00:00
Just started as a side hustle. Like, I was in a basement in San Francisco that was like, yo,
00:05
I I have a theory about what I think will be big.
00:07
I wanna make three thousand bucks a month. Never was it, like, I wanna make millions of dollars or I wanna have a bunch of people or I wanna have a bunch of customers?
00:26
Are you, Sam? How are you today? I'm good. What are you doing?
00:30
Well, I just got back from Albuquerque. I was hanging out with my family.
00:36
And then, I just got home and there's, like, back to back meetings before we go to the trail of lights tonight in Austin. I know. I neville and Neil, I've heard all about guys are gonna have some exciting times tonight. Did,
00:47
do wait. You weren't working today? Like, a normal schedule?
00:51
I actually work really best in airplanes.
00:53
So I I got up, worked in the airplane, landed, then just been kinda back to back meetings now until six thirty.
01:00
Do you enjoy having a normal schedule now?
01:06
Oh,
01:07
it, I had some trauma. You know, by the way, like, Silicon Valley tech worker traumas, like, my boss didn't give me a twenty percent raise. It was a ten percent raise, and I am traumatized.
01:18
Like, when I worked at Intel, all I did was meetings.
01:21
And it was, like, the and I was, like, this is the worst thing ever. And now I'm I'm in all I do is meetings.
01:28
But then, you know, I will
01:30
I will say though. Today, I was in some meetings and I was interacting. And I was, like, man, I love you people. There's some meetings where they suck and you have to figure out how to get of them or change the meeting. And there's some where it's like, wow, we're business forward. Like, there's things that are happening that are are making shit happen in the business. So
01:44
Noah, you know Kagan's here, founder of this company called appsumo, which we'll talk about in a second. But you basically, like, you you kinda I don't know you say you stepped away? You weren't, like, actively running the company day to day for, like, a couple years.
01:57
Now you're the CEO again. I so I was active for a long time now. I'm not active.
02:03
It's amazing.
02:04
It's the best. I don't know. Like, I don't think I have it in me to at least not right now to go back and do that. Do you think that you have it in you?
02:15
It's hard. It's it's for I mean, I was not working. I mean, it sounds such like an stuff. But, like, I wasn't really working. I was doing podcasts, which isn't really working.
02:26
And,
02:28
I was making a lot of money. And now I'm working. I actually think I'll make the least I've made this year in the past. What does that mean? You're making a lot of money from what? Well, Eamon, so we hired this guy to run appsumo dot com. He was running it. And I was like, oh, well, let me make YouTube videos. I don't do podcasts, and I'll, like, build Send Fox and experimental stuff. And then I would get paid. And then Eamon wanted to step out and, to be an adviser and I stepped in. And now I'm having to do all of his work. I will say And then, yeah, I think I'll make less money this year. Two things with that. One, sometimes when you criticize another, because I criticized Eamon a lot,
03:02
But I Well, just like just like you could be better. You could be better, Amy. Why are you
03:06
doing this? Yeah. Yeah. Jewish mother. Like, Noah,
03:10
Why not? Your your your cousin
03:12
he
03:13
so
03:16
you could've been, like, your brother, and he's a doctor. And,
03:22
one, under being in his shoes definitely makes me,
03:25
respect him so much more, but I just a lot. Just a lot. Like, he is a very impressive guy. Also get a deal with me. But I'd say the second thing is that,
03:33
the work now is harder. It's hard.
03:36
But it's much more rewarding.
03:38
And so I even I was even writing that down in my diary this morning. It's a dear diary.
03:42
Hard work is rewarding.
03:44
No. You have the weirdest. So, like, you talk about having a diary. You always talk about going to therapy, which is no big deal. These none of these these all these things are great, but you act like tough guy sometimes, and then you talk about, like,
03:56
how you gotta complain to your diary?
03:58
You gotta shock me.
04:00
I think, you know,
04:02
I think of myself, like, a Chinese dish. I'm, like, sweet and sour pork, you know, like, you're not really supposed to have pork, is it you? And then sometimes it's sweet, and then sometimes you're, like, kinda sour.
04:12
It's just like it's a it's a mixed bag. It's a variety. It gets, entertaining.
04:16
You're,
04:17
since I I've known you now for I think, like, eight or nine years. And you've all you're you're cagey with numbers. So I don't wanna push you if you don't wanna be push. Can you talk about how big you guys are now?
04:28
Given I mean, in your YouTube video, I think you said a hundred million in revenue. Yeah. We're not gonna hit it. We actually missed our goal this year. It's gonna be less than that. I I Well, Katie said eighty. You you said eighty in another video. What? I think we're okay here.
04:42
Because someone doesn't wanna tell you how much they make as a cage.
04:47
Yes.
04:48
I don't think that's wrong though. I don't, like, talk I don't talk about a lot of stuff either. I say, like, round numbers sometimes, or I'll just say I don't wanna talk about that. Alright. How much did you sell the hustle for?
04:58
Let's try these. Let's try cagey numbers.
05:01
Tens of millions of dollars.
05:04
Yeah. I mean, how much do you make a year now working at HubSpot?
05:09
Well, I get paid,
05:11
I got I get paid a whole lot of stock, but my base salary, I think, is only two hundred fifty thousand dollars, maybe.
05:16
Only?
05:17
Well, my stock is is significant.
05:20
I will say this is you know, in all these shows nowadays and crypto people, they always like, this is not financial advice. I'm gonna give financial advice. I buy a lot of HubSpot stock. I think it's one of the most undervalued stocks in the market. So, dude. By the way, I when they bought us, I think it was, they were worth seventeen billion dollars or sixteen billion dollars in late January around when they bought us. I think today, it's forty. So, yeah, let's sign up So and and that's why when people ask how much we sold for, I'm like, well, we sold I basically I got tens of millions in cash, and then I also got Hubspot stock But it's already it's it's up significantly since we sold. So and I don't know, like, what price do you say?
05:57
And Who's last year? Yeah. Sorry. I don't know. And I don't love exactly saying what are we gonna ask? Who's wealthier? You or Sean? Oh, dude. I mean, I don't I don't know. I I here, I'll tell you this. We did a podcast We did a podcast recently, and I basically said my goal was to make at least twenty million dollars by the age of thirty, and I did that. Do good for you. And that was the goal. But, you you know, like, I I also don't I own assets now in the in the in some real estate and I own,
06:25
HubSpot stock and Airbnb stock, but like you own appsumo, which an eighty million dollar a year business, what do you think you're worth or three hundred million dollars?
06:36
I think Epsumo's worth somewhere between a quarter billion and a billion dollars. Isn't that crazy?
06:41
Yeah, I don't really
06:43
look at that as part of my net worth. I just look at my own it it's interesting. We've talked
06:47
about this a little bit. Like, I think there's silicon Valley entrepreneurs, I think about your valuation of a company, and then there's me and you who are normal people that are like, what's your profit? What's your revenue? Alright. You're worth a million. Not like, oh, well, the multiple is this. If they say multiple, they're Silicon Valley.
07:01
Well, I mean, you guys would self or if you're if you're if you think you're if you that you're gonna do in the range of eighty million in revenue. I mean, I don't know how I would value that five times profits, like, or five times that number, I guess. Right?
07:14
I don't know, man. It's a it's a little surreal. I and I don't I'm not sure how different my life would be. My brother did ask me is, like, if you were to sell,
07:22
you know, how much would you sell for?
07:24
And I was like, I don't know. Like, if it was a billion, that's like and I think people don't realize that. Like, when Mark Zuckerberg, I worked at Facebook, can I my number, Catherine's, like, shut up talking about that, you gotta give him credit, man? He turned down a billion dollar offer at twenty four. Yeah. He's crazy. Like, dude, you took the first offer as anyone offered you.
07:40
No. I didn't. But but, like, yeah, it was, like, eager. I mean, I think I say that with love. I say that with love, dude. No. We we we had other ones, but it was a good one. And I knew that hubs I've I didn't know. I was betting that Hubspot stock was a good buy. And I think that
07:56
I just, like, I'm not zuck. I I I can't imagine
08:00
working.
08:01
Dude, he gets do you think his life is in joy I can't imagine it's enjoyable. No. I mean, I guess he enjoys it, but I I just think that that's hell to me. That's why he has to have a virtual character enjoy it more for him.
