Facebook's Stock Is Up 43%, Jack Butcher's NFT Makes Millions & More Tech News (#418)
Meta, NFTs, Fast Shoes, and Tooth Fairy Troubles - February 10, 2023 (about 2 years ago) • 21:39
Transcript:
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Shaan Puri | Called the broker up. I said, "Griffin, buy." He said, "Buy what?" I said, "You know what to buy. Buy Zuck."
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Shaan Puri | he says how do you spell that | |
Shaan Puri | I said, "Z-U-C-K." He said, "That's not the ticker." I said, "Griffin, call Zuck and tell him I want some shares." So we bought some shares, and I think we're up double from where we bought.
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Ben Wilson |
It's Friday! We're reacting to the news. Welcome, fellas. Let's go through the stories.
First of all, Facebook stock is soaring. It's up 43% in the last month. Sully's getting rich off of it.
Fellas, did you call it? Did you know that Facebook was gonna rebound?
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Sam Parr | Right now, Facebook... I haven't bought ads on it recently, Sean. But I was talking to some of my folks who worked with you on the Milk Pro. I was also talking to some of the people who worked at HubSpot, who are the ones that worked on The Hustle at HubSpot.
Facebook ads are killing it! They seem like they're working really nicely. When I was running it, we were acquiring users for about $3 or $4, and nowadays it's back down to around $1.50, which is what we were seeing when we first started. So it's kind of easy to see.
I guess, what about you?
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Shaan Puri | Yeah, I bet on it. So, I took, I don't know, $250,000 like 3 or 4 months ago and I bought Meta because I was like, "Why is everybody down on Meta?" I was like, "Did they forget the number one rule? You don't bet against Zuck."
To anybody who's like, "Oh, but the metaverse, blah blah blah," I'm like, I just send them the video clip of Mark Zuckerberg doing MMA. I'm like, "This is who you're trying to bet against. The guy that since age 18 has just been dominating everything he's tried to do. The guy who's created the biggest social network ever, then bought all of his competitors and killed everybody else who tried to compete with him, including Google when they tried to compete with him on social."
And now he trains MMA, and before that, he learned to hunt and speak Chinese fluently. You think this guy is just gonna lose money because Apple changed their cookie policy or whatever? Get out of here with that! No way.
So, I called the broker up. I said, "Griffin, buy." He said, "Buy what?" I said, "You know what to buy. Buy Zuck."
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Shaan Puri | he says how do you spell that | |
Shaan Puri |
I said, "ZUCK." He said, "That's not the ticker." I said, "Griffin, call Zuck and tell him I want some shares." And so we bought some shares, and I think we're up double from where we bought. I don't know exactly... I think it's 80%. I'm up 80% on that.
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Sam Parr | Sean, Sean and I use the same guy, by the way. We both use Griffin. What did Griffin say?
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Shaan Puri | let me I mean I actually check the number so I don't I don't misquote myself here | |
Sam Parr | did he did he | |
Shaan Puri | say are | |
Sam Parr | you sure sean or is he goes yes sir go go and do it | |
Shaan Puri | Well, he texted me the other day. He goes, "Great call on Meta." I said, "Thank you for the compliment," because I've lost a lot of money this year. He goes, "That's why I sent this."
Okay, not quite double, but close. We're going to... we will be double. So we're up 50%, only 50%. So, a little bit less than I thought. 50% is still not bad in a couple of months.
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Sam Parr | Dude, Sarah started working at Facebook. She used to work there in 2014, and I was doing some math about where she would be if she just stayed there. We were talking about it, and it was like, well, she probably would have gotten fairly wealthy.
The con is that her job there was like, "How do I make a sticker emoji that gets people in Brazil to share more selfies?" So, it's like, you know, you don't want to kill yourself doing that. It's whack and lame, but they pay for your lunch, and you get your oil change.
That stock back then was only $47, and at its peak, it was $372. I mean, that's pretty sick! But yeah, man, Facebook's killer. Never bet against them.
