?

24:18

He's like, because we're like, you know, he's got he's like, I got a wife. I got kids. And so he's like,

24:23

He's like, I told my wife, I said this. Oh, oh, it is having somebody that has that voice. Uh-uh. Yeah. I mean, only good things come after that tone. He goes, I said, baby,

24:34

You're happy. Right?

24:35

Yeah. I'm happy.

24:37

Maybe you got the house of your dreams. Right? Yeah. Yeah. Maybe I gave you three beautiful children. Right? It sure sure did. They're beautiful children. He goes,

24:45

baby, you could buy anything you want on this credit card. Right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

24:50

Maybe you got to be called my wife. Right?

24:53

Alright.

24:55

What more do you want, baby? And you won't worry about it.

24:59

I just had an open conversation with my wife that, like, look.

25:03

You're gonna have a bunch of amazing things in your in your life.

25:07

And so am I?

25:09

Oh my god. I hate that, by the way. I hate that.

25:14

Of course, you hate that. I mean, it's, it's not necessarily something that's admirable. I'm just saying it was something that was fucking hilarious

25:21

And nobody is that honest. And I thought, wow.

25:24

To have the the honesty to tell a stranger that story

25:29

is a confidence level that I can only admire.

25:33

The the, you know, do I do that with my wife? No. Of course not. Would I want to leave it now? Oh, I do it with my wife except it's a little bit different. It's like, hey, Sarah. Look, you know if someone comes in this home, I'm gonna go and fight to the death to protect you. Right? Whatever you want, I'll give you. I'll do anything for you.

25:48

Take out the trash, please.

25:50

Usually, it's more like that. It's like, will you be the one who takes out the the the dishwasher today?

25:56

Let you do it this week and tomorrow when someone breaks into our home, I'll die for you.

26:01

Normally, it's normally, that's the argument that I make. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. These are all about great traits, I would say, but,

26:08

I found it hilarious.

26:09

This falls in line with just a general thing, which was people in LA

26:14

say,

26:15

wild

26:16

shit.

26:17

Like,

26:17

people, you know, right, are so, like,

26:21

name droppy?

26:22

And muddy droppy. It's disgusting, isn't it? But they're not even really even aware of it. It's crazy. Like, they'll be like,

26:30

It is made up example, but, like,

26:34

yeah. Yeah. We can meet at my place. It's over on, you know, Beverly and whatever. It's a four point two million dollar it's like, whoa, whoa, whoa, why why did you add that at the end? Like,

26:43

completely unnecessary information.

26:46

Complete

26:47

brag.

26:48

Out of nowhere. And I just kept getting sideswiped my brags as I was walking through LA. Just oh, oh, sir. You dropped this Oh, that's oh, that's a producer you know. Yeah. That's a name. Okay. Here you go. Take take that in the link.

27:00

I couldn't believe it. And I think SF is obnoxious.

27:03

San Francisco was as obnoxious in its own way, which was you'll be like, oh, I'm gonna eat dinner. They're like, dinner is, you know, actually a necessary study show. I said, what dude? I just wanna eat dinner. Like, don't, like, make me like, we don't have to, like, be transhuman right now. Like, you know, we don't have to, like,

27:20

Like, not everything has to be a thing or, like, you know, we don't have to use AI

27:24

to, like, you know, go get a smoothie right now. But, like, you know, San Francisco was obnoxious in its own ways. But the LA version of being obnoxious, I found to be very strange.

27:35

Yeah. I it it makes me really uncomfortable whenever I'm there. It's

27:39

Every every city is a dick measuring contest,

27:42

but, the type that they measure in LA, I It's like the ruler

27:46

Right? And in in San Francisco, it's like, how ambitious are you? Right? No. You say the craziest thing you're working on. No. No. No. You say the crazy investment you just made. It's like, it's an ambition contest.

27:56

And New York is, like, some power contest,

27:59

and LA is basically, like, a fame,

28:02

a fame contest or a network contest. Like, who do you know? And who knows you? When I, when my wife used to work at Facebook, one time Facebook rented out the baseball stadium, AT and T Park, and I remember going there and we wore nice clothes, like a suit jacket or whatever. But then the engineers

28:17

would wear it was like a contest to see who could look the most schleppy So it would be, like, one guy wearing a tuxedo t shirt. It's like, oh, I see. It's like, you're ironic. That's funny. And then another guy, it would be, like, just only wearing pajamas and birkenstocks. Right. Or another guy, like, only pajamas, but, like, dress shoes. It's like, oh, it's cute. You make a joke like, oh, you think that that means you're dressing up. Get it. I get it. You're, like, a brilliant guy. You're on stein. And that's the type of contest that you would see there, whereas in LA, it's like, land rovers, rain drovers,

28:48

and, fancy cars, and,

28:51

everyone has beautiful white teeth. And, like, have you noticed that there? The teeth in

28:54

LA,

28:57

veneers.

28:59

Let's Yeah. What about that? Veneers were I don't know. Just it was a blind spot for me. I didn't even know what the hell Veneers were. Didn't know who had Do you know how you get them? Dude, I went down the rabbit hole. I went on YouTube for, like, three hours. What are these things? You, like, drill each tooth. So it's almost looks like a spike, and then you, like, put up these fake things on there and glue them on there. So your teeth are, like, ruined. I I believe, like, they're they're changed forever. They are they shave them down. I think the bad version is when they have really shaved too much and it becomes like little spikes and you look like your little baby teeth. I think the good version is they just take a layer of the enamel off, and then they basically glue a fake tooth front onto your thing. And you it looks awful. Like, a decade and then you, like, get them switched.

29:40

And you have these pearly ones. They look awful. They look like Barney teeth. Remember Barney that, like, puppet or that, like, it was just, like, one strip of white. Yeah. I think the good version, because I was, like, again, I went down the rabbit hole. Like, the good doc makes them look like they're your teeth and not just like the generic thing.

29:57

But I said I really, like, like, in LA, I was, like, kind of enamored by this Veneer's thing. And I go, okay. I figured it out. There's only two types of people in the world. People who have Veneer and people who need veneers, because, like, once you see people who don't have veneers,

30:11

almost everyone's teeth are pretty

30:14

Pretty nasty. Like, most people's teeth are kinda yellow, kinda, you know, misshapen,

30:18

whatever.

30:19

People generally don't have great teeth. And the people who do have veneers. So there's only two types of people in life. This is now my belief. People who have veneers or people who need them. I'm currently in the people who need them category. Maybe who knows. I'll go do them. But I but for some reason, tell me this.

