Encarta | This Strip Club Mogul Runs A $800 Million Business (#390)

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Alright. We're live. Sean, you look nice. We're both updating our studios. Looks like yours got done first.

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Yeah. Sorry to

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Still a show, but

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we switched it already. So I don't know what I don't know what else to do. The grand reveal would have been cooler if we'd both did it at the same time, but whatever.

00:17

Well, that's alright. It's yours isn't entirely done. Mine's gonna get mine's getting worked on this weekend. Dude, so basically, for the listeners, we're making our studios look

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nice, whatever. And

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it's, like, totally limiting my options for, like, my lifestyle. Like,

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Like, I've I've now thinking about this. I'm like, oh, shit. I need a bigger house so I could have like, you know, a guest room as well as a podcasting room.

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As well as, like, potential baby rooms. It's it's in, like, what if you wanna travel? This freaking podcast. It's taking a big favor.

00:49

No.

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Like, like, poor me. I can't travel for two months at a time.

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Or you can. Just do it in both houses.

00:58

Dude, I'm thinking about, like, my lifestyle and, like, where I wanna live, which I've talked about a lot of on here.

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I don't know what to do. I I don't know where I'm gonna end up. I don't I don't know what I'm gonna do. It's driving me mad.

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Yeah. By the way, we should do a episode that explains how we thought through

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When we when we do the the full studio, when the when the whole thing's done, like, mine's, like, you know, seventy percent done. Yours is zero percent done so far. When we're done, should do an episode explaining, you know, how we thought about it, how we pulled it, how we did it without a big headache, all the shit we bought, how much it all cost, we should do a full breakdown as a separate, like, video on YouTube.

01:34

Alright. I'm down. Yeah. We gotta and we'll pimp out the guy who did it, Kevin.

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But, yeah, we could do that. Okay. Cool. Let's jump in. What what topics you got? You wanna go first?

01:45

Alright. I'll start off with something interesting. I wanna give an award

01:49

that I'm calling the Chad Brochill award to this guy named Eric Langen.

01:55

So listen to this guy's story. I just randomly came across this because my, my friend Alex showed it to me. But It's kind of like a a true Raggedder Rich's American dream story. So hear me out. So this guy named Eric, he's,

02:10

twenty one years old, and he starts dating this woman, and she sees that,

02:14

her her place of work is not exactly treating her respectfully.

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And he says, you know, where should this woman works? I think this is an interesting business, and I think if I created a business that treated my employees, a little bit better. I think I could retain them better and build a better business.

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So he's twenty one years old. Somehow, he's accumulated all this these these really nice baseball cards over the past ten years of collecting. He takes them to a convention. He sells his baseball cards,

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and he now has forty four thousand dollars in cash. And he goes, I'm gonna go and start my business. And what is that business?

02:47

It's a strip club. He was dating a stripper.

02:50

And this guy, Eric,

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He he takes the he he of the story. Enjoy that. Yeah. Yeah. So he takes this company and he, like, buys he has one strip club

03:00

He starts another. Eventually, he takes it public.

03:03

Yes. This is a publicly traded company that owns a bunch of strip clubs. And that symbol is Rick. It's just Rick.

03:18

So now at this point, it's eight hundred million dollar market cap, and it's basically a free cash flow

03:25

I got a wonderful cash flowing. Yeah. A wonderfully cash flowing company. It it's eight hundred million dollars in market cap. Does something like three hundred million in revenue and, like, eighty million in cash flow. And it's kind of interesting because

03:39

they basically

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buy mom and pop strip clubs, which is I don't know if that's like an oxymoron, but

03:45

just pop and pop.

03:47

Yeah.

03:47

Yeah.

03:48

Yeah. Something like that. Yeah. You know, just like your just like your standard

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you know, local

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mom and pop strip club, he buys them for one or two times revenue, puts a little operational process in there, and he's also got a crazy clientele where guys like Drake and pitbull and all these people, like, rap about his strip clubs, you know, and I wanna be honest. Only been to one strip club in my life. I went to one strip club ever. It was in Vegas, like, four years ago. Have you been to a strip club? Same story. I have actually a funny story with this. So we go to the, for the first time to a strip club. I think twenty one years old, maybe. And,

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you know, I didn't know what to expect.

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I I didn't know if this was the start of a of a new hobby or if this was, you know, the start of a of a bad day. And and and so we go

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you know, in Vegas, there's the guys on the street who are like, boys. Looking handsome. You guys want, you know, free limo free drinks. And you're like, yeah.

04:44

No questions. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That sounds like a good offer. I have no further questions. We get in this limo. We're like, Hey, do we get to choose it goes. It's like, no.

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We're dumping you off. You get this, like, place five miles away.

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And you're gonna go into our establishment. And so we get dropped off at this place. We're like, I guess we're at a strip club now. Like, wow. I guess we probably should have thought that one through. We go in and it's it's four friends.

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And,

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my buddy, I I won't say their names, but,

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let's go go in, and I'll just tell you the characters. There's me I'm the the the group,

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I'm like the jester. I'm the I just I'm just there to make jokes, and I'm like, oh, this is this is I'm gonna thrive here. There's gonna be so much so much funny material. But I'm not the

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I'm not the one who's sort of the most. I'm not the most prude. I'm not the most kind of aggressive when it comes to to to women. There's one guy who's like the ladies man. Everybody

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This guy always gets all the girls. And when we go to the strip club, we're just sort of expecting him to take the lead. It's like, yo, ball's in your court here. You you tell us you're the man. You tell us boys what to do.

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And then we have one guy who's been in a relationship for, like, ninety five years. Just got out.

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It looks like a dad. And we were, like, you know, Okay. You just stay at the back. You're you're not gonna know what to do here. You you've been in a relationship for ninety five years. We walk in and

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Within two minutes, we're like, hey, where dad where'd the dad go? Like, where he's gone? And we see him while we were nervously just, like, ordering drinks at the bar, like, as if that's why we came to the club was, like, to go get a drink at the bar. And we're using the free coupons that the guy gave us up from the street. We're, like, trying to tear them and be, like, does this come true of any drink And, like, we're like, what's a spirit technically? And, like, you know, because they're like, it's gonna apply to any spirits. And then we're like, where'd he go? And then we see him holding hands with a stripper, walk into the back.

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And we're like, what the we're like, the back. We can't even see him anymore. We don't know what I'm like, how does he know what to do back there?

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We were all just, like, you know, befuddled, but now we're all, like, sort of, like, challenged. It's like, okay, challenge accepted.

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We don't see this guy for, like, forty five minutes. We let fifteen minutes go by. We assume he's gonna come back. This guy's nowhere to be found. And we're like, what is going on? What is he doing back there? And then So we kinda get nervous. We go back. And so each of us

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picks a a a stripper, and we all we each go to the back. So Ladies man goes with the, you know, some super hot I get in the same room? No. We don't know. You just go behind this curtain. Now we don't know. I don't know where my friend is. I don't know if I'll ever see him again. So ladies man takes the hottest stripper goes in the back, spoiler. He ends up falling in love with her. He literally falls in love with the stripper. He's like, Dude, she's the best. And, like, he's, like, but he's, like, no, it's not about her looks. Like, her heart was so pure.

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That's what happened to him that night. I go back with one. Now they've got three kids. And I'm like, so how does this work here? I got questions. You know me. Right?

07:36

So I start I'm like, how does this work? What does this do? Do I sit here? Can I sit anywhere? Like, and I'm like, do I tell you or you tell me, like, who's in charge? And I'm so many question She literally asked me if I'm a cop because

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and I'm like, no. I'm just a curious guy. So that's my experience back there. I just use it as an interview. An unrecorded podcast, basically. And then,

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our buddy, the dad finally comes out. We're all done. We all just, like, fifteen minutes, seventy five dollars later. We're, I don't know what the hell just happened. I'm I I spent all my money. And he comes out and we're like,

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dude, what what happened back there?

08:13

And he told us two things. So we go we asked him two questions. We said, where did you go for so long? And how did you have the confidence to do that? And the second was, why'd you pick her? Because she was, like, not she was, like, you know, she was not the best looking, you know,

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in a bunch. And so he goes, Oh, I just asked her for a tour. And so she made me a tour. I was like, oh, we didn't do a lap dance. No. No way. And I was like, oh, you

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we thought you were doing something cool, and then we all peer pressured. And it turns out we were wrong. Second, we were like, why'd you pick her? He goes, oh, I didn't know you get to choose. Because I thought it's, like, very cluttered. Like, Juan chooses the wizard.

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That one, like, the epic line. And so forever, we've just always said that the one chooses the wizard whenever you end up making a bad decision.

