How I Built Whoop Into A $3.6 BILLION Company (#411)
Sleep, Health, Whoop, and a $3.6 Billion Company - January 26, 2023 (about 2 years ago) • 01:07:17
Transcript:
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Sam Parr | How big is the business now I you guys have raised what like $400,000,000 | |
Will Ahmed | Yeah, we've raised $400,000,000. We last raised capital at a $3,600,000,000 valuation. I think there's still a lot of potential for health monitoring.
If you fast forward 10 years, I believe a large percentage of the world's population will be wearing a continuous health monitor. It will connect to everything that you do as it relates to the healthcare system and doctors.
So, yeah, I'm very bullish on the opportunity in this space. | |
Sam Parr | do you do you know what you're getting into or what | |
Will Ahmed | I've read the briefing, and I'm a big fan of the podcast, so I'm ready for you.
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Sam Parr | Alright, so the podcast is called *My First Million*. It's kind of known for Sean and I, as we have both started a handful of companies and sold a few of them. People like the podcast because we brainstorm and dive deep on different companies. We do business breakdowns and things like that.
We'll spend a little bit of time getting to know you because you've done a lot of amazing things. Well, I know of one huge amazing thing that you've done, but I bet there are a lot more amazing things that you've accomplished. We'll hear a little bit more about your background, and then we want to spend time diving deep on different opportunities in your industry.
But first, do you want to give us your 30-second spiel about who you are and the story of how you got there?
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Will Ahmed | Yeah, absolutely. So, Ahmed, I grew up on the North Shore of Long Island. As a kid, I was into sports and exercise. I ended up going to Harvard and playing squash in school. I was a competitive college athlete, and I felt like I didn't really know what I was doing to my body while I was training as an athlete.
That got me very interested in physiology. I did a ton of physiology research as a student, reading something like 500 medical papers. I started to conceive of this idea of how you could continuously measure the human body. The idea was initially around athletic performance, but broadly, I felt like there would be ways to continuously measure the human body for all sorts of health implications.
What began as a sort of curiosity ultimately turned into a very long research paper that I wrote, and then ultimately, founding a company. This was when I was 21 or 22 years old, as a senior at Harvard. For the last 10+ years or so, I've been building this business.
The business, Whoop, builds wearable technology really to improve people's health. We started with the best athletes in the world, and over time, we have grown to work with a large consumer population. It's a really exciting time to be building that technology. | |
Shaan Puri | Okay, so yeah, you're the CEO and founder of Whoop. If people have seen it, it's a Whoop band. You have to have seen it on people's wrists.
When you said something like, "We started with high-end athletes," I think I read something like this. Is this right? That LeBron and Michael Phelps were two of the first 100 customers or users of Whoop? Is that real? And how did that happen?
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Will Ahmed | it is real and this would have been around 2014 2015 so you know we spent about 2 to 3 years really on the initial v one of whoop and you know I wanted to start with the best athletes in the world and really for two reasons the first was that we were bringing sleep and recovery technology to market for the first time and I felt like professional athletes who you know have to perform on a daily basis should really understand how they're recovering that was one of the insights to starting the business and and then second of all if we could get the world's best athletes to wear whoop and organically like it then we could build a whole brand around performance that ultimately could could scale to to consumers and and I grew up very inspired by brands like nike and and the jordan brand and and just how like a swoosh on something could make make the whole product feel completely different independent from anything else about the product just because of the the storytelling behind it or the brand behind it so I was interested in how health monitoring could have a brand to it and and so that that was really the thesis for targeting professional athletes and and so in the case of getting to lebron and phelps the I think the key insight was finding people in their lives who had a big influence on them who a bunch of people didn't already know you know if you go to their agent or their manager or their wife like they get inundated with this stuff so you have to find someone in their in their life who who other people don't know and it also turned out back then that the personal trainer was a somewhat under rated or unknown person in a a professional athlete's life and that also happened to be the right person to go to for technology like whoop so in the case of lebron I got to know mike mencius in the case of phelps we got to know keenan robinson both of which were personal trainers to those athletes and got them on whoop and then they got their athletes on whoop and yeah the rest is history | |
Sam Parr | how big is the business now I you guys have raised what like $400,000,000 | |
Will Ahmed | Yeah, we've raised $400,000,000. We last raised capital at a $3,600,000,000 valuation. I think there's still a lot of potential for health monitoring.
If you fast forward 10 years, I believe a large percentage of the world's population will be wearing a continuous health monitor. It will hook into everything that you do as it relates to the healthcare system and doctors.
So, yeah, I'm very bullish on the opportunity in this space. | |
Sam Parr | Do you like being the CEO of a big company, or do you still wish that you were in the early days of getting into the nitty-gritty? I imagine you're kind of just making decisions now and managing people, as opposed to maybe getting your hands dirty with the product.
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Will Ahmed | Well, I've still tried to stay close to the product because I think it's something I've had a relevant perspective on, even as the company has scaled. I've been able to see around corners in a few areas for the Whoop product.
I think that the role of being CEO, as you guys know, changes a lot with stage and scale. Right? Like, a 10-person company versus a 100-person company versus a 500-person company. At each of these inflections, your role is definitely changing.
I think because Whoop, as a technology, gets increasingly interesting with scale, it's made my role increasingly interesting as well. So, what do I mean by that? The overall data set that you have on a larger population makes the data much more predictive and much more powerful. The coaching, as a result, can get much more comprehensive.
I think for other founders I've met who have been building a business for 5 years or even 10 years, they get to a point where they're kind of like, "Okay, this can run itself," or "I'm going to bring in someone new," or "I've kind of reached the relative peak of the mountain." I don't feel that way. I feel like there's still a bunch more levels to go.
I feel that the insights that the technologies provide, the number of people that it can potentially be used by, all of that feels like it's amplifying, not shrinking. And so, for those reasons, yeah, I'm very excited about being CEO.
It's also, look, it's a daily challenge growing into it. I feel like at every stage of the business, I've had to learn how to be a CEO. It's not like this is the first company I started; it's my first full-time job. So, you know, I'm figuring a lot of this out as I go.
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Shaan Puri | Sam always asks that question, and I'm just waiting for the one person who's like, "I hate being CEO. I hate my job. I hate all these people that are in this office. This is terrible."
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Will Ahmed | There are certain things that change a lot, right? Like, the percentage of time in which you think of yourself as an individual contributor versus a manager has to shift very dramatically. I think probably around the size of 50 people, it has to shift like that.
Whoops, it's about 500 people. But that's probably one of the most painful things that, if a founder doesn't fully appreciate or recognize, they can screw the business up a lot. You have to recognize that you need to be shifting almost entirely towards being a manager and not being an individual contributor.
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Sam Parr | Well, you know what it is? We talk to a lot of interesting people here, and the CEO of a company with 500+ employees usually looks like shit. Not always, but usually. They look tired, there are rings under their eyes, and they're usually a little chubby.
