Encarta | Dopamine Fasts, Cruise Ship Investing, and Elon vs Bezos with Andrew Wilkinson, Co-Founder of Tiny

00:00

Because I was like, pipe that content into my ears baby while I'm falling asleep. Like, I don't even I don't even wanna fall asleep. I wanna be entertained and pass out.

00:10

I feel like I could rule the world and know I could be what I want to.

00:15

I put my all in it like a day. So I was on a road. Let's travel never looking Andrew, what's going on? Yeah. Two months. How are you guys doing? Long time no see? Yeah, man. You went off the you went off the deep end. It just here, it became a monk pulled in Matthew McConaughey.

00:30

How was the Conaughey do that? It was awesome. Yeah. Apparently Matthew McConaughey when he wanted to write his book. He drove into the desert, like, four hours into the desert, and he lit he literally lived in a shack for two months and wrote his book.

00:44

Did you read it? I read that book.

00:49

If you read it and you use Matthew McConnell's voice, while you're reading it, it's actually pretty entertaining because it's good stories.

00:55

But also it's like just stories about his life that, like, I'm not sure I care that much about Matthew McConnell's life. Why wouldn't you just listen to listen to the Audible book then if you wanted to hit voice or read it?

01:05

I don't know. I'm not smart enough, man. I already exist. That that would have been way better.

01:13

Yeah. It should have said the audible book then.

01:17

Yeah. Just honestly, didn't think about it. It sounds like a good idea. I should probably do that.

01:22

So you, Andrew, basically,

01:25

we'll we'll do the intro now. Andrew has is a great friend of ours, has this big business called tiny

01:31

where they own a bunch of different businesses north of a hundred million ish or so in revenue, took a company public. You you're whatever. You're successful.

01:39

In terms of career and traditional sense of successful.

01:42

You're a good friend. You normally come on a lot, but you just tweeted how you kinda like took off for all of August and you kinda bailed because you're kinda having a meltdown in which we all have had before, like a digital overload meltdown.

01:54

And you just bailed. Right? Totally. It was it was really,

01:57

it was bad. I mean,

01:59

it's interesting to think about, like, I think this happened to everyone over COVID, like their life just shifted in a weird way.

02:06

And my life just became crappy over COVID, which is weird because I had this amazing year. Like, we took a business public. We raised a big fund. We got to work with all these interesting people.

02:17

We bought some great businesses.

02:19

I didn't die of COVID. Like, all these great things happened,

02:22

and yet I was totally miserable.

02:25

And when I look at it, when I kinda zoom out my old day, I don't know if you guys, you guys know, but I live in Victoria Canada, and I didn't even have an office. So I actually like just working out of cafes. I would just go to the same cafe every day, and it sit there with headphones on. Three or four of my friends would always work there. So it's kinda like cheers. There's always interesting people to talk to. And my day was just broken up into a bunch of chunks. So any given day, I wouldn't really be on the computer or in one place for more than an hour to, and my day went from that to sitting in a house on my computer all day on Zoom and doing email

03:02

and it just kind of made me miserable. And so

03:06

I I am,

03:08

you know, when I look at, like, what I love about business,

03:10

I don't actually love, you know, doing business is great, doing strategy, coming up with ideas, all that kind of stuff. But the cool thing about business is you get to meet interesting people. Like, business is just a hack. Right? So, like, if you're interested in health, you figure out like a health business. You suddenly can meet all the most interesting people in that world.

03:29

And I'm an extrovert. So so anyway, just I was totally bummed

03:32

and I started,

03:34

you know, going on Twitter a lot because I was craving socializing,

03:38

03:39

and I I went from, like, twenty thousand followers to a hundred and seventy thousand followers.

03:43

03:44

I got totally hooked into that. And, like, a good day would be like I have a viral tweet or I go on your podcast or something something exciting happens. A bad day would be I say something on Twitter. I get dunked on. I got misunderstood.

03:59

Or it doesn't do well. Like, what a ridiculous thing? Like, I'd tweet and it would only get like, fifty likes instead of five thousand likes, it would like throw my day off. So I got to a point where I was just like, Jesus Christ. Like, this is totally ridiculous. I'm thinking about Twitter constantly. I'm checking Twitter constantly.

04:16

And on top of that, I'm, you know, email,

04:19

you know, checking stats, stocks,

04:22

if I went to the bathroom without my phone, I feel like I feel I feel like I was gonna freak out constantly listening to audiobooks, constantly listening to podcasts,

04:31

no silence.

04:32

So I just, like, hit this weird breaking point August first, where I woke up,

04:37

and I was like, I'm not stoked to get out of bed. I'm not depressed.

04:42

Objectively, everything is fine. I'm, like, I'm just, like, I have, like, anhedonia. Like, I'm just not excited about any thing. So I just said, fuck it. I'm just gonna What what what's that word you just said? That was a good Amazon. Yeah. It means, like, an inability to feel pleasure. Right? Like, nothing.

04:58

Nothing would get me pumped. Nothing would give me a hit. Like, you know, you know, when you, like, you're always you go on Netflix. You're, like, scrolling endlessly for the perfect thing. You just can't find it. That's how my life felt.

05:11

And so I basically, you know, as the middle August, I live in British Columbia. It's super beautiful. And so I just said to my wife, you know what? I'm out for the next month. Let's just go off to our cabin. We'll, you know, we'll go on some trips, and I'm just gonna totally check out. And I said a couple rules for myself. I was like, no phone, no email, no computer, no podcasts,

05:34

no phone calls, no social media, no news, I couldn't even read non fiction business books, right? So it's pretty extreme,

05:41

and I put on my Apple Watch, which has, you know, cellular. So I was like, okay, if there's an emergency, I can get a phone call. And I put my phone in a drawer, and I just disappeared. I went up to my cabin and, hung out with my kids. And honestly, for the first, like, three or four days, it felt like there was like a bug in my brain. Like, I was just, like, so Like, like, something I I it check couldn't scratch. Like, just so irritable

06:06

as being a huge asshole,

06:08

I was like slapping my pocket every five seconds to check. Same.

06:13

I'd be sitting on the beach with my kids, and I constantly be like, oh, I need Texas to a friend. I gotta I gotta take a photo of this. Right? So it's really weird, horrible withdrawal.

06:23

But then after like three or four days,

06:25

I was like, holy crap. Like, this is really interesting. I started reading fiction books and just sitting for hours

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you know, enjoying a sunset,

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taking a silent drive,

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doing all this stuff.

06:38

And I think it's kind of like If you eat junk food all the time, like you're drinking coke and having burgers and stuff all the time, and then you eat broccoli, it doesn't taste that good. Your brain is primed for, like, these extreme flavors.

06:52

And then if you switch to broccoli, you know, you don't give those things for a month, then you eat broccoli, broccoli is like orgasmic. It's amazing.

06:59

And so, anyway, I did this for four weeks, and I was feeling really good.

07:04

And I came back to life. Like, I kind of reintroduced myself into society and started going out and working and stuff, and it was really bizarre. Like, I, you know, would listen to a song that was playing in a cafe, and it'd be like the greatest song I've ever heard.

07:20

I'd read

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some random article, and it would be like fascinating, and I'd just be completely,

07:27

like, just

07:29

you know, engage with it.

07:31

And then problems I had to solve that would have pissed me off, like, seemed like no problem when I was excited to solve them, And I was kinda going like, man, why why did that work? Like, what was it about that? And at the same time, like, around then, I started listening to podcasts again, and I listened to this podcast by, Andrew Huberman, HubermanLab, which I'm sure you guys have listened to. He's amazing. Yeah. He's, he's coming on the podcast. Oh, amazing. Let's that's awesome. So he did this deep dive on addiction,

08:00

and he did it with this woman, Anna Lemke, who's a, Stanford

08:05

addiction doctor. And I was like, oh, this will be interesting. It'll be about, like, heroin addiction or something and how they treat alcoholism.

08:12

So I'd start listening to it. Those other people who have those other bad problems.

08:17

Yeah. I'm not one of them. It's fun. It's fun to read about them.

08:21

Totally. I was like, I was oh, this will be, you know, maybe philanthropic.

08:24

You know, I can help fund the heroin addiction center in Victoria or something. So anyway, and as I listen, I just go like, oh my god. Like, you know, this is not this is universal.

08:36

Like, basically,

08:37

the chemical of dopamine, the neurotransmitter

08:40

is the thing that makes you feel

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craving and pleasure when you do things, and it motivates you to do things.

08:47

And I realized,

08:49

you know, basically, like, She said, you know, something along the lines of, if you eat chocolate cake once a month, it tastes amazing.

08:57

And you don't really crave it that much. You don't really think about it that much. It's very pleasurable. If you eat it once a week, you know, it's still enjoyable, but it sounds good. And you start having cravings, you start wanting chocolate cake. If you eat it every day,

09:12

your brain literally craves it, and you're in pain until you eat it. And when you eat it, it's not even that enjoyable. It just makes the ping go away for a little bit. And she compares that to like heroin addiction or anything. And so, you know, here we all are, we're stimulating ourselves with social media. Twenty four seven, we're constantly taking these hits, and the hits become less and less enjoyable.

09:34

And she talked about, you know, she's at Stanford, so she's treating students, and she talked about these kids that would come in

09:41

and they're addicted to social media and video games, and they have no motivation.

09:45

And so she said, look, I basically recommend a dopamine fast for four weeks They can't do any of that stuff. They gotta go walk in silence, drive in silence,

09:55

have quiet moments, not avoid those things. And I realized that, you know, I'd basically done that,

10:01

for myself, and that's why I felt better. And I, you know, I was an addict. It's crazy.

10:06

How do you propose doing this, though, given, like, I hear everything you're saying, and I think, oh, I actually I I'm sure I have the exact same problem.

10:14

But I'm like, I've got to record this podcast. I've got to text. I mean, I guess I don't have to. But, you know, it's Yeah. He's even you say rich guy. Like, right, for somebody who's listening or even, most people, I would say, the practicality of detaching for four weeks,

10:30

It's hard.

10:32

Oh, yeah. And I think,

10:34

my my version of it was extreme, but there's many different forms of it. I mean, it could be as simple as you just wear your Apple Watch, and you don't text. And the only way you text is crappily on your Apple Watch. You take calls on your Apple Watch, and, you know, you do Zooms on your laptop, but you just don't have that constant twenty four seven iMessage

10:54

coming in, or maybe you just screen time your phone super aggressively. I mean, how do you not eat junk food all the time and have a good diet Don't keep junk food in the house. Don't keep booze in the house, right? Self bind yourself.