09:00

That's hilarious. I actually lied. I I I didn't remember the I went to a strip club. It was inevitable Madora. My buddy in that in Texas was taking me to my Thursday, six PM flight, and he goes, Let's actually go at two. I wanna we let's go out to eat. I go up. Alright. Cool. Because I got I got the perfect place in mind. And so he takes me to a strip club to the Austin, Texas Airport called the landing strip at three o'clock,

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on a Thursday, and we get there. And I'm like,

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what,

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what do we do? And I remember,

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and he's like, let's just get lunch or something. And so I ordered, like, chicken breakers and fries and the lady comes up to me. As I'm sitting down, like, puts my, like, her hand on my shoulders, like, hey. You need anything. And I was like, yeah. Like, Ketchup. Some catch some ketchup would be nice.

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And

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and She look is, like, all, like, defeated and brings the ketchup and

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And I remember texting my girlfriend at the time, now a wife, and I was like, Hey, Sarah. I'm at a strip club. We're just getting lunch. Do I like

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tipped them extra because I didn't all I did was ate lunch and it was only six dollars. Like, what do we do?

10:03

It was the same thing, incredibly awkward situation. Very uncomfortable.

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But

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I can't I read I read about this company, and I thought how interesting. And this guy, his name's Eric, he,

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The CEO of the company. It's called, what's it called? It's called,

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it's called Ricks. That's their that's their ticker. It's called RCI Hospitality Holdings. The CEO is pretty present on,

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on social media. His his Twitter handle, I think, is Rick's CEO.

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And, and so, you know, he's he's pretty active. And I think the other thing that's interesting is,

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like, we were gonna do this for the milk road because Stippers know a recession is coming before anybody. And so we were gonna spend our rider

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to talk about like, Hey, what's going on in the markets? I was like, oh, just go to a strip club and just ask the strippers. They'll tell you. Like, we'll be one week ahead of the news. And he's like, what? I was like, yeah. They know. Like, the tip they they understand, like, what's going on? They know the psychology and the the psyche of all men, and then they they know where they're at financially as well. Dude, well, he does his earnings call on Twitter.

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A one time he did it and the host was liquidity. That Twitter guy And he he does his or is that Elon?

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I don't know. But Elon Musk was, like, was sat through one of the earnings calls. And it's incredibly interesting. He's also trying to they're also coming out with a, like, a new, like, only fans thing called admire me, which is like an only fans, but for their dancers. He calls them entertainers. And so, like, if you're an entertainer at the shirt club, you know, you can, like, create a small side hustle with your clients. And I just thought this was, like, I was, like, well, this this is, like, a pretty fascinating,

11:45

pretty fascinating business. I never heard of. I never in a million years thought a strip club conglomerate would be publicly traded.

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And

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pretty fascinating. Pretty fascinating company. Yeah.

11:56

Alright. Well, I don't have much to add the sort of wand chooses the wizard with the ending of my knowledge, not sure. But at that point, I I I retired from the game. By the way, are are you doing something for Black Friday?

12:08

Like, for your Are you, like,

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selling discounts and stuff? What as an e commerce owner, what's your opinion on Black Friday?

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So I I don't think I'm doing it wrong because everybody else is, like, Black Friday. Black Friday biggest time of the year. People are sending memes in the group chat that's like,

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like, you know, the three hundred the spartans when they're charging, and they're like, we're ready. We're ready for Black Friday.

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And for two years in a row, Black Friday has been,

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you know, a big disappointment.

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And,

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the reason why I think

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I guess, like,

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people think about Black Friday. It should be. What it should be is, like, basically,

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November should be double your other sales months. So you should kinda get a two x. With that two x, you're gonna get have a lot of profit. So, like, that's I think that's why they call it Black Friday because you end up in the Black.

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I don't know if that's true or not, but, like, yeah, that's somebody told me. I wanna just pick that up. You generate a lot of your profit for the year during this kind of like this this last push of the year. That's how you go from the red to the black. And,

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I think it requires, you know, a large, like, you know, repeat customer base So Black Friday is basically an excuse. It's a sort of a trick in the mind of a consumer that, like, it's a license to spend when you didn't even need to spend.

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And,

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So you get a lot of returning customers coming back. So without having to do more marketing necessarily, you're gonna get them back. But you're also steeply discounting

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Then if you're marketing at all, like, you're you have your marketing spend, you have your discount spend. So I'm like, where where is all this profit that other people speak of hasn't worked for us? We've had way bigger months outside of November both years.

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This this year's doing good, but, like, I don't know. I don't I don't get all the fusses about. I like it more as a consumer than I do as a ecomm store owner.

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But then again,

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I might just be a crappy operator, and they're just be like a better way to do it. But I'm doing all the things. They're like the best practice thing. You know, I'm sending an email every like forty two minutes. It's like, you know, that's what you gotta do. You just keep spamming the hell out of everybody out the things like crazy and, you know, hope and pray people show up. Do you buy stuff as a consumer for Black Park Friday?

14:17

Yeah. I,

14:19

I shop, you know,

14:21

that brand thirty two heat, a thirty two cool, the, like, costco,

14:25

costco performance wear brand.

14:27

No. But that's awesome. You must know these guys. Basically, there's like a I think it's I don't know if they're made by Costco or they're sold in Costco, but it's called thirty two degrees is the name of the brand. And so they make, like, you know, like, a Under Armour Lululemon style thing, but, like, the cheap version.

14:43

But on Black Friday, these guys have had the most ridiculous sale. Like, you'll just get a shirt for four dollars or six dollars. That's normally, like, you know, thirty dollars. It's like eighty percent off. They just moved. They just try to move all their inventory during this part of the year. And so for the last couple years, I have dropped, like, five hundred dollars and bought, like, and I'm got, like, huge boxes arrive at my house, like, it's furniture.

15:08

And inside is just thirty two degree stuff that I just give out to my whole family and I wear you know, throughout the year. But, that's the only thing I did on Black Friday, and then sometimes I'll go scroll Amazon and see what they got. Dude, I think we need a boycott Black Friday. Black Friday is the worst. I think it's just we are people buy, you know, George Carlen said this funny thing. He's got this whole, like, schitt it's a famous comedian on on stuff. And he's like, a house is just basically a pile of stuff with a cover on it. And you buy a second house, it's really just so you can store more crap. You could store more stuff.

15:38

I I am so anti stuff at this point in my life. I don't wanna buy more stuff, and we need to get like all MFM listeners to just boycott Black Friday.

15:46

I hate this this idea of buying stuff that you don't really need that just you then you gotta go and pay more money. You know what's the worst? The biggest kick in the ass is when you gotta pay money to have someone come and throw away the boxes of all the stuff that you bought off Amazon. That is the worst feeling. I cannot stand that, and I refuse to do it. Now I have a trash can that's a metal trash can that I just burn it all. I hate buying more stuff. I cannot stand.

16:12

All this stuff that we buy, by Friday, and I refuse to do it. And I think we gotta get everyone to to not do it.

16:20

Yeah. Yeah. I have I have videos. I'll be doing it because Sarah Sarah, like, has this, like, funny meme that she shares with their family. It's like, know, no matter what happens, we can't we're never gonna change them. But, dude, I'm not paying money to throw away Amazon boxes. I refuse to do that. That's crap. Yeah. I paid, like, six hundred dollars to have, one hundred a junk. Like, come haul away a bunch of boxes for crap that I bought. So It's the worst. I'm not gonna do it.

16:45

But,

16:46

like, this isn't Vietnam. You can't, so I can go burn your trash.

16:52

This is not India. You can't do that.

16:54

I I think legally you can. I think you can. You're gonna have little you're gonna have fires in your yard.

17:01

Oh,

17:03

man. Wow. Incredible.

17:05

I wanna talk to you about,

17:07

Twitter.

17:08

17:09

Shocker. This this Twitter thing that's playing out with Elon running Twitter is,

17:15

wildly entertaining. And I guess I guess, like, there's two things I wanna say. The first is, you know, before when I heard about Elon Musk and how we did things,

17:25

I admired him, but there was a part of me that felt bad. It's like, man.

17:29

I'm just a lame duck compared to this guy. Like, this guy's achieving the incredible

17:33

This guy is,

17:35

you know, must be just this execution machine. He must be this, like, strategic genius.

17:41

And now that I see him running Twitter, I don't feel so bad after all.

17:45

I I don't feel the edges but take it off a little bit. Are you up from, like, if we if there's a scale and all the way to the left is AOC and all the way to the right, it's just total fanboy, where do you rank?

17:57

I'm more

17:59

towards AOC, but it's not like so black and white. Like, Right.

18:03

Obviously, the guy is super smart. Obviously, he is super Well, obviously, he's done some amazing things, and he built some really amazing products that those are, I mean, inarguable.