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Shaan Puri | as it takes a huge swig of coffee | |
Sam Parr | Oh no, they look like crap! But you're like the CEO of a fitness brand. You were a highly competitive athlete, and so you look great. It's like you're kind of skewing the average here.
I mean, you look pretty fit. How are you balancing being healthy while also putting your company first? Because when I was really in the thick of it, I was like, "Dude, I don't have time to work out. Screw it, I'm just gonna eat this crap." But I don't know...
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Shaan Puri | You don't know this, but one of your competitors was my neighbor. We used to work out together in my garage every day. Then, he got promoted to CEO. He was like a different executive who got promoted to CEO and then stopped having time to work out.
He kept coming by while I was working out and he was like, "I gotta get back in here." We were like, "Dude, you're the boss! You could just rearrange your schedule."
He said, "It's crazy right now. Oh, it's crazy right now." For like nine months straight, it was "crazy right now," and he just stopped working out. I was like, "Bro, you run a health company! If you don't sleep, work out, or make time for this stuff, what's going on here?"
I just thought that was so funny. The fact that he was like, "I know we have to make this successful, and in order to do that, I'm gonna make these health sacrifices." I was like, "Yo!"
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Sam Parr | What a super nice guy! I mean, dude, Will's got like a chiseled jaw. You've got a nice head of hair. You're wearing what looks like a vest. You look all spiffy and nice and stuff.
So, what are you doing to exercise right now, and how are you balancing that with work?
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Will Ahmed | I think it's part of the job for me to be in good shape and healthy. I spend a lot of time around people who are super into their health and fitness, whether it's professional athletes, scientists, or even thinking about product features that are designed to improve your health.
As a business, just thinking about the product and technology that we build every day kind of orients me to be healthy. Not to mention, I'm using a product that is all about health improvement. So, for a variety of reasons, it feels like it would be super off-brand if I was really out of shape.
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Shaan Puri | What's your sleep score when you sleep? Can you give us your stats?
Also, what are some things that you know? A lot of this audience who listens to this, I would say probably—I'm guessing—the majority don't regularly wear a continuous health monitor. However, the majority care about performing well, peak performance, especially as entrepreneurs who are typically listening to this.
So, what are some things that you've learned that they maybe should be doing? What are some of the biggest levers you've seen when it comes to health and performance?
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Will Ahmed | Well, I want to be clear that I do believe building a successful company requires overcoming some level of stress that would break most people. So, I do think you have to really push above and beyond what is comfortable.
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Sam Parr | I think the technical term is man up will | |
Will Ahmed | Yeah, okay, man up. But like within that, I think there's a lot of techniques that you can develop for yourself that allow you to run at a breakneck pace for a long, long time.
You know, people always talk about this analogy: "Okay, it's not a sprint, it's a marathon." But if you actually look at world-class marathoners, they're running like 4-minute miles or 4:30 miles.
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Sam Parr | it's kind of a sprint | |
Will Ahmed | Yeah, so you know, how do you run a mile that path?
I think for the entrepreneur or the business leader listening to this, you want to figure out a way that you can be sprinting a marathon for a long time. One of the ways I do that is by taking care of myself and being in good shape.
I think we can start with sleep, which is a topic that's not talked about in the right framework. Most people, when you talk to them about their sleep, they're like, "Oh, I don't have enough time. I'm working hard," blah, blah, blah.
The thing to understand about sleep is it's all about the percentage of time that you spend in bed getting high-quality sleep. So if you ask your audience or you ask a friend who's never worn a health monitor, and you say, "How much did you get last night?" they'll be like, "Oh, well, I went to bed at 11, I woke up at 6, I got 7 hours of sleep. Pretty good."
Okay, the reality is you spent 7 hours in bed. So of those 7 hours, you are in a...
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Will Ahmed | Of awake, light sleep, REM, and slow wave sleep... awake and light are pretty much irrelevant. You're not getting any physiological benefit from being in the awake or light stages of sleep.
**REM** and **slow wave** sleep—that's where all the magic happens. REM sleep is when your mind is repairing; it's like real cognitive repair. It's when you have deep dreams. So, if you're someone who can't remember dreams or you don't seem to have dreams, you're definitely not getting enough REM sleep.
Any high-performing executive or entrepreneur needs REM sleep. **Slow wave sleep** is when your body produces **95%** of its human growth hormone. Just think about that for a second: 95% of your human growth hormone gets produced during this stage of sleep. You're not getting stronger in the gym or while working out; you're breaking muscles down. You get stronger during slow wave sleep, so the more you get of that, the better.
Now, let's take the person who spent **7 hours** in bed. That person could have gotten a total of **30 minutes** of REM and slow wave sleep, or they could have gotten a total of **5 and a half hours** of REM and slow wave sleep. That's a massive difference—a huge spectrum. The person with **30 minutes** I guarantee you has all kinds of problems in their life. The person with **5 and a half hours** I guarantee you is very happy and very high functioning.
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Shaan Puri | And what's like... what's really strong? If an 8-hour block was, you know, in bed for 8 hours, what would be a good level of REM and slow-wave sleep?
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Will Ahmed | if you can get over 50% of the time you're spending in bed to be rem and slow wave sleep like you're you're doing pretty well and so I I I'm in that camp and and I'm also still optimizing my life more to be a ceo or an entrepreneur than a human right if I was just fully focused on being a great human I would probably spend 8 to 9 hours in bed right and I wouldn't look at my phone before bed and things like this right but because I'm still optimizing for being an entrepreneur I you know I spend more like 7 hours in bed or you know 7 and a half maybe if I if I get a little extra sleep but I've managed to make that time you know like the 3 to 4 hours sometimes even 4 and a half hours of rem and slow wave sleep so I'm getting the rem and slow wave sleep that like a a person who might be spending 8 or 9 hours in bed is getting because I figured some stuff out that makes me sleep better so that that's sort of one whole category right there which is sleep and anyone listening to this should try to figure that out for themselves because it's it it'll just dramatically change the quality of of your life I'll give you another hack I wear these blue light blocking glasses before bed and they've got a red like kind of a red tint to them and if you think about laptops iphones whatever all of them are emitting this light that is telling your eyes and your brain to stay awake and if you're like me and you're using your phone or reading an email you know closer before bed because you know you're you're doing work or you're staying on top of things it's gonna affect the way you sleep but if you wear these glasses it's like a get agile free card and you can look at all that stuff right up until the moment you go to bed and it won't affect your sleep so so that's like one example of of how you can hack both sides of it | |
Sam Parr | Have you... you said you've been around all these interesting athletes. You also have access now to like millions of pieces of data. Who are some of the biggest freaks of nature that you've been around?
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Shaan Puri | Is there like Judy in Iowa that's getting like 9 and a half hours of slow wave sleep? And she's your hero? You got like a picture of her on your wall?