11:07

So I mean, I just basically like screen time the hell out of my phone. And like today, for example, I drove to my office. I just have my Apple watch. I don't have my phone. So I know if my kids fall down and hurt themselves, my wife can call me, but otherwise, I'm not really texting. Do you do that, Sean? Because I think of you, Sean, as someone who

11:26

is connected a lot. I am connected a lot. I've consciously picked two parts of my day where I'm like, these are my, like, disconnect days. You know, like, these are my disconnect hours, at least. Because, you know, I I think about it very much the same as Andrea. I heard two things that,

11:43

that kinda shifted my view on this. So the first was Navell had this great, thing he used to say. And he goes, the ancient struggle was scarcity.

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You know, the the ancient struggle was we just didn't have enough. We didn't have enough food. We didn't have enough water. We didn't have enough

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you know, access to medicine, extra entertainment, whatever. And, the modern struggle is abundance, which is where overloaded with cheap

12:03

dopamine.

12:04

And, like, and then that the idea of cheap dopamine

12:08

is something that, literally last night, I was listening to Huberman, a little clip that came up on YouTube feed, of and Uberman. And it's funny, by the way, because it's, like, I literally

12:18

I I have it's, like, the addict is, like, learning about rehab while, like, shooting up, basically, because It was three AM.

12:25

I had just I was going to bed. I had to say it up way too late already.

12:30

And I'm the type where, you know, if I get, like you said, I'm going to the bathroom and I don't have my phone with me. I'm like, oh, I'm gonna miss out on, like, my entertainment. Like, I Right now I could watch something, listen to something, do something while I'm just peeing or whatever, like brushing my teeth. And I had literally bought this,

12:47

headphone

12:48

that I can wear to sleep because it's comfortable. So it's like a headband. It's like a soft headband that has small airbuds baked into it. So you could sleep with headphones because I was like, pipe that content into my ears baby while I'm falling asleep. Like, I don't I don't even wanna fall asleep. I wanna be entertained and pass out. Like, that's kind of the way I was sleeping. And so even last night, I was doing that, my my bad habit,

13:09

and which is like, you know, ultra connected, too connected. And I started listening to this Superman thing and he goes, He said something that really struck me. He goes, he goes, one way to think about addiction is it's a, progressive narrowing of what gives you pleasure.

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So it's a it's a,

13:26

you are narrowing the things in your life that that will give you this rush of pleasure. So so Andrew, when you when you when you dopamine fast, it, you started getting pleasure from silence in the car, from the sunset, from fiction books. But before that, it's like Twitter was this cheap, fast instantaneous, guaranteed source of pleasure. And so it was narrowed the number of places you were going to get that pleasure to, like, this most can be retirement also.

13:53

It also became more painful, though. More like, when I first started doing Twitter, it was pure pleasure, so fun. And then over time, it took more and more of a hit to satisfy me. The numbing. And then, yeah, you get numb to the, to sort of, like, you build up tolerance, right, like you would with alcohol or anything else.

14:09

And, of course, you had to turn your, you turned your experience into a thread, which probably became one of your most, reached things. Of course, it does. Totally. Well, this the debate, right, is do you want to engage, like, okay, like, obviously, it's a good thing that we can all,

14:26

use imessage and use these bices. Like, they're they're a bicycle for the mind. There's all these amazing things you can do. You can meet all these amazing people. But the question is how to use them in responsible way. So, like, with Twitter, I have a one way Twitter client that I'm using. So I don't actually see the results my tweets. Right? Although in this case, I'll admit I did went I did go and look. But my goal is to actually fully screen time on every device so I can't access Twitter.

14:51

Only the,

14:52

the API.

14:53

I think there's here's a good way to look at it. So have you guys heard of this person named, Earl Knightingale?

14:59

So, basically, he probably died in the sixties. Maybe he died in the seventies, and he was famous in the fifties and sixties, and he basically was almost like a Tony Robbins of that era, but he was a little bit more well known as, like, a writer. He was, like, almost like a, like, Like a Dan Rather's meets,

15:17

Tony Robbins's mainstream famous guy, and he told this famous story on this on his radio broadcast where he talked to a a farmer And he went to this farmer's house, and this was right when the telephone got popular. He went to this farmer's house and he's talking. There's having this conversation, and the phone starts ringing. And the farmer doesn't flinch. She just make keeps making eye contact and having, the conversation. And about five minutes later, the phone rings again, and just the same thing. He making eye eye eye contact. And then a few minutes later, it rings one more time. And the guys, the guests go Earl goes, Hey, do you need to answer that? And the farmer goes,

15:48

what that thing? No. No. No. That's just there for my convenience.

15:51

I I answer that whenever I want. And whenever I heard that story a couple years ago, I was like, that's how I'm gonna treat my phone. It is there for me. And so I don't feel guilty about clicking ignore deny or don't not replying.

16:04

It is this this thing, this phone, it exists for my convenience, not the other way around. I own I own it. Well, the other the other thing is do you ever think well, like, the nineteen fifties? So in the nineteen fifties, if you're an executive at a business, you would, a, have a secretary, right, and the secretary would be keeping everyone away from you, and then you'd get your mail once or twice a day. And so you'd batch it. Right? So you'd get a hundred letters

16:28

Half of them would be done by your secretary.

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You get, twenty or or fifty of them or whatever, and you just do that over an hour. You write all your letter responses, then you're done for the day. Whereas what we have is a mailman who's coming to the door every five minutes, knock knock, knock, here throwing a bunch more letters in there, and you're kind of doing it in the middle of everything. So I think like batching also is incredibly helpful. The other thing is like, you know, people who talk about being friends with or family with an alcoholic.

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They talk about how the alcohol will will actually if someone gets in in between them and the alcohol,

17:04

they will always choose the alcohol.

17:06

And I think the hard part is, you know, you think about

17:09

and think about all the, arguments I've had with my with my wife, where if I don't get to follow my routine,

17:16

my dopamine routine of, well, I like to listen at podcasts in the shower. And then I like to do x and y and z, and I've got my whole routine and process.

17:25

If she would mess with it, like, hey, I've got I need you to go and do this or whatever. I would like rage. Right? And I just thought I was an asshole or OCD or something. And then now being off of that, I'm not raging and getting frustrated in that same way. So it's really fascinating. All the addiction stuff just really flows through this.

17:44

I've created basically three, two windows in the day. So, exercise is one. Exercise is beautiful because

17:52

you know,

17:53

I have a very low urge to check my phone when I'm working out anyways. So that becomes a full kind of like almost ninety minutes of

18:01

of not looking at my phone, and I don't care what's happening. And I don't care who's I don't care how much sales we have. I don't care, you know, who's mentioning me. I don't care who's emailing me. Slacking me.

18:11

And so Sam, I think you probably have the same where when you work out, I don't think you are checking your phone, during it. Yeah. I I don't. I it means nothing to me. I do look at it to mark down what I'm doing. But typically, what I've been doing lately is I'll mark down on a notepad with my workout and then I transfer it after the workout specifically touch my phone. You guys listen to music while you work out because one of the things Huberman talks about is you don't wanna dopamine stack. So people work out to experience pleasure in dopamine. But if you start stacking it, so you say, I when I work out, I watch Game of Thrones, and I get a smoothie after

18:45

and and and you start to not enjoy the actual workout, whereas if you do it for intrinsic reasons, you can actually train yourself to enjoy it. Right. We I do

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I listen to music too, and I, like, I love the,

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like, that's I feel like that's music listening time.

19:03

Basically And here I am. I am training myself. Love when you're addiction.

19:08

You watch on? Sorry. Go ahead.

19:11

That's funny. Andrew's saying I'm I'm getting between you and your addiction. Sam raged out immediately.

19:16

You know, the I I'm I'm doing the opposite where, like, Dan Arilli, the kind of, like, famous behavior economist.

19:22

He was talking about this thing where he had this medicine he had to take because he has really bad burns. He had really bad facial burns. Gotta take this one medicine all the time or apply this ointment and burned. It was like really uncomfortable.

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And so he was like, instead of trying to wrestle the brain and convince the brain through logic that this is a good thing for me when the brain is just saying, ew, this I don't like the the way this medicine makes me feel. Don't take this.

19:44

He's, like, I just attached a really I think I really loved, to taking the medicine. So every time I take the medicine, I would take it during the intro of my favorite movie, and I would watch my favorite movie or my favorite show, And he's like, that helped me stick to my routine of taking the medicine actually get healthier. And so for me, that's almost like working out where working out wasn't something I found super pleasurable. That's why I didn't work out for so long because it kinda felt like work. And so I had to retrain myself using music, having a a great trainer who I like hanging out with, know, like, doing different types of workouts that are more sporty so that I would actually get pleasure from working out. So I would actually like it. So I stacked it intentionally

20:20

I stacked things I knew I loved onto working out so that I started to love working out because I only got to do those things when I worked out. Yeah. And I I'd also say though, Andrew,

20:30

Well, you're taking those stance, but I don't know if you actually feel that way.

20:34

Is addiction necessarily bad? Like, alright. So I had talked about this a month. I've had like alcohol problems. And then I started like going to cigars. Like, one way that I got off it is I started smoking. And then like after smoking, I, like, started doing sugar or something like that. And I went to the doctor, and she's like, I was like, you know, I'm eating so much sugar. And she's like, well, is it helping you not drink?

20:54

Yeah. She goes, I'm gonna fuck it. Just do it. And,

20:57

I'm like, yeah. Why wouldn't I just do that? And so some addiction, I I'm whenever I think of, like, I'm like,

21:04

Just it's not necessarily bad. Like, so, like, if you're addicted to one thing or the other, well, is that is that, like, does it kinda make you a little bit happy? You know, I think actually some addiction could be okay. That's kinda I think it's it's there's there's a lot of different levels to it. Right? Like, I think, obviously, heroin, alcohol, drug abuse, that leads to a life of guaranteed misery, very quickly and you die young and you're depressed and everything else. But the fundamental question is if you're addicted to work

21:31

and it's making you pressed,

21:33

then, you know, just because you're objectively achieving

21:36

what's the point of achieving if you're depressed. Right? So I think that's the way I would think about it. Yeah. It don't put what's the highest order bit. Right? If the highest order bit is that I'm feeling good on a daily basis, I'm I enjoy my life. I feel I feel good, then cool. Whatever your system is is serving you. But as soon as that spirals out, it it might start that way. The same behavior might start feeling that way, and then all of a sudden,

22:00

it it's you stop feeling that. That's what kinda happened with you, Andrew. It's like, let's say, like, at first, you're getting this great pleasure and rush from connecting with people on Twitter and sharing your ideas, and that's fun, and you were helping people, because people heard those ideas and took them for their own. And then, like, you know, everything in excess sort of has the the the cons will sort of reveal themselves over time.