18:13

I find him corny,

18:15

and I find him to be a virtue signaler.

18:17

And as oftentimes he gets them, like, crossed, you know, like, it's a signals crossed.

18:22

He'll be like, you know,

18:24

you know, it'll be like, like,

18:27

yesterday, he tweeted something out. Like, they're he, like, reinstated Trump, and they were like, yo, why don't you reinstate Alex Jones? Alex Jones. Yeah. I saw that. And he was, like, he's, like, then he, like, wrote a poem and then the guy was, like, what? And they wrote a poem about, like, you know, the chill suffering of children, blah, blah, blah, and then they go, no, but really, like, by the same logic of why you would reinstate one person, why would you not reinstate you know, Alex Jones. You know, it was I don't agree with him, but I'm just curious about that policy decision.

18:53

And he goes,

18:55

you know,

18:56

my first child,

18:58

died in my arms. I felt her last heartbeat,

19:01

and I will never,

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you know, so I can't I I will never,

19:05

allow somebody who, like,

19:08

use the suffering of children for profit or fame or gain in some way. Right.

19:13

Fair sentiment. You know, okay. Great. They're emotional sentiment. No. You know, that's fine. But at the same time, constantly be talking about free speech, and and, like, how,

19:22

you know, it shouldn't be one person deciding,

19:25

you know, whatever. It's like, well, that's you now deciding, you know, where you're drawing the line off of your random personal experience

19:31

that traumatic and sad,

19:34

you know, is a little bit strange. Right? So, like, you know, whether you disagree or agree with that, it's just sort of irrelevant. It's just sort of, like, his virtue signaling about, like, his, like, sad experience got cross he got in the crossfire with his virtue signaling about how hardcore he is about free speech. He said this himself. I'm hardcore.

19:49

About free speech. I'm hardcore that as long as you're not doing something, as long as you're not, like, you know, breaking the law with what you're saying, then you should be allowed to do this. And so

19:57

Like, there's, you know, some things there. Anyways,

19:59

point is, I think he's obviously really talented. He probably gonna have a have success with Twitter, but,

20:06

You know, definitely has, like, you know, I consider myself to be somewhat impulsive. This guy's, like, impulsive to the max. And on one hand, I think there's, like, a a kind of a brilliant method to his madness of what he's doing. Like, he basically came in and just did a hardcore

20:20

culture reset.

20:22

He's like,

20:23

Let's just get rid of everybody who's in charge. So day one, fired the c f CEO, CFO, CMO, all of them. Walked him out the door. Alright. That's day one. Leaders shot the leaders.

20:32

Know, they're out. Next, he, like, basically cut, like, half the employees then he cut another half after that.

20:38

Trying to be like, yo, this is gonna be hardcore work environment.

20:42

And, like, none of that soft shit anymore. And, like, I think ripping the band aid off the way he did while harsh

20:48

and, like, you know, not that graceful, just, like, doing it via an email, saying, like,

20:51

you know, reply hardcore by three PM or you're out. You know, probably could have been a better better way to do it, but, like, nonetheless,

20:59

very effective and ballsy. So I like that. Yeah. I like that too. Along with that comes cutting a bunch of the burn down. So trimming a bunch of the fat, making it a more financially healthy thing. But now I'm like, okay.

21:11

What are the scenarios? Like, how can this how can this play out? Like, what what are the different ways that this can go? And, like, what's the bet? And so I kinda wrote some of these out. I'll give you my,

21:21

my three scenarios. Okay. So I'll do them from

21:25

And I and I'll rank if I agree with which with each of the three. I'll I'll rank most likely. So you you want me to go from worst to best or best to worst?

21:35

Least funny to most funny.

21:36

Okay. Least funny to most funny. Least funny

21:39

is the the mid case, the the base case, the expected case. So

21:44

he makes Twitter more financially viable. Right? He's cut down costs.

21:48

He,

21:49

adds this, you know, eight dollar a month of that it, you know, let's say he can make it more and more valuable. So people opt in. It makes it a little less dependent on ad revenue.

21:58

The initial reaction where advertisers pulled out gets, like, subdued a little bit. People come back to the platform. They realize, okay. He's not, you know,

22:06

evil,

22:07

or gonna, like, you know,

22:09

There's not gonna be other people impersonating their brands and they come back. So he he resets the culture, resets the cost structure, makes it more viable,

22:18

makes it a little more moderate. Like, he gets rid of a little, the, like, the the the hardcore left lean.

22:24

He cleans up some of the bot problem. He gets some, like, solid wins. Like, oh, you can edit your tweet. You can, post long form videos. You can, like, you know, just search better. He he just improves the product in ways that the power users will appreciate.

22:38

And the end state is, you know, he gets a kind of a one to two x on his money.

22:43

You know, from where it is today, like, but we're four billion.

22:47

I don't think this is a likely scenario.

22:49

This is a very this is far too reasonable. This is the reasonable scenario. So, and and personally, you know,

22:56

he gets a kind of a win, you know, a moral victory

23:00

you know, it's net positive for the company. Twitter's net positive, you know, moved in a positive direction, and financially it wasn't disaster.

23:07

No. This is like this is like asking Picasso not to paint or John Lyndon not to make music. Like, it it just that that that's just an unreasonable request. Regardless if it's if it is in fact reasonable for most, it is incredibly

23:20

unreasonable for this human being. And I'll I'll say this. He came in and did the hard part where he gutted the fish, and he changed the culture, and he's gonna recruit your town. But he's gonna but in order to do this, he would need to replace himself as CEO within the next six months, basically. And then that person stewards it from there. He did the deep cuts. He did the hardcore, like, shock. Therapy, and then somebody's gonna take it from there if this is gonna happen. Because I don't think he's gonna do that over a three year span, you know, running a steady ship. Okay.

23:50

Now let's go to the generous scenario, the best case scenario, what he says he wants to do. Okay. So what he says he wants to do?

23:57

If you heard his, like, stated plan, like, what his, like, goal is with it? I heard where he said he wants to make it, like, the

24:04

like the Townsquare.

24:06

He wants to make it like an Everything app, and he wants to add video and a bunch of other things like that. Yeah. I think the Everything app is the the the strategically what he's trying to do. So what he basically looks at WeChat.

24:18

And for those who don't know, WeChat is basically WhatsApp.

24:22

Plus YouTube,

24:24

plus bill pay, plus Amazon, plus, like, everything rolled into one plus Venmo. Yeah. It's hard to it's hard to fathom if you if you don't use it. It's basically, like, it's the WeChat is just a connector between people, and then all the things that people do, let's say I wanna send you money, I could do that. Let's say I wanna message a business, I could do that. Let's say I want to, pay my utility bills for the month. I could do that on WeChat. Let's say I want to

24:46

post a video or watch a video or something like that, I could do that. And so, we we chat is like this super app, and there's been a lot of people that have been waiting for, when is this gonna happen in the west? And it never happened. Like, all these things were siloed into different apps. And there's people who sort of, like, oh, that sucks to have eight different should just be one app that just does all the things. Everyone nods, like, yeah, all in one. Makes sense. But then the reality is, like, go build the all in one app. People aren't just gonna ditch You're not gonna be as good at those things that those other apps specialize in. Plus, people are just gonna change their habits and just ditch eight apps for one because you want them to. So

25:21

So his idea is to create the super app.

25:24

DAUs, you know, daily active users would need to go from, like, two hundred million to a billion. So it becomes like a Facebook, a WhatsApp, a YouTube,

25:31

Twitter jumps to that, like, the big boy table. Because basically, right now, Twitter is of, like, the eight or ten social networks, which include Facebook chat, Instagram, WhatsApp, Reddit, and a few others. It's the least popular in terms of,

25:46

users.

25:47

Correct. And,

25:49

And so the, you know, best I would say the best case scenario, he goes for the super app. Maybe some things go his way. Like, maybe TikTok gets banned in the US, and Twitter quickly grabs short form video, although

26:01

Facebook and YouTube would probably have something to say about that. But, like, you know, maybe they go for that.

26:07

You know, he he cleans up the bot problem. He improves the ad platform. Like, both me and you have tried to run Twitter ads. It's god awful compared to Facebook. And I think it's it's good. I think I think the system sucks. Like, the actual The system does suck. I just I just bought Twitter ads yesterday and, like, I kept getting airs when I was trying to set it up. So, like, the tech is bad. But a lot of people are saying that right now, because fifty of the top one hundred advertisers have pulled back and usage is all time high that their CAC is five or ten times better than it used to be six months ago. Oh, wow. Okay. That's interesting. That's good. Good. But that's not necessarily

26:45

a sustainable thing or a

26:47

that's not a win for Twitter. That is a loss for Twitter. That is -- Yep. -- well, no one's using it. They're more advertisers.