08:12
Yeah. I don't know. I mean, like, we we had you and I have this buddy. We remember that one time we were out to eat and, when you could say his I don't know. Your he's your friend. So you could tell me if you wanna say his name, but he was like, Noah, you're not growing at three times a year. What the fuck? You're leaving so much on the table, and you're like, Dude, I just went mountain biking, like, on a Tuesday. And then on Wednesday, I, like, did this. And then on Thursday, I did this.
08:36
We're gonna make, like, eighty million in revenue this year, and I own most of it. I'm so happy, and he was criticizing you as a friend. And,
08:45
and I was like, no. Is he is he crazy?
08:48
Like, you're you got it. This is perfect. This is don't change.
08:51
This is perfect.
08:53
It's
08:54
I I don't know.
08:55
I guess how do you wanna live? Do you think that, I guess, that changes over the years?
08:59
Right? And and I think what what's that?
09:02
No. No. How you wanna live? I mean, I think in your twenties, you're just, like, scrambling and wanting to I know for me, I wanted to prove myself. I wanted to have status. I wanted to have it. And then as your thirties, you know, I'm still doing it.
09:14
What? No. I'm just, like, you you figure out more what really gives you fulfillment. And I think everyone's got their own stuff. I think figuring it out for yourself is is a really tough thing.
09:22
You, how many people work there? A hundred?
09:25
I think now we have a hundred and forty. Isn't that crazy?
09:30
It's
09:32
yeah.
09:33
Yeah. It is crazy. Do you see your It was just started as a side oh, sorry. Am am I cutting you off, dude? No. Keep going. I wanna hear from you. No. Just started as a side hustle. Like, I was in a basement San Francisco, that was like, yo,
09:43
I I have a theory about what I think will be big. And I wanna make three thousand bucks a month. Never was it, like, I wanna make millions of dollars or I wanna have a bunch people or have wanna have a bunch of customers.
09:53
Why three thousand a month?
09:56
A thousand was for living, a thousand was for eating, and a thousand was for saving.
10:00
That's funny. That's almost exactly what I did too. It was about that number.
10:04
Did you what how big do you think it was gonna get?
10:07
I never thought that far ahead.
10:10
I mean, there's a go for it. I keep interrupting you. I'm sorry. Go ahead. No. It's all good, Well, like, there's a there's a quote I read by Paul Graham, and it was like, if you're so worried about what's gonna your company's gonna be in ten years, like, you're never gonna make sure you can take care of your customers today and your business won't exist in ten years, so don't worry about it.
10:27
And I just kinda I guess that's how that's that served me well. I I think someone asked me, they're like, what did it take to become a millionaire? And I think one of the things for me was just, like, following the curiosity.
10:37
And I was, like, curious about all this stuff that, like, that we, me and you get paid for.
10:43
Yeah. I mean, I'm in the same boat. I think when I having a hundred and forty employees would
10:49
don't know if it would freak me out, but, like, I remember, do do you still look at your payroll when you pay it every two weeks? Well, so do you mind just tell you the call? I literally that's why I was late to the podcast. Yeah.
11:00
Because I'm, you know, we're we're taking the whole team out to Costa Rica.
11:04
And then
11:05
we're also
11:07
were it was some spend for advertising. There was, like, fifty thousand dollars. And I'm just, like, yes, we make revenue, but at the end you don't have income and you're not a fund of business, you're gonna go out of business. And so I think it's figuring out how do you create, you know, checks and balances, so I'm not stressing about it weekly. There's definitely some net income issues that are keeping me up. And then we're doing budgeting projections.
11:28
And the fucked up thing with budgeting is if you budget for a hundred million, two hundred twenty million, whatever, one fifty,
11:33
and you spend on that and you don't make it, then, yeah, you get kinda fucked too.
11:38
I think that you and I are similar in that. Like, when when I see the so I'll, like, say, yeah, I wanna I think we can hit a hundred million in revenue. And then they say, alright. Well, then we have to spend eighty million dollars. And I look at it, and I'm like, Oh my god. What the hell? What is this fifty thousand dollar expense? What is this ten thousand dollar expense? Are you crazy? We can't do this. This is ridiculous and they get fearful. Think that's the cool thing about having a guy like Eamon where he's a little bit less attached.
12:02
This company called Nerdwall. You know Nerdwall?
12:05
Yeah.
12:06
Tim Chen
12:07
gave me a little bit of money to start the hustle. And it was his idea to give me money. He was like, hey, can I give you some money? To start this and, I took it and they just went public at, like, three or four billion in valuation. And I went to him one day. I go, Tim, we're spending eighty thousand dollars a month and expenses. We're making more than that but like that's crazy. He goes, man, it's just an Excel number. Like it's just an it's just it's a spreadsheet.
12:30
You it has an input and an output. That's all you should care about. You shouldn't actually care that it's eighty thousand dollars a month. And I still find myself freaking out over that stuff. And so for you. Let's say I don't I don't know. I imagine your payroll is like
12:42
ten forty fifty million dollars a year or something like that or your payroll and and marketing expenses I would I'd flip out when I think about that because that's all basically your money. Whereas with Eamon or someone else, you could be you could be more detached Yeah. I mean, Eamon always cared. And Eamon had I have a lot of respect and admiration for him, and he's still very involved.
13:00
I think the way that I've tried to approach it generally is two pieces. Number one, When does the red flag need to be triggered? So every week, we have a Monday KPI sheet that they update our gross margin. They update like customers. And so there's color coding, and it's like, okay. Are there red flags in any of the numbers that I needed to call shit on?
13:17
And
13:18
I think that is that obviously reduces your anxiety and it helps you make sure that you're trusting, but verifying. I think the second thing around it is that how much if something is a profitable spend, how much should you spend? It depends
13:30
on, it all depends on on a lot of it stuff. But if you're spending money and you're making thirty percent profit, go all in.
13:36
Hon, there's no budget. It's unlimited. And I think that's part of the question with the spending for me is that where is our spending very profitable? Like, is it in marketing? Is it in development? Is it in sales? Is it in partner success team, or is there things like that that should be more like AWS where they're they're a little bit more scalable up and down, and they're not as profitable. So we need to be mindful of that. How big do you think this business could get in, like, ten or twenty years? Do you have do you ever think about that? I'm just trying to survive to to next year, dude.
14:04
I mean, we you know, it's funny we've had as we've grown, and it's been interesting because I have my YouTube channel, which is a very small team of, like, five people. And then we have appsumo, which is a larger thing.
14:14
I come back to the why. Right? Like, on appsumo, it's very simple. We promote dope tools at great prices, and we help people start and grow online businesses.
14:22
Appsumo dot com.
14:24
And,
14:25
I think we have to come back to that because people are like, we're gonna be in five years. I'm like, probably helping people grow and start online businesses. No. I know. You're gonna be doing the same thing, but, like, you didn't. I mean, we were yeah. We we we went to their this spreadsheet and we tripled numbers Silicon Valley double, double, triple, triple from in and out. And, we became a billion dollar company revenue in, like, five years or something like that. I I think right now, what I candidly,
14:48
some of our
14:50
mechanics in terms of scalable business means as we add partners, do we get customers in this business grow,
14:57
the the how do I say it more clearly? It's just not adding up. Like, we added more partners this year, and the proportional amount of customers did not come with that. And so we have to work a little bit more on that flywheel. Which is Well, I think that you must have with trends. So we had trends that are subscription service. We fucking crushed it during COVID. We crushed it. And I think
15:17
now sales slow down a little bit. I think it's cyclical, but in this the, like, I bet if I had a bet, COVID was like the best times you ever had.
15:26
Kovid. COVID is great, man. I thought it was just great in general. Right? I thought it brought there's a lot of good about COVID, just about humanity and, not the death part, maybe, but, like, they're bringing people closer.
15:35
I don't know, man. I I've been doing the Internet shit since two thousand four.
15:39
I've never had a recession.
15:41
And it's not that I have some superpower, but it's like, well, the only way to not have recession is keep doing things that people want.
15:47
And, basically, I I think one of the other key things to kinda consider is how do you have discipline when times are good you don't have to be as disciplined times are bad. And I think right now,
15:55
candidly, with Appsumo, I think we're being a little bit undisciplined with our spending and our hiring because times have been better. I'm trying to get that a little bit more tighter whether the, you know, the future is good or not. Why is your YouTube team so big? Five people? Don't even think it's that big. Mr. Vase is like a hundred people. No way. You think he has a hundred employees?
16:13
At least fifty full time. At least fifty full time, it's not a hundred of contractors.