30:34

Plastic surgery. Like, I don't think you or I would ever be like, you know what? Just I wish my eyebrow was a little higher up or whatever. You know, like, dude, I wish my I'm not nose was a little different.

30:46

The cool thing about being a man is, like, older men can be, like, pretty smoking to women. You know, like,

30:53

George Clooney is, like, a fine wine. You know what I mean? Like, people still like them. Brad Pitt still looks smoking. My wife's been trying to convince me that, like, Botox for Women is okay because she'll talk about, like, Botox and No. F that. Just age. You look beautiful. Like, it's cool that we're gonna age together. Then I met a couple people who get Botox and they're like, it's not that big a deal. So maybe by opinion is changing on bow tax, but in general, I would say plastic surgery. I'm like, let it be. Let's age together, and we're gonna look awesome. So I'm generally pretty against that. Me too.

31:21

Totally was in that camp. As I met more people,

31:25

I'm like, it's

31:27

way more prevalent than I realized, because I'm in a

31:30

dude tech bubble.

31:32

So it's way more prevalent than I realized. And secondly,

31:36

There's some things, like, I kinda get the teeth thing. It's like, it's like, there's there's grades to it. Right? It's like, well, you do

31:43

get a haircut. You do, you know, maybe you'll shave your beard. Alright. Might buy nicer clothes. Okay. That's that's the thing. Like,

31:50

you know, what if you just, like, you know, get the get, like, a facial treatment? Maybe that makes your skin looks a little better. Okay.

31:56

Like a kind of like a almost like a slippery slope of of the beauty thing. And, like Yeah. But what did you see there? Like fake asses and fake boobs or stuff on men? Everything, dude. Everything. Saw everything.

32:06

Men with Botox, you know, fake everything.

32:09

Everybody's nose was everybody had the same nose.

32:12

So that was insane.

32:14

The power of veneers. I was like, yes. I just love

32:17

it's a pleasure to make you laugh. Because I like seeing that smile.

32:22

No. Don't fall down this trap. Do not do it, man. Do not do it. Yes. I might show up to one of these podcasts with

32:29

veneers and A nose job. Who knows? We'll see. What about the thing? And and Or, like, I I don't know if I told you this. I have a, like, a deviated septum. I went to E and T person. I was like, yeah, I don't know, like, never been able to breathe through my nose very well. And they're like, yeah. Because you have, like, a super screwed up thing. Like, it's, like, horrible.

32:45

And he's, like, you should get that fixed. I was like, okay. Cool. And I was like, does that change how my look

32:50

looks? Well, yeah. They're like, while we're there. That's the big because I it doesn't have to change how it looks, but, like, we're doing the surgery anyways. Very easy to, like, you know, just shape it. And I was, like, but does that make me lame? And he's, like, that's a personal question. Like, I was,

33:04

like, what do you think it's, like, If I did that, would I have to tell my boys I got a nose job? Like

33:09

What what do you like telling? Is that, like, talk to her? In my case. I was like, I, yeah, I need a three sixty opinion here on this. Like, you can't just hit me with the medical. I need the medical, the personal, the social. Like, I need all the opinions.

33:22

He's gonna diagnose you as being a dick. Yeah. He's he's sad. He's sad. He's sad. He will go up if you if you have ears for, like,

33:31

alright. Maybe last one, but what about the, Rich? Who did you meet with someone who donated a hundreds of millions of dollars to a high school?

33:37

Yeah. So,

33:38

rich people do really stupid things is the name of my my of this topic, which is actually they do misguided things to help their kids. So I met multiple people who had donated somewhere between

33:51

single digit millions to double digit millions. One person said

33:55

a hundred million plus. Well, I I don't believe it because we're I don't even know how to a high school. Would go to a high school.

34:01

I'll give you one give you one fame. Where would even ten million go to? I'll give you one public example, which is that, you know, the Fortita brothers, the guys who owned the UFC before they sold it, the guys who owned casinos in Vegas,

34:12

they,

34:13

their kids like to play football,

34:15

as many kids do.

34:17

But unlike many football parents,

34:19

These guys decided that their high the high school, their alma mater needed a,

34:24

like, a division one

34:26

college level football facility and donated

34:29

tens of millions of dollars. They they haven't said the exact number, but you can kinda triangulate it because They later donated, like, ten or fifteen million bucks to a college, and it's less than what they gave their high school for their football field. Oh my gosh. And it's like, basically, they gave at least twenty million dollars to a high school to build a better football facility so their kids would have a better shot

34:52

at becoming a better football player. And I was like, this is such a misguided way, such a, like, inefficient way to help your kids.

35:00

And I've met many people like this. I know people who are wealthy beyond measure, and I asked them, why why are you still working, like, so many hours? What are you doing? Why are you taking all this risk? Like, okay. They're like, my dad, when I wanted to be an entrepreneur,

35:13

said you're never gonna do it, and he refused to give me any money to start start. So I I struggled so hard at the beginning.

35:20

When my kids turn eighteen, I'm gonna give them each twenty million dollars and say, like, you know, I will support you in building any business you want with that. You know someone who said that. That's their literal plan.

35:31

They're like and they're saying it bragging to again, Crazy brag. How old are their kids? Timmy, their kids are currently their oldest, maybe ten years old.

35:39

And their youngest is four. So

35:42

they have four kids. That's eighty million dollar,

35:44

you know,

35:46

allowance that they're gonna and they're creating trust and trust fund because that they're getting creative with the kids. Start these businesses. And I I told him I was like, well, you know that, like, because you didn't have the resources, you developed all these skills, which is what made you successful in business, like, you weren't if you were handed twenty million dollars, I don't think you would actually be who you are today.

36:06

So I I love that you're trying to help your kids, but I just don't think What you're doing, which is working super hard when they're kids, being so busy, being busy that you're kind of away from them, making all this money that you plan to hand them at eighteen,

36:19

Like,

36:20

this sounds like a recipe for disaster, but, you know, people it's a horrible lot to take great drug addict. I don't think that message was was received very well.

36:28

But, you know, I I just found that people do crazy things in the name of of, like, their kids and money. No. I think that that's crazy. I think that's exactly how you create, like Let me a feature heroin added. I'll tell you a couple other ones I think are good. Talk to an investor friend. So I have a friend who was a VC at one of the big VC firms. He's left. He left and started doing his own thing. But He has a style and a strategy that I think is very different than most people. I find it very fascinating.

36:51

So if I asked you, I said, what's

36:54

what is, like, draw me, like, a picture of the typical

36:58

Silicon Valley VC. Like, can you just describe some things about them, like, you know, what What are they like? What are they doing? You know, like, just the the average VC. Let's say, average VC. A a tall looking white guy who wears,

37:11

a sweater.