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Sam Parr | Yeah, or like all these athletes that you've been around. Is there anyone who you just, like, you've seen them in real life? Is there like...? | |
Shaan Puri | dikemian mutombo incredible | |
Sam Parr | yeah well you're like when we first when | |
Will Ahmed | We first started looking at when we began working with LeBron James. This would have been around 2015 or 2016. His sleep data... I could probably attribute it to LeBron's, which is kind of amazing. It makes a lot of sense that he has been so good at recovering throughout his career because he's taking care of that third of his life and sleeping great.
I think he has maybe the most REM and slow-wave sleep of anyone I've talked to. Named Alex Honnold. Do you guys know that name? So, Alex Honnold is from *Free Solo*. | |
Sam Parr | yeah yeah yeah the climber | |
Will Ahmed | The climber, right? So this is a guy who climbs mountains without a rope, essentially, and does these insane feats that are extremely dangerous.
The interesting thing about REM sleep is that researchers were able to find that the more REM sleep you get, the less heightened your amygdala response is. Your amygdala response is the fight or flight response; it's what signals to your body to be nervous or to get animated.
So it makes a lot of sense that the guy who's capable of rock climbing in these environments that no one has done before, without a rope, has this insane ability to sleep. That's probably, in part, what makes him so calm while he's doing these activities. So I thought...
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Sam Parr | Dude, I just Googled Alex's name and then "REM sleep." I think we just gave you the promo of the century, man! This is the marketing.
The first thing that comes up is like a TED Talk about how you sleep more. You get more REM sleep, and then you're able to take a little bit more risk and be calm. I mean, that's like a really interesting play here. Do you know what I mean?
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Shaan Puri | One second on those athletes. Do you think it's a sort of intentional thing? Like, do you think that they, you know, like LeBron or Alex, are they doing something that's making their sleep that much better? Or do you think because they happen to be great sleepers, that is what allowed them to become such great athletes or performers?
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Will Ahmed | I mean, there are certainly genetic factors that make people better or worse at sleeping. However, there are also many things that individuals can do to enhance their sleep.
Sleeping at a very consistent time—going to bed and waking up at a similar time—will usually elevate the quality of your sleep. Often, sleeping in a very cold, dark, and quiet room with high air quality can also help. Athletes who are serious about this will measure all of that and dial it in.
I still think athletes aren't sophisticated enough about sleep and recovery, given how important it is to their overall performance. But those are a variety of things you can do.
We talked about blue light, and there are certain supplements that work better or worse for people, such as magnesium and melatonin. Interestingly, harder sleep drugs like Ambien can knock you out, so your sleep latency is short, but the quality of the sleep is never that high.
So again, back to that percentage of time that you're in REM and slow wave sleep. It is rare; you know, maybe if you're someone who normally would be at 30%, you're going to be at 20%.
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Sam Parr | Dude, I was a 400-meter runner, a Division 1 400-meter runner in college. I used to be fairly competitive, and I knew a bunch of basketball players who ended up going to the NBA because I was friends with them in college.
It's shocking how bad, myself included, most competitive athletes are when it comes to diet and recovery. I didn't know anything! I would eat ranch and pizza every day. A couple of my friends who went on to play in the NBA were just eating McDonald's on a regular basis.
It's pretty amazing how some people are still freaks even though they don't do any of that nonsense, you know? It's pretty wild.
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Will Ahmed | And we've worked with a lot of athletes. Like who?
Yeah, they used to play video games from 11 PM to 2 AM. You know, you've got a game the next day in front of a million people. It doesn't occur to them that this actually is going to affect their performance.
Then you look at the data and it's like, "Okay, you've got a red recovery," even though you didn't drink alcohol. It's because you stayed up late staring at a screen.
Whereas if you had gone to bed at the same time that you started playing video games, here's the difference in what your performance is.
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Sam Parr | sean you gonna make fun of me or something | |
Shaan Puri | No, no, no, no. I was going to ask, actually, this is a personal question: what's the word on naps?
I am a prolific napper. In fact, one of my life goals is to be able to take a guilt-free nap every single day. I know athletes are pretty big on naps as well, but I don't know if you can get to those deeper stages in a quick, you know, one or one-and-a-half-hour nap.
What's the word on naps?
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Will Ahmed | or winston churchill if you'd have a daily nap that would yeah that'd be pretty good | |
Sam Parr | yeah that's a that's a good way to put it yeah yeah | |
Shaan Puri | yeah I | |
Will Ahmed | Feel like he's the coolest. He's the coolest person I can think of who really pioneered the daily nap as a hardcore practice.
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Shaan Puri | It's a hardcore nap. I like that. I think that sounds better because my nap marketing is pretty soft right now. I need to up it. I need to have a **Churchill nap**. In fact, I'm going to brand it as a **Churchill nap**.
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Sam Parr | Dude, I do it every day as well. Yeah, about 2 o'clock for about 30 or 40 minutes every single day.
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Will Ahmed | and do you get in bed or you just lie on a couch kind of thing | |
Sam Parr | No, I only go to bed. Sean, do you go to bed? I only go to bed for nighttime sleeping, and then I refuse to lay in the bed. | |
Shaan Puri | I go to a different bedroom I have a nap bedroom and I have a a master bedroom | |
Will Ahmed | really yeah interesting and you you wear a sleep mask or anything you just close your eyes | |
Shaan Puri | I wear a sleep mask, but I get knocked out. I wake up 2 hours later and I'm like, "I'm a whole different human being." I feel like that.
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Sam Parr | wait and you could sleep at night after 2 hours I can't do 2 hours 2 hours | |
Will Ahmed | is a real nap | |
Shaan Puri | yeah churchill | |
Sam Parr | is that really | |
Shaan Puri | What do you do for two hours in the middle? That's my goal. My goal is to make that an everyday thing. Right now, it's an everyday thing. | |
Sam Parr | Sean's like, "Here's my life advice, young man. You gotta get a solid 16 every day. Your life's cream cheese."
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Will Ahmed | I'm not a big nap person, personally. I almost rarely ever take naps. However, I think that there's certainly plenty of research that shows that for most people, getting a nap versus not is going to make them feel better and perform better.
I certainly think a lot of athletes take them in the afternoon, or even some will take them almost right up to the time before tip-off or when they have their event.
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Shaan Puri | And they, because I think one of the reasons for them is they also need to peak in their performance much later in the day than most people.
Right? So, like an NBA game might start at 7:30 or 8, and they're playing until 9 or 10 or whatever. Whereas most people are winding down at that time, they kind of need to shift their peak performance later in the day.
Most entrepreneurs are trying to be, you know, tip-top at 9 AM or whatever.
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Will Ahmed | Yeah, I think that's right. The challenge with naps is that the percentage of time you spend trying to sleep is often lower from a quality standpoint.
