Grant Cardone Just Bought A $60M Malibu House... Is He Legit?

Sam Parr

Was reading an article in the *New York Times* about these Malibu homes and how these crazy rich guys are coming in and buying them. Grant Cardone was one of the features. They didn't feature him as "Grant Cardone," but rather as "another local buyer, motivational speaker, and real estate entrepreneur Grant Cardone." He was just a guy they were interviewing, not like this internet sensation. He recently bought a house in Malibu for $60 million, and he mentioned he was going to spend another... I forget, tens of millions of dollars renovating it. That's one of those things that when you see what people spend on their personal real estate, it's hard to fake that. I'm just thinking, who would have thought that those things he's selling would generate that much wealth?

Shaan Puri

I have

Sam Parr

a question when was the last time that you have flown

Shaan Puri

I just flew last week oh no sorry not last week last month hawaii

Sam Parr

where hawaii how about before that

Shaan Puri

yeah I don't know when we went to austin miami something like that

Sam Parr

so like once a year at this. Or once every 6 months

Shaan Puri

yeah yeah I'm not flying a ton right now

Sam Parr

when you flew to hawaii did you fly 1st class or coach

Shaan Puri

yeah 1st

Sam Parr

So, I went to Idaho this weekend with Ben, Podcast Ben. We spoke at an event where we had to talk about ConvertKit's new thing. I don't like to travel, and you don't like to travel either. This was work-related, so they wanted me to speak at a conference. Whenever they want me to speak at a conference, I say, "Yeah, that's cool. I'll come and speak, but you have to pay for a first-class flight for me and Sarah, my wife." I'm like, "That's a fair trade. Don't pay me to come because I like you, but I do want you to pay for my flight, and it has to be first class because I don't like flying coach." Well, my flights got screwed up for some reason both ways. I had to fly in a middle seat in the back row because the flight got canceled, and they fit me on these last-minute flights. I started thinking about that stereotype story of this rich billionaire. They say, "Oh yeah, even though he was a billionaire, he still flew coach, and nothing changed." I think the...

Shaan Puri

guy came

Sam Parr

to that nothing changed

Shaan Puri

I think that is Amazon. All their desks were old doors, which I tried to...

Sam Parr

dude I did that I did that to be cute at our office it cost more to do that

Shaan Puri

A door isn't a door if it's expensive. Like, what? Also, did you... I bought the shittiest door that was like...

Sam Parr

Yeah, I bought like the shittiest door and it was like $80. Then we bought cinder blocks and it was a pain in the ass. I'm like, "Dude, this thing's on IKEA for $25. This is way better!" Also, doors are flat; doors just have...

Shaan Puri

more indents in them

Sam Parr

That’s a stupid story. It’s like maybe they had a door while they folded T-shirts on that door for a day while they waited for the real supplies to come. This whole "flying coach as a rich person" thing... and I’m not talking about being rich like $1,000,000 or tens of millions. I’m talking about when you hear billionaires or hundreds of millions of dollars. People say this, and I think that is total nonsense. I tweeted that, and I’m like, "This is just a lie." Any rich person that I’m talking about—real rich—who says they do that, they’re lying. I want to see proof if that’s true. I had a bunch of really, really rich people holler at me and tell me they do it. So, do you know who Palmer Luckey is? Palmer Luckey started and created Oculus, which he sold for in the ballpark of $1,000,000,000. He has a new company worth tens of billions. So if he’s not a billionaire, he’s like right there basically. He tweeted back at me.

Shaan Puri

me and he goes billionaire that guy's definitely a billionaire

Sam Parr

Dude, he tweeted back to me and he said, "I only fly coach." Then I had some other people DM me. They go, and I know their company's public, and they're like, "I'm worth $100 million," and I fly first class no matter what internationally. But I have no problem taking Southwest if it's like a short flight. I understand that argument if it's like an hour. But if you're going from New York to LA or anything above three hours, I don't believe it. I think they're lying. I just think they're full of it. I asked Dharmesh from HubSpot, "Do you do this?" He goes, "No, that's a ridiculous thing. Of course, I don't do that." And he had this...

Shaan Puri

He came to me as if you're like us at the Buy First Million podcast, where we are cultivating that trillionaire mindset, that multitrillionaire hashtag mindset, hashtag grindset. You have to, even before you have multitrillions, you better be flying private. You better fly private when you can't afford coach. Because if you can't afford your future, can you afford your present? And that's how I feel, dude.

Sam Parr

Just thought it was the most ridiculous thing. I was sitting in this seat, and my back was sore. It was just terribly uncomfortable, and it took forever to get off the flight.

Shaan Puri

just the vibe of the peasants that you're sitting next to is awful

Sam Parr

It sucked, and I know I have a problem doing it. I mean, I will do it, but I'm just saying, if I'm worth $100 million, what's the difference between a $1,500 ticket and a $500 ticket? Anyone who lies and says otherwise, I think they're an idiot and they're lying.

Shaan Puri

Yeah, I read that thread about Bill Gates because it was pretty interesting. They gave you a ton of examples; they slammed you with examples of it happening. I think the main point they just told me...

Sam Parr

big stories

Shaan Puri

Well, yeah, so that's the thing. I think the main point they were making was that "X person used to do this." This could simply be their PR team saying, "Hey Bill, we need you to take a coach flight here," and, you know, whatever. We'll keep your private jet and Epstein's jet off the radar, just so we can have this measure of austerity. I'm pretty sure it works, by the way. The fact that so many people posted articles about billionaires flying coach is like, dude, that's not news. But the fact that it's newsworthy is more proof that this is likely a PR stunt. I've done it too. I've been like, "Oh, you know, Bill, Warren Buffett still drives an old beat-up '83 Camry." And then there's Sam Bankman-Fried, the newest young billionaire. Did you know that he only eats bananas and sleeps on a beanbag? These stories work; they're worth telling. This makes me think this is a PR scheme. The other interpretation is that they did it to show the company, "Hey, from the top down, we're all being frugal. We're not wasteful." So, you know, Mr. Senior Director of Business Development is not flying first class to every country.

Sam Parr

I understand that, but it's like, dude, you and your three kids are taking your vacation to France, and you're gonna fly coach on Spirit Airlines? Yeah, nah, that ain't gonna happen. Like, that is... you're lying. You're lying. It's an absolute lie.

Shaan Puri

Show me your Ryanair receipts if you're really doing this. Like, show me your Spirit Airlines frequent flyer miles history if you expect me to believe this. Dude, I've sat on Spirit Air and I've had the pilot come out mid-flight to rearrange the seating because someone was too fat. They had to say, "Hey, we need to do a 2-for-1 trade. You need to get to the left side of the plane, and then two of you need to move to the right. We need better balance." Unless you've done that, you don't have that trillionaire energy.