37:13

And brown shoes or shoes that have white soles like white bottoms. And they basically meet

37:21

Tons and tons of people of tons of coffee meetings. Yeah. Tons of coffee meetings. Lots of introductions from other people who come from really amazing universities.

37:29

And they'll pass on most of them, but then they'll invest,

37:33

like fifty to a hundred companies,

37:35

smallest check and then never hear from, they they don't really talk to the founder often unless things are going really bad and then they bitch out. Yeah. Exactly. They say they're gonna be value add. They invest in

37:45

dozens,

37:46

maybe forty, fifty companies over their lifespan

37:49

of, like, a couple years.

37:51

They're taking tons of coffee meetings They're super agreeable. They'll only kind of smile and say nice things to your face. Typically,

37:57

they,

37:57

cast a wide net. They're they love going to meet mark networking events. They'll say that, like, we're a founders first. We're founder first. We're founder friendly.

38:06

We invest in world changing ideas. Yeah. All of them all of them only invest in the best. Somehow,

38:12

every single VC only invest in the best.

38:15

They

38:17

They do all those things.

38:19

This is an investor friend that has a Twitter egg profile picture.

38:23

They go to no networking events that are like, VC

38:28

run and and or, like, in a gen generic founder events.

38:32

They do go to random events that are, like, Oh, I'm going to this biohacker meetup in downtown Oakland where people are gonna, like, shoot themselves up with DNA. It's like, okay. I'll go to that. Like, they go to those types of events.

38:44

They have a strategy, which is basically, here's what he told me. He goes.

38:48

Every year, one company becomes, like, kind of the center of the universe.

38:53

And my job is to have invested in that company three years ago.

38:57

And I go, wow. Okay. I like that. So what do you give me examples? He goes, well, like, you know, back when we met, I met this person in twenty twelve or twenty thirteen. They were like, you know, Stripe was actually the center of the universe at that time. Stripe was the company

39:10

that, like, was the clear breakout

39:12

Recently, he's like,

39:14

most recent ones last year would have been open AI. So, open AI before kinda like, early chat GPT or before releasing,

39:22

Chivity three.

39:25

Right now, I go right now. Who is it right now? He goes, Ozempic.

39:28

Ozempic is the center of the US right now. And I was like, oh, interesting. So not just like tech companies. When I last time I talked to this person was maybe three years ago,

39:37

in in earnest.

39:38

And I was like, so what are you up to nowadays? And generic usually, the answer is, like, oh, little bit of this, little bit of that. This person said I quit my job, and

39:46

I am just hunting down a way to own a piece of only fans.

39:50

I go, what?

39:51

The porn thing, and he's like, yeah.

39:54

Only fans, I think it's gonna be massive. I think it's, you know, it's one of these. It's the center of the universe right now, and people are just gonna be the center of the universe. People won't realize it. Think it's gonna be one I think it's gonna be the one of this, like, this year kinda cohort. This is gonna be the company that matters. So my only mission is to add so much value to the owner of only fans that,

40:14

I can invest in it or own a piece of it somehow.

40:16

And if I don't, whatever, at least I was helping that rocket ship go.

40:21

And, you know, previously, it might have been SpaceX or Tesla was like, you know, the those that comp the company.

40:27

And,

40:29

Bitcoin Ethereum. Like, those are, like, some of the other ones that had their their they own that that year. There was no more valuable company that was, like, creating more value that would then in the future be realized.

40:40

And,

40:42

I just thought it was awesome. I thought it was an amazing

40:45

I was I'm just so happy that this person's a friend that, like, thinks so differently

40:49

operates

40:50

so differently

40:51

than the

40:52

the average,

40:54

person that Has he been successful? Has been successful. And he told me it was like,

40:58

I go, so what's the strategy here? He goes, oh, I'm trying to make all the best investments I can so I can make the worst investment of my life and buy this, like, soccer club in Europe that I grew up loving.

41:09

And he's like, I he's like, I'm I'm trying to make the best investments ever. That I can make the one worst investment ever. And, And does he use other people's money? In the past, he did. I think now he's doing a lot of his own or he'll raise SPVs, like, I was like, oh, you invest in this company. Cool. What what what how much do you invest? He goes, a hundred million dollars. I go, a hundred million

41:27

dollars. He's like, Yeah. I I raised a hundred million dollar SPV because I believe in this company. And I'm and then you just it puts your own conviction and ambition and check. You're like,

41:37

what's the company I believe most in? How much have I plowed into that? And why is that number not one hundred million? Right? Like, you can only, like, self check when you hear stuff like this in a good way. It it's a frame breaker. I said, where'd you get the hundred million? He goes, from one l p.

41:52

I convinced one person, and they they were actually already convinced. Actually, that person was kind of already convinced that this was a good company.

41:59

I busted my ass to get the the ability to put a hundred million dollar check-in, and they put the money in. What did he put a hundred million dollars in it? Can you say? I can't say. Has it worked?

42:09

I don't know. It's again, it's you bake these things three, four years ahead, and then we'll find out, like, did that company was that the right

42:15

place to concentrate, like, a laser beam of conviction. So I loved that conversation and meeting that person. So that was one, that I think is great.

42:25

Let me give you one more that I think is

42:29

oh, here's a quick one. Neighborhoods not cities.

42:32

You're, I think, a great person to talk about this because you've been traveling around trying to find cool places to live,

42:38

you don't pick at the city level. You pick at the neighborhood level.

42:42

It's actually what is the best neighborhood to be in, not what is the best city to live in. I just that was just, like, obvious, understands to me once you go to a place, like, LA or, you know, you you've done this in in New York or, Brooklyn or And it's really hard to do that, by the way. Like, the idea that Like, let's say that you're a normal person, your home is likely gonna be the biggest purchase of your entire life, and it will unfortunately be the, for most people, it'll be the largest portion of their net worth. And it's pretty insane that you make that decision a twenty or thirty year decision off one,

43:11

maybe two one hour visits. Right. Like, in, like, for a,

43:17

open house. It's it's it's it's insane. And you did this, I think way back in the day. I think you created

43:22

one of these for San Francisco. I think it was the,

43:26

the

43:27

roommate infographic

43:29

for neighborhoods in San Francisco. It's like, if you live in this neighborhood, here's who your roommate's gonna be like. Which is so brilliant because it's a about neighborhoods.

43:37

And, b,

43:38

it's about people,

43:39

because people is also what makes your experience when you're in a in a city. It's not the it's not the environment you're seeing.