26:54

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That that that's not actually, like, a a win for them. Yeah. Exactly. But let's say he, like, gets it to be a Facebook level of ad system,

27:04

grows it you know, he has to figure out something with short form video or something that's more appealing. Like,

27:09

but let's say he does it. And the end state is it's now, like, culturally up there with all the other social, like the big social networks, the the sort of Facebook, YouTube's,

27:19

TikToks of the world. It, you know, he turns the profits around because he's got this lean, leaner team that's doing that. And it's like a ten x return, and he's the goat. Everybody's like, god. This guy did this too. This is, like, you know, the next level thing. Now he owns one of the big social platforms.

27:35

He single handedly turned that shit around.

27:38

And, he did what nobody could do. He did what Jack couldn't do. He did what Ev couldn't do. He did a Dick Castle couldn't do. He did it, and he did it, like, as his third job side hustle. This guy is the goat.

27:51

This data is wrong. April free time.

27:54

Have you heard of HubSpot?

27:57

HubSpot is a CRM platform where everything is fully integrated. Well, I can see the clients hold his recalls, support tickets, emails, and here's a test from three days ago I totally missed.

28:09

HubSpot, grow better.

28:12

Fairly unreasonable as well. I actually think it's more unreasonable than the first scenario that you gave.

28:18

Right? Well, it should be because it's like this, like, amazing outcome.

28:22

Okay. So now what is the the bad case? The worst case scenarios?

28:27

I think it's basically, like, there's this

28:30

super cycle, like, going downwards, like a downward cycle. So what it's a lot of what's happening in crypto right now. One thing in crypto blew up,

28:37

And then people who had taken loans to invest in that thing, now their loans, they're defaulted on their loans. So the people who lent them money, they're out of money, they blow up, Then the people who had stored their money with that bank or exchange, now they lose their deposits. It's just just like daisy chain of bad news,

28:54

all stemming from A lot of leverage in the system, and some a few people being reckless or fraudulent. And so let's say in this case, what it would be is like Tesla stock. I think is down fifty percent from last year or more.

29:07

He's personally lost a hundred billion dollars of personal net worth.

29:11

Tesla

29:12

stock is not the more attention he puts on Twitter, people feel like he's taking his eye off the ball. So, basically, overall economy is going down. We had enter a recession. People slow down buying these, like, really expensive Tesla's.

29:26

Stock is crashing.

29:29

He still has this interest payment he owes. He owes a billion dollars a year in just debt service on Twitter. And I think Twitter's net profit was less than that. So he can't even Currently, the profits from Twitter can't even just pay the debt. Let alone any profits above debt. And so Let's say advertisers keep pulling out on the Twitter side.

29:49

The initial spike from Elon's

29:51

watching Elon's chaos goes away.

29:54

Maybe he even makes some mistakes. Maybe the info maybe they they fired too many of the infrastructure people. There's the fail whale. Maybe it gets hacked because the security system is now more vulnerable as they make all these quick impulsive code changes and they fired a bunch of longtime engineers.

30:09

And so you get maybe hacks maybe leaks.

30:12

DMs get leaked. Maybe,

30:15

if maybe the the site's just going down.

30:18

Meanwhile, Tesla stocks going down. Meanwhile, he owes all this debt.

30:22

If all of this starts to happen, basically, like, a financial sort of, like, cave in occurs,

30:28

And, you know,

30:29

Elon and, and and he's getting sued by ex employees. He's getting sued by advertisers who said, hey, our brand got damaged because you verified some fake account for eight dollars that then said, you know,

30:41

we don't like Jewish people or whatever. Right? Like, you know, that's So he's getting sued on all ends, and Elon ends up, you know, fat and broke. Right? So that's the, like, worst case scenario

30:51

on that side. React to that one.

30:53

So, you know, you and I both watch UFC and boxing and stuff like that. And there's this, like, famous sentiment that says, like, basically

31:01

all nearly all champions, they leave the career on their back. Meaning,

31:05

if you don't get out on top, which only a few people have could be May weather, George Saint Pierre. Only a few people have these are if if you don't follow that, these those are like the best people, and they all quit when they were, winning. If you don't leave at the top,

31:18

very few people do, you get knocked out and with a injury

31:22

that devastates your life and you end up like Muhammad Ali and you can't talk. And I think that that is the same. What what what's true in boxing and UFC is also true for business. And if we look at history, that tends to be the case of people who keep pushing and pushing and pushing inevitably, you're gonna lose, at one point. But the bigger you get, if you keep taking these really big, like, farm type of risk,

31:46

you're just gonna you're you're you're you're gonna lose more and more and more. And I think that there's some examples of, like, a,

31:52

Jeff Bezos saying, like, alright. This is this this fucking worked. You know, I gotta pass on the torch. I don't think, a guy like Elon has the ego control in order to do it. And I think that what

32:04

you are saying for this final scenario is more likely to happen than the other two. I don't think he's gonna be able to hand over the reins. And I think that potentially this will be a

32:14

I don't the the phrase isn't career ending, but like a,

32:18

maybe, like, a power ending move or or something like that. Right. A fall from grace. Yeah. A fall from grace. I I think that could definitely could happen. I I I think that even, you know, you think about a guy who's worth a hundred billion or whatever he was worth, and you think, like, well, there's no way a person like that can blow that. And I actually think that regardless of the fortune size, you can't blow it, and buying a fifty billion dollar asset that isn't quite working wonderfully is a really good way to blow it. And I think that I think that that that that could be the case here. But I don't think he'll admit because he's just like

32:50

he's he's he's crazy. I don't think he can admit admit a lot of, like, weakness or fault. Yeah. His his core assets, Tesla, and SpaceX

32:58

are, like, high risk

33:00

like, assets. They're not, like,

33:04

these, you know, it's not

33:06

whatever, the railroad company that's just, like, steadily a steady utility company just gonna, you know, print, you know, cash and growth two percent a year.

33:14

You know, these are these are these are themselves

33:17

pretty volatile assets that the market has really pumped up.

33:21

And as the market has turned, like, those are going downwards for sure. Now how fast and how hardcore and You know, if he keeps selling Tesla stock in order to keep Twitter alive,

33:32

it's gonna be like Elon distracted. His priority is Twitter. He's selling the stock And what else is he supposed to do? Where else is he supposed to get money in order to, like, fund a money burning business like Twitter? And so,

33:44

So I think, you know, there are some downsides scenarios. Do I do I think he ends up broke? No. I think the no. Never be broke.

33:50

Do I think that He goes from where he was, richest man in the world, and probably considered the greatest entrepreneur in the world to two years from now. Twitter ends up as a disaster. Maybe bankrupt or sold takes a, you know, twenty billion dollar loss there.

34:06

Plus Tesla stock in the meantime has has lost him maybe another hundred billion dollars or more. And he's no longer the richest man in the world. He's no longer seen as this, you know, Ironman invincible type of dude. He's been a hit with lawsuits and me too's

34:20

and,

34:21

you know, news leaks constantly. I is what I predict is gonna happen in the next two years. For sure. It's gonna be

34:28

He went from Golden Boy to now he's gonna be guy who can't do anything right. It's just gonna be constant leaks and hit pieces, I think, for the next two years for him. I think the Elon case study is not necessarily

34:40

how smart a human being is. You know, I think of Elon before, and I was like, this guy's a genius. He's amazing. I actually think it's more a case study. It it is he is intelligent. I think that there are prob there there's definitely other people as smart as him. I think what this is more so a case study of the capacity to suffer. And what I am am continually shocked by is his ability to suffer for longer periods of time and to add more suffering just, you know, just like they're just people are just dumping suffering into his it is in his truck. They're just tossing it on there. And it's like when is this truck gonna break? And I'm shocked it hasn't so far, but I believe in, like, there are everyone has,

35:19

a limit, and I'm just shocked we haven't hit it yet. Maybe this is it. It's pretty amazing. Like,

35:24

if you talk to people about him, I do and and he'll even he at one point, he said death would be a relief to me. Was like, are you afraid of dying? He goes, no, it's a it'll be a relief.

35:34

And I think that he's just has done a decent job of being funny and laughing in in spite of suffering.

35:40

But I think that he's lonely,

35:42

and I think that his life sucks. I think he I I think he lived a generally

35:47

unpleasant, unhappy

35:49

suffering

35:49

life. And, that's what he's chosen to do, and there's gonna be a limit to it. And I think that this could be that limit.

35:56

I think that is true of all the greats that are most of the greats. Right? They're sort of comfort souls.

36:01

You know, so I think that's that's true for a lot of people.

