00:00
This Chinese Indonesian guy was a politician? No. He was the guy. He was the middle man. So what he realized was,
00:06
because I was like, okay. Cool. We have coal. What do we do with it? He's like, oh, we just sell it immediately. As soon as we sign the paper, we have the coal, we sell it to Exxon.
00:14
And I'm like, oh, okay. So how does that work? He's like, well, I bought all this coal for two million, and then we, like, I bought all the coal for two million, and then we sell it in blocks for twenty million each. I'm like, well, that's like four hundred, five hundred million. How are we we're turning two million into five hundred million. And he's like, yeah. I'm like, well, what? That's amazing. Like, Why didn't Exxon, why don't they just go in directly by this?
00:35
Yeah.
00:37
I feel like I could rule the world or know I could be what I want to.
00:42
I put my all in it, like, days off on a road. Let's travel never looking back. I just got vaccinated.
00:51
That's pretty cool. I got a new toy. Do you wanna see?
00:59
Oh, nice. Sam's holding up a gun. I was,
01:05
does I just drove by a, a bath pro shop,
01:09
and I walked in. And I was like, I was just walking around just to look at, like, beef jerky or something. And
01:15
I just saw it and I've never even remotely owned anything like that. And I was like, hey, those are cool. You didn't need to, like Can I buy one? Jit certified or, like, do a background check or something? You just walk into a bass pro shop and buy again?
01:29
But, yeah, I mean, I just walked up to the counter and I go, Oh, those are handguns. Those are neat. What's the deal? Like, how do you buy one of those? And they go, well, just give us your driver's license, and we'll run it back on check, and you can walk out in five minutes. And I go, sick. I'll take that one.
01:42
You just held it by the way. Like,
01:44
you didn't hold the gun part. You held it with two fingers. And like
01:49
pointed sideways.
01:51
Yeah. I I still have to learn how to use it. I don't even have ammo for it, and I have, like, a lock on it. I'm, like, pretty paranoid. I gotta figure out how to use the damn thing.
02:00
Very text associated. We have something we have well, I'm a I'm a I'm a
02:04
Texas residents resident now. We have something cool happening on Wednesday.
02:08
Yeah. We are gonna interview
02:10
Jake Paul,
02:11
which
02:13
might be in terms of just, like, famous people, might be the most famous person we've ever interviewed. Probably the most famous person I've ever met.
02:21
I met the pope once.
02:24
And I met Bill. I met Bill Clinton when he was in office. Alright. You peaked. So but Jake Jake bought I did that with both of those when I was, like, eight years old. So Jake Paul is, like, number three. But When you say you met this coming on What does that mean? You saw the pope. You you shake hands on the pope. What is what does it take to meet the pope?
02:42
Shake hands that said hi in a busy crowd. No. Oh, that's pretty good. Alright. You shook hands. Let's see. Who is the most Oh, did it be, like, more like a high five. It was more like a high five. Bill Clinton.
02:51
Bill Clinton,
02:53
I shook his hand
02:55
and, like, said, hey. What's your what's your real first name? And he goes, William. And I go, hey, why why do you have white hair? He goes, because I'm old. And that was So I met him. Oh, wow. My name. So I actually I actually met Bill Clinton. You really shot your shot with Bill Glitz?
03:10
Well, I was like, six year well, year was that? What what year did you what? Ninety two? Whatever it was. I mean, it was pre Lewinsky, post Lewinsky. What was going on? Pre. Pre. Yeah. Pre. Pre. Back when he was still young, Bill. Alright.
03:22
That's pretty good. I met,
03:25
the the closest thing I ever got to that probably was have this really long Orlando Bloom story that's very funny, but I'm not gonna tell it. But it's like, if you're my friend, you've heard me tell the story ten times because it's just a go to. It's just a winner. Of a story.
03:37
You know, the the stories that you just, like, you just have in the bank if you ever need to be, like, you know, the life of the party. Do press someone.
03:44
But then I Also, you know, the, you know, the Duke,
03:48
Duke Andrew or something like that? I forgot his name as
03:52
Duke Andrew. Wow. How do you say his name? I know the name. It's either guy he get in trouble with Jeffrey upside? Yeah. He just got in trouble,
03:58
for that or maybe for other things. I don't know. Something happened. That's not great for him. But he was doing a tour of Silicon Valley.
04:05
And so we got word that, oh, the Duke is coming to our office.
04:10
Prince Andrew, Duke of York. Yeah. That's right. He was the Duke of York. So I heard it got word, oh, in the morning. Duke of York is coming to the office today. Can you give a presentation? I didn't know what the Duke of York was.
04:21
Still don't really know what the Duke of York is. He's just, like, not in the Prince lineage but whatever. So anyways, he
04:27
first, a full security detail comes, sweeps the whole office the, you know, the morning just to make sure they they get the whole layout They know where the entrances are. They know where the exits are. And, they're like, okay. This place is secure for the Duke.
04:41
And he shows up at four PM. And I've got this, like, presentation I've been working on. I threw my whole day away, and I just started working on this presentation for the Duke. And,
04:49
explaining what we do and why it's so great. I'm like, I gave my all. And the presentation's you
04:55
you've been to our office. Our office has, like, couches, not, like, kinda chairs It's a very comfortable couches. So he sits down on one of our couches and is he's just flanked by security guards.
05:04
And I fire up the first slide on the big projector
05:07
And I start talking, and I see that he's asleep.
05:10
He is, passed out by the fur before the first slide even starts, he has no fall asleep in his chair.
05:17
And now I don't know what to do because I'm giving this presentation to this one guy who's asleep. It's all my employees who know what the heck we do. They don't need this presentation.
05:27
They all see that he's asleep. I see that he's asleep. The security guards are kind of, like, not saying anything. They're not doing anything. And so I give the presentation to the sleeping Duke of York for the first twenty minutes. Oh my
05:40
god.
05:42
Cringe. I I was so lame. I just That's actually really cringe.
05:46
Well, I'll I'll finish the story with one thing because it's kinda relevant to what we do. So at the end, it because we were an idea lab and, like, this podcast about brainstorming business ideas and talking about shoot the shit about business ideas. So we I basically paused at the end. And I was like, okay. I could keep going, but, like, it'd be more fun if you actually joined us in doing what we do and you kinda brainstorm some business ideas. And so we asked him a bunch of questions. We're like, do you guys, like, what apps do you guys use? And he was like, we don't have phones. We're like, what? He's like, he's like, we don't get to use our our, like, personal cell phones I guess, at that time, I I didn't know exactly what you're saying, but there's some limitation where they don't have they don't just have, like, iPhones with normal apps and they could do whatever they want. It's like, very, like, pre installed.
06:26
Use this phone. Use what it has. And, like, if you want more, go to IT and they'll they'll help you or something like that. And, and then I go, what business ideas you have? He goes,
06:37
there needs to be a fact checker, so politicians can't lie. And I was like,
06:42
what? He's like, we need to hold politicians to to what they say. There's so many politicians that just lie, and we need them to And everything should be on the right everything should be, like, on the record. It'd be fact checked at all times. It should be public if you're lying. That was this idea number one. And then he had something else I was like about, like, I don't know, like, digitizing paperwork or something like that. And I was like, alright. Thanks, Fritz. See you. So there's actually I could riff on that. There's this thing called POLITico. Politico.
07:09
What is it? I actually don't know how you pronounce this. Oh, god. Everyone makes fun of me for not being political. Politico? No.
07:15
Political,
07:16
p o l I t I, fact. Polita fact. Polita fact. Okay. Have you ever heard of that?
07:24
No.
07:25
So what it does is it looks at,
07:29
like, when there's a big,
07:32
big election.
07:33
They analyze
07:34
all the major speeches,
07:37
done by some by someone. So in the case of Trump or, Biden when they were doing their debates,
07:43
they would
07:44
they have a meter that is says True, mostly true, half true, false.