16:17
Yeah. You and are they what's his name? The mister Beast Jimmy? Jimmy. Are they all like it's because it's like the Jimmy show. Right? So it's like whatever he wants you do. Do you I think that'd be weird to have fifty employees where it's like, hey, guys. Next week, I'm thinking I wanna do this. The reason I would hate that is because then you've got someone like, Hey, Jimmy. What if we had a Rolling Stone song in the background?
16:37
No. I don't want that. Just like let me do what I wanna do, please. Just like, fulfill that. It's a so I we have a head of staff.
16:45
And one thing I've never one thing I hate I hate when someone's like, hey. Can you remind me about this? And I'm like, no, bitch. Just write it down. I just told you. You want me to remind you, like, do your job. But I will say, you know, becoming CEO, which I never called myself over the years until recently,
17:01
And, is that there is times where you're like, yo, remind me. And you're like, oh my god. You're gonna remind me. Her name's Anna, who's head of staff. She's phenomenal. And then with the YouTube channel, I'm like, hey, I want you to come back with more ideas. Come go pitch me ten more ideas. Go go and they come back and they I'm like, this is the best ever. And so I think it is figuring out, you know, what areas you like to play. And then being around people that you're just consistently impressed with, but having people that'll do help you figure out shit oh, god. It's epic. Are you getting noticed on the street now?
17:29
No. Not in just a hunch. Really? You don't?
17:33
It varies. In Austin, you know, it's kind of our hometown. So I think more people do it.
17:37
Not not actually not as even though the channel's gotten bigger, we doubled this year, I actually used to get noticed a lot at the gym.
17:45
The guy hey, bro. I'm like, hey. I've I don't know. I'm always still excited when people came come and say hi. I just got,
17:52
did you get recognized? Yeah. Weekly. I just this, like, this morning, just walking down the street. And, it makes me a little nervous sometimes because I'm, like, thinking I gotta, like,
18:02
like, like,
18:03
like, I love smoking cigars, and I'll just walk around smoking cigars. And I'm, like, I don't want people to see me smoking.
18:11
It makes me a little nervous. You know, don't you think it's flattering? I'm always so I always feel honored that, like, I feel honored. I've worked on. Yeah. Something I've worked on has impacted this person and They're excited to to say hi to me. Like, who who have you seen that you've said hi to that you're a little nervous? The other day, I saw Logan Paul. And I and I and I and I respect Logan Paul, and I said, what's up? And I could just I just pounded and I go, and I just pounded it while I was walking by. She's huge. To Logan's huge. Was this here? New York when I was in or I guess it wasn't the other day about two or three months ago. I saw him and I and I respect it. I respect what he built, and he was a big old dude. And I I I coulda stopped and be like, hey, like, this is what I do for a living. Your brother was on my thing, and I probably we could probably got friends of friends, but I was honestly kinda nervous. And I just, like, just pounded it when I walked away. Well, you I'm sure they'll do a Twitter thing. Like, hey. I wanna have Logan on the show. But anyways, that's that's awesome, man. Did you see my Twitter thread about when I met the silk road guy?
19:07
No.
19:08
You didn't see that? I posted it the other day. I was looking through old Dropbox pictures and,
19:13
or go to my Instagram or something. You'll see it. And,
19:17
I posted your yeah. I want you to see it. It's me with Ross Olbrite, the guy from Silk Road. Oh, I think I remember that story you posted about it.
19:25
Yeah. I talked about it, like, here, but I was looking through old Dropbox pictures, and I found the pictures of us together. And I originally took them down off Facebook because I was nervous, but now it's no big deal. And, I posted the pictures about how I met this guy named Ross at a party
19:41
and we just chatted
19:44
and
19:45
he got arrested, like, a month later, and I note I recognized him. And I was like, oh my that was Ross, the guy we hung out with at the party.
19:52
How much betters your life now being rich? It
19:56
you you know that seventy thousand dollar
19:59
that seventy thousand dollar study. I've heard that. It sounds like bullshit to me. It's bullshit. It's way better. It's way better. It's significantly
20:07
better.
20:08
It's significantly better. I think, like, I still worry about stuff, and I was just talking to my friend about this today. And I was like, why am I nervous about this and that? I told Neville, I go, Neville. Neville bought this eight hundred dollar vacuum and I was like, I went up to his house to borrow it. And I was like, I I can't buy one of these. It's eight hundred dollars too expensive. He's like, why are you worrying about that? I'm like, I don't know. It freaks me out. I'm afraid to buy stuff.
20:32
So do you have that? Yeah. Well, I think two things are interesting. One, I went to the grocery store. I was with my parent, you know, for Thanksgiving.
20:40
My mom bought we get grapes. I really into green grapes lately. And she's like, Noah. These are really expensive today. Let's not get them.
20:48
I'm like, Deborah,
20:49
what's your birthday? I'm gonna treat you. You get you get two of them.
20:53
I don't I I have no problems. Anything that's health related, I'll buy. I don't know. I'm I'm still mindful of it. I think what's fascinating on the other side of it, Sam, is, like, mentioned it to you in text, but you didn't want me to talk about it, which is like crypto and NFT crap,
21:05
which all these, you know, former Shopify store owners now are crypto experts, which is funny.
21:10
And,
21:12
I like trade, and I'll make or I'll buy something and make, like, a hundred dollars, or I'll lose, like, a thousand. And I'm, like, not devastated,
21:19
same. And then, like, appsumo, like, we promote partners and, you know, we'll do, like, a million dollars in a day, and the partners make, like, seven hundred thousand and our customers are happy. I'm, like, that's cool. Yeah. It's it's funny. There's a phrase. It's called,
21:31
a penny poor pound rich, I think. Right? Or,
21:35
something like that. Do do do you,
21:38
we're talking about crypto, but you don't actually buy crypto. Right? You just bought a bunch at one time and you held on to.
21:44
No. Well, two things. One thing I wanna highlight. This is a phrase that Chad said, my business partner at app sumo dot com. You're like how I plug it. He actually had this phrase that was great. He's like, No. Don't confuse the ant hills for the mountains.
21:55
And I was like, damn, that's good.
21:57
And he's like, when we're doing work at appsumo and, you know, the different products we've built or, you know, whatever it is, he's like, Is this a macro thing or a micro thing? And let's do the macro thing. Let's get some fucking mountains, man. He's like, don't sweat this bullshit stuff. And I'm like, alright. But that that's hard, man. Especially,
22:12
I was telling someone recently where
22:14
there's all these productivity tools, and everyone's always everyone's always, like, what's the latest I'm you're not even doing anything.
22:21
Like, don't worry about the calendar and the productivity tool. Worry about just doing important things. This is the best productivity tool, the back of an envelope.
22:28
That's damn. It's a good like, it's a job done. Oh, my crypto thing yeah. I buy I'm a boring investor. So I think there's active income and passive income, and I try to focus on my active. So I just started buying in twenty fifteen, and I just put it on autopilot, and I just auto bought it every month for the past six years. And it's, like, made up a substantial
22:47
I mean, you've you've done well with it, I think, which is pretty great. I'll tell you the number on that. That I don't mind. What? Okay. I mean, you can? I don't I have to tell you. It's fine.
22:55
I I if I had a bet, can I can I guess? Oh, yeah. There'll be cagey. I would guess between one and two million.
23:02
Not four million, but It's four million?
23:05
Yeah.
23:06
Isn't that nuts? I well, it's always so funny because then you're, like, yesterday, I was this weekend, I was, disappointed. I didn't buy crypto punks when my buddy was like, you should buy it, buy it, dude. But it was like fifty thousand dollars. And I'm like, that's fucking crazy to buy status and imagery and, like, it's an invest It's a little investment when it goes up. It's gambling when it goes down.
23:25
Well, the NFTs, I I think are mostly fucking stupid.
23:28
Oh, don't give me start, dude. I just went on a deep hole.
23:31
Are you on board or not?
23:33
Dude, I just got scammed. I lost I'm like, I can't I don't even know what happened for the past two weeks. I'm like, yesterday, I woke up at eight AM to buy apes.
23:42
I just spent sixteen hundred dollars on apes.
23:45
What what of the of the four million in crypto, how much did you what what's your what's your basis there?
23:50
I could pull it up. It's probably
23:53
maybe about half a million or four hundred thousand. Isn't that amazing? Is is that crazy?
23:59
Yeah. Well, I think I've always just it's interesting because I've I've always not always. When I started using it, I was like, oh, I can see why this is gonna be big.
24:07
But, yeah, the return on it as an investment is pretty insane.
24:11
That's nuts.
24:12
What else? And, like, what else could do that? Like, some public equity
24:17
equities.
