00:00
Now the grid score goes I think it's zero to ten. I want you to guess my grid score.
00:05
Ten is super gritty.
00:07
Gritty as it gets.
00:09
I would say I I would put you
00:12
six, six, seven.
00:14
You're pretty gritty. Appreciate your faith in me. I scored a two point five on this grit test, bro.
00:20
Did you just take it again?
00:31
Alright, Sean. You're back. How was the trip?
00:34
My trip was great. Me and Ben went to Phoenix, and, I'm not gonna share all the details,
00:40
but it was a dope experience. Don't life experience. I think One great thing to share, by the way? When's, like, Sam, what's the last dope life experience you had? Something you didn't have to do, but you did anyways.
00:50
Probably camp MFM
00:53
a few years ago.
00:55
Don't let that happen. Don't let too much time go by. I think, like, every three months or so, should try to do something that's,
01:02
a little extracurricular,
01:03
if you know what I mean, just something that's outside of the routine, outside of what you have to do.
01:08
So I did that anyway. So we went to Phoenix,
01:12
because,
01:14
Matt Ishpia, who is the owner of the Suns, the Phoenix Son, the basketball team there. We had gotten in touch with them, and he was like, hey, if you guys ever wanna come check out a game, come hang out. So we go down to Phoenix, and we meet Matt, we meet the team. We get to go set court time. Do, like, live life as an NBA owner, which is awesome because I always dreamed of doing that. Now
01:31
what I wanna tell you though, it's not about Matt.
01:34
What I wanna tell you out is actually
01:36
much more, in the weeds. So here's a little in the weeds.
01:41
In the weed story. So I think Ben emailed him when he bought the team and was just like, hey.
01:45
Congrats, buddy. And then I was like, thank you. Thank you.
01:49
Ben Levy.
01:52
Goodbye. And then that was the first touch point. Second touch point was we invited him to camp at November. Like, hey. You used he used to be a college
01:58
basketball he was a college basketball player. Now he's a multi billionaire who owns an NBA team. Well, that's a mix of basketball and, you know, entrepreneurship that that's what we try to invite to the camp. We invited him. He was like, oh, I'd love to come. Couldn't end up making the dates, but his kinda make good was listen. Sorry. I couldn't make it, but if you guys are ever in town, Let me know. We'll we'll hang out. We'll check out a game.
02:20
Hey. What do you know, Matt? We're in town. What are you in town? Because that's when we're in town. And so we worked with this assistant feel like, when do you think we should be in town and we did that? So this is the rule of reciprocity, by the way. You offered someone something. And regardless if they take you up or not, they now owe you should just post events that aren't ever gonna happen. And we make sure we follow the person online, like, oh, they're out of town that date. They're already busy. Let's ask them.
02:46
We're hosting a charity event honoring you.
02:49
So so, yes, we did that. Now the funny thing is, well, the the background here is that What's the randomness here? Ben used to Ben is a die hard Phoenix son's fan. He loves the Phoenix sons more than you love your child. He loves the Phoenix sons. With a deeper passion than Romeo loved Juliet. And he was a ball boy for four or five years. So, like, literally
03:10
was was with the team every day, volunteer ball boy, basically,
03:13
just to give you a sense of this guy. So when every year when there's an all star games, you know, you what the way the way it works in the NBA is the fans vote on who gets to be named an all star. So Ben, supporting his guys, being the loyal supportive guy that he is,
03:27
takes literally one hundred thousand ballots home,
03:30
forces his family every night to sit there and punch the ballots to vote the Phoenix Suns guys in and himself over the course of a couple months they churned through one hundred thousand ballots to try to support the team. The guy the players didn't care. They didn't know about this. He just did it because he's that that big of a die hard fan. So That's ridiculous.
03:49
Ben, obviously, it does a lot for me. I was like, can I? What's a what's a how can I make a bad appreciation weekend? And that's what this was. This was a go and and kinda let him live a live a child to dream out. So he goes down there. We we watch the game. It's all good. One of the cool things was, and this happens all the time, by the way. You think you're there to meet the the famous person, but it's actually this other thing that's really interesting. That's more accessible. That ends up being fascinating thing. You wouldn't have known it until you showed up. So similarly, we go, and we have this great conversation with one of the guys in there kind of like, data department. So it's like analytics, data. That's become a big part of sports.
04:24
And so Ben is grilling my guy. Ben's like,
04:26
the guy came down to say nice to meet you. And Ben's like, cool. I have one thousand questions for you. Have a seat. And he's like, In the year in twenty thirteen, you picked this guy. Why? I'd like to know what was telling you that. What and he's like, what are the metrics that matter right now for us when we play a game? Obviously, besides the score, like, you know, what leads to the score. And he's he's asking all these detailed questions. And when Ben asked questions, sometimes
04:48
I've noticed the person only finish of it. And he's like, I got what I need next. Like,
04:53
I was just like And he's he's he's great because,
04:56
everybody needs a place where they're shameless. Like, for me and you, Like, I'm shameless about, like, I'm a monologue. Okay? I got something interesting to say. I know that's not how this is supposed to work, but I'm a monologue because that's I just need to get this off And trust me, you're gonna like it by the end. Your thing is like, you'll just ask a blunt question. You'll just be like, well, dude, you keep saying this. Like, what is it? How much? What's in your pocket right now? And they're like, I guess nobody's ever asked me that here. Here's the answer. Ben's thing is that he's like, oh, we're, you know, we're supposed to be at dinner. I'm gonna ask you all of the questions. I will I my curiosity is endless. And, like, I don't care what the social situation is. Like, we'll be playing basketball, and he'll be guarding a guy. And he'll be like, he'll be like, so, like, what's revenue like nowadays? And, like, too bad. Like, you gotta let it go. So this moment in time, like, just it a rest, but he doesn't. He doesn't do it. Anyways, we're doing that with this guy. And one of the one of the fascinating questions that he asked, we were like, what's you're the data guy? What's the data you wish you had that you don't currently have? Like, what data would would help you do this? Does he showing us these cameras in the gym where If you're just shooting around, there's cameras now that will it does facial recognition.
06:03
It'll track okay. Sam is shooting in the practice session. It'll record the length of the session. The number of shots the exact arc on every shot, his exact,
06:10
field goal percentage without anybody
06:12
having to be there to keep track track of stats. So cool tech. Right? Now his answer was very interesting.
06:16
So he was like, you know,
06:19
we test for we can we know everything you've ever done on the court. But what we've learned, what everybody knows has been around sports is that the difference between the Michael Jordan and the, you know,
06:30
our Isaiah writers or the Kobe Bryant
06:33
versus the,
06:34
Lenny Brooks. There's, like, It's like, what's up top? What's in your mindset?