07:50
Right. I've seen this. Pants on fire. And they actually check all the stuff they say. And they say this is or is that true? Here's why. And it's kinda cool.
08:01
Politifact, I guess it's called by the I like that it goes to Panify. That's a that's a nice touch. It's pretty cool. I like that.
08:07
So your your boy was on to something. Not a great business, but it it it does exist. There is something that does this.
08:13
Okay. Wait. One more thing. You said, we got on this tangent because you said Jake Paul's coming on Wednesday.
08:18
So,
08:20
Why is Jake Paul coming on and what are we gonna do about it? So Jake Paul okay. So,
08:25
I am basically copying Sean, and I started investing in some companies.
08:29
And
08:30
Jeffrey Woo is a friend of mine. I think he's a friend of yours too.
08:35
Yeah. Oh, I'm I'm mildly close friends with him. And he saw that I was investing and I saw that he was investing. And he goes, and we were just shoot the shit. I go, what are you doing? And he said, what are you doing? And we exchanged ideas. He goes, Just wanna do a phone call. I I'll bring on my partner, Jake. And I was like, oh, aren't you partnering with Jake Paul? He goes, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'll bring him on. And,
08:54
I go, alright. Sounds good. So we just do a zoom. And I'm sitting there with Jeffrey and or Jeff and,
09:00
Jake.
09:01
And Jake's like, hey, what's your cell? Well, let's just have a text chat, like a tech a group,
09:07
thread. And, by the way, I love my first million, and I know the hustle. Like, can I come on the podcast? Or or I was like, yeah. Sounds good. So
09:17
here we are. It's kinda weird.
09:19
But kinda funny. That's pretty legit.
09:22
I also wanna know from him, well, I'm gonna ask him, but, like, Jeff is, like, a tech founder, sold a company,
09:29
started like a a company backed by Andrews and Horowitz. It's like a keto company.
09:34
And,
09:36
And then somehow,
09:38
somehow, like, partners with Jake Paul. Like, I don't even know how they became friends. It's like, how did this Asian dude from the tech world become like, good enough friends with Jake Ball where they'll start a business together. Like, do you know that? No. I don't. I know that Jeff moved to Miami, and Jeff's like a manly man, like, Jeff's into guns and fighting and big muscles and whatever
09:56
men are supposed to be into. And I Jake,
09:59
I assume he's also into that stuff So they they must have met. And Jeff's real, real smart and savvy. And I have a feeling that it's a good shtick, which is, like, Jake's the famous one who gets access, and Jack is Jeff is a straight man who,
10:14
you know, makes make sure the, knows knows knows how to do it. Yeah. And that's historically a great partnership. It's actually Well, there's this guy named Brian Lee who does this, and he's partnered with, Shapiro. I forget Shapiro's first name, but Shapiro was the lawyer for,
10:29
o j OJ Simpson, and they started legal zoom together. And he and Shapiro was, like, the celebrity.
10:34
And then he did it with,
10:36
Kim Kardashian, and they started Shoo Dazzle together. Wait. What was it Kardashian's dad?
10:41
Kardashian's dad was the lawyer. Well, o j had, like, eight lawyers Robert Shapiro's name. OJ had, like, eight lawyers. So it was like Kardashian, it was, Johnny Cochran.
10:50
It was,
10:52
whatever, yada, yada, yada, and she And was was he the one who also partnered with Jessica Alba for the honest company? So this guy named Brian Lee, I guess he's Korean. He's a a Korean American
11:02
and I guess Lee's Korean, I think. And, he partnered with Shapiro for legal zoom. And Shapiro was supposed to be, like, the faith and the famous person. Turns out Shapiro, I mean, he's a really success. He's a savvy business guy. So Shapiro goes, let's do this with some more celebrity they partner with Kim Kardashian, and they do Shudazil, which raised a bunch of money, but I think kind of flamed out. But then they do it, with one other company. And then eventually, they do it with Jessica Alba, and honest co, honest company. And it's the same thing. Jessica Alba was supposed to be, like, Shapiro, kinda like the face, the famous person. Turns out she's pretty savvy, apparently,
11:34
and good at,
11:36
you know, whatever whatever it is, she's good at, I guess, running a business. I don't know what her role is, but she's great. And that's what he does. And so partnering with celebrities can actually work out quite well. This company is a it's a big company. That's like a that's like a big that's like a billion dollar company, I think. The honest go. I think I think many. What do we wanna talk about today? I got a bunch of
11:55
random random topics.
11:57
Do you want me to start? Did you have one you wanted to start with? I have actually was researching a fair bit of your things. Because I found them to be a little bit interesting. Do you wanna talk about turned yellow? Is that inter or how about you lead? I'll you lead everything, and I'll and I'll follow. But I researched all your stuff.
12:12
Okay. We can talk about turns yellow. So we'll we'll start there.
12:16
This is a cool business. So this is in a category
12:19
that, our friend, Ryan Beagelman said this word. I who who's the first one I ever ever heard say this. I don't know if he started it or he picked it up somewhere, but it's the term drop servicing.
12:29
So people have heard of drop shipping, which is basically, like,
12:32
you market on Facebook or wherever else, you sell a product to a customer, but it's a product that you don't hold in inventory The you as soon as you get the order from a customer, you place an order with your manufacturer, the manufacturer ships it directly to the person. So it's a way to do e commerce without having to buy and hold inventory because you're just directly shipping to customers straight from the factory.
12:54
And typically, kinda like lower margin, but it's a great way to get started if you don't have any money in e commerce. That's kind of like the idea behind it. Turned yellow is actually one of Jack Smith's
13:03
favorite things. Jack, Jack might be an investor, but I, I know he's a huge customer of turned yellow.
13:10
Right. So what turned yellow does is similar. It's a drop servicing company. So instead of shipping you a physical product, they do a service for you kind of on demand. So Turn yellow. Our, actually, my friend of ours,
13:21
I don't know if you know the guy Alex, who's behind it, but,
13:25
he bought the company recently
13:27
And, I won't share any, like, the numbers or anything like that, but, Alec, too. Really,
13:32
Volored Volodarski or something like that, v o l o. Is how you start the spelling of his last name.
13:39
You could find him on Twitter. He's at Volo
13:42
darski or something like that. And he he also started this, like, nineties theme kind of like,
13:48
party or parade or thing that used to happen, like nineties jam fest or something like that. It was just all nostalgia.
13:53
Which I thought was cool. That's why I first reached out to him. And then I found out that our our mutual friends, Xavier and Cave, it helped, you know, invested in him when he bought Turn yellow I'm sorry. What is it wasn't Jack. It was CAva. I'm I'm an investor in C. It was fun. That's how I heard about this. Yes. Yes. Okay. Exactly.
14:09
So what Turned yellow does is they basically it's a great gift. So you can,
14:16
submit a picture of your family or your friend, and they'll send you a drawing,
14:21
like, an illustration
14:22
of that same photo or that same person turned into what looks like kinda like a Simpsons character. Like, turned like, you know, all the SIM characters are yellow. So they make they cartoonize any picture for you. So it's like you you went and got this custom made for your friend. So it's this great gift and,
14:38
simple, simple business. They're basically on one side. They have a whole bunch of artists who can
14:43
crank out these, like, illustrations in this one art style. And on the other side, they just advertise on Facebook or whatever, and their their number one advertisement is this, like, picture of howie Mandel
14:54
holding up his turned yellow where he got turned yellow. And that had probably made up millions of dollars. There's so many replicas. So if you took Keep your ads on and type in turned yellow. So there's turned yellow dot com, which is, I guess, I I think the original. Then there's Simpson fi,
15:08
me, Then there's art of yellow, and they are all complete total rip offs the exact same website practically.
15:16
And,
15:17
that's kind of interesting. I would have thought that this would would have you would have had to have had some type of licensing or blessing from citizens. That's the thing.