43:46

Basically, in two thousand fourteen, we had this app. And in order to make it popular, we launched in five cities, San Francisco, Boston,

43:52

Manhattan,

43:54

LA, and Chicago, I believe. And what we did was we're like, alright, in order to make things go viral, We have to name as many names of local restaurants and local people that we can think of because those people will share. If we name, like, fifty of them in each one, that's fifty people sharing in that city, that's how we'll get, that's how we'll get popular. And so we created this thing called the stereotypical roommates of Los Angeles, stereotypical roommates of San Francisco. If you Google them, you could find And we just made, like, a infographic that made fun of each neighborhood and all the brands and places that they shopped at. And that way, you could, like, figure out what restaurants were like that neighborhood, but those restaurants and the people in those neighborhoods would share. And here's the thing, at that period, I don't think I'd I had never been to New York. I had never been to Boston. We just looked at Yelp. We just went to Yelp and look at what are the most popular things, and we found the jokes that people were making about it, and then that's how we made the infographic. And it went like crazy. I think we got tens and many, many tens of thousands of downloads for the app in the first day. I saw that before I ever met you. I read that thing when I moved to San Francisco, somebody shared it because it was so funny. And, like, kinda, like, oh, that's funny because it's true. Yeah. Like, so it was actually useful too because it was, like, yeah, it's a little bit stereotyping, generalizing, but was true for the most part. So I thought that was so so good. And I kinda wish somebody did that for every city now. Like, just keep doing that. Whenever I go and look at new neighborhoods, I I try always to go to a bar And I say, what's the stereotype of this neighborhood? And I'll ask the bartender or whatever. I'm like, tell me the stereotypes,

45:14

and they'll be like, oh, a lot of gay people are moving in, and I'm like, alright, up and coming. Got it. That's what that means. Like, gentrifying

45:21

or, like, oh, like, what's the stereotype of this neighborhood? Tons of strollers. So I'm like, alright. Rich, young families. Alright. Got it. What else? You know what I mean? Like, there's all these, like, things. Yeah. There's like code codes. It's like that's a it's like, you know, if if you're in the government, it's like, oh, it's a three eight three three three. That's the government code that means x.

45:38

This is the same thing. It's like, when somebody says critically acclaimed, cool, code four, not profitable. Thank you. Move moving on. Power boring.

45:50

For the everyday man. Got it. Okay. Yeah. I got a couple other quick ones for you. Rattle off, one more. I'll give you a networking hack. So Tim First back in the day that this blog post called how to build a world class network and record time or something like that. I loved that. I I remember reading that and, like, kind of, like, getting inspired by that. So I don't know if you know this, but business partner, Ben, I think is the greatest networker in actually. I have now come to realize this. I had no idea.

46:17

I had no idea what was going on until recently. I've now now learned this.

46:23

He is working the phones, and he is just like

46:27

it's so funny too. What what he does is he just checks in on people, Like, just this morning, he texted my friend from college that I had introduced him to once. This is my one of my best friends from college that were helping buy a business. And he goes.

46:39

Yo.

46:40

I, yo. I remember you said that the close date was supposed to be seven thirty one. Did it end up closing? I was like, bro, how did you even remember to check-in?

46:48

Like, he's the he's the perfect boyfriend, basically. He's just fucking checking in and supporting everybody. Like, barshop, you could probably attest to this. And our and all of our we work together.

46:58

I probably text you I don't know, couple times a year max.

47:04

And it's usually about something that's, like, urgent, sort of, transactional.

47:07

Can

47:08

I'm just guessing that you talked to Ben fairly often.

47:12

Could you just describe this for a second? Because I think there's something to learn here out of this whole Yeah. I could pull up my text. He he probably hits me up, like, two or three times a week. Like, how's the x project going or How's the how's X going? Yeah. He's a beast.

47:27

This data is wrong every freaking time.

47:30

Have you heard of HubSpot?

47:33

HubSpot is a CRM platform where everything is fully integrated. Well, I can see the client's hold history, calls, support tickets, emails, And here's a task from three days ago, I totally missed.

47:45

Hubspot, grow better.

47:47

So I noticed this because I would meet people.

47:50

And then somehow afterwards, they're only keeping in touch with Ben. I'm like, dude, am I just unlikable? I was, like, And I think there's something to it. I definitely give off some some stink that's, like, you know, repels people, but Ben has the opposite effect out people. He draws them in. He's like a golden retriever, and he's always smiling. And he's just harmless and people people like him and he's helpful. He's just supportive and helpful to everybody. And so he's like, he knows here's what he's figured out. He's figured out

48:15

that

48:16

most people just nobody checks in with him. So he's he checks in on how's that that's your mission in life. How's that going? Does he do it on his cell phone or on the computer? On his phone? Then they reply with, like, a long ass update.

48:28

And I'm like, you're basically just saying sup.

48:31

And then the sup is generating this, like, highly interesting response

48:35

And then what he does is he's just, like, connect dots. So he'll be like, oh, you should talk to that guy. Like, oh, you,

48:41

you, you really like this TV show. We just met the writer. You should meet him. And he'll just connect dots. And, like, he's he's just a dot connector and then people are like, oh, that was helpful. Or, like, once he knows you're trying to do x, like, let's say he knows, Sam, you're trying to,

48:54

do some,

48:55

body fat thing.

48:56

He'll then just start start sending you new tweets, just little links.

49:02

And is he and he's also

49:04

what's it called? Like, infotigable?

49:06

Like, you can ignore like, you probably ignored the last four that he sent. Don't matter. No hard feelings. Gonna keep them coming. And I'm like, wow. This is just a recipe. So this kinda led me to this understanding of, okay, Ben is world class at this fantastic.

49:19

But in general, Ben's kinda like my wingman. He's like my number two.

49:24

And everybody's got, like, a number two at some

49:27

at once you get to start level, you get, like, a number two. And, actually, the number two guy network is the most under tapped resource.

49:35

So why were we meeting these NBA players? Because we're friends with the number two of an NBA player. And it's like and guess what? Nobody knows that guy. Everybody wants to get to the NBA player. Nobody even knows this guy's name.

49:46

But he's got all the access. He's got ninety eight percent of the access that the NBA guy has, but he's got two percent of the, like,

49:53

the the the busyness.

49:55

And which we did with, with Supermanman's guy.

49:58

God, I'm blinking on his first name.

50:00

What? What's his name?

50:02

Rob, Rob Moore.

