00:00
It's useful for crypto users to to use a VPN.
00:04
And so that was one of my ideas, but we sold before we got around to doing that. Would have been cool if you would have done that. That would have been a that's a pretty cool move.
00:13
Too bad.
00:25
Alright. What's up, We got John Cougan here.
00:29
John, somebody who I only know through a lunch at a, Mexican restaurant in LA. And best way to meet anybody who's gonna be a podcast guest. So,
00:38
you you got a crazy background. Get people to run down if they don't know who who you are. So you've, entrepreneur your whole life. Never had a job.
00:46
Started two companies that were both really interesting. Soylent, which was basically making a
00:51
a meal replacement drink is the easiest way to explain it. Tastes like the milk of honey that cheerios, which I always appreciated.
00:59
And then, Lucy gum, which is like a nicotine gum, both of them went through YC. Together, they've raised over a hundred thirty million dollars. A bunch of good lessons there.
01:08
You're also an EIR founders fund, which is one of the more interesting places to to kind of hang out or be a part of. And, like us, You've made the mistake of leaving entrepreneurship to just be a YouTuber. And this is great. So you know how to make content too, which is which is amazing. You make really awesome
01:24
videos.
01:25
Sam was sending me one this morning. Sam, you like his stuff. I love it. Yeah. I like your stuff, John. I, by the way, Sean, I'm an investor of Lucy, so I gotta get that out of the way. And probably a user too, at one point for sure. But, I mean, I think you did invest, like, four years ago. You know, the fact that I haven't been on yet. I think I earned my stripes by posting on YouTube playing in the content world, you know. What is your guy? I don't even know can you say what the valuation is? I think I invested twenty five thousand dollars at a ten million dollar valuation. And ten. Yeah. You were probably in, like, this seat around, and now the companies were, like, sixty, seventy Alright. I've on paper, I've made a little bit of money. Yeah. Not bad. We had I think we could tell this story. We had one of the other co founders of Lucy come on the pod once.
02:07
And this guy, we had met a matter at some, like, event. I thought maybe a hustle event, some some nighttime event.
02:14
And this guy was holding court. That was Dave. Dave. Yeah. He was telling stories.
02:18
There's five people around him. He's got ideas
02:21
Yeah. He's like, oh, there needs to be something called Pleasure Island. And it's a place where you could just go sin. And I was like, wow. Who is this guy? What is he talking about? And he's telling stories. He's amazing. Everybody's just, in captured by this guy. I'm like, we gotta have this guy in the pod. He comes on the pod. Tells none of the stories, and none of the ideas is like, nah, I don't wanna test all those on the pond. And we were like, dude. And so I don't even think we ever ran the episode because he refused tell the good stuff. So, John, will you make the same mistake as your pal? Absolutely not. I mean, I I I do think a lot of founders have a ton just a ton of scar tissue built up from, like, the last ten years of, like, the media just going after tech founders and, like, tech bros, programmers. Like, it was really aggressive for a while there. Like, anything you said would be, like, taking out of context, putting some clickbait. But now that Elon bought Twitter and kind of just, like, caused enough chaos, like, you can just say whatever you want. And there's, like, no I I I've been telling every every founder I know, like, cancel culture is over. Like, don't worry about things. Just say whatever you believe. So we're gonna do some of your philosophies, some of the the philosophies, like cancer culture is over. But first, let's run through the background here because both of these startups normally we try not to spend too much time on the guest with the background, but yours, both are so interesting.
03:30
Can you just tell us, you know, give us the origin story for soylent because when this came out, it was a very different idea than anything anybody doing Silicon Valley. Nobody would at that time, this was maybe twenty twelve. I had just moved to San Francisco.
03:44
Yep. And
03:46
you had kinda like Uber and Airbnb, but very few people were in the in the San Francisco venture community were doing, like,
03:53
like a like a drink or like a product that you could eat, you could drink,
03:57
that wasn't software based. And
04:00
but still was innovative. And so it was, like, kind of in in this mix, And I remember, Andreessen Horowitz got behind it and some others. And so it was a very interesting thing. And I think it started out of, like, a hacker house. Right? Like, you guys had a crazy house. Is that right?
04:13
Yeah.
04:14
I mean, bunch of funny stories from that. This was the, yeah, Warby Parker was, like, the first e commerce company to kind of think about it from like a tech first angle.
04:23
We were a couple years after them,
04:26
right around the same era as like Dollar Shave Club, if you remember that company.
04:30
Yeah, we met in a hacker house.
04:33
My my co founder and I, we went to preschool, middle school, high school together, went to college in the same city. And so we move out to Silicon Valley. We're looking for a place. We find something on,
04:44
like, Craigslist. It's like an Airbnb listing, and they're like, This place is incredible.
04:49
It's got a pool. It's got five bedrooms. It's exactly like the social network. You're gonna love it. We show up. The pool is filled with algae.
04:58
The bathrooms don't work. It's just absolute squalor.
05:01
So we grind for, like, six months there. Eventually, we moved to the tenderloin, which is an even nicer community.
05:08
And
05:09
and, we're living in technically a one bedroom with three guys. So I was living in the living room,
05:15
another guy,
05:16
Rob, the guy who actually came up with the idea for Switzerland. He was living in what was technically a closet because it didn't have a a window.
05:22
And we were just we were just hacking. We were just not a lot of dating going on. Yeah. Not a lot of dating.
05:28
Not a lot of anything. Just wake up, program, go to sleep. Wake up, program, go to sleep. And we just had sticky notes on the wall being like, okay. After this idea fails, we'll build this next idea. All all the worst ideas you've ever heard on here where people come on and they give you their bad ideas. Like,
05:44
Like, we were building them all, and they were all failing. Give us a couple. What were they? Like, take a picture, and it puts it through a filter, and it puts it on shirt and then, like, mails you the shirt. Like, it just like weird stuff like that. There were some ideas that were good. They were just like way before their time. Like, do you know Google stadia. It allows you to play video games and the cloud streams it to you. Like, we basically built that, but it was just like five years too early. And also, we didn't have a trillion dollars of data centers for free, like, Google does. So it, like and even Stadia, I think failed. So, like, even Google couldn't pull it off. And so, of course, we weren't gonna be able to get it just a lot of those ideas where it was like too early, wrong team,
06:23
bad execution, or just terrible go to market. Like, there were some things that we built that were pretty good, but it just didn't work. And and living with Rob living with Rob would be odd because I know Rob. He's he's so he's so unique and eccentric and weird and in such an interesting way. Yeah. So he'd been writing on his blog and posting on hacker news, and he wrote a bunch of basically viral click bait targeted at programmer. So
06:46
He speaking of dating, he wrote a,
06:49
a blog post saying how
06:51
he hacked Tinder and
06:53
And he was saying this was before, like, bots and stuff. So he basically claimed he didn't really do this. It was more just, like, for satire and for fun, but He said he wrote a script that would automatically swipe right on everything. And then and then generative AI talked to this was, like, ten years ago too, but, like, talk to talk
07:09
the person, and then it would use the Uber API to call them a car, and then it would order DoorDash and deliver the food. And so, like, the the the punch line at the end of the at the end of the story basically, like, he wasn't involved at all. Like, because it was, like, you know, you can you can imagine where that gets. But, basically,
07:24
he had he built a little bit of a following on hacker news, and so when the the question was, like, we like building these software companies. We like coding and building stuff launching businesses, but we are going to run out of money and we're gonna have to get jobs. So we need to look at our expenses and understand where are we burning money. We paid a rent a year in advance. I think we were paying
07:44
fifteen hundred dollars for three dudes to live in the heart of San Francisco, like crazy, low money. We owned our laptops paid our internet bill. Like, there was really no cost other than food. And so figuring out how to get food as cheap as possible was like a very logical
07:59
you know, conclusion from that. So Rob starts whipping up the powders, figures out this meal replacement. He's like, instead of buying a cheeseburger over here or some groceries over there, Let me buy,
08:10
two hundred pound sack of protein powder. Do do you remember that first conversation when he's like, guys, I got it. We'll just get a bunch of powders, and then that'll be the food. Like, what is that? Yes. Is that literally how There were two there there were yeah. There were two phases. The first phase was he told me, like, Oh, I'm I'm I'm doing this diet experiment. I think it's gonna make me healthier. I'm gonna, you know, monitor all my macros and micros and start working out and get in shape. I was just like, who cares what we look like? Like, all the only thing that matters is, like, our code and, like, our business idea is, like, we don't, we don't, which is very stupid because obviously, you do need to be healthy to, like, be productive.
