The #1 Most Underrated Quality in an Entrepreneur

Shaan Puri

Josh Wolf has this phrase where he says, "*chips on shoulders equals chips and pockets.*" Basically, it's when you meet an entrepreneur who's got an incurable, unhealable identity wound that ends up being somebody who ends up doing really well.

Sam Parr

Let me fill you in on some things I saw this week that I just want your opinion on: **Sam Lessin**. So, Sam Lessin — *I think he was an early Facebook employee and now he's an investor* — he says a lot of interesting stuff. He did a tweet where he talked about "revenge businesses": people who have started companies because they want revenge. An example is **Parker Conrad**. He started a company called **Zenefits**, which was a fast-growing company — it kicked ass. He got fired because it had a bro-y culture: people were caught having sex in stairwells and doing drunk, dumb shit. There were also some compliance issues — not everyone was compliant — so he was fired. He then started a new company called **Rippling**, which has taken off like a rocket. Sam Lessin, I guess, invested in it. Same with **Palmer Luckey**: the guy got fired from Facebook. He started Oculus and now started—what's it called—**Anduril**.

Shaan Puri

yeah andral yep

Sam Parr

and so anyway sam lesson has this really cool line he says if you have in your diligence checklist is this company a form of deep revenge the answer is yes cut the check and the reason I'm bringing this up is because oftentimes you'll talk to someone and they'll say hey man you got a lot of hate in your heart you gotta let that you gotta let that out you can't you know you can't you can't hold that in your heart and you can't like live with that I've taken the opposite approach for like the last handful of years I actually think that hate if you have in your heart it's can be really useful like revenge and rage is like a very useful feeling so is shane people will be like why are you guilting someone into like doing this or that I'm like well guilt is a wonderful emotion to improve and I wanted to get your opinion on his take here

Shaan Puri

I mean, I think it's honestly kind of genius. I think people don't like to say things like this, but there are a bunch of heuristics for investing that sound so stupid or inappropriate and are actually true and useful. For example — and you can frame this different ways — I have a friend who said, "You know how Paul Graham talks about he wants to invest in 'fierce nerds'?" A *fierce nerd* is basically a nerd who's overly competitive.

Sam Parr

and also like a little bit of a shithead

Shaan Puri

yeah exactly you know doesn't is looking to sort of break the system beat the system is is overly competitive maybe unrefined in certain other areas of their life but that's what you want and my friend was like yeah I look for fierce nerds who love money he's like specifically the for love who for who love money is a is a multiplier on the fierce nerd concept and you know we've joked on this pod before about like you know if in your pitch deck I'm like okay went on a mormon mission or like you know grew up in you know a slavic country eastern europe I'm like yep you know little + points are going off in my head these are green flags in my head it's not a for sure yes but like I'm not stupid like eventually you realize goddamn these people from utah can sell or wow these programmers from this area of the country are pretty pretty badass or when somebody is you know it's like getting a being a harvard dropout is a stronger signal than being a harvard graduate there's all these things that sound silly but actually end up being true because if you're the type of person who can get into harvard and then has enough conviction and an idea to drop out of harvard against the social pressures of harvard that actually turns out to be a pretty good filter now of course these things can be gamed if people realize that these are the signals you're looking for right like people showing up to pitch pitch meetings and like acting a little extra autistic it's like okay we kinda know what you're doing here you're trying to fit some pattern that this investor is trying to match against so all obviously all these things would be game but the it's great when you could figure out a signal that is not yet common and so this one of is this person you know is this a revenge company is a great signal it's a green flag signal

Sam Parr

Have you seen the Ted Turner documentary that recently came out on HBO? No? Everyone should go and watch it. Ted Turner has been one of my heroes for decades because his biography is so compelling. Basically, his story is that he inherited a billboard business from his father. It was a great billboard company — it was in the South and it was thriving. He took the money from that and started a local TV station. He eventually bought the Braves for cheap, bought Cox for cheap, and then parlayed all of that to bet everything on CNN. He was constantly on the brink of bankruptcy — not because his businesses were bad, but because he was pushing everything 100% of the time. There’s this great line from one of his employees about Ted’s mindset: > “Ted had a great sense of paranoia within the company — a sense that we were the little guys fighting for our lives against some big unknown guys.” The truth, of course, was that they were one of the biggest billboard companies in the South, and one of the biggest in the country. But they wanted to make everything seem more important than it probably was. In fact, Ted insisted on taking his telephone calls outside on pay phones because he wanted everyone to believe his phone was being tapped. If you watch the documentary, he does all these amazing things. For example, he felt he had to launch CNN because, at the time, CNN was the first-ever 24-hour news network. As he put it, “We owe it to America — Americans need to have an option to know what’s going on in the world.” Everything had this grand sense of mission: *we have to do this for America* or *they’re trying to crush us.* I remember thinking, “Who’s ‘they’? We’re the best.” That sense of audacity was a big takeaway from Ted that I loved. This post reminded me of that same lesson.

Shaan Puri

There's a couple other things that come to mind on this. One: **Travis Kalanick** is kinda like this. He'd gotten screwed in his first startup — literally, I think, by **Michael Ovitz** and others. Basically, it was during the *LimeWire* era... </FormattedResponse>

Sam Parr

Well, the background is **Travis Kalanick**, the founder of **Uber**. Before Uber, he started **Red Swoosh**, which was some type of *LimeWire* competitor.

Shaan Puri

sharing service

Sam Parr

yeah

Shaan Puri

Peer-to-peer file-sharing service, and he ends up not making a lot of money from it. By the way, **Naval**—same thing. He's now, like, this wise sage, this billionaire-type dude, but he was kind of an angry, vengeful dude when he started. **Opinions**, back in the day—the VCs kicked him out of the company. I think Opinions ended up going public during the com boom [dot‑com boom] or had kind of a big exit. He got nothing; he got screwed by his own VCs.