That's why I was kind of interested in whether you guys get in bed or if it's more casual. You might up the intensity of the setup of your nap to really maximize the quality of the sleep.
So, try things like a sleep mask or a couple of little things, and you might all of a sudden feel even better after your nap.
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Sam Parr | are you the only founder are you are you a solo founder | |
Will Ahmed | Well, I was fortunate in that I met two really talented engineers when I was graduating from Harvard. One is John Capalupo, who for ten years was our Chief Technology Officer. The other is Aurelia Nikolai; he's still with me as our Chief Mechanical Engineer.
The combination of the three of us really built the company. A lot of it was algorithm development, you know, computer science, data science, and having the right prototypes. So, it was very technical out of the gates.
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Sam Parr | Well, what... but you're... you were the... do you consider them co-founders or just meaningful contributors?
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Will Ahmed | I consider them co-founders. I mean, I came up with the idea for the company years before I met them, but they've been an amazing, I mean, amazing piece of the Whoop story and critical.
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Sam Parr | What do you... So you're the CEO and founder of a multibillion-dollar startup. What do you do with... I assume, I don't know if you're liquid or not, or if you have a lot of your equity still tied up. What are you going to do with all your money when you eventually do get liquid? Do you have any big aspirations, or are you just like a boring guy who just... what?
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Shaan Puri | am secondary along the way any any secondary | |
Will Ahmed | Yeah, I have... I have. It's, well, look, it doesn't actually change your motivation all that much in building the business. That was something that... | |
Shaan Puri | I | |
Will Ahmed | Remember someone saying to me at various points when I had the option to sell some shares. I think it's really just made the quality of my life higher. | |
Shaan Puri | You should post your sleep before and after the secondary. Be like, "Do I sleep easier at night now?" | |
Sam Parr | I got by the way | |
Shaan Puri | $50,000,000 in the bank. Yeah, it turns out I do actually sleep a little easier at night. | |
Sam Parr | Taking secondaries... I remember when I was first getting going in my career and I heard about these secondaries. I was like, "That's bullshit." I think it was rooted a little bit in envy, but I also thought you gotta be all in.
Now that I've done a little bit of stuff, I realize having a safety net—and this is like a very obvious thing to say, so I sound like an idiot here—having a safety net, particularly a meaningful safety net of liquid net worth, I think 100% makes you better at building your company.
I think taking secondaries changes on a scale; sometimes it's too much. But taking secondaries, I think, will make you a better company builder. Do you agree with that?
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Will Ahmed | I do, especially if you're in a growth stage of a company. I don't think I ever sold shares until Whoop was worth at least $1,000,000,000, and they were for rounds that were super oversubscribed.
But I do think that's a fair lens to look at it from. I've read about people taking secondaries at the Series A stage or something, and I don't know... everyone's circumstances are different, so you don't want to judge.
However, I do think for a company that's at a later stage, where you're making this calculus of whether this is a company that's going to be acquired in a short period of time or if it's a company that we're trying to build to be a standalone business, I think if it's more the latter, you want your founders or your key people, like your CEO, to not be looking at their bank account and wondering when they're going to cash out on this thing.
You want them in a mode of, "Hey, I can keep going for a while," and really optimize the business. So, yeah, I agree. I agree with you.
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Sam Parr | What do you do with your money? Do you just do like boring Vanguard or index funds, or do you do something a little more risky? And what do you like to spend your money on?
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Will Ahmed | I wouldn't say I'm the biggest spender of money, but I mean, I've enjoyed investing in stuff. I've enjoyed investing in startups, meeting founders, and backing things that my friends do or start.
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Shaan Puri | If you go out to dinner with your friends, do they just look at you and wait when the bill comes? | |
Sam Parr | they got t they got t rex arms they can't reach you | |
Shaan Puri | Suddenly, that wingspan shortened up big time. I couldn't even get to the pocket anymore. | |
Will Ahmed | No, I mean, look, I think it's great, of course, to be able to be generous too and take care of people or cover bills or whatever. I think it just sort of creates a peace of mind for you in an important way if you're going to be trying to do something for the next 10 years. | |
Sam Parr | What companies did you want to start before that? I'm looking at your background. You said you're from Long Island, you live in Boston, and you went to Harvard. That's amazing!
But you studied economics, right? It doesn't look like you followed that path. Then you worked at a bank, or you were just an intern at a bank. I know my wife's from Long Island, and it looked like you were going down this very typical path of just being some banker type in the city.
But you kind of took a left somewhere. What other companies were you thinking about starting?
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Will Ahmed | I wasn't thinking about starting companies at all, actually. Your observation is right; I sort of thought in the back of my mind that I would go work in finance after I graduated because that's what a lot of people seem to do. I had some background in finance because my dad had worked in that field.
Internships are a great way to figure out what you don't want to do. So, I worked at a hedge fund after my freshman year, an investment bank after my sophomore year, and a private equity firm after my junior year.
The question I asked myself at each of those places was, "Did I want to be my boss's boss or my boss's boss's boss? Or, you know, if I could be one day?" I just didn't feel that pull. I didn't feel this gravitational pull towards it.
At the same time, I was becoming sort of obsessed with this idea. I think I ultimately became an entrepreneur before I really knew what an entrepreneur was. It wasn't like I was choosing between three or four different ideas; it was just this one idea that I became obsessed with.
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Shaan Puri | Well, in the last decade that you've been doing this, any entrepreneur sees other opportunities. You notice things that are pain points for your business and think, "Man, somebody should make this easier."
You meet a bunch of other entrepreneurs and realize, "Oh wow, there's like a whole universe of potential businesses that can be started and be successful." A lot of people listen to this podcast to try to get ideas, to think about, "Oh, what's possible? What could I be doing right now?"
So, do you have any business ideas that have come to you, you know, as you've been running Whoop, that you're not going to pursue because you're running Whoop? But maybe somebody else could do it?
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Will Ahmed | I have a lot of sort of funny, tangent-like business ideas that are sort of silly. These are the kinds of ideas you don't think of in the shower or whatnot. So, we can riff on some of those. I also have some that are more... | |
Shaan Puri | Don't tell us which ones are the serious or the silly. We'll probably get them all mixed up ourselves anyway. So, take one off your list and let's hear it.
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Will Ahmed | Okay, this is a very funny one. So, the idea for the company is called "Carpipes." It's vocal lessons while you're commuting in the morning. You're in your car, and you've got someone who's teaching you how to sing. You know, your car pipes.
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Shaan Puri | yeah you're in a safe space so you can you you can belt it out | |
Will Ahmed | Exactly. Those are the types of ideas that I feel like I think of a lot.