22:20

Totally. Well, now they're the other thing that's interesting is, like, I'm the kind of person where I'm always hacking everything. Right? So I was like, okay. If I do the dishes, I've found a way to enjoy the dishes. So I'm stacking on. I've got my podcast. I've got my music. I get my treat after, you know, all those things. And recently, what I've been trying to do is just do the best job of doing the dishes I possibly can in silence. It's almost a meditative practice. And what I've noticed is, again, the first couple times I did it, I was raging. I was like, this fucking sucks. I don't want to do the dishes. You know, this is BS.

22:51

And then after a while of just silently doing the dishes, I started really enjoying it. And now when my wife says, can you do the dishes? I don't get irritable and I'm not expecting a treat, and I'm doing it because it's intrinsically enjoyable feeling the hot water and washing the pan and doing a good job, which sounds ridiculous.

23:10

But it's no different than gardening or any other thing that people like. It's just tuning your brain for it. So can we talk about something that doesn't seem similar, but kinda is, but basically, Andrew, you bought this company Arrow Press, which is actually, like, in my opinion, probably one of the best companies that you could own if you are trying not to get addicted to,

23:30

fast twitch,

23:32

notifications,

23:32

alerts because it's been around forever.

23:35

It do you guys even sell anything? Do do you even sell it online, really, other than Amazon?

23:40

A little bit. Only I think it's like three percent of sales are online right now. So, like, it's a pretty, like, low

23:47

stress.

23:48

Like, because you haven't built anything new or arrow presses. It's basically a if you don't know what arrow presses, it's a coffee maker that's been the same way since the beginning. Is that right? Yeah. It's been around since, I think, two thousand six, and it's like this. It it looks like a PVC tube and you press down on it. You put some coffee in the bottom of it. You put some hot water and you press down, and it makes like a concentrated coffee.

24:10

And, it's been around, yeah, for for a long time, and it was started by the guy who made the Arobi Frisbee. He's like a serial inventor so that those like neon pink frisbee's from the eighties.

24:21

Yeah, it It's an amazing product. Can you say what you bought it for?

24:26

The deal was seventy million,

24:28

seventy million to buy it. And can you say how big it is? I mean, I'm what what can you say about it? It wasn't for sale or this was one that you were like, let me see if I can if they're willing to sell.

24:39

So, I mean,

24:41

basically, the story is

24:43

four or five years ago, I was making coffee. I've been using aero press for years. We had one at our office. Someone brought brought one in like ten years ago.

24:51

And, I looked down at it. And I was like, oh man, I wonder who owns this. So I started googling I realized the founder still owned it and he's this eighty year old serial inventor who lives in Palo Alto. So I sent him an email. I looked up his email on Vuala Norbert

25:05

And, I said, Hey, can I come to Palo Alto? And, you know, would you ever explore selling? And he said, I don't know if I wanna sell, but I'm happy to meet you. And so I flew down, and Chris and I spent a whole day with him just kinda talking about the business.

25:19

And there's just so much to love about this business. So What was he like?

25:23

He's like this like really funny old guy. He reminded me a little bit of my grandpa.

25:28

You know, he had hearing aids,

25:30

He, he, like, just clearly loved inventing and coming up with ideas, and he started walking me through, you know, all the different inventions and ideas that he had and things he wanted to make Did he did did he actually work there?

25:43

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. He, so he really, like, ran he was really responsible for inventing in the product and then he had a president who was running the day to day business.

25:53

And so,

25:54

you know, this is like

25:56

It's such a crazy business. So there's zero marketing. So they spend absolutely nothing on marketing.

26:02

It's sold in pretty much every single gourmet coffee shop in the world. Like, you walk into anywhere, blue bottle

26:08

from down to, like, little independent ones. Everyone sells it.

26:13

It's very, very,

26:15

like,

26:17

it's like it's a a category owner I would call Right? So Yeah. Definitely. If you think about, like, a commodity product, even, like, Kleenex or Band Aid, right? It is the it's it's the category defining hand. Right? So no one searches like pneumatic tube coffee maker. They just search air press. So,

26:35

and it's literally written on grinders. Right? So, like, one of the settings on the grinders Airpress. So, basically, this is an opportunity for us to buy a category of, like, making coffee, a way of making coffee.

26:47

And, like, people are fanatical. There's, like, world arrow press championships.

26:52

Baristas get, like, tattoos of arrow presses. Like, it's totally nuts. So anyway,

26:57

I spent four years trying to convince him to sell his business, and I literally emailed him every single month for four years. I'd call this the Dennis the menace, just like I have an email reminder and super human, and I just kept asking.

27:09

And then finally,

27:11

you know, over the last six months, we negotiated a deal

27:14

and got it done. And the idea is very simple. I mean, this is an incredible product.

27:18

It's really just about selling it in more places. And they really just didn't have a D to C strategy. So we're basically coming in. We're gonna focus on D to C and keep the business as it is otherwise, and just scale that channel. So we're super excited about it.

27:34

What what you just said, remind me? That's wild money. When

27:38

I think he said this on the podcast. I think I could share it when,

27:42

when Moi's Ali

27:44

selling native,

27:45

and native at the time was just

27:47

just a deodorant.

27:49

That's all they sold. One one one one product with a couple, scents of flavors.

27:53

And, And so it was like a,

27:56

you know, here's this, there's sort of,

27:58

paraben free aluminum free deodorant, and he's, you know, he's selling, and, like, part of the sales pitch of like, how to get more upside in the deal was, hey, right now, we're doing so well with just deodorant. Imagine if we expand it or whatever. That's kinda the high level idea. But I thought the way he said it makes a big difference. So, like It was wonderful. He and this is, like, I call this out because you know, when I teach this power writing course, it's I live for these phrases. These let let's take the same information. Let's say it two different ways and watch what happens. And so, you know, One is, there's lots of room to expand into other product lines. Okay. Emotionally registers as a one. And then the the, the way he said it, when he was meeting with somebody, they were like, well, how big can this be? And, like, you know, what's the upside here for us? He goes, he goes, do you know how to write the word native on other bottles?

28:44

Like, like, if could you write that on a shampoo bottle? Could you write that on a toothpaste bottle? And he's like, that's your upside.

28:50

And,

28:51

it's like, you know, obviously kind of a funny asshole thing to say, but

28:56

it really, like, hits home. And so when you when I was hearing about the aeropress thing, I it reminded me of that, which is, like,

29:03

do you know how to make a website? Because right now, if if it's all if it's all done, not through D to C, not done online, it's like, it doesn't take a genius to make this Like, the genius thing was buying it, not making it bet better and bigger than it is today. And that's, like, your sweet spot, right, is you're not looking to be a genius in curling it. Yeah. There's this period where factories went from being steam powered to powered by electricity.

29:26

Right? And you could basically go and you could buy a factory and convert it. There's a lot of money being made to be made in just electrification

29:33

in factories or products or anything. And this is one of those things, right, where you find a business that's using a legacy,

29:41

sales process via retail, which we're gonna keep. I mean, it's an amazing advertising mechanism

29:46

and we love all the distributors and everything, but at the same time, it's like, Hey, we can also sell us D2C.

29:52

Awesome. And it's such a simple insight that We don't need to be geniuses.

29:56

A, even if we don't do as great as we think, we'll still do fine. We'll have a great business. And if we do well, we're gonna blow the doors off. One one more point on that, that you bought it for seventy million dollars. What is the annual rough roughly the annual marketing and advertising spend that has created this

30:08

business

30:12

you bought for seventy million dollars. Is it I'm honest. Or less than one million dollars. Thousand dollars. Yeah. It's only twenty thousand dollars. Exactly. So I mean, here's the other one. Right? It it includes salaries. There's there's a few people in the marketing, but let's call it. If you include salaries, maybe let's call it a hundred and fifty two hundred grand. Hold on. Twenty people right there. Why do you have a marketing person? You're spending twenty thousand dollars a month. Yeah. Why does there? Why does there?

30:33

Why do you do what they do do is lots of, like, I wouldn't even call it influencer, but, like, they do a lot PR and outreach and equity. But the company, the company, this company is it it's like it's like fucking CarMax or something. It's like, you made it one time and then, like, what

30:48

when I imagine a business like this, what do the people do every day? Like, you have,

30:52

like, like, you know roughly how many orders you can I used to be like, why do you have twenty five people here? Write one email. And you're like, yeah, it just it takes a lot of people to, like, you know, make this email great and, like, have ads. Well, for us,

31:05

for us, it was redundancy. You needed redundancy. Because because it it was a it was a digital thing that people made every single day. And I actually think you could run the whole business with fifteen people or less. But with Arrow Press, you you probably could

31:18

Did did you only need, like, ten or five or how people suggest it? I think there's sub ten employees. Wow. And they're managing these distributors

31:25

and making sure manufacturing is good all that kind of stuff. That's crazy. And so a a five or ten person company for seventy million dollars. That's freaking awesome. That's so cool. Like, you you know what Carmex

31:36

Andrew. It's the, like, the chapter. Oh, lip balm. Yeah. The yeah. This it's like, this is like one of those. You I think you up here, you called a cruise ship. This is one of those things. We're just it does does the same thing. Like, you guys didn't create anything new after the initial thing. Right?

31:51

No. No. We haven't done anything. Explain this cruise ship investing for framework. What what is this?

31:57

Well, okay. So I think,

31:59

when I talk to any young person and, you know, myself included,

32:03

I really glorified

32:05

startups.

32:05

Right? And I I I like to kind of turn these into like,

32:10

analogies or whatever, just so they're easy to explain. And I was like, oh, you know,

32:15

a startup is really like a speedboat. Right? It's exhilarating. It can go anywhere. But at the end of the day, you know, you're driving over waves, you're getting your, you know, body destroyed, you're freezing cold.

32:27

You might hit a rock. You might get drunk. You really have to be white knuckling and pay attention.

32:31

And you're constantly worried you're gonna run out of gas. Right? So I was like, okay. So that's a startup.

32:38

A cruise ship is slow and steady.

32:41

Moves on a straight course. So you can pretty much estimate where they're going. You can make an educated guess that you'll end up in Hawaii versus Antarctica

32:49

based on where they're going and what they're courses.

32:52

And you can get a comfortable sleep, lots of amenities.