Sam Parr

Yeah, dude, I've done that on pontoon boats. Like, where you have people in the back, you're like, "Hey, you guys gotta switch seats." Those boats go a little sideways. But I've never done that on a plane.

Shaan Puri

Didn't even think it was real. I thought the pilot was joking, and it wasn't a joke. They literally were like, "We need to rebalance." I was like, "Jesus Christ."

Sam Parr

Let me tell you about one more interesting thing—another rich guy thing. So, you know who Grant Cardone is?

Shaan Puri

of course I know grant

Sam Parr

I met grant so so I'm not gonna like even comment on if I like him or not but

Shaan Puri

I will I like him

Sam Parr

Okay, that's cool. I don't entirely dislike him. I don't dislike him; I don't really like everything he does, but I like a lot of what he does. I kind of paint him as this guy that was in the internet marketing world, just selling, like, hawking cheap books and cheap courses.

Shaan Puri

if you're so rich why are you selling a course right

Sam Parr

yeah yeah yeah yeah

Shaan Puri

A question I've asked myself many times. Also, yes, speaking of that, there's a new course available July 11th: **Power Riding**. Sign up today! Go to **maven.com** and sign up, baby! The market's down; daddy needs a new course.

Sam Parr

I was thinking about that. I'm like, "Alright, if this is this course guy and he has this, like, he's wearing all these nice suits, is that legit? Is that real?" I was reading an article in the *New York Times* about these Malibu homes and how these crazy rich guys are coming in and buying them. Grant Cardone was one of the features. They didn't feature him as "Grant Cardone." They referred to him as "another local buyer, motivational speaker, and real estate entrepreneur, Grant Cardone." He was just a guy they were interviewing, not like this internet sensation. He recently bought a house in Malibu, I think it was for $60 million, and he was like, "I'm gonna spend another... I forget, tens of millions of dollars renovating it." That's one of those things that when you see what people spend on their personal real estate, you know, it's hard to fake that. I'm just thinking, who would have thought that those things he's selling would make that much wealth? Isn't it? That's pretty crazy, isn't it?

Shaan Puri

You know what's even crazier? So, the one time I talked to Grant Cardone for an extended period, we had like, I don't know, a 40-minute conversation. Twenty minutes of it was on why buying a house is so stupid and why he rents everything. He was going off, like, people were saying, "Oh, your penthouse is rented that you're in." He's like, "Yeah, bro, your house is not an asset. Why would I buy a house?" He said, "I buy real estate that pays me, brother." He continued, "Yeah, I rent this penthouse. I always rent. I rent everything. I want to be able to move. I want to live in the place I like, and I take my money and I put it to work. You see that over there? That's my money working." You know, he's like a big-time showman, right?

Sam Parr

it is what is it like dollar bills like digging holes I don't like what's he pointing at

Shaan Puri

He's like, "Hold on, brother, I can't hear you. I got something in my ear. It's a voice telling me one question: 'Who's got my money?'" And that's what I gotta ask every morning. I wake up, look to the heavens, and I say, "Who's got my money?" Then I go and I get that money from them. I was like, "Whoa, this is incredible!"

Sam Parr

wait where'd you where'd you hang out with him for 45 minutes

Shaan Puri

So, he used to use Blab, the same product where I met Martin Shkreli. It attracted a whole bunch of grifters, and Grant Cardone was there. I was like, "Alright, who's the...?" I would go into all the rooms that had a big following. I was like, "Okay, this guy's driving a bunch of growth and engagement. You're a power user, who are you?" Sure enough, it was often people who are somewhat controversial. That's who people like to watch livestream. Grant would go on there and he would do his 10X meetups. He would just see people come in, and they'd be like, "I gotta keep doing it." By the way, if you haven't gone into this world, you need to spend 3 hours.

Sam Parr

and I need you to watch I love watching his videos he's got great

Shaan Puri

Videos... watch his community because you'll be like, "Wow, this is like the Kool-Aid drinker." So they would come on, they'd be like, "Grant, they put up the..."

Sam Parr

they call him uncle g

Shaan Puri

uncle g what's up man what's up brother and they'd be doing the 10 x 10 x alright thank you so much for all the content man I was I was broke and homeless I used to eat mcdonald's wrappers instead of the food and now I'm I just had I I got a ruth chris subscription membership and I just wanna say thank you and I had a question for you right so they would do this and then it'd be one after another of rant rant 10 x 10 x brother just wanna thank you before I was thinking where the sky is the limit and now the sky is the floor am I right amen brother and so and so they were doing this stuff and I was like wow these people are like really like they this is these are the converted right and they did so a lot of people really found value in this thing because this wasn't like a recorded testimonial this is a live stream where random people are calling in and it'd be very hard to like fake this and they're wearing the hat they're holding up the books they like they really liked his stuff and I had never heard of this guy he's like in the tech world you don't you don't know who this character is right like in your if you're in real estate you know if you're in the motivational self self help thing you know but he's not leaving like ty like tai lopez crossed all boundaries people like all knew who he was grant carden's like not like that that's the first thing you should watch second thing is he does these deal breakdowns very interesting to watch so he he's sitting at a at a table and it's like you know what's that guy ramsey dave ramsey who like you call him and you're like dave I I I make $80,000 a year and I got student debt like what should I do and he's like save your money and so people do that with grant they're like hey grant I got $200,000 I'm looking at a property the address is 3909 you know west boise street in in idaho whatever and then people and he'll goo and he he basically googles it he's got a whiteboard behind him and he basically he's like talking to the guy he's like alright so what are you putting down alright what terms are they giving you and he basically like workshops the deal with them he like kind of like sort of like a speed version of underwriting the deal live and I actually learned a bunch from it like I'm sure somebody who's like you know a real estate master is probably like oh this is all just like this is the jim cramer of like real estate here where he's saying things that make it sound smart but he's actually not considering a x y z but just from a like if you're a beginner in real estate which I am you will learn a bunch and you'll be entertained just in the style that he does things so I like that the last thing

Sam Parr

he's like it's like the he's he's got like pro wrestling vibes

Shaan Puri

Yeah, exactly. And that's why I'm doing the first stages. Because I'm like, "Why?" I said I like him. I like him because he's entertaining. I've learned some stuff, and I've been very entertained through the rest. Like, have you seen these videos on YouTube where he just does sales calls for an hour?