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Shaan Puri | I'll give that one a I'll give that one a b sam | |
Sam Parr | f | |
Shaan Puri | I think I I always wanted to sing | |
Sam Parr | Look, dude, you have so much... Listen, you have so much data. Both Sean and I have car pipes. No, it's stupid. You're a brilliant man, and you just had one dumb idea. I'm allowed to say that.
Both Sean and I have invested in continuous glucose monitor companies. I don't know if you ever... I think I had an opportunity to pass on your company, Will, or somehow a deck made its way to me, and I was a fool and didn't do it. Or maybe I just didn't have any money. I think that's what it was. I think I just didn't have enough cash.
I mean, I want to know, like, which of these wearables do you think are going to be awesome? And which wearables in the future are going to be a thing? You know, on the pod, what we've talked about... I don't have a background like you, so I'm just kind of riffing here.
But I've always thought it was ridiculous how you can have, like, a cancer or something bad inside of your body growing. I've had family members who have passed away, and it was like, you know, had we just gotten this MRI or CAT scan like six months ago, you would have been fine.
I've always thought it's very strange that something can be in your body, and it's just a matter of you just didn't get it measured. Otherwise, you could have been fine. I've always thought that to be quite strange.
Whoop actually told me one time when I had COVID, and I thought that was sick. I'm like, "Well, sick, you should tell me if I have, like, cancer as well." You know what I mean? That's something that's always fascinated me.
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Will Ahmed | Yeah, I would put all that sort of in the category of **obvious innovation** that's coming. The combination of body scans, blood work, and continuous monitoring through a non-invasive wearable will ultimately be able to predict a lot of things that are disease states or leading indicators for death.
I'm very optimistic about how profoundly the healthcare space and the relationship with your doctor will change. It's so obvious.
Then the other thing is, artificial intelligence is a very popular expression these days, but AI will be enormously valuable for analyzing a lot of these somewhat complicated scans to look for things inside your body that might be off.
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Sam Parr | which | |
Will Ahmed | which otherwise required you know an expensive radiologist to look at or something | |
Sam Parr | Which startups do you think are at like the sub-100 or sub-50 employee count, and maybe sub-300 million market cap or value? Below that, do you see any in the health and wellness category that you think is going to have a similar trajectory as you guys? Are there any that have a bunch of meat on the bone for growth and upside?
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Will Ahmed | You know, it's funny because I think I've spent so long thinking about health and wellness. It's almost like the bar to invest in a health and wellness thing is too high.
So, I actually find that I don't invest in all that much related to health and wellness. Like, I'm wracking my brain right now. I think of something that I'm involved in that's directly health and wellness-related.
A company that I think is quite powerful is called **Whisper**, which I am an investor in. They’ve essentially built technology that allows you to transcribe your thoughts, which is pretty powerful technology if you think about it. The ability to sort of think something and have it written out.
So, I really like deep tech stuff like that. It feels like magic; it feels like the future.
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Shaan Puri | And how does it do that? You're wearing like a brain scanner device type thing, and then you literally think something and it writes it. How? What happens?
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Will Ahmed | I don't want to butcher this, but the short of it is, it looks like an old jawbone might have one of those Bluetooth headsets. That's what the technology's form factor looks like.
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Shaan Puri | and you literally just think something and it writes it or you have to like sort of whisper it | |
Will Ahmed | I believe it's using your your brainwaves | |
Sam Parr | what's the url of this | |
Will Ahmed | it's whisper dotai | |
Sam Parr | oh okay I just saw it it looks like a little it looks like a like a hearing aid | |
Will Ahmed | yep | |
Sam Parr | oh that's cool how much money have they raised do you know | |
Will Ahmed | I wanna say something in like the 15 20,000,000 range | |
Hubspot | Wow, that's pretty fascinating. This data is wrong every freaking time.
Have you heard of HubSpot? HubSpot is a CRM platform where everything is fully integrated.
Woah, I can see the client's whole history: calls, support tickets, emails, and here's a task from 3 days ago that I totally missed.
HubSpot: grow better.
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Will Ahmed | So, here’s a category of work that’s a little more serious. Obviously, you guys have seen everything that’s come out in terms of deep fakes and this ability to create videos of people that are almost indistinguishable from a real video.
I think that there’s going to be like a talent agency of sorts for non-living people. So, you know, imagine if you’re Tom Cruise towards the end of your career. The same way Justin Bieber just sold the rights to his songs, maybe Tom Cruise sells the rights to Tom Cruise. You can keep making movies with Tom Cruise for the next 100 years.
Another version of that is you can have an actor like Tom Cruise who’s completely artificial.
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Shaan Puri | Have you seen the Tom Cruise deep fake on TikTok? Totally! It's incredible. Sam, have you seen this thing?
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Sam Parr | Yeah, it's amazing. You know who did that? Sean. We talked about it. The South Park guys.
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Shaan Puri | is that deep voodoo or that's somebody else | |
Sam Parr | I thought it was deep I thought deep voodoo did the tom tom cruise one am I wrong | |
Will Ahmed | miles fisher miles fisher | |
Shaan Puri | oh yeah yeah yeah yeah and | |
Will Ahmed | he's the one who does them | |
Shaan Puri | I think it's him and this other guy | |
Will Ahmed | Oh, because he kind of looks like Tom Cruise. But there's a whole technology I think that doesn't even need a human involved, which would just essentially take the fact that Tom Cruise has made 50 movies and be able to... yeah.
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Shaan Puri | But that's interesting. You're like, instead of selling your back catalog, sell your future catalog basically.
So you could sell your likeness. You could create an AI likeness and just license it out to whoever wants to use it. This obviously has some potential, you know, ways it could be misused, but...
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Sam Parr | Yeah, yeah, but now she's got like a boyfriend. I don't actually know if they're together or not anymore, but she's got like a whole cast of characters now.
I've been getting into it, and they raised a bunch of money. She's getting ad deals; it's super fascinating, dude. It's super fascinating.
What's more fascinating is I think that if I had to guess, the way that they're making money—with the way that she looks—they're using AI to come up with like the ideal person that both men and women are attracted to or want to follow and be into.
I follow her boyfriend, and he's super skinny and little, and drag-like in "Dragonos." I'm like, "Fuck, they don't like yolk boys anymore." You know?
It's kind of funny to see what they're making as the ideal person. It's very fascinating, but the business is making a lot of money, I believe.
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Shaan Puri | Well, on this pod a while back, I had said somebody needs to create a deep fake OnlyFans model. I was like, "Oh, you could just have a virtual OnlyFans model that even kind of looks a little virtual." That's okay.
Now, this is just a money maker for you, right? You're basically like some sort of virtual pimp if you created these AI OnlyFans characters.
A guy did it. So, a guy reached out and he created it. He basically used his girlfriend, who's a model or whatever, as the model for it and then created an AI clone of her.