32:55

There's very low odds of failure. It's not dangerous at all. Best of all, you don't have to buy the whole boat. You just buy a ticket. And I was saying, you know, a stock certificate. Right? So essentially,

33:05

just as a mental model, I go when I look at a business, I go, is this a speedboat or a cruise ship? Do I need to be white knuckling less? And do I need a, you know, amazing captain

33:15

or can I just go and board a cruise ship that's already doing really well? And it's much more boring to do ride a cruise ship. No one's gonna give you an award or write a book about you. For having an amazing,

33:26

crossing of the Atlantic or whatever on a cruise ship, but it's very comfortable and enjoyable.

33:32

So I I've just been using that example when I talk to young entrepreneurs. There's a similar example to that. So this guy named Joel.

33:39

What's the the guy who started?

33:41

Software.

33:42

Is there anything else? Yeah. Joel on software. Joel on software. What what is it called? So what's the thing that everyone knows?

33:49

Trello.

33:50

Stack Overflow.

33:52

Yeah. So this guy, he's he's amazing. So his name's Joel and software. His blog, if you wanna read good writing, it's this guy. Called joel on software dot com. It's amazing, and he's got this amazing blog post where he talks about different strategies, and he basically calls it the Ben and Jerry's or the Amazon on. And so with Amazon, it's new competition

34:09

or sorry, new technology, and there's very little competition at first. And you basically need to go balls to the wall like a speed need to go as hard as you possibly can early on to grab as much market share. You're okay with losing a lot of money. And, you know, it's,

34:22

gotta go fast. Otherwise, you're gonna lose, and it's a zero sum game. Or there's Ben and Jerry's where there's already a lot of ice cream competition.

34:30

You can go to a bunch of different ice cream places throughout the week, and it's no big deal. And if you do a good job, this could last for fifty or a hundred years. And that's kind of like the different strategies. Although, I would say that the cruise ship analogies is probably even better.

34:43

Totally.

34:44

I wanted to ask you, you said something about the cruise ship thing, which was like, you know, you don't get to be the hero because you didn't you know, white knuckle,

34:52

and, like,

34:54

survive the the crazy storm and come out the other side, which is, like, you know, the startup founder who pulls it off and disrupts the industry in blah blah.

35:01

And you had a thing on here, which I think is more related to your Twitter stuff, but I think they're they're both the same. They're both, they're both related, which is what's the perfect amount of notoriety

35:10

So what's the perfect amount of fame? And and to what extent do you

35:15

do you,

35:17

do things in order to build your profile, build your built your fame. Right? So what are your kind of like most what's your most up to date thoughts on that? Cause I think you've done a good job. Right? You do have a high profile. You have a high profile than I don't know, ninety nine percent of people who do what you do, which is private equity.

35:33

And, you know, so so you've done a good job in that. And I think that's paid work dividends, and it's probably had fun, you know,

35:41

ego dividends too, where you feel good about it.

35:44

But, you know, there's downsides. So what do you what do you think now? What do you think is the perfect amount of notoriety?

35:49

Well, this one I'm trying to figure out. And I I don't really know if I have the answer, and I think you guys have probably gone a gone through this exact same thing as I have. I mean, I was sitting at a cafe, my my wife was like, hey, you know, go take go take a couple hours to yourself. And so I went and I sat at a cafe and I was reading a book And a friend showed up. I started talking to him. You're gonna go about twenty Your wife just said, go take a couple hours for yourself. Could I just the MVP

36:13

of, look, what's going on? I need to tell my wife this is a thing. This is from this is because I haven't been irritable, right, because I'm not an addict right now.

36:22

It's right away. So I'm sitting there and chatting with my friend and, you know, I'm sharing personal stuff and, you know, talking about what's going in my life. And maybe twenty minutes into our conversation, there's guy who's sitting to our left. And he goes, hey, I'm really sorry to interrupt, but I heard you on my first million.

36:38

And I've got a business over in Vancouver.

36:40

And that was so cool. Right? Like, that's I'm sure you guys have that too. Every once in a while, someone will stop it. Is that a real story, by the way? Yes. A hundred percent real. Sauce. There's the guy I'll mention the guy he runs a, he runs the best gourmet coffee shop at UBC, which is a big university in Vancouver.

36:57

It's called Bulldog Coffee And I was like, wow, that's actually genius. You've basically got to capture. You've captured a market that's smart. But anyway,

37:05

what was going through my head after that is, oh my god, what did I say? Like, you know, here's this person who heard what everything I was saying. And I don't think I said anything bad or, you know, overly personal. But there is this sense of like, oh, there's a loss of privacy.

37:19

And not only that, but you have to be consistent. So if I go on this podcast and I say, I'm about x and y and z. Now every time I talk to someone, if I change my mind or I wanna be kind of a chameleon and just be a different person or whatever, like they almost like call you out or whatever. So it's just it's it's very interesting and some of the other downside is that I'm sure you guys have had is consistency

37:41

and commitment bias. Right? So one example is I talked about the

37:46

sugar free bakery thing I was doing. And we ended up getting,

37:50

we weren't legally allowed to use a key ingredient

37:53

in Canada until it's approved. So I was like, okay. I have to shut this down. But I didn't shut it down for like two months longer than I should have, because I'd gone on here and made a public statement to everyone. Hey, everyone. Look, I'm doing this thing. This awesome thing. Yeah. And I felt ashamed it's like in a log in a logical thing.

38:10

There's this great quote by Bill Murray, and it said if you think you wanna be rich and famous, try being rich first and see if that covers it. And I think that that's really interesting. And I I think, like, you wanna be respected in your world. You wanna be, like, in in film, you'd wanna be, like, the Cohen Brothers, right, where it's like no one knows what the Cohen Brothers look like. But if they're at the academy words, they're like ballers, and they can get the attention and do whatever they want. Don't think do you do you know who do you know who Death punk is? Yeah. Oh, dude. Dude, I was like, they've got the best job because, I mean, they don't even have to show up when they they probably make ten million each a year just help these concerts because the EDM or whatever the genre is, they've they're huge concerts. I'm like, they don't even have to show up. They could be anyone underneath mask. There could be anyone. Totally. I think it's super smart.

38:56

And I I don't I don't know. What do you, I mean, what do you guys think? What do you? Sam, you've shared some stories about being stopped in the street and stuff. Yeah. I get Sean, do get stopped. I I get stopped probably,

39:04

once or twice a week. I don't think our audience is big and, the suburbs of California. So, you know, my my neighbors, like, average age is like seventy probably or something. So I don't think these guys are listening, but what's cool is, like, my trainer he came to me the other day. And he's like, oh, I met these two guys in the gym. They're like twenty one, twenty two years old. They and they were telling me, like, oh, dude. You had to listen to this podcast.

39:27

It's a, like, we're we're hooked on it. And then we're getting so many ideas. We're gonna quit our job. We're gonna do this stuff. And,

39:33

and they should they were like, what's he's like, what's the podcast? And was like my first million. He's like, bro, that's my buddy. Like, that's that's my tray. I'm going there right after this. And they're like, no way. And so it's more of these, like, secondhand stories. That have either a happened to me or b, like, kinda light me up a little bit. Like, I mentioned my cousin's name on the last podcast because Jack a Jack, who was on the podcast had invested in him, And, he's like, dude, he's like, I know you do a podcast or I know you mentioned me in the podcast because I'll just get a bunch of messages being like, oh, somebody, you know, he shouted you out or can we invest in your thing? He's like, it's amazing how much

40:05

instant, like, kind of,

40:07

you know, love I get if you just say my name or say our company's name on the pod. And those are cool moments.

40:14

Yeah. The serendipity, like, I talked about this idea.

40:17

Sam and I were riffing on, like,

40:19

know, what business would you start if you could start anything today or just throwing out ideas? And one of them was, DDC pregnancy health. So how do you build a super big using supplements and blood work and all that kind of stuff. And now I'm in partnership with this, woman named Katie Duhurst, and we're working on this business together, and it's been super fun. And I never would have been able to do that. And I literally, you know, met the best possible person for that idea. I never would have been able to do that. So it's like the pros are huge, but then the cons are those kind of odd things. Or for you guys, I would assume you're probably a dick it to your podcast stats. Right? Oh, where are we ranking on the iTunes? No. Our our uploads, you know? Our well, I would say we I would I'm more addicted to Twitter, I think. Yeah. So, like, I I was like, oh, I'm I'm gonna be slick and turn off my notifications. But what I do is I search the par at my Twitter handle. Like, I search that and then type in latest. So it's like, I see my it's on my foot.

41:13

Yeah. Like, I'm like, so, that kinda like, that's stupid. On the same podcast is not podcast is not designed to be addictive because you don't get these, like, viral spurts.

41:23

It's slow and steady compounding with no immediate feedback. You don't get comments after every episode.

41:28

Like And that makes it suck. That's what And there's a lot of bad things about that, but the good thing is it's very zen. And so, like, all the things I've done news that are Twitter, and I've, like, tried to be successful in them, tried to grow them, gotten some growth, gotten to success, gotten made money off of them. And they all, I, like, fade out because I'm like, you know, I don't like what this does to me. You know,

41:50

I think one of the most toxic things you can do is care too much what other people think of you. It is fundamentally the loop of what social media is, is you post something and then other people react to your either your photo, what I look like, what I sound like, or what I said, or what I thought. Right? And so

42:06

care you know, I hate tweeting something and then wanting to go check the mentions, check the reaction to it, because fundamentally, I'm putting all my

42:16

awareness and attention to what do other people think about me? And that's just a horrible way to be. That doesn't have to be that doesn't have to be bad. So let me give you example, Andrew. You probably don't know this, but I'm a fitness influencer now.

42:30

I've got four thousand So I here, like, I was I kinda did it as a joke, but kinda not. So basically,

42:37

I've this, the year of two thousand twenty one, I wanted to work really hard to get very, very, very fit. And I had a little bit of a plateau and I was joking with Sean, but I kinda wasn't doing it. I was like, I'm just gonna start posting on Instagram constantly and just be I'm gonna change my identity to become a fitness person. And I've been doing it lately.

42:52

And it's obviously, it's not a big deal. Like, no one actually watches, but it's made me not eat certain foods

43:01

because I'm like, I I said I posted that I was gonna hit this weight and these people are, like, it's not real, but in my head, these people are expecting me to do it. I have to come with the result so I can fill this, make this story complete and,

43:15

you know, like be like the love of their lives and like get their attention. And

43:20

Is that unhealthy kind of? But I'm getting a great result.

43:23

Yeah. Well, I think,

43:25

we gotta talk about this book I read called wanting. Have you guys heard of this book? No. No. Have you ever heard so Peter Tiel talks about mimesis or memetic desire? Have you guys heard about this concept? Yeah. He talks about, like, was it Renee's

43:38

art or whatever. Renee's your art. I buy the books. I'm like, I can't fucking read this. It's so dense. Like, I know. It's like a French David Prull.