36:05

One other signal that I think is kind of in his favor or kind of bullish, do you know this guy George Hoots or hots? Love him. We gotta get this guy in the pod. This guy is one of those freaks that I love. He is a total freaking weirdo and and and just a he he's a punk rocker. It's what he is. Tell people his background. And then I'm and then I don't know if you've been following what he's doing Twitter, but, I'm gonna tell you. So years ago, when Shawn and I both lived in San Francisco, I think he started out of, like, a hacker house, didn't he, where, like, it was just a hacker house with a bunch of, like, computer guys. And he starts building a self driving,

36:38

not a self driving car, but technology that you can add to most cars. And it's called comma dot ai, I believe. And he starts a self driving car, and he makes these crazy predictions. And, like, there's one story of, like, a journalist coming to see his self driving car technology.

36:53

And he's driving throughout San Francisco, and they're like, this is amazing. When did you get this to work? He's like, oh, just this morning. Like, he's just like a cow he he's like a cowboy that builds the stuff that is incredibly illegal,

37:05

unregulated, and he just plows through and he does it anyway, raises all this money. It ends up flaring out and not working out and he quits and leaves, but he's very outspoken, very opinionated, clearly a smart guy and a kind of a punk rocker in terms of like self driving cars. He makes fun of all his competitors, including, like, GE and Ford and all this stuff. And so he's kind of a, a loose cannon, but it kind of in a good way, in my opinion.

37:29

37:30

two things. One, I don't think Kama has has flamed out. Like, I think it's still going. I don't think it has not become the winner, but he did resign as CEO president or whatever.

37:39

So the the company's still alive. But before that, you know, his backstory, I think he was the first guy

37:45

to jailbreak an iPhone.

37:47

So Any jail broke like a Tesla too, I think?

37:50

He jail broke an iPhone. Then he hacked the PlayStation.

37:54

So he hacked Sony, which was pretty huge. And

37:59

then,

38:01

And then he was doing something with a Tesla. And I remember at the time, there was some story. Sorry. I don't have this in front of me, but there was some story where Elon basically offered him

38:11

a job or something like that. Yeah. So Elon offered him

38:15

it is what he claims. Eilon offered him twelve million dollars

38:19

minus so, basically, he's a I'll give you twelve million.

38:23

Or let me explain it differently. He did a demo that showed he had the self driving car technology,

38:28

and it wasn't using

38:30

at the time what was the kind of the core technology for the vision system, which I think was mobile eye. Mobile eye was the the hot company. It's what Tesla was using. George Hokes made a version of that without using mobile eye. Mobile I was kinda limiting and kinda sucked and kinda inexpensive. So Tesla wanted to get off it. So he says that Elon made him an offer, which was, I'll give you twelve million dollars for this technology.

38:50

Minus one million for every month that it takes you to do the task. So, like, if you give it to me today, twelve billion. If it takes you nine months to your order This this uh-uh, a pissing match between two,

39:03

people ready to take that play that game. Exactly. Exactly.

39:06

And, he's like, if you can create a driving system that replaces mobile eye, that Tesla was using at the time, and then

39:13

they kinda walked that back and whatever and say, and they they basically discussed, you know, do you wanna come work, whatever? No. So then he creates comet dot ai, which was, I the idea was, like, You don't need to buy a Tesla that has, like, self driving. Like, what about all these other millions and millions of cars that exist? What are they gonna do? Just be left in the dust. It's like, no. I'm gonna build a retrofit system. You could put this on a Honda Civic and install this thing on the top and this thing in the dash, and then it it will be able to be self driving. Right? Like, we'll install the cameras and the and the technology so that your car can be retrofitted to be self driving. That was the dream of that system. So he's this hacker guy. Brilliant, brilliant,

39:52

programmer. Also, very, very entertaining guy. Like, he's sort of like, we've talked about Martin Shcarelli's live streams where he, like, looks at stocks and finance and things like that. And then this guy George does the same thing. He'll live stream himself, figure things out. So the other day, He's the real deal, I think. I mean, I think that example's like that. It's you're the re he's I I don't think he's full of it. I think he I think he's a loose cannon, but I think he's the real deal. Yeah. I agree. So the other day, he goes live on,

40:17

on on Twitter live streaming video, and he's like, let's see how Twitter works. Alright. I'm just gonna, like, I've never looked at the Twitter source code, but, like, let's and I I'm I don't work there, so I don't have access, but, like, just right click inspect,

40:28

and let's see what they're doing. Okay. So what is this? Okay. This is the login prompt. What if I remove this? And he starts messing with it. He's like, so how does this work? And he's like, trying to play with it. He's just talking live all these What platform is this on?

40:42

So he was doing it on Twitter. He he streamed it live on Twitter as the video. Then he go he he does twitch a lot and things like that.

40:50

40:51

then he tweets out to Elon. He, he tweets out about the hardcore

40:55

he tweets out Elon's, like, hardcore email, and he's, like, This is great. This is, like, exactly what it takes to win. And, like, you know, people should be jumping on this. And immediately, he starts getting backlash. People are like, oh, Yeah. You know, so this guy's asking you to work twice as hard for less money. And, you know, you know, for without giving you extra pay, like, Oh, yeah. We should all just be slaves to this billionaire,

41:18

and people are, like, ragging on him in the comments.

41:20

And he goes,

41:22

dude. Can you imagine the of getting to work on this right now. Like, this is amazing. Screw it. I'll put my money where my mouth is. Hey, Elon. I'll do a twelve week internship.

41:32

I'll work for free.

41:34

And,

41:34

I wanna come help you fix Twitter.

41:37

And he took it. Elon goes, sure. Let's talk.

41:41

And then George goes back You know, here comes a pissy match. He goes, my number hasn't changed, which is just a hilarious

41:48

thing to be like, you know, you call me and let's let it be known. You have my number.

41:53

That's what he said. He goes, my that's what his reply was. He goes, great. My number hasn't changed.

41:58

Oh my god. And and then so so he'd agreed to so he's there So he he joined Twitter.

42:04

He agreed to Elon gave him the problem. He goes, you're gonna fix Twitter search. You have twelve weeks to do it.

42:11

And,

42:11

so he's publicly trying to fix Twitter search right now, and he's tweeting out every day the shit he's doing. And he agreed to work on this for just the cost of living stipend. He said, I think he said he makes,

42:23

he he's gonna make,

42:24

two two grand a week. I think is what he said. The cost of living San Francisco, So eight grand a month. And this is the guy that, like,

42:30

is a multimillionaire.

42:32

Basically cannot be hired for a job. He's a he's, like, you know, entrepreneur that could snap his fingers and get funding again. Well, and he's tweeting as he goes. I just saw him tweet something. And the first line was I don't know if I have the authority to do this, but and then he, like, said what he wanted to do. And I was like, I'm in. You got me. That's a beautiful first sentence. I'm following your journey. And one of the things he did, he goes, alright. I'm trying to fix the search thing, but I need somebody to just he wanted somebody to do, like, just a front end design task, which, like, most programmers, most real programmers aren't good at that stuff. And so he's like, I want it to just auto complete. Like, you know, when I open search, he goes, for some reason, it shows me, like, just this random follower of my name. He's like, No. It should prompt me on the ways that I can search. Like, search.

43:15

People search for hashtags, search for my search within my likes. Like, show me what the things I could do. He goes, don't send me a resume.

43:24

Don't tell me it can't be done.

43:26

Just send me a code snippet that I can plug in and it works. If she if you do that, you're hired. That's the interview.

43:32

And so it's wildly entertaining to watch this guy do it. And I think this is part of the bowl case of

43:39

Well, if Elon can get, like, real hackers and real people who are, like, ready it's kinda like a movie when it's, like, Oh, the old gunslinger, they go to his house. He's retired,

43:49

but he agrees to dust off the old boots and get back out there. Like, if he can, like, if he can we have a final mission for you. Yeah. Exactly. Like, if you can assemble you, I'm retired. You're like, yo, this is oceans eleven. We're gonna go do this shit. It's like a three month gig Just get off your ass and come do this. It's also the bare the bare case, though, because

44:10

that sounds great and all when you're just getting something going. It doesn't sound good when I have all types of private stuff in my DMs that I would not want to be public.

44:20

You know, I share like intimate things like you know, like, I'll complain about other people or I'll, like, say, like, hey, how are you solving this problem? I can't figure it out. I don't like the fact that people are are doing things this way when there's already three hundred million users, and there's a lot of, like, payment information and, like, intimate information on this platform. So I would say it's also a bear case.

44:41

Yeah. By the way, on that, he so Elon goes, all the messaging should be encrypted.

44:45

I should if a gun was to my head, I should not be able to reveal what's in somebody's DMs. We need to go end to end encryption. And he he told the employees that. Then he goes, and then I've same thing.