Now we're setting it up and we're going to see how it goes. I'm really curious to see if this thing takes off or not. | |
Sam Parr | so are you actually interested in this business are you are you gonna be | |
Shaan Puri | how am I not interested in this business this is so interesting to see if this works or not | |
Sam Parr | Yeah, but like, how do you work with softcore porn all day?
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Shaan Puri | I mean, I'm not doing anything. I'm just getting the update. He just DMs me and says, "Check this out." He'll be like, "You know, we got the account made," or "We're gonna..." and he'll start sending me updates on how much money they're making.
Right? I just want to see how the experiment turns out. I don't have to sit there and train her.
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Sam Parr | Think about the investor updates that he sends. He's like, "Here are screenshots of our new prototype. You know, we've effectively gotten people's REM sleep to improve by 5% by just adding this little feature. Here's a mock-up." And they're like, "What? What's it going to look like to you?"
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Shaan Puri | it's gonna look great I don't know I don't see what the problem is | |
Will Ahmed | Well, that's actually a theme that I think about. It's like, okay, 50 years from now, what are things that future generations will look back at our generation and say, "Oh, that was so crazy that that was happening then"?
There are a lot of easy versions of that for us today, right? You can say smoking on airplanes, or the number of people that died giving birth, or people dying from just traveling across the country.
There are all these examples of that. Then, if you try to pull it forward, what would they say about things that feel sort of a little too normalized today?
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Shaan Puri | What are things that your grandkids will say? Like, "Really, Grandpa? You know, slavery?" And you're like, "I don't know, it was just the norm back then."
Right? What are those things today that, 50 years from now, will seem either crude, rude, or whatever in some way?
I think health monitoring is an obvious one. It's like, you just didn't know how you were doing. It's like, "Yeah, we just didn't know." You'd go to the doctor once a year, maybe, and like, yeah...
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Will Ahmed | they just randomly measured my blood pressure once a year right that was that was my checkup | |
Shaan Puri | That's to me the most obvious one that will seem like, "Wow, you guys were really capable. You just rolled the dice with that one, your whole health thing." And that's just going to be so different in the future.
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Will Ahmed | the number of people that die from car accidents seems like | |
Shaan Puri | it would be | |
Will Ahmed | on that list dude I | |
Sam Parr | Was driving last night on a late-night, like, 2 AM, one-lane road. A huge truck went by me, and it shook my car. We were both going 80 miles an hour, you know, passing each other.
It does seem... in about 20 years, it's going to be so archaic. We're going to look back and say, "Can you believe that we were basically one sneeze away from an 80 miles an hour car crash all the time?" You're just literally 10 feet away, 5 feet away sometimes.
That is... that's going to be our generation's smoking section in restaurants. Two cars going by each other, that's really what it's going to be like. I think it's going to be like smoking or not smoking. You used to drive these cars going in opposite directions, and you were 10 feet away from each other. That's what it's going to be like.
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Shaan Puri | And like, my wife is vegan, and she's like, "Yeah, the thing that's gonna be, you know, 50 years from now is like, you just killed animals and ate them. Like, why? Why?" Like, you just thought that was...
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Sam Parr | okay I bet | |
Shaan Puri | it's like dude | |
Sam Parr | I bet will's got a the total opposite take on | |
Shaan Puri | Your side, that's what I wanted to hear. What's your take on sort of like vegan, carnivore, plant-based, you know, all these different, you know, more extreme versions of diets? Have you seen anything? Where is your head at? What does the data say around that?
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Will Ahmed |
The data says it's highly personal. You could put two people on identical diets and they could have literally the exact opposite effects on those people. I remember... I mean, take professional athletes for example. Do you guys remember when LeBron got really skinny? It was like around the Olympics.
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Sam Parr | yeah | |
Will Ahmed | And he had been playing with Ray Allen, so Ray Allen got him to go on the paleo diet because Ray Allen was obsessed with it. As an example, it was amazing for Ray but terrible for LeBron—like, terrible.
There's every version of that for the rest of us. For me personally, I eat three meals a day. I try not to eat junk. I eat carbs, and I would say I have a Mediterranean-type diet with a lot of meats, fish, and vegetables. I don't really drink that many calories; I mostly drink water and coffee.
So that's my diet. I also think diet is easier if you like the right things. Then you can kind of eat as much as you'd like or as much as fills you up, versus having to count calories. This is partly because a lot of the calories you consume are really bad calories.
So those are my quick perspectives on diet.
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Sam Parr | dude have you seen well have you seen brian johnson do you know who that is | |
Will Ahmed | Yeah, he created a really cool, or is creating a very cool, company that measures brainwaves.
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Sam Parr | yeah yeah yeah but have you seen blueprint | |
Will Ahmed | well that's his whole age reversal | |
Shaan Puri | he he's like a human he's like a human whoop band | |
Will Ahmed | Yeah, well, he wears Whoop, and that's how I know him. He's come on the Whoop podcast before. I think he's actually coming on soon.
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Shaan Puri | Is he in the top 1% of data? Because if not, he's doing a hell of a lot of things with his lifestyle. If that doesn't work, if that doesn't give him some off-the-charts readings on his sleep and his strain, then I don't know.
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Will Ahmed | Well, I want to be clear that I don't have access to every single person on Whoop's data. But I think some of the stuff we went over, because he was on a Whoop podcast maybe a year or two ago, and he was telling me some pretty good stats then. It sounds like he's dialed it in even more since. So, I'll definitely listen to the podcast you guys did with him.
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Sam Parr | Well, so listen to this, Sean. This just happened. I think it was released this morning.
So basically, he was on our podcast, and he looks like a freak. You know, like he's chiseled; he looks awesome. I don't know how old he is, actually. I think he's 46.
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Shaan Puri | or 40 yeah | |
Sam Parr | Yeah, but he looks great. He does all this insane stuff that you'd expect a billionaire to be able to do. He's got like 30 doctors helping him with all this.
It was just released that you can spend, I think, like $1.5 or $2 million a year, and basically, anyone can use his doctors and go through his system. What he's trying to do for the listeners is kind of like a thought exercise, but he's taking it seriously.
He's trying to reverse his age. You can do this by improving your blood and losing weight, things like that. The goal is to reverse his biological age faster than his chronological age goes up. Because in theory, if you do that, you live forever. Obviously, that won't happen, but it's an interesting thought exercise. Now, anyone can sign up and apply to use all the crazy things that he's doing.
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Shaan Puri | you're gonna you're gonna do it sam | |
Sam Parr | It's like $2,000,000 a year.
Also, I have a thing with all the fitness people, and Brian... I called Brian out for this, and he actually answered it well. But I'm like, "Do you ever experience joy?"
I don't drink alcohol, and a lot of people will say, "Oh, I've been wanting to do that." And I'm like, "Well, do you have a problem?" They go, "No, I just thought..." Then what? It sounds dope! Just get drunk every once in a while. That's like a life worth living. It's like when you have things to celebrate, and you can build camaraderie with your friends.