06:38
And the guys who are completely obsessed,
06:41
extreme discipline, they're able to work harder than the next guy. They don't take those days off. They, you know, are receptive to coaching, and they're gonna improve on their weaknesses. They're gonna double down on their strengths. They could keep their confidence even when something goes back. It's all about the mental. Right? Like, every athlete, every great athlete would tell you how much of the sport is mental, but they have no way of measuring the mental.
06:59
And so we said, interesting. What would be the way that you would wanna do that? He's like, great.
07:05
Great. What do you mean great? He's like, well, there's this book that came out. I don't know. Have you ever read this book, the club work? Angela Duckworth. Duckworth. Yeah. Exactly. So I went down this rabbit hole after that. So that was just my segue into me going down this rabbit hole on these
07:18
mindset test. So first, I actually wanna tell you about a different test, which you've probably done in the past, and that's the Myers Briggs test. Have you done this test? Yeah. Do you know the backstory of this? You know where this came from? No. But is it even real? Are horoscopes real? Right? Yeah. Are palm readers real? Like, there's a lot of bullshit in this industry, which is why I'm fascinated by it. So let me I'm not saying it's completely bullshit, but there's a lot of hand wavy stuff. Here's the story. There's a woman, and her name is Isabel. Isabel at nineteen forty two.
07:48
I think World War two is going on. And Isabelle's reading Reader's Digest. And she reads in Reader's Digest this article about people sorting.
07:56
People sorting. And, basically, it's how companies are using tests to do people sorts. And so she reads that Lockheed,
08:04
Lockheed, the aircraft company was using it to locate, like, a possible troublemakers. They're like, we need to do some screening. So then we can identify who's gonna be a troublemaker? Who's gonna have some mischief in them? Another company
08:16
was using it for finding, you you'll appreciate this one. Henpecked husbands.
08:21
And they were basing the argument was that if the man is under the thumb at home, then he'll easily also be submissive at work. Fascinating. Right? Like, people were legitimately doing this. They were, like, trying to figure Like, who's who's got that alpha? Who's got that dog in them? Alright. Everyone, a quick break to tell you about HubSpot, and this one's easy because I'm gonna show you an example of how I'm doing this at my When I say I, I mean, not my team. I mean, I'm the one who actually made it. So I've got this company called Hampton. You could check it out join hampton dot com. It's a community for founders. And one of the ways that we've grown is we've created these surveys, but we'll ask our members certain questions that a lot of people a lot of times people are afraid to ask. So things like what their net worth how their assets are allocated. All these, like, interesting questions, and then we'll put it in a survey, and I went and made a landing page. So you can check it out at join hampton dot com slash wealth. You can actually see the landing page that I made. And the hard part with this is with Hampton, we are appealing to a sort of a a higher end customer sort of like a Louis Vuitton or a Ferrari. So I needed the landing page to look a very particular way. HubSpot has templates. That's what we use. We just change the colors a little bit to match our brand. Very easy. They have this drag and drop version of their landing page builder, and it's super simple. I'm not technical, and I'm the one who actually made it. And once it's made, I then shared it on social media, and we had thousands of people see it and thousands of people who gave us their information, and I can then see over the next handful of weeks This is how much revenue came in from this wealth survey that I did. This is where the revenue came from. So it came from Twitter. It came from LinkedIn. Whatever it came from, I can actually go and look at it and I can say, oh, well, that worked. That didn't work. Do more of that. Do less of that. And if you're interested in making landing pages like this, I highly suggest it. Look, I'm actually doing it you could check it out. Go to the link in the description of YouTube and get started. Alright. Now back to MFM. So she writes to her mom, Catherine. She's like, This is fascinating. Companies are doing this blah blah blah. She's interested in psychology. Her mom writes back and says, you should make your own test. And you should do it. You vote. You're always telling me about that guy Carl John. You should, Carl Young. I don't know how you say it. He's like, you should do it on those principles.
10:23
So,
10:25
she ends up creating, and then their last names are Briggs and Myers, and she ends up creating
10:30
the, the forgot what it's called, the Briggs Myers type indicator or something like that. Right? Like, that's that's how this test started. And she creates a test. And, basically, he had this theory. The psychologist had this theory that there's, like, People branch out in this, like, decision tree. It's like you're either a thinker or a feeler.
10:46
So you're a perceiver
10:48
or you're a judger. And the and they if you just go down the tree, it ends up with sixteen possibilities. And they gave each of the sixteen, like, kind of a positive affirmation name. So there's no bad there's no bad score. Yeah. They gave you a fortune cookie. Everybody gets a trophy. And so they were like, oh, you are an executive.
11:04
You are caregiver. You are a scientist. You are an idealist, and they just had all these labels for the for the sixteen categories.
11:11
Now, of course, the funny thing is you end up taking the test, you'll get one score. And on average, if you take the same test weeks later, fifty percent of people will will end up with a completely different label. So I don't know how reliable these things are. And the, you know, people who criticize it, they say this takes advantage of something called the forrer effect. Have you ever heard of this thing? The forrer effect? It's basically the same thing that astrologers, fortune tellers, and other pseudosciences use where they kinda cold read something general about you, like,
11:36
You're the type of person who,
11:38
you know, you don't let everybody in. But once but when you get close to somebody, you really open up. Or, like, you're the type of person who, you know, sometimes
11:48
when things get hard, you're able to really, you know, you're able to really stand up and and and and and make it happen. It's, like,
11:55
I do have a little bit of anatomy. You know, you're right. How'd you know?
11:58
Here here's some money. And so,
12:01
anyways, they create this task
12:03
it's not that popular at the beginning, but it ends up getting picked up by,
12:08
you know, fast forward many many years. It gets picked up by a company called
12:12
CPP, the consulting psychologist
12:15
press CPP.
12:16
And so now and they picked up the distribution rights, and they're like, hey, we are gonna market this to American businesses. We were gonna tell American businesses
12:24
about this. When you say picked up, do you mean was this a publication that promoted it or bought it. It was a publishing company, and they buy the licensing rights to market it. And their, Isabel, and her mom are just gonna get a royalty, And basically, right as she dies, she dies at eighty two. Sales start taking off. By nineteen eighty three,
12:41
almost a million people are taking the Myers Briggs test annually. Is it free?
12:47
No. So the way it works is it's a it's kind of a brilliant business model. So, basically,
12:52
to take the test is somewhere between fifteen and forty bucks. Everybody who takes the test, you get, you know, let's say, on average, thirty bucks from them. But then, well, you can't just take the test. It has to be given to you by a practitioner.
13:02
Well, the practitioners have to pay two thousand dollars to become a certified practitioner. That's the only way you could take this test. And so, like, last year, they enrolled five thousand practitioners who each paid, you know, about fifteen hundred to two thousand dollars each,
13:15
eight to ten million bucks in revenue off of just the practitioners.