50:04

Yeah, I went out to I hung out with that guy in LA, and he was like, he runs the Hebrew bin show. Hebrew bin's the face, but this guy has got all the keys. He's yeah. We interviewed this person. They have the keys to this person. If you ever wanna talk, let me know. No. The keys to the kingdom. And generally, these people are nicer, less

50:18

busy,

50:20

they're the ones who actually do a lot of the fucking work. So they're actually more interesting people.

50:26

They also are kinda like the keeper. Like, they decide who gets in, who gets out, what opportunities come in, what gets out. And they're hit up way less. They're hit up way less, so they're they're way more available, and they're very helpful. Like, they they know a bunch of the other people. And so I'm like, oh, shit. The number two guide network.

50:39

I don't know what I'm gonna do with this, but I've had the insight now. And I'm like, I I actually get along better with the number two guys, but for all those reasons I just mentioned,

50:48

and

50:50

I just think that this is, like, an under tap resource. And I get why everybody hits up Ben now. Because he's the number two guy. And some people have figured out this arbitrage that you should hit up the number two guy

50:59

because he's, you know, nicer, smarter, better, faster, more accessible, all the things.

51:05

And, so this was just a realization for me on the networking side. One of the one of the few, like,

51:10

big unlocks, I think, that I've had.

51:12

Before we wrap up, did you what was this thing about bucked up? Is that someone you met with in LA? I didn't meet them, but I heard I met somebody who told me their story. And I was blown away. Had you ever heard of bucked up? No. What is it? So bucked up is a hunting thing? Is it not a hunting thing? Okay. Let me tell you. Don't even look it up. Let me just tell you the story. So,

51:34

starts basically in the two in the in early two thousands, there's these two guys, two twin brothers, I think. And they just do affiliate marketing. So they're like affiliate marketing, they're like, hey.

51:44

It's two thousand and one. Google is not that competitive.

51:48

We could basically say, oh, you want leads for your lawyer practice. Cool. What are you gonna pay us? We'll get you leads for that. You want leads for your apartment thing. We'll get you that. You want leads for this,

51:57

the supplement? We'll get you that. So and at that time, those guys killed it. Those guys are killing it.

52:02

By twenty ten so they've been doing they do this for about ten years. They're making money. By twenty ten, they're generating twenty five million a year in revenue with only three employees.

52:10

That means they're basically pulling in, like, twenty million a year of profit, as much. If they're if they're if they're,

52:17

CBC's or low, or the the cost per clicks are low, which bet? Back then, they were. Maybe I'm super aggressive. Yeah. I thought it was be pretty low then. Maybe I'm super aggressive. Let's say it's eight to ten million in profit. I think it's a very Yeah. A ton. Is just amazing. Three people doing this. So this was like, you know, what they were doing.

52:32

My partner my partner Joe, by the way, Joe Spies and my partner in Hampton, He started this. And when he was twenty five, he sold the business. It was called Epic Advertising. He was the affiliate marketer. He sold a portion of the business for two hundred and fifty million dollars. That's amazing. And it was all this affiliate marketing stuff. And so these guys, they're doing the affiliate marketing thing, and a guy comes to them and says,

52:54

there's now, like, a decade later. Right? And then it comes to them and says, hey, I have this supplement called l arginine.

53:01

And and the brand's called l arginine plus.

53:04

And he's like, I don't know what l arginine does, but, like, It's like a vitamin. I think it helps make you sleep, or does it give you energy? I think it, gives you energy. Or does a happy brain function better? Who the hell knows? I don't know. It's one of those. I think you're supposed to drink it with caffeine, and it gives you energy, I think. Yeah. Maybe. Like, right now It's just some generic fucking stuff is the one. But back then, it was Arjanine was the one. And so Yeah. Whatever. The guy goes I say bowls and shit. It's all the it's all a or a Thaiberry or whatever the fuck that thing is. It's all a different thing every time. What's that shit called?

53:34

What's that Brazilian shit called?

53:37

Akei?

53:38

I ain't no akei berries.

53:40

It's, like, whenever I see the word, cunobah. Foods. Alright?

53:44

What's that? Cunobah?

53:46

No. I don't know.

53:54

Yeah. It's, like, what do you call, do you ever use to call, I used to think that, like, like, Quinta in was Laquita?

54:01

You know what I'm talking about?

54:04

There's a queen to Ed.

54:06

I didn't know. It's like it's not. The thing you said you it? How do you say it now? Because I think it's also completely ruined. What's it called? Like, Quinta?

54:15

What's what's it supposed to be called?

54:17

I think it's team time, but I don't know. I'm Laquita.

54:21

So so a guy approaches them and says, hey. I'm making two hundred fifty dollars a day on this at large anything. Will you guys be my affiliate market quickly in three weeks, they ramp it up. It's now making, like, over three thousand dollars a day. Okay. That's pretty good. Three thousand dollars a day. That's like a hundred k a month. They own fifty percent of this thing.

54:37

And they buy l arginine dot com to get an exact match. They're ranking number one. That's doing pretty well. But then he reads this article. So he's interested in this supplement game. He reads this article that Major League Baseball just banned

54:50

deer antler spray.

54:52

Never heard of it. What the hell is Dear Antler spray? Looks it up,

54:55

finds that Dear Antler,

54:57

has some extract that's supposed to help you with recovery.

55:01

Damn, must be if it's so good that the MLB bans it, that means

55:04

the shit must be fire. Like, there must

55:07

be a lot of so he He he takes he he has the right. What does that Chris Barley think? Did you learn the right lesson? He learned the right lesson from that news, which was this shit must be fire and every athlete's gonna want it.

55:20

So he buys deer antlers spray dot com for eight dollars. And he's, he owns the domain.

55:26

He's the number one ranked. And it goes okay at first, not not a huge demand, but he's kind of he's there.

55:31

And then I don't know if you remember this, but one year before the Super Bowl

55:36

Ray Lewis, who's the, kill the guy?

55:38

No. He killed the guy, I think, the year before, but during the playoff run, he gets hurt. Got it. And there's a two week. Yeah. There's like a there's like a extra week rest between, like, the Super Bowl and and the playoffs or whatever. I think the story goes, Ray Lewis is hurt, but he's gotta play in the Super Bowl. And then he plays amazing and they win the Super Bowl, and he's and it comes out that he used deer antler spray to, like, recover

56:00

during that week and to, like, get get rid of the pain and allow them to play well.

56:05

Demand explodes.

56:07

Through the roof, baby,

56:08

And, g n c comes to him and says, hey, we'd like,

56:12

thirty units. And he's like, okay, cool. No problem. He's like, oh, no. No. Sorry. Thirty thousand units. And he's like, oh, what? They're sold out everywhere as soon as they they they they they get all this influx of demand.