Sam Parr

he didn't make anything from that

Shaan Puri

no and he ends up suing them so he he does the thing that you normally in silicon valley the founders are very afraid to fight back against the vcs he publicly sues his own investors and ends up creating venture hacks which is a a blog dedicated to helping founders not get screwed by vcs he's like dude I didn't know how to read these term sheets and I didn't know what these contracts meant and they just kept telling me the the dangerous words oh don't worry it's all standard and he goes there's nothing more dangerous than something that than when when a lawyer or a vc tells you this is standard don't worry about it and he goes well standard ended up getting me screwed so he starts venture hacks blog and that leads to angellist which basically took the power away from in many ways the vcs and gave it to angel investors the founders it created a marketplace so you know it created more transparency more liquidity more more competition in that marketplace and angellist becomes a multibillion dollar company elon is on a revenge tour right now literally the democrats were attacking him or you know demonizing him sue you know doing suing tesla and spacex and all of his companies and adding more and more regulation and so he just flips the script goes all in on trump doe goes on a revenge tour now he's basically like you know de facto president and he's now going now he's going in with doge trying to like rip out the guts of the the the bureaucracy right like these these revenge tours are really really strong josh wolf has this phrase where he says chips on shoulders equals chips and pockets basically it's when you meet an entrepreneur who's got a deep chip on the shoulder and sort of a an uncurable unhealable you know identity wound that ends up being somebody who ends up doing really well

Sam Parr

dude that's a 10 out of 10 phrase by the way

Shaan Puri

chips and shoulders and chips and pockets

Sam Parr

yeah that's a beautiful he he knocked that one out the park

Shaan Puri

it's a good one and I've actually had trouble with this I used to go the other way we would meet somebody and they would say something that just sounded like oh dude there's a part of you that's broken inside I like you're really carrying this this revenge against somebody I used to try to a convince them that that's not they they shouldn't hold that or b like this person they're not like mature they're not wise to it and I immediately missed out on several big opportunities and again in that moment my reaction is to either a judge which is gets you nowhere or distance myself and say alright this person's not as they're not like minded they're not seeing the world the way I'm seeing it and now what I've realized is no no no I need the exact opposite reaction you go really close to that person and you hand them a check and you say can I be a part of what you're doing I'd like for your crazy psychosis to be to my financial benefit and so like I'll give you an example so so I'm very close to this person and they have basically made something they they had a bankruptcy back in their twenties late twenties I think so they were doing really well got to like a $25,000,000 net worth but were overextended they're in the real estate game we're a little bit overextended they they were doing development on behalf of this person who was expanding there's like a guy who was expanding a bunch of locations so he's like cool you're going to do 15 locations great I'm in I'll go buy these and I'll develop them for you and then that guy got in trouble that guy went to jail so now he's holding the bag on these 15 locations that could only be used for one type of business

Sam Parr

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Shaan Puri

they did deal 1 it was great deal 2 it was great deal 3 was great and so he goes awesome you want to do 18 more of these boxes great he goes and gets them permitted for this exact thing he does exactly what he's supposed to do on the real as a real estate developer but then that guy got in trouble for tax he hadn't been paying his taxes or whatever he he can no longer do this so now he's on the hook for like whatever 18 payments for a business he can't run and he can't use for any other purpose and he can't really sell it because it's distressed and it's and this happened right in 08 when the bank crisis happens and so nobody's investing in real estate anymore so he gets like basically this series of events ends up going bankrupt well he has a traumatic experience and he goes bankrupt not only he goes bankrupt he was I think he was engaged or just gotten married and all of a sudden he's back in his childhood bedroom with his wife they've had to move back to his parents' bedroom he's sort of ashamed of that

Sam Parr

and he had a $25,000,000 net worth before that yeah

Shaan Puri

And he—yeah, crazy, buying like a $1,000,000 engagement ring; that kind of thing. They turn off the lights to go to bed, and he's telling me, "You know, I promise you I will figure out a way. I don't care what the hell I have to do. I will fight back. I will figure out a way to make this right. Give me nine months. We're going to be here for nine months in this room." And, like... whatever. He gives her this inspiring speech, this *gladiator speech*, and then he turns off the lights.

Sam Parr

it's like oh shit

Shaan Puri

he had like the stars from like his you know those like sticker stars on the ceiling the neon ones that they start glowing and they just crack up laughing and he's like oh my god where am I and so and then he starts facing his revenge tour and he's in the 10 years since then has built up like a $1,000,000,000 real estate portfolio using only his own money no outside investors probably as you know I don't know something like 4 or 5,000,000 of his own equity in these deals and has you know really come back strong and so I for years have been looking for a good way to invest in real estate like I looked at should I buy my own property should I have some rental properties I think I think I kinda should take this internet money that I'm making like I'm all in on the internet and I think I should take like you know 10 20% of it and have it in like hard rock tangible assets you can go touch and feel that seems like a smart thing to do but I never knew how should I do it myself I'm a beginner and that takes time and I don't wanna go fix broken toilets should I give it to one of these funds or syndicators and then you would like meet them and you realize these guys are just fee monsters they they make all their money on the buy they don't make any money you can good luck on the sell they make their money on the acquisition fees and management fees so I didn't like them and then when I met and then when this guy was like hey you know like do do you wanna do a deal with me I was like I'm all in because the chip on this guy's shoulder of proving his dad wrong and like coming back from that bankruptcy and all of this like even though today he's super wealthy he'll never

Sam Parr

Stop. If you're a grown man who knows what it feels like to sleep with your wife in a twin bed... you know, that sticks with you. The feeling of **exposed ankles** — blankets that don't cover your ankles — stays with you.

Shaan Puri

if you've ever had to call top bunk with your wife yeah you've experienced a trauma that I would like to invest in yeah when we were selling the milk road I remember talking to I think I could say this I remember talking to some of the you know potential buyers and was like wow you've been really successful and I was like what and I tried to get to the root what what was the motivation like why did you even go this path did you was it just you had an idea and or you had you wanted to solve this problem and I talked to 2 people and one was like no this girl rejected me in 9th grade and I just remember thinking like f that like I'm gonna become somebody I'm gonna be and he's like yeah I know it sounds stupid and like it was stupid but it was effective and the other one said the same thing he's like I I was trying to live in a house we had 6 friends and we were all like hey let's live together next year and then we found this awesome house but it was a 5 bed house and they were like hey man it's only 5 beds he's like I realized I was in the bottom of my group and I was like f those guys like every night they're having fun in that house I'm gonna be building an empire and I remember just thinking like really first of all that was like 20 years ago or 15 years ago like that still bothers like that still motivates you and and they're and like don't you feel kinda silly that that that bothers you so much like you know and they were like no I feel they were silly for ever counting me out and I was like wow okay I am not wired like these people I am not fueled by the same rage and like kind of revenge instincts and I'm I'm not saying that's the only thing that motivated them but the fact that that was there still 15 years later was very surprising to me and I've now learned to bet on it

Sam Parr

I think I'm not surprised that you've never had issues, because — I've said this a bunch of times — you're very emotionally healthy, dude. I use *rage* and, like, *guilt*... [unclear: "I wanna nicotine, I wanna end nicotine, no"] and I want to get back at someone. There are times I remember my big brother saying something smart-alecky to me, and I still feel that—like, "I'm going to prove you wrong." I still feel it. Yeah. That shit runs deep, but it's pretty helpful. It... makes you pretty miserable at life, but it makes you fairly productive.

Shaan Puri

So, gonna lie — I'm *kinda jealous* about it. I think, on the whole, it's probably good. I don't have that, but it does seem *kinda badass* when I hear it.