13:19
And then each of the practitioners,
13:22
then distributes the test and they get they get paid by distributing the test. So they it's kind of like a multilevel marketing team. Right? The practitioner makes thirty bucks a test. And then the extra royalty, the extra ten bucks on top goes back to the to the, to the parent company, to the publisher.
13:36
And,
13:37
So this thing, they don't know the revenue because it's still private. It's been private for, like, whatever, you know, since, you know, the eighties.
13:43
And, they once said their number was over twenty million in revenue. I suspect it's higher than that.
13:50
There's been millions of people who take this who've taken this test. And Myers Briggs is that company CPP. It's their biggest earner. It's that that's their cash cow. And so That's insane.
13:59
Dude, it's used by the government. It's used by two two hundred federal agencies use this.
14:03
You know, just the EPA itself, they use it on a quarter of their twenty thousand employees.
14:08
I think eighty percent of the fortunate eighty nine, eighty nine of the Fortune one hundred. Use this test. Eighty nine percent of the Fortune one hundred. Is that insane?
14:18
There's a a few things that are insane about it. One, to create something, so why don't you create it in forty two, nineteen forty two? Yeah. So we're coming up eighty years now as we're gonna be close to a hundred years soon. That's amazing to create something that lasts that long. I mean, that that's it's such a reputable brand, even though I think it's nonsense, but many people think it's reputable that it, it's bay at this point, it's an annuity. So you just, like, predictable revenue all the time.
14:44
We talked about,
14:46
was it gallop
14:47
gallop pulling? And they own Clifton strengths which is famous for strengths finder two point o. And I tried to find how much revenue they did, and I could not find anything. I believe gallop I've we did this two years ago, so I don't remember. I believe Gallup does something like a billion a year in revenue or or hundreds of millions But if you go to the strengthsfinder website and you look at their traffic, it's huge. It's a huge, huge, huge thing, and it costs the same thing, twenty or forty dollars for one of these tests. I loved this business because the test business is so fun because you're desperate to know. Like, when you're in a hard time, you're desperate to know. You just want affirmation that things are gonna be okay. And I loved it. I loved it. And I used to do these all the time, and I would even game them. I'd be like, well, that's not right. Should I should take I should I should take it again. I probably answered a few a few wrong.
15:38
Just check this out. So
15:40
I read about that. Now when we meet this guy and he tells me about the mental makeup, the the grit, the mindset, being important. I'm like, he's totally right. The mindset thing is super important.
15:49
And so I'm like, what was that book, grit, Angela Duckworth? What was that all about? I I believe it's,
15:55
you could put off desire. What's that called? Or you could put off a reward. Delayed gratification. Delayed gratification is like the big I think that's a part of it, but, the ones I think they had is basically,
16:04
it's ability
16:06
So like your talent, basically your ability times zeal, which is like your passion or enthusiasm about something, times capacity for hard labor.
16:15
Is the formula for success.
16:17
And with what with grit specifically, it's around zeal and the perseverance. So it's, you know, basically your your enthusiasm, your passion times times perseverance. Okay. So here's what's interesting about this thing. So he tells me about this. And I'm, like, Alright.
16:32
Doug, like, how what's my grid score? Let me go let me assess it. Now the grid score goes I think it's zero to ten. I want you to guess my grid score.
16:41
Ten is super gritty.
16:42
Gritty as it gets. Who's who's the ten?
16:45
David Goggins is a ten.
16:48
I would say I would put you
16:51
six, six, seven?
16:52
You're pretty great. Appreciate your faith in me. I scored a two point five on this grit test, bro.
16:59
Did you just take it down?
17:02
I am
17:03
I am in the bottom ten percentile
17:06
of grit.
17:09
So what were the questions? You should check this out. I'm gonna read you some of the, the test prep. And this is the this is why I was like, this is
17:17
bullshit. Why is this bullshit? Okay. So here's the claims. The she writes his book. It becomes a best seller. You see Keith for boys,
17:24
oh, grit's the most important thing, and all these CEOs, like grit's the most important thing. And they're not wrong. It's just that, like, many of these best selling books, it's, like, pop science. Right? Like,
17:33
the principle's not wrong, but the
17:36
the depth of the evidence is actually quite shallow. And so here's what it says.
17:41
So it says,
17:43
so she starts off by saying, well,
17:46
showing up, you know, the the what's that old quote? Eighty percent of success is just showing up.
17:51
You know, and people realized, well, yeah, like, if, I guess, if you give up that almost guarantees failure, if you give up, and they looked around and they said, well, fifty percent of soldiers quit the army during the selection process, fifty percent of marriages end in divorce. Twenty five percent of students drop out of high school.
18:06
Sales jobs, fifty percent of people will turn over every every year in sales jobs.
18:11
And,
18:12
and they noticed that, like,
18:14
there were there were what's the counterpoint? This counterpoint is basically what they looked at was West Point. And I don't know if you know much about the school, West Point, but it's got a pretty, like,
18:23
pretty high bar Right? It's, like, being a guest on this podcast. It's a high bar. And so what they do is they say to get into West Point, you don't apply when you're a senior in high school. You apply when you're a junior. You apply an eleventh grade. You don't just apply with your test scores or whatnot. You have to be nominated by a member of Congress to get into West Point. So you have to hustle your way to get a Congress member to vouch for you in order to do this. You have to do a leadership interview. You have to do a fitness test. And out of fourteen thousand applicants, they'll select like a thousand people to come join this thing. And even aft after they filter with all that, like, You have to run through walls to get here. Twenty percent drop out during the one the the seven week orientation period. That's called the beast. Is West point free?
19:02
I don't think so. So you gotta pay money to do all this and then go to the RV? Like, all the best things in life.
19:09
Alright. Alright.
19:10
The beast is a rotation,
19:12
calisthenics marching classes, weapons training, athletics.
19:15
You go five AM to ten PM with no breaks, no weekends, no contact with family or friends.
19:21
And
19:22
you have to be subscribed to this YouTube channel in order to get in. And so even if you're not gonna do all the other things, you should go to YouTube right now, my first million, and you should subscribe to our podcast. Alright. So, basically, grit was a higher predictor with this grit score. They say it was a higher predictor of West Point success than your SAT score, that your high school rank, than the leadership interview than all the other things. And so
19:41
anyways, I thought here's the grit test. I I can even just give it to you. So here's some of the questions they ask on this thing. It says,
19:48
New ideas and projects sometimes distract me from previous ones. Do basically, do you get distracted by new ideas and projects from your current one? Is that very much like me? Mostly like me, somewhat like me or not at all like me? That's Guess what? That's very much like me. Okay?