Sam Parr

I have I think I they're so good I think they're fake

Shaan Puri

Yeah, it might be fake because he'll be like... he's always pulling a rabbit out of a hat. And you're like, "Oh dude, it's like a pickup artist." It's like you watch their video and you're like, "Oh my God!" You know, she was literally just... she was getting into her cab, but he said this one thing and then she got out of the cab and started talking to him. This guy's amazing! And you're like, "Wait a minute, maybe he just edited like three really good ones out of 500 failures into this video." That's kind of what it feels like. But he's doing an hour of continuous sales calls, and so it might be scripted where the guy on the other line is like, "Yeah, I'll say yes, just call me." Yeah, we'll play... we'll role play here.

Sam Parr

It's like the TV show *Pawn Stars*. You're telling me, like, "Holy shit!" In one day, you had a guy come in with a Civil War gun, a guy who had Napoleon's hat, and another guy that owns a Picasso—all in Las Vegas, coming into a pawn shop. That's crazy!

Shaan Puri

Yeah, it's like, dude, the Undertaker was dead and then he came back to life and won the match. It's like, yeah, you're falling for a scripted drama, right? Like, it might be that, but nonetheless, these sales calls are very entertaining to listen to. It's obviously very *Wolf of Wall Street* style—like macho sales. But I like to see it because I've never seen anything like that. First of all, I don't do phone sales; that's not even in my life. Secondly, I don't know people who are as ridiculous as Grant Cardone and are willing to say things as ridiculous as he does. Third, this is not a style of communication or salesmanship that I think you can read or study or intuit. So, it's just nice to see it. Anyway, I've gone down these rabbit holes of Grant Cardone and I've come out the other side being like, yeah, he is definitely self-promoting. It seems like he's making most of his money on the brand and not the meat and bones of his business. But, you know, respect—he hustles really hard. He's a good self-promoter and he is smart. He does well. So, you know, I don't think that you're not learning from somebody who's a hack; he's not somebody who's a hack.

Sam Parr

hack you know I don't think he's a hack at all

Shaan Puri

I think maybe I isn't that

Sam Parr

well I think maybe I just don't always agree in his values but I don't think he's lying

Shaan Puri

Right, I think the criticism would not be that this guy is dumb or lazy or anything like that. The criticism would be that he's just selling you, you know, a bag of dreams basically. He makes his money on people who want to be him and want to be like him, and they're not really going to be like him. He's sort of, you know, promoting that dream. I would say that that's probably true, but I think that's true of a lot of things in life. Like, that's true of Nike also. When I go buy Nike sneakers, you know, because Michael Jordan wore them, do I really think Michael Jordan's a scumbag? No, I'm not. He's not tricking me into thinking I can be like Mike. But yeah, that is actually what the commercial literally says.

Sam Parr

Dude, I'm working on this new thing and I want to tell you two things about it. I'm working on this new business and I'm still MVP-ing it out, making sure it's legit. I've got six figures in revenue now—six figures of cash in the bank—and it was all from phones. I was calling constantly, no website, just a type form and calling them, and then setting up a Stripe link.

Shaan Puri

So, what's effective on the call? Give me the strategy of the call without sharing what you don't want to share.

Sam Parr

I'm not in I'm not really selling so basically the thing that I'm I'm making like a community for a particular

Shaan Puri

type of salesman claim I'm not gonna sell you anything

Sam Parr

well because because here's here's the thing

Shaan Puri

know what that's the no offense but of sales

Sam Parr

So, the place where the business is at right now is that I only want, let's say, 50 people to join. I don't want a lot of people to join because I want to make sure that it's legitimate and good. Also, because it's an exclusive, private, paid community, I need to ensure that each person can actually provide value for one another. So, I can't just let anyone in; I can only let in the type of person who makes the next...

Shaan Puri

person feel yeah feel more value because they came in

Sam Parr

So, in a way, I'm like, "No, I really like... I don't know if I have space for you. I don't know if we can make this work." But we may be. And that's why I'm here to interview, to see if this will be a good fit for you. And that's basically what I'm doing. It's like, I also...

Shaan Puri

you're using the bullshit line but this time it's not actually bullshit it's real this time

Sam Parr

I... yeah, I guess that's true. But, like, I don't know how to explain it. It is true; we only have a certain... I can only make it truly work for a few people. Otherwise, it sucks. Remember how we interviewed the chief folks? She said that they had 60,000 people apply, but they only have like 10,000 or 15,000 members. So, I kind of believe it. But anyway, I'm working on it. I went to this... I'm starting it with my friend Joe, and we did something interesting the other day. When I had started companies in the past, I partnered with the wrong people—not every time, but sometimes. The mistake that I'm trying to avoid this time is basically making sure I partner with the right folks when we did this... by thing.

Shaan Puri

You're saying "partner" like business partner, not like an external partnership. You're talking about your co-founder type of thing.

Sam Parr

Business partner... like someone who you give a substantial amount of equity to, which is very similar to a marriage. I actually did this in my marriage, but I've never done this with a business partner. We basically said, "Hey, separately write down three things. Write down what success looks like to you in 10 years. What are you willing to give up in order to achieve that? And just your day-to-day... what do you value and how do you want to get there?" So we each wrote that down and came together. We were like, "Alright, here are all the things that are important to me. Let's look at what's important to you." Oh wow, they actually align really nicely! This thing doesn't align... is that a game breaker for you? Then there was another thing that we went through: scenarios. We were like, "Let's say you're Lance Armstrong in 1999. You know that everyone's cheating and you have to cheat if you want to win. What are you going to do?"

Shaan Puri

right

Sam Parr

Like, how do you want to play? What do you want to play? There's no right or wrong answer, but it's just like, let's see how our values align in different scenarios. So anyway, we've been doing this thing where we're trying to figure out why this partnership won't work. Let's get all that out of the way at first, and it has been awesome. More people should do this. Have you ever done this?