15:25
I think it operates in a slightly gray area because they don't say anything about the Simpsons, but the art style does evoke that idea, that look, and I think part of why people are buying it for sure. It's it's one hundred percent the Simpsons. I mean, they're sitting in front of the cops. He's my friend. So I'm trying I'm trying to say it a little bit softly here. So but but anyways, the cool thing what they were doing was They bought the company. The company was doing well. Had all these competitors because everybody was kind of doing the same. Everybody was trying to clone them.
15:50
And then they brought on this bad ass licensing guy who has been, like, in the licensing business for decades.
15:57
And the idea is that he was gonna go and actually to all the different IP holders of, Simpsons and and futurama and Harry Potter and any other brand and basically say, hey, we would love to cut a licensing deal with you. So that we can do this and do it, like, totally above board. You make some money from this. We we lose a little bit of money, but we can kinda, like, knock out all these competitors who are doing this in the and they don't wanna work in the above board. They all wanna be under the table here. And so that was the business plan. And, I don't know exactly how it's going now, but I thought this was really cool. It's a cool business that does, you know, very good revenue.
16:30
And there's a whole bunch that are that are like this. And Right now, what people do is they just do this for every popular theme. So it's, like, you can do one. Like, a lot of people like Rick and Morty. That's, like, a cult phenomenon now. So people are doing this with the Rick and morty art style. And then people are doing this with another art style. And
16:46
this reminds me of what our friend, Sully did where he got the rights to family guy and made the family guy mobile game. And he made a he made a version of candy crush that was themed family guy. So he took a proven game, Candy Crush, that's, like, super addictive,
17:02
amazing and monetizing.
17:04
And he just skinned it with the family guy branding and got family guy to help promote it. Family guy got millions of dollars in revenue from the success of this game. And then eventually, yeah. The same thing with Harry Potter. Yeah. He did the same thing with tons of stuff. But How do you think you even like, I wouldn't even know the first thing. What do you do? Do you find someone, who happens to know someone, who knows someone, and they introduce you to someone?
17:26
At Fox. I mean, like, I don't even know. That seems really hard to to make happen.
17:32
Yeah. Well, I think that's why they brought on a guy who done decades of licensing because he has the connections already. He maybe worked with these same brands to do a different licensing deal, maybe putting faces on t shirts for Bud Light or whatever. Right? Like,
17:44
so I think that's one thing is, like, there is a network aspect to it where you can get your foot in the door. But I don't know. Did you ever listen to the first episode of this podcast with Suli where he explain how he got the family guy rights. No. I mean, I insane story. Yeah. I listened to the episode, but that was, two years ago now. Well, how about Eight years ago.
18:00
Yeah. Basically, he was like, alright.
18:03
First, why did he need this? They were just making normal mobile games, but distribution costs kept going up and up and up because Facebook was getting more and more expensive to advertise on because all the game developers were all competing as each other bidding the prices up. So he's like, shit. We need a way to stand out. We need a way to acquire users
18:19
without paying for as much in ads, we need a more efficient way to acquire users.
18:23
So he had seen that, the Simpsons did a mobile game with EA. And they made, like, Simpsons, like, the quest, you know, I I don't even know what it's called. Like, some some Simpsons game with EA. And he's like, oh, that's genius. That's what we need to do. This is before the Kim Kardashian mobile game and before others started copying this playbook. So he's like, okay. What's the next franchise that we can get? Family guy. So family guy is also owned by, I think, Fox. Yeah. And so they have they have Simpsons and they have family guys. They go to they they get in touch with, you know, Google around. They couldn't touch with the person to who who's in charge of this stuff. And they're like, yeah. Like, okay. I don't know. I've never heard of your startup,
18:57
but,
18:58
we're gonna probably just go with the yay. I mean, we just did the Simpsons with them. It was pretty successful. Like, EA is like a big name, trustworthy. You don't get fired for going to the AA. I might get fired if I go with you guys. And so they're like, okay. You know, fair enough, but they didn't give up. And so what he said was, every he he had decided, like, the company was screwed if they didn't fight, like, pull a rabbit out of a hat. So he just put all his chips into this one strategy and was like, okay. Every morning when we come into the office
19:23
or just have a whiteboard. The whiteboard says, how do we go get the family guy rights? I was like, what can we do? And, they would just come up with some ideas, and then they would try it that day, and then they would, like, fail, and they would come back again the next day, and, like, the next day. And then eventually, his number it was only him and two other people who knew about this plan in a company of, fifty, sixty people, I think. And so the number two guy was like, dude, we've exhausted. We've we tried this. We tried this. We, you know, blah blah blah. And so,
19:47
Eventually, Mark Andreson was on their board who's their investors. They had asked Mark andreson, hey, do you you're super well connected? Do you know know the guy? He said, yeah, I'll make a phone call. So he makes a phone call. They they get the meeting, but the meeting, again, is like,
20:00
I don't know, guys. So he says, alright. How do we pull this off? He goes, first, we're gonna economically make this, like, a ridiculous deal for them. So, like, we're gonna offer them this ludicrous upfront guarantee of x millions of dollars of you just get that money from day one.
20:13
Number two, you're gonna get this, like, awesome fat royalty on the back end, if this game is successful.
20:19
And, so that was kinda lucrative, and they were like, okay, we're into by the way, he didn't have the money to make, like, he didn't have the money to give them. He was a bluff. He promised it, and and was like, I'll go raise the money if if they say yes. It was his plan. And,
20:31
And then the last thing was they found out that the guy the main guy who's the decision maker,
20:35
his, like, mentor or,
20:38
was, like, a family friend of Mark Andrews or something like that. And so he's like, oh, talk to the mentor guy. So they talked to the mentor. The mentor's like, Okay, guys. I hear what you're saying. I like your spunk. Like,
20:50
I'll I'll help you out. And they put him on the board of their company. They're like, dude, we'll give you shares. We'll put you on the board. And he was like, guys. Don't need it. It's okay. And he put in the word and basically that that got the guy to, like, lean their way of, like, yeah, give these guys a chance. They're legit.
21:04
Don't worry about, like, that they're not a big household brand. In fact, these guys will go all out for you. It's life or death for them, and that's what you want in your partner. And so that's how they ended up getting the pitch to work and got the rights to family guy and saved the company. Do you ever think, at least, I I mean, I think of this. And do you?
21:21
When I think of stories like this,
21:23
I think to myself, like,
21:26
why wouldn't you just go to this person with the job and just be like, and just say all the obvious, which is, dude,
21:34
you don't wanna get fired. You also hate your job.
21:39
I'll give you a hundred thousand dollars personally. Why are you a hundred grand? Can you please just, like, like, what's stopping? Just, like, total cronyism.
21:47
I mean, I guess not what's stopping it. Maybe I should rephrase this. It's pretty mind boggling that that's not more
21:53
Like, we But there's not more there's not more of that. So okay. So what let's let let's answer both. What's stopping it? Well,
21:59
usually, the person you wanna bribe is in a pretty high So they're doing well already. Not hard up for money. Maybe. How much do you think the person makes a year who's, like, in charge of licensing for family guy? I I bet you not I bet that guys.
22:10
I bet you that guy's easily pulling in three hundred, four hundred thousand dollars. Okay. So that's not stupid money, but that's good money.
22:18
Good money. Right? So you see, he's not, like, you know, he's not desperate. Let's put it that way. Second thing,
22:22
you know, in a big company, I don't know if you've had yours yet now that you got acquired, but there is, like, a whole like anti bribery
22:28
training you have to do, and they really put it in your head, like, hey, look, even just, like,
22:33
taking any gift over fifty dollars, tickets to a game, you know, a dinner. You need to report it. It could be bribery blah blah blah. So you get it it gets put in your head and you start to think, okay. Do I wanna risk it all? Because if I actually got caught doing this,
22:46
I would basically not be able to have a career anymore. So you kinda have to pay me so much that I'm I'm willing to risk the odds of me getting completely
22:54
blacklisted from my profession where I've worked so hard to become a VP after thirty years. And I'm not saying. I'm not saying, by the way. I'm not even remotely implying that I'm into this. I'm just saying I'm actually Of course. I'm just what I'm You're saying some other guy might be interested. No. What I'm saying is I'm surprised that this doesn't I'm surprised it doesn't happen more. It's just crazy that we all agree that with, we we mostly
23:16
all agree what's right and what's wrong, and we kinda stick to it.