08:43
So that was a stupid take by me. But I kinda wrote it off, and then he kept doing it for a few weeks. And then we were at a, like, a dinner with a friend, she'd made, like, homemade sushi. And it I mean, that's, like, a treat when you broke. And he was, like, no, I'm not gonna eat. I'm on this soylent thing. And I was, like, This is crazy. It's so I mean, it's sort of like the Brian Johnson before Brian Johnson, you know. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's the stress test. So, basically,
09:08
he told me that I was like, do you have a name for this? And he was like, I'm calling it soylent, and I knew the reference. And I was like, this is genius when you sell this today. Like, this is the, like, like, this is going to be the market entry strategy. Is gonna be so viral. But, yeah, I mean, he basically did a stress test. He lived on it for thirty days. And then people would just be like, yeah, I I think this ingredient's stupid. Or I think this is bad. But, like, hey, if you survived thirty days only on this, like, I can probably take a sip and see how it tastes. And so it created this curiosity. When we launched my content company, the hustle, one of the first early viral video,
09:37
viral,
09:38
articles was I paid a guy two gs to live on it for thirty days while he was running seventy miles a week as like a amateur runner. Yeah. May he rest in peace?
09:53
It was, like, he dropped dead on day fifteen. And now and that's what made the story go viral. Yeah. The the the storyline thing, that was the gift that kept on giving particularly. I mean, for me as well, you know, like, I I I got traffic from it too. Yeah. And and it was it was like a left right issue. Everybody hated it.
10:08
And then you post it. And then this was back in the day when, like, the Facebook algorithm was, like, entirely comment driven. So people would correct us, and they'd be like, oh, you made a mistake. You name you accidentally named your company after a movie with Charleston Heston in it. That's a sci fi movie. And it's like, no. Obviously, we did that on purpose.
10:25
What are you talking about? But that the fact that there would be that comment, and then another person would come in and be like, oh, well, there there's actually this book, then somebody would be like, oh, you need to fire your marketing people like, oh, I actually got the reference. And then they'd be talking every single time we posted anything in addition to all the comments about, is this good? Is this bad? What what does it mean for society? So just massive viral fuel. Any any article went viral. And so we were able to kind of trade up the chain and go from vice news to, you know, the hustle to
10:53
BBC to
10:54
the New York Times, New Yorker, and then eventually Rob was on the Colbert report with sitting next to Stephen Colbert. Crazy. Well, it it's definitely
11:02
shows the power of a viral product, but also it was my first time learning about signal. So, like, I had never bought a fancy watch or a car or jacket or anything,
11:12
but The first time I was seen holding a soylent, it was like this crazy signal was going out to the world. Like, I'm in tech. First of all, you know that just by this drink. You don't have to ask anything Alright. Maybe we'll look to this brown guy in San Francisco, you'll probably be able to guess that one. Okay. What what else does it tell you? It tells you, like, I value productivity.
11:29
Yeah. Brown guy. It Soma,
11:31
you know. And like backpacks, like, sagging to the back of my knees with somebody, like, accessories in it. So
11:37
so then it's, like, number two is, like, you value productivity over
11:41
Yep. Things like taste. Maybe even things like health. Right? Like, oh, yeah. Everything. Yeah. Yeah. So it's it's a value signal. Then it was like a contrarian signal. And it was like, I don't give a fuck. What you think about me signal? It was so powerful as a signaling tool for, like, this one year period. Yeah. But that actually cuts both ways because food is such a signal, and there's so much badge value. It's very hard to accrue like monopoly power. And how do you actually go about disrupting Nestle if it be if every if every food is like an extension of personal expression, it gets very hard because as soon as everyone is doing one thing, I'm gonna wanna do something different. And so there's this constant, like, ping ponging in these products. So it's very, very hard to create, like, one brand to rule them all. You said something about Peter Teal
12:23
to, talk to me. And for one in one hour, he diagnosed everything that would go wrong in my business. Was that about soylent? Yeah.
12:30
What did what did Peter tell you? Yeah. I mean, we went in for, like, the pitch and sat down and did, like, kind of a working session. And,
12:36
I mean,
12:38
now everyone knows the framework because he's written the book zero to one. It's in it's, like, incredibly popular. Everyone kind of knows that, you know, the the way venture backed companies accrue value is through motes, the development of motes. And, you know, the Hamilton Helmer has the powers framework, Peter has, you know, different,
12:56
different thesis around this. And and we know the basics. It's, like, you know, brand, intellectual property,
13:02
complex coordination, scale economies, network economies, right? Network effects. And so
13:08
but at this time in twenty thirteen,
13:11
Everyone thought that there would just be a magical network effect that would show up. And that's just not true. Like, so there was this weird dynamic where, you know, a lot of investors that we talked to were, like, Oh, yeah. Like, you don't need to advertise. You can just, like, like, the people like it so much that they'll sell it to each other. And that's true in a multi level marketing scheme. But it's not true if you don't build that infrastructure to make that happen.
13:34
So
13:35
we never we never achieve, like, escape velocity there. And he was just kind of like, yeah. Like, this is just a widgets business. Like, run this like a, you know, any other business. Like, you need to sell. Like, you have product market fit, which we did. Like, you just need to maximize, you know, your, like, like, like, run the playbook of, you know, market, bring the customer in, make sure you're bring them in cheaper. He he was basically like, this is a great lifestyle business, guys. Congrats.
13:58
And and then we raised a bunch of venture, and it was a disaster. What was your peak what was your peak revenue? Almost a hundred mil, almost a hundred mil. And,
14:06
I was reading you guys sold it recently. And,
14:10
Not a good outcome. Alright. I was gonna I was gonna say, no disrespect, but the outcome sucked, like, for for how compared to the hype and your peak revenue. I think it was, like, think it was sold by a publicly traded company. Did I read it was sold for sixty million dollars?
14:23
Something. I mean, not not a lot. I I I I actually, like, don't even know the exact dynamics because there's a bunch of other, like, assets that were, like, rolled up and it's part of this combined thing. But it was sold for, like, maybe
14:35
as much or less than you raised. You raised a hundred million dollars in it? Yeah. Exactly. Which basically means, like, the common doesn't get anything. Got it.
14:42
So you You you didn't get much. You you didn't get that wealthy from it. Yeah. We got a decent amount, but not, like, what we should have, you know, if we'd maximize
14:51
But then you started Lucy. So Lucy is cool.
14:55
Are you there full time right now? No. I'm, like, one day a week at Lucy.
15:00
Mostly helping out with stuff like this doing content and then, ideally, like, brokering deals with other content. Creators, like, we want to do more. We being founders fun.
15:12
No. No. Me being, like, the we we being the Lucy team. So to give some background, you know, soylent is this nutrition product,
15:19
we run that for four or five years. And then Lucy is a, nicotine gum brand and nicotine pouch brand. So if your view if your viewers are familiar with Zen, you know, we're a direct competitor of Zen, but we differentiate on flavor, strength, and a couple other. Dude, I'm a I'm a
15:36
all day every day, type of Zen guy.
15:38
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I imagine most people in the audience are. It's extremely great. I just wish that Lucy sold it seven eleven because going to the gas stations, like, part of my routine, you know, I gotta go see my boys there and and hang out. I mean, one hundred percent. That is that is the name of the game. And that was what we'll actually unlock, like, massive value in the Lucy business. One hundred percent. People should know that, by the way. When you you email Sam, you're like, hey, I know you're a super busy guy, and so I'm gonna keep this brief. Sam's busy at seven eleven shooting the shit with his boys and the curb. Those lot of tickets to scratch themselves, my friend.
16:13
Exactly.
16:14
He's busy just in a different way than you expect.