Shaan Puri

I have actually done that which is so funny you say this we did something so similar we we sort of stumbled upon it organically in our first business because the first business I ever created was that sushi business and the idea was to create like a chipotle like restaurant chain for sushi and so we're going about it we've been at this at this? We've been doing it for I don't know 6 to 9 months something like that so we're not like it's not like the it's not like day 1 we've already already committed we already have the equity splits and we're all best friends we've known each other for 4 years so like surely we know everything about each other right and a smarter business person kind of like a mentor type dude was like at this time we were really big on mentors he was like oh he was like you know how aligned are you guys he's like if I so it was the guy we wanted to partner with the chef he was like he he flew each of us out 1 by 1 to la and hung out with us and he told us he was like yeah I feel like all of you guys say the same words but they mean different things and I was like what do you mean he goes like you all be like you know oh man this what really matters is that we do this like the right way he's like but I think you all have a different definition of the right way or like we yeah we all want this to be a success I I think if I asked you what you mean by success like put a number put a time frame around it like I bet you it's all different and so we came home we he told he gave us that feedback and we did it we did the same exercise we go I I created a list of questions and we all went sat in our corner of the room silently and we wrote our answers and then we came and we compared and jesus they were so different me and 1 guy were both pretty aligned and the 3rd guy and we all thought we were all totally aligned the 3rd guy his was like way different and the biggest differences were like timescale like how long do you how long do you expect to work on this before we see any like any like tangible success what are your expectations on that and then what would be a win for you and it was like one guy was like oh man like if I could be making 6 figures and like you know and you know I'll do this forever and then I was like oh dude I wanna like I wanna make $10,000,000 in you know 3 years and the other guy was like somewhere in the middle and then we were like oh wow like we all have a like you would be happy with one path and I would be completely unhappy if that same thing we both are and if we didn't talk about it our definition of success would have been very different and the same thing with values of like what for 1 for 2 of us it was super important like look I don't know if this business is gonna work or not but I wanna do it our way like the thing that makes this fun for me like there's a lot of shitty components to doing this business the part that makes me like wanna wake up and do it every day is that I feel like we're putting our own stamp on this and for the other guy he's like yeah that's cool but like I don't really care about that and we're like oh shoot it's important to know how important it is because so today spend a bunch of energy doing it yeah it well it was clarifying like we were sort of at

Sam Parr

The... Where we're the partners? Yeah, well that's why I'm saying you gotta do this early on because in a way, a business partnership is actually more of a commitment than a marriage. Because with a marriage, you can just like end it and be over. With a business, screwing up your cap table and someone owning a portion of your... I mean, that could be... it's just a... it's just kind of an irreversible decision. And the only way that you reverse it is by spending a lot, a lot, a lot, a lot, a lot of money.

Shaan Puri

Yeah, like what we did, what was lucky for us, was that we were all 21 years old. So we were all like a blank slate. It's like, "Dude, I don't know." This was just my first thought. I'm not like married to this belief system, you know? So there were very few things that we were like, "No, I am certain and I'm stubborn on that." Now in my life, if I said something, if I answered 10 questions, 8 out of the 10 would be things I'm like, "No, I stand by that. Like, that's really... I've thought this through and that's what I believe." Back then, it was like, "I don't know. I hadn't really thought about it." But now you're asking me to articulate it, so I'll just say these things. What happened in our situation was we would all hear each other's answers and then we would be like, "Oh, I like that. That's right. Let's all agree to align on that." And we were like, "Yeah, yeah, sure, that sounds better. I don't know what the heck I was thinking. I'm not married to that." So it worked for us because it got us to a right answer versus who's right, you know what I mean?

Sam Parr

yeah this exercise that I've been doing with joe we

Shaan Puri

Should we publish this, by the way? Because, you know, I think we talked about this one time. It was like some New York Times article that was titled "17 Questions You Should Ask Your Future Spouse" or something like that, like before... dude.

Sam Parr

It was like, there were 27 questions to ask on the first date. As a single guy who just wanted to meet girls, I thought, "Oh, I'm just going to ask these." It was like 27 questions to make someone fall in love with you or something like that. It was geared towards relationships, and I thought, "Oh, I'm asking every woman out with this. This is the first date question, the first hour of the first date." I remember doing it like three times, and I thought, "Those fuckers at The New York Times, they didn't know what the hell they were talking about. None of these people like me."

Shaan Puri

Okay, yeah, maybe I misremembered. But I do think it would be useful, whatever you and Joe just did. I did this, I don't know, 10 or 12 years ago now. I think you did it just last month, so you should definitely compile these. More people can do this because it'll straight up save people years of pain in their life if they can identify some of these things upfront versus just rushing into the co-founding.

Sam Parr

I mean, I like it. It was like, "Alright, so here's what I want just in my personal life." I put down a net worth goal. I said, "I want to have a seat at the big boys' table, and I want people to think that I know what I'm talking about when it comes to business." I want freedom. I want to be able to live in different cities with my family. I want to be present in my children's lives. I want to own a bunch of real estate. I want to have fun and adventure. I want to work really hard for 3 or 4 weeks or for 6 or 7 months, and then I want to chill for like 3 months. Then it was like, "Alright, the ways I want to get there is by building this particular business." I don't want a boss. I don't want to have any meetings. I want to have few, if any, employees reporting to me. Basically, that's it. Oh, and I have a revenue target of $100,000,000 in 5 years. I don't care if we actually hit that, but I want that to be the target. Then he answered similarly on a lot of those points. It's like, "Alright, there's some alignment here."

Shaan Puri

Nice, nice. Okay, I like that. And yeah, I think you should publish some of those things. Also, the Lance Armstrong things—I think those are important. If nothing else, it doesn't really matter, but it's about knowing how the other person is wired. It's about asking yourself, "Am I okay with this? Am I okay with the weird psychology of this person?" I think it's not so much about whether all of our answers match. Just like in a marriage, it's not about thinking the same way about everything. It's about whether we think the same way about the really important things.

Sam Parr

alright so what did you say would you would you if you're in the land situation what do you do

Hubspot

I for sure cheat. You basically have two options: you either exit the sport or you cheat. It's not even cheating at that point. When everybody is doing it, it's just the new normal. It would be one thing if one person is cheating and they're winning while everybody else is clean. Would you cheat to try to win, or would you stay clean? My belief is that all these Olympic sports, and pretty much all professional sports, are full of performance enhancers. It's just a naivete test whether you believe that people are clean or not. It's like, "Oh my God, what percentage of NBA players do you think cheat on their wives?" I don't know, but the answer is yes—not a number. There might be one outlier, and cool, credit to that person for being the outlier, the AC Green of this. But I think the same thing applies to cheating. So yeah, that one's an easy one. As for our software, it's the worst. Have you heard of HubSpot? Most CRMs are a cobbled-together mess, but HubSpot is easy to adopt and actually looks gorgeous. I think I'd love our new CRM. Our software is the best. HubSpot: grow better.

Sam Parr

Dude, do you want to quickly go through some of your topics, or do you want to talk about a company that I had listed? What do you want to do?

Shaan Puri

let's do one of yours and then we'll do one of mine we'll finish up

Sam Parr

alright have you heard of this company called n2 publishing

Shaan Puri

no what do they do

Sam Parr

The reason I like this story is because they're succeeding wonderfully in a place that everyone thought it was impossible to succeed. It's called N2 Publishing; they just rebranded it last week to Stroll. It's basically neighborhood magazines—magazines in upscale neighborhoods. I'm almost positive they have around 800 of these, or maybe 650, but they're all print. So, it's like in Danville or in a nice suburb. I don't even know what the very specific neighborhood you're in would be called.