23:20
Because, like, if soon you've been, like, slick man, I'm gonna give you this deal. If you get fired, I'll give you a job.
23:27
Right. But I'm gonna pay I was gonna pay your company ten million dollars. I'll give you just a million of that.
23:31
I'm sure this will happen.
23:33
One is
23:35
Somebody said this the other day, they go. So how many employees does Amazon have? How many employees does Facebook have? How many employees does Google have?
23:42
Order how many foreign spies work at these companies? A lot. It's like sounds crazy, like, foreign spy. Like, what is a movie? It's like, no. No. Of course, it's not zero. Like, of course, there are people working for China, for Russia, for different countries
23:55
as foreign agents, and there's actually been, like,
23:58
cases of this work, guys. Basically, took the, you know, like, the the machine learning model out on a USB stick out of Google and, like, basically went back to Russia or, like, that's like a thing that has been has been found
24:09
to to be happening in these companies. So one is it's crazy that that's actually happening. That's, you know, I probably worked with somebody
24:16
who is actually, like, a foreign agent, which is just like a bizarre thing. Agent on behalf of Google. I mean, how many times do you think that there's someone who is a Facebook employee? And they're, like,
24:26
Hey, look.
24:27
I'm gonna fire you, and we're gonna act like we're not friends anymore. I need you to get a job at Snapchat.
24:33
And I'm gonna funnel you money. And I think you can tell me everything. Now everything yeah. That totally exists, which is kind of funny. That has to happen. Well, we don't talk about that.
24:43
So okay. So then,
24:45
then I was at exactly that. So I I've had this experience where I thought, honestly, I didn't think anything was wrong with again, this is where maybe my moral compass is a little screwed up. But I was like, oh,
24:55
for example, when we got acquired, we had talked to five other companies while we got acquired.
25:00
And for each of them, they're laying out their map, you know, how the what's their strategy, how they're gonna win, how we fit into that strategy, you know, where they're strong, where they're weak, what the numbers are, when we finally got acquired, I was, I walked in and I was sort of like, guys, congratulations.
25:13
You got me.
25:14
You got my team. You got our code base. But you also
25:17
got a little bit of intel. No. They were. Right? Like, I talked to them. They had no interest. I didn't even say anything, but I was like, nobody asked me anything. That's insane.
25:26
I and I was like, I know I would've if I was in that company's shoes and I acquired somebody who had talked through the strategy with the CEO of all these different companies. Other one, like, so, like, what did they say? What do they plan? Like, what how do they view the world? Well, that's true. And not even for, like Most people are Tell me their secrets. It's just, like, What were they saying? It's like not it doesn't even seem wrong to me, but the fact that nobody asked me tells me, maybe they do think that would be wrong to ask me. Maybe my just compass is screwed up. What do you think? Well, this is my whole point, which is mo and and and I just wanna say this again incredibly clear. Like, I'm not saying I do this. Our support it, I'm just saying I'm surprised it doesn't exist. But the moral of the story is most people are actually quite ethical.
26:04
And particularly if you're in a room full of people, they're gonna be extra ethical.
26:10
And so Right. I know. I'm not surprised that they didn't do that. That's what I told. But as an owner,
26:15
I would have been like,
26:17
hey, come here. What, Yeah. Exactly. I wouldn't. Especially when I was, like, in a startup, I act, but I wouldn't ask you. Nothing to lose and I have everything together. But I wouldn't say, like, tell me their numbers. I would say, like, I would I would just be like, what do they like? What motivates them? Are they cool? Does it seem like they have their act together? Like, these, like, fluffy questions? And then if you Okay. I can say honestly,
26:37
I totally would have asked for their numbers. I would have been, like, how big is it? Much revenue are they doing? I I was guessing, you know, five hundred million. Is it five hundred million? You have to ask those other questions first. You gotta, like, see if they're gonna trying to see if the person's cool with it or not. Yeah. If you wanna make them uncomfortable,
26:51
but I am a bit I am surprised.
26:54
We,
26:55
you and I know someone who wasn't involved in a lawsuit because they were hired at one company, a large tech company. And previously, they had work at the competitor.
27:07
And
27:08
Dude, we can we can say the names. This is public information. Alright. It was,
27:12
Anthony Popliano,
27:13
He worked at Facebook. This is all public. This is you can read the deposition or, I believe it's deposition.
27:18
He didn't tell us. I read I read the deposition like a nerd, and that's how I know. Yeah. And basically, according to the records that we read, he worked at Facebook. He decided to work at Snapchat, and they said something like, here's a piece of paper, write down the,
27:32
the organization chart tells how it works and then go and recruit those people. And he, according to the, deposition said, no. That's I'm not a chance, and they fired him. Snapchat did or or they, like, butted heads or something like that. And,
27:45
so, yeah, I do. Yeah. They butted heads over that. Yeah. I, I think this stuff happens actually a a fair bit, but I'm actually shocked it doesn't happen more. Right.
27:54
I I the my only concern in that situation would I don't wanna make my own person, my teammate uncomfortable. If they don't feel like sharing or they don't they don't wanna share, they feel like that's wrong. Okay. No problem then.
28:05
But if they were down to share, I would one hundred percent be asking all the questions. I'm thinking from my startup brain. At a big company, you sort of have more to lose. It's not really worth it. You're not, like, in a, like, sort of, you know, life or death situation of the company, like, you don't need the information. But I really have been surprised. Like, we'll we'll hire people who are, like, from YouTube or whatever.
28:24
And they and I and wherever we're at, we're, like, hypothesizing.
28:27
Like, well, you know, like, how do other companies handle this? Blah blah blah. What can we try? I'm, like, that dude work Why don't we just ask that guy? Like, hey, dude. What did you guys do? How did it work? What was the, like, is this retention number good or bad relative to what you saw? Like, And nobody asked the question, which is, like, maybe it's just not in the big, big meeting settings, but,
28:45
I have been surprised of that. And I know
28:47
If you're working, like, over there are other companies that don't have that same credo. I worked for a guy in Indonesia.
28:55
My first first job I ever had. It's kinda like a summer job. And my dad hooks me up with this guy. He's like, oh, yeah. This guy is known as the king of coal. In Indonesia. He owns, like, all the coal of Indonesia.
29:05
I'm, like, oh, sweet. Okay. So I'm, like, I go do this summer job with this guy. Was it was he an American or an Indonesian?
29:11
He's a Chinese guy living in Indonesia at a fifth grade dropout. Can't speak like any English pretty much, like very broken English.
29:19
I he had four women just doing his email on giant TV screens in his office because I don't think he could even type. And, he was just like, or he was like, alright. Like, he would just say out loud what he wants to reply to every email. And, and that's how he would do his business. And so I, like, as I get there, I'm like, oh, cool. You're the king of Cole, like,
29:35
how to happen, what you do. And, basically, I mean, what I realized pretty quickly was
29:40
this guy's entire business model was
29:43
big companies like Exxon and BP and Chevron, they all wanted land in Indonesia. And the land was owned by the
29:51
local,
29:53
like, city province. They had the rights to it. So they so they had the thing. And,
29:58
the local guy would just only, like, only way to do business with this guy was to bribe him. Like, that's the only thing the guy wanted was a bribe. He the local politician wanted a bribe. If you give him the bribe, you can have the land rights. So this and this Chinese Donesian guy with a politician?
30:12
No. He was the guy. He was the middle man. So what he realized was,
30:16
because I was like, okay. Cool. We have this call. What do we do with it? He's like, oh, we just sell it immediately. As soon as we sign the paper, we have the coal, we sell it to Exxon.