20:03
Another one, setbacks don't discourage me. I don't give up easily. Okay. Now I scored well on that one. I set a goal, but later choose to pursue a different one. I am a hard worker.
20:13
Like, come on. This is not science.
20:15
This is
20:17
this is what I call.
20:19
Nothing. That's what this test is No. There's some stuff here. I finished whatever I begin. So for example,
20:24
bro, do you trust people's self assessment of this? No. Here, do you have any, unfinished Lego sets in your home? I don't even have a Lego set. No.
20:33
But I would if I did, I would. I got a box of un unset up furniture right over here. I have a a half half written book over there. Yes. Of course. Yes. I I do fail this test.
20:44
And so you But the thing is, I can think of ten examples where I'm not like that. I could think of ten examples where I am like that. This is you know what? I'm low in grit. I'm high in honesty.
20:54
And and to somebody who's, like, I'm really high on the grit score. I'm, like, is this real? Like, Is this is this honest? Is this an honest assessment?
21:02
I think your butt hurt. I think that you gotta
21:05
I think Chades comes from within, brother. I think that you gotta be you gotta Was the pages I'm in denial right now? Yeah. Because I'm bargaining.
21:14
Yeah. Is there, like, grits anonymous? You need to, like, go go through the the twelve steps, my friend. You're you're in step number one. If if there's anyone else up, what's the opposite of grit by the way. Just like Yeah. Just cream cheese.
21:27
Soft. Damn. Yeah. Soft. Just the sounds cool. Sorry. The marshmallow scale.
21:32
So yeah. Well, you know what? I want you to take this test. Actually, just take it right out. Let's take it together. Let's see what your grit score is. Alright.
21:40
Okay. Here we go. Alright. I'm gonna give you the grit the grit test. Okay. Sam,
21:44
you have to just say,
21:46
true or false, basically. Yeah. Very true, very false. So new ideas and projects sometimes
21:51
distract me from previous ones. False.
21:54
False. Alright. Very false, would you say?
21:57
Not much like me false. Alright. Not much like me. Setbacks don't dip don't discourage me. I don't give up easily. Is that very much like you? You don't give up easily or I don't give up I don't give up easily.
22:09
Yeah.
22:10
I often set a goal, but later choose to pursue a different one. Mostly like me. I am a hard worker.
22:16
Somewhat.
22:17
I have difficulty maintaining my focus on projects that take me more than a few months to complete That's not much like me. I finish whatever I begin. Very much. My interest change from year to year. Not much. I am diligent. I never give up. Somewhat. I have been obsessed with a certain idea or project for a short period of time and later lost interest.
22:37
Somewhat. I have overcome setbacks to conquer an important challenge?
22:42
Not much like me. I I've not had that many setbacks.
22:46
Like, I'm just so good. It just works. I just try easy stuff. Wow. Alright. That's a grit score of
22:53
three point five.
22:55
Correct. Okay. So you got a three point five. Okay. So I had it wrong. The scale is to five. You're a three point five out of five. You scored higher than forty percent of Americans. Does that mean? I'm in the sixtieth percentile.
23:06
No. You're in the fortieth percentile.
23:09
Right?
23:10
I don't fucking know. Between forty sixty percent, so I'm not that good.
23:14
You're, like, above average. Yeah. Or No. Wait. You have scored higher than forty percent. So you're actually
23:21
Average to blow average crap. Yeah. That sucks. This stuff is stupid. It would have been a lot better if I was a four or something. Yeah. We the segment needed you to be amazing and me to be terrible.
23:31
It said you're pretty average, and I'm way below average.
23:34
So anyways, go back. Take your grit score. You just go to and you just search Google search grit score
23:40
and, take this thing and then post it in the comments on YouTube. I wanna know Who is the greatest YouTube commenter of them all? It's probably the spammers that never go away that keep impersonating us and being, like, to everybody who comments. So, like, DM. D. Me. Yeah. Hey. That's not us. We're not telling you we're not trying to sell you something like that where that if we try to sell you something, you'll know it. Trust me.
24:02
So that's not the way we would do it. I wanna tell you about someone who would score a five out of five on the grid score. Can I tell you about this person? Tell me. Do you remember a few years ago in sixteen or seventeen, I think? There was this company called Lunch Club. It was basically like this social platform where you, I guess meet up with people for lunch. I thought it was really dumb. I used to do that. I used when I moved to San Francisco, that's how I made friends. I I joined the lunch club and I would go get lunch with random stranger, Tech Bros.
24:30
I thought that that was a stupid idea. I thought it was very stupid. I'd never used it, but not I I was alone on that one. I think It's just like when you didn't have setbacks, you're like, I always have friends, and I never have setbacks.
24:41
Yeah. I scored low on this really well.
24:44
But here's the thing. Not everyone else thought it was, a dumb idea. In fact, they raised thirty million dollars from Andreas and Horowitz and all these, like, really smart people. And I don't think it ever became that big of a company, but they raised thirty million dollars at a hundred million dollar valuation. I have no idea what happened to it today.
25:00
Because it's not really relevant anymore. However,
25:04
the guy who started it is amazing,
25:06
and this is just proof that smart people sometimes do, like, they they've got silly things that are just stepping stones until the real thing. And so the guy who started it, his name is Scott Wu.
25:17
And recently, I think yesterday it was, he launched something that's pretty amazing. And we're gonna do another episode where we talk in-depth about what he launched But, basically, what it is is it's called Cognition Labs. That's the name of the company. The product is called Devin. The summary of it is you just tell Devin make me a website that looks like Yelp, except it's just for, agencies or something or make me a website that's like Airbnb, but for cars.
25:42
And what Devin does is it gives you a checklist of all the things it's going to do, and then it does it, and it builds the website for you. And this is like a game changing technology because it basically makes coders obsolete. It's an AI software engineer or a programmer.
25:56
Yes. And many,
25:58
really smart people Patrick Allison, the CEO of Stripe, they're basically saying, alright, this is the first time I've ever seen anything like this actually be as good or better than a human, and it's amazing. Whatever. The product's awesome. We're gonna talk all about it. But what's more interesting to me is Bloomberg did this article on the three it's basically three co founders Then they have, the main CEO, his brother also works there. They did this amazing profile on the ten person company that created this. And they are
26:27
magnificent.
26:28
Everything about these guys are beautiful. The magnificent ten, should we call them? Yes. A magnificent ten. Everything about this company the greatest thing I've ever seen in my life. So check this out. It's ten employees. They've raised twenty one million dollars. Amongst the ten employees, they have ten gold medals
26:45
that they've won from top coding competitions.