24:17
But you don't even angel invest. Do you? I mean, angel invest could do that. It just takes forever. Yeah. It's not I mean, I think the best investment for everyone is their own business.
24:25
So if you look at it, like, active income, like, really creating your own company has pretty much the highest multiples I can imagine. Also, you can control it if you can get something to work because most of them don't work that well. Yeah. But you gotta grind sometimes.
24:37
Often.
24:39
I talked to this guy. I was biking on Saturday.
24:42
And this guy named Nick, he's like, man, I gotta grind. And I was like, how much do you I was like, how much does he make? He makes these, like, sixty k. And I was like, why don't you, you know, it doesn't I don't care. I'm not judging him how much he makes. I was like, if you're in a grind, at least grind something has higher upside for yourself, because it's it's the same amount of work. Like, he doesn't work harder than me. I don't work harder than him. I just work on something that a strictly financial perspective has a better opportunity.
25:03
When you're working with Eamon, so Eamon,
25:06
is,
25:07
was your CEO good friend, my good friend too. When
25:11
how often would you talk to him?
25:13
It varied, like, it varied probably, like, once a week on Fridays.
25:17
And then one a little bit throughout the week, but they actually kept me out of slack. They kept me out of everything
25:22
because it's kinda like a, you know, like, my mom's a Jewish mother. It's like, no, what's that on the screen? What is that? It's better to be out. And, I think that's probably the reason he wanted to step out, and this is I don't think we're airing our private stuff. Wait. He wanted to step out because you were nagging him? Yeah. I think to some extent, I don't think anyone feels really excited. No one wakes up, like, excited, you know, unless it's some weird kink.
25:44
To be like, oh, what are you doing today? What do you and I think there's probably a little bit too much of that.
25:49
Do you think that
25:51
I mean, I have I've had people quit for that reason. I do this You and I are very similar. You know that. Right? And,
25:56
and I did the same thing where I'm like, why are you doing this? What's going on today? What are you doing right now today? Like, what actions can we take immediately to fix x, y, and z. And I think you need both. You need that urgency, but, like, you have a good if you have a winner, you do gotta let them chill and get it done.
26:15
Do you think that Eamon
26:16
whenever I have hired people to run stuff, I always I'm I get I freak out. I'm like, this guy's gonna when he finds out that I'm like profiting,
26:24
off their work, like, they're gonna bail. This is so unfair, and I hope they don't figure this out. Did you freak out about that? I used to have a lot of that where I'd never would post anything on social. Same. Like, I wouldn't post any activity. I wouldn't post, like, my you know, our YouTube videos was like, I made my first million. Like, I would never say shit about that. And eventually,
26:44
I got to a point where I was like, well, am I helping these people do their best lives at the company? What I can I am I doing my best to pay them whatever they want? So, like, with Eamon, I'm not gonna share his numbers. But I asked him, I was like, how much do you wanna make? And he said numbers, and he made more than that.
26:58
And so I never really felt I never felt guilt because that guy got more than he wanted, and I got well too. But I I think within the company, it's also people are free to work wherever. So how do you create an environment that people are like, yo, that guy's doing well, and I'm doing well.
27:11
Are you interested in any projects right now? You had Sand Fox. Did you shut down Sandfox?
27:17
No. We're still running sendfox dot com. It's a Mailchimp alternative.
27:21
What do you like? What what type of projects are keeping you up? The two things that I'm I mean, number one is appsumo. So, you know, becoming more of a marketplace.
27:28
So
27:29
you buy or sell software tools books. And then the second stuff is, like, all this NFT stuff is mind blowing.
27:36
There's just so much so same. I think, like, you you kinda smirk.
27:40
And, you know, I At first, I think that's what a lot of people have done with it.
27:44
The same with crypto when I was buying twenty fifteen, but you're like, I don't I don't fully get it. There's something just interesting. Same one when I joined Facebook, when I joined Facebook, people were like, you're gonna go work at a social network. Okay.
27:55
Same. You know, it it it seems weird, but there's just a lot of these really interesting use cases that,
28:01
I'm very tempted and I'm very excited about. Right? What use cases?
28:05
So some of the really interesting ones. One is called City Dow. So basically,
28:09
everyone pulls their money,
28:11
and then they buy a city. So they bought land in Wyoming.
28:14
And now if you own one of the NFTs or tokens within it, you get votes what they're gonna do with the city. And so I find I find that really fascinating plus everything's public. So you see who's voting, you see what the votes are. There's not much hidden.
28:26
There's other ones
28:28
that I've liked. One's called head Dow. It's kind of a stupid ass one. I think conceptually it's really interesting. I don't know if it's run well.
28:35
But what I like about it is
28:38
It is a,
28:40
fund where you buy their NFTs. So there's ten thousand. Everyone buys an NFT. And if you hold the NFTs,
28:46
and the fund goes and buys stuff. And based on your NFT, you get some return for whatever the the fund invests in. So it's kind of like a index fund of crypto and other assets. So I think there's just something What's the city one called? City Dow.
29:01
The who's the who's organizing it?
29:04
City Dow? I don't know, but it's all public for the most part. But there's just there's so much stuff like that. Like, think about this. You can do housing.
29:11
So, like, right now, housing is like, Noah owns a contract, goes to the thing and all this. Well, it's like you can have a house that's shared by a thousand people.
29:18
Or, like, Roblox or Minecraft and the game stuff is really interesting where it's, like, there's not, like, Facebook and Twitter that get everything or Roblox. It's, like, the creators and the consumers own the whole thing. Same with appsumo, like, how can we create it so the whole customer base owns appsumo? So they're incentivized even to start doing appsumo more. I guess it's kinda like owning a share in Amazon. But kind of on a deeper level. Are you have you ever, like, paid money to be part of, like, a membership group,
29:41
like, a Tiger twenty one or anything like that? Not yet. I've always
29:46
Not yet. So there's this thing called, what's it called friends with benefits? Have you seen that? I've heard of it. What is this? And so I think the market cap is, like, hundreds of millions at this point. And so it was basically a a soho house online. So, like, cool New York, young people,
30:01
paid either five hundred or a thousand or two thousand dollars to be part of an online group that held meetups.
30:07
And it was like hot people and fucking young people wearing vans and supreme and shit, like cool kid shit.
30:14
And
30:16
it was
30:17
you know, you had to buy an NFT or a coin to join the the the community.
30:24
And you're incentivized to make the community awesome because
30:28
people could sell their membership or, like, give it up, and it could be worth more than when they initially bought in that. And I think that's interesting.
30:37
There's just a lot of you. I mean, it's still so early. So what's gonna,
30:41
like, what's gonna, like, after the dust settles and the consolidation of all the junk, because I'll tell you, I jumped in. There's, like, all this discord
30:47
discord, you know, it's like Slack for juvenile delinquent. It is so hard to figure out. I feel so old. It's not just that. It's just hard to use. And then it's just, like, so spammy. Like, I go in it and they're, like, that is there's just a lot going on in this space. And so trying to
31:02
try not to rush into anything, but just understand, like, alright. I think I've seen what we did a good job where people are like, I wanna start businesses. I want tools.
31:09
It's like how is entrepreneurship and startups and all that stuff evolving? And there's definitely something where there's so much money and there's so much speed being happening in this crypto NFT space.
31:19
That I find just I don't know. At this current time, I'm I'm, like, obsessed with. The guy or the people setting up the town in Wyoming, how are they gonna make a profit? How did they get paid? So there's a lot of different dude, there's all these different I I fully don't understand every single one out there.
31:33
I'm not biology,
31:35
but
31:36
What they do is a few different things. So, one, they could keep some of the assets. So when they so they do a few different things. When you mint the the tokens or the NFTs to give out, you people buy into it. So when I create the baseball cards and I sell it to you, it's like one eighth each to for you to buy. I the the City Dow keeps all that. And then they could decide how much of that goes out
31:56
to use to buy land. They could say eighty percent buys land or fifty percent. They can decide that. Second thing they do, which is really interesting, this is what's really clever about NFT stuff is a lot of times on the secondary sales the original owner gets a cut. You know that? Yeah. I didn't know how much though. So it varies. So you can have a thing where if I create MTS and it's ever resold, I get five percent of all sales forever.
32:16
So there's just a there's some really interesting things. And then You can have people contribute more.
32:21
There's just a lot of variations. And look, in the end of the day, people have had partnerships. So this is not brand new. I think the the medium of exchange through crypto and all this stuff is creating new new opportunities.