44:55

I reached out to the original founder of Signal, he's willing to help us, you know, like, think through how to do this. You know, like, like, help us implement this end end encryption quickly.

45:04

And, same thing. He's like, you know, Basically, like, oh, that guy that the guy from who started signal, he sold he was the guy from WhatsApp, right, sold it to

45:13

Facebook,

45:15

then regretted it and was like, after this, these guys are, like, basically screwing with my baby. They're they're reducing the encryption. They're adding an ads. They're mining the data. Whatever.

45:23

Quits out of principle and starts signal a, like, completely encrypted

45:27

messaging tool because he, like, really believes in this.

45:30

I forget if he was the one who founded it or he was the funder. He was maybe the main main funding source. Yeah. Whatever he was involved. He was involved. He put like fifty million in.

45:39

But, yeah, that's the, that's another example of people, you know, getting getting kinda like world class people involved.

45:44

But Do you realize that? Gotta go do the work every day for, like, the next five years. Who are the who's that who's that person gonna be? The last eight weeks or so have been kind of a gift gift from god in terms of just like drama And I'm just chopping at the bit every morning to go and look at my Twitter app or, like, to go and look at the news. I'm I'm loving this, man. This is a soap opera, and I'm a bore. I said I was off board originally when, Elon was doing Twitter. And now, like, with FTX and all this other drama,

46:13

I'm back. They got me back. Like, this has just been awesome. It's been a dopamine hit, like, every single day. You know, I'm and I'm feeling I'm waiting for that next hit every morning. I check it. And so this has been just I'm kinda the opposite, dude. I'm going the other way. I

46:28

I can't resist sometimes. What's that? The the is it the r Kelly thing where he's like, my mind's telling me no. He's like,

46:36

is saying yes, sir. Like, that's the that's how it feels. Like, my mind is, like,

46:41

this is all a distraction, unrelated view, go read a book, go

46:45

outside,

46:46

go build something. You know, this is the opposite of what you stand for. Go read a book. Have you ever read a book in your life? I you're the other day, you told me about a book you were reading. And I was like, oh, that's great. You're, like, you're, like, Yeah. I'm only five pages in, though. You literally were telling me about a book that you were reading and how impactful it's been. And then the next sentence was you said that you

47:05

were five pages in. Do you remember that? It was, like, about, like, yoga or some bullshit. It's like quicker, the better.

47:12

And now you're telling me to get off Twitter and a book. I didn't know you read books.

47:18

Tell them. When was the last time you read a book from beginning to end?

47:23

From beginning to end okay. That is that is a bit of a challenge. I read probably one book a year from beginning to end, and I read probably ten books

47:31

from beginning to thirty five pages in a year.

47:39

That's so funny. Yeah. By the way, I think that's the optimal way to read books. Like, most books

47:46

you can get the general principle. And if it if it doesn't compel you to finish it, you should have no problem putting it down, saying I took what I I took what I needed from

47:54

that. And I'm ready for the next, you know, interesting little nugget or principle because these books are a lot of filler.

48:00

Tell me about this this jet thing that you've had on here twice now. By the way, our m so we have this document. It's called MDB Master, stands for million dollar brainstorm.

48:10

I don't know if you saw this. It's across two hundred pages. So we've Sean and I have this document that every day in the morning, we, like, write our topics.

48:18

It it's it's it's fifty thousand words now and

48:22

two hundred pages. Deleting. We've delete I've deleted a bunch of topics off this. Like, once we're done with that, you delete them. It's pretty wild.

48:29

How long this document it is, but you've had this thing in here about Jets. What what what about it? Okay. So,

48:34

I forgot who was saying this. Maybe Andrew wilkinson, somebody else. Andrew. He was saying this about,

48:39

empty legs. So, basically, private jets

48:43

are obviously really expensive.

48:45

Really awesome.

48:47

Have you ever flown private on your own dime? No. Have you flown private on anyone else's dime either?

48:53

I flew I flew private a a couple times. One time Andrew paid for it. How was it?

48:58

It was sick. Like, yeah. Like, you know, like, there's things that, like, maybe, like,

49:04

fancy socks and, like, that's basically it. That's, like, things that, like, it doesn't matter just by the cheap ones. They're just as good as the fancy ones. And then there's things where you spend money and it actually makes a difference. And, unfortunately,

49:15

for all the pleads out there flying privates, one of them. I'm a plebe too, by the way. I don't fly private, costs too much But flying private, it is game changing. Yeah. When I did it, I was like, oh, okay.

49:25

This is awesome. I kind of imagine it'd be similar to of club experience where I would constantly feel like I need to be doing something to, like, maximize the opportunity. Like, I can just imagine myself standing up and just stretching repeatedly.

49:36

Like, I don't know. Am I Is there

49:38

caviar? I don't even like this for me. I read

49:41

I read a newspaper when I flew when he flew me. I read the Wall Street Journal. I've never read read the newspaper in my life. I picked up the newspaper and I opened it up. I opened it up and just had it, and I, and I, like, flopped it, and, like, smacked it to, like, get the crease out of there. That's what I did when I flew private, and it was an amazing experience.

49:59

Yeah. I feel like I would need to, like, pick up some new hobbies and, like, wear leather if I was gonna be flying private. So you're gonna get into Sidoku. So he tweeted this thing about empty legs. So, basically, private jets I think some really high percentage, maybe twenty five percent or thirty percent of all

50:15

private jet flights

50:17

are completely empty.

50:18

It's just a jet relocating from one place to another in order to be ready for the next flight.

50:24

And so there's this arbitrage then of empty empty lags with basically, like, hey, this was gonna fly anyways. It's just gonna cost, you know, forty grand to do this flight, and it's getting it's, you know, there's no value. It's just a burn. Could you basically

50:38

give people the opportunity to hop into these empty legs? And so I found there's a website, or there's there's several, but, like, there are websites

50:46

that will let you fly private. You don't need to own the plane.

50:49

You don't need to sign up for some membership.

50:51

It's literally just like, Hey, if this is going from here to there, if you wanna go twenty grand, and it's like, it's this is yours. You know, you you and six people can go on this thing.

51:02

That's kind of interesting. Have you seen have you heard about this? No. But one time or I I've I've I have a little bit hurt of it. And and one time, I was like, you know what I'm gonna do? Gonna call the airport. So there's one time that I needed a flight from Nashville to New York, and I just called if you just Google, like, your city, the city you're in plus Executive Airport. And I remember I called them, I go, hey, can you put me in touch with, like, a, like, a broker, like, a flight broker? And they did. And I talked to them, I go, hey, I need to go to New York in like a few hours tonight. Is there any pilots that need work and can fly me from Nashville to New York? And there was a guy willing to do it for sixty five hundred dollars. He's like that's that's the cheapest we could do for sixty five hundred dollars. And it was like a, like, a crazy hack that I didn't think actually worked, and it did. Right.

51:43

So, like, right now,

51:45

in four days from

51:47

I'm on,

51:48

jetley dot com right now, but, yeah, there's a place in Texas

51:52

going to Fort Wayne International in Indiana.

51:55

It's going there anyways, and it just says negotiable. Right? You can just, like,

52:00

you can go do this. Or right now, like, let's see. When is this one? This is

52:05

52:06

two days. So in two days, if you're in Poland and you wanna go to Italy,

52:10

you know, fifteen thousand dollars, and you can have this private jet flight. If you happen to be going there. And you get the whole plane?

52:17

Yeah. I think you get the whole plane because it's it's empty. How many does it seat?

52:21

Let's see. So you can clear. I mean, is it, like, if it's a small one, you could see, you know, seven people.

52:26

Alright. So this is okay. This one is going from

52:30

Turturboro.

52:31

Where is that? Turturboro to West Palm New York.

52:34

New York to Miami, basically. Okay. So New York to Miami,

52:39

Teterborough.

52:40

Teterborough. Okay.

52:41

Let's see. This one seats.

52:45

Eight.

52:46

Eight. And how much?

52:48

This, this, so the one to to Miami's seat six, it's fifteen grand. So, you know, basically, that's a price of a first class ticket. Right? Like, for a for a lot of things. Yeah. And it'd be a fun ass experience with a bunch of friends. So everyone ponies up two grand. I mean, that'd be that's a pretty cool experience. Yeah. Yeah. So I thought this was kinda cool and another, like, kinda this is what Airbnb did was, like, they took something that was excess capacity

53:11

and found a way to turn it into, like, to to fill more of that excess demand. Right? So Do you know, do you know Dennis, Dennis Hackset?