Shaan Puri

I don't live there but blackhawk is like an example

Sam Parr

in black no

Shaan Puri

no but blackhawk is an example of a nice neighborhood in danville

Sam Parr

So, what they do is send you a magazine once a month. It's just a magazine; it's like a bulletin or a newsletter. I don't know what you want to call it, but it's literally a physical magazine. The company has about 250 employees, most of whom are ad salespeople. They hire someone—not exactly hire, it's a franchise. So, someone who lives in Blackhawk pays about $5 or $10 to become the official publisher of that area. That person has to gather a couple of stories every single month. But the stories really aren't that good. There's this old idea with local publishing where people don't care about the writing; they literally just want to see people they know, their friends, and places they recognize in a newspaper. You could just list all their names, and they would like that. That's kind of what they do. It's just a magazine every month that says, "Here's what's going on." For example, the local high school had their graduation, and eight people went to Stanford. A new restaurant opened, and the guy is a Greek immigrant bringing some of his Greek flavors to the area. The feta is amazing, and it just goes from thing to thing. Anyway, it's a bootstrap business that's been around for about 18 years. They announced that they're doing $150 million a year in revenue, and they've been profitable every single year. They don't have a website; the headquarters has a website, but each individual magazine does not. It's 100% done through paper. Everything they're doing is something you would say can't be done, and it's kind of killing it. It's a major business, isn't that wild?

Shaan Puri

so so how did you get these numbers did they is it something public that like do they have all their numbers

Sam Parr

Yeah, so if you Google "Stroll Axios," they just did a big announcement on Axios last week. The founder and the CEO kind of gave their revenue. He said, "We do $130,000,000 in revenue. We have over 18,000 advertisers."

Shaan Puri

wow

Sam Parr

We've been profitable every single year. We expect revenue to double every four years. That was, I believe, an exact quote. We're just expanding to all these cities, and we changed our name from N2 to Stroll. It's kind of a really fascinating story. I guess if it's doubling every five years, that means it's growing, what, like 10 or 15% a year? So it's not like we're killing it, but it's doing pretty good.

Shaan Puri

Yeah, that's... 14% a year. Wow! This is, I mean, you've done it again—a Sanpar special. How do you find these businesses? This is amazing!

Sam Parr

it's pretty wild

Shaan Puri

no literally that's a real question how did you find this business

Sam Parr

I just read, like, there's this blog I read called **Flash in Flames**. If you Google **Flash in Flames**, it's just some guy named Colin in England who writes about cool B2B media companies. I read loads of trade publications, like trade publications that have literally 500 website visits a day. It's just the most niche stuff, and I read it.

Shaan Puri

I want

Sam Parr

And if you Google it, it's hard to even find their website. The only way you can find it is by typing the CEO's name, which is Dwayne Hickson. So, you have to type in something like "N2" because there are like 10 or 20 companies called N2, right? N2 and Dwayne Hickson, and that's how I found it. When I did a little research on him, I think they're heavily rooted in Christian values because their mission is to create jobs, value people, and bring glory to God. We just so happen to be doing it through creating this newspaper thing.

Shaan Puri

is that our podcast mission or that's theirs

Sam Parr

Both... so anyway, it's just kind of an interesting guy outside of our world. Really fascinating.

Shaan Puri

Dude, this is great! I wonder how many more of these there are. I could imagine somebody doing a "Doctor's Office Daily" or "Doctor's Office Monthly," or whatever, like a "Doctor's Office Magazine." You just go to every doctor's office and you're like, "Hey, here's this awesome magazine for doctors who run their practices." If you eat the cost of the print, then you could basically go to advertisers and pharmaceutical companies and be like, "Hey, we have 15,000 doctor's offices that read and subscribe to our thing, and you should advertise."

Sam Parr

But here's the thing: selling local ads is challenging. The advertisers, like local dentists and realtors, are selling ads that cost around $500. That's a tough business. You just have to be like "smile and dial." You know, you have to do it constantly. So maybe they threw that whole "God" shtick in there because they're thinking, "You're doing it for the will of God." Therefore, you have to be motivated to be on the phone all day selling a $500 ad to Kathy in Scottsdale, Arizona, about coming to her open house. Right? That's a hard sell. That's a grind. Ben could do it for two years, but he probably wouldn't want to do it for three or four more years. It's a hard job.

Shaan Puri

But what I'm saying is, if you did this for other subgroups, right? So, like a doctor's office, you wouldn't then need to advertise locally. You could advertise to all the companies that sell to medical professionals. Or, like if I created an e-commerce Shopify magazine, and I send this to every Shopify owner's home, I'm just putting out awesome case studies about e-commerce. They're just cool stories of brands or whatever. In it, I just go tell Klaviyo and Postscript and every e-commerce company—every company that sells to e-commerce stores, like every Shopify app—I'm like, "Yeah, you should advertise in this thing." We have pretty hyper-targeted distribution. Basically, the question is, is this better than a newsletter? You know both spaces. We know that Andrew's doing this local news thing, but for not neighborhoods, but for local cities, and he's doing it through a newsletter, right? His company, Overstory. What's better, this magazine idea or newsletters, in your opinion?

Sam Parr

So, I actually think that's the wrong question. What's quite interesting is that they're selling a franchise, which is very weird for a media company. That is actually the more interesting thing. Do I think this is an awesome business? Yes. Do I think it's better than a newsletter? No, I would probably do the newsletter. However, I would consider doing it this way: You're like, "Hey, we have 10,000 people already pre-signed up for this small neighborhood in Arizona. Do you want to buy this list from us as a publisher? It's a $10,000 buy-in, and we'll monetize it for you. You get 15% of all the revenue that we sell, but you gotta make sure that you put it out all the time." That is kind of an intriguing business model. Do I think that it's better because it's in print? I definitely think it's potentially more interesting. I think the ad rates could potentially be higher because it is actually quite cool to hold and see something. I think it's a very fascinating business model, and I think you could also do this with a lot of different things.

Shaan Puri

What did they say about the cost of actually printing and delivering? You have to print and mail magazines, right? Which kind of costs you something. So that's like the biggest difference from a newsletter. You get the tracked clicks, and you have no hard costs for the printing and shipping of the magazine. Do you know at all what that costs?

Sam Parr

No, I don't. They didn't reveal too much, but they basically said that their national team has editorial oversight on what's published to ensure that editorial standards are nonpartisan and community-focused news. They keep a cut of all ad revenue. They have local operators, so the people who run the local papers and local magazines use Schol's national printing, copy editing, and operational resources. The company distributes the magazine for free in readers' mail. It's pretty fascinating; it's an interesting business. You know what else is kind of interesting? Did you hear about ConvertKit? ConvertKit is like a Mailchimp competitor. I went to the conference this weekend. It's an email platform. I think you use them, right?