26:49
And many of the people on Twitter when they when they came out with this, they go, I remembered Scott. Scott was the guy who was winning all of the math competitions that I used to go to as I sat in the crowd wondering how on earth this guy did this. And this one guy named bye, by fan, his name, he tweeted out this thing. He goes, I wanna show you all some tiger mom porn. And it's basically
27:11
and it's basically this young guy. I I get judging off his name. I guess Scott Woo, I guess he's Chinese He there's this video of him when he's,
27:19
like, twelve or thirteen years old, and he's at a math competition. Sam, we gotta do this we gotta do this test. So I put I have the thing Here's the question. The question says, if the pattern continues, what is the letter in the two thousand and tenth position?
27:34
And it just says mathlete, mathlete, mathlete, mathlete, and and it says dot dot dot. What letter will be the two thousand and tenth letter in this sequence and he goes
27:44
a
27:46
Dude, you know how you know how, like, in jeopardy, how much he looks like he's, like,
27:51
twelve years old in this video, by the way. Yes. He's he's a kid. And then you know how in jeopardy they show you the question,
27:57
as they're reading it so you could read along with it. He answers one of the questions where it's like, what's, like,
28:03
three hundred and fifty two to the fourth power times like this other three hundred and eighty four to the eighth power? He answered the question before the announcer finished reading it. Like, he literally hit the beat. Alright. So, Sam, the digits one two three four and five can be arranged to form many five digit positive integers with five distinct digits. And how many such integers is the digit one to the left of the digit two? Two such integers include fourteen thousand three hundred fifty two and fifty one thousand two hundred thirty four. Go ahead. Just walk me through your thought process here.
28:34
I feel like an integer is like an advertiser I ordered last night with a little bit of parmesan cheese on top. Sounds like an influencer mom on Instagram, like, coming up with a cool name for their baby.
28:44
We have Bronx and integer. They're going to math today. Like, it sounds like a an amazing roller coaster, right, at six flags. I don't know what an integer is. I can't even answer this question. But these guys were crushing it at these at these at these questions, and there's three of them. And so listen to the third listen to this,
29:02
segment from the article. This guy named Ashley Vance. He's the one I think he wrote,
29:07
he wrote, the,
29:09
the biography of Elon Musk. He he wrote this article and he goes, The third cofounder, he's currently the CPO.
29:15
He asked me that I not explicitly say what his current status is, his enrollment status at Harvard is because he doesn't want parents to fully understand what he's done. Basically,
29:25
the CPO, the the cofounder of this company that now is worth hundreds of millions of dollars, has yet to tell his mother that he's dropped out of Harvard even though he's now worth tens of millions of dollars because he's too afraid to break her heart. And in the article, the author the author goes, I just wanna let you know you've raised a wonderful son, and this can work out wonderfully. It's okay if he's me or may not be enrolled in Harvard anymore.
29:48
And this article, it's it's the greatest thing I've seen. Just googled the guy's name, Scott Woo,
29:54
and the topic is a Reddit post from eighteen hours ago.
29:58
In the sub Reddit,
29:59
r slash next fucking level, which is an amazing subreddit. By the way, I go to there. I go there all the time. It's just next level shit. And he goes, here's Scott Wood, the CEO of Cognition Labs in a math quiz fourteen years ago. It's a clip. This thing has five thousand up votes. And the first first reply is I was wondering, here's the tricks that they used here, you know, for question three, the standard permutations of five four three two one. Blah blah. And then the top comment of that is it took me longer to read your explanation than it took him to actually do it and answer the question.
30:27
It's ridiculous.
30:28
I just said read, not even understand what you just said.
30:32
So, anyway, these guys are ridiculous.
30:36
And what's it's just amazing that,
30:39
a, there's young people that are, like, self gathering into, like, this is, like, to me, like, truly, like, that Facebook shit, like, that movie of Facebook when they're just in the dorm room doing These guys are doing it right now. They're they range between ages twenty and twenty seven. It was so inspiring to read about these guys, and I'm so happy that freaks like these guys exist.
30:57
It was a it was an awesome article about this company. The company, I'm sure it's great. The story of behind these guys is even better. This is, like, the American dream to me.
31:07
Yeah. I don't know if it's the American dream or, like, the robot dream or, like,
31:11
the math wet dream. I don't know what this what dream this is, but it's It's it's Chinese mother a Chinese mother Chinese tiger mom dream. For sure.
31:20
Except for the dropping out part.
31:22
Exactly. Yeah. They go, you know, it's not too late. You can still go back. That's what they'll say after this article. Harvard will launch a a Tiger extension school, which is you get to remain a student or you get to graduate or is is dropping out by graduating early because we're like, you you're done here. Your mom will be fine. We just get point one percent equity in your company. Thank you. Yeah. And and it and all they have to do, and we get point one percent. And what you get, son, is you get a photo of you wearing that gown, and we're gonna go get one of our our our teachers to shake your hand on on
31:52
We have this guy Charles. He'll shake your hand. He looks like the Dean. And, we have a green screen here. It'll look like you graduated and your mom, yeah, in a in a make your parents brown. This is the Harvard version of a fake ID of some guy running a a scam.
32:06
Anyway, I wanted to bring that up. I thought these guys are amazing. What do you got? Do you have a thrill
32:11
of a shill right right now? Don't you? Oh, I have something cool I'm doing. Okay. So this is not really a shill.
32:18
It's just a
32:19
it's just a thrill, to be honest with you. This is actually costing me a lot of money. It is not making me any money. So,
32:26
I have a idea,
32:27
which is wouldn't it be amazing?
32:30
If you like this podcast, you like listening to us,
32:33
Maybe you Sam, you were at a meetup last night. That's cool. People got to meet you.
32:37
Would anybody like to text with me? Because I got a number that you could text. And if you text me, I'll text you back.
32:44
And so what I'm gonna do is
32:46
I create a number. So all you gotta do is just text me. You just go six five o three three four
32:53
zero seven nine o. I think we gotta work on that number. But if we do that, six five zero three three four zero seven nine o, I'm just gonna send out texts of stuff that we're doing, that's cool. I'm gonna share, like, you know, stuff that's on my whiteboard throughout the day. Like, just random stuff that I think is interesting. Or let's say the main thing I wanna do, the the rate reason we had this idea was after every podcast, you don't know this. After every podcast,
33:16
Ben Leave, he's usually not listening on the on the recordings, but he was usually, like, really curious. Like, oh, oh, yeah. You guys had Gary V on. Like, what did he say? But he's not he doesn't want the full hour long podcast He's like, can you just send me, like, a voice note of, like, the two or three most interesting bits? And so I do that. And I've been doing that for, like, three months now where after every episode, I'm like, oh, yeah. Me and Sam talked about
33:35
that,
33:37
that, a company,
33:39
that's doing the AI software engineer and how that do the founder actually just like this mass genius. And I also shared, like, Myers Briggs does twenty million a year and how it was how it's kinda bullshit. We did that. And I'll just them a two minute voice of of the thing. And now and so he loves it. He's like, dude, this he's been telling me for months. This needs to be, like, a thing. But we didn't know how to do it. And so everything we looked into was, like, you could try to create a giant telegram group, but not everybody uses telegram.
