They they sold it for nine hundred million dollars in cash. They don't really mention much about the company other than it was doing over a hundred million in revenue. What they what they don't mention is the guy who started it, he bootstrapped it, raised no outside money and owned one hundred percent of it. All the way through the sale? All the way through the sale owned one hundred percent of it. Million dollars isn't cool. Do you know what's cool?

A billion dollar.

So let me tell you this quick story. This was not a big headline. I bet you didn't even see it.

So my friend, I was in college at the time. He's a little bit he's older than me. So he was not in college. He was probably in his thirties when I was twenty one.

He started this company called Linode.

Did you see yesterday a company called Linode was acquired for nine hundred million dollars in cash?

Yeah. Who bought it? It was,

At is it called Akamai?

Akamai. Yeah. Akamai.

And so they bought it for nine the our the everything I'm gonna say is is is relatively public. Or it's you could piece it together in a bunch of different articles. But basically, they they sold it for nine hundred million dollars in cash They don't really mention much about the company other than it was doing over a hundred million in revenue. What they what they don't mention is the guy who started it He bootstrapped it, raised no outside money, and owned one hundred percent of it. So his name was Chris, He, I knew him when I was in college. We're not back all the way through the sale. All the way through the sale owned one hundred percent of it.

The company, alright, let me give you a little bit background. I think when they sold, they had, like, three hundred ish employees, but throughout their existence, they had a relatively small staff like, like, they're doing, like, multiple millions of dollars in revenue per employee. And it was it wasn't run, like, a family business, but almost kinda, like, a family business based out of New Jersey So, basically, this guy Yeah. What does it do? What is Lenode?

So I'm not in this space. So, excuse me, but basically, it's it's basically, like, the generic term is this it's cloud computing.

So, basically, before Amazon Web Services was around Lenode was there, and I think some of their customers are like Walmart. So they host they help host, you know, applications and websites is the is the non techie version,

that I'm that that I would say. But what what are you looking at the website? What's it say? Looking at the website. It basically says, you know, clutch your cloud bill and your cloud bill in half.

It's basically like deploy Linux servers in the cloud is idea. I think we use this, by the way, at my previous startup. I remember seeing a bill for Lenode. Probably. They're they're pretty popular, but they because they were bootstrapped, they couldn't quite keep up with, like, once it was the other competitor, I think Digital Ocean, which is like a publicly traded now for multi billions. But basically, in the early two thousands, like two thousand five or two thousand six, Chris worked at this company called,

health stream, which was,

well, it's not important. It was just a boring company. And they he worked in, like, with with computers with tech and he he grew up with an Apple and loved tinkering with computers, but he what he noticed was that hosting was really expensive. So he basically locked himself in his apartment.

From, like, two thousand two to two thousand three and, like, had a year's worth of savings and, like, locked himself in this apartment to code and build this website And he's like, if it works, it works, if it doesn't, it doesn't. So he launches it. And right away, it does good enough to pay his salary. Like, single digit hundreds of thousands of dollars by year two because this was in early two thousands. I'm I don't even think Amazon Web Services was around at this point. And if it was, it was like, brand new. And in fact, this whole idea of cloud computing was brand new at health stream. Chris was like, look, we better, like, spend all this money to buy servers if we just, like, bought a bunch of servers and rented it out to people, and that was, like, the idea because it's it's really hard for a small business who doesn't wanna create a bunch of servers in their office to, like, actually host a website, host application, things like that. So that's where the idea came from. And so McBru, like, a little bit year over year. It wasn't growing like crazy for a long time.

But it was doing okay. Chris kinda was always obsessed with automation. So we did a really good job automating a lot of the parts of the company,

and so they can hire relatively small staff, you know, like only like ten or fifteen people for the first handful of years, even when it was getting close to making over ten million dollars a year, still really small. And basically the way it worked was I don't think he ever took out a loan I don't it was one hundred percent self financing, and so it would make a lot of money. Like, these businesses can make, on ten million dollars in revenue, can make four million in profit, But in order to get to, like, thirty million in revenue, you've gotta go open up a warehouse or rent a warehouse and buy a bunch of servers. And there was times where, like, my friends who worked there along with Chris were literally, like, tinkering and assembling the servers.

And they did this for years and years and years, and it and it grow it grew nice and they did a really good job of, like, automating their customer service. Even for a long time, Chris was answering the customer service, it grew really quietly.

He's not on Twitter. I don't if you Google him, you might find two pictures. There's basically nothing out there about him.

He's based out of Philly and he bought a bank like, like, a physically a bank that was the whole it was a bank turned house. It was the house from the real world Philly. He bought it, and they did an article about him, how he was restoring this bank, and Lenaud, it was Lenaud's new office. But he was taking a little bit of money off the table enough to buy a ten million dollar bank.

But own the whole thing. And just yesterday, it was announced that it was sold for nine hundred million dollars in cash.