16:18
Yeah. I I gotta drop off like a palette of Lucy at that exact seven eleven. Just be like, here it's free. Now Sam can get a cc. The the Lucy things are cool because basically a ZIN is just a pouch. But, Lucy has it's called a breaker. And so you, like, bite into this and you get, like, a little menthol or something, like, a flavor I love it. I like the citrus ones. Yeah. It's like a it's like a liquid flavoring. So, yeah, I mean, a lot of people complain that the pouches, although they're they're much better than the pouches of previous years, they dry your mouth out. And that's the number one complaint. So we figured it out, you know, how do we address that? Well, let's just actually take liquid flavoring and put it inside a capsule, then And then when you break it, it moistens the pouch and then doesn't dry your mouth out. Gotcha. Alright. And let's talk about ideas. So those two ideas you did
17:00
I would say are in the, like, top one percent of weirdo ideas, which means I love it and I love you. What are your other weirdo ideas that you're not doing? You sent us a couple of bullet points, but ex explain them. So let's let's run through some of your ideas. Yeah. I mean, I think the first one that would be interesting to talk about just because, you know, you guys are obviously creators as well is
17:20
just this idea of a creator owned VPN.
17:24
So we've seen that VPNs
17:26
might be the number one advertiser on YouTube. I don't have the exact stats, but anyone who's listened to a podcast or you watched a YouTube video can probably name five different VPNs.
17:36
And yet none of them are venture backed. There's not, like, one or they're they're not, like, majorly venture backed. They're not big venture winners. There's not, like, one that's running away with Have you researched these guys? Yeah. Yeah. A little bit. They're, like, all in Panama
17:49
or Maldo, the the mall or what's it called? Moldova, like Maldets. I've tried looking them up on,
17:55
LinkedIn because I went I did a lot a ton of research on about this. Specifically, I did a lot of research on the VPN review website. So there was one called compare tech that was doing fourteen million in revenue, thirteen million in profit. Like, I saw their financials and they sold Yeah. To a VPN company. And I was like, these VPN companies are crazy.
18:15
But I looked all up I looked up the employees on LinkedIn
18:18
and, like, you can't find their employees on LinkedIn, even though they're companies that are doing three hundred, four hundred million dollars a year in revenue. Yep. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's a very, very odd space. And basically, like, there's no there's no big, like, venture winner. There's no, like, Oh, Air Airbnb. We all know the CEO. He's taking the company public. You know, there's no, like, there's no, like,
18:37
front facing company that's, like, oh, this one's winning and gonna run away with it. It's more like there's a bunch of them. They all print cash and there's not really gonna be one winner because there's no network effect. Again, it's a it's it doesn't have a big moat. The moat is marketing, and that's why they all spend on marketing, and that's how they differentiate, is just you check all the boxes. How big are they? E easily easily in the billions.
19:00
For for for the aggregate industry. And like you said, you you there's certain that are doing there's certain VPNs that are doing hundreds of millions of dollars of sales. And so The name of the game is just check all the boxes so that no no VPN reviewer whose independent can, like, take you down and be like, there's a fatal flaw. And do not use this VPN because I know for a fact that it doesn't do the right thing. But once you've actually implemented all the features where, yes, we do we check all these boxes,
19:24
then it's just a marketing game. And that's why you see them ad Is it just a commodity? Like, with with the I I don't know much about the VPN tech. Like, is it I I is it terribly complicated it it is complicated
19:36
programming wise. Like, it's it's it's somewhat complicated to write the code, I guess, but it's not complicated from, like, understanding the features that the customer wants. You're not trying to create some sort of
19:47
And you
19:48
you called it Beast VPN.
19:50
So what's your business idea here? Yeah. I called it v v v
19:55
I called it v v v n because, obviously, mister Beast is the biggest creator.
19:59
And
20:00
He is an interesting
20:01
place where he has an international audience.
20:04
He has a an audience that's it's just it's just everyone. His audience is everyone. And so what's a product that you can sell all everywhere across the world that's very high margin,
20:15
low churn,
20:16
VPN. And that's why VPNs are advertising all over YouTube is because it doesn't matter if the ad is served to someone in Japan or India or Europe. Like, the VPN's available there. So I'll give this idea a nine out of ten.
20:31
Nice. What I like about this idea is exactly what you said. It takes the weakness of creator businesses, which is you get a bunch of low value kind of, subscribers might be, like, you know, some the value of a random subscriber in India,
20:44
random subscriber in Croatia. It's, like, hard to get ad money for that type of viewer, but
20:51
this product is actually even better for international people than it is for in the US. So I think that's one big strength, and then obviously recurring revenue
20:59
digital good or return revenue software is obviously amazing. I only give it a nine instead of a ten just because it's the first idea, and I I'm I'm not that easy. So I gotta I gotta talk to one point just on that alone.
21:10
Also, to be fair,
21:12
it might make more sense for, like, a linus tech tip and an MKBHD
21:16
to do this because they're more of like tech people. We were gonna do this at milk road, actually. We weren't built milk road okay. Cool. We're making money. We were profitable on just newsletter ads. But I was like, what's the best product we could do? I was like, what if we did a crypto,
21:29
a a VPN for the crypto economy? Because we're At that time, we're, you know, one of the more trusted brands. We're like, it's kind of a commodity software.
21:37
It's useful for crypto users to to use a VPN.
21:41
And so that was one of my ideas, but we sold before we got around to doing that. That that's a good idea. That's a good idea. You should've that would've been cool if you would've done that. That would've been a that's a pretty cool move.
21:53
Too bad.
21:57
Well, they still the guys still own milk runs. So I we still own a part of it. Well, I'm gonna tell them and be like, hey, guys. Let's revise this. I mean, the main thing is that you just have to have the the distribution. You've listed, linus
22:08
tech tips on your you said Do you know this guy? Well, no. I just saw him. So you said that Oh, okay. What's the guy's name, Marquise? What's the guy's what's his channel? MKBHD.
22:17
Yeah. I like him. Everyone knows him. He's cool. This guy linus tech tips has fifteen
22:23
million subscribers. Yeah. Oh my god. What and, like, I mean, he he I I he has a team that's, like, you know, I I think over a hundred people. Wow. Multiple channels, podcasts,
22:34
like, everything. He actually built his own, like,
22:38
media platform where you can, like, go in and watch videos and and talk to each other. It's like a forum site. It's just released like a
22:46
screwdriver and sold, like, five million dollars of a screwdriver or something like that? Yeah. I'm sure I'm sure he did great on that. The question is, like, would he have done better if instead of buying a screwdriver
22:55
which needed to be bought probably locally or it was really expensive to ship internationally.
23:00
He sold something that was recurring software that was ninety nine percent margin.
23:05
A VPN.
23:06
The only thing is that, like, honestly, the screwdriver's cooler than a VPN. So, you know, I can't fault him because The screwdriver is, like, you get to build your hacker. You get to put your PC together. Like, that's fun. VPN, it's it's a little boring. I use a VPN, though. I like VPNs.
23:21
What you got? Second idea?
23:23
Yeah. So,
23:26
the obviously Americans love guns. You're an American. You own some guns.
23:30
That's not changing. We've seen through, you know, the past few decades that, like, you're, like, real, like, restrictions on guns are not coming. And so the business is probably pretty durable. We've seen that the the stocks of ammunition companies are doing fine over the last decades.
23:46
But the price is increasing. A lot of that's just due to supply chains, but there might be some more structural issues, also just more people are hunting, more people are are buying guns and buying ammunition and obviously shooting. It's just a fun hobby. So the the it over the last three years, the price of shotgun shells went from ten dollars to sixteen dollars.
24:04
Pretty big increase.
24:06
And there's this massive shortage. So
24:08
The the idea here is basically, like, maybe you need a new, maybe we need to bring some, some efficiency to the ammunition supply chain
24:18
And I think it's an interesting idea.
24:20
I don't actually know enough about how to run an ammunition depot or ammunition factory.
24:26
But what I do know is that the hottest trend right now in business is like roll ups or search funds. And every guy who graduates from HBS is like, I'm gonna go roll up laundromats, or I'm gonna go roll up. Dentes.
24:39
Dentes. It's like everyone has an idea for these things, and they're all very commodity. They're not very contrarian.
24:46
And so there's probably not a lot of alpha there, but it's like the guy the people that are coming out of HBS are probably not saying, I'm gonna go roll up weapons manufacturers.