56:23

They're they're trying to keep up So for one or two years, they're just keeping up with the new demand and being the number one player in this deer antler spray thing. But as they go, they're like, okay. We we're kinda limited. It's like very niche. What if we expand this to, to something a little bit bigger? So they changed the name from deer antlers spray to bucked up. They kinda stay with the deer. Oh my god. They changed it to bucked up because one of the GNC

56:46

franchisees who they were chilling with goes, yeah, you know what sells really well, but, like, you know, look, it it doesn't look that good is these pre workout supplements.

56:54

So, basically, the powder you take before you workout,

56:57

that Remember, n o explode? Yeah. No explode.

57:00

Dude, that thing was asked it. That would that would you could remove paint with that thing. I used to take that shit and you would lift so much weight, but it would make you feel miserable after. I don't even know what was in it. Yeah. You it felt like your heart was gonna explode. It should've just been called, like, you know, artery explode and, like, you know, one out of ten people die of this thing. It was crazy. But, like, that category of pre workout supplements turns out is a very big category.

57:23

So bucked up today.

57:25

They say is the number one pre workout

57:28

supplement.

57:29

This thing does, guess how much revenue this does? I have no idea ten.

57:33

Two hundred and fifty million a year, apparently.

57:36

Buck up, does?

57:38

Dude, the flavors. So it's called Mother Bucker. That's one of their things. The mother bucker, and it just says,

57:45

like, their slogan should be, like, strong as an ox. Like, this is, like, ridiculous.

57:50

Pum Focus, strength, energy, the mother of all pre workouts,

57:54

mother Bucker.

57:56

That's crazy to me. This is nuts. You know, sometimes when I'm flipping the channels on TV, I'll see, like,

58:03

you know, Hassan Minhage, and he's just, like, you know, this guy who's who's his comedian, he makes the world laugh. He's so good looking. He's, you know, happy. He's having all this success. And I think,

58:13

you know, I was maybe one or two, you know, by turns away from from going down that path. When you see bucked up, do you think this? Cause I feel like you were one or two right turns away from being the creator

58:25

owner and sole proprietor

58:27

of bucked up dot com selling

58:30

Mother Becker, three workout powders to people on the internet.

58:34

Yeah. Maybe. Maybe. I mean, I don't know. It was, like, a ninety thousand square foot factory in Missouri,

58:40

of and just, like, you know, having an impact

58:43

a huge antler tattoo on your back and soul patch protein.

58:48

Dude, listen. The flavors are woke a f. Another one is the banff heist. The the other one is the banff heist stimulation.

58:57

Another one is the LFG

58:59

pre workout. Let's fucking go. Another one is called rut. This is hilarious. These are all, like, really good names of, like, really mean dogs. You know what I mean? Like, I'm gonna have, like, a really, like, a my junkyard dog named Buck. Get them buck. That's, like, what this stuff is. You know, or, like, run. Yeah.

59:16

Well, like,

59:18

this is crazy.

59:19

This is the deer antler.

59:21

Or you This is from that to this. It's it's kind of an an an sane,

59:25

insane story. And,

59:28

yeah, I just And they still kill it? Yeah. They're doing really well right now, apparently. I mean, I have been I'm talking to what I I know this

59:35

from one guy and then what you Google about them, but, like, apparently, just crushing it.

59:40

Oh my god. I have no idea what's in this stuff. I would like I mean,

59:43

this might be a legit performance enhancing drug, because it's still le illegal for the MLB, because maybe I will order it.

59:50

Exactly.

59:52

Like, that's so insane, you know, as you check out.

59:56

Well, people talk about performance enhancing drugs. Like, it's a bad thing, but I'm like, I would love my performance to be enhanced. Right. Do you know what I mean? Like It's the main problem with my performance. That is unenhanced right now.

01:00:08

How do I enhance my performance? I really want it to be enhanced. I prefer it to be enhanced. Been unenhanced. So, like, give me the PED. So I'm, like, in favor of some PEDs.

01:00:18

Not not if it means you break the rule, but,

01:00:22

blocked up, man. I talked about this. Did you see that thing the enhanced games that somebody was creating?

01:00:27

Was that the, Was that just the, different sports, but for steroid users?

01:00:32

It's basically like

01:00:35

it's like You know, I feel like every college bro had this, like,

01:00:39

conversation in their dorm room, which is like, they should just do the Olympics, but with the drugs. Like, you could take anything and see what happens. Like, wanna see somebody run, like, a two second hundred meter dash, and it's like,

01:00:50

these guys created it. It's called the enhanced games. And it's happening.

01:00:54

And I don't know if you've it came out and it almost looked like,

01:00:59

like, satire, like, it wasn't happening. So if you go to it's an enhanced dot com. It's a better version of the Olympics.

01:01:06

Yeah.

01:01:07

Exactly.

01:01:08

That's a great that's a great chat.

01:01:11

We're basically Airbnb, but better.

01:01:14

Performance in from an enhanced.

01:01:18

I can't find Their their website. The website's down right now. The website's down, but enhanced games is a planned international sports event where the athletes will not be subjected to drug testing, it's meant to take place in December of two thousand twenty four. So the guy, Aaron DeSousa, is the same guy that Peter Till funded.

01:01:34

To take down Gocker, by the way.

01:01:37

Okay.

01:01:38

Sign me up. Prolific.

01:01:41

You know, best LinkedIn ever. He Here here's how he does it. He says athletes are adults. They have the right to do with their body as they wish my body, my choice, your body, your choice. And no government

01:01:52

should be making these decisions for athletes, particularly

01:01:55

those around the FDA.

01:01:58

Yeah. So here's what he said. He goes, here's the game plan. He goes,

01:02:01

every athlete who participates is gonna be a a part owner in the thing because you're you're generating, you know, part of the opportunity. I assume that if you were an Olympian, you won a gold medal, your life is made, It's not the case. It's sad to see. People who've achieved the highest level of human excellence are living living an objectively impoverished existence afterwards.

01:02:20

But, you know, the bureaucrats who own these things make millions.

01:02:24

We took the Olympics has thirteen thousand athletes. We're reducing that to maybe a thousand

01:02:29

with no special infrastructure. So instead of costing a hundred billion to deliver this, it'll cost us, you know, just double digit millions.

01:02:35

And,

01:02:37

Yeah. They have, like, a bunch of things. You know, here's kinda, like, their their belief system. So it says, the enhanced games will be a competitor to the corrupt and dysfunctional Olympic games. The first international it'll be the first international sports event without drug testing. Olympics are about the past. It's about grief Greek gods from history. The enhanced games are about the future. We're building superheroes.