32:32
Would you you and Neville and then a couple other friends went and hung out with Peter Teel a few weeks ago and you could decide what you wanna publicize or not. But one thing that I think I can say is,
32:43
I think he said this to Neville or something where he was like, you know, businesses are are neat, but they die.
32:49
And he said something like a city,
32:51
any city that's ever been a somewhat major city, it's never died before.
32:55
And apparently his obsession right now is on cities.
32:59
And I actually invested in this one company where they're doing gene editing, you know, gene editing is. Not familiar.
33:06
It's like, basically, the the kind of explain, like, on five version is if you get a disease in your skin, like, goes away or something happens to your skin and it and it gets messed up. Gene editing, you can tinker with someone's genes and it will grow they'll grow back new scan whereas before they probably wouldn't have.
33:23
The issue with gene editing is that it's highly regulated by the FDA. And so like the future of gene editing could be like if your amputee, you can grow back a new leg or or you could grow a new liver or a kidney or whatever, you know, it was shit like that. And Peter Till has this city in like Bolivia somewhere in central or South America and he basically is like the founder of the city and this company that I invested in is based out of that city because there is no FDA in that city, which is like
33:52
potentially horrible, but it's kind of interesting.
33:56
He told he said that he's in he's incredibly
33:59
invested and interested in new cities And, I think so I think that that's cool. When I hear about all these new startup people like Mark Laurie, the founder of Jet, he has a new cities. I think these new cities are actually incredibly fascinating.
34:10
Yeah. I,
34:12
I'm I'm more interested in kinda, like, shared home ownership.
34:15
I think there's something just kinda clever, like, do I own a building? But there's a lot of people that own it and a lot of people can use it. I think there's there's just, like, too many people that have too much house for just one individual.
34:26
So I like the the concept of that. What'd you think about meeting Peter Teal? You know, what was it? There's a lot of interesting things about him.
34:34
I think when I tweeted about this, at No Kagan. Was that his he just uses, like, an iPhone seven. Right? Like, guys, like What are we on now? What I've got the new one. What is that? Yeah. Thirteen pro dot five, whatever. And he's on a seven. Yeah. And he had, like, you know, crappy ass new balances. He looked like he was wearing, like, Marvin socks and, like, you know, like,
34:53
Wrangler jeans. I gotta give a fuck about it. And, you know What's he really? Do you think he was wearing regular jeans? Wrangler?
35:00
Just like not like Kate Mart jeans.
35:02
Just like normal. And, you know, but he also had three security guards and, you know, cameras and they checked the building, all that kind of stuff. I think I I admired that he is a thinker.
35:12
And it made me appreciate you know, I met him when I worked at Facebook, and I still remember this story. He, like, bought into our poker game, and then he had to go meet with Zuck, and then he lost And then he's like, hey, can I get my money back? And then Baz, who's now, like, the CTO was like, fuck no.
35:26
He asked who's my back? Yeah. Peter did. And I was like, Can't we that also, we would say no. The guys, they are only, you know, the main investor at the time.
35:35
I I think the other thing that I appreciate about, how much is how much was to buy in? Like, ten bucks. And he asked for it back? Yes, sir. Funny. I was like, what are you doing, dude? Just like, I if I was kinda surprised he wanted it back, but then I liked that buzz. Like, fuck you. He told and he he said that exactly like that. He said, fuck you. No. No. No. He just was like, no. And then the funny thing about that, I I, like, busted out
35:54
I don't know, maybe, like, twenty minutes later. And I go outside and his, like, half a million dollar McLaren is sitting outside.
36:01
It's like, alright. Alright. What did he tell him that? Do you remind him of of that story when you're with him recently? No. I don't think he remembers me.
36:08
But yeah. I think the second thing about him is that he's a very I have looking at my notes of him. I don't mind sharing. I think just, like, he he's just a deep thinker.
36:16
It it just felt like this guy's, like, really like him and and this is another, you know, him and, like, Keith Boy and all these guys, there are a lot of history readers.
36:24
They're like deep ass, like, reading boring fucking books about nineteen hundred history that I just won't I'm not own. I just don't do. And I think that gives that's where a lot of their advantage comes from. So Ben, who's on this podcast, has this podcast all that's on history. Just talks about historical figures, and he does a biography on them. It's incredibly fascinating. And right before you came on, we did a whole podcast on history and how
36:46
you could just learn you could learn you you basically could just not make the mistakes that other people have made just from reading about them. So it's kind of interesting.
36:54
Keith or boy. I don't know Keith or boy other than Twitter. Dude, he comes off like such a jerk on Twitter. I don't know if I wanna hang out with him, but I would definitely would wanna meet,
37:02
Peter Till. Dude, he's a legend. I love Nick Heathra Boyth, him, David Sachs. Oh, I don't listen to the all in show.
37:11
I don't even match. Keith, is he is he cool? Keith is sharp. Keith doesn't really respond to me. He he doesn't respond to me as much anymore because I've been trying to get him on my show,
37:20
on the No Cagan show. And,
37:22
but he's just fucking bright, man. Like, the guy's very bright. I think he's very astute. I also like people that have a I think lately, I'm more considerate
37:30
And I like when you're he's at a level of wealth in the hundreds of millions that it's just like, fuck it. And he's like, yo, that guy's a dumbass. San Francisco's bullshit. I think this is I a lot of admiration for anyone who has a I like that too. I just think that you could do it. I don't think that you need to be polite all the time. I'm an asshole too. I just think that, like, When you are a boss and you're a winner and you maybe pick on the weak ones publicly
37:52
in a in a rude and abrupt way, it makes you look weak and soft. And like a bully. And I think that
37:58
I that's how I don't like how it comes off online, but whenever I have seen interviews with him, he seems incredibly kind.
38:06
Not kind, but
38:07
polite. I don't know. I mean, I think I I guess I also agree with his opinion, so I the don't mind his his approach. Like, he's like Elizabeth Warren sucks.
38:16
Miami's the best. Here's, like, businesses that I'm,
38:20
you know, really bullish on. Did you like Miami? I'm more neutral to it. I haven't spent enough time. It seems appealing like there's I really wanted to go to art Basel. Like, that's on a bucket list, man, to see all the cool art and FT and just like the vibe
38:32
I'm not I I think every city's got every every everyone has a calling when they get into a city. Miami's never called me to live there when I visit, but it's enjoyable.
38:40
Would you stay or do you intend to stay in in Austin for a while? Yeah. I think it's also you if you ever feel, like, stuck in life, like, I was feeling a little flat and, like, frustrated with a lot of work shit going on and You know, I don't know. I wanted pity party. And I think to take, you know, to take a power party, and you gotta get the fuck out. So, like, I was in Albuquerque last week. I'm gonna go to Cabo this weekend. Gonna go to the Bayer in LA in a few weeks. I think you didn't get the fuck out sometimes and just change geography. So tell me about Peter Till. What do your notes say? I would okay. Here's a shocker. This has shocked me. Sam, if you had five he's probably worth, like, ten billion.
39:12
I was like, Peter, how much are you spending on longevity?
39:15
He's like, almost nothing. What? That's crazy. I was like, that's spent everything on that. I was like, dude, drop a bill. Give me a billion. I'll solve it. So he doesn't spend anything on longevity?
39:26
He spends very little. He's like, I do
39:28
oh, I don't wanna say I wanna say some of this stuff. He does some stuff, like, mail things to help, but, like, very, like, I thought he would be, like, yeah, I have scientists on staff, and I have an institute. And I'm, like, You know, and the other thing is I was like, oh, do you have a crazy diet? And he's like,
39:44
he's like, none of that really is gonna move the needle dramatically.
39:47
He's like, I I eat dark I eat chocolate cake at night. Like, he was telling us how his assistant hides food from him, so he doesn't eat it when he travels. And I was like,
39:57
you think the guy who's, like, this genius, which he is is, like,
40:00
hyper discipline. He's like, no, I'm not, but he also knows he's not. So he he accommodates. So I I think I was just shocked that he's not doing more longevity. And I We talked about, on the podcast, we talked about this guy named Brian Johnson, who started Brain Tree, and he's like a billionaire guy now, and he's got a whole website where you can look at we're spending millions of dollars a year on his on longevity. And you can go to his website and look at all the stuff that he's doing, and it's incredibly fascinating. And when I saw that, I'm like, this is exactly what you should do. If you're if you're that wealthy. And I'm amazed that Peter Teal doesn't do that. Yeah. That was shocking. I was shocked that he had low willpower.