Sam Parr

It’s crazy what happens. You know how I hate flying? I went through ten years of therapy to figure out why. I'm so claustrophobic. It comes down to when I was in second grade. My brother put me in a *full nelson* — you know, a full nelson with your big brother's fingers — and he dipped me underwater in our pool. He was teasing me, but I sucked in a little water and I legitimately felt like I was drowning. I distinctly remember thinking, "I'm dying right now — I'm about to die." He kept dunking me, and I was like, "You fucking asshole, I'm dying right now." It's crazy how little moments do that. Since then, by the way, I cannot stay in elevators. I don't like taking subways.

Shaan Puri

because you'll swim you just don't you're like I will fly

Sam Parr

"I don't like anything where I'm constricted and I *can't escape*. That's rooted in—like, I can't escape. So if it's a boat you're going to go on and you can't see the shore, it's like, no, I'm not doing that shit."

Shaan Puri

the test unlocked on you or you're saying you figured this out through therapy or something else

Sam Parr

**Therapy and hypnotherapy.** I've spent so much time and money trying to figure out the root cause and how to overcome this. It all came from a 60-second interaction with my brother when he was a kid too. He was being innocent and just messing with me. Ain't that crazy how the things that happen as a kid can impact everything?

Shaan Puri

by the way does it help when you figure out the the root cause

Sam Parr

or yeah

Shaan Puri

like does it go away a little bit no no

Sam Parr

A little bit — I guess there's this idea of getting over stuff. It's called *walking to the gallows*. When you get panicky, it feels like you're dying. In order to overcome that, you just gotta be like, "fuck it — I'm gonna go die," meaning, "I'm going to experience this thing that I'm fearful of," and you just have to do it. It's pretty bad. You have to tell yourself all these stories to help get over it. One of them is: "I only feel this way because John did this to me long ago, and I was fine. Okay, I was fine. I will make it through this." So you gotta *walk to the gallows* and tell yourself those stories. That's one of the many coping mechanisms. A lot of it just happens because of a small thing when you're a kid. It could have been some girl said this, some guy said this to you.

Shaan Puri

right

Sam Parr

and it like it's crazy it just shapes like 50 years of your life

Shaan Puri

Dude, what a sick phrase: "walk to the gallows." Wow. What—what is a gallows even? Is that, like...

Sam Parr

that's where you get hung is it from I I think it's your is that it's where you get hung it's like so the gallow is like the structure where where you're about to get hung and so like by the way I tried to break this the other day I went on the subway for the first time ever in new york I was like deathly afraid to go on the subway and I'm like we're just gonna go one stop and I was like fuck it we're walking to the gallow

Shaan Puri

There's also—this isn't just for business. This is also, you know, *"revenge body"* is a thing. Remember that Medium post we both love, "How to Lose Weight in 4 Easy Steps"? It's like: portion control, avoid beer, and then it's like—have your heart broken—not just broken, shattered into one million itsy-bitsy pieces. It talks about, basically, that the *heartbreak* is the fuel for the gym. In the same way that, you know, if you want Adele to go triple platinum, she just needs a bad heartbreak. It fuels artists, it fuels fitness, it fuels business, and I think it's sort of undeniable. I don't know if it's healthy, but it's **definitely effective**.

Sam Parr

taylor swift wouldn't write hits if she had a successful wonderful relationship

Shaan Puri

well we'll see travis kelce

Sam Parr

you know what

Shaan Puri

reading from you

Sam Parr

She hasn't had any new hits yet. She's—she's, *you know*, she has hits for a reason.

Shaan Puri

alright what else you got

Sam Parr

Alright, so—something a little bit happier. I saw this on *60 Minutes* about two weeks ago, and I cannot stop thinking about it. Let me fill you in on this story. There's a small country called **Bhutan**. Bhutan is between **India** and **China**, so it's between these behemoth countries, and because of that, a lot of people don't know about it.

Shaan Puri

and it's tiny half the size of indiana

Sam Parr

it's tiny I think their stock market is 18 companies and the total market cap of their stock market is $800,000,000 which is 1 70,000th the size of the us stock market so it's like the super small country in fact I read that in 1999 that was the 1st year they got tv so it's like this tiny country well in the seventies the king of bhutan did a diplomatic trip to india and according to the story this indian reporter goes hey king you know we're neighbors but I don't know anything about you like what's your deal what what what are you about in fact what's your gross national product like like tell me what are you guys known for and he goes gross national product what what are you talking about gdp what are you saying in bhutan gross national happiness is more important than gross national product and it was just like offhanded comment that he made saying their biggest export is happiness we care about happiness and that totally hit it went viral everyone was like this little country is they must be the happiest place on earth the king says that they care more about gross national happiness than money and the king was like oh people like really resonate with that let's make that our thing and so over the next 5 10 years they actually implement this and make this its their thing and so in this country bhutan to this day every 5 years surveyors travel the country and they ask the people about education level salary and material possessions like a lot of like normal stuff but then they also say like do you have negative thoughts do you have positive thoughts how much time do you spend working how much time do you spend praying and sleeping and the the and the data that they get is factored in to a lot of their a lot of the rules and and things like that that they make and I thought it was like a great story about how you can care about things that aren't seemingly important like happiness and I had well you know what I mean like it's like you know we care about like money

Shaan Puri

and like stuff yeah potentially

Sam Parr

Yeah, and there are a few critiques. According to the **World Happiness Report**, *Bhutan* is, like, average — it's not kicking ass. But, you know, I don't know if that's a matter of different ways of measuring things, because happiness is... it's kind of hard to measure. Is it that fleeting moment you feel in the 30 seconds after you've eaten a good meal, or is it a deeper sense of contentment? Whatever. I thought it was cool for three reasons. One: "the king just said some shit, and it hit, and he ran with it."

Shaan Puri

been there bro you I I feel that yeah it becomes your thing right

Sam Parr

yeah it's like wearing a certain outfit in 4th grade and you're like I guess this is my identity I guess

Shaan Puri

I'm a high sock guy

Sam Parr

Yeah, like, I'm a — the *chain wall* is my guy. I'm a *chain wall* guy; that's just my thing, because the teacher said that. The second thing is that I do think it's pretty fascinating that in a culture that you and I are part of, and in America's case — because we're such hard workers — it's all about work, work, work. But that's not really the point of all this; it's about being happy. So I thought it was cool that they're measuring that. Another, third and final thing that makes this interesting: have you ever heard of a pairing metric?