24:55
And obviously, like, Andrew is crushing it in the venture side, but they're doing, like,
25:01
insane
25:02
software, hardware, building drones, building, like, these really advanced AI powered weapon systems. This is not
25:06
that.
25:09
You do this company. You buy a bunch of, you know, all we do is make shotgun shells. You buy three of them. You move the employees around. You kind of optimize things a little bit. It's just like a very boring, like, like, you know, private equity style roll up. And then maybe it accrues power over time because obviously, it is a massive industry,
25:27
but you're not coming in and trying to reinvent the wheel. You're not being, like, we're gonna actually 3D print the shell or something. No. It's just like good operations. There's a lot of gun YouTubers.
25:36
You know, we could we could mix that. Oh, yeah. Yeah. We could get them in. Do you live in California?
25:41
I do. I do. Are you guys even... So I used to live in California? I live in Texas now. I own guns because I have a ranch and it's fun for shooting. Are you guys even allowed to own guns in California? Yes. We're allowed to own guns. Yeah. Like, what's the rule?
25:54
No. No. I mean, you can there's a whole bunch of restrictions on, like, rifles, like, certain capacity magazines, but, I think most recently, like, it's pretty easy to get a concealed carry permit in San Francisco. It's kind of a narrative violation. Wait. What? I I thought for years, that was impossible.
26:09
Yeah. Most people think it's, like, unthinkable, but in fact, it it is becoming easier, which is kind of crazy.
26:15
But, yeah, I mean, obviously, California is not like a dream state for for, you know, if you're a gun fan, but
26:23
Shaan, Shaan, you've been talking about getting your concealed carry for years now. Right?
26:30
Not at all.
26:32
Guns scare me. But, I did look at investing in an ammunition roll-up. I'm trying to find the the deck. You did? That's hilarious. Yeah. We got introduced to somebody who was doing it. And I was like, I love this idea, but it was so far field
26:46
out of, like, what I'm used to investing in that I was, and I I didn't know that that's, like, how do you know, yeah, how do you know that they can actually do the due diligence? Like, if you can't do the due diligence. Exactly.
26:55
I don't think I would touch this. I wouldn't touch this either. Why? I wouldn't want this in my obituary that I, you know, even though and I and I and I understand how that's hypocritical. You know, I criticized
27:07
Shaan because Shaan wants to, like, invest in OnlyFans companies, and I'm like, I am not touching that. But at the same time, I consume porn, So, like, there's definitely, like, a little bit of, I I acknowledge the hypocrisy. It's a cognitive dissonance. Yeah. But, like, you know, I guess, guess, you know, it doesn't have to be black and white. It's shades of gray and, like, I I prefer to stay on the whiter of the of that side. Yeah. I mean, that's totally fair. And I think that's why there might be alpha in this area because I think that dummies like you, Sam. That's what that's where I why this opportunity exists because that made no
27:37
That made tons of sense, dude. What are you talking about? You're like, I love guns. I enjoy them. I buy them. I'm buy I'm buying the ammunition. But, you know, I don't wanna support. I I don't wanna invest in it because only bad people would buy it. Like, what does that mean? No. No. I didn't say only bad people. I said I don't wanna own it. I said that I buy the stuff. I use it. I think it's very enjoyable. I love shooting for fun, but that doesn't mean I wanna make it my career. I mean, Sam, would would your opinion change if we were actively at in a hot war?
28:07
Like, like, like, if your, like, it's your duty to America to optimize the ammunition supply chain because there are like there there there are troops from, you know, some country landing in the beaches of California. Would my opinion change? Yeah. Of course. And that's totally fair. I think that's right. My opinion could change about the whole thing. I'm very open to new data points and changing my opinion.
28:28
I'm just saying, like, Yeah. Like, Andrew, like, I love Andrew. I I, like, I think that's a very patriotic mission. But Oh, no. One hundred percent. Own Remington
28:36
Like, right now, I'm like, I don't know, man. Like, I could probably make money in other ways. And Sure. My conscience would be a little less like, it would be It's very it's just an easier decision.
28:48
Sam, I got I got a question for you. There's a thing going viral on TikTok right now. That's,
28:54
girlfriends asking their boyfriends or, you know, wives asking their husband something. I'll be the wife here. I'm gonna ask you a question, that they're asking.
29:00
Hey, when's the last time or how no. How often
29:03
do you think about the Roman Empire? Anything to do with the Roman Empire? Oh, all the time. A lot.
29:11
Like,
29:12
why? Under what circumstances would you need to think about that?
29:16
Just, like,
29:18
like, gladiators
29:19
and shit, just, like, battling to the death in front of everyone When's the last time you thought about something like that, like, this week?
29:26
Last night. I mean,
29:28
the the funny thing here is that, like, the the meme immediately before that was, like, the in the arena meme, and everyone in tech was posting
29:37
literal, like, Roman empire gifts because
29:40
everyone in tech is, like, obsessed with the arena. And I know that there are two separate communities, like, that's not why the meme popped up, but it's like Yeah. It's so funny to see all these women are like, they're like, they ask they see somebody ask the question. The guy answers some exact almost verbatim what Sam just said. Always. Always. It's like I'm thinking about it right now. All the time. Yeah. I'm like, what do you mean? Of course. Yeah. My wife has a video of that where I didn't know about the meme and she takes out her phone videos, me. It's like, let me think about the Roman empire. Yeah. And I was thinking about it right now. Why? I don't know. And then all the comments are like, you know, that make you know, that's crazy. And then they come back, reply, like, I just asked He said last week. He said he thinks about it twice a week. Like Yeah. And don't, like, fines are being blown. They're like, I can't fathom why this man who doesn't take out the trash on time. Who forgot to pick up our daughter in preschool.
30:25
Why he is thinking about the Roman Empire twice a week. Dude, I think about nine eleven in World War two. Like, ninety percent of my day. Like, the the do you guys not think of, like, what would I do if I was on that plane? Oh, also. You know what I mean? Like,
30:39
All all the time. Think about that constantly. I think about that constantly or like It's just a very normal masculine urge. It like, there there's this joke, Shane Gilles. He's like, Just so you know, being obsessed with history, particular World War two, is a precursor to becoming a Republican.
30:54
It's like, it's not gonna happen today, but, like, you know, it's early onset. Right.
30:59
For sure.
31:01
Wait. Son, you don't think about, like, World War two. Like, a regular basis. No. But I have my own version of it, which is, like, I'm constantly,
31:08
like, I if I walk into a place,
31:11
I'm, like, assessing how if I had to, how would I, like, rob this place or, like,
31:17
if some shit went down, like, what's the move? Alright. What's the move? Okay. There's some sort of, like, masculine daydreaming that happens. Like, nobody David, like, he he imagines, like, ninjas coming through every door and window and how he would, like, take them out tactically. Like, that's his Dude, every time I'm in a baggage claim,
31:35
I'm, like,
31:36
I could take any of these bags right now and just walk out. There is no security in this place. Are you kidding me? Like, the the baggage claim, I I will never get over that. Why? It's so easy to just take anyone's bag. My wife and I go out to dinner, we have like a rule. Sam's back does not sit to the front door. I have to see the front door. Like, you know, like, I can't have people coming in without me knowing. I I've gotta see the front door. I do think it is a man thing. You know, on, we there's this funny quote Scott galloway said he goes,
32:05
you should exercise
32:06
so you can kill and eat most everyone in a room or be able to outrun them.
32:12
And that's, like, at at its root. That's kinda, like, what we're talking about right now. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. One hundred percent.
32:19
You you you, so Sam is basically, like, clearly just, like, surging on testosterone.
32:24
You,
32:25
are EIR at founder's fund, which is remember at one point when they were talking about PayPal, they said,
32:30
oh, you know, Max left to interview some engineer back in the early days of PayPal. And then he was like, no, no, can't hire this guy. Like, what? He passed everyone else's test? He's like, he plays basketball.
32:40
I don't know any great programmer who goes and plays basketball three times a week. That's not a thing. And so they were, like, very anti Jock.