53:20

So he's my good buddy here in Austin, and he once a week. He goes, Hey, I just got a notification

53:26

Austin to

53:27

know to say, like, somewhere in Utah, like, it's a it's a gulf stream. Like, you know, it's normally a hundred thousand dollars to have it for twenty grand, and it could see ten of us. You and a bunch of friends wanna go and do this he does that all the time. And he actually, like, actually, like, pounces on him.

53:41

Okay. So what else we got? You got a couple others.

53:45

Life after selling. You wanna do that? Alright. Let's let's this is just the an interesting thing. So I always read this subreddit called Fatfire.

53:53

And it's interesting because you you don't know if anything fat fire means, people who financially

54:00

independent retired early. So people who wanna

54:03

do that, but facts, meaning they wanna retire with a lot of money and not work again. And that's an interesting sentiment. Like, most

54:10

everyone wants to do that. They go, oh, I would love to retire and and be rich and not to work at the age of thirty. That sounds cool. Right?

54:17

There's this common theme of people doing that and they get depressed. And that sounds like, oh, boohoo. Like, why, you know, fuck those guys? Who cares? But it's interesting nonetheless, and there's this really interesting thread that I found. So click where it says follow-up.

54:32

Yep. But the the reason why this is interesting is, like, you are seeing such a such a clear journey that someone is experiencing. And so this person wrote a post where basically

54:42

about a year ago, they wrote a post saying, Hey, I sold my company. I made twenty million dollars. Until that day, I I hadn't sold a single share. I wasn't living paycheck to paycheck, but I was living a normal life.

54:53

After the sale, I basically had nothing to do with the company.

54:57

My wife kept working, and she would just basically tell her friends that I was working from home. But in reality, I was playing video games all day while our kids were at school.

55:05

And six months later,

55:07

doing this, I am so depressed I hate my life. I have nothing going on. I'm sad. I need to go see a therapist yada yada yada.

55:15

He writes another post ten months later, and he goes, hey, this just a short follow-up to the post that I previously wrote, but the crux of it is,

55:24

for this,

55:25

this moment, my life is so good. I love waking up. I love doing,

55:29

what I'm doing all day. And, it just I feel like I've got camaraderie. And, basically, what this guy did was He sold his company, made enough money, was depressed for a little while, and did the exact same thing again where he went and started another company and he has ten employees. It's cash flow positive. It's not huge yet, but it's enough to pay for the ten employees. And I think it could be big. But what I realized was I love the hunt doing it. And another person said,

55:54

my number the amount of money that I made, it wasn't anywhere near yours, but I pulled the trigger and I sold the company. I made a little bit of money, and I basically retired.

56:03

And I floated around in my pool all day. I played video games. I read, and after about three to four months, I was miserable. I was so sad. And now since then, I started a small business. It's never gonna be big, but I basically took one of my hobbies and I turned it into a small business, and it has a lot of challenging problems, and I've never been happier. And I thought

56:23

This topic and this, these, this thread, who knows if it's real? Everyone could be exaggerating, but it's incredibly interesting because you get to be a voyeur and see other people's lives where they anonymously say their true feelings. And I thought that this was a really interesting insight that is rarely not

56:39

uncovered or discussed in such a clear, straightforward way where you see, like, a very, like, post one. I'm sad. Post two. I'm not sad. And I thought it was, like, a really interesting insight. And I went through this, not as much with my company. I I was happy I took I got some chill time. I went to the same thing. I'm like,

56:58

what do you do? What am I supposed to do all the time?

57:02

And it's actually quite depressing, and it's and it's not a topic discussed because

57:07

you know, who the fuck wants to talk about a guy who sold this company doesn't have to work and now he's sad. But interesting nonetheless and interesting because a lot of people want to do this,

57:15

and it's cool to see that it's maybe not all that fulfilling. And, basically,

57:21

particularly type a's who have the ability to do this, you have to have, like, a way to contribute. You know, like, I've talked to I have a few stay at home moms in my life who, like, after their kids went to school, they're like, My life is pointless. You know? Like, I I don't contribute to anything. Previously, I I was contributing to my children's lives. Now they're in school. They don't need me. What the hell am I supposed to do? I'm so sad. And now this is like a really good example of that, but in the business world. So I don't know. What do you think about this?

57:49

So I literally had a conversation like this yesterday with the guys who helped and set up the studio. They go,

57:55

you know,

57:57

I heard they they were saying, I heard this, and they said Alex Ramosi said this too. Like, he's he's never been as sad as after he sold his company. He was depressed kind of like,

58:05

either Saturday to press. I I don't I don't know the exact phrase, but basically the same same gist of it, sold his company,

58:11

and then that was supposed to feel the best. Right? But I actually felt the worst. They go, what do you think about that? Do you feel that? And I go, no. I feel excited.

58:18

Like, I feel super excited. I'm like, oh, are you joking, like, the

58:22

Anything is possible now. Right? Like,

58:25

sure. I have, you know, a bunch of free time. And if it if it was always gonna be doing nothing, that would be That would feel a little bit bad. That would feel bad for sure. But

58:35

for me, I'm very, very excited about this period of, oh, I get to figure out what's next. And everything is possible and everything seems interesting and I'm open to that. And the background is is you had a project that you sold. We'll we'll do a whole pot on it at another point. Now you have got some free time. Yeah. And I've had that before when we sold, Beba the first time and the same thing. Like, You know, I've never felt that, but I have heard this now from a bunch of different people.

59:00

And, I remember Michael Birch, who's been on the pod and was was kind of a mentor, an investor in in my company. He he basically said the same thing. You know, when he sold Bebo for eight hundred fifty million dollars,

59:12

You know, next six months, we're not not very fun. Like, you know, it was like a huge come down and he's like, you can't even really talk about it because poohoo, a boohoo poor billionaire. Like, what what what it nobody wants to hear it.

59:25

And

59:26

I think people take the wrong takeaway from this. I think what people take away is,

59:32

it's not all that it's cracked up to be to sell.

59:34

You know, maybe maybe that's not a good thing. I don't think that's the right takeaway because I agree with you. I was happy that I did it, and I don't regret it at all. And it was everything plus more that it was cracked up to be. Exactly. I think the real takeaway is that

59:48

humans need, you know, a purpose and a direction where they're gonna direct their talents and their energy and their focus

59:55

without that,

59:57

you will be sad. And so the the question is and and sometimes in between things,

01:00:02

you won't know exactly what that purpose needs to be. And that figuring out period can feel uncomfortable.

01:00:08

Some people get sad in that that period because they they are so used to having that purpose.

01:00:13

But

01:00:14

that isn't like, there's not just sad equals bad. Sometimes it's

01:00:19

feeling bad equals

01:00:21

discomfort equals being out of your comfort zone equals growth.

01:00:24

And so I think that the the better signal or the better takeaway is, yeah, when you when you do realize that, hey, man, I've been filling my time and focus and energy with one thing for so long. I take that away, and now I'm gonna fill it with something else, something new, something ex something that can be exciting.

01:00:40

But the period where I don't know what that is, that's a little that's a little uncomfortable. And I'm gonna have to go through that until I could find that thing again.

01:00:47

And that's okay. That's part of the process to figure out the right thing rather than just filling it. Right? Same way that when you break up with, let's say you're in a bad relationship or even an okay relationship. But you break up because you know it's not the one you want.

01:01:00

You break up. Yeah. It kinda sucks to be alone and single. There is a period of time where that does suck. But that suck is required

01:01:07

for you to work on yourself, figure out what you want, make space for the next person, and then when you meet that next person, You it's even better than it was before, but it was you couldn't skip that single step. If you just never did that, you would never have the better relationship in the second time. So that's kinda my the way I think about it at least. So I, I'll try to be really tactical here. So I I've got a a handful of friends who made, enough money that you know, they're they're they're pretty much set and they built these like great companies and they came from nothing. And then they sell, and then then they they wanna start something again and after six months they're like, this can't ever be big or it's not growing fast enough or it's just too hard and I'm like,

01:01:48

Man, like, had you thought that about the thing that got you to where you are? You never would have gotten to where you are. Like, you're kind of being a little punk and you're being soft, and you need to, like, get past that. And I think that that is, like, a really big challenge that people go through. And the way I combated that challenger. I I think I've done a good job over over combat challenges. First of all,

01:02:09

dude, getting that first sale regardless of what you have, I think is awesome. Like, it's addicting. And if it's it gives you that dope that, dopamine high. But second, what I did is I took

01:02:18

my lump sum and I invested it

01:02:21

just like boring eighty twenty, you know, stocks and bonds, and then I well, not entirely eighty twenty, because I do have, like, some just in, like, a you know, just cash sitting there. But that account, I haven't logged into in, like, a year and a half. Like, I just don't log into it, and I keep a certain amount money in my checking account, tens of thousands of dollars,

01:02:39

and then I have my credit card. And I just assume that my net worth is tens of thousands of dollars.