Shaan Puri

yeah basically like 2 metrics that let's say you have revenue on one side but you might have profitability on the other in order to make sure that like if you over optimize on just revenue you might totally nuke your profits or if it's about growth you want you know nps score make sure your customers are happy is that what you mean

Sam Parr

yeah and so when tim ferris invested in the hustle we I got to hang out with him for an hour or so and I was telling him about how many subscribers that we were growing by he's like well you need like a pairing metric you need you know not just top line like subscribers email subscribers but like are they engaging are they opening whatever you have to have a pairing metric otherwise it kinda ruins the whole thing and and that was like kinda fascinating to me I I never heard that phrase and I didn't think about having a pairing metric with like government policy or you know like anything other than business and this is like a really great example of a pairing metric where it's about gdp traditional metrics but also you know make sure that your your people are are are happy along the way so I thought it was pretty cool

Shaan Puri

Yeah, I love this story. I think I was telling you before this—I think we both, somehow, having Bhutan on our list is so weirdly unlikely. Maybe we both saw the same thing. I saw the "60 Minutes" piece a few weeks ago. What did you think? First of all, it's so funny: we watched "60 Minutes." "60 Minutes" looks so old, dude. It looks... is "60 Minutes" basically just a YouTube channel?

Sam Parr

it's great though right

Shaan Puri

**It's great, but why does it look so old?** It's literally like the person on there is old. The clock they use for the "60 Minutes" thing is so dated. All of the editing is so outdated; they don't even know what a "jump cut" is. It's insane.

Sam Parr

I think it's *a fun fact*: I am almost positive it's the only TV show without a theme song. It's literally just "tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick."

Shaan Puri

yeah exactly it's crazy so when you watch 60 minutes it's it's interesting to just look at it and be like what is this dude anyways here's a couple of the things that stood out to me about this so first why do I why am I interested in a country I'm interested in a country because in the same way I'm interested in companies that are run-in interesting ways or if a company had a unique mission or business model or a unique way of doing things that'd be interesting to me countries are just big companies and I found this pretty interesting if you looked at it like a company where it was like oh what what's our main metric it's not revenue it's happiness so it's like instead of the gmv they're looking at at how much happiness they're producing in their own economy and I like that they measure their own and like did you look at their their happiness index kinda 0 to 1 and how that all works

Sam Parr

yeah it's like a weighted score right what what and what were all the metrics or is that

Shaan Puri

it's a weighted score then they they sort of they ask people a bunch of questions about their you know psychological well-being their health their time you know their education all these different things and they end up with like you know basically they're a 7. A 0.781 on their scale which is pretty good and they measure oh that's up 3.3% since last year and basically 9 a half% of bhutanese people are deeply happy 38% are extensively happy 45% are narrowly happy and 6.4% were unhappy according to them and and they're what I thought was cool was that a couple of things number 1 it's one of the very few cases where someone in power gives it up so they had a king and he voluntarily is like you know what this could just go to my son but we need a democracy and and the funny thing is the people there were like no no king stay king he's like no no no we need a democracy they're like democracy you see india is a democracy pakistan is a democracy look at those places they're always at war it's violent forget democracy we don't want it we're happy and he was like well if I just keep giving this you know power down by birth this won't end well so I thought seeing somebody relinquish power it's crazy into a crime is so rare yeah that you just overlook it when you're on the surface but if you actually think about that deeply that actually is like a really noble and very cool and very unique thing how few you know biden didn't wanna give up power and trump doesn't wanna give up power nobody wants to give up power power is one of the most addictive things in the world and so I just thought that was really noble and really cool of him to voluntarily go to democracy at a time of peace which is which is not usually what happens usually if a democracy happens it's after a time of violence or war people need change or the western country comes in and helps and then tries to force a democracy on them so I thought that was cool

Sam Parr

did they say that was the only time that's ever happened that way

Shaan Puri

It's the only one I know of. Yeah, they kind of referenced that — that's never really happened before: a democracy arising in a time of peace, voluntarily. It's also crazy that, just, you know... until the seventies — like in **1974** — there are people listening to this podcast who were born before 1974 and didn't have a currency. It was *barter* even up until 1974.</FormattedResponse>

Sam Parr

that's crazy right

Shaan Puri

The crazy thing was, even though there was barter, they still had to pay taxes. You could pay your tax by giving the government a cow. If you didn't have livestock, you did labor instead. Because of that, they built these amazing buildings — your taxes were basically community service. People would say, "I'll donate 100 hours of labor to pay my tax for the year," and because of that they built these really cool buildings. **Side note:** our friend Sheila — friend of the pod, Sheila.

Sam Parr

went to tom

Shaan Puri

I think he posted this thread — it's a thread about him going there. He meets the king, because it sounds crazy to meet the king. He says he was at a bar and talking to a guy who turned out to be the former prime minister [now a surgeon]. The guy was just drinking at the bar and said, "You want to meet the king?" "Yeah, I can introduce you." So he meets the king and then talks about his experience there. One of the crazy things he points out is that a lot of the buildings have **penises** painted on them in artful ways. So, you know, it's a little bit of *super bad* mixed in there. The other crazy thing is the **Bitcoin** stuff — did you see their Bitcoin stuff?

Sam Parr

I know they have the they they own more bitcoin than the total market value of their stock stock market it's like a $1,000,000,000 in in in bitcoin

Shaan Puri

yeah they basically have made themselves wealthy for life they use their like their vast nature so like you know they use hydroelectric mining to mine bitcoin and it's it's believed that they have $1,000,000,000 of bitcoin

Sam Parr

but that was like I think that was reported like you know 8 months ago so I it's it's as as if they have double that now you know what I mean like it's been a they've had a great run

Shaan Puri

The US has it because they seized the Silk Road, right? So they have—the US has 20,000,000,000 (20 billion); China has 20,000,000,000 (20 billion); the UK has 6,000,000,000 (6 billion). El Salvador has been buying and holding **Bitcoin**.

Sam Parr

has 6 and and and and the guy on that 60 minutes show he did a great job of saying he's like we're human we still want to be rich and we want stuff and we want all this other stuff we also want to be happy and so because people were like well so if you're just about happiness why are you buying bitcoin and all this he's like well I still want nice shit

Shaan Puri

Yeah. The more prosperous we are, the happier we'll be. The other thing I thought was cool: they do free education, free health care — all that good stuff. But they also said, "60% of the land is going to be dedicated to nature." I think they don't allow mountain climbing. They have these amazing mountains because they're in the Himalayas, but you're not allowed to climb them. He said this great line: "*Nature is not meant to be conquered.*" He went on to say that man has this thirst to conquer everything — "Oh, there's a mountain, I gotta climb it, put my flag on top." They just had a different attitude. It's like nature is beautiful, meant to be enjoyed. It's sacred; it's meant to be revered, not conquered. I just thought, man, these people roll to a different beat, and I respect it. I'm glad that these little experiments live.

Sam Parr

I had the exact same feeling. I saw him talk, and they sort of fit a lot of the stereotypes you would have — like Nepal, the Dalai Lama. I think they have a national outfit or something like that, and it looks like the [unclear: "boot"]. They are Buddhist, and it looks like the Dalai Lama’s shawl or whatever he wears. So, they have, like, "good genes."