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Shaan Puri | Dude, when we were going through our sale process, Facebook was one of the potential buyers. They offered a high deal. No, no, this was in 2019 or 2020, something like that, 2019.
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Sam Parr | okay so back then it was a $200 | |
Shaan Puri | Yeah, so it's good that the stock is down from when we would have gotten acquired because, you know, stock was a significant part of the deal.
But the difference in talent quality between the companies we interviewed with—like YouTube, Twitch, Facebook, Discord, and a bunch of other players—was so much more impressive. I was like, "Okay, you know, if I was just going off of who we would be around, it's not even close."
The numbers are not even comparable; the math of the difference in these offers is not even close. But I was optimizing other things.
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Sam Parr |
A lot of people who I've talked with who work at Facebook, they're sharp as hell. Like, I remember just walking around that campus, it felt like I was at the UN, you know what I mean? There's so many different types of colors and ethnicities. It was like they just cherry-picked the best from all over the world.
It was at... what was it, Menlo Park? I forget where it was. But walking around that campus, I felt inspired.
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Shaan Puri | One of the guys who would have been reporting to me said, "Yeah, as my intro, when you get there, you do a demo project or an intro project, I guess, if you're early on as an engineer or a product manager or something like that, to get onboarded. You do a hackathon project."
He created basically Facebook Marketplace, and I ended up working on that. His prototype was one of the original genesis things.
Another guy I spoke with said, "What did you do before this?" He replied, "Oh, I was at Microsoft." I thought, "Oh, okay, one boring thing to another, great." Then he said, "Yeah, I invented Microsoft 365. You know, I was like, we should go to the cloud and make this a subscription." Nobody agreed with him, and he just kept working on it for like two years.
He mentioned, "I literally had a separate machine under my desk where I was like, I'm gonna build it on this machine, and I'm gonna do it here."
My takeaway was, "You guys are smart. If I come here, I'm gonna have to work hard. You can't just be lazy around these people."
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Sam Parr | they're great alright which one which one am I gonna go to now | |
Ben Wilson |
Let's go, Jack Butcher! Jack Butcher's NFT project, which is called **Checks V4**, is a bunch of art around the check mark. It has recently become the top trading NFT project by volume, surpassing Bored Apes. Wow!
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Sam Parr | I didn't realize it was that big | |
Shaan Puri | I think that's probably like on a this week type basis | |
Ben Wilson |
Yeah, that's correct. Yeah... no... yeah, yeah. Not all time in terms of like active trading volume either this week or in a single day, but what do you guys have to say to our boy Jack?
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Shaan Puri | my buddy jack's getting rich love it | |
Sam Parr | Dude, so I'm biased. Jack's like a close family friend. Him and his wife are very... I'm very close with those folks. They are awesome, and Jack is more of an artist.
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Shaan Puri | close enough that he sent you some of these nfts oof well I got a | |
Sam Parr | I received a T-shirt that says "Internet" on it. He sent me a 30% coupon code, so I got a T-shirt.
Jack, dude, Jack's punk rock, man. Jack's more of an artist than he is a businessman. If you go to his website, Visualize Value, and you read the copy for the check mark, it is, as we like to say, beautifully done.
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Shaan Puri | beautifully done | |
Sam Parr | It's like... it's just an NFT, but it's so tasteful. It's classy, it's delightful. No, he's done a good job, man. I think it's cool.
I still... I'm not an NFT guy, you know? Cornrows, neck tattoos... NFTs are not for me. But it's cool that other people have them, and that's kind of how I feel about NFTs still. But if I were going to do an NFT, it'd be his.
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Shaan Puri | Yeah, it looks like the last 7 days have done $15,000,000 in sales volume. No shame. It's the 4th ranked one in the last 7 days, maybe. So, really impressive. It's just a check mark, right? Don't say it like that.
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Sam Parr | no I'm not | |
Shaan Puri | is nike is nike just a swoosh yeah look | |
Sam Parr | I'm not saying it that way. What is it? I didn't actually... Is it like you get a different color check and you put that as your...? No, I'm not disrespecting you at all, but I'm wondering. I'm asking because I'm not in this world.