43:46

David Prull did it by articles about it. And even then, it's just too dense. It's too academic. I didn't get it. And finally, you know, one of my friends who's like super into Peter Teel gave me this book wanting, And it was kind of a revelation for me. So the idea is basically that you want the things

44:03

that are modeled to you by other people.

44:06

So, you know, you meet a friend at a bar, you want a beer, he orders a martini.

44:11

Maybe you go, oh, maybe I do want a martini. Right? So that's that's, like, the most

44:16

generic example of, like, a meaningless thing. What about if your friend tells you he just raised around from Sequoia Capital.

44:23

Right? You start asking yourself, why didn't I raise from Sequoia? Why don't, you know, why does his startup have more employees than mine does? Why didn't I get that job title? He is a sailboat. Why don't I have a sailboat? Why don't I have a Rolex? He moves to Brooklyn.

44:37

Why don't I live in Brooklyn? Right? So, basically,

44:40

when you surround yourself with peers,

44:43

you start competing with them and you start wanting those things.

44:47

And, you know, I see this in my own group of friends, you know, when one of us buys a new car, within a year, we've all bought a new car. Right? There's these waves, or the other thing you see is mirroring. So

44:59

you know, let's say I buy a Tesla,

45:02

my friend might say I'm buying a classic Ford Mustang, and I'm gonna constantly talk about much I love the rumble of the engine or working on it. Right? It's like this like counter

45:11

mirror.

45:12

So it's super interesting because you don't actually want these things. These are not real desires. These are modeled to you. And so in this book, they talk about thin desires. So these are like extrinsic

45:25

things coming from the modeling of others. Right? So wanting a Rolex because people, you know, that are your peers value Rolex's,

45:34

and then there's thick desires which are intrinsic that come from inside of you. So you enjoy working in your garden. You don't need to tell anyone. You don't post about it. It's not part of your identity. You don't do it to impress anyone. It's just saying you quietly enjoy. And so I think the big thing is coming up with what are my thick desires? What are real versus what come from wanting to be like my heroes or my friends or or whoever it is? Because if you're not careful at pruning this, you will become this. And if you spend too much time around people who want things that you don't actually want, you will still desire and achieve those things.

46:10

So so I love what you're saying. Keep going. So you read this book and then there's like the question of what are your models? Who are your models?

46:17

And what did you, you know, you know, what did you take away from this? So, yeah, I mean, like, are you jealous of Jeff Bezos?

46:24

No. Jeff Bezos is not someone that you compete with. Right? Jeff Bezos is off in this celebrity world. Right? JZ. That's not someone you compete with. Right? The people you compete with are people within your bubble. Like Like, it could be each other. Us three, maybe there's other things that there there could be other things that people or jealous? I I I guarantee you, anyone who's on Twitter, for example, anyone on Twitter in business, you know, you and the morning group guys. Like, it doesn't matter if you like them or anything. Still in a memetic competition. But when I see Sam's host as a fitness influencer,

46:54

you bet your ass, I work out harder that day.

46:58

Totally. Well, and exactly he now values health. So that's that's good. If you wanna be healthy,

47:03

hang out with Sam, we'll probably make you healthier over time. Right? So that's that's a good thing.

47:08

But so, you know, and and there's so many different bubbles. There's so many different worlds. So for example, if you live in San Francisco,

47:14

the thing that everyone wants is, you know, fundraising and valuation or who your investors are. If you're in New York, it might be about your wealth, your art collection, or your fashion,

47:24

in LA, it would be, you know, what awards have you won? Where do you get restaurant reservations?

47:30

You know, athletes, it's metals, chefs, it's Michelin Stars, comedians, it's Netflix specials.

47:36

You know, you you name it. So the way to figure out who your models are as well, is actually to ask kind of an odd question. You say, who do I not want to succeed?

47:45

Right? And maybe it's deep within you. Right? But it might be that guy on Twitter who you know, you're friendly with and everything's fine. Do you kind of he bothers you or he's maybe a little ahead of you. He has maybe ten thousand more followers You just don't want them to succeed. That's probably who you're in memetic rivalry with.

48:04

And and so the real question is, you know, how do you a align with people who

48:08

will lead you down a path

48:11

of this memetic copying

48:13

that will actually make you happy. So that's spending time with people who are actually similar to you. And want things that are your thick desires, right, being healthy, being safe, gardening, you know, whatever that is,

48:25

And then the other question is, how do you opt out?

48:28

And, and really, that's pruning. You know, what do you read? Who do you listen to? Who do you spend time with?

48:35

And, you know, for an example I thought about for myself, you know, I was spending all this time reading about Warren Buffett of idolized Warren Buffett forever. But when I think about, you know, what does Warren Buffett actually do in his day? He's a guy who can sit there and read all day reading annual reports. That's what his life has set up for. I would kill myself. Like, I have no interest in doing that, and I think I'd be very bored. So I have to be very careful not to over index on Warren Buffett.

49:01

The other thing you can do is you can opt out. So you can say, you know, I'm gonna be like Dave Chapel. I'm gonna move to Ohio

49:07

where I'm just you know, a redneck and, you know, in a small community or whatever. For me, I live in Victoria. You know, I'm not as exposed to this as, other people,

49:17

And there's this great story of this guy who's a Michelin,

49:21

star chef. So you think about chefs, the ultimate is you open a restaurant

49:27

a really high end restaurant. You got a Michelin star. Skye Sebastian Brass did that. All he wanted was to get a Michelin star, and he got it. And when he got it, it didn't actually make him happier. He just wanted a second star. Then he got a second star. Well, it didn't make him happy either. And he just lived in fear of losing it because they just come and inspect you. You know, it'll be like, they'll come to your restaurant. And if the table cloth isn't perfectly clean or the food is in a certain way, you know, you got rejected. And so you end up living your life by these arbitrary rules that don't actually make you happy, and you fight for something that know, is not what you actually want. So this guy is a baller. He just said, Michelin, I want you to remove my star, take me out of the guy I'm out. Right? So you can do stuff like that, but that takes like brass balls. That's very difficult to do.

50:14

Why did you mention read why? I mean, you're talking about reading and everything, and I wanna what you're reading. Why did you mention read wise,

50:20

on your document?

50:22

Well, I think, like, you know, like you guys, I just read all sorts of random stuff, and I'll read all these books that'll make a huge impact on me, but then I'll forget everything.

50:30

Right? And so I use this tool called ReadWise,

50:33

where my kindle highlights basically get emailed to me once a day at random.

50:38

And it's like,

50:40

there's like a memory

50:42

thing called spaced repetition.

50:44

And so it basically sends you,

50:46

you know, every week, every month, I'll get all these ideas back

50:50

boomerang back to me, and I just kind of am reminded of some of these things I've read. When you're reading, do you just read book after book?

50:58

Yeah. Usually.

50:59

What I I do that as well. I'm thinking that's actually really stupid.

51:03

If I find, like, a book that, like, has a big impact, or is, like, has a ton of learnings. I should probably reread that every handful of months or something. Like, you, you know,

51:13

you you should do whatever it takes to really understand and and grasp and assigned reading, not as much, like, go from thing to thing to thing. You know what I mean? You know, you know what feynman method is. No. It's basically, you you read the thing and then you teach it, and you can't truly understand it until you teach it. So, like, a a way of remembering really well would be go on the podcast, and in a very cogent way summarize what you've learned, and then keep bringing it up for yourself.

51:38

Right? Like, I I mean, you know, just even writing out some notes for this podcast, it forced me to actually go, what did I learn in this book? And I'm sure it'll actually hammered into my head better. That's how I used to be in college.

51:51

I didn't know that that was a technique, but I had figured out pretty early on. That the way I could get better grades, like, I wanted to have good grades, but I didn't wanna keep studying as much. Like, other I feel like other people studied so much. They spent so many hours in the library and I just didn't find it. I didn't want to do it. And I was like, well, here's what I'll do. I'll basically,

52:10

quickly skim the material.

52:12

And then I will lead a study group where I'll teach it to that group. And in that process, I was like a horrible teacher for the first, like, hour when I was doing because I don't know the material yet. I actually don't even understand it. I barely remember half of it, but I remember half of it. And, like, by teaching it, I remembered that half, and I quickly figured out the other I didn't know.

52:31

And I just remember, like, that's how I studied for every final when I was in college. And it was,

52:36

it was pretty amazing because I could study half the time as other people because what they would do is they would try to just ingest it and just keep ingesting it. They would just try to keep reading it and rereading it and writing notes and rereading it. And they would never try to,

52:50

articulate it off the top of their head to anybody else or answer a question, you know, in public with anybody else. And so they never did that, and they just tried to, like, solidify it in their head, but it never really did,

53:01

you know, for them or it took way longer to do it.

53:05

It's such a hack, right, to be able to summarize it in one sentence or have a, you know, have a metaphor or, you know, whatever it is that helps you remember it. Can you do that, running a blog post about it, or do you actually have to speak about it? Oh, you could do that.

53:19

I I used to run this thing called the anti MBA, and it a weekly book club. Basically, we would read a book a month. And each week, we would divide that book into quarters. So we'd talk about a book every week, and I would basically leading this, and we would have ten or twenty people show up and I would lead it. And I remember, I learned like crazy every book. I was like mastering it, but I wasn't sure if I could do that. Now just to blogging or if I actually had to, like, organize and talk to people about it because that'd be a pain in the ass.

53:45

One thing I've seen is my,

53:49

I don't know. This is kind of an unpopular,

53:51

way to think or something. I don't know. I don't think this is the, This is how most people think. But listen, like, Andrew. So I think, Andrea, I think you're super smart and amazing and great. And I love when you bring these ideas because it makes me be it brings all these new thoughts into my head.

54:06

But I think you, and I think Sam to an extent, do something that I used to do that I'm trying to stop doing. And that is, like,

54:14

this constant optimization.

54:16

And so, like, you know, this idea that I'm gonna read a book I'm gonna find a great book then Sam's like, I'm gonna reread it because I wanna to sync it. I'm gonna drill it into my head. And Andrew's like, no. What I do is I highlight using this tool and I set up an auto trigger to email me back the best highlights. Like, old me would have been, like,

54:33

dope. Love that. That's gonna be my

54:36

solution to this, like, underlying ever present problem. I'm gonna keep seeking these solutions. That are like new hacks, new optimizations,

54:44

new, like, kind of techniques and solu and solutions and methods.

54:48

And, and the one like realization I've had by talking to some other people outside of this. Like, my trainer is really the one who drilled this in me because he would be talking to me during a workout. He would say something to me. I would go run to my notepad. I'd write it down because he said this really wise thing, and it was so good. I wanted to, like, remember it as a nugget of goal.