34:04
Like, dude, I just want it. Like, just the way I get it where I just you just text me this as a voice note or as a photo. That's what I want. What did you use? So, we're using this this app that will let you do it. It's really expensive. And so I kinda just wanna limit this. And so maybe I don't know exactly what the limit is. I'm thinking just, like, the first thousand people I'm gonna cut it off because, like, it's gonna cost me tens of thousands dollars a month to do this, but I think it's gonna be great. So the number is six five zero three three four zero seven nine o.
34:32
That's right. I'll put it in the show in the description so you could just tap it and just send a text. You just have to say hi. So you just have to say hi to the thing. It'll ask you your name. And then I then it so then it shows me. So when you reply to me, I can see, oh, it's Jeff from, you know, Cincinnati or whatever it is. I could see who it is and I can I can reply back? And so gonna try this out. I wanna try it with a thousand fans. I'm looking for don't do it if you're just, like, super casual with it. Like, if this is your first time to listen to this except don't even bother. But, like, if you're, like, all about MFM, and you've been listening to this for years and, you know, you're cool, do this. That's so funny.
35:05
This cost me a lot of money. So please only do it if you really care. Not only like a thousand people do this. I don't really want more than that to do this because it's quite expensive. But, you know, whatever.
35:14
Leave it to me to cut it off at a certain point. Tell me about your friend walking back you have on here walking backwards and speed running. Isn't speed running just sprinting?
35:23
No.
35:27
So,
35:28
we did a pod with Gary v yesterday, and it's not gonna come out for a couple of months. Two months, I think. It's gonna come out when his book comes out or whatever. But he said something very interesting.
35:37
I don't know if this stood out to you, but you had asked him a great question. You go Gary, you started
35:43
with, like, like, family business, mom, and pop or actually before that, you were just flipping, you know, baseball cards. As a teen, then you joined your family business and it's like a a family shop. And then as you started to grow your brand, now, like, you have all these business owners who listen to you, but also your brand has grown so much. You now get to, you know, rub shoulders. Is it rub shoulders? I don't know what people rub.
36:04
You rub against You're rubbing you're rubbing chest to chest with a bunch of billionaires. And you were like, what I wanna know is
36:11
have you observed any difference between the guys who end up guys and gals who end up making it to the to the highest tier of the the of winning in business, the billion dollar club, let's say. Versus the the the small business owner, the convenience store owner versus the the the solo printer or whatever. What do you notice in the is is the biggest difference? He instantly answered something that I thought was not what I would have expected. He goes,
36:34
the willingness to walk backwards.
36:36
Like, what? What do you mean? And he said it, and it kinda he didn't fully explain it, but he explained two things. He goes, number one,
36:43
The great ones always reinvent themselves.
36:46
You know, you can look at Elon Musk. Elon Musk starts out doing zip two, And he he then he creates PayPal and he's like, he's, like, this internet entrepreneur.
36:55
And then after that, he was willing to walk backwards and go back to zero. And he was basically like, cool. I'm gonna now try hardware. Is a completely different game. It would have been easier for him to just stay with PayPal, keep growing that, or do another software company, Internet company, but he's willing to walk backwards.
37:10
And so he started a rocket company. It's not like he didn't know anything about it at the time, but he's like, I'm gonna start from zero. Today, I can't tell you how to build a rocket and then fast forward to today. He's got self landing rockets that can go up and come back and and land on themselves. Right? It's kind of amazing. He was also willing to walk backwards financially. So he invested
37:27
everything that he made from Zip two and PayPal into Tesla and SpaceX to the point where it would have gone to zero if those companies have failed, which they almost did. So the willingness to walk backwards both in terms of,
37:40
where you're at in the mountain, can you go back to being a beginner?
37:43
And the second thing is can you go back? Can you are you willing to risk it? Gary told us that his he has a safety net. You were like, I have a safety net amount of money that I just don't touch. If everything else goes to zero, I always got that. He's like, me too.
37:57
And you're like, How much is and he
38:00
I don't what did you expect that he would say? And what did he say?
38:04
I expected
38:05
I mean, he seems pretty wealthy. I expected ten or twenty. He said one million. So he said a safety net was one million dollars, which if I had to guess, that would cover his life expenses for, like,
38:17
less than six months. Right. As as current lifestyle. Yeah. Exactly.
38:21
As I safety net, that's a that's a safety floss friend. That's a thin graduate you're gonna land on there.
38:27
Obviously, it's a lot of money in the grand scheme of things, but, like, relative to his level of success and wealth, that's a lot less than I would have expected. He's like, that's all I need. And he's like, that's all I needed safety. I'm willing to roll everything else. And I thought that was very fascinating.
38:40
Then I've seen So I I I thought that was cool. And, Naval has said a very similar thing. He goes, one of the hardest things to do
38:47
is you start to climb the mountain.
38:49
And when you're in your twenties, you don't you don't know anything. So you just start going up the whatever the trail that you see is. If you start going up, the problem is, Let's say your ambition, your dream is to get to the top of the mountain.
39:00
But halfway up, you learn that the trail you're on is not the path that gets you there.
39:05
And so what do you do? Exactly. The reality is that most people, you're now thirty three years old. You've realized that the path you heard on is not the lifestyle or the path that you want.
39:14
But it is very hard to say I'm gonna walk back to the bottom of the mountain and pick a different path. And what most people do is they just settle. They say,
39:22
I guess, like, I guess I don't need to get to the top. I'll just this is high enough.
39:27
And,
39:29
They're not saying it because they actually want that. They're saying it because the thought of starting over is so hard mentally,
39:35
but the great musician the great actors, the great entrepreneurs, the great scientists,
39:39
they reinvent themselves. They go into new fields, new new studies, new beginnings,
39:44
and they start again. And so I find that pretty inspiring that and I've seen that so many times in the people in my life that people who aren't willing to walk backwards aren't willing to go speaking beginner again,
39:55
it's really tough. I've met multiple people who have started something and sold it and then went back just went back to college. Dharmesh being one of them, that he started HubSpot in college after he had already made. Say the name. Same the name you wanna say. Same name you're dying to say. Brett Adcock did the same thing.
40:13
Our friend Siava did the same thing. That's right. And it was hard at the time. When your whole friend group is doing one thing, when own success does one. I mean, I've even felt it in the smallest ways. This podcast does pretty well. I know that if I come on here, we're gonna put out some content. A lot of people gonna consume The thought of doing TikTok, which, a, I didn't even know how to edit a TikTok, b, I'm not, like, good at that style of content.