30:23
And I'm like, oh, okay. So how does that work? He's like, well, I bought all this coal for two million, and then we, like, I bought all the coal for two million, and then we'd sell it in blocks for twenty million each. I'm like, well, that's like four hundred, five hundred million. How are we gonna we're turning two million into five hundred million. And he's like, yeah. I'm like, well, what? That's amazing. Like, why didn't Exxon, why don't they just go in directly by this? He's like, like,
30:45
Well, if they could, they would, but they can't, so they won't. And, basically, what he was saying, like, those companies did couldn't get their hands dirty. They could not risk bribing foreign, like, politicians.
30:54
So what they did was they let this guy bribe the fallout form politicians, get the rights, and then they would cut a commercial deal with him. And this guy knew nothing about the coal. Like, I'd be like, oh, is this a good asset, bad asset? He's like,
31:06
doesn't matter. When you get the paper, they pay for the paper. Like, we don't have to do any of the work. We don't have to, like, extract it, mine it, don't have to do anything. And now, by the way, this guy's at jail. Like, you know, that's the the end of the story. Is he in jail for other names?
31:20
Yeah. His name well, I I I don't wanna get a personal personal harm
31:24
by outing this guy. You know, we're a world away, but but this guy's kind of a gangster. So I'm not gonna say his name, but you could if you could use what I said and Google it. Your dad your dad got you an internship with a gang, sir.
31:36
Yeah. Me and my sister, by the way, both of us.
31:39
That's crazy. Like, I remember we were we were in his office one time, and he had a friend come in, and his friend is, like, kinda, like, you know when it's his friend because it's just like alcohol, like, starts pouring. Women starts showing up at the office. Like, what's going on here? Who are you trying to wine and dine? And it's this one sleazy looking dude. And I was like, oh, like, what's what's your business? He's like, I work in Singapore.
31:59
I help companies on the Singapore stock exchange. And literally, this was just straight insider trading. So I'm sitting there And I'm just hearing this guy be like, yeah. These are the three companies you need to, like, buy. They're, like, dirt cheap right now, but they're gonna, like, they're about to announce x y z, and they're gonna pop. And then they would just, like, toast their whiskey and then they would buy this stock on the Singapore stock exchange or Hong Kong stock exchange. And, like, sure enough, the numbers would go crazy. I was just sitting there being like, wow, this is, like, insanity that this is how, like, loosey goosey these guys are with business. Well, what I was gonna say was I think that, like, in
32:33
even though, like, people make Amazon or whatever to be, like, evil,
32:38
you just said, no. Like, we would never even ask this googler about x, y, and z. And I was gonna say, that's, like, a very American thing. I've had a couple of friends who I worked with, who run Chinese companies or, you know, they're Chinese and they're either based in China or are now American or the Chinese American now. And I have a bunch of Indian friends, and
32:58
they're like, yeah. That's but but,
33:00
we we don't we operate differently than you. Our opinion of of the right and wrong ways a lot different than you. And it is far more unadulterated
33:09
capitalism of just, why is copying wrong? Like, and and
33:14
they're kinda right. Right? Like, why is it wrong? But in any way, it is quite interesting.
33:19
Yeah. Totally. Anyways, I don't know how we got an Do you wanna talk about first versions?
33:22
We can go back to
33:25
Yeah. What what if I saw this website,
33:28
my guy Chris, Chris, who's my apprentice right now for content, he sent this to me I haven't actually spent a ton of time on it, but go to first versions dot com.
33:37
Check that out. And I'm pretty fascinated with this. I think you are too. We both are, like,
33:41
internet archaeologists. We like to go find
33:45
the o g
33:46
thing. What did I did this blog post. I got, like, tens of thousands of views once before I had any audience. It just went viral because it was what are the first web page look like for these ten big companies? And this is kinda like some comment to to do, like, Uber's homepage back in the day, Snapchat's homepage back in the day, the first Facebook homepage,
34:05
the first eBay homepage, first Amazon homepage, and these things look like
34:09
you know, so basic and rudimentary and, like, really just it makes you realize, like, dude, you you need to launch, and there's that quote, if you're not embarrassed by v one of your product, you launch too late. And all these companies definitely, like, fall into that category. So I thought first version dot com was cool little, like, archive of stuff like this. I think this is so cool. So I actually just sent you a link to an article that I wrote. I think I wrote this in sixteen thousand sixteen years ago.
34:34
Fifteen, October fifteen.
34:36
And I,
34:38
you could the
34:39
it probably doesn't even work entirely. But anyway, I what I love to do, and I've always loved doing this, is I use there's a few different websites. Web archives, the easiest
34:49
And what I like to do is I will,
34:52
get a a Google doc in a spreadsheet, and I'll map out
34:56
the the whole journey of a company. So I'll look at what air when Airbnb started, and then I'll read all about them of, like, alright. Here's when they announced they had this many users. Here were they here's where they announced this much funding. Here's where they said they had up their first fifty employees. And then from fifty, they actually went to a thousand in only two years. And then I'll take screenshots
35:15
of their website.
35:16
And in doing that, you can actually see what, like, how the the evolution. So, Progressive. Yeah. And I'm just starting I'm just making this up with Airbnb, but it could be, like, it started as air bedding breakfast, and it was about renting cots inside of a living room. And then, oh, wow. They actually changed their their positioning to travel like a local, and they started,
35:36
taking higher end pictures. I I don't know what it is, but,
35:40
and and when they started actually taking higher end pictures, that was actually right when they right before they raised their hundred million dollar funding. And so, anyway, you can actually track the progression really nicely by doing this, and I love doing that. I love it. And so you can actually see Oh, Uber, Uber cab dot com, they were only black car services.
35:58
Oh, when they raised all this money, they actually got rid of the black car. The black car became secondary. So, actually, the black car didn't work.
36:04
So they switched to this. You know what I mean? And so it's kinda cool. Yeah. You can totally reverse engineer a lot of the stuff. So some of the tools we use to this, the way back machine, which is the internet archive. So just Google way back machine. That lets you put in any domain name, and then you could go back in time, and they took screenshots
36:20
of what the website looked like on June twelve twenty, yeah, twenty ten. And then that, you can go back. You can see Uber's, what did who Uber's homepage look like back then? How were they describing themselves? Another one I do is TechCrunch. I go to Tech Crunch search for a company's name, and then I reverse sort it by the earliest mention of it. So, like, you can go Twitter. You can see the very first article is, you know, Mike Errington being like,
36:42
you know, the buzz at the party this week, was about Twitter spelled without the, you know, without the vowels. Basically, it's like the short messaging service It was kinda fun. You do do this. But, you know, who cares? You know, people are just tweeting about their they're just tweeting about their breakfast. And it was all through SMS. Like, you just kinda see what was going on then. So I like that one. That's a that's a useful one. Another one I'll do is I'll go on Twitter, and you can Twitter advanced search. So you can type in anyone's name.
37:07
And you could do things like,
37:09
Twitter doesn't make this obvious how to do it. There's, like, a format of how you write these in, but you write, like, at the Sampar
37:15
before
37:16
two thousand and eleven. Yeah. And then you say minimum,
37:20
three hundred likes. And I can kinda go see your most popular posts at that point in time. What were you talking about? What was working for you? What wasn't? So I've done this with a whole bunch of people. And I kinda like I really am a big reverse engineer type of guy. It's not that you could copy it, but It's just data points. It's a way to fast forward experience
37:37
because
37:38
experience the hard way is slow. It takes, like, decades to get good at things and to learn and to, like, figure out what's normal, what's not, what's fast, what's slow, what's good, what's bad. And a better way to do it is to, like, download a whole bunch of data points quickly
37:52
And it's not perfect experience, but it's better than being blind and and just kind of like going off only your personal experience. So those are some ways. I would actually go as far to say you can copy it.
38:03
You you can. You actually can copy a lot of stuff, and I think you should sometimes. So for example, this first, by the way, first versions dot com This is a wonderful website. This is such a good website.
38:15
I,
38:16
this is so cool.