55:04

And he told me he goes, He goes, you know, you you won't have to write these down.

55:10

And I go, I I go, what do you mean? He's like Also, how of you to be writing this down. I would literally stop a set and I would drop the weight and I would go write the thing down because I'm like, you just said it so perfectly.

55:20

And I in my head, I'm like, gonna know this. I'm gonna remember this. I'm gonna tell other people. I'm gonna say this on the pot. It's gonna look great. My head actually is silently thinking all these other things. Things. It's like trying to, like, achieve some stupid goal because I'm like, this is the answer. This isn't in the nugget that's gonna be my next hit, my next tweet, my next whatever. That's gonna be So that's like, you know, a lame thing to admit, but that's true. That's where my brain was going.

55:43

But I was like, what do you mean I wanted to write these down? Like, you know, I'll just remember it. And he's like, you won't feel like you lack something.

55:51

And so you'll stop, like, trying to catch everything. And grab everything and hold on to everything and learn the next new thing Yocho realizes like,

56:00

we already know the answers.

56:02

He's like, you know, it's like a thin book. You didn't, like, imagine a book that ended in twenty pages, and it's, like, you know, for for a diet book. Right? You can keep searching for the next fad diet, you know, the Atkins diet, and then the slow carb diet, and then the carnivore diet, and you're you're just cycling through to all these different diets trying to find the next solution and read the next thing. And in reality, you kind of know the answer. The answer is you know, don't eat too much and eat, like, and basically, like, eat real food,

56:30

mostly plants and not too much. Three lines,

56:34

you've got as the answer,

56:36

And but instead of actually just let sitting in it, you want it to be more complicated than that. You would like it to be that actually there is more I need to go learn and find try and buy this, you know, get this app that's gonna do my intermittent fasting and then put this ketone,

56:51

drops in my drink and then wear a patch that measures my glucose monitor and, like, all these optimizations.

56:57

And so I've actually

56:58

spent so much of my life trying these different optimizations, and I've really so I'm just saying this as almost like a public service announcement. So If that's you, if you've done a bunch of these optimizations, you kind of end this endless path of optimizing. And you do get results. It's not that you don't get any results. But, like, I've now found this, like, other way that's a lot more peaceful and a lot more fun. And it's basically,

57:20

get rid of the underlying

57:22

like feeling of lack,

57:25

and doubt that you have, that's causing you to constantly chase the next best method in solution and answer.

57:32

I think I think that really resonates. And one of the things I didn't talk about was my routines and how that was making me miserable.

57:39

I think often routines are great and best practices are great, but they end up creating conditions under which you can have a good day. And if you don't follow the conditions,

57:49

your brain starts saying, oh, it's not a good day because I didn't get that workout in or I didn't get I didn't do my cold plunge, I didn't do my Tim Farris tee in the morning. I didn't do my evernote, you know, journaling nineteen. I do a gratitude journal. I didn't use this app. Right? There's endless things.

58:05

And I totally resonate with that. Like, one of the practices for me was like, how do I not check my aura ring? How do I not check my blood glucose?

58:13

All these stupid things that are giving me They're tickers. Right. Yeah. There you go. Like, they're they're tickers for life, and tickers make you miserable. You know, look at a stock ticker, look at KPIs, look at revenue day to day hour to hour, and you're miserable. You shouldn't have those for your life. Yeah. And I I should say it's bad for business for me to say this because this podcast and all of my content and all everything I put out is

58:35

optimizations,

58:36

hacks, shortcuts,

58:38

you know, ways to be better, ways to better yourself and this constant, curiosity about

58:43

are some other things I could try to better myself? What are some other areas I wanna be better? And what are some ways I could be better? And so I'm like juggling these two things that are almost complete, like, opposition.

58:53

And, like, you know, and I and I'm not perfect on it either. Right? Like, I still wake up, swipe over and check the Bitcoin price, even though I know it's this roller sure. And, like, when it's red, I'm starting my day off with, like, a, you know, a tiny jab. And when it's green, I I start my day off with this this this great little delight that, like, I don't control. And so now my my my first mood is up to, you know, the conditions of, like, you know, fucking crypto prices, which is silly. Totally. Sean, what do you think what do you think people are gonna think of an episode like this? I'll be I'll be curious. I'll be because

59:24

I I sometimes I get nervous about talking about this because I'm like, I don't wanna pontificate too much. I don't wanna, like, act like our way or my way or your way. It's necessarily better than any other way. I get nervous about, like, having, like, a guru productivity

59:36

vibe. I get nervous. I'm like, and then I also get nervous. I'm like, these people just want, like, money making schemes. Let's just give it to them.

59:45

I'm very

59:46

Think about, like, Chamath, right? Why is Chamath interesting?

59:49

Interesting because he goes, you know, he goes on CNBC, talks about all this crazy investing stuff, and then he goes with Cara swisher and he, like, pours his heart out and he's interest and empathic and stuff. Yeah. And and, like, he doesn't give a fuck.

01:00:02

Yeah. You do a disservice. If you don't show the negative side of all stuff at the same time because people will just blindly think, you know, oh, yeah. These guys have it all figured out. And we don't. So I think we're all as durable as anyone else. I think two things is what you said. I think you're not giving the audience enough credit. Like, the people who really listen to this podcast, they they know this is not money making schemes. We just, like, we are shooting the shit about business stuff and we're kinda business nerds, and that's what they like. So it's not actually that they're looking for

01:00:29

God, I came to this to find my next million dollar idea. That's the, like, surface level thing. And then when you get when you get through the door, you realize that's that's not it. The second thing is, it's just like

01:00:39

like, this feeling you're having, like, what are people gonna think of this episode? I'm reading myself of that, that question.

01:00:46

That question doesn't come into my brain anymore.

01:00:48

Why? Because

01:00:49

Really? Not at all? I'm I am active. Sean's gonna be wearing red robes. He's gonna have his head shaved now. Dude, he already does. Shows up to the podcast, have the time where to rope. Exactly.

01:01:00

That's I'm not saying I have rid myself of it. I'm saying I am trying to rid myself of that of that question. Right? And the le it's coming up less and less. Why? Because two things.

01:01:09

A, I don't wanna be that way. I don't wanna sit here and be the dancing monkey performing on the stage just just for their entertainment. I wanna be here for my entertainment.

01:01:17

And,

01:01:18

like, who are the people who are gonna love this podcast? The people who love what we talk about. Period. So if we're talking about something we are interested in, then they're never always gonna be into it. And if we just keep that as the method. Right? Who are my customers? The people that love what I do. That becomes the sort of like the the the the most joyful way to do, you know, any kind of business or any kind of because

01:01:40

it is just you pushed out. And so then you don't have to worry about what are they gonna want? Did they like me? Did they not like me? Is this good? Is this bad. You know, I liked it, but are they gonna think this? It's like,

01:01:50

those questions just disappear if you commit to,

01:01:53

who are my customers? The people that love what same thing for this. Who who are listeners? The people that like what we talk about. Period. So then I don't need to if if I like what we talked about, then I don't need to worry about it. And becomes a very simple filter that's internal and not like seeking kind of what what are other people gonna think about this? Yeah. Yeah. And and you and I agree on on a lot of stuff about how we feel about the audience. I guess sometimes I think of it. Like, I'm gonna do whatever the hell I wanna do. And in other times, I do think I am here I exist to serve,

01:02:22

like, others. Right? So, like, you could say, like, well, just don't give a fuck. Don't give don't care about what other people think. Yeah.

01:02:28

But what if I phrased it of, like, well, I'm I'm here to service other people. Or you you know what I mean? It's like the That's what I'm saying. And

01:02:36

and you're saying So one of the things one of the top is being you. You know, that's the service. The service is being you in public and public transparently, you know.

01:02:45

Nately, I've been watching all the Dave Chapel stand up comedy from Netflix. I just kind of, like, rediscovered him and watched them all. And if you watch the first one, it's kind of like a generic, dirty, stand up

01:02:56

Like, his old one, like, or Yeah. His old one from, like, twenty, early twenty seventeen or whatever. And then as you watch them, they get more and more introspective and darker and longer stories and different style. And it's cool see someone evolve or see some, you know, deeper emotional range or whatever. So I don't I don't think it really matters. Like, at the end of the day, Yes. You guys, you know, this podcast you do, I I listen. I have to treat it like crack. Right? When I listen to you guys, I get so fired up. I'm always in the shower, and I'm going fuck, why don't we do that business, or I should start this, or, you know, I I love it. But and that's that's the that's what people love about the podcast, but at the same time, like, yeah, I think talking about this stuff is fine. Like, look at, look at a couple of the bigger podcasts that are kind of like people we like to listen to sometimes. So look at rogan.

01:03:46

Do you think rogan gets on the pod every day? And, like, do you think he's thinking, alright,

01:03:51

you know, what do the people want? Like, what what does the audience want? How do I make this conversation entertaining for them? Like, I think that's so far back in his mind where it seems like like, he's just having a conversation with somebody. He finds interesting. And he talks about what's interesting to him in that thing. But you know what? If rogan came on and he said, had a big fight with my wife this morning. And he started talking about that for thirty minutes and didn't let the guest talk. Yeah. He's broken the format. Yeah. But but also with Rogan, like, you'll know this. He, like, for example,

01:04:19

he'll say stuff. Like,

01:04:21

he changes his words. He's like, well, I, like, and I agree with this. He'll be like, you know, I'm not informed on that topic, so I don't even wanna rant about it. Of course. Or he'll say, like, you know, I,

01:04:32

like, I'll notice he'll he'll use certain words to be respectful.

01:04:36

And he and he's like, well, you know, and people have asked him. He's like, well, I just didn't know, and I know that I influence people. So I just wanted to keep in mind that I don't wanna, you know, say something incorrect. And so that's keep so

01:04:46

I don't think you have to entirely tell people to, that you don't give a fuck about their issues. I guess what I mean is, like, Rogan's format,

01:04:52

where he's like, yeah, I'm gonna talk to an astrophysicist

01:04:55

one day, and then I'm gonna talk to an MMA meet head the next day and then I'm gonna,

01:04:59

do a drinking podcast with my buddies while we watch some other shit that you don't get you're not looking at. I'm just looking at. I'm gonna talk out loud. I'm gonna do it for I'm gonna do three hour long episodes. Yeah, dude. But Roak is a fucking comedian. His whole shtick is that he gets in front of people and, like, comedian are inherently like the most neediest people. He gets on a stage and like it needs them to laugh and reply. And if he bombs, he feels bad. And so I agree with what you're saying is his show broke a bunch of rules that other people would have had. Our episode should be one hour. You should have like this, you know, like this intro, you shouldn't one day be talking about one topic, and then you're, you know, the the people who wanna hear Neil degrasse Tyson, don't care about Brandon Shaw or whatever else. Sure. And then you have, like, like, Lex Friedman, huge, huge podcast, huge channel he's created. And the guy's talking about the nerdiest of the nerdiest subjects in the most, like, monotone voice, Right? So it's like, he's not mister charisma. He's not,

01:05:52

talking about, pop culture and, like, other top because he's not

01:05:56

he found the balance of doing what's interesting to him in his normal personality.