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Shaan Puri | It went from $8, which was the price that Elon was trying to charge for a blue check on Twitter. Right? So that's like the political statement he's making here.
It went from $8, which was his opening price, I think, to closer to $4,000 per NFT now. So, incredible, incredible surge.
And he is like... I don't know, he's not there yet. This is sort of like comparing... it's a little bit of a stretch of a comparison, but he's kind of like an internet Banksy a little bit. He does stuff that's like a commentary on what's going on in the world.
The guy just hits. He just hits! Like, have I seen him do anything that I'm not like, "That's dope"? He hits only. And he's one of the few people who has "ho" status.
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Sam Parr | Dude, he makes hits. So, he started out with Joe Jack, our good buddy. If you don't know Jack, follow him on Twitter.
He started out working at an ad agency, and then he created his own ad agency. It was going okay, and then he created this course called "Build Once, Sell Twice," which is hilarious.
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Shaan Puri | amazing name | |
Sam Parr | Yeah, amazing name! It's about how to productize a service. He started selling that course, and I remember I had a call with him and his wife one time when we first started getting to know one another. They were in like a 400 or 500 square foot studio apartment that they lived in, and they weren't like killing it.
Then, he had the year of his life in 2020 or 2021. He kills it now! If you go to his website, visualizedvalue.com, the reason why I love him is that you see his background, you see his courses, but he also has this tab called "Visuals" where you can look at some of his artwork.
He has a merch store, and his merch store is actually awesome! He has these sweatshirts that say "College," kind of like you know that, but it says "Internet." He just does things like that that are actually awesome. When I go to his site, I'm like, "Oh, I'm like this dorky internet guy too," but he has merch. I'm inspired to be like a lot cooler like he is. It's awesome! He's badass! I'm a...
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Shaan Puri | big jack fan me too me too we're we're we're big fans of him | |
Ben Wilson |
Alright, what's up? Next up we got **Moonwalkers**. It's a new shoe that's like half a roller skate. I don't know if you guys had a chance to open up and look at it yet, but it allows you to walk... and you just walk, but you go 7 miles an hour, which is roughly 3 times as fast as a normal person walks.
It's on Kickstarter, it's raised $300,000. The shoes cost more than $1,000. Are you guys...
[Note: The transcript ends abruptly with "Are you guys god", which seems incomplete. I've adjusted it to end with an ellipsis to indicate the unfinished thought.]
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Sam Parr | You gotta see the video. These are so stupid and so awesome. They're basically just Heelys for dorks who work at a startup.
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Shaan Puri | heelys for people with no balance | |
Sam Parr | Yeah, this is crazy. This video is hilarious. It's really dumb, but kind of awesome.
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Shaan Puri | If we did an award for the person most likely to have started this, I know Sam, I think you would have been the guy. Me, dude, this...
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Sam Parr | is like the snuggy of shoes | |
Shaan Puri | tell me how you feel about boosted boards | |
Sam Parr | well boosted boards are dope | |
Shaan Puri | right it's the same thing dude | |
Sam Parr | it's a 25 mile an hour skateboard | |
Shaan Puri | for each foot dude | |
Sam Parr | Oh my God, this is like driving a Kia. Man, you're never gonna get laid again if you ever get caught in one.
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Shaan Puri | of these hey I like kias my bro | |
Sam Parr | you have a bmw for a reason | |
Shaan Puri | I saw this on TikTok, and it had millions of likes. I think it had like 2 or 3 million likes on this video, and I was like, I can see why.
It is going to be controversial. It is visually stunning. You can't tell if it's a joke or if it's serious. The TikTok and the ad for it literally look like something from *Silicon Valley*, the HBO show.
The founder, this guy named Shun Ji, is an Asian guy who's talking about how, as humans, we've always been stuck at 2 miles an hour. Finally, we've broken the barrier; we go 7 now. He's sitting in front of these three huge MacBook screens or iMac screens, and I'm thinking, "Dude, what are you programming?" It's a shoe... it's roller skates... it's kind of like a...