40:32
He talked to you know, because you kind of you watch all these fucking videos and you listen to the podcast, it's like, oh, wake up at five. And I have, you know, celery, and I take a cold shower. He's like, nah, I like eating chocolate cake. And he's, you know, and he was drinking wine, and, like, he eat carbs. And I was, like, he's a fucking human, which made me have a lot of appreciation for him. And I I mean and I I felt like he also was very generous way more than I thought. He stayed and talked to us the whole time, like, four hours without checking his phone without
40:58
tweeting any bullshit and it was very present, which I I really appreciated. I read this book with him and Ryan Holiday. And Ryan Holiday said something really I thought cool about him. Where he said basically, if you ask him a question,
41:09
he'll say, well, you know, some people believe this. Other people think that it's this, this, and this.
41:15
Like, he, like, looks at,
41:17
he looks at all sides, and he doesn't actually always tell his opinion. It's an interesting thought.
41:24
I think one of the things he he had a lot of phrases. You wanna hear a few of these, like, kind he just had these phrases. I'm like, man, these are great phrases. Look ahead function.
41:32
I thought that was good. What's that mean?
41:34
Basically, like, how are you looking? And when you're thinking about a decision, how are you looking ahead to what the outcome could be? Not that I was really clever. Like, how much are you thinking further ahead on things?
41:42
Zombification.
41:44
He's like, everyone is a dumbass. There's no everyone has, like, the same thoughts.
41:48
He's like, I'm looking for anyone who has unique thoughts.
41:53
Incremental
41:53
versus monumental shifts.
41:55
Got it. That's a baller. That's a baller one. That's a really good one.
42:00
Companies are mortal. Cities are immortal.
42:03
Yeah. I was I was thinking about that. And
42:06
we I was talking to Neville. He goes, yeah, Peter told me about this. And he, and I was like, yeah, I think that's true. And I was trying to think of, like, a city in America that is, like, just gone away. And one that was at least a mediocre city, and there's nothing.
42:20
Well, I think the thing that I never thought of that he had I was like, woah. That's so interesting.
42:24
Like, We think of cities as, like,
42:27
he he was trying to talk about how cities, you're kinda, like, a shareholder of a country.
42:31
And I never thought about that. He's like, you can you know, remote work is the worst thing that can happen to cities. Did he have an opinion about that? Yeah. He thinks places like California and San Francisco are are people can vote now with their feet. And so the ability to work remote now hurts them.
42:46
Yeah. I understand. And and I agree with that. But doesn't he live in LA? Yeah. That's kinda weird. Right? I I admire that. I think I get annoyed with people. Like, I'm in Puerto Rico to save Ford Nichols. And I'm like, look, But you have to live Puerto Rico is actually not horrible, but you have to live there. Yeah. There's no fucking power for two weeks if there's a hurricane. And look, there's dude, you're on the beach, there's of Mexican foods, got margarita. It's got a good life, but I I the other side of that is, like, is that how much is it worth to live a suboptimal life? And I've admired that he's like, fuck it. I'm in LA. I'm gonna live baller,
43:17
even whatever tax rate this is. I read that
43:20
in that same book. What's that Ryan holiday book? It's awesome. Do you want me to tell you or not tell you? No conspiracy or
43:26
conspiracy theories or something? Yeah. That's it. Is that what just conspiracy theories? Is that it? Conspiracy?
43:33
He's in that book, he said that wherever Peter Till goes, twenty four hours a day, he's got a black Mercedes waiting for him. That that's what was outside the car. That was what was outside the restaurant. Was it a black Mercedes?
43:44
Yeah. Yeah. He had a disco ball inside. It was crazy. And he and I I think I'm almost positive he says running at all times. He tells them he has they have to have it running.
43:52
That's really interesting. In the book, that's what he said. He was he has a Mercedes form all the time. And, apparently, he's got, like, some residents or something in New Zealand where, I think there's also a jet waiting for him, like, in a close vicinity wherever he's going and he goes, just in case if anything bad happens, he could bolt New Zealand.
44:09
I think the question that I'm curious that you got me thinking about for myself or for you or for the audience is that if we had a billion dollars How would we live differently?
44:16
What do you think you'd do? You still wanna do stuff. Right? Like, you still want to work. Like, work is fun. People are like, oh, it's like, dude, sit around all day. See how that goes. Fucking boring. It's fucking lame.
44:28
Not too much. I think I would just do the things I'm doing at a higher level now. I would, like, not worry about buying houses.
44:34
I'm not sure. I dude, I don't know. The appsumo stuff is hard.
44:38
I don't think I would pay right away to get out of it, but I try to figure some something else. It's it's tough. I I got another, like, year or two in it for this this role.
44:47
Then probably buy houses, and I was just trying to figure out how to adjust the work to only do the area I want. I would accumulate large amounts of land and I would create nice residents on all of them. So me and my friends can just go and, like, it's so rare that
45:02
we can go someplace and do whatever we want.
45:04
And that's exciting for me. Like, that's what we we should do. Do we have any friends that have lots of land that we can go and shoot guns and drive motorcycles and shit and just be like twelve year olds. That's what I thought
45:14
I thought what you're gonna say. I was really hoping, Sam, our answers would be like, you know, would take that billion dollars and give it out to the world.
45:21
Well, I'm not giving it to the world, but I would, like, any anything, like, like, I felt bad. Do you remember that Tony Shea,
45:29
Tony Shea is a guy from Zappos, you know? That's sad. It was sad. And But when I saw that, I'm like, man, I wish it didn't go that way, but at the same time, like, he would travel with an entourage. And I'm like, that is sick as, you know, the substance abuse things was bad. But wherever I went, I would just say, crew, who who's who's coming with. And you and I have a friend, this guy who started rent jungle. Or not rent juggle, Jungle Scout, Greg Mercer.
45:54
And he bought these fancy seats to f one
45:58
And I don't know how much it costs, but I bet you this box cost fifty to a hundred thousand dollars. And he was like,
46:05
hey, do you want do you wanna come?
46:07
I just had cheapo tickets. And he he's like, we we took care of everything. And I was like, what? I was like, well, how much is that? I'll pay you. He goes, no. No. It's cool, man. It's fun. I like Sharon.
46:15
And he brought me, and it was awesome. And he's told me stories about how he takes people to tell a ride. He just if he's doing cool shit, he's like, hey, anyone who wants to come, come with me. And that sounds awesome. That's what I wanna do.
46:28
I did I think I'm told you this. I did my will, like, a year ago. And there was kind of, like, It was surreal. I was like, well, I guess I'm gonna maybe die one day, but then it it really inspired me to to live while I'm here and spend the money now while I'm here. So even with my brother, I'm like, do you want to kill me and get the money now, or can I just give you some of it now? And it's just it's exciting to start thinking about how to live like you have the will and, like, live live like you're dead and and enjoy the money with friends like you're talking about. I think that's a great way to approach it. Do you? Are you gonna have kids time soon. I mean, it feels weird making a will where you gotta, like, give shit to your mom and your brother.
47:01
Yeah. My brother has a kid, which I was like, that guy's gonna get all this money. Like, that's crazy. Not even yours.
47:08
Yeah. It's not even mine or it's not his. Like, it's not your kid. I mean, it just feels like you love him, but you're not it's not your your blood or your, you know It is part some blood, I think, genetic Some.
47:19
Yeah. I think I'll have kids. I mean, I maybe I'll go to sperm bank and just donate a ton. And then each of those kids gets like a mill. Maybe they get each one of them gets a crypto punk. Yeah. Shit.
47:30
We're gonna wrap up here in a minute, but this has been a, a meandering episode. I actually think it's gonna go over kind of well. I I I I think people are gonna dig it.
47:39
You know,
47:41
I got nothing to say to that. I I thought it's interesting. I mean, talked about a variety of subjects, and then what what do people want out of the show? Why do you think people listen? Something that, like, entertain, like, empty calories.
47:51
Frank this is advice. So there's a few things.
47:54
One, I will say, I'm shocked. Anyone listens.
47:57
But at this point, we're at
47:59
we're at we're we're, like, over a million downloads a month now,
48:04
which is crazy.
48:05
So some episodes like fifty, sixty, seventy thousand downloads, which is pretty crazy.
48:11
Two,
48:12
shockingly, people find us funny.
48:15
Like, that's what the comments say, which amazed me. And three, I would say
48:18
Sean's really good. I think Sean's good. I think a lot of people listen for him. You're good too, man. You did a good follow on. I mean, I think what it is is you're the only ones left podcasting. Like, everyone gave up, like, a few years ago, and you're like, no one told you. So you kept going. It's been so hard. It is hard, man. But I think that's, you know, you for my mom always says this, like, you forget how hard the last lap is.