01:06:01

And I just think that's just like a better way to go than

01:06:04

Yeah. I I'm just trying to say, don't act don't act like Logan's not human and has the same insecurities and, like, say, like, well, I wanna please people. I wanna look. Oh, wow, Bernie did really well. I should do Bernie more often, you know, like shit like that.

01:06:16

Yeah. I don't buy. I don't buy that you don't care. Like, I think everybody cares. You could say it. And I I I get what you mean, like, you know, that should be the attitude going into it, but it is unavoidable.

01:06:26

I I think, like, well, we all give a shit how we're perceived, and we'd all be choked if, you know, I I made that tweet the other day, and,

01:06:34

I got a I got a message from a friend that said, are you sure you wanna tweet that? Right? Cause he'd gotten less from people saying, oh my god. Andrew's having a mental breakdown on Twitter. Right? You said, are you sure? You wanna tweet that? Yeah. And you said, are you sure you wanna tweet that? And I was, like, oh my god. Have I made tables. Yeah, bitch. That's why I tweeted it. Yeah. I know. Now, yeah, resonated with lots of people. It got lots of traction. It got lots of nice notes about it. But, you know, it's it's scary putting putting this stuff out there.

01:07:01

Yeah. I I

01:07:03

I don't find that stuff to be scary, but that's weird. I I when someone says, I hate I would hate interaction. Are you sure you wanna tweet that? Yeah, dude. I just, like, it took me, like, an hour to write that. I'm fucking sure. That's a double down for Sam. It's like

01:07:15

you know what? Like, I you're double down on that now.

01:07:19

Yeah. I want a friend to text me that if they actually think that, though. Like, I think that's a valuable service. Right?

01:07:26

No, I don't. But,

01:07:28

that's okay. Different breads. I I I I, like, also,

01:07:30

01:07:33

I have a friend, my friend, Jack, sometimes I'll tweet stuff, and he'll, like, reply, like, that's not true, or, like, what are you, like, he'll, like, he'll, like, are you with me? And I'll tweet. I'll text him. I go, Jack. Don't argue with me in public.

01:07:45

Like, don't don't you dare. Like, you got it.

01:07:48

Like, what time?

01:07:50

He like brothers do that sometimes drives me crazy. Oh, dude. I'm like, we're family. This stays in the family. Don't you don't you fucking you defend me. You you laid out a traffic for I will for you. You don't talk you don't argue with me in public.

01:08:03

He always fucking does that. Like, what time I tweeted out the the numbers of the podcast? And he was like,

01:08:09

but, like, megaphone is wrong, or he said something like,

01:08:12

he's like, oh, but you count YouTube. That kinda like, that's really a dollar. He said something like that. I don't even remember what it was. And I'm like, oh, what the fuck Jack? Just like, shut up. And

01:08:22

I'm like, just text me, but we we're not gonna argue public. You're you're you're supposed to

01:08:27

I don't even know how we got on that, but I anyway, my point was not bringing up that we shouldn't do this stuff. I'm just curious as to hear what was the feedback is.

01:08:34

We care about feedback. I care about I'll speak to myself. I care about feedback.

01:08:38

Feed at us, and, you can test me and see if I bond any of it and fail my, I think on my So how how often are you keeping this? How often do you hold in your phone? How often do you use in your phone?

01:08:49

Well, I'm I'm, basically, I'm down from six a day of screen time to two just over two hours, and I'm basically just around random days. I've just been taking my Apple watch. So if I have a zoom call or something, I'll take my phone, but if I don't know, I'll just bring my Apple Watch, and it's been strangely freeing. Right? Because you look I can still see the text and I can get calls. But is it app Apple Watch to AirPods?

01:09:12

Yeah. Uh-huh. Okay. And if I'm texting, I've gotta do this stupid scratch or Siri. And so it's just not fun to text so I just don't do it. Andrew, one other thing. You met Steve Jobs?

01:09:23

Yeah. I met Steve Jobs. Tell me what that was. What what happened?

01:09:27

Well, so, a lot of people don't know this, but when I was fifteen, my very first business was a website with an incredibly embarrassing nerdy name. It was called macteens dot com. And it was me and a kid from Hawaii and another Canadian kid, and we all made this tech news website.

01:09:45

And

01:09:46

we started writing, you know, reviews and news and all that kind of stuff. And we started getting a lot of traffic and like breaking Apple rumors and stuff.

01:09:54

And I ended up getting invited to go to Macworld as like a member of the press.

01:09:59

And, you know, I got invited to this tour of the Apple store in New York when that was a, you know, it was brand new. It was the first one, I think. And so I walk into this tour and I think, like, we're just gonna get some PR flack touring us around, and I'm standing outside waiting, and a limousine rolls up, and it's steep jobs.

01:10:16

And he gets out and he shakes my hand. And I'm, you know, fifteen.

01:10:21

The guy's my hero. I've read every single biography of him. I'm like a quivering mess. And I spent the next hour, me and like five other journalists getting toured around the Apple store with Steve Jobs,

01:10:32

and, I just asked him a bunch of questions about, you know, about the products they're releasing. It was like a PR thing. So it's not like I got to ask them deep questions, but it was pretty freaking cool on the bucket list. And what was his like, presence like, or how how did he treat people? Or what did you kind of take away from from

01:10:49

just being around him? Well, I mean, you gotta remember. He was he was in Steve Jobs PR, you know, Macworld CEO mode. So he was just incredibly polished. I remember he was talking about,

01:11:00

the CD burner in the seventeen inch IMac, and I was, like, enraptured.

01:11:05

It's a fucking, like, OEM

01:11:06

CD burner. Right? But he's making it sound like the greatest thing in the world. I mean, you know, the reality distortion field is obviously real.

01:11:14

And yeah, he's just a amazing amazing guy and it was it was me. Did you read this story that this guy tweeted out yesterday? I thought you might have a story,

01:11:22

related to this this guy. It's sweet kind of went viral about He was trying to sell his company to see if jobs and he fucked up. Did you read this?

01:11:30

No. Like I said, it's the guy who was the CEO of Ilike, which like a kind of like a music discovery service, kind of like in the early,

01:11:37

you know, like startup days. And, it was like a popular service.

01:11:42

And,

01:11:43

It's like Apple wanted to Apple was interested in acquiring them, and he's like, perfect. Like, Apple would be my dream place to get acquired

01:11:49

and they go and he gets to have a meeting with Steve Jobs. And he sits in the meeting with Steve Jobs. He's like, you know, I started off a little rough because I was so nervous to be in front of Steve Jobs. He's like, but we kinda hit our groove in the presentation. We hit our demo. Like, know, like, first thing is, like, the demo kind of went off the rails first because the executive suite Wi Fi was down, and it's like, oh, shit. How are we we're not on the internet? How do we do our demo? We, like, recovered.

01:12:11

And Steve asked a few questions while we were talking, but we had great product answers, and you could just tell he was digging it. And,

01:12:18

So his story is basically that at the end of the the meeting, he was like, look, like, I think you guys are great. And I think you built something something good here.

01:12:27

Know, we'd like to buy your company. I'm gonna,

01:12:30

you know, like, like, I like to buy your company. We're I'll talk to Evie and we'll figure out, you know, Evie will take it from here. He'll he'll deal with the details.

01:12:37

And,

01:12:38

and then he's like, is the guy, like, kinda didn't want the meeting to end right there? He's, you know, at first, he's like, that's amazing. But then he's like, you know, like, what, what range, you know, would you be thinking about for for price for for an acquisition?

01:12:51

And then, like, Steve, kinda, like, the dial, the dial, like, turns up a little bit. He's like, this conversation gets a little more serious. He's talking about the price now. He's like,

01:12:59

he's like, what's your revenue and how much did you raise, what was the evaluation that your last financing?

01:13:04

And the guy's like, like, you know, revenue,

01:13:07

like, we haven't we're pre revenue. We're super small right now, but You know, we we raised at a fifty million dollar evaluation, and we've added, like, like, millions of users since then.

01:13:18

Think he said fifty million users since then, which is some absurd number.

01:13:21

And, and Steve Jobs, like,

01:13:24

we'd probably acquire it for fifty million.

01:13:27

And then the guys, like, went from this high of, like, Steve Jobs just said he wants to buy my company to, like,

01:13:32

shit. We've been working, like, since the last round we raised two years ago, we've been working at quite at least use it on. I'd have to go to my team and be like, Hey, you've created essentially no value between last valuation and and the exit here.

01:13:44

So he's like, you know, doesn't want it to just leave it there. And he's like,

01:13:49

he's like, you know, I just think I don't think my team will be I don't I don't think my team or the investors would,

01:13:55

you know, that would be acceptable to them. And then he's like, he's like, we'll make it. He's like, we'll, like, we'll convince them.

01:14:03

Like, that was like, Steve Jobs response, something like that. And the guy's like, you know, I just feel like,

01:14:08

you know, I think we're worth more than that. I think we're I think we're worth one hundred and fifty million.

01:14:13

And he, like, pause for a second. He goes, actually, like, I know we're worth. I know we're worth one hundred and fifty million. And he's like, Jobs got, like, pissed. He's like, you know,

01:14:23

do you have another offer on the table? Have you been offered a hundred and fifty million dollars? Is that how you know that you're worth that? And then the guy's like, just pause it for a second. He's like, he's like, bullshit. He's like, you're a liar. And he's like, I don't he's like, forget this. We're not doing this deal. And basically, like, walked out. And then he's like, And we tried to salvage the deal. Like, we tried to, like, with Eddie, Eddie tried to, like, make it all good. He's, like, Steve Jobs called him later. It was, like, I don't trust you. You, I trust you. I think you're a liar, you you know, over you overstated, like, you know, every you overplayed your hand, basically. And I was like, we're not Oh, I love that. That is awesome.

01:14:57

Who wrote that? Oh, wow. What company? That is an awesome story. This guy, let me pull up his name. I saw his name's

01:15:05

partavi.