Yeah, just do it! You might live a little shorter; you might be sick for a few days, but you know, experience joy. That's good.
So with Brian, I was like, "Do you ever have birthday cake for your kid's birthday?" And he's like, "No, I've only cheated like once, one meal over like 2 years or something like that."
I was like, "Well, are you happy?" And he said, "I'm happy."
So my opinion of that is, okay great, you're winning. But for most people, I don't know... experience joy a little bit! Be healthy and also like get messed up every once in a while.
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Will Ahmed | I think that's good advice | |
Shaan Puri | Will I have a... I have a similar thing that you'll just hate or disagree with, which is on my Twitter. I have this tweet that's pinned that just says, "Here are some semi-controversial things that I believe."
One of them is: **You don't need a sleep tracker. Great sleep is obvious.** I think you would probably disagree because it's kind of the premise of your life right now. But you gotta admit, it's pretty catchy.
And there's some nugget of wisdom in there. There's some nugget of truth in that belief.
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Sam Parr | just because it sounds good doesn't mean it's true | |
Will Ahmed | Yeah, I mean, I think that might be true in extremely binary terms. You know, "Oh, I had to wake up for a 4 AM flight," or "The alarm kept going off last night." Like, yeah, okay, those are bad nights of sleep.
But I think it's a profound lie in the sense that if you're actually trying to understand your nightly sleep and routine, there's just a lot to consider. Think about it this way: it's a third of your life that is a complete black box. You have no idea what's happening during that third of your life.
Science has proven that this third of your life dramatically affects the other two thirds. If you're good at sleeping, it decreases every form of potential disease that you can have. It is the magic pill.
So, I don't agree with your tweet, but I respect that you probably got a lot of great tweets. | |
Shaan Puri | Tons of retweets, right? We do it for the retweets around here.
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Will Ahmed | And I do think that Sam's point is a good one, though, as it applies to that tweet. If you make all these things seem like discipline in spite of joy or sort of soulless, then of course there's some kind of rebellion against it, right?
I've heard people talk about sleep tracking in a way that makes it seem profoundly uncool. I understand that perspective, but I think the reality is you can measure things about your body passively. This can give you great insight into your life and can ultimately make your life better.
Yeah, okay.
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Sam Parr | So, what do you think is going to happen in 10 years? What's the vision here? Are you going to go public? Are you going to sell this for $10,000,000? What do you think is going to happen?
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Will Ahmed | I think we'll ultimately go public. I believe it will probably be sooner than the time frame you provided.
I think we're going to build technology that's able to predict a lot of massive life events as they pertain to your health. Along the way, we will provide a 24/7 coach that helps people meet their goals well beyond health—psychological goals, professional goals—just because of the value that understanding your body can provide.
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Sam Parr | Dude, you've stuck it in the face of all the finance bros. You're saying, "I didn't have to go that route, and I still crushed it." I think that's awesome!
I've got so many friends from New York and Long Island, and they do the same thing over and over again. I'm like, "You're selling your soul, man. This is the worst."
It's so cool that you kind of saw that route is not maybe for you, and you're going to just crush it.
We're big fans of Whoop. I've never tested the Oura ring, so I've been loyal to my Whoop. I've been calling it "Whoop" and "Whoop," so my apologies—I actually didn't know the right way to pronounce it.
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Shaan Puri | yeah what is the right way | |
Will Ahmed | whoop whoop | |
Shaan Puri | I kinda like Whoop too. I would never say I'm "whooping ass."
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Sam Parr | but I | |
Shaan Puri | would say I'm a whoop ass today so you know like I kind of I don't know | |
Sam Parr | yeah that's gonna be the next | |
Will Ahmed | thing I | |
Sam Parr | agree with the founder | |
Shaan Puri | of it or sam yeah | |
Sam Parr | what do you know | |
Shaan Puri | if you wear it inside out it's whoop yeah | |
Sam Parr | I never knew how you pronounced it, but my wife and I are paid subscribers. How much do we pay? I think we pay you $300 a year. I don't even remember what.
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Shaan Puri | We did it for two years, and I just didn't have my band. I lost my band, and then I just kept the subscription going. So, you know, you're welcome on that one. But now I got my band back, and now I'm getting the value.
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Will Ahmed | Yeah, if you reach out to membership services, they'll send you a band. No problem. If you're a subscriber, the hardware's included. I mean, that was one of the more... | |
Shaan Puri | that was like re | |
Will Ahmed | In hindsight, more recently, in 2018, we changed the whole business model to a subscription model where the hardware was included. | |
Sam Parr | how did was that like a huge I mean did your economics drastically change | |
Will Ahmed | Totally! I mean, we used to sell the product for a **$500** one-time fee, everything included. Then we went to, "You can sign up for as little as **$30**."
Picture the cash implications, gross margin implications, and everything that happens almost overnight when you do that. It was also about the business moment because, okay, companies founded in **2012**, if you're changing your business model that profoundly **6 or 7 years** later, you're also admitting you haven't figured out the right business model **6 or 7 years** into building a company.
So, yeah, that was all quite painful and concerning. But we created a really cool business model that now has been amazing.
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Sam Parr | Yeah, now you're going to get... maybe you can make an argument. I don't know if you're going to get it, but you're going to make an argument that you get those SaaS multiples.
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Will Ahmed | yeah and then I think there's a fair case for that | |
Sam Parr | Yeah, I don't know what your churn is, but that would be badass. I mean, that's a five times more valuable company. Well, dude, this is awesome.
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Shaan Puri | Yeah, thanks for coming on. We took a little overtime, sorry about that. But thanks for coming on, Will. This is fun! And yeah, everybody, go get some sleep.
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Sam Parr | and by the way sean and | |
Will Ahmed | from you that's a big pivot | |
Shaan Puri | Well, I said great sleep is important. I just said great sleep is obvious. You know which way you're going, whether you track it or not.
Then, once you get going in the right direction, start measuring it and optimizing it.
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Will Ahmed | did you have a twitter thread that was killing clubhouse | |
Shaan Puri | I did that blood is on my hands yes | |
Will Ahmed | wow that's yeah how's that thing looking | |
Shaan Puri | On all the Clubhouse investors who blocked me because they thought I was just being a hater.
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Will Ahmed | know the | |
Shaan Puri | My door has a little mail slot for apologies, and they're welcome to go ahead and slip the apology back in.
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Will Ahmed | Yeah, no, I'm connecting the dots on some tweets of yours that I've read now. I also remember that sleep one; I think about it.
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Shaan Puri | that was my version of the of the club has thread for you | |
Will Ahmed | I don't know that business very well, but it certainly seems like it's not doing as well as it was in the middle of COVID.
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Sam Parr | Well, I think what a hypocrite Sean is. By the way, he's got a Whoop... yeah, Whoop! He owns a Whoop and he's still saying, "You don't need a sleep tracker." That's bullshit, man! Call him out, Will.