Shaan Puri

yeah we love jacob

Sam Parr

Yeah. The natural sport is grinding. They had this cool vibe of wisdom... and it was very shocking to see that because I was just watching this on a Sunday night as I was gearing up to talk about money and gearing up to get after—crush—the week. Then I see this guy who talks about happiness... and I was like, *"This is incredibly refreshing."* It was pretty cool. It seems like a great country, I think. By the way, there are all these other downsides. I think Scheele even said, "It's a pain in the ass to get there— I don't even think they have an international airport."

Shaan Puri

Like, the roads are not very developed. There's another point: when you *prioritize happiness above all*, maybe your roads kind of suck. </FormattedResponse>

Sam Parr

yeah so like it was pretty sick dude I I thought it was great I was very inspired so I wanted to bring up bhutan

Shaan Puri

Well, there is one other piece to it, which I— I guess a bunch of young people are leaving the country. Did you see that part? I didn't fully follow that, but they were then going to build a new city in **Bhutan** — the *mindfulness city*. It was going to be like they'd launched a $100,100,000,000 bond. They're basically trying to make it a city focused on walking and cycling, with green spaces for meditation, mindfulness-based education, and ecotourism. It's like all the shit **Balaji** talks about with a *network state*, or like what the **Praxis** guys are trying to do. Basically, Bhutan is building a new city with its own cultural values, trying to use that to attract people to the country.

Sam Parr

well you wanna hear a funny story is balaji is and a lot of these crypto guys are in on this new thing called american colossus it's that monument that they are proposing that they build in the bay area I don't know if it's it will never get built very likely but the same architect who's on board with that is doing their is that was the guy in the 60 minutes episode he's the guy who's building bhutan's new city and so there is this like weird crossover of the crypto guys and and these people who are like let's what's in it what would a new city look like in bhutan

Shaan Puri

Yeah, it's pretty inspiring, honestly. It makes you think bigger. It makes you think about things that you just take for granted — they seem *set in stone*. They seem like they were always here: "it always was this way" and "it'll always be this way." Then you hear about somebody — you know, people who are trying to shake that — and you realize, "Oh wow, the whole world is more *malleable* than you thought."

Sam Parr

yeah and they also were approaching it in an interesting way with their new city I forget the quotes but he said something about how he's like we know that this is like a 50 year project like we're gonna go slow because we don't wanna hurt the environment and it it was and the guy was like but you're gonna be dead when they like do that and he was like isn't that awesome that something will like outlive me like it they had a very so if you're if you're listening to this this is on youtube for free so Google bhutan 60 minutes it was an awesome segment

Shaan Puri

Alright. Now that we talked about Bhutan and happiness, and how there's more to life than money—can I tell you about one of the most *ruthless, capitalist, bloodthirsty* moves that I've seen in a while?

Sam Parr

you know how the in boxing they say steal the round because like in the last 10 seconds that's what judges remember they don't remember the first a 100 they don't remember the first 120 seconds but they remember the last 10 seconds

Shaan Puri

yeah but so yeah

Sam Parr

whatever you say last is what I'm gonna be most inspired by so let's we skipped

Shaan Puri

so sit down baton you had your moment

Sam Parr

yeah now tell me how I can go cut some fuckers alright

Shaan Puri

**This is a private equity roll-up in the education space** that I found pretty interesting. "Alright, what is—what does that mean?" So I went to high school in Texas for the first two years. Then my mom and dad came to me one day and they were like, "Hey, check this out. Doesn't this look like a cool house?" I said, "Yeah, it looks pretty cool." Then they said, "We're gonna live there." I was like, "Okay." And they added, "It's in Beijing." Then my family moved me to Beijing in tenth grade.

Sam Parr

they went too

Shaan Puri

yeah yeah yeah it wasn't just me there that would have been super cool

Sam Parr

they moved me there and they moved themselves

Shaan Puri

So they were like, "Hey, you know all those friends you've had? You're not gonna see them anymore." They also lied to me and said my dog couldn't come, and told me that *China doesn't allow dogs*. Later in life I found out that was a huge lie. So, you know, maybe that'll be my revenge tour, dude. That's it. That's the thing. "Wait — so did they leave the dog?" "Yeah, we sold our dog because dogs can't go to China." I was like, "What?"

Sam Parr

oh my god it was

Shaan Puri

stupid there was no Google at the time I think I do this is pre Google so so so I finished high school in china and I went to this school called the international school of beijing and it was actually an awesome school and it turned out to be great for me to move and all these awesome things happened to me there but as one of these things again I just I go to the school I just take it for granted there's a school here I don't know schools are part of the government they're just like from the land I don't know god put it here I don't know what puts these international schools here and now I'm like in my thirties and I'm reading up and I realize oh shit these international schools are an absolute juggernaut of a business and so I'd like to tell you about this roll up that happened called nord anglia have you ever heard of this

Sam Parr

yeah my friend anand from cb insights is obsessed with it

Shaan Puri

and so here's what these guys did so the the founding story is back in the seventies you know things like 50 years old there was one school in the uk or there wasn't even a school it was like making materials for other schools to teach english as a foreign language to people who are trying to learn english in the uk and then they expand that into eastern europe or whatever and then they start their own school they're like oh we'll we'll do our own school for teaching international people and we'll teach them in a in a sort of english second language kinda way and over time the thing grows and it goes from one school to multiple schools and they create this like business that eventually becomes a $14,000,000,000 conglomerate of 80 + international private schools

Sam Parr

can you say the name one more time

Shaan Puri

nord anglia n o r d and then anglia is a n g l I a so what do they do and by the way remember remember when img sold img which is like the sports prep academy and it sold for $1,000,000,000 we're like wow note anglia bought it so this bought img and the reason they bought img they're like img is a really cool sports focused brand but it's all in the us we are we know how to basically create international schools that the richest wealthiest or expats living overseas want their kids to go to to be able to get into you know maybe us us colleges so they bought it for a $1,000,000,000 being like cool we're just gonna take the img brand and we're gonna pop it up in china and india and and all these different countries in order to to to get those types of students who are sports focused whereas their schools are more you know teaching the the the ib curriculum which is like the the kinda international baccalaureate the the equivalent of ap in the united states is ib so like I took the ib program and so but the cool thing about this business is actually for the 1st 10 years it was just a slow burn and these businesses fascinate me like I don't even really fully understand how you can go from kinda like a a consultant selling teaching materials at one?