01:15:05

So his his Twitter handle is AP a a apart

01:15:09

OVI. So AP ART OVI. What what ended up happening to his company that did itself? So I think, let's see. What what ended up happening? So it's What a baller story. I think I he's, like, soon after that Apple released the iTunes Genius Genius sidebar. It was a rip off of their thing. Facebook copied their thing, and they sold the company for a loss within a year. That was the sort of like the Oh my god. To the story. The other good one is Drew. The story of Drew Houston going into they were talking about selling Dropbox, Apple. Steve Jobs just start saying, feature not a product. You're a feature not a product. We can just rip you off. And, I mean, in some ways, Steve Jobs is right. I think that criticism is fair over the decades. You can rip them off of. It could be irrelevant,

01:15:50

but at the same time, Drew House then went on to become a billionaire and build this great a company. So Dude, I actually I love stories where Steve Jobs is wrong because

01:16:00

the guy, it was like a fucking asshole. Like, you know, he fuck that guy. Was he a brilliant? Yeah. But, like, I was thinking the other day,

01:16:08

where he, like, had this quote where he goes to that guy who, who was selling pets Pepsi. And he was like, do you just wanna sell sugar? Yeah. Stop your whole life.

01:16:17

Or do you wanna come and change the world? And I'm like, Part of me is like, bad ass. That's awesome, Steve. Good job. Yeah. Soda sucks.

01:16:25

Whatever you're doing this doesn't suck. And then I'm like, dog. What you've just created is fucking Camey bar for the break.

01:16:33

If if we hate if I if I'm supposed to hate Zuckerberg, I should dislike you too. Like, your son crack pipe he's on the crack. What's the difference?

01:16:40

And so

01:16:42

you know what I mean? Like, it's like it's the same. It's like it's the same thing. Like, So so anyway, whenever I hear these stories about him and what being arrogant, I'm like, yeah, you're badass. You're awesome. You're always right. And then also, like,

01:16:54

You're a dick. Shut the fuck up. Like I I was I was as a CEO, I was terrible because I couldn't do that. Right? Like, imagine Sam, you're hiring someone and you say, like, Do you wanna change the face of publishing forever? Right? You just sound like such a douche. Yeah. But you talk to most Silicon Valley CEOs CEOs, and they say something like that. I just could never bring myself to say that. Well, part of me is envious. I'm like, oh, wow. You actually believe that you are doing something. And then part of me is like,

01:17:21

You're full of it. I I just read this book, called Endurance. Have you guys heard of this book called Endurance? Oh, my god. Amazing.

01:17:27

Never wanna feel like your life is good. Read that. Oh, god. I couldn't put it down. Sean, do you know what it is? I haven't read it, but I've seen the time. I've seen the cover. I know the cover in my brain. So, basically,

01:17:36

in the early nineteen hundreds, probably between nineteen hundred, and like nineteen twenty five. It was called like the heroic era of Arctic Expedition. So they had steam engines, and they had combustible engines, but it was still they still had sails and they didn't have radios. And so these guys would sail from England all the way down to Antarctica at the very southern part of the world to try and figure things out. The world wasn't really well mapped out, but it kinda was. So basically, it was kind of safe, but mostly not safe. And this guy named Ernest Shakelton

01:18:06

basically led this expedition of thirty people, and they got stuck in the antart in Antarctica, and it's basically the story about their two and a half year or maybe two year expedition to survive.

01:18:16

And what I learned reading that book is basically the pack, the the the people you're leading,

01:18:21

they mimic the behavior of the leader. And so for a while, I was against this, like, we're gonna change the world. They're like, you know, I should be vulnerable. And I should let people know, like, you know, things aren't going that good, but now after reading that book, I'm like, no fuck it. You gotta, like, convince everyone that it's gonna be okay no matter Totally. It's an amazing book too. I,

01:18:40

when I get stressed out at work, one of the things I love to do is to watch,

01:18:46

what is it called? Alone? Have you guys seen that show? They literally dump people in the middle of nowhere, and it's a competition to see who can survive in the wilderness all by themselves. For the longest. Oh my god. And, you know, you're watching people eating rats and, like, trying to catch fish in the freezing cold. How long do they last?

01:19:02

Cuts his leg open with a hatchet or whatever. You know, usually it's like some some people go, like, three months, four months, six months, but a lot of people are out pretty quick. And the the shackleton book is exactly like that. I watch it and I just feel so relaxed because I'll be cozy on the couch and warm and my bad reading the book, and it really makes you appreciate,

01:19:21

just how comfortable our lives are. You should read that book, Sean, so we could talk about it it, like, I've read it over two days, I think. It it it it was it it's riveting. I I posted it. It was crazy. I can't believe that that that people survive that. And it it made me feel thankful, and it showed me that, like, in order to be a leader, you do need to convince people and yourself that everything's gonna be okay. When I read that, I was like, I don't wanna be a good leader. Willing to do what this guy was willing to do. Do am I willing to go this far? Probably. It's something funny just happened on Twitter. So,

01:19:50

speaking of distractions and and all that good stuff. And speaking of the the memetic kind of like, who are your models? And then who do you want to see? Who do you not like to see when? Alright. So,

01:20:01

Say Bezos

01:20:02

just tweeted out this thing. He goes,

01:20:05

he goes, you know, you should listen and be open, but don't let anybody tell you who you are. This is just one of the many the the this was, and he puts a photo of a barons article of a head of a of a a front page of barons, which says amazon dot bomb, and it's a picture of Jeff Bezos's face on a bomb, and it says that the the title is the idea that Amazon's CEO, Jeff Bezos, a new business is silly. He's just another middle man and the stock market is starting to catch on. The real winners This was in, like, the early two thousands? Yeah. This is in, I don't know, win, like Sorry. Go ahead. Giant ish or something like that. Okay. This is not ninety nine nine. He goes,

01:20:38

it says the real winners on the net and like apostrophe net, like internet.

01:20:42

The real winners on the net will be firms that sell their own products directly to consumers. Just look what happened to Sony and Dell. That's what's gonna happen to Amazon.

01:20:50

And,

01:20:51

and so Bezos was basically saying, like, you know, people told us we were gonna there's one of many things when people told us we were gonna fail. And he goes, today Amazon is one of the most successful companies in revolutionized two entirely different industries.

01:21:01

And then Elon Musk tweeted that and replied with just a silver a silver metal with the number two it, like, the emoji with a second place metal.

01:21:11

Give you gotta give the be because Elon's currently richer than basis. Either because of that. No. No. No. Space. Apex. Yeah. Apex is getting better than yours. No. I think

01:21:20

I think it's the rich thing, which is due If it's a space thing, that's not douchey. If it's a rich thing, that's douchey. But it's so funny because you were saying the medic. Right? As you were in arrival. Yeah. You were saying, like, to us, Jeff Bezos is not really the rival. We don't really root for his, you know, whatever.

01:21:34

It doesn't like hurt us personally when Jeff Bezos wins a little bit more, but but for these guys, these are their mimetic rivals. Right? Like, these are their their their peers

01:21:42

that they sort of are are in competition with.

01:21:46

Dude, also, this is I do wanna see Elon lose a little he gets too smug with his how great he is because he is, in fact, amazing.

01:21:53

He but how baller is that tweet? Hilarious. It has way more light than the first one. You said earlier, you

01:21:59

said know, you said fuck Steve Jobs.

01:22:01

And I think in order to be that successful, you have to have some kind of personality disorder. Oh, yes. Or, like, trauma or something. And you look at Musk or Bezos or if you read more about Bezos, I think he's a really difficult person to work for.

01:22:14

Like all these guys are so complicated. And a hundred years ago, you just wouldn't know. There wasn't Twitter. You just wouldn't see this. This would all go on behind the scenes, and it's crazy that we get to see stuff. Like Well, I don't even think it's that complicated. Musk is successful because he's incredibly smart and has,

01:22:30

a complex because his father probably didn't love him.

01:22:33

Like, the like, it's probably quite simple.

01:22:36

And but it's it it works. Right? I'm thankful that. Well, Sam, you say this thing that's,

01:22:41

great. I think I don't know where you got a phone, but, you know, show me a man, and I'll show you a bad man or what is that quote? Well, I always say,

01:22:48

I don't know if I got it from anywhere or not, but, all men are also evil men. Oh, great. Oh, great. Oh, great.

01:22:54

That. Right? Yeah. Great men are bad men. Yes. And in order to in order to be great, you have to do bad stuff, or

01:23:01

you may not think bad, but, like, let's say that, like,

01:23:05

sixty percent of Americans think Obama is a saint. Well, like the people who he droned, they don't think he's a I've got Afghan friends, and they'll be like, oh, I fucking hate Obama, you know, he he droned my family. And so but, like, so in order to, like, do great shit and be loved by a large scale, you're gonna piss off a lot of people. The way I would put it, it'd be better. It might be

01:23:24

all great men are sad men. Right? So they have sadness or Don't want up me, Andrew. Don't want up me. Or a disorder that's driving to do this because why else would anyone do it? Right? Talking about the shackleton expedition. These guys are Shackleton expedition of business. Why would anyone choose to do that unless they have a personality disorder or, like, deep trauma? Right. Mamedic rivalry. Andrew just went up to you. Perfect. Like, yeah, like, actually, I think your example of, like, Obama drone striking people is a little too extreme. I think it's more like,

01:23:52

Elon Musk is in a is a great inventor in businessman.

01:23:56

That doesn't also mean he's got great views on the vaccine and,

01:24:00

on he's not a great husband maybe. And, like Yeah. You know,

01:24:03

we will praise somebody for an aspect, like, on this podcast. I will happily praise somebody for an aspect of something

01:24:09

they that's interesting. Like, this is, like, the the Jake Paul tweet I did where I was, like, Jake Paul is a great marketer, a great self promoter. Like, I don't even think that's arguable. Like, I think he's clearly a great self promoter that is how he is so famous as he promoted himself,

01:24:22

into fame. And, like, people are like, yeah, but he, you know, he's accused of assault on this girl and, like, he's a jerk and, like, haven't you seen these videos where he makes these crude jokes? I said, oh, like, Sorry. Did I say he's my, like, he's my hero and that, like, he is a great boyfriend. Like, I I don't think I said that. I think I said he's a great marketer and self promoter and You can learn from that and appreciate that. And that's the the way I take it, which is,

01:24:49

you know,

01:24:50

anybody that that you praise or you call for being awesome or call out for being bad. It's not you're not saying they are either all great or all bad. It's like they are in ways and bad in ways and everybody is that, and it's not even that you need to say at that point.

01:25:04

You can like how he builds cards, but not how he treats his marriage. Right. Yeah.

00:00 01:25:15