32:46
Do you get to hang out with the founders fund people a lot? Like, do you hang out in person at all? And what's that like? Because seems like a room full of very interesting,
32:55
very different people. Yeah. It is. It's,
32:59
it's oddly
33:00
They've done a great job of not creating a monoculture in a very small organization.
33:04
So, yeah, there are definitely, like, complete jocks that I mean, obviously, we know Keith for boy is that barry's, like, five times a day. Yeah. I don't know if I would call Keith for boy a jock.
33:14
But, like, why And he's a workout nut. He's a fitness nut for sure. But
33:19
berries.
33:20
Yeah. He he's not trying to be the best at sports. You know, he's trying to be the best at exercising. Why is that guy why no. I'm just joking. But why is that guy's why is Keith for boys such a dickhead on Twitter?
33:31
Like, why does he behave that way? He's he's, like, needlessly rude. I think a lot of it is just, like, holding the line on, like, like, when he sees something that's, like, not true. He doesn't want it to spread. And so he just, like, shuts it down, like, really aggressive. Yeah. He's, like, put it he's, like, he's put his flag in some silly things like Miami. It's like if Miami doesn't work, it it's, like, gonna hurt him. And it's, like, you know, it doesn't have to. You know, you you you could love it and also it's not the best. A lot of these things are, you know, I think learned behaviors. I think everyone in tech is somewhat,
34:06
like, like, just injured from the past, like For sure. It's very obvious. Of just getting, like, just beat down for every little thing. And so a lot of people have put up walls. And I think that it's tie I agree with you. I think it's time to kind of take down the walls, be a little bit less defensive generally.
34:25
But I understand where
34:27
all these behaviors are coming from. What's Sean Parker up to? We haven't heard about that guy in years. Yeah. We gotta get him back on Twitter. Because if you or x, because if you talk to anyone who knows him, they will just say that he was the greatest poster of all time.
34:41
Who's the best on Twitter now? I mean, probably, like,
34:45
Rahul, Ligma, Daniel Johnson, like those type of guys. Right? Like, Do you guys remember that publicity stunt or stuff that they did? They fooled CNBC into reporting
34:57
where employees that were fired. It was very, like, that that's just like, you know, those guys,
35:03
they're like doing a normal startup. They're like building so deadpool.
35:07
Yeah. No. They're not like comedian. They should have just gone all in. I'm like, oh, shit. We need to just create, like, this sort of, like,
35:14
some version of punked
35:15
or, like, you know, something for the tech industry. They should've just gone all in as personality. I would've dropped the startup, but, like, six months sabbatical on the startup.
35:23
I'm just gonna see what happens if I fully troll, and, like, maybe I could be the thing that the community needs. Dude, Raul Lignma still makes me, like, spit water out my nose I hear that. It's it's so funny.
35:34
It's so funny. Yeah, I don't know. I mean, how would you monetize that if they would you just be doing stand ups? I think you would get silent donations from billionaires. I've seen that guy. And he only hangs out with successful billionaires when I've seen him in person. Like, because everybody who was big in tech, loved that troll. Elon loved it.
35:54
You know, like, the the holding guys are like, oh my god. It's the best. It's the best. I feel like they could have a patreon of billionaires only that just fund them to, like, do statement art. You know, like, comedic statement are against the media, against the local politicians, against whatever. That's what I would have done if I was them. That's maybe that's not a bad idea, but I don't know. I I Like, it seems like they're pretty legit at what they're doing. Like, they're, like, actually good programmers.
36:18
I can't find this client info. Have you heard of HubSpot?
36:22
HubSpot is a CRM platform, so it shares its data across every application. Every team can stay aligned. No out of sync spreadsheets or dueling databases.
36:31
HubSpot grow better.
36:34
You have, a thing on this document that I wanna fight you about. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I knew this. I was going you're good.
36:41
Here's the
36:42
so John sent us this document. He says, unique philosophies.
36:47
Lifestyle
36:47
businesses are worthless.
36:50
What do you? Make your case
36:52
before we make you walk the plank.
36:57
No. No. I I this is mostly just like, let's have a fun debate because I'm like, you know, working at a venture capital firm, and I can kind of represent the VC crew, and you guys are, like, the kings of, like, the lifestyle business. So We aren't the kings of that, by the way. I wanna be the king of it. Actually, I I actually will accept that compliment. I don't mind being the king of it. What I'm saying is I think that we are one of the very few
37:19
kind of content creators. You pay put proper respect to Yeah. I what I'm saying is that we we we we do both. We think both are cool. That that's I there there's very few people I think that are in the middle, and I think we are in the middle. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's fair. That's fair.
37:34
And so, yeah, basically, the I I think the point is just that,
37:38
lifestyle businesses are great. Define that. So I would say, I I would say, like, non venture backed, non blitz scaling, non hyper scaling, non monopoly,
37:47
something without a crazy moat, where it's just, like, you go and work at it, and maybe it gets really big, and maybe you wind up being a billionaire, but you didn't you didn't, like, do this growth at all cost insane thing. And what's hyper growth
38:00
two or three times a year?
38:02
I mean,
38:03
sometimes ten times a year. Right?
38:06
It depends on the scale. At the early stages, it goes really, really fast. But I I'm specifically thinking of like Facebook. Right? I'm specifically thinking of the power law outcomes in venture. And my my point is that Basically, only about one percent of companies that get started raise venture capital, but about ninety nine percent of the market cap in the public markets, they took venture. And so venture has this very, like, ass like, like, disproportional
38:32
outcome.
38:32
And I believe that that the bigger the company, the bigger the impact on the world, And so if you wanna have a really, really big impact, you should actually be trying to raise money grow very grow very quickly Like, you're not going to build a hundred billion dollar company compounding at two percent a year, five percent a year over your lifetime. It just won't happen. Alright. Let me play the other side of that. Please. Your analogy of
38:57
well, okay. So you're saying one percent,
39:00
or ninety, ninety nine percent of the value is created by the one percent of companies that raise money. So that, to me, is also saying that, like,
39:07
look,
39:09
one hundred percent of the soldiers on D Day who ended up
39:14
killing, like, of the Nazis that ended that battle,
39:17
they had to land on that beach anyway. Right? So you might as well lay on that beach. And I'm like, Yeah. But the other one's got, like, fucking killed and destroyed. How about I just, like, not worry about killing Nazis? And, like, I can just, like, start this little thing on the side. You know what I mean? Like, it's, like, it's, like, dude. Like, this whole thing with, like, VC, it's, like, you're funding all the you as the investor are funding all these companies, and you're, like, dude, I don't give a fuck which one of you's dies out here because I know one of you is gonna, like, make me my money. And so from my perspective, I'm, like, yeah. So if I can get rich at with the higher likelihood, which is maybe, in most cases, the number one reason for starting a business, and not most cases, like other cases, it's like the number three version. Let's say your number one version is, like, I wanna, like, create change.
39:59
Getting rich is still up there. So, like, if, like, if you can get rich and create value and have fun and work for yourself and have a higher likelihood of doing that
40:08
Why wouldn't you go that route? So so the reason I think you shouldn't go with that route is because I think your overall impact on humanity and society and the world will be lower. If if it survives.
40:20
Yeah. The the the this whole question of, would you rather own a hundred percent of a hundred million dollar company or one percent of a ten billion dollar company. I don't even think it's a question. Obviously,
40:29
the ten billion dollar company, because the ten billion dollar company is having a much larger impact on the world. That quite that's that's that an obvious answer.
40:36
But no. No. No. It's it's not. It's not for for a lot of people, they say I would rather have a hundred percent and be able to go on vacation and, you know, chill and just have these cash flows come directly to me and not have to deal with, like, you know, all this other stuff. And I get that, but My point is that, like, I believe that humans have a duty
40:54
to each other to go and have the largest impact possible And that is often done with the backing of venture capitalists. I don't think you believe that. Yeah. I do. Would you not be like, curing cancer? Is that a selwyn nicotine gum? Like,
41:08
Let's be honest. Yes.