38:18
I wish they they don't even By the way, what they do is not just internet. Like, what, like, what we're talking about is home pages because that's, like, kinda, our needs, but they'll be like, this is the This is the first version of Tom and Jerry. Like, the very first pilot. And, like, last night, I don't know why for for no reason. Before I went to bed, I was watching the very first pilot episode of curb your enthusiasm before. It was even a show. And I was I just love seeing that o g, o g, the first pilot of Always Sunny in Philadelphia where they're using the handheld camera. Like, I like seeing that because it just as somebody who is frequently starting things,
38:49
it's important to go see that your favorite thing started with very humble, simple, kinda shitty beginnings.
38:56
And, and then, you know, you sort of can see how much better they got over time. This is so good. I love this. I'm gonna link to you some link something to you. So in two thousand and
39:07
thirteen,
39:08
I created this thing. I called,
39:10
the CEO doc. It was a stupid name. But,
39:14
I I sent it to you. And you could actually see that it's so funny that you do this because, I mean, we're it's it's so funny that we're similar, and we've been doing this for years. So I created oh, wait. Is it not working?
39:24
I created this document
39:26
where I would
39:28
take I think I had a list of five hundred people
39:31
And I would make timelines for each of their lives. And I would say started their it was broken into apprenticeships.
39:38
First hit and then the self actualization
39:41
mode. So, for example,
39:43
Jack Dorothy started to apprenticeship at age twenty two from twenty two twenty eight. He basically was, like, this poor nobody who worked as a dispatch service for a taxi cab company. Twenty eight to thirty one, started Twitter at twenty eight.
39:57
It actually became a pretty big hit really soon at,
40:01
twenty nine. And so I have timelines, and I have average ages a average age for each person. And so,
40:07
I love doing that stuff, and it works so good,
40:11
for for just seeing, like, what's possible.
40:14
Right. So we're we're actually quite similar. I've been doing this as well for a while.
40:19
Yeah. It's great to nerd out about this kind of stuff.
40:22
Okay. So first versions is cool. I have another
40:24
kinda cool thing. Okay. Here's a here's a idea.
40:28
I would say this is not a business. It's probably a very bad idea. Maybe this is something that this is you reminded me of it because this thing that we're doing is
40:37
like, the thing we're talking about is extremely nerdy, and probably most people don't don't do what we're describing, like, kind of like go back and map out the evolution of companies or people or whatever it is.
40:47
So similarly,
40:48
I I I want a tool that I'm calling business pocket. So pocket is this Chrome extension
40:54
app or service where you like if you see an article you like, but you don't have time to read it, you just hit pocket. It's like, you put it in your pocket for later. Do you think I think it used to be called. Read it later. Do you think pocket is going well? Bet you're going pretty badly. I bet you that'd be a cool company to buy. Yeah. I don't think it's going well. It got really big, and it raised a bunch of money. And then, like, it's just been around for so long without, like, an exit that
41:14
you wonder, did it just get, like, become obsolete somehow,
41:18
along the way? But anyways, it was just a way to save articles. Now I actually want something what I'll call business pocket. So I have this bookmark
41:26
thing in my Chrome that's called companies to watch. It's basically, like, anytime I stumble across a company, I find interesting. I've been doing it. It's, like, this thing is, like, ten years old now. I find an interesting company, and before it used to be, I wanna see if this will be successful. Or maybe I should if I was an investor, I would invest in this. So I wanna, like, flag this, and then I'll come back later in three years, how it turned out whether whether it would have made money or lost money on this thing. And so I've just been collecting this for a long time. Now in reality, I hit I market, and then I, like, never go back and go recheck those because who's got the time. But, I would love a service that's almost like a programmatic newsletter.
42:01
Where I can just flag either people or companies that I say, I wanna keep a watch. I wanna keep watch on this company or this this this individual.
42:09
And, like, the CEO or maybe this company, the startup. And then I wanted to, like, basically take the ten that I've flagged and send me anytime there's interesting news about them with some filter. Like, you know, they raise new funding. They got a new job. They they they announced this thing. They're on TV, whatever.
42:27
And,
42:27
and, you know, my twelve that I'm tracking might be different than the twelve that you're tracking. But, like, we might have three that are the same. And so this company that's underneath it would just need to set up, like, a kinda like a programmatic way to, like, watch for the news around certain names,
42:42
and then turned it into an automated newsletter. Those kind of just like a random idea. I don't think it's a business, but I think it would be cool. I disagree. I I think it's a business. When we were getting ready to decide if we wanted to launch trends or wants wants something new. I wrote a landing page for this product. I forget when I called it, but something involving the word spy.
42:59
And I put, like, the headline was, like, your secret spy spies that track your competitors and tell you everything that they do. So you know, and we deliver it to you via email. And
43:11
I think this actually could have worked wonderfully. And the reason I came up with this idea was I had a friend who worked at Rocket Internet. Rocket internet, Google it. It's a it's a guy. It's three brothers, named Ali, Alex, and something else, Samwire Brothers.
43:25
And they started this thing called Rocket Internet. And, basically, the way it works right now, it's a large publicly traded company. They had this, like, guy named he was, like, the chief scientist.
43:35
And what they would do is they would research fast growing companies in America and they would clone them and they would deploy that company in Africa, in Asia,
43:45
different parts of Europe, things like that. Brazil. Brazil.
43:48
And so they cloned Uber, but in Mexico, they cloned Pinterest, but for Germany. They cloned Zapos, but for Germany. They did,
43:57
Amazon
43:58
for Thailand. They own, like, the Amazon for Brazil, I think. Yeah. And they also own the Amazon for Thailand. And they would pick a variety of companies. They would do, like, the Wayfair
44:08
for
44:09
Nigeria or something like that. And they had this guy who's who was called the chief scientist
44:14
And all of the clones
44:16
of the Amazon
44:17
of this country, that country, that country, there'd probably be, like, eight clones and he would send an email every day. This is the story I heard. I don't know if it's true. He would send an email every day and it'd be like, hey, everyone, Amazon,
44:28
actually just moved on their homepage.
44:30
They moved the clothing
44:32
from, eight or a hundred pixels to the left.
44:36
It probably means that a clothing is a little bit more popular now than furniture. So, alright, make sure you move your clothing thing or, hey, they, they changed their color of this button from this yellow to this orange. Go ahead and do that. And I thought that's pretty awesome. I would love to have that. I would love to track my competitors I would do research on my competitors. I would say, oh, which ads are they using? Oh, I wonder why they're using this ad. Maybe maybe they're using this ad for this this reason, that reason, that reason, I'm gonna go and copy it, and I would a variety of similar web,
45:07
Facebook ad archive,
45:10
HA reps, and a few other things. And I would I would just I would be like, oh, here's where they're succeeding, and here's why they're succeeding.
45:17
I may copy them. I may not copy them, and I just I just know what's working. And I think that that one hundred percent could be a service that you pay a hundred grand a year for, and you get and you and they'll tell you the five nearest competitors And every month, you meet with their team, and you say, alright. Your competitors,
45:33
they're doing this, they're doing that, they're doing this. Here's what's working, here's what's not working. Here's our hip hop hypothesis at hypothesis
45:40
as to what all this means. And I think, actually, you could charge a six figure annual contract for all of it, and I think it would be a really cool company.
45:49
Right. Yeah. I told you about my friend who I I I'd nudged in this direction to do this for for e commerce.
45:56
I'll I'll give him another shout out here said I got a bunch of sales last time. I I mentioned this. I'll do it again. Shopify sales data dot com. Basically,
46:04
a way to track your competitors
46:06
and how much they're selling and what new ads they're running and and stuff like that. And, just in the niche of e commerce, And it's, you know, I don't know, a hundred bucks a month or something like that. And, I pay for it. I'm like, this is great,
46:18
you know, it's a it's a valuable service. And so You you could do it in a niche or you could do it, you know, more broadly. But, but, yeah, I think that's cool.