01:02:57

And,

01:02:59

it talks about how the IOC is corrupt, like the the committee that runs the Olympics.

01:03:03

And,

01:03:04

that, you know, anti aging gets stymied because of all the anti science, like, you know, authorities trying to, like, take drugs out of out of, performance. We're trying to do the opposite. It's my body, my choice.

01:03:17

He says,

01:03:19

Thinking think back fifty years ago. Being a gay man was, like, being an enhanced man today. It stigmatized, marginalized, and illegal in some senses.

01:03:26

Alright. I don't know about that.

01:03:29

Yeah. And then I don't know if it's actually gonna happen or not. This is seemed seem well, their website doesn't work. So, like,

01:03:36

we'll see. They for their GoDaddy renewal for the domain. But,

01:03:41

no, I think I'm I'm I think I'm cool with that. My my a big I mean, besides Lance Armstrong kinda used to be my hero, and then he, like, got in trouble for lying. And I kinda, like, got upset about that. But besides that whole lying thing, I was, like, they're all doing it, and he's doing it as well, and he's still one. So, like, it's kinda fair. Right. So I and so I do get that. I I I'm I'm kind of on board with that. And I think a lot of the PEDs are pretty amazing. Like, you know what, EPO is? It makes you, get more red red blood cells in your policy, you can care about endurance, basically. Yeah. Yeah. Better endurance. And I hear about that stuff. And I'm, like, that sounds great. Give me more of that. I want that.

01:04:17

You know what I mean? Like, there and there's some, anti box steroids that, you know, you'll die young. There was this,

01:04:23

which I don't like, but there was this one. Have you seen the guy on Instagram? He was only but his I think his name was Joe. I forget what his, like, handle was. It was, like, Joe, like, all ripped or something. And he was the guy who you would see flexing, and he was so lean and big that you would see it looked like he had little spiders in his chest because all the little muscles were, like, flexing. I think it was called his name was, like, Joe Flex. Have you seen that guy? No.

01:04:45

Well, he died, like, last week. He died, like, oh, that was that guy? Okay. Yeah. Yeah. I've I've seen He died last week because, I he definitely was on the juice, and he was just it's really hard to be that lean for that long, so you have to be on a ton of stuff. And he died. And so, like, I'm not in favor of that type of stuff. But, some of the other performance enhancing drugs, like, I actually think that you could you could use be a healthier, longer living human being if you took some of that stuff.

01:05:10

Or like blood doping. So, like, in the sixties, this runner in Finland named Lasay Verin,

01:05:15

he would like go up in the mountains and know him and see him when he was training. And what they alleged that he did with blood doping, you could just take out some of your blood and you could put it in a refrigerator,

01:05:24

and that gives that oxidizes it. It gives it it'll or, it gives you more red blood cells ultimately, and you just inject it back in your body. That's considered illegal. That's crazy to me. It's not illegal. It's it's against it's against rules,

01:05:35

for for the Olympics. But that's insane that blood doping like that is illegal. It's, like, dude. It's just your blood. You're just freezing it and putting it back into you. Things like that. You can't do, but I've thought about that.

01:05:45

I think it'd be amazing. A guy in Netflix who did it where he was an amateur cyclist, and he was like, I'm gonna blood dope, and I'm gonna document this. And this was,

01:05:53

the whole documentary. And it was awesome. He crushed it. He killed it. He, like, improved so much. And I thought that's pretty cool. I think this actually would be a good, YouTube or podcast,

01:06:03

channel. Have you ever gone on YouTube down a rabbit hole of

01:06:07

college ethics classes. Have you ever seen this? No. No. Sounds boring as hell, but it it's actually

01:06:13

Kind of interesting. It's not very interesting because it's not made for YouTube. But basically, if you go, like, you could basically sit in on a Stanford or Harvard ethics class will they pose some question? Like,

01:06:25

should you be allowed to, like, our pro our performance enhancing drugs, should they be allowed in the Olympics or whatever? Like, some philosophical question, like, the version of the trolley thing where it's like, if you could save five lives and pull the trolley and kill one, would you do it? Right? Like, that those kinda, like, moral and ethical, like, thought experiment questions.

01:06:42

And you see people just stand up in a college lecture hall and they're like,

01:06:46

I say no because blah blah blah. And then somebody says, it says,

01:06:50

I disagree. I would say yes, because I think that what about blah blah blah blah. And you just see the debate. I think debate is actually, like, pretty,

01:06:58

interesting. I think if somebody did that well, you could do a kind of, like, NPR style or gimlet style, like,

01:07:04

intelligent, but entertaining

01:07:06

podcast series for YouTube channel that, like, just gets, like, find these things. Like, the the equivalent of, like,

01:07:13

somebody, I I was at one of these dinners in LA, somebody goes,

01:07:17

I had jury duty.

01:07:19

And

01:07:20

the case that I had jury duty for was actually kinda interesting.

01:07:23

This guy,

01:07:26

this guy goes online, and he's in this online forum or community for, like, kinda, like, kinky meetups.

01:07:31

Okay. Nothing illegal about that. And,

01:07:35

there's a woman there who says,

01:07:38

hey, me and my husband really wanna do a thing.

01:07:41

It's, you know,

01:07:43

here's our thing. It's kinda weird, but, like, we want somebody to come over and we wanna role play, like, a kind of like a rape scenario.

01:07:49

And,

01:07:51

she's like, so, you know, I'm looking for somebody who wants to do that. This guy's like, that's fun. I I could do that. And she's like, cool.

01:07:59

So here's what's gonna happen. You're gonna come over to this place. I'm gonna act surprised. I'm gonna say no. That's part of the bit. We're gonna do it anyways.

01:08:08

And, you know, we're all good.

01:08:11

Was it, like, a setup? Was it, like, a different woman?

01:08:14

No. The guy

01:08:15

Oh, it's been, like, is it playing it? There's bad So the husband was on this form as acting as if he was the woman, saying there's -- That's what I mean. -- in on it. She wasn't. His wife was telling him. Oh, no.

01:08:26

Now this guy's so the jury duty was, should this guy be good at jail for rape?

01:08:32

On a horrible scenario for everyone involved. It's lose lose lose. Right? Like, just a terrible friend.

01:08:39

But it was kind of like an interesting question. It's like, well, like, on one hand. What a conniving husband. Yeah. He looks like, okay. Definitely the husband should be in trouble. Like, that's kind of a separate scenario, but this guy, like, should he go to jail for, like, twenty years because of the scenario or not. Like and the the vote was basically, like, should this go to, like, is, like, an indictment it's like, should he go to should this go to trial or no, should this not be not go trial or whatever?