41:10
Oh, I mean, that's hilarious that you use that as an example because that's, like, the, actually, the best way to stop lung cancer is to get people to sweat. Right? Yeah. But don't let back get the way of a good argument. But but but but but but I I will actually synthesize this for you and I think we will agree on this point, which is that
41:26
What you should actually do with your life is pick the
41:31
hardest, most interesting,
41:33
most value creative problem that you are equipped to solve So can I create a cancer curing drug? No. I don't have that background. It's not an option for me. So I would fail if I went into that industry. But I should pick the most ambitious thing
41:48
and the best idea that I have. And then I should be very rigorous about
41:52
whether or not that idea is appropriate for venture capital. And I think that if Mark Zuckerberg didn't raise venture capital, his company would be dead. And I think there's a lot of companies.
42:03
I've been a part of some of them where we raised we raised vet VC for com for a company that didn't need VC. It also killed the company, I think.
42:11
So, basically, you have to you have to pick the best idea that you're equipped to solve and then decide the financing strategy that aligns with that, and there's no one size fits all solution. Do you wish you would have done a different idea instead of soylent, or do you wish that you just hadn't taken VC and you got wealthy?
42:29
Oh, I don't know. That's interesting. I mean, right before soylent, I was working on natural language generation in twenty thirteen, which is like the hottest trend now. And so if I'd probably just, like, stuck with that for a decade, I'd probably be doing something cool right now, maybe? You I I think that you would have been more impactful if soylent hasn't hadn't raised
42:50
and you had gotten rich, and then you would have been able to, like, say, like something else? Well, you would have been, like, I don't care about money as much. So I'll do this other crazy thing that is a moonshot. Like, I I I think it's I because I took a similar argument as you. Yeah. And then someone corrected me and they're like, yeah, but it's a lot easier
43:07
to go after moonshot ideas when you don't have to worry about a mortgage. And as someone who had a bootstrap exit,
43:13
I agree. I'm like,
43:16
it's pretty like, I understand why founders,
43:19
wanna take secondary because you are more day when you have ten or twenty or thirty million dollars. Like, you are more dangerous when you don't worry, where you're like, I'm rich enough that I don't have to worry, but I'm not rich enough that I wanna stop.
43:30
Yeah. I do one hundred percent feel like I'm in that category.
43:33
Like, that that puts you in a dangerous category, I think.
43:36
Yeah. I I one hundred percent feel like I'm in that category.
43:40
And and and thus because that's true, I think lifestyle businesses are awesome. Oh, because they can get you there faster?
43:46
Yeah. Yeah. For sure. I'd Yeah. Yeah. Get like the base hit before you do the big thing.
43:51
Yeah. Not unreasonable.
43:52
And and I think that's also kind of a synthesis of what we're saying. We kind of agree. But it that it's like moonshots are good, but but the path might be circuitous to them. Right? And there are freaks out there, like at Elon Like a Zuck. Well, I don't know about Zuck, but like an Elon who's willing to risk it all. Yeah. Even Elon, like, PayPal could be framed as, like, less ambitious than SpaceX and Tesla. Right? It's like the mission might not be as big. Who knows? Well, he tweeted this out
44:17
the other day. And so Andrew Wilkinson had had tweeted something out like this. That was like,
44:22
You know,
44:23
you know, learn to learn to crawl or learn to walk before you run. And he's like, most most people wanna do a big, crazy, ambitious thing. Should start by doing a smaller thing so they learn how to do business and then do, you know, make things happen and then graduate up. And a bunch of people were agreeing with him.
44:39
I totally disagreed. I was like, if you know the thing you wanna do,
44:44
you should just go do the thing.
44:46
You know, the way that doing something before you do your bigger thing works well, I believe, is at first, that was the biggest thing you knew. Yep. And then as you did it, your worldview expanded and your ambition expanded and your Exactly. The set of possibilities you were aware of expanded, and then you went and did that thing. However, Elon did reply almost,
45:07
confirming what Andrew had said for him. In his case, he was like, yeah. You know, I couldn't have created SpaceX if I didn't have the money and the skills and reputation as I had during Zip two. And specifically,
45:17
somebody had said that, like,
45:19
they had talked to Elon, and he, you know, I don't I don't believe this for the for the I don't believe a word of this, but they were like, yeah. I talked to Elon early on, and or I talked to Elon, and he said that early on, he decided, oh, I wanna die on Mars. Just not he he said the following. I would like to die on Mars, just not on impact.
45:37
You know, that's like his joke. And then he's like, And I decided the way to do that was I needed a lot of money.
45:42
And so then I went to the internet just to go get the money quickly, you know, as quickly as I could. Don't believe that to be true because,
45:50
you know, first of all, not everybody is, like, that much of a mastermind, you know, when he was, like, sleeping under his desk as, like, college kid. I don't think that he was, like,
45:58
being like, I'm only doing this so that I could amass a fortune to launch three space ships, you know, to be able to fund three of my own ships. Like, I don't believe that. Also, he went and did x after Zip two. So it's like, oh, if you're you already had, you know, whatever, the, you know, I I know what he needed. I think, like, some, like, sixty or eighty million dollars out of zip too.
46:16
Like,
46:18
I'm it'd be surprising to me if he was, like, you know what? It's not gonna be enough. I need to go two hundred fifty million. That's the magic number. Yeah. There's a big question about, yeah, like, like, should you ever sell a company? Because if If your real goal in life is to have an impact on the world, maybe
46:32
the company is the best way to do that. And so you should just continue to run your company endlessly. I mean, you guys, we we, everyone on this call sold sold companies. Well, my goal is very simple. Yeah. Wait. Wait. Yeah. What's your goal? You said, if you wanna have maximum impact on the world, that is not my goal. And so it's very easy for me to just be like, oh, cool. I can rule that out. I am trying to have the best lifestyle that I could have.
46:54
That is my selfish and very transparent goal. I am trying to improve my quality of life. And with that comes, my family's quality of life with that might come living in a good place. And being being a happy content person walking around the world is my contribution to society. I don't feel the obligation to go save the world, personally. I mean, the beauty of that is that, like, by you will naturally have a positive impact on the world by
47:17
doing what you do to achieve those ends. It might not be as big as,
47:22
you got us, you cured cancer, got us to Mars, but, like, there's gonna be economic activity that provides value and utility to various people as you, like, go about your business. And as long as you have, like, a moral compass that doesn't that doesn't result in you doing something really goal. Like, you'll probably have a net positive view on society. Like, my my trainer has a great way of saying this. He goes, you know, we I was like, yeah, my goal is to, like, have an amazing lifestyle quality of Right? That's my my number one, like, you know, why I do things is around that. Does this improve my quality of life? Oh, if I go do this thing, I'm stressed out all the time, and I have meetings all the time, and I don't see my kids? No. No. No. You've it is not improve my quality of life. But he said the other the other thing he said is mutually beneficial
47:59
so that all the things I do are mutually beneficial to the people that interact If I make a product, it needs to be mutually beneficial to them. If I have a partner,
48:06
or I interact with somebody, it needs to be mutually beneficial. And so that's the only caveat that we added to to make it, you know, work. Is your personal trainer like your life coach do? Yes. Oh, yeah. That that's like a that's over current theme is Sean's personal trainer. John, you, you're cool because you,
48:22
I think you're like us, but maybe even more extreme in the tech world than that you have your foot in the startup world and you're hanging out with these big wigs. But you're also can just joke around and shoot the shit and, like, you're pretty self aware.
48:33
Who,
48:34
what do you align with? Who do you align with politically?
48:37
Oh, yeah. I I really like this guy Mark Heard,
48:42
who's a Republican from Texas.
48:45
He was
48:46
he's a smaller candidate. So he's not polling
48:49
super well, but he worked for the CIA.