46:26
Let me give you a different topic. You wanna do one more? Did you wanna do the pets thing you've had that here for two weeks?
46:33
So this is actually, like, a really I what I thought was a really random idea And then I saw an ad. I saw a commercial for it on TV yesterday, and it's, like, totally a thing. So it's just gonna sound stupid because it was, like, a stupid. Basically, I was, like,
46:47
kids love having pets. Pets are like a pain in the ass maintenance wise, and the, you know, a kid wants it, but they're not gonna maintain I was thinking about, like, that's why people get fish because it's kinda like self contained in this little tank and you don't have to do anything most of the time. Just feed it. A fish die all the time. It's really sad for the kid. And so I was like, why is there not just like AI pets? Why aren't they just like robo pets,
47:07
for kids? And I I was like, oh, a fish would work because It just needs to swim around sort of aimlessly. You don't touch it. So even if it was mechanical,
47:14
it wouldn't feel cold. Like, a mechanical dog, I don't think we'll feel great. But,
47:19
but, you know, mechanical fish. You you hit home runs. This is such a dud. This is such a on. You you're a home run hitter. Today's a strikeout.
47:28
This is a stupid stupid idea.
47:31
You are Well, I saw the commercial report. It was called Robo Face yesterday. And I was like, oh, this exists. No way. Oh my god. So I'm gonna go check. Right. See, if you could see, does robo I think it's called robo fish. I saw the commercial. Tell see, tell me they do a hundred million dollars a year. And prove that this is not a debt. So anyways, that was one. And then there's a a related one, which is there's a medical thing that's going on for, you know, like pets are sometimes labeled as, like, kinda like, emotional support dog or whatever. It's like anti anxiety. That sort of thing. You know that's total bullshit too. Right?
48:00
Well, I know most people use it for bullshit. I don't know if there's any medical, like,
48:05
like, there must be some, like, cases where it helps or something like that. I agree that in some cases, it is true. But,
48:11
a lot of, like, Like, people like, oh, they're certified and emotional. Like, there's not, like, a certification process. Yeah. There's no yeah. Exactly. This dog did not get trained.
48:21
But, but anyways, I saw this company that was doing this with for for people with dementia and Alzheimer's,
48:25
they were giving them this weighted it's the equivalent of a weighted blanket, but it's a pet. So it's a pet that sits in your lap. It's heavy and, like, a weighted blanket, but it feels like a pet, and it moves like a pet. Now if you're, like, totally if you're just, like, an adult who's has no health conditions, you'll be like, oh, this is like clearly a robot. This blink is like not really fully natural. And, you know, this dog's obviously not running anywhere. It's not a real pet. But to somebody with, you know, dementia or Alzheimer's,
48:49
they found that this, like, is extremely comforting to them. Now they're really expensive right now. They're, like, thousands of dollars for this, like, really kinda, like, realistic feeling thing. What's it called? But,
48:59
but they're gonna bring the price down. I I don't know. I met this guy who,
49:03
through my wife. She she was consulting for this company that was doing it, and she was showing me the videos and stuff like that, about this thing. So I thought that was kinda cool too. But I I think that we will see more and more either
49:14
genetically engineered pets or just straight up kind of like mechanical AI
49:19
pets because if you can get
49:22
sixty percent of the benefits with zero percent of the work and maintenance, I think there's a whole class of people who would take that trade
49:28
that today just don't own pets because it's just too much cost and too much work. So,
49:33
man, I called your thing totally stupid. I think for the average Oh, yeah. Hold on. Receipts,
49:38
Bray you. Come in and tell Sam tell Sam about the robo fish. I mean, I don't know if this is what you're talking about, but this company in two thousand twelve, they sold fifteen million of these at eight bucks a piece in the first year.
49:50
Well, first year. That's right. Alright.
49:53
I I'm both I I kind of take back and I don't take back. So you're wrong in that. You're saying like, oh, pets are so annoying. Just give them a robot pet. Like, Yeah. I think that's actually silly. I don't doubt that people buy robo fish. I think that's just like a cute little widget that's fun to have. But Dude, you were the one who was like, oh, these AI girlfriends are great.
50:15
It's the same idea. It's the same premise. Okay. Well, look, I'm open minded enough to, like, challenged my views. But I you started talking about this Alzheimer thing, and that's actually quite interesting. I just googled it. I wanted to see which ads come up. I like because, like, you so I googled this thing. I'm I it's kind of I don't really like looking at this. I feel a little sleazy, but there's this oh, I actually don't like the name. There's a name called I just sent it to the als All store. So a l z store, and it stands for the Alzheimer's
50:44
store. And they call it the all store.
50:47
And they sell,
50:49
like these Livestrong bands that have your name on it. So if when you forget your name. Remember. And they actually have a robotic therapy dog.
50:57
And
50:58
this website actually looks like It's like a entrepreneur who's just looking for a moneymaking niche, which
51:06
a little weird with with this type of thing, but people seem to love it. It's a whole store dedicated to Alzheimer's products. I have zero idea if this is, like, actually what
51:17
Alzheimer's patients love and need, but this is incredibly
51:21
fascinating.
51:22
And I'm looking at their similar web traffic No. Actually, I think this is legit. They have videos of them, of the founder talking on, like, the Today show about selling all types of products for Alzheimer's stuff. And I'm looking at their, similar web traffic And it's incredibly
51:36
popular.
51:37
What a fascinating business, all about Alzheimer's.
51:40
Yeah. No. This is a legit company. I'm I'm looking at the about page. This they have a good background story of the the the father as Alzheimer. So now they create all these products. Yada yada yada. It's looks pretty interesting. Can you believe that this exists, the All Store? Right. That's wild. I had no idea.
51:57
But makes sense. I guess, I guess it does make sense. I have one more
52:01
Can I do last two minutes? Yeah. Billy of the week story. Yep.
52:04
The second Billy of the week story. I learned this. I tweeted this thing.
52:08
I tweeted this out
52:09
And
52:10
it kind this kind of blew my mind. Okay. So I was doing some re you know, Shudog is, like, super popular about the founding story of Nike. Yeah. You did one hundred. Yes.
52:19
I did one on Adidas. And I was, like, I was, like, okay, Nike. Great.
52:25
What's the story with Adidas? Where did that come from? And so I just started googling for a second, and
52:30
I didn't go so in-depth, but okay. Here is the sixty second version of Adidas. So for, tell me if you knew these things. Just give me a yay or an a if you knew it or not. So Adidas, when you were a kid, did did you not hear that this stood for all day? I dream about sports. Soccer. All day, I dream about soccer. Soccer. Yeah. Yeah. That's right. Not true.
52:49
Basically, you know, the guy's name was Adolf Dossler, who started it. And he went by Adi Dassler. Dude. And so it's just Adi Dass. I was in Germany at what time, and someone a German was like, do you like Adi Dass? I'm like, I I don't know what that is. Is that like a German brand? They're like, oh, no. It's Adidas. You don't know Adidas? I goes, no. I've never heard of it. And they started laughing at me. That's Adidas. I guess, it yeah. Right.
53:11
You I'm sure you corrected him. I was like, he's in hometown. I go, oh, you need to see this? Yeah. I know I did this now. I don't know what Adi Ross is.
53:19
So, okay. So the story's kinda crazy. So,
53:22
two brothers. Basically, dad owns a leather shoe factory.
53:26
The two sons are like, okay, shoes are cool, but we wanna do sports shoes, not these, like, leather shoes. And so they spin out and they create the Dossler Brothers shoe factory.
53:36
And what they do is they're like, we're gonna, you know, Adi, you're gonna design the shoes.
53:41
And, Rudy, you're gonna sell the shoes. You do sales and marketing. Two brothers, they they do that. Right?