Shaan Puri

They had a day care like a nursery built in it was like just this slow sleepy business for like 10 years

Sam Parr

was it like a family run thing

Shaan Puri

yeah it was like privately owned and then they hire the ceo and then they start expand they start their own schools they start expanding then they start buying other school school like chains so they bought like a 6 school chain that had like a presence in let's say france and then they buy another one that has a presence in latin america and they're just rolling up as many international schools as they can buy they buy 5 schools in india for $200,000,000 and so now they got 5 5 international schools in india and basically this company ended up going public and then had a take private offer and now is valued at $14,000,000,000 which is pretty pretty wild and there's one pe firm this swedish private equity firm that has just made an absolute killing it's called eqt on this entire like 20 year run of this business so you know let's say 99 here's the timeline 19 seventies it's teacher training language programs 19 nineties so now this is like you know 20 years into the business they pivot to owning and operating their own international schools 2008 now another 18 years goes by the swedish pe firm comes in gives them a bunch of money to rapidly go expand and acquire schools 2014 they go public 2017 they go private again for 4,000,000,000 2024 it's acquired 14 and a half $1,000,000,000 and 2008 when they did the the private equity round they were at 40,000,000 in ebitda and you know about 200,000,000 in revenue and so these things trade at like 8 and a half x ebitda basically and they only own like 10% of the international school market still 90% of the international school market is fragmented and and not owned by by anybody

Sam Parr

well now they do a 1,000,000,000 in revenue it said

Shaan Puri

yeah now they do a 1,000,000,000 in revenue with you know 100 of 1,000,000 in ebitda and and actually it's I think it's even I think it might even be even more than that but like just to give you an example here's a slide but like this is like one of their schools so they show like the profitability of a school this is their one of their case studies so it's like dubai they opened an international school in dubai they opened it in 2014 it took 7 and a half $1,000,000 to build it and open it and then basically they break even in year year 2 / year 3 and then it's basically making 55% net you know cash on cash once it's at that mature level once they get the enrollment up to like 1400 1500 students and so you could see like the enrollment basically by year 3 they're at almost 1400 students so almost at capacity

Sam Parr

"How do they convince parents that they're worth it? Because, with school, it's tradition—usually that's what gets people to buy in."

Shaan Puri

Yeah, so it's kind of the same thing. If you go look at their pitch, it's basically: "We have the best-run schools. Our kids get into top-tier colleges and X% of them—huge, like 90-something percent—graduate. They do better than their peers on standardized tests and things like that."

Sam Parr

it's basically like when chick fil a started expanding to new york and all the new yorkers were like finally you know what I mean like people like know this know this brand

Shaan Puri

in beijing the school I went to right like we probably had like a 100% graduation rate like no no there's like no dropouts everybody graduates and then like 98% went to college so it's like it's like compared to like a normal school the whole school I was going to in houston before that probably was like 75% graduation and less than 50% would would enroll in college the next year and so and then the school I went to you know that's a that's like a 1st grade through 12th grade school and every year you're basically paying college tuition it was like $40 a year to go there as a 1st grader and as a second grader and as a 3rd grader as a 4th grader see but like the way my parents afforded to go there was the same way that many students did which is when companies bring you overseas because come you know let's say you know my dad worked for a company they wanted him to relocate to like build up their business in china then the company basically pays for your kid's education as part of the relocation package

Sam Parr

and that's like a really good perk

Shaan Puri

that's the perk it's oh oh you know and so these schools basically it's kinda like us schools how they make their money is because the government will give like student loans to anybody like anybody can get a student loan so you can get like you know $200,000 of debt to go to the school whether you're gonna be able to pay that off or not doesn't matter so the schools are like great that's why tuitions keep going up because they're like awesome the government will just keep paying for this this is amazing international schools work largely the same way which is it's either very wealthy people there who want their kids to go abroad like if you're very wealthy in indonesia or china or india you want your kids to study in the united states and you're probably you know like very very rich and so you're you're happy to pay you know 40 k a year for like elite your elite education or the companies are paying for it so it's this beautiful business model where you're only catering to that top kinda 1%

Sam Parr

and and interestingly I think that there's actually a blue zone in america because when you think of a for profit university I think of university of phoenix yeah I I think bad I think they're the ones who let everyone in and they just buy all the facebook ads and Google ads and it's slimy but for some reason when I look at these schools I think prestige I think like like it can be done well do you know what I mean

Shaan Puri

You know, the one I want to do — or the one I've been very tempted to do — is the *modern-day film school*. Film schools exist in the States; you can go to USC or UCLA. Those are the famous ones you can attend. But media and content have changed dramatically since those schools were founded, right?

Sam Parr

and credentials are less important I would think

Shaan Puri

**And credentials are way less important.** Back then, let's say you were a student in the 1980s and you wanted to work in film someday. When you were in school you really had no shot. You could go be an intern somewhere—maybe hold up, you're holding the lamp in the back and you're holding the light—and that's like all you would be qualified to do. Today, let's say you want to be good at creating films, or content, or music, or whatever. You could literally be publishing on **YouTube**, on **TikTok**, on **Instagram**, on **Spotify**. You can be publishing everywhere, and actually, you could be in the market; you can be the day.

Sam Parr

you have the idea to do it you could be published that night

Shaan Puri

you could be 14 years old and be you could be the best in the world at doing twitch streams or whatever it is right like and so what and and the number one dream of young kids is to be a content creator it's the number one aspirational profession which you could judge and say that's stupid or whatever you want the dream is the dream that means there's a lot of demand for people who wanna learn this why don't I go to mister beast why don't I go to jimmy and say hey why don't you create with your brand a university that is the modern day like content creation skill stack so it's all the things you need to know right videography photography script writing editing sound production you know music production all all the creative arts basically but do them in a way where it's like a 2 year program it's like a like a business school so it's 2 years and it's all project based so you go there and you have access to all the equipment which you normally can't afford as a young person like the best cameras the best recording studios the best editors terminals all that stuff animators and then there's people who have different disciplines 1 guy wants to be an animator 1 guy wants to be an editor the other person wants to be a talent whatever it is and you work together on projects you create content you actually put it out on the networks and you get judged based on the number of projects you create the quality of the projects you create you're getting real feedback along the way and then you have mentors or teachers like a mr beast or like others who are gonna like drop in and basically teach you some of the fundamentals of maybe storytelling or different things that actually you need to do and I think you if you did this I mean just the math of this stuff is pretty crazy right like you get 5,000 or 10000 people coming to your school and it's you know 25 k a year for 2 years that that's that one batch of kids 10,000 people in a in a in a class if they're paying 25 k a year for 2 years that's 500,000,000 in revenue

Sam Parr

what stopped you from doing this you seem pretty hyped up on it and it seems like a very logical thing

Shaan Puri

well I had the idea of like 4 days ago so you know that's probably

Sam Parr

no new idea you've been talking about

Shaan Puri

You know, specifically the *media* thing. I've always been interested. Like, "what would you do if you were doing a new school?" I always thought of it in terms of entrepreneurship, but I actually think a more trade-school–style school is better. Yeah.