Shaan Puri

yeah I use them

Sam Parr

Do you see the thing? They low-key announced something that's kind of amazing. The reason this is actually quite fascinating is that they launched this initiative where they now hired an ad sales team. They're going to go out and sell ads, and they're going to give you, Sean, the user, **85%** of the revenue that they sell.

Shaan Puri

Yeah, this is smart. I was always wondering why the email platforms don't do this. Because once you start your newsletter, you're like, "Alright, cool." You get people being like, "Hey, can I sponsor it?" You're like, "Yeah." Then you de facto become ad sales, and guess what? You're not great at it because you're not doing it full-time.

Sam Parr

of it it sucks

Shaan Puri

It sucks, and you would happily pay somebody a 15% commission for filling your ad spots and doing it well. I was always thinking, like, you know, sort of a Mailchimp, a Beehive, ConvertKit... why aren't they just making this their business model? In addition to their SaaS revenue of paying for the email stuff, couldn't they? You know, ConvertKit's at pretty significant scale. I wonder how big this is going to be for them.

Sam Parr

Dude, listen to this. The hustle... there was a time when Trung was on fire, and he was our only writer. We had people that would kind of fill in when he was sick, but basically, he wrote the email by himself every day for like 8 months. We were doing over $1,000,000 a month in revenue.

Shaan Puri

right

Sam Parr

And there was one Trung, and there were like 20 ad salespeople. That's ridiculous! That is crazy. It was pretty crazy. Then we had Adams, so we had like 4 growth marketers. But that business could have been Trung and like 4 growth marketers, and it could have been making over $1,000,000 a month.

Shaan Puri

right

Sam Parr

But we had like 8, 10, or 5... I don't even remember exactly. We had ad salespeople, and then each ad salesperson needs an operations person, along with editors to edit the ads. It was like Morning Brew. I think they have 250 people. I don't know for a fact, but I would bet you that Morning Brew has 30 editorial people and 220 ad sales or ad sales-related people.

Shaan Puri

well there's some management overhead but like so with your ad sales

Sam Parr

team yeah managing the the set the sellers

Shaan Puri

when you when you had your ad team you you probably had like some commission structure or whatever right like

Sam Parr

hey yeah 4%

Shaan Puri

Yeah, so how did you compare that differently? Basically, what was your compensation model? And then, what was the overhead? The fact that you employed them versus them just being, let's say, like with ConvertKit. For example, if I write a newsletter, I'm not paying for the overhead. I'm only paying for the placement. I pay this 15% placement fee once they get me an ad. That's their commission.

Sam Parr

well it converts you

Shaan Puri

spend more or less than that in overall ad sales for the hustle do you think

Sam Parr

So, we basically, when we were getting going, we had two salary levels. We had the entry-level people, which were those with 2 or 3 years of experience. Then we had the higher-level people, which for us was around 5 or 6 years of experience. It's still not a lot of experience, but I was only 24 when I started. So, I guess basically, like a 22-year-old and a 27-year-old, those are the comparisons.

Shaan Puri

2 of those are crazy stories get my jokes or do not get my jokes that's how

Sam Parr

you decide your concept yeah yeah yeah

Shaan Puri

yeah

Sam Parr

And the earlier ones, the younger guys, it ranged from about $50,000 to $70,000 a year in base salary. The upper guys got around $100,000 to $120,000 a year in base salary. For the upper guys, it was expected that they would sell, I forget exactly, but between $1,000,000 to $1,500,000 a year in ad revenue. They would get either 4% or 4.5% of that. The younger guys had expectations to sell between $500,000 and $900,000. We had some sellers, like this woman Katie, who would sell... I believe the year we sold, she was going into the year with $2,500,000 booked. Wow, $2,500,000! So basically, they had to get 75% of their quota. If their quota was $1,000,000 and they hit only $600,000, they only got their base salary. If they hit 75% of their quota, that's when the 4% started kicking in. If they got to 101%, then the kickers would go up, and they would start making a lot of money. So, the highest paid person at our company oftentimes was an ad seller.

Shaan Puri

And do you remember, like, did you just look at what is our percentage of revenue that we're paying out in commissions? Did you have, like, because let's just say the easy apples-to-apples math is, let's say ConvertKit will launch this thing, it's 15%. That's your cost of ad sales, basically. If they placed all your ads, do you remember what your... well?

Sam Parr

You could oversimplify it. Yeah, you could oversimplify it by saying **4.4%** of total ad revenue and then just assume a **$100,000** salary per head. So, let's say that you've got **10 sellers** doing **$10,000,000** in revenue. That's **$100,000** per salary for **10 people**, which totals **$1,000,000**. The commissions would be **4%** of **$10,000,000**, so that’s **$400,000**. In total, that would be **$1,400,000** for **10 ad salespeople** for **$10,000,000** in revenue. But then, of course, there were some account executives who would help with that and then like operations people. But yeah, that's basically it.

Shaan Puri

Bro, you just did a shitload of public math, and I forgive you because you're my friend. You know we don't do public math.

Sam Parr

but that's easy

Shaan Puri

so for you to just do

Sam Parr

that listen

Shaan Puri

it's just not who we are it's not what we do

Sam Parr

did you follow

Shaan Puri

I I I tried to follow but it's like you're speaking another language you you you did it right

Sam Parr

I said 10,000,000 in revenue

Shaan Puri

you did it right too

Sam Parr

10,000,000 revenue% there

Shaan Puri

Right, which is about the same as theirs. So, for all that headache of employing all those people, you saved like 1%, let's say, of the commission rate. Now, maybe you would feel higher, or maybe you'd do a better job than the centralized service would, probably, I would guess.

Sam Parr

But here's why it's also a better model. One time, we had Goldman Sachs or something as an advertiser, and we had a story on Fuck Jerry. Fuck Jerry is like this meme Instagram account that shares funny stuff. They launched something like Fuck Jerry News. I was like, "Oh, well, let's make this email interesting. By the way, every single sentence, let's use the word 'fuck' in it." Then, another time, we talked about Donald Trump, and we decided, "This entire email, let's write it in the voice of Donald Trump." So, if you read it to yourself, it sounds like Donald Trump. Goldman Sachs got really mad at us. They said, "You said 'fuck' like literally 84 times in this email. We are not sponsoring you anymore." I was like, "Well, good! Fuck off! I don't care about you. Screw you, fuck you." But Katie sold the ad, and her commission was going to get lost. So, I was like, "Okay, I don't want to hurt you, so I'm willing to not say certain stuff just because I don't want you to experience the pain." But I don't give a shit about that brand. If they want to muzzle us, screw them.

Shaan Puri

right

Sam Parr

So now, with this new setup, it actually could be a lot more advantageous for the creator.