Alright. And then I forgot to tell you this, but this is the most important thing. I can't believe we didn't talk about this earlier, to be honest with you. Because if you're listening to this and you like what you're hearing right now, and you haven't gone and subscribed to the my first million podcasts wherever you can get your podcasts,

then that's the thing you've gotta do. There's no more important than doing that right now. And don't do it because I said to do it. Do it because you wanna do it. Do it because that's who you are.

How do you know this guy? You said you knew him in college? He was at your college, or you just met him while you were in college? So

when I was in college,

I used to work for that show. I told you American Pickers. And a guy came in, and he was like, I start internet companies. And I was like, oh, really? I like entrepreneurship. That's cool. Will you, like, just let me hang out with you, and he let me hang out with them. And this guy, his name was Casey, he became the the he was in my wedding. I became friends with them for years and years. He was probably thirty five when I twenty one or probably ten years older than me. And

Casey helped Chris get Lenoed off the ground and was the COO for a decade or so.

Gotcha.

Wow. Okay. And Chris, now at this point, he's got this, like, huge collection of BMW motorcycles. So for motorcycle fans,

There's, like, motorcycle fans is, like, a subcategory of, like, car enthusiasts,

and BMW Vintage motorcycle fans is a subcategory of that. And Chris owns, I think, one vintage BMW motorcycle from every single year ever produced.

And so we are all motorcycle nerds, and we would geek out over that stuff, and we would ride motorcycles together.

Dude, I need a white guy, rich guy hobby. This is what's holding me back. I realize I need to start fucking buying

motorcycles from, you know, the nineteen, anything, like, thirty years ago. And then I need to care about it, and I need to learn how to store it and, like, polish it or whatever. I need to become Tim Allen from home improvement and have this, like, thing in my garage. I'm always working on so I could just When I meet these guys, I gotta have something to say. You got that. You have that something to say.

I'm like, what am I gonna say? Like, you know, hey, So, bro, you like the NBA? And it's, like, yeah, me and hundred million other people, there's nothing to get excited about. So Rolex's are rare watches is one of those. If you you had to spend thirty thousand dollars of a super watch. Care about these things, dude. Why do I I can't care about it. I see it. I just feel nothing. I'm dead inside. Yeah. It sucks, man. You gotta get passionate about something outside of your house.

Yeah. Like, you fucking dork? Like, I'd I literally don't leave a house dude by, the the chef was like, hey, we need more gas for the grill. And I was like, oh, I was like, oh, Grylls need gas. And I was like, never never grilled. And so I was like, okay. Where do I get that? And she's like, you know, just, like, next time I'm at a gas station, I was like, I don't really go

to run errands. She's like, next time we gotta run an errand, just grab one. I don't really go run errands.

And so, like, she's, like, been asking for two months. Just I finally got it. And I was, like, so proud of myself. And she's, like, So did you forget every time? I was like, no. No. No. I just don't really go out of my house unless it's, like, for very specific things. Like, I'm taking my daughter to the playground.

I've gone, you know, to a restaurant and back home. You need a little bit of a sister's house. Last night, I went to Home Depot just to walk around and look. Like,

Like, in the evening, I was like, I've been at home all day. I'm gonna go walk around Home Depot and see if, like, let's, like, let's check out, like, some people.

Workers do you know by first name?

No. Or let's see through. They they what you could do if you go to Home Depot, if you see a guy wearing carhartt and paint on their pants, don't even have to ask a worker. You could just ask that guy who's there shopping. Actually, I hope people buy. He'll take an hour to help you. Yeah. It's like, hey, do you know where the wood screws are? Yeah. I got you broke. Like, I wouldn't even know what to ask. I would just be like, hey. Do you know what home where home improvement?

Yeah, man. You need to get a hobby. Like, I bet I bet Ben has one. Ben, do you have Ben has one because he's like a history buff Another

white which rich white guy hobby to have is, like, you know, studying, you know, great men through history. Ben, do you have any other you know, very,

rapport building,

rapport building things? I don't know that I do, but I don't know if you guys but Mark Andrewsen has been going nuts of, like, reading history books and then tweeting about history. So, like, I I feel like that's

that crowd. Yeah. Yeah. Like, if I was with Morgan Dresen and I could not talk about tech,

we would be on a silent retreat.

It would be a silent meditation.

Ben, by the way, you gotta keep your camera on because when I see you laugh, I know we're on to something.

Anyway. Yeah. You need to get a hobby. Rolex is is a good one. A lot of people like that. If I see someone with a certain Rolex, I I talk to them about it.

Cars is good, but I have a feeling you don't even know how to drive. So I would stay away from that. I learned how to drive at age nineteen. So because I just wasn't interested.

Yeah. How your wife ever Music do shocks me. Don't listen to music. I only listen to sports radio my whole life. So if somebody's like, what songs do you like? I'm just like, oh, you know, I'm cool with whatever. And they're like, oh, you're a fucking weirdo.

Oh, my god. That's great. Yeah. You need to get a hobby, dude. But, this is the story of Lenode. Kind of a cool story. Right? You never really talked about it. Just no. That's that's awesome.