40:34
C, I got zero followers over there.
40:37
But I was like, alright. Well, like, I need to be somebody who can go back to the beginning. So TikTok is, like, your Tesla.
40:45
Exactly.
40:46
Now you get it. And I'm just like Elon.
40:50
So What about these guys? Then the then there's the opposite. Speedrunner. So I'm gonna tell you about, I saw this story, and I wanna tell you about three friends. So the story I saw was that the founder of RS Bar. Speedrunning is such a better term.
41:02
For sprinting.
41:06
For running. Yeah. So
41:10
speed running. What is speed running? Speed running is the opposite. Speed running is where you don't
41:14
go back to that beginner's mind. You don't go back to the bottom you literally hike the same trail again, and now you know that trail so well, you can do it so much faster. They do it faster, faster. It's a video gaming term. I don't know if you've you've seen it, but, like, there's people that They don't play the new video game. They don't buy the new the new the new,
41:29
you know, the next the next edition of whatever, four night or whatever. They play Mario that was released in whatever, nineteen eighty five. They play the first level, and they play it over and over and over again to where they can flawlessly
41:41
sprint through the level
41:43
hopping on all the goomba's heads, and they could finish the level perfectly in, like, thirty two seconds. And that is, like, the actual fastest that a human being could do this. And they do that. And they're they're called speedrunners and people love to watch them because you you're watching absolute mastery
41:57
over something that know, has been around for a while that they can just keep replaying until they absolutely master it. Like that Jiro guy who just, like, packed sushi for, like, fifty years and, like, than to change. Right? Right.
42:09
Exactly. He's not trying to make the new shit. He's like spicy tuna roll. This is what we're gonna do. And so
42:15
I noticed that I have friends that are the beginners and I have friends that are the speedrunner. So let me tell you about, the speedrunner. So first, I noticed that the r x bar founder
42:23
who built r x bar
42:25
ended up selling it for six hundred million dollars came out with a new bar, and it's called the David bar. Did you see this? No. But that that must mean that it's not compete ended, like, right then.
42:36
Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. He sold his company in two thousand seventeen.
42:40
And so now it's,
42:42
you know, whatever. Yeah. I don't know how how many years. What I don't know what year it is. When eight years or something like that, it's, he could start a new bar. So he started this thing called the David bar. It's, like, epic protein bar that he's doing. David protein dot com. Looks sick, by the way. It looks awesome. Look sick. Sick name. And the macros are also pretty insane. Like, look just look at the macros. Do you do you see it on there? No. A hundred and sixty calories, twenty eight grams of protein, sugar free. That's amazing. Pretty good.
43:07
Yeah. I'm in.
43:09
So I wanna tell you a couple things about this before we finish. Actually, I'll finish the speed running point. I wanna tell you about some r x bar story. So anyways, speed running. We have three friends. I think you know I think you know at least two of the three people. I can't say their names,
43:21
but let's just call them e commerce friend number one, two, and three.
43:25
Ecommerce friend number one sold their first e com sold a e commerce company. So the company, let's just let's say one. The first time they played the level,
43:34
four hundreds of millions of dollars, almost five hundred million dollars.
43:38
And then they decide they're gonna start a new company.
43:41
Do they go into AI?
43:43
Do they create a space company, a satellite company? No. They're like, I'm gonna start another e commerce company in almost the same niche. I'm gonna do it again. I'm gonna speedrun the same level because the first time I was an idiot. I didn't know what I was doing. I figured it out along the way. Now I figured all this knowledge out. Why not just do it again? And so they they say they're gonna start a new company. They are talking to somebody and that and they go, yeah. I think if they go, if actually, they weren't even planning to do it. They go, I think if I started one today,
44:10
I could hit a million dollars a month in revenue in three months.
44:15
And the other person goes,
44:17
no way.
44:18
No chance dude. Bullshit.
44:20
Like, you think that, but that's not true.
44:23
Challenge accepted. Only for that reason, this person starts a new company.
44:27
And they And how big are they now?
44:30
Month two hit a million dollars a month in revenue.
44:32
You know, they're they're, you know, couple months in and, you know, they're gonna do probably two to three million dollars this month in revenue. And this is less than six months old.
44:40
Can you can't re can you even say the category? Nothing. I I can't say a word. I might even I might get shot just for saying what I said already. So so Alright. That's the first. And who's who's person two?
44:50
Person two, e commerce two, person two, sold another company. Also for nine figures. Nine figures means a hundred million dollars or more.
44:57
Doing literally
44:58
the same company again.
45:00
Doing the same company in the same category. Obviously, there's like a, you know, ten percent twist, but, like,
45:05
back to e commerce, back to the same category,
45:07
back to the same playbook. How big are they now? Doing phenomenal again right off the bat. I don't have all their exact revenue numbers, but I know it's like tracking faster than it was the first time.
45:17
Friend number three. Friend number three
45:19
was friends with person one and two. Saw them run the levels.
45:23
Helped them a little bit along the way.
45:25
And then friend number three had an experience that triggered them also. A little chip on the shoulder moment. So they were invited
45:33
by a very successful company to come to their annual, like, come check out the office, come to our annual retreat.
45:40
And they go.
45:41
And they are watching they they go through the office. Like, wow. This is really impressive.
45:45
They go to the annual, like, company, conference or something like that. And they're like, wow, this is really impressive.
45:51
But the problem was that the the people who invited them there's like a good faith way to invite someone, which is like, hey, check this out. You'll really, like, you'll enjoy it. I'd love to show you what we're doing. Blah blah blah. And then there's
46:01
Hey, you wanna see my car collection? But that's what was going on. It was you wanna can I brag to you real quick? And they're arrogant. They're incredibly arrogant the whole time.
46:10
And my friends told me they said, friend number three told me they go, you know, that scene in,
46:16
the big short
46:17
where these bankers are are talking about how they're giving loans, and they don't have to do any, they, like, don't have to do much much of a a credit check and, like, They're not giving strippers, like, five houses.
46:28
Yeah. Exactly. And the the guy, the the main character's like, why are they
46:34
Why are they confessing?
46:36
And then his friend goes, they're not confessing. They're bragging.
46:39
And he he goes and he's like,
46:41
short this. Like, we need to short mortgage, like, security, whatever.
46:44
My friend says, same feeling. Walked out. I was just like, why are they why are they
46:49
bragging about all this. And it's like and and he's just got turned off. He's like, okay. You showed me you showed me exactly how big this market is. You showed me exactly how lucrative this is. Shouldn't be how arrogant you are. You showed me how bloated your company is. I will come out with a lean mean fighting machine doing the same thing.