Shaan Puri

Katie's amazing, by the way. We work with her too; she's really good. So, do we want to do another one, or are we going to wrap it up?

Sam Parr

we can do one more maybe

Shaan Puri

let's do okay let me just do a you want an idea or a life hack

Sam Parr

a life hack

Shaan Puri

Alright, so, Ben... business partner Ben, not podcast Ben. Yeah, Ben, I might just refer to you as "God's Ben," and the other Ben I'm going to have to say is "not God's Ben." So, not God's Ben was entirely...

Sam Parr

yeah yahweh he's you gotta call him yahweh jesus

Shaan Puri

so so he's visiting and I was like and so you know it's always interesting right like in one way you know he he came you know basically stays in my house we we hang out for for the week and we get a bunch of stuff done so he gets to see a bunch of stuff in my world about how I live life and I'm sure that's you know somewhat interesting to him where he sees some things he's like oh wow thank god I don't do them that way and other things he's probably like oh that's cool like maybe I should be more like that and the but the same thing happened for me because ben on the last day I see ben and he's like I'm like oh yeah you know you're just packing up what are you doing oh what are you writing now because he's he's like hunched over his table he's he's like got a pen out he's writing something by hand which is not like you know we do everything on a computer so I was like what are you writing now and I noticed he's not holding a pen he's holding a marker and he he's drawing and I was like ben what are you doing man what are you drawing and he's he's drawing like a birthday card basically on a giant piece of paper and he's got 6 of them and he's drawn all these and I'm like what is this it's like my daughter's birthday what are you doing he's like no it's my dad's birthday and he's like oh it's that family tradition we have he goes every time it's someone in our family's birthday we all get out a get out like paper and markers and we draw them like birthday cards and it'll be like you know inside jokes or like dad you're the man for this reason you know I we always say that you got the best whatever oh just you got the best cavs and so he draws a picture of him with like huge cavs or whatever right you love this you love the suns here's a picture of chris paul holding a birthday cake for you singing you happy birthday like this player on the suns and so it's just like whatever it's just goofy and I saw it and I was like this is amazing and like everything he's told me about his dad by the by the way his dad listens to pod so shout out to shout out to andy his dad's amazing and like I'll tell you one thing that's amazing about his dad is he's like so his dad's a huge phoenix suns fan so is ben I'm like oh did you get it from your dad like your dad you know growing up was a huge fan so that's why you are he's like no it's the opposite growing up my dad didn't really care about basketball or the suns and I got super into it and he's like my dad just does this thing where like whatever each of his kids is into he like he's like alright I'm into it too and like not just like in a small

Sam Parr

that's a great dad move

Shaan Puri

The great dad move, right? So I was like, "Holy shit, I didn't even... I'm a dad now." I didn't even think about that. He's not just supportive because I think that's normal. The comment would be, "You're supportive. Oh, you like this? Great! Go on, do your thing. I'll show up at your game and I'll kind of be, you know, doing the crossword on my lap because I'm bored. It's not my thing." His dad's the opposite. He's like, "Oh, you like the Suns?" No, we like the Suns! We love everything about the Suns. We eat, live, and breathe the Suns. And for his other kid, his other son does real estate. He's like, "Oh, you do real estate?" No, no, no. We do real estate! So he works for his son for free, just helping him sell real estate 40 hours a week because he's like, "Oh yeah, we gotta sell some real estate. I'm in!" He's like a free employee who's hitting up LinkedIn.

Sam Parr

he doesn't pay him

Shaan Puri

like he loves this podcast because he'll hear growth ideas and he'll be like oh so I'm gonna do that for my son's real estate business

Sam Parr

wait that's a that's an amazing amazing dad and a horrible son pay your dad dawg

Shaan Puri

No, he's just... he doesn't want the money. He's that creative with Dad. Then the other son, like, he does this comedy thing and he's like, "Oh, comedy? Alright, I'm in the comedy scene now." He does that, and I was like, "Wow, I'm gonna do this." So on the dad's side, I was like, "Hold on." Ben works with me, and Andy basically works with me too. He listens to every episode of the podcast and responds to every email we put out. He’s not trying to get special treatment; he replies like a fan. He'll be like, "Oh yeah, I do my five tweets," and he's like, "I love number 3," or "I love the way you and Sam did this." I'm like, "Dude, how sick is that to have your dad become your wingman for your favorite hobby or your passion? I'm gonna do that." So that was the first learning. The second was this birthday thing. He's like, "Yeah, my mom came up with this early on: love's not about the gifts, and this is just a fun thing we do for each other." And we always do it... we...

Sam Parr

we did it

Shaan Puri

you did what

Sam Parr

this is birthday poster so when you wake up too

Shaan Puri

is this like a white person thing I just don't know about

Sam Parr

I don't know

Shaan Puri

but I mean shit I don't know

Sam Parr

In my house, when you wake up on your birthday, my mom would put posters all over the house. All of the other kids would see them.

Shaan Puri

the same thing

Sam Parr

threw out

Shaan Puri

wow okay

Sam Parr

I don't know man what did

Shaan Puri

you that did you do this too

Sam Parr

we don't

Shaan Puri

where did you get this

Sam Parr

no this is this is new to me as well no

Ben Wilson

no no no

Shaan Puri

same yeah

Sam Parr

We had it as well, and honestly, it made my day. I would be so eager to walk upstairs. It's kind of like when you walk upstairs and you see stuff around the Christmas tree. I felt that same joy. I walk up the stairs and I see my signs all over the place, dude. I know that I get the breakfast that I want that day. It's pretty cool.

Shaan Puri

This... so, I basically don't even care about my birthday anymore because it's always the same thing. I hate the sameness of life. There are so many things that are just the same all the time. Like when Facebook came out with the "Happy Birthday" reminder, then your wall becomes a thousand people who don't really care about you writing "Happy Birthday."

Sam Parr

hate that I hate that because then I feel guilty like I gotta reply

Shaan Puri

Yeah, I never reply, and like, you know, it's just the same thing, right? But what other people do is let me throw money at the problem, which becomes a different kind of burden. It's like, "I gotta get you a gift. I gotta think of something." Or if, let's say, I go buy you a nice card, it's like, "Dude, the pub birthday poster is so much better than a Hallmark card." Because it's like, a) it's actually thoughtful, and b) it's kind of goofy and funny. It's more entertaining and has a personal touch, right? So, I love this idea. When we came home from that farming conference, my daughter had drawn a poster that says, "Welcome home, Dada." It's still the first post in my bathroom. It's a poster on the wall. Every day I go to the bathroom, I see "Welcome home, Dada." The bathroom is my home, which is, you know, a little bit true. So I'm like, this personal poster thing is a great life hack. It got me thinking, I'm going to start stealing everybody's favorite family tradition. So that's my new question for people: "Yo, what are these family traditions you got? What are the things that y'all do?" People don't even know; they're so baked into their operating life that they don't even recognize them. Then you kind of keep digging, and you'll find them. If it's a family tradition that's lasted, like, you know, 20 years of your life, it's probably awesome, and I should steal that for my own family. What do you think?