48:53
And he also is on the board palantir, and he would be the first computer scientist president. And I think that that would just be very, very interesting
49:01
to see someone with a CS background. Obviously,
49:04
I love programmers and I I I think that they think about the world in very interesting ways. And We've had this very long
49:10
long arc
49:11
of,
49:12
you know, lawyer, lawyer, businessman, lawyer, lawyer, lawyer, lawyer. Right? Like, that's the story. And he's like a younger guy. So,
49:19
I'm I'm proud to endorse him. Are you more Republican than Democrat or do you vote both It yeah. Yeah. I vote both. It just kinda depends on who is
49:29
who who can have, like, the highest impact on mostly technology
49:33
and the business community. I think that those are kind of the the the the things that we need to be thinking about. I do think there's the interesting
49:41
as I look back on Trump, I didn't vote for him, didn't support him, voted against him twice. But,
49:47
but I think that there's this weird situation where, like, the problems that Trump brought were obviously
49:52
really bad. I think you really, like, divided the country and just created a lot of chaos. And I think that was, like, probably
49:57
net negative for the United States,
50:01
but he did kind of get China right. And he started this, like, he got people waking up about the fact we are in a great power competition again. And so you could see a world where
50:12
the China situation
50:14
dissipates and things get better. And that would be phenomenal for the world, and that's what I hope happens. And in that case, Trump will be remembered as, like, an idiot, basically. But the opposite could also happen. Where the China situation gets hotter. And then people look back to Trump as, like, a, like, a genius who first saw this all and, like, took the first steps to, like, make things safe. And so I think the what's interesting is that the the way we remember presidents
50:41
is often not by what they actually did but by how their decisions look in hindsight. And it comes back to the, you know, don't judge a venture investment until it's twenty years later, ten years later. It's the same thing. It's like, Like, maybe we shouldn't judge our presidents until we, you know, with the full history of time.
50:58
You had said something earlier like, you were working on natural language generation in twenty thirteen. Yeah.
51:05
Now these large language model, LLMs are all the rage. And you had an idea around this that I liked because it was very different than how most people most investors talk about this. So you had said something like
51:17
Everybody is,
51:18
knocking certain AI startups because they're, oh, it's just a wrapper on top of GPT. It's just a wrapper on top of what Open AI is doing. It's it's a flimsy little thing. You had a different take. What's your take? Yeah. My my take is that
51:31
that might be a reasonable critique for
51:34
a growth stage venture capitalist to debate with their partners
51:39
at an investment committee meeting.
51:42
That is not necessarily what we should be putting out on
51:45
Twitter,
51:46
x, to the next generation of young builders.
51:49
And if you are,
51:50
you know, I I know a lot of these kids who are seventeen, eighteen, nineteen, and they're hacking and building chat GPT rappers, and some of them are making a ton of money. And it's fine. What's an example?
52:03
Yeah. Like, I mean, like, an example would be, like,
52:07
Like, just just narrowing down to something very there are few people that have done, like,
52:13
like, almost like dating coaching, kind of, like,
52:17
to help with if you're bad at texting. There was a whole south park episode about this. That's pretty funny. Yeah. Yeah. Like, if you're if if you don't know what to text someone on, like, a dating app, you can have, like, you could go to chat GPT and say, hi. I'm on Tinder, and I I need to send a response to this girl, and I'm feeling awkward. Like, what should I say? And it'll give you a recommendation. But these apps have kind of, like, fine tuned it to be a little bit more, like, spicy or, you know, engaging with them. Homework help. They'll do rap lyrics still do whatever. Right? Yeah. And I I I don't I don't know the details about those, but a lot of people
52:48
will be like, oh, those aren't appropriate for venture capital. Therefore, like, they should not be built. And this is kind of where I'm flip flopping to my, you know, the lifestyles are bad. It's like, no. Actually, these are phenomenal because we need these these, like, people to get experience building.
53:03
And I think maybe I think about it even less from the economic side and more from just the experiential side of, like, if if you ever talk to somebody who's like,
53:11
they
53:12
were able to,
53:14
you know, run some small business when they were in high school. That's always a bull signal for entrepreneurship. Like there it's always like, oh, you're and now you're doing the venture backed thing. It's gonna make a lot of money. Like, it doesn't matter what the thing was. Right? It's like, oh, I was hustling sneakers or, oh, I was like, selling, reselling,
53:29
concert tickets. Like, my thing was I bought DJ equipment in the United States, and then I would export it to Australia.
53:36
And I was just like hustling that stuff in high school. Like, everyone has one of these stories. I'm sure you guys have tons that you've told them the pod.
53:43
But so so basically with the with the
53:46
we need I want the lensa
53:48
for chat GPT moment. So lensa, for those of you who might not remember, was I don't know what that is. So so it's this app that you would download, and you'd upload, you know, ten selfies of yourself from your camera roll. Yeah. And then it would generate
54:03
AI images that looked like you. So it would be like, it that looks like Sam's face, but it's not Superman or It was like but it was really like a Russian company that was that was the rumors it was a Russian company. I don't think that one was, but yeah, I mean, there are some weird, like, these apps come from all over. I'm not sure about Lenza.
54:20
I I think I don't I I I just haven't looked into the company, but And it made a bunch of money. It was like number one in the App Store for a bit. Yeah. Yeah. It was based on was based on stable diffusion, which is this open source software package, and Dream booth, which was this paper that Google put out that then people went and implemented. Like, no one knew what those things meant. No one, your aunt, doesn't know what stable diffusion or lens or dream booth is. But She probably downloaded and paid for Lenza Magic Avatar and had that as a profile picture for a little bit. So it's just like this this fun viral moment that was really accessible. And I think that there's a lot of people who I would hate if they're toying around with chat GPT and they don't build something that's really fun and cool because they're like, Oh, well, this won't be like, hyperscaler
55:04
combining, like, generational company.
55:07
It's like, maybe you just need to go build the fun thing and put it out there and see how it What what would be something you build? So I have an idea about this, which is basically that,
55:16
there's a few things that these that these, systems are really good at. You know, obviously, There's been
55:21
huge progress in helping
55:24
software developers program with GitHub co pilot, which is you know, built by OpenAI under the hood. There's also, you know, just the Google use case. Like, I go to chat JPT all the time. Just ask you questions that I would normally ask Google.
55:36
People are doing a lot of, like, AI girlfriends stuff. Like, you know, Sean, I'm sure you're you're next, your next big
55:43
only fans investment will have an AI component, probably. But but I think that the that that one of the interesting things that these
55:50
language models are particularly good at is something called the Barnum effect, have you guys heard about this? No. So the Barnum effect is this psychological phenomenon where
56:00
Like, I can say a like, something that sounds like it's very specifically tailored to you, but it's actually vague and applies to everyone. So So an example of this would be,
56:13
Sam, you have a great need for other people to like and admire you. You have a tendency to be critical of yourself. You have a great deal of unused capacity,
56:23
which you have not turned into your advantage.
56:25
Like, these things resonate with everyone. They certainly resonate with me. I feel like, yep. Yep. Yep. But and they feel personalized. It's like astrology.
56:33
Yeah. Yeah. They use this in astrology. And so what I'm thinking is, like, someone should take the, you know, chat GPT LLMs and make some sort of, like, viral personality quiz, viral astrology app, something along those lines that miss Cleo. Yeah. That ex that that exploits this effect that LLMs are really, really good at. And then and then uses it. It's just like Yeah. You owe, yeah. Did you get your personalities? How it's like, did you get your lens of magic avatars? Like, yeah. I got them. Like, I had to do the in app it was five ninety nine. It's like, oh, did well, did you get your custom personality test through this chatbot that's new and going viral? Like, yeah. Sure. I did that. I think that's a great prediction. I think that's gonna happen,
57:11
very soon. And this will look back at this clip and be like, dude, he called it. John called it that that was gonna happen. I love it. It has to happen.
57:18
Somebody said this the other day, they go.
57:21
They showed me oh, no. They showed me a Steve Jobs clip, and Steve Jobs goes
57:26
Once this technology happen,
57:29
the there was a set of twenty things that were going to happen no matter what. It didn't matter who was gonna do them. They were going to happen. A series of events were going to unfold once that breakthrough once that first breakthrough happened, And you just didn't know way, and then you didn't know who, but you definitely knew that they were gonna happen. That's how I feel about this idea. I love it.
57:48
I'm glad I I'm glad I got the thumbs up on Omei. Omei. Yeah. Your ideas were were actually very, very,
57:53
very solid. You you said you did your high school flipping thing
57:57
you also were a,
57:59
what was it called? Like, a a phone, a telemarketing
58:02
scam artist? Telemarketing scam artist. Tell that story. We'll wrap on that.
58:05
This is a phenomenal story. What do you like? Workaholics?
58:08
Yeah. Yeah. A little bit. I I use the office as a reference point because
58:13
That is the
58:15
the default, like, small business in America.