47:05
That company gives him
47:07
ten million plus in profit a year, personally. Just ten million in profit in your bank account every year.
47:12
And this is less than five years, raise no cap, but raise no external capital, all that Right? Amazing. Amazing story. And when I was talking to this person, I was like, I was talking to one of the friends, and I said,
47:24
This is amazing. Number one, but it's also kinda lame. They're like, what do you mean? And I was like, you're playing the same level of the game again. Like, yeah, you're so talented. Like, you could do anything. And, like,
47:34
It's fun to win, and I get that. But it's also fun to grow.
47:39
And, like, I feel like you opted in to fun to win with no growth. But you're so talented that you could get the growth and win. That was, like, kind of my argument.
47:46
But I might also just be then they're like, cool. My broker friend. Thank you for the advice. You know, like, And so I wanted to get your take. Are you a walk backwards guy or are you a speedrun guy? Where do you land in the philosophy of this? And I'm curious, actually, for all the listeners, I really wanna know because Both ways can win,
48:03
but there's like a almost like a a political opinion on this. I have a political opinion and a belief
48:09
that walking backwards is the is the way. It's the right way to to do it in your life, not the speedrun the same level again. For years, I thought you owe it. If you have talent, you owe it to the world to, like, almost be a steward of that talent.
48:22
Like, you you owe it to the rest of us because you're so special to exploit your ability to the max.
48:28
Now
48:29
that I'm a little bit older, and I have a family, I think
48:33
fuck everyone. Do what makes you happy.
48:36
Like, make your kids proud of you. And, like, just whatever you think is exciting and fun, do that. You don't owe anyone anything. So not explore exploit. Basically, like, you're not,
48:47
don't wander out.
48:49
Just No. What I what I think is if it if you so, like, for example, I will name drop him again. Brett Attcock. I was like, Brett, why are you doing all this complicated shit? You don't have to. And he's like, I just think this needs to get done and I should do it. I love that attitude. I also love the attitude of well, I'm just gonna do the same thing over and over again because I get joy out of it. And this is awesome. And I just love it. I think that is also a a total win. I think both are wins, and I don't think that you owe it to the world to do anything unless you choose to owe it to the world. So let's say we're not telling other people what they should do. What do you how do where do you land on that? Let's say you could've started another newsletter right after the hustle.
49:27
But it's not like I'm starting like huge, like, world
49:30
I'm just starting things other things. I'm doing new things because I do I have a chip on my shoulder to prove myself in multiple industries or multiple business models, but I don't want to risk everything. And I'm not willing to Isn't that so funny? Like, previous off to who? Who can't is there any of myself? Sam's successful, but only in one industry.
49:50
Yeah. I don't know. Respect until he land's industry too. Like, nobody has ever even had that thought besides you. Isn't that crazy?
49:57
Oh, you don't know anything about ecom bro?
50:02
So for me personally,
50:03
I would say that I I don't feel like I owe I don't owe it to the world to explore, and I don't owe it to someone who's less talented, not that I'm particularly I mean, I'm I think I'm mildly talented, but when I see someone who's really talented, I'm like, you owe it to me because you were gifted this. Well, let me ask you Would you run it back? Let's say you were the r x bar guy. Would you run it back and do another bar company? So I think when I run back newsletters, no, because that bores me.
50:26
The Rx bar, I think it's pretty dope. I think it was great for the world. I think that so, yeah, if I'm if I'm him, I would. And there was actually an article written about him, how he was retired, and he was bored, and he had nothing to do. And they had a picture of him, but they made this photo, the article of the of him really great where it was him by himself on a lawn chair, like, in front of his mansion, and he was lonely.
50:48
And they talked about his
50:50
Like, you know what I'm talking about? That famous article that that was Captured rock bottom. Yeah. It was, like It recliner in front of a mansion.
50:57
Well, and it was, like, in the middle of day, and he was just, like, buy up. And the whole article was like, he's looking for his next thing. And so for someone like that, I'm like, just do it again, man. That was exciting. That was cool. I think that's awesome. And I think ours so if I'm David,
51:08
when I redo it, yeah, I think I would. Also, I don't know if his name is David.
51:13
The I think his name is Peter. So, by the way, the r x bar story. So
51:17
He's obsessed with Crossfit. Do you know what? Do you know the story or no? No. So he's obsessed with Crossfit. He's like, they don't sell any snacks that are like paleo,
51:25
at the time. This is twenty thirteen.
51:28
And he goes to his dad, and this is the best part. This is the whole reason I only wanted to tell the story just to drop this one line. He goes to his dad. He's like, dad, do you know any investors? I wanna start this, like, bar company? As dad literally says, you need to shut the fuck up and go sell some bars if you wanna start a bar, buddy.
51:42
He told him, you need to shut the fuck up and go sell a thousand bars. And so he's like, okay.
51:48
And so he's like and he talks about, like, you know, he's at school. He was not very good at school. And he's like, you know, so when I
51:55
When I was failing with this business,
51:57
I was comfortable. I was used to eating shit. I had been a failure. It was not foreign to me. I'd been a failure already at school. So oh, okay. Great. I'm bad at that. I'm bad at this. Like, I just kept going. I didn't, like, doubt myself. I didn't, like, second guess it because I was, like, so comfortable in that, like, the the failure mode that every company starts with.
52:14
Was first first business was in high school selling weed, by the way. Alright. Let's see the next one. So his next thing was, like, he's, like, I,
52:22
I thought raising money would solve my problems.
52:24
But, actually, it was such a blessing that they didn't raise any money. So they sold for six hundred million. I don't think they raised any money. They bootstrapped the whole way. And he's like, it was so good that because we were so forced on the one important thing selling the bars. That was the only way to continue the business. And so he's like, We would just sell. I would email. I would call. I would give bars out on consignment.
52:42
We would do anything to try just try to sell more bars. So in the first nine months, I did six hundred k.
52:48
Then the first in the first year, they did two million. Year two six million.
52:53
Year three, I think they did thirty six million. Wow. And then year four, they did a hundred and sixty one million, and then they sold to Kellogg for six hundred million at that point. Wow. And then there's there's there's an article that's amazing. There's an article making fun of the article I referenced. It says Michigan company pays guys six hundred million dollars, but he's kinda bored now.
53:15
This guy is awesome. The article was called, what happens when you become a millionaire overnight? That second headline. That's amazing.
53:20
It was just, like, a shitty radio, a local radio station because I guess David or whoever this guy is, he lives in Chicago. And so, like, a local radio station, like, made fun of him.
53:30
It's pretty funny. That's a good.
53:32
Dude, this guy's awesome. We should,
53:35
we should get him on the pod. Right?
53:37
Peter, come on the pod. Tell the story.
53:40
Alright. I gotta run. That's the episode. Good one.
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