48:39
And I think sometimes when you just kinda push through and you're like, oh, I guess that wasn't so hard as a further away you get from it. Well, does is YouTube easier, you think?
48:49
It's hard. You could you could define easy, right, is the bullshit answer?
48:53
Well, I'm yeah.
48:55
It's challenging in a in a different way. I think the intimacy of an audience is really high with podcasts. Like, they're really spending a lot of time with you. YouTube,
49:03
it's harder to be successful on it. I think it's harder. I don't know, harder.
49:08
But the year is a broader audience available for you to reach That's why I spend all my that's why I stopped podcasting more or less. I still have my show that Noah Cagen presents, but, you know, of my content creation audience building, ninety five percent of that's in YouTube world. That's so hard for people to do it. Like, them can't just go It's so hard. It's so I know you put out a number. I'm like, well, all of it takes forever. It's just like, I think, you know, the bullshit answers, find the thing that you could work forever on.
49:32
My video that I I made my first YouTube video, I'm gonna start doing what a week. I got three thousand views, baby.
49:37
Which one? The drinking one?
49:39
No. The, the real estate one about my project. How many do you have? Four point three thousand views?
49:46
Two point four thousand. That's good, man. Look, dude. I didn't even remove the Discrip logo at the bottom because it cost twenty five dollars. And I was like, I don't know if I'm gonna even do this next next month. Did you edit it yourself?
49:57
Yeah.
49:57
Good for you. There's there's no editing. There's just, like, I spliced clips together.
50:01
How was it for you? How was this experience student? It sucks. I hated it, but,
50:08
it's it's cool to see the result. Like, I understand why You know who the best at here's the best YouTube I think out right now. He's he's out of this world. Nick Bear.
50:18
Oh, dude. Love Nick Bear. Nick bears the best YouTuber I've been seeing lately. The other day, he put out basically a documentary and he's doing like one or two a week.
50:27
He did a documentary in the Leadville one hundred. This hundred mile race he did. Nick Bears, the most impressive YouTuber I've seen lately. Do you agree with that? Have you had him on your show? Yeah. But it was a little bit more it was before he was really famous. Nicka's just dope, man. He's just like a good dude. And, like, you when you find out he, like, start his business at four AM when he was in the on and on base in Korea,
50:46
you're like, damn. That, like,
50:48
I'm not surprised when people are successful. I'm like, oh, yeah. You put in the work and you stuck with it for a long period of time. That's it. Did you meet him in person?
50:56
Yeah. It's awesome. Is he just yoked?
50:59
Yeah. Yeah. I'm gonna I think I'm gonna work out with him next month or in January. Oh, oh, you messed up with him?
51:04
Yeah. I I think part of it is, like, you know, I've I've said this before. It's, like, most of my not worth this from who I know. And so Nick, I I gotta meet him and help out help his stuff. He helps me out.
51:14
But there's certain people that you see like Nick that you're just like, yeah, man. I hope you get there. And he's getting there, obviously, but there's just people you wanna see succeed. I think people don't wanna see me and you succeed Sam, but they we they just can't stop us.
51:26
Some dudes, so we're like, no, why do you say that? I wanna see you succeed, but I think it's just like No. I think you you and I are are very punchable.
51:34
That's why we do boxing.
51:36
We let other people have a chance to punch us. Let me ask you a last question. What what what can I learn from Nick, from you knowing him?
51:44
I would definitely have him back on the show.
51:47
When he was on the show, he was super, like,
51:50
almost naive. Like, it felt like like not but that not a bad way where he was like learning as we were talking to him. Like, he acted like he was unaware of certain things. And I'm like, dude, I know you know this, but you're just like a sponge and you're just trying to get me to tell you everything. So, you know, he was just interesting. He's just felt like a student.
52:09
Yeah. That's I mean, that could be his I don't know if he's trying to be strategic about that. I think that's interesting.
52:20
I don't know. I I guess with Nick, I'm impressed his involvement from, like, someone who was a marine or I think he was a ranger. To a business operator. Also, he's kind of in a in a to some extent commoditize space.
52:31
Right? Like, the shorter
52:32
yeah. The powder that get everyone gets from the same place, but you put a different sticker on it. I think I've been impressed specifically with Nick how he evolved from, like,
52:39
you know, I'll be straight, like, a meat head jocklifter
52:42
to, like, one, a content creator, like, in an elite level. From the storytelling. And I think it's just his physical fitness and and it's really well rounded.
52:50
So well rounded, man. Who on earth can weigh a hundred ninety five pound and you know, squat five hundred pounds and run a three hour marathon. It's so interesting.
52:58
There's a lot of there's a lot of good youtubers out there, man. It's just unbelievable how much great content is being created. Who do you like? We'll wrap up with that. Who do you like?
53:06
Let's look at my home page. So, obviously, Noah Kagan. Colin and Samir are studs.
53:12
I I love Conswear. Oh, dude. You know who's the best?
53:16
Andrew Callahan channel five. He was the All Gas No Brakes.
53:19
Wait. What?
53:20
Oh, he's dude, watch the chat bake. So, channel five with Andrew Callahan.
53:28
Watch the,
53:31
Watch the pickup artist boot camp or check Oh,
53:34
yeah. This guy, he used to be part of, like, a business that he bailed on.
53:38
He was, I think, for vice or something like that. All gas, no breaks.
53:42
Yeah. Yeah. He's sick. Colin and Samir are sick on on just specifically on creators.
53:48
I like watch dude, my weird freaky fetish lately is just I love watching, like, outdoor survival.
53:53
Same. Which ones?
53:55
Who's the guy in Ohio?
53:57
Dave Canterbury.
53:59
So I watched Dave Canterbury Yeah. I'm just writing all these down. Dave Canterbury. Yeah. Dave Canterbury. Architectural Digest is gangster. I love seeing, like, celebrity homes. Same.
54:08
Do you like primitive technologies?
54:10
I think I've seen them. I think I I'm pretty aggressive on describing. For some reason I unsubscribe from them, I see from the days. Dude, I'm looking at Dave Campbury. He looks amazing. This is exactly how I want my guys to look. Well, have you watched the show alone?
54:22
No.
54:23
Oh, I oh, on Hulu? Yes. Were there any hulu? Have you met the, like, the with the guy that looks like, like, he like, he's like, bare skin around. He looks like a Native American, the white dude, but he's like, I actually don't know where he is. And there's another guy who was in the caves of Missouri.
54:37
There's a bunch of weird ass people in there, but, dude, it's epic.
54:41
So I I definitely would recommend alone. So I like all the survival stuff from that. I watched a lot of, dude, this is the weirdest one. I watched a lot of squash videos. I probably watched, like, like, it's on right now.
54:50
Wash this. While you're talking to me, Sam,
54:52
I have it on in the background. Like hydraulic
54:55
hydraulic press? No. Squash, like the game, like the British Gabe.
54:59
Why are you watching that? I just leave it on. It's just like white noise I put on the background. So I watch a lot of that on YouTube.
55:08
That's kind of a lot of that's the main things like outdoor survival, architecture,
55:12
of course, Neville, and, yeah,
55:15
that's about it.
55:16
Alright. Well,
55:17
Ben, what do we think? What other ways? What what are you gonna say? Well, I I I'll tell you some I'll tell you another good book I read, man. God tell a weird one that people have Dude, I've been reading all crime books. So, like, like, calling like a real murder mystery?
55:30
Well, yeah, I like that, but, like, I just, like, one on nine eleven.
55:36
Another one.
55:37
Favorite book this year.
55:38
Favorite book this year. Okay. You're gonna like this one because you do this. It's called travels with Charlie in search of America. John Steinbeck Vervet in nineteen thirty.
55:48
And John Sybeck, you know, famous author.
55:50
And he was like, you know, I live in Cape Cod, and I'm rich now. I'm in my sixties.
55:55
I've been writing writing about Middle America for the past fifty years, and I'm so out of touch right now and he just drives his, pickup truck around America and just talks to people and writes about it. And it's amazing. Do you know who Lieutenant Dan is in, Forrest Gump? Yeah. Yeah. He he's the narrator of the audiobook.
56:13
So,
56:14
that that's a good one. And then pirate the summer moon. You'd like that one. It's about Oh, I heard that one. What's this? The comanche Indians.