58:18
You know, they make a thing and then they ship it out. And so the scam worked like this. I found the job on Craigslist.
58:24
I show up and I'm wearing a suit.
58:26
I'm probably seventeen years old or something. And I'm like, I brought a resume. I want this job. And they're like, it's not that type of job. Like, you do not need to be wearing a suit. Just sit over there. You're gonna call these numbers call down the list. And when they pick up, read this script. And the script goes like something like this. I probably still remember it by heart, but,
58:46
it was like,
58:48
When they pick up, you do not
58:51
ask how they're doing. You do not talk to them. You just say shipping department, please.
58:56
And you wanna make it sound, like, you've been disconnected.
58:59
Like, I was already talking to the other shipping department.
59:02
Half the time, people are like, what are you talking about? This is a law firm. We don't have a shipping department. But
59:07
the other half of the time, people are like, yeah. We got a shipping department. I'll transfer you down there. Like, you must have just gotten disconnected. Then you're down in the shipping department. So imagine Dunder Mifflin from the office, you know, You just talked to Pam. Pam transferred you down to, I think, Daryl is down in the shipping department. Right? And now you're talking to the guys down in the shipping department. And,
59:24
the the scam was selling
59:26
two inch clear tape. So the guy picks up from the shipping department, says shipping department, you know, John here.
59:32
Or Daryl. And and then you say, hey, you're you guys are still using the two inch clear tape. Right?
59:38
That was the line. So this is the secret. It's like it's like asking Office that they use eight and a half by eleven inch paper or, like, asking, you know, a podcast or, like, do you still use microphones? You know, it's like, yes. Everyone uses two inch clear tape in a shipping department because what you use to just tape boxes, it's clear tape that you use to pack things. It's packing tape. And so they're obviously gonna say yes, but it sounds like you've already sold to them. You know, you're still using the two inch clear tape. Right? We didn't say that
01:00:05
we sold you. But then then if they say yes, then you say,
01:00:10
you know, hey, I I just wanna, you know, like, thank you. Not for being a customer. Just thank you.
01:00:16
I wanna thank you. And we're gonna send out I wanna send out another box of that two inch clear tape.
01:00:22
For you guys. And I'm gonna throw in a Starbucks gift card for you personally. Your name's gonna be on it. This one's for you. And I and and they're running me through this, and I'm like, how much does the Starbucks gift card for? I'm like, I I need information. I'm like, I'm, obsessive about information. And so he's like, don't don't worry about And I'm like, no. But, like, I need to know because, like, what if they ask me? They they'll never ask you. And I was like, no. But I I have to know. I just I cannot do this job unless you tell me, and he was finally, like, it's five dollars. It's like, wow.
01:00:50
So
01:00:51
so they So they, you know, they do the the Starbucks gift card thing. They get the guy to say, you know, yes. I'd like. You know, I'm still using it. Send it out. And then they send it out with an invoice you don't need to collect the credit card details over the phone. They send it out with the invoice, and they've priced this clear tape at exactly the level that they think most accounting point accounting departments will just stamp it. So it's five hundred dollars for a box of clear tape. And it cost them five dollars to produce this tape. How much money did the company make? Millions. I mean, the guys were, like, driving around in sports cars, like, and I ran the numbers, and it was like, you know, while I was there, I I only worked there for one day. And then, like, I quit because I was like, this is a scam. I figured it out, like, almost immediately. But a lot of people stuck around, like, you know, but even then, I think I I think I sold thousand dollars of clear tape. And they're just trying to get that one sale. And the conversion rate is insane. Yeah. So so they send out. I talked to the guys in our shipping department of the scam,
01:01:47
and
01:01:48
and and I, for first off, hilarious. The guys don't use their own clear tape, Because it just falls apart. It just disintegrates.
01:01:54
It's like the worst product. They buy the stuff that gets thrown away in China, basically. Like, Like, if, if they have manufacturing defects, that's what they buy for, like, ten cents, and then they sell that for five hundred dollars, which is already an order of magnitude more than you could just get from Staples. Are they are they still doing this scam? I don't know. I I don't think so. They they had, like, an f from the Better Business Bureau, and then, like, I imagine that it, like, dissolved
01:02:17
they probably got, like, all their phone numbers blocked or something. What did these guys look like? Did they look like what I think they would look like?
01:02:24
I imagine. They actually looked exactly like the three of us.
01:02:30
Which is what I thought.
01:02:33
I think I think the I think the CEO had your jacket sale. He was wearing a black feature like you. Do you drive a black Escalade?
01:02:40
Yeah. Yeah. Probably.
01:02:42
No. I I think I think they were doing, like, Audi r eights. I think that was, like, the big move. There's some guy listening to this that's in a shipping department that just had a holy fuck moment. He's like,
01:02:52
That guy did not. That tape guy who keeps calling me those gift cards. And then and then there's, like, and then there's, like, a hundred thousand other people are, like, So how do I get the leads to the shipping company?
01:03:05
I mean, the tape business style, boys.
01:03:09
The gang sells tape. This is really one of the funniest things. I I I ran into a guy who'd worked there a year later, and he was he came up to me. I was at a concert
01:03:18
And
01:03:19
and he was like, oh, John. Like, I remember you, the tall guy, like, how's it going? And I was like, remind me where we know each other from. He's like, Delta Shipping.
01:03:27
And I was like, yeah. I worked there for like a day. Like, what's up? Like, are you still there? He's like, no. They fired me. They fire everyone, like, through every three months because they need to turn people over. Because as soon as one person finds out it's a scam, they will tell everyone else. It's the same thing with, like, a pyramid scheme or a ponzi scheme. Like, you gotta, like, extra you gotta, like, you know, get out anyone who knows the truth and keep the blinders on everyone who's there. Because as soon as as soon as one person figures it out, they're gonna tell other people and be like, don't you think it's kind of unethical what we're doing? Or don't you think this is, like, what what if the police come? Like, would we be in trouble? You know, and then that scares everyone. And then the whole thing, the whole well is poisoned? I'm like, oh, you got fired. Like, that's I'm sorry, man. That's tough. Like, what are you doing now? Hopefully, you got like a better job. He's like, yeah, I'm selling drugs at this concert.
01:04:09
I was like, what?
01:04:14
He's just, like, I've never heard anyone, like, so proudly tell me that they're, like, a drug dealer, but I was, like, Okay. Like, step up. I'm not in and out, but I have some friends that are. Like, it's a good deal.
01:04:24
That's amazing. You, tell people what your YouTube channel is, and also tell why are you doing YouTube? You could be going out there building another business, but you're like us, you're creating content. So tell people what the channel is and why you do it. Yeah. I mean, basically, just bored during the pandemic had always been I mean, our first viral success at soylent was, you know, content, and content's super important for launching companies. And I'm an entrepreneur, so having a voice is very important in that equation.
01:04:48
My YouTube channel, you can find it just John Kogan's search there. I also have a podcast now power law dot f m power law hosted by John Kugan.
01:04:57
Not an interview show. It's just kinda deep dives on these power law people and companies. These really That's a good name. That's the titles. That's exciting.
01:05:05
Yeah. So it's it's interesting. It's, yeah, it's a lot of fun. I just I really like it. And,
01:05:12
yeah, check it out. And I I the biggest problem with it is that I don't have a lot of focus. I'll talk about geopolitics
01:05:18
My last video was on Doug Jumuro, like breaking down his business. Like, I just I'm all over the place, but, but it's so much fun and, like, There's clearly value in what we do. Like, people enjoy it, make them happy, and you need interesting people. We got to have a great conversation because of it, you know. We appreciate you coming on. This has been really fun. You're, you're cool, man. We we,
01:05:37
this has been awesome. We appreciate. Hey, we, and we don't have a lot of focus either. Look, we went from scams to you can go for it. The guns. It's the dream. You know? This is I I this is like, you your your audience, you won't be perfectly optimized. Like, oh, we're, like, the best ever. But in terms of the lifestyle,
01:05:54
like, we all agree. Like, this is the way to run the content machine. Don't don't go too crazy with it. Well, thank you. We appreciate it. And, thanks for coming on, and that's a pod.
00:00 01:06:25