01:02:44

And so if I want something, I've gotta go earn. Or I'm like, oh, you know, I would love to go and buy x, y, and z. I better make my company work a little bit better. Or, you know, I think about it like that. And that has been a nice little hack that has helped me kinda, like, look like that. A little silly though. Right? Because it's, like,

01:03:02

then the money is serving you no purpose, no utility.

01:03:05

Well, it it Why do you want the money so bad if it wasn't gonna benefit you? Well, because first, the the cash flow that I make on a monthly basis covers my life and more. So, like I know that You don't even look at that account.

01:03:18

No. So the way I have it set it up is a certain amount of my cash flow goes to my checking account, and that's my spending money. That's the the account with tens of thousands of dollars. And then one but once it hits a threshold, it automatically goes to my other account, which is my investment account that I don't log into. Right. One thing is the investment account then is serving you no purpose. Is it not improving the quality of your life at all?

01:03:40

Well, yeah. Yes and no. Yes. And the fact that, like, when I got my deal done, I wanted a car and I wanted a house. I bought those things. And I didn't really and then I wanted to buy some clothes. I think I bought, like, two or three thousand dollars or maybe more worth of clothing. And I was like, alright. Like, that's that's, like, pretty much all. I I don't really want much else. And, oh, and I took a trip. I've it was a ten thousand dollar trip to Hawaii.

01:04:03

And so, collectively,

01:04:05

that sum my car was a hundred and ten thousand dollars. It wasn't like crazy expensive, but it was kind of expensive. Collectively, like, I spent that amount of money, like, buying the initial things that I wanted. And then after that, I was, like, I don't really want more stuff. I don't want more things. And so

01:04:19

it served me, but now I don't want more stuff. And if I would if if I do want something extra, in the back of my head, I know, look, I could go and get the money to spend it, but I'd rather just go earn that because that keeps me hungry, and it's kinda more exciting and more fun, and I appreciate it more. So in my brain on one on one hand, I think I only have I'm only worth sixty thousand dollars or seventy thousand dollars because that's the one what's in my checking account.

01:04:43

But in reality, I'm like, yeah. It's and when emergencies happen with my family, it's all covered. But I try to just look at that sixty thousand or seventy thousand, and that's all I have.

01:04:53

Okay. I like that. That makes sense. But you don't like that.

01:04:57

No. I like it. I think it's good. I like using I do this a lot. I use my own psychology for me. Rather than against me. It's much easier to just

01:05:06

understand how your brain works and then use it to your benefit than try to fight the way your brain works and say, no brain.

01:05:13

Think differently and react differently to situations. You know what I mean? It's like the same way that if I publicly go on here and say I'm gonna do something,

01:05:21

Then I know that my brain is gonna not want to

01:05:25

fail at that because the social pressure is gonna make me wanna do it. I just use that to my advantage. I'll go and I'll say, I'm gonna do the x and I call my shot because now I know I'm gonna use that feeling of social pressure

01:05:37

to help me do the thing I want rather than trying to talk myself out of caring what other people think.

01:05:43

No. I I I think that's a good way to live. I'm I'm we're gonna do this is the second time we set it, so we actually have to do it, but we're gonna have to do a total pod about, like, what you're gonna do next. But I think that

01:05:54

I think the best thing that people like you, and me and people who sell stuff, the best part of the situation is, okay, I have a I have a little while to breathe and think. No one very rarely do people get that. They sometimes they'll get it if they get fired and they get severance.

01:06:10

But most people, the average American doesn't get it until they retire if if they can retire. And even then, it's like, dude, I'm now I'm old and, like, I don't Right. I don't have a lot of income coming in. So it's like what what, you know, what's the point? But, so I think the best part of selling is you have time to reflect and think the worst part is if it if you do that for too long, you get stale and you're gonna I think you have a highly likelihood of being depressed and sad.

01:06:34

Yeah. The, we we've used that phrase before work like a lion. I think I think Navell was the one who who came up with this, but, like, you know, a lie it's worth repeating because I think that this is this is what you're describing.

01:06:47

A lion will

01:06:49

find what it wants. Right? It finds its prey. It sprints.

01:06:52

It catches it, then it feasts and it toasts and it celebrates,

01:06:56

you know, the that that that feast,

01:06:58

then it relaxes. It sits and it waits

01:07:01

You know, there's a rest period. And then there's a a abs a observing period where it lurks and it waits for the next prey.

01:07:08

And so business is the same. Right? You had a period, and I had a period where we were sprinting

01:07:13

to catch the the other win. We both caught the win.

01:07:16

Then we feasted, we'd celebrate it, we did the, you know, got that out of our system. It's important to enjoy. It's important to learn how to enjoy a thing.

01:07:23

Then you rest

01:07:25

and you reassess. And you go and you're looking for the next pray. And then for you, you just found your next one and you started sprinting. And I'm still in the I'm in the

01:07:33

the rest and and and reassess period wrong. And that's what I told you was enjoy that rest though. You you you have to you do have to enjoy it. And I think you truly do need, like, a period to rest

01:07:43

and, like, embraced it, which I know is very hard for you and most people. No. That's easy for me. That's what I'm saying. I get when other people say that's difficult for them, but, like,

01:07:52

it sounds to me, like, a snowflaky

01:07:55

thing to be sad about, like, not to, like, minimize your feelings. Like, I kinda get it, but No. What I mean is, like It's, like, what's your is, like, what's your perspective? It's, like, my perspective is, like, dude, I can't, like, I'm so happy with how that turned out.

01:08:08

That was awesome. The next thing is going to be awesome. And they this period is a new it's a different type of season in the same way that, oh, it's nice in the winter because you kinda bundle up and you you wear your your fuzzy socks and you sip on your hot cocoa or whatever. It's a different season, and that's to be enjoyed for its own purposes.

01:08:25

And, like, you know, don't feel bad for myself and there and therefore, I don't want anybody else to feel bad in the same way. Like, I think

01:08:32

people

01:08:33

too easily are willing to feel bad about themselves or feel for bad for themselves or to themselves or whatever. Like, it's it's like a form of victimhood. Right? Like,

01:08:42

I understand how it would be easy to think that way, but I do not

01:08:46

think that way. I choose not to

01:08:49

No. I I guess what I mean is you have a pattern sometimes

01:08:53

of jumping into projects and going all in. And I'm like, you know, like, maybe just, like, if you have an idea, just wait, like, three weeks. And then and then and then do it. You know, like, three hours.

01:09:05

Yeah. Like, you know, like, I you started the milk road over a weekend. You're like, well, you're you're all in on one or two things. And then over the weekend, we're like, I'm doing this. And you went all in on it, and thankfully it worked. But

01:09:18

you could see how that could be both an advantage and a disadvantage, but that kind of a point. That I think is is very, very sage advice for me, because it's super easy to start something. You can start something in an hour.

01:09:30

But once you start something and if it's gonna do anything, it's gonna take weeks or months to make it work

01:09:36

to get it started. And then once it's working,

01:09:39

Now it's years to, like, you know, pay it off. Partate early in daily email that requires you to do something every single day. Daily emails are hard. Aren't they? I mean, they're not that hard, but they're they're challenging. They're they're unlike other businesses. But even if it wasn't the daily email, I guess either way, starting is so much easier than finishing

01:09:56

that, like, gotta be careful that, like, just because it it would be easy to get it to try.

01:10:01

It's like the the test is if I'm gonna do something, it's a it's a it's a multi year arc for the if this is gonna be a good, in a good scenario.

01:10:09

So choose wisely. You know, that those are very, very valuable years of, of prime prime. And the same thing with people taking jobs or anything else. It's like, are you sure? Are you sure you're gonna give up, like, twenty percent of your prime?

01:10:22

To that or, like, people who wanna wait. I'm gonna wait a year before I go do the thing I want. Is that you sure? A year? Right. You know, valuable that year is to you. Like, This year in your twenties, you know what that's worth? Like, that's not just, like, the, yeah, that's not that's not nothing. Right? Like, a year in your twenties is I kinda think, like, you're sort of, like, twenty,

01:10:42

twenty to to kind of, like, your fifties. Basically, that thirty year window

01:10:47

is, you know, worth, like, eighty percent of the time, of of the of the total time in your life. And so, like, you know,

01:10:54

Each of those years is, is very, very valuable. Do not do not,

01:10:59

do not throw it away doing something you don't wanna do.

01:11:02

I'm I'm eager to hear if people like this type of content, but,

01:11:08

I think they will. Right? What do you think? Yeah. Again, If we like it, they'll like it. Who are our customers? The people that love what we do. Alright. We should, we should wrap it up.

00:00 01:11:34