Sam Parr

for sure

Shaan Puri

For sure. Teaching entrepreneurship is hard because—there's not really a class for business. *Business school doesn't teach you business; it teaches you management.* What you think of as Harvard Business School is actually a middle-management to senior-management training program. That's what it is. When you actually learn a skill and learn a trade, that's good. The skill of business takes a lot of time, and it's not one skill—it's like 15. It's a bundle of about 15 skills. You have to know a little bit about strategy, negotiation, marketing, building, and managing—all these things. So I think this trade-school style is much better. There's an interesting example of this, by the way: do you know what Full Sail University is? </FormattedResponse>

Sam Parr

yes so I'm looking up itt tech but I'm also looking at full sail I know a few people that went to full sail and they had great things to say

Shaan Puri

Yeah, so **Full Sail** is kind of at that scale: 25,000 undergrads, and it's $26,000 a year. It's a private, for-profit college. So you just do the math. By the way, 25,000 undergrads × $26,000 a year — that's like the annual revenue. Let's do some public math because big numbers are an exception: that's $600,000,000–$650,000,000 a year of revenue that they're generating from a four-year cohort, my friend.

Sam Parr

chris have you heard of the company linode

Shaan Puri

yeah yeah

Sam Parr

he bootstrapped and sold it for I don't know like $800,000,000 he's he's from nashville and I knew him when I was younger and he went to full sail and he would and he's that's kinda how I learned about full sail but they have like if you look at

Shaan Puri

you know jason citron the founder of discord he's one of the alums

Sam Parr

yeah and so I think they do more than just like I knew it as that's where you'd go to get like a like a if you were to become a music engineer

Shaan Puri

yeah so it was like game design was 1 that's why jason went there because he wanted to build video games they have music and then they have the dan patrick school of of sports broadcasting

Sam Parr

so he won't be like that much

Shaan Puri

**A TV broadcaster.** They had their own little program—a degree, a sportscaster degree program. But how?

Sam Parr

Does it work, since it's not a normal—it's a **for-profit university**? Does **Dan Patrick** actually get paid to use his name, or didn't he donate it? </FormattedResponse>

Shaan Puri

a licensing a royalty that's crazy

Sam Parr

that's great

Shaan Puri

that's what I'm saying for like if you're if you're jimmy you're mister beast like why are you selling chocolate like we should do this and we just need to find like an operator and do do it with a physical campus and like do the whole thing right make the whole thing happen and there's like an an enormous talent economy that needs to be made not just for people who themselves wanna be a famous youtuber but every single company has to create content content is marketing and so any company that needs you know go look at every every corporation from you know like nestle down to your you know nearby eyebrow waxing place they're all got an instagram they all got a tiktok they're all posting content on there and so every company needs media creation talents and nobody teaches you that it's today it's something you learn on your own outside of school using your own social media as a testing ground and I think that's a little bit crazy given the value of this thing and so I think you know it's the type of thing that could be built and be a you know multibillion dollar business within 3 or 4 years easily you know getting 5,000 or 10000 people to to enroll is not hard for for something like this because it has tangible value too like when you walk out not only will you have these hard skills on you know actual content creation all the all the bucket of content creation skills but like you're highly employable so whether you become a creator or you're or you go get a job like you're highly employable with a a set of skills especially if you make it elite like don't make it university of phoenix make it more like harvard where it's like oh where do the talented people go right what's it like juilliard it's like make it more like juilliard right so this is where the most talented people go and build that reputation I think that's the key to get this right

Sam Parr

This is an incredibly compelling pitch — thank you. I want to know what the *downsides* are, which I don't even know if you know at the moment, because you're **72 hours** into this accreditation career transition.

Shaan Puri

accreditation can matter so if you want accreditation you can do that

Sam Parr

does that matter does accreditation matter I guess it I guess it does for optics right

Shaan Puri

no it matters for for to funding so if you

Sam Parr

got it

Shaan Puri

"So how do you get funding from the government? How do your students get loans if you're an unaccredited school?" "Students can't get loans; they have to pay for it out of pocket."

Sam Parr

understood

Shaan Puri

and and so you want accreditation so that you're eligible for loans which would let students go there you know who don't already have the money + you know it's much easier to spend money the government gives you when you're 20 18 20 years old so you know you wanna be eligible for that but you can you can get accredited or you could buy a school with existing accreditation so that's not a blocker it's just like a thing you gotta do the hard part is actually running it and like doing it well and like actually providing quality education right you don't wanna be university of phoenix so you gotta have some soul you gotta have some some energy you gotta have the entrepreneurial energy why so why am I not personally doing this because I personally am not gonna be the guy running this I wanna kinda make it happen and find an operator who wants to create something like this and I can connect all the dots of how do we get the capital because this takes a lot of capital you know like joe lonsdale started a school in austin I don't know how much he how much that cost but I think it's like a I wouldn't be surprised if that's like a 50,000,000 to a $100,000,000 project of like infrastructure

Sam Parr

university of university of austin austin university that's crazy I mean yeah that's pretty wild and if you look at like

Shaan Puri

so billionaires have put 200,000,000 into funding that that school so yeah it's you know it's it's a big capex lift to to do it when you have a physical campus and I wouldn't do it remote I would do it legit I would do it with a physical campus and I would just try to make it like awesome and it's the same thing like we talked about the baton thing it's a 50 year play like you wanna build prestige and legacy like a harvard or a stanford where it's the reputation the reputation and the brand is the value you want the best people to pay top dollar to come to this thing and get the best education then you want all the companies you wanna hire to value the label that you have so to do that you have to assume you're gonna be you you wanna do something that peaks you know like 50 years later in terms of brand prestige

Sam Parr

Yeah, that's an *interesting* thing, by the way. There have been a lot of times when people will sign up for a university with the goal that, after 10 or 15 years, the brand name has elevated. So you bought at the price before it was full — it's just like investing in a stock. Then there are other times when a university... well...

Shaan Puri

it's 30 under 30

Sam Parr

Yeah. When a university has a protest or something happens and it hurts the brand, you're like... For example, let's say you graduated from Columbia. You're like, "Shit — it's a controversial place right now. Is my... I bought this brand; is that now worth less than what I was anticipating?" There's this weird tension. That is an *interesting* way to look at building a university brand. I'm like, "I have to increase the value so I can justify that the people who bought it actually bought it when it was cheaper, as opposed to what it will be worth in 20 years."

Shaan Puri

"Dude, did you see **Bill Ackman** did a presentation about **Harvard**? Did you... did you see this?"