56:20
And they're they're just naughty, like, the texans were evil and the Indians were evil to each other. The Indians and the,
56:28
texans were just like it's about how they just destroy each other. And then finally, the operator,
56:33
which is basically the guy who killed Bin Laden, and he like tells story of finding Bin Laden, and that was really true. Some of these military books are kinda weak.
56:41
Not No, man. That one was this spectacular.
56:44
Yeah. I mean, he talks about, like, finding he he goes in-depth about
56:49
hunting down Bin Laden and and shooting him in the head. Like, it's intense. Alright. A few questions here. One, do you get books from the library at all? No. But either you or Neville have been bragging about how amazing it is. I'm a huge library guy. There's a Chrome extension called library.
57:06
It's called library extension that'll show you if you can get digital or audio books for free,
57:10
it shows you when you go to Amazon. So you just put an Austin Library. Dude, I use it all the time. How did they make money? I just donated. I don't know how they actually make money. Okay. But I booked it. Thank you for those books, dude. Yeah. Library extension. You just add the Austin Library.
57:24
One book I read recently, dude, that is So good. I think you really enjoy it. It's called free country.
57:30
It's two guys in Europe who backpack who who try to go from the bottom of UK to the top of UK biking and they just start in their underwear. That's all they start with.
57:40
Is it amazing? Wow. What?
57:42
Yeah. So they start at the bottom of the UK in their underwear.
57:46
That's it. And they have to get to the top of UK on bike in three weeks. I mean, it's really good. It got, like, crazy good reviews, audio book or download or audio dot or normal. Think the audiobook is good too. Alright. I think I I got it at the library for free. Oh, and it's on Kindle unlimited. It's free on Kindle.
58:02
Dude hell yeah.
58:04
Alright. I'm I'm gonna do that. Any other ones?
58:07
That one was awesome. I really enjoyed that. I didn't know if you wanted more.
58:11
Yeah. Dude, we're reading the same travel stuff. So I'll give you another one then.
58:16
Little golden America in the nineteen thirties.
58:19
Two Russian journalists from the USSR were were welcomed into America, and they just traveled for,
58:25
four months are all over America. And they're like, you know, it's pretty crazy. In America, and they just, like, you just explained from their perspective what America's about. They're like, in America, everyone's so optimistic. For example, we met these guys It's cool. And it's and no one knows about it in America, but it's one of the most popular books in Russia.
58:43
In Russia, you book read you.
58:49
What else? Oh, do you have some other good ones? Did you read about the dude, you know Ryan Holiday's booklist is really good. His email list? His email list, he just recommends books. It's like how he could he consumes so much.
59:00
I don't know, dude. He's like, how do you book speed? It it's like ten a month. It there's no way he he does an audio book. No. I think he reads. He's probably, like, it has to be paper. And if it's not this, like, certain density of organic paper, I won't read it He once said if you're not taking notes, then you're not reading effectively.
59:17
I think that's true.
59:19
Yeah. But that's, like, a I mean, I'm not gonna take notes on, like, killing up Bin Laden. I don't think but most of the books on Kindle are physical. I either highlight, and then I'll reread them. Yeah. But, dude, if I'm just listening to, like, a book, like, about these guys walking around their underwear trying to, like, get from place to place. I'm not gonna, like, you know, or, like, fight club. I'm not gonna, like, write notes.
59:40
Any other ones?
59:44
Dude, Trevor Noah's book? I was like, yeah, I don't care about that guy. Everyone talks about that book. It's it's just a really well written book. Is that like
59:51
Well, it's like David Goggins book. I'm like, alright, David. You're gonna yell at me. You're really hardcore. I get it. You could do push ups or pull ups That's great. His book, if you haven't read David, it's like everyone talked about it. It's honestly a fun one, it's very well written, and two is just a great story. It's just a funny The audio book is cool too. Yeah. Him, the Wright Brothers. I got that. Oh, I read that one recently amazing.
01:00:12
That was awesome. I drove to Dayton, Ohio,
01:00:15
after I read it because it was so good. Oh, that's good. Did you read million little pieces?
01:00:21
No. What's that one? I actually think you'll like that one. It's about drug addiction.
01:00:27
Thank you.
01:00:28
No. But it's a true story. That's the crazy part.
01:00:31
Okay. I really enjoyed that. These are just once from this year.
01:00:35
Alright. I'm gonna read wait. I think this guy James Frey, million little pieces, didn't need
01:00:41
Isn't he famous for a bunch of stuff?
01:00:43
Yeah. He actually wrote a few other books and then there's some, like, drama about him. Oh,
01:00:47
they say that he lied about his book, my my,
01:00:51
yeah, the
01:00:52
apparently, he,
01:00:54
it it's made up.
01:00:56
There's debate about that. So
01:00:58
It seems like for the most part, a lot of it is not made up. And there's just a few pieces that are. Yeah. I remember this because he went on Oprah years and years ago, and there was this big controversy
01:01:07
Oh, so she touched shit on him. And then she actually apologized, I believe. Because I got you. After you read the book, you're like, is this real or not real? I can't believe it. That's how crazy it is. Yeah.
01:01:16
Alright. I'm gonna read it. This is good. This is the best part. I'm gonna read all these things. I mean, I I could I I try to walk a lot. So I listen to all these audiobooks. So I'm gonna I'm gonna download this one. A million little pieces. I'm gonna get the, the guys doing their underwear thing. And I already install the library extension.
01:01:32
Bro, game over. Hold on. This little Golden America, do they have an audio book or it's just paperback?
01:01:37
You could do a paperback or you can,
01:01:41
There's free pdfs online. Do did you see the description of it? It's interesting. There's like no reviews of it but in the first page they go, we translated this into Russia and yet no one or into English and yet no one in America knows about this. However, in Russia,
01:01:54
everyone reads this book in schools like this is like the kids summer reading for schools. It's like very, very, very popular.
01:02:02
You see it? Yeah. How did you hear about this? Goodreads recommended it to me. Because when I was reading the in search of America,
01:02:09
the John Steinbeck book, I love that. That was one of the best, like, I it was like, I got addicted to that. It randomly popped up on things recommended and it had five out of five reviews. Five out of five stars on on
01:02:21
good reads and it had like three thousand reviews. But when I googled it, I couldn't find a thing about it. So I was like, this is kind of intriguing.
01:02:27
Did you look at it on good reads?
01:02:29
I did not look any good. It's so funny. Good reads. I saw someone talk about this and I maybe it was you. It was, like, the site that hasn't been updated from, like, nineteen sixty, but it's still dope. It's still like a there's just like there's nothing better yet. It's badass.
01:02:42
The guy who started it spoke at Husslkon, his name's Otis Chandler, and his grandpa started the LA Times, and Otis sold to Amazon for like a billion dollars, I think. Either I think it was a billion or a hundred million but he sold it to him like
01:02:56
ten years ago or something like that so we just knocked it out the park. Do you ever you ever blown away by, like, how much awesome books are out there that we don't even know of? Like, this book existed. I never even fucking heard of it, and it's got it on reviews. I'm like, I did not know that. Yeah. And I've always thought I wanna read all this, but then, you know, I started thinking
01:03:14
one time, I I listened to, like, thinking real rich,
01:03:18
on audiobook. And I love the narrator. And I was like, I wanna remember those narrators or the the audio guy. I wanna remember his voice because he's so good. And I looked at what else he had done. And he's read, like, a thousand self help books. And I'm like, wait a minute.
01:03:32
You've read all these and you're still fucking making fifty bucks an hour read these damn books. What the hell man? This is not effective. And so after that, I I almost quit reading business book or self development books entirely.
01:03:43
It's just boring. I'd rather read, like, biographies or, like, I'm reading this book this running book right now out of thin air. You're the best. Right?
01:03:51
I just started. It's really interesting. I'm liking, like, I guess, outdoor activity books. So Well, out of thin air, that's not that's a different one. Wait. Out of thin air. Oh, you're thinking of,
01:04:02
the one about the guy in Alaska?
01:04:05
Who what's out of thin air? Oh, it's about the Kenya.
01:04:08
Yeah. The guy, like, goes and runs with canyons.
01:04:10
I think he went into thin air, the John Cracker one. Which is also awesome. But, okay, someone gifted me this out of thin air book, and I wasn't sure if it was that good. Is it amazing? So far, pretty interesting. I mean, the I'd go read a free country. That one is, like, I didn't wanna read it because I didn't want it to be over.
01:04:25
Alright. I'll read it. Alright. I gotta rock. This was good.
00:00 01:04:45