01:09:02

And we had this just, like, fascinating dinner conversation about it just hearing everybody's kind of hearing, like, a little bit of a a healthy kind of debate or just like a perspective on it. Similarly, there was another one that was, like,

01:09:14

You know,

01:09:15

this couple,

01:09:17

looks like they're holding,

01:09:19

drugs, like crack or whatever, Cops starts chasing after him. They throw something away in the trash.

01:09:26

Cop, you know, a cop grabs them. They don't have it on him. He's like, I saw you dump it in the trash. They he opens up trash, sees it there.

01:09:33

But who's to say they didn't throw something else away?

01:09:37

Right. Should they go to jail for this, like, this offense?

01:09:40

And it's like, well,

01:09:42

on what if you're the jury, like, you kinda do think, like, they they probably did it. But you don't have, like,

01:09:50

uncontroversial

01:09:51

or whatever, like, evidence that, like, leaves no shadow of a doubt that they that they did it. And it's like kind of a nonviolent offense. Do we really wanna punish them? You're you start bringing your own subjective opinion into this versus what you're supposed to do as a jury member? Anyways, I just the conversation was so interesting that I thought I think this could make for an interesting pod or YouTube channel. What do you think? You have a good sense for content. Do you think? What would you do? I think I think they would be great. I think I would I think you could do a YouTube channel, a ten minute ten minute videos where you could dissect some of these interesting things and just have one take a take a side of the debate and then people live vote.

01:10:23

I I think wasn't there an app that was trying to do this where it was, like, live debates and you vote on who's the winner. Maybe. Do not remember that? Yeah. Heaven two thousand fourteen. Yeah. I think you could kill it. It's it's where it's, you know, almost like remember, you know, drunk rap battles where it's like Napoleon versus like Caesar?

01:10:40

Yeah. Yeah. You do this.

01:10:42

In that situation. I think, like, it's a it's an incredibly,

01:10:45

interesting topic. I mean, clearly, if you've gotten gotten into it, yeah, I think it could work.

01:10:49

Cool. Alright. That's all I got from my trip to LA. Hope that I actually had a bunch more, but, I think that's that's enough. Also, Airwan, you've been to this place?

01:10:58

Yeah. I went there before, and I wanted to buy the most expensive bottle of water they had to see what it was about. And it was, like, twenty or thirty bucks.

01:11:07

This fun fun fun experience.

01:11:09

How's the water? It,

01:11:11

it's fine. The the the it was normal. I also bought, like, the most expensive. I I wanted to, I was, like, whatever, like, the most expensive chocolate is in water. I'm getting it. I think they have, like, asparagus there, like asparagus water. That's really expensive.

01:11:23

TikTok channel,

01:11:25

the, you know, Airwan experiments or the Airwan taste tests. You just go to You see any famous people there though? What's that? Why you go. But did you see any famous people? That's why you go.

01:11:35

No. I was just looking at the snacks. Is that what I was supposed to be doing? Oh, god. This is like

01:11:39

second college when I used to go to the bar and, you know, I'm there to listen to the music, and I said, I didn't meet anybody. I

01:11:47

missed the point.

01:11:48

Yeah. You're, like, doing a Long Island IC tasting.

01:11:51

Doctor. I

01:11:52

forgot.

01:11:54

Yeah.

01:11:55

Yeah. You're supposed to go and see famous people. No. It's a fun experience. Always kills it. The I they're expanding, I think. Aren't they? They have multiple they used to be one just in Santa Monica, I think. Thirteen or something like that. For those who don't know, AirOne is basically, like,

01:12:08

The bougie It makes whole foods. It makes whole foods look like the dollar store.

01:12:13

Yeah. You're like you look down at whole foods people as peasants.

01:12:17

Yeah.

01:12:18

Erdogan is to whole foods as aioli is to mayonnaise.

01:12:21

It's

01:12:23

it's the, like, just

01:12:24

jazzed version, the cool part about it is it has a lot of products that are, like, almost like it's like a d to d to c pop up shop. It's, like, here's a bunch of products that are not the normal things that are on the shelves. You could try them, and they're all three times more expensive than they should be already five times more. And,

01:12:39

I think a layup content thing would be go to Airwan by all the chocolates or by all the chocolates versus the airwan versus Walmart. And you do blind taste tests and you, like, try to rank them and you just give your recommendation. You spend the money on the stuff, and you just do, like, air one shopping. You just you become the air one guy. Like,

01:12:59

Dude, if I was broke again,

01:13:01

I'd be back. I'd be back so fast because I just know what these little contact niches are. Right? You just see it and you know it. Like, another one is pranks. I hate the pranks.

01:13:12

Dude, have you seen this guy who does the I think it was Jody or something like that? Like,

01:13:18

what is this guy's channel? The guy who went to sleep at an NBA at W MBA game, did you see this? No.

01:13:25

No. But I hate the pranks where it's, like, people, like, prank, pick a fight with you, and then the person responds and actually beats them up, and then the recipient is, like, it was just a prank, bro. So this guy

01:13:34

Jideon, Jideon, I don't know how you say it exactly.

01:13:36

Love his video. So he goes he went to the w NBA All star game. He bought four courtside seats, dropped like, you know, like, whatever, twenty five k on these seats.

01:13:46

And then he came with a blanket, and I guess it looks like, like, an eye mask. Like, he's, like, he's just, like, an asshole.

01:13:52

And he's, like, the funny thing is they asked him about it, that he was, like, do I have the idea? Because I knew this would, like,

01:13:58

go viral, just fall asleep. Because he's done it before, like, he goes to a a basketball game court side, and he brought his barber, and they put, like, the the bib on him and he gets a haircut during the game, but, like, if you're just watching team, you're like, is that guy getting a haircut? Like, this is, like, very obvious. And so he had this idea. He said, I wasn't gonna do that. I thought it might be too mean told my friend about it. I was like, yo, maybe you wanna do it. Like, I was like, he's like, that guy got so excited because he knew this would go so viral. I was like, nah, fuck it. I'm gonna do it myself. He's like, so I did it. He's like, but then it turned into, like, a political thing, which is not how I intended it. Like He got banned from all NBA events.

01:14:32

For for doing this. But this guy's just so good at trolling the world, and it's like, that's just like a

01:14:39

It's a, it's a niche that will never get old. Like, you can What an asshole though?

01:14:45

It's just, like, infinite

01:14:47

demand for,

01:14:50

He also caught one of the NBA balls and tried to shoot it from his seat, like, because he was court side. He's so he's so he's so funny. This guy.

01:15:01

Alright. I think we should wrap up there.