Sam Parr

Yeah, I think that's good. I'm trying to think of what... if I even have like my family. We're all atheists, but we still pray before every time we eat dinner. You don't eat until you pray, even though no one believes in God. That's like an interesting tradition we do. We do birthday posters. I don't think we have any other traditions like that. I wonder... I bet Ben has a ton.

Ben Wilson

a bunch but the one that we start I

Sam Parr

think I talked about this

Ben Wilson

So, we started doing our end-of-year reviews where we conduct product reviews and preview the year to come. That's our newest tradition, and I like that one a lot.

Sam Parr

yeah but that that's some new age shit though

Shaan Puri

what that's new age

Sam Parr

that's new age

Shaan Puri

actual product reviews like I love this microphone or what do you mean

Ben Wilson

No, no, no, no. It's just like reviewing the year... What was Ben's 2021 or whatever? And then previewing. Yeah, yeah, but no, the other... like, well, we have a bunch of traditions. We do have a bunch of traditions. One of the simple ones is we eat waffles every Sunday morning. It's just like a thing I know I can look forward to every week. My wife makes really good waffles with strawberries. She just goes all out. Yeah, it's just one over-the-top meal a week that I know I can always look forward to, and I love it.

Sam Parr

you don't have any sean

Shaan Puri

No, I do. I have some. And now I'm like... I give credit to my dad. My dad was really the one who brought the fun factor with some of these things, whereas my mom's more practical. My dad would do the same thing once a week, like the Monday night dinner. It's like, "Oh, Dad's making dinner!" Oh, sweet! It's not because he's a better cook, but he would just add some showmanship to it. He would get this tray, and everyone had their own circular tray with like four dishes in it. Then he would add a quarter, and we were all like, "Yeah, the coin's there! I got a quarter!" It was like the equivalent of a McDonald's Happy Meal, but with a quarter.

Sam Parr

and like and there would

Shaan Puri

There was always some flourish. There was always something that was like a little extra that he would do. For example, he would come home and put his wallet down, but the game was that I would always steal the wallet. He'd run and chase me, and I'd have to hide it. The game was about whether he could get his wallet back. It was about how to turn that two minutes of coming home from "Oh, hey, how's it going?"—autopilot—into something that's actually fun and breaks everybody's mood for a second. He used to do things like that.

Sam Parr

question to ask someone what family what what's a really good family tradition yeah I'm gonna steal them too

Shaan Puri

like a

Sam Parr

good idea I had

Shaan Puri

A buddy actually just came to mind. I don't even think I want to steal this because I don't think I could convince my family to do it, but his family did it. I remember because he started dating this girl, and I was like, "Oh, how's it going?" You know, dating Mike or whatever. And she was... or I think it may be the other way around. I was like, "How's it going dating this girl?"

Sam Parr

she's like they got the she's like they got this weirdest tradition they kiss on the lips

Shaan Puri

Yeah, basically it was that he was like, "Yeah, they go to..." He's like, "I went on their annual family vacation to Tahoe or whatever. They went to a cabin and I'm expecting skiing and all this other stuff." And there was, but at night they did this thing. I'm like, "Oh shit, what did they do? Is it like a blood cult? What's going on?" And he's like, "Yeah, they all read Harry Potter, but like they read it aloud and they read it in the voices." And he's like...

Sam Parr

oh my god

Shaan Puri

he's like so they hit me up

Sam Parr

that's a bit much

Shaan Puri

They're sitting there in the circle. Yeah, exactly. But I was like, to them, it was like their thing. And I was like, you know what? As cringe as I would feel doing that—and I love Harry Potter, by the way—but as cringe as I would feel doing, you know, Dumbledore's voice as I read the book, that would be a lot for me. And definitely a lot for me if I'm the visiting boyfriend into that family. That was like a lot. But, you know, respect to have a family that's willing to be a little silly even as everybody gets old. I really respect that. And like, if that's your thing, that's your thing. Alright, whatever. Like, you know, let me go ahead and read, you know, "Order of the Phoenix" in the voice. Like, let's do this.

Sam Parr

You know, like I say, cornrows and tattoos, or cornrows and sleeve tattoos. I respect that others do it, but that ain't for me. Not for me.

Shaan Puri

Dude, you wanna know my... I tweeted this out yesterday to just bother people. I called product managers "the bottled water of tech." It's just a funny backhanded slap. Nobody knows what to make of it. It's a compliment, but it's clearly kind of an insult. I like bottled water, but I guess bottled water is way more useless. Then somebody one-upped it, and I'm like, "Oh, that's my new thing." He goes, "They're more like the throw pillows." I was like, "Dude, throw pillows are such a good diss!" It's like, you know, girls love them. They look good, but they're completely useless and annoying when you actually need to go to sleep. So calling something "the throw pillow of X" is just an awesome slam that I'm saving up in my back pocket to use.

Sam Parr

I met people at this conference that I went to, and there were a lot of listeners there. Someone came up to me and said, "So, when did you guys decide to make the switch from talking about business to just being like 12-year-olds?"

Shaan Puri

oh amazing

Sam Parr

and are

Shaan Puri

you slammed and amazing

Sam Parr

And yeah, that's what he said. He goes, "Are you happy with that switch?" I was like, "A, I don't remember," and "B, yeah, I think so." But I was like, "Yeah, there definitely was a decision, and I'm happy with that."

Shaan Puri

thank you and fuck this is my reaction to that

Sam Parr

But he's like, "Do you..." He's like, "Was there..." But he wasn't trying to roast me. He was like, it was Steph's fiancé, Steph's best fiancé. And he goes, "I love the pod, but when was that switch made where you were gonna go from talking about actual business to being 12 when I was 12?"

Shaan Puri

We had a question like this, which was, "When did you tell your dad you're gay?" You probably know it. It was like the viral question that went through our middle school, like COVID. It was instant. Someone said this, and people realized, "Oh my God, it's a hilarious trap question. There's no good answer to this question." Literally, everybody in every school in the school district of Texas was saying this question for like three months, and then it went away. That's what that question is like. "Oh, when did you guys decide to switch the podcast up to being like 12-year-old idiots?" It's like...

Sam Parr

Yeah, he just totally *alpha'd* me and I was like, "Oh, I don't remember Calvin." It was pretty good.

Shaan Puri

and on that note we're out

Sam Parr

alright I alright we're out to you