Sam Parr

no what what he said oh my god

Shaan Puri

Alright. Well, I know we're supposed to wrap up, but this is honestly incredible. **Jim Grant** asked me to give a talk at **Harvard**: *"Buy, Sell, or Hold"* — in the same way you would do with a stock. I think the Harvard motto or slogan is *"Veritas,"* and the title is *"Veritas"?*

Sam Parr

Because you

Shaan Puri

know he's on this like anti harvard crusade right now

Sam Parr

what's a veritas mean forever truth I think truth

Shaan Puri

Oh, and so he breaks it down like it's a company. He says, "The business of Harvard College is private education to students," and then he shows a graph. **Enrollment has been flat over the last 20 years.** Faculty growth has been modest—about **0.5%**—but administrative growth has increased by **40%** in 20 years. So he's basically saying, "You're not growing students, but you're growing your admin—your OPEX (operating expenses) on the back end," analyzing it like a business.

Sam Parr

this is amazing

Shaan Puri

and the cost has grown basically the cost has doubled in 20 years

Sam Parr

he says you're growing by increasing prices not by increasing the number of customers served

Shaan Puri

Exactly. And then he breaks down the **P&L**. He explains where the revenue stream is: how much is coming from donations versus tuition. How much of your faculty has diverse viewpoints? I mean, really — obviously his agenda in this whole thing was basically to say, "Harvard has gone *too woke*, the administration has gone rogue, and you're ruining the brand and the mission of Harvard."

Sam Parr

He said, "The operating margin would be *negative 40%* without distributions from its endowment."

Shaan Puri

Yeah, and he says in **1643** — that's how old Harvard is. In **1643**, Harvard's first mission was set up simply as **"Veritas"** (truth). He has an old screenshot of a hand-drawn logo of the shield, and then he reads the **"Laws, Liberties, and Orders of Harvard College"**. It's a handwritten document about the goal to encourage Harvard students to seek wisdom. He's basically saying that, and then he shows how the mission charter has changed. In **2020**, instead of focusing on seeking truth, it removed a bunch of references to the **1650** charter and basically left it more as a **DEI-style** mission [DEI: diversity, equity, and inclusion].

Sam Parr

yeah and

Shaan Puri

he's like you know paying attention to that so you know he's like what you know what happened to new ideas what happened to the truth and then he goes and and he just breaks down like fact also like even in the faculty growth he's like cool is it growth in computer science teachers or is it growth in african american studies which you know he basically shows that african american studies grew like crazy compared to economics or computer science but then he's looking at the number of degrees that people are getting and that's not growing so he's like you're not meet your supply is not meeting the demand of the consumer you're just your supply is growing arbitrarily not not to match not to match demand like I think there was only what was it like there was one degree recipient in 2023 in african american studies and 57 faculty

Sam Parr

this is wild and do you know and and here I I if you go down all the way to the last slide his verdict he says is harvard a buy sell or hold and his verdict as of now is harvard is a hold it still has many positive attributes it has a strong brand 400 year operating history $51,000,000,000 endowment and huge real estate but it has many challenges the quality of the education has deteriorated there's so many competitors many talented people aren't going to traditional universities they've misallocated resources and the endowment has been a chronic underperformer this is a very interesting way to look at many many many different decisions in life that are beyond just money

Shaan Puri

how awesome is this

Sam Parr

this is the greatest this is this is a fantastic way to think

Shaan Puri

yeah this is so cool

Sam Parr

is this all decisions I think I should every big decision I have in life I I need to put together a powerpoint like this we did this with our child's name by the way we put three names in a powerpoint and like sarah presented them and like argued like in her favor which name we were going to choose

Shaan Puri

hold on hold on what what is that what is even in the slot what do you say like what

Sam Parr

so the way that we make decisions in our house oftentimes it's like one person will present 3 options and then the other person can select the one option that they want and so if it's like

Shaan Puri

cheesecake factory chipotle or

Sam Parr

frozen dinner so it's like if I'm selecting the 3 I will select 3 that I'm at least okay with and then she could select the one that is of most interest to her for baby names it was like she was like you I wanna select a 3 and then you could select the 1 and so she made a powerpoint and it explained here's the three names here's the background of the name and I had like parameters I was like I want something somewhat traditional I prefer it being the bible because everyone in my family was named for someone in the bible whatever and she's like alright here's the 3 that I like I'm cool with all of them here's the background of each name here's what it means here's famous people named that here's where it ranks on the popularity list here's what

Shaan Puri

"Are they trying to persuade you toward one, or is it a *completely neutral* pros-and-cons discussion of each?"

Sam Parr

in that case it was a neutral but yeah oftentimes there there is an underlying persuasion bit but the if you're the person who selects the 3 you should select 3 things that you're you like you should because that's like what you could do is you could select 3 things that I that you like and then I as the final decision maker will select something and you're happy no matter what it's a great way to make decisions I think and so she did this big presentation on 3 different names and I selected the winner and that's how we got our baby's name

Shaan Puri

> "Every month we sit down at the end of the month at our table, and we review the month's budget, financial decisions — key financial decisions that were made. We discuss unresolved issues that might be lingering." I'm kinda into *Parr Corporation*. *Parr Corp.* is probably one of my favorite corporations to learn from, and I think the way you run your *marriage like a business partnership* is both effective and hilarious.

Sam Parr

we do we did that

Shaan Puri

great combo

Sam Parr

before we got married we did that by the way we said you know this is going great like we really love each other we like each other I it it appears as though like marriage is in the cards you know we said it was like 6 months into dating write down where you wanna be in 10 years like what do you wanna do like let's how do you wanna raise a family where do you wanna live and we like made sure that like our wants and our interests like we're like alright like we disagree here but like that's okay I'm malleable there but here's like a deal breaker what do you feel about that so for hers it was like I wanna raise children in the new york area so I can be around my family that's a deal breaker and I was like no that's cool I could I could I could fuck with that and so yeah we do this type of stuff it feels cold I don't even like talking about it because people think because like it feels cold but dude this shit works these type of like discussions where it's like alright now is the.

Sam Parr

To discuss this you have the floor right that stuff is so effective I think

Shaan Puri

Yeah, yeah. It always is great. Before you guys go to bed, you just shake hands instead of kiss. It's just nice to keep everything, you know, *on the up and up* and *as calculated as can be*. That's why.

Sam Parr

I hate talking about it because people think that everything's like systematic it's like no like there's like 2 hours a month where like this is set aside to like have these like relatively formal discussions but it's freaking awesome I think that I I think if you like have a lot of kid don't people do like family meetings I know I saw it in like tv shows growing up but it's not a thing

Shaan Puri

Yeah. Family meetings are a thing. I think you guys just really take it to that next level. You guys are the **McKinsey of family meetings**, right? Like "vows.pdf" before your wedding—you had it all set up. It's good. I like it.

Sam Parr

it works I suggest everyone at least try it it definitely works I think

Shaan Puri

alright I think that's I think that's a killer episode to be honest

Sam Parr

I feel hyped up

Shaan Puri

I I have energy perfectly honest with a with a hard h that was a great episode

Sam Parr

alright that's it that's the part