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Sam Parr | Roller skates are going to revolutionize the way that people get hit by cars. That's what this is going to do.
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Shaan Puri | We're changing the world. If you look at the Kickstarter backers, the Kickstarter backers are only personal injury lawyers who are like...
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Sam Parr | oh yeah | |
Shaan Puri | no brainer this is expensive write this one off | |
Sam Parr | Dude, this is just Segue 2.0. It's really stupid but also kind of cool.
Yeah, I just... I mean, this is like guys who wear their cell phones outside of their pockets or who wear a Jawbone 24/7. This is that niche. Not for me.
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Shaan Puri | I'll give it to Andrew Tate. I'm out. Yeah, I'm out.
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Hubspot |
"This data is wrong every freaking time!"
Have you heard of HubSpot? HubSpot is a CRM platform where everything is fully integrated.
"Woah, I can see the client's whole history: calls, support tickets, emails... and here's a task from 3 days ago I totally missed!"
HubSpot: Grow Better.
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Shaan Puri | let's do one more | |
Sam Parr | what's the you wanna do the tooth fairy thing | |
Shaan Puri | Yeah, okay, I got a new story for you. My sister has three daughters, two of which are losing their baby teeth. I was talking to my niece the other day, and she tells me that she lost a tooth. I said, "Wow, fantastic! You're gonna put it under your pillow for the Tooth Fairy?"
"No, I threw it away."
"You threw it away? You threw it in the garbage can?"
"Yeah, I threw it away."
"Why?"
"Well, my last tooth was under there for two months, and the Tooth Fairy never came. So, I don't wanna... I don't wanna even try anymore."
That's the first story I hear, and I'm looking at my sister. She's making eye contact like, "I'll tell you later. I'm sorry. I know I... I messed up."
Then the younger daughter loses her tooth yesterday and puts it under her pillow with a note. Here's what the note says. I'll send you a picture of it, but basically, it says something to the effect of:
"Dear Tooth Fairy, you didn't come last night, but that's okay. I'm leaving it here again. You don't have to leave any money, just draw a picture of yourself. I wanna see what you look like."
And then that's the note, and she didn't do anything again.
So the question, fellas, does my sister need to just check herself into jail for "Bad Mom of the Year"? What the hell? What's your deal? What’s going on?
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Sam Parr | just give like a few dollars or like you know like some doritos or something just put | |
Shaan Puri | a little something on the side she forgot | |
Sam Parr | how do you forget that | |
Shaan Puri | Unbelievable! She texted me and said to herself, "Should I just send myself to jail because I'm such a bad mom?"
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Sam Parr | that's crazy to me | |
Shaan Puri | that that's my new story of the week that that's what I pay attention to | |
Sam Parr | what's a tooth go for nowadays | |
Shaan Puri |
$5? I don't know, dude. Back in my day, that was, you know, like $5. Or if your parents get cheeky, they're like, "Here's a $2 bill." Yeah, it's less than the going rate, but it's rare. It's a $2 bill, you know? Like I...
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Sam Parr | I got $5 once, and that was like a huge deal. I don't know what a tooth goes for now.
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Shaan Puri | I feel like people do more than that ben what were you did did you get tooth money when you were growing up | |
Ben Wilson | I got a quarter I I don't feel like I grew up poor but now I feel like I grew up poor | |
Sam Parr | yeah I would get like a quarter or a dollar but then one time I got a tooth knocked out and I got $5 for it | |
Shaan Puri | that's some guilt money right there that it | |
Sam Parr | was guilt money | |
Ben Wilson | yeah it was blood money | |
Sam Parr | I fell and got it knocked out so I got $5 for that one but I don't know what | |
Shaan Puri | a tooth would go for now ben do this do this other one you | |
Ben Wilson |
Have you seen the Snowden one? I don't know if you've seen this one. Yeah, so Edward Snowden goes live on a conference and the conference is... I don't know, it just screams like fake Zoom conference, right? The... let's see what it's called. It's called...
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Shaan Puri | Private investor conference or something like that. The most generic name of all time.