53:46
It's like a ten year grind
53:49
you know, building this thing up. They're growing, but they're growing slowly. And then finally, nineteen thirty six, the Olympics come to Germany. And,
53:56
They are a whole bunch of the athletes from Germany are wearing adidas, but they also get a little bit, you know, they go and they hustle, and they get their Adidas shoes in the hands of some non German athletes also. One of whom is Jesse Owens. Jesse Owens Owens goes on to win, I think, four gold medals at those Olympics, And so Jesse, Jesse is a black guy who basically wins gold and beats the Germans
54:19
in front of Hitler who's, like, promoting white supremacy at time. And so it's, like, you know, a big deal for for that victory,
54:25
at the time. He's wearing adidas.
54:27
And this is kind of considered the first time that an entrepreneur used sports to promote
54:33
their products or their businesses. And he'd kept doing this. Right? Like, you see photos of Ali versus Fraser, they're both wearing Adidas because he was like hell bent on getting Adidas into the hands of all the iconic athletes that they could, which Nike went and took that strategy and did even better with that strategy over time.
54:50
And so they, you know, business is going great. They, you know, after that Olympics thing where they get all this exposure, Next three years, they sell, like, I don't know, six hundred thousand pairs of shoes. Business is great.
55:02
You know, nine nineteen forty hits. And World War two starts
55:06
And the factory just gets seized by the German military. They're like, this is now a war factory. We need to produce war goods here. No more shoes. And, hey, YouTube brothers join the armies. They get they get enrolled in the army. So the business just goes on break.
55:20
Adidas just it goes out of business for the whole World War.
55:24
Okay. World War two ends. The brothers come back.
55:27
You know, Andy's like, alright. He gets fifty people together. He's like, we're restarting the factory. We're gonna do this again. And somewhere along the way, the two brothers break up. So I didn't know this part. Yeah. I know this. Other brother goes on to start Puma. Yeah. And so one brother starts Adidas. The other brother starts Puma, which I just thought was, like, you know, the most baller shit. You knew that already? Yeah. I know that they gotten an argument. Well, no. Yeah.
55:49
Well, I don't know. But, I mean, you're talking to me. I think that,
55:54
yeah, they got into an argument. One of them started Puma. For some reason, I thought that the he he, like, Did he move to Africa and start Puma? Is is there any part of the No. I think he, like, literally moved across the river and, like, started a competing factory within, like, your shot That's well, that's the way I read it. Maybe I read that wrong. Yeah. I know. And and the two brothers, because they got into a disagreement on how to do oh, a bracelet started in Africa. So I guess I'm getting a confused. But, yeah, yeah, I knew that.
56:21
So they they they restart the factory the war. And now they're using all the war, like leftover war materials in the shoes, like rubber for the soles and, like, certain design, like, the look camouflage and different things like that. They come up with the three stripe logo.
56:33
And so, anyways, business does good. And then, like, there's this crazy run of death. So the Puma brother dies. Four years later, the Adi dies, you know, from Adidas, he dies. His wife takes over She dies six years later. The son takes over. He dies three years later. So it's just like this run of early deaths. It's like, you know, the defense against the dark arts position. Nobody can, like, hold this thing. And so the finally, now the two daughters own the thing, they sell it for pennies on the dollar because Adidas has just been declining for years now at this point. You know, they didn't have the right people running it, I guess. And so they sell it for five hundred million dollars,
57:10
you know, to to this French guy. French guy tries to turn around. He can't do it. It's on the verge of bankruptcy. And then they sell it to this guy. This is the, actually, the billy of the week. This guy Dreyfus,
57:20
and, I think his name is Robert Dreyfus. Oh, do you know who
57:23
you know who this person's related to. Right?
57:27
No.
57:28
His dad was rich, but I I don't know why he was rich.
57:32
I believe it's
57:34
Elaine from Seidenfeld.
57:35
That's her
57:37
oh, yeah. Julia Dreyfus? Yes. I believe,
57:40
I believe that's her grandpa.
57:43
Wow. Okay. That's crazy. So this guy grows up kind of rich, goes to, like, Harvard or whatever.
57:49
Buys this thing. His his tagline, I love it. He goes, I'm a gambler,
57:54
and I like turnarounds. That was kinda like his business philosophy. So he takes a gamble, takes the lead role at Adidas's
58:00
And he basically is like, alright. We're doing three things. Moving the factory to Asia.
58:04
We're cutting the payroll. We're cutting jobs. Cutting two thirds of the jobs in this company so we can get profitable And lastly, we're gonna take that money we were spending on people, and we're gonna spend a shit ton of it on marketing.
58:14
And, you know, they were like, wow, you know, you took it from the brink of bankruptcy, three percent market share. And it came roaring back and became the number two brand. How'd you do it? You know, you must be a genius. And he goes, you know, he was in time magazine. The quote is it didn't take a genius. You just had to look at what Nike and Reebok were doing and do that. He goes, it was just easier for somebody outside the company to see what was obvious. Than somebody inside the company who had all this baggage and they couldn't do it. And, you know, so he he turns it around, retires a billionaire, you know, in in his fifties, I think. And, and that is, you know, the crazy story of Adidas today. I thought that was wild. I had no idea. So there's two takeaways of this for me.
58:52
The first is a question that I should start asking myself, and and you don't actually need to follow through, but How would a PE firm run your company?
59:02
I actually think that's a great question to ask yourself, which is what would a PE firm do if they were if if they owned us right now. And that's kind of an interesting way to get ideas because it would you you kinda said to yourself Oh, man. I'm being such a punk. Like, I I could be so much better. The second thing. And and the opposite
59:20
and the opposite would be
59:22
What would, you know, Larry Paige do? Is it Google's, you know, CEO and founder? Or doc. Yeah. Like, but, yeah, they took this small thing and they just kept fending it. Like, no. We need to do Google X. We need to do moonshot projects, self driving cards, you know, satellites into the sky giving people internet. Like,
59:38
they had, like, unbridled, you know, ambition and were, like, what if you just, like, blew the top off this thing in ambition? And then the other one is, the PE, the ruthless operator way, what would they do? I think both are valuable questions for your business. And the second thing and this is actually something that I've been thinking a lot about because I've been thinking about Louis Vuitton,
59:57
not that I I don't even own one Louis Vuitton thing. I'm never gonna own a Louis Vuitton thing, but it's pretty fascinating
01:00:03
that I in my head, I stereotyped
01:00:06
fashion brands as just, like, trendy and and they they're gonna come and go, like,
01:00:10
but in reality,
01:00:12
it I would bet that some of these fashion brands like Adidas, Puma, Louis Vuitton,
01:00:17
they're actually some of the longest lasting companies I imagine I could think of. And that's pretty fascinating that a brand, like, Adidas that went through near bankruptcy, went through multiple owners is still relevant in kicks ass, and that's actually pretty cool to create something that can last that long. And, it it's kinda cool. I I think that's actually inspiring that something
01:00:39
with withstood
01:00:40
all that nonsense. Like, it succeeded in spite of itself. Especially in fashion,
01:00:44
especially in fashion where everybody wants to do it and fashion, like, literally is kinda like in and out of fashion. It's like a fad type of, type of business where where things go in and out of style so quickly. So just to laugh there is pretty impressive. But what I'm saying is there's some stuff that it just it has lasted for many, many decades. So, Louis Vuitton luggage, I've I imagine existed at the turn of the century in the nineteen hundreds. Same with, the,
01:01:07
right now, I'm wearing Nike Cortez.
01:01:09
I just looked at the, the website that we were talking about earlier, first versions, and the first version of Nike was the Nike Cortez, and I'm still wearing the same damn model. And it's kind of interesting and inspiring to create something that can last fifty, a hundred, two hundred years. And, that's kind of a cool part of that. Feel about, like, altoids or Coca Cola
01:01:28
Yeah. I guess you could do it. I mean, you can do it with a lot more than fashion, but there are a bunch of fashion brands that have done it successfully. And I think that's pretty damn cool. You know, like,
01:01:35
Rolex or Tiffany's diamonds or something like that. It's kinda neat.
01:01:45
I feel like I could root a word. I know I could be what I want to.
01:01:50
I put my all in it like days off on a road less traveled, never looking
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