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Will Ahmed | yeah well I I definitely will now | |
Shaan Puri | Well, I'm waiting for the version that just auto charges or stays charged for like 2 years. That way, I can just leave it on because I'm a notorious "lose shit" guy. You know, I'm on my 18th pair of AirPods. I've gone through 3 Whoop bands, and it's the charging that gets me every single time.
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Sam Parr | same what's the plan dude are is a 30 day charge gonna happen anytime soon | |
Shaan Puri | or is it for a guy to get an infinite battery around here | |
Sam Parr | yeah just do better | |
Will Ahmed | And by the way, the modular battery pack I think was a good innovation. At least you don't have to take it off.
Originally, I was hoping we'd be able to do it like watches, where there are certain watches for some movement that keep it alive. The reality is that because we collect so much health data, we're driving the battery pretty hard and the sensors pretty hard.
So, in some ways, it's great that we've gotten to 4 or 5 days, but customer feedback has been heard.
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Sam Parr | we'll we'll | |
Will Ahmed | work on the 2 year model for both of you | |
Sam Parr | No, that's been my same thing. That's why I don't wear an Apple Watch. I think it's so stupid that you have to charge those things all the time. I think.
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Shaan Puri | dude I lost my wedding ring on my honeymoon because I just lose everything same | |
Sam Parr | I had a... I got mine tattooed on my hand because I lost it so much. Same. I think I... but man, the charging thing, like...
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Shaan Puri | I'm not smart enough to get away with this absent-minded professor shit, where it's like, "Oh, he's so messy, but he's brilliant." It's like, well, he's above average. It doesn't have the same excuse power for me.
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Sam Parr | That's alright. You're good enough that you can screw up every once in a while. But yeah, the battery thing, man, you guys gotta figure that out.
I think we have Will's email in the calendar invite. So, Sean, you're just going to message him, "Hey Will, I lost my band. Please hook up. Thanks."
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Shaan Puri | right I'll I'll delete mail I'll delete tweet fair | |
Will Ahmed | You don't have that many people losing it because they wear it all the time. So, you must be taking it off too. | |
Shaan Puri | I also have little kids, and my little kids are like, "Oh, bracelet toy!" You know, they just think it's theirs. So they just steal it when it's charging on the counter, and now I lose it. So, you know, whatever.
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Sam Parr | well dude thanks for doing this I'm trying | |
Will Ahmed | to give you guys | |
Sam Parr | Your PR guy, John, is my good buddy. John hooked us up with Ariel Helwani. You like UFC? Ariel and John are good buddies, and Ariel's like the face of UFC journalism. He made the introduction to you, so we owe him a shout-out. I appreciate you coming on; this is awesome.
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Will Ahmed | are you a big ufc fan | |
Sam Parr | oh yeah we both are yeah we're both huge into it are you | |
Will Ahmed | I'm not a huge fan, but I mean, I observe it from a distance. I think the athletes are, you know, some of the more impressive physical specimens in the world.
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Sam Parr | yeah besides the whole brain thing besides that | |
Will Ahmed | yeah and the slap league thing that they gotta put that away | |
Sam Parr | That's the stupidest **fucking** thing on earth. I hate the slap league. What I hate is the slap. Dude, that is the dumbest thing, man.
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Shaan Puri | Out of the slap league? What? That is so stupid! I watched 3 minutes of the preview and I was like, "Just when I thought I was out, Dana White, you got me back in." It's like, dude...
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Sam Parr | that is the dumbest thing ever are you really are a fan of that | |
Shaan Puri | no one's saying it's not dumb horrible yeah and they get | |
Sam Parr | Knocked out. So for those listening who don't know what I'm talking about, it's basically... I think they have weight classes, but it's usually always like big old fat guys looking like they're supposed to be strong. They look huge and they just stand in front of each other and they smack each other five times, right? Is that the rule? It's five slaps, but they almost always get knocked out. It looks like.
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Shaan Puri | Yeah, you just take turns open-hand slapping each other. But the slap is like a thud; it's not really a slap. It's basically a punch.
And yeah, it results in a brutal knockout in almost every single match, which is pretty crazy.
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Will Ahmed | it's and | |
Sam Parr | And their faces are so swollen. Have you seen, like, when their jaws are so swollen? Dude, and they wear earplugs because they will rupture your eardrum. You know, if you've ever gotten hit in the ear, it's horrible.
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Shaan Puri | Sam, did you see the trailer for it? They released the preview that was supposed to hype you up and introduce the league. They're like, "These people come from everywhere. They come from nothing. This guy was doing this, now this is giving him this opportunity," and he's the bad guy.
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Will Ahmed | guy nothing | |
Shaan Puri | And then one guy goes, "I just wanna change the world, man." I lost it. I was like, "This is your plan to change the world?"
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Sam Parr | one slap at a time | |
Shaan Puri | brother what are you doing | |
Sam Parr | we're democratizing slaps | |
Will Ahmed | Chris Nowinski, who has done all this concussion research at Boston University, is one of the key figures in conducting concussion research in the NFL. | |
Sam Parr | he was in the he he was in the wwf wasn't he he was like a professional wrestler yeah | |
Will Ahmed | And he had a bunch of concussions. He's like, "It's just half a step from having people just stab each other on live TV and then seeing who makes it."
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Shaan Puri | Yeah, we should also get ratings, right? There's this idea of "painfotainment." Have you ever heard this term?
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Sam Parr | it's basically I get | |
Will Ahmed | I get the idea of it from from | |
Shaan Puri | Yeah, it's a great, great name for that reason, right? We love entertainment that involves people suffering. Whether this is TV shows like *Survivor* or *Naked and Afraid*, where they have to suffer in that way, or it's someone suffering in an emotional way when you're watching *Dr. Phil* or *Jerry Springer*.
On *Jerry Springer*, for example, someone finds out they got cheated on, or Maury tells them they are not the father. There used to be public executions, and people would come to watch those executions, literally, like in France in the old days.
So, there's this long history of people enjoying watching suffering as a form of entertainment. It's a crazy thing, but it does exist. I'm not saying it's good or bad, but I do think it's going to work for that reason. | |
Will Ahmed | there's some darkness there | |
Sam Parr | yeah well thanks for making this happen dude we appreciate it | |
Will Ahmed | yeah it was fun thanks for having me guys | |
Sam Parr | Yeah, we'll be in touch because, you know, I'm going to be emailing you all my complaints about my Whoop. Maybe I'll be one of your investors whenever you IPO. This is awesome, and we appreciate it.
By the way, do you use social media at all?
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Will Ahmed | at at will ahmed are are my handles | |
Sam Parr | well thanks for making this happen we really appreciate it we'll talk soon | |
Shaan Puri | we will | |
Will Ahmed | talk soon guys cool |