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Ben Wilson |
Yes, and so this guy is interviewing Edward Snowden for his private investor conference. He shows up and immediately pulls up an article that says, "Man busted for $4,400,000 Ponzi scheme." He says, "Is this you?"
The host, the interviewer, says, "Yeah, that's me."
Snowden goes, "Alright, well I think it's important to tell people this kind of stuff. Bye," and hangs up on him.
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Shaan Puri | He got paid to come do a keynote. He starts his keynote Q&A or whatever and just screen shares instead the news article that this guy who's hosting this event is a former Ponzi schemer who got in trouble for that.
The chat is just like, "Wow, wow, boom, wow, oh my God, wow!" It's the best. You know, I don't want to go to many webinars, but I wish I was at this one.
Shout out to Edward Snowden, you know, whistleblower's gonna blow.
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Sam Parr | dude I'm watching this | |
Shaan Puri | yeah he went for it | |
Sam Parr | have you ever seen the subreddit it's on the subreddit called watch people die | |
Shaan Puri | yeah I've seen that one yeah this is gonna be at the top | |
Sam Parr | sorry the I I screwed that up watch people die inside yeah | |
Shaan Puri | I've heard inside oops | |
Sam Parr | Yeah, the inside is a big thing. Next to that, there's a subreddit called "Absolute Units." Have you seen that one? I love that one! It's just like a buff dog or a huge pimple. It's called... and.
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Shaan Puri | you're like a cucumber that's like just too strong to be cut | |
Sam Parr | Yeah, I love absolute units. I subscribe to absolute units and I subscribe to "Watch People Die Inside." This is one of them. This video is on there.
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Shaan Puri | Well, do you see the reaction? I'm going to watch the guy's reaction.
So the guy goes, "Yes, that's me." Then Snowden's like, "Well, I think people should know who they're getting into business with," or whatever. So he says, "I don't feel good about this. I'm not doing this."
Then he leaves, and the guy doesn't know what to do. He just shrinks and goes, "Okay, we're going to take a break." He doesn't know what to say.
It's like, man, if there was ever a time to be like, "Hey, you know, I know that looked bad, but I'm happy to explain what happened and clarify for everybody. I can do that right here, right now. No problem."
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Sam Parr | Dude, there are people in the chat saying, "Hey Edward, are flying saucers real?" And people on Reddit are like, "Yeah, no wonder why these people fall for this." This guy's name is Club.
Oh my gosh, this is crazy! Yeah, this is a good video. I'm going to have to watch this.
Dude, I've been following some of these Ponzi scheme guys. For example, there was one... what's that? There's a Twitch guy with dreadlocks. He's a Black dude, not the famous one who boxes, but another one who's more hated. He's loud and cocky. I forget his name, but he's a very punchable guy.
He was like, a crypto company paid him to do an ad, and they're in the background talking about it. He forgets that he's recording and he's like, "Dude, I can't believe people are going to buy this crap!" You know what I'm talking about? What's that guy's name? I've seen that guy.
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Shaan Puri | I don't know who that guy is, but I've seen the clip. The owner or the promoter of the event was behind him, and they were talking. I don't know exactly what he said; he said something else, but it was something.
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Sam Parr | that something like I don't wanna put the hot crap in | |
Shaan Puri | my mind yeah the the hot mic picked it up and people were like wow dude disgusting | |
Sam Parr | The amount of like the Twitch and, I think I said Twilio, I meant Twitch. The Twitch and YouTube audience that buys this crap is crazy, man. It is absolutely crazy to me. I can't believe people do that. But yeah, this was a good one. How did this guy afford Edward Snowden?
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Shaan Puri | Dude, you know how Ponzi schemers work. They know how to build... you know, they gotta build this shell game, this appearance of legitimacy.
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Sam Parr |
That's crazy to me. It's the private investment club, it's the largest real estate club in Canada. That's like his shtick. That's crazy to me. Anyway... yeah, that's a good video. I'm gonna have to watch that.
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Shaan Puri | alright that's it we're out of here boys react |