How We Will Grow Our Podcast With Sam Parr & Shaan Puri Podcasting 101 | My First Million 04-16-2020
Podcast Growth, Beekeeping, Comedians, and Amazon FBA - May 7, 2020 (almost 5 years ago) • 01:02:11
Transcript:
| Start Time | Speaker | Text |
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Shaan Puri | We're on! We're back. What's up? Me and Sam are here.
Sam, you wrote something at the top of this. I want to hear what you have to say, which is people's replies about what we talked about last time: Thrasio. Let's jump in with that.
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Sam Parr | You wanna... I'm gonna read just word for word. I have it pulled up on my Twitter.
Okay, you ready? I'm not gonna read the guy's name. He goes, "I'm a modest size, mid 7-figure Amazon seller in a network of guys that range from $1 to $2,000,000 to probably $50,000,000+. We have a few guys in our network that actually sold their company to... how do you call it?"
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Shaan Puri | thirasio | |
Sam Parr |
Thrasio. Happy to chat about Amazon e-commerce sometime.
Okay, so I'm gonna read his replies now. For those of you listening, the background is that on Tuesday, Sean and I talked about Thrasio. It's a company that raised money... they raised $100-200 million at a $750 million valuation, I don't remember [the exact figures].
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Shaan Puri | yeah close to a 100,000,000 at a $750,000,000 valuation | |
Sam Parr | A big company, you can see, they're only 2 years old. What they're doing is buying Amazon Fulfillment companies and they are making the brands better and just owning them. They're doing a bunch of stuff.
So, I had a guy reach out to me and I said, "That's great! Tell me, what's the cash flow situation like?" For most guys with revenue under $10,000,000, they're probably working with zero to a handful of U.S. employees, still actively involved in the day-to-day. They have a large team in the Philippines and in cheaper locations, and are probably netting between 10 to 20% a year.
The typical size for these companies is between $3,000,000 to $5,000,000 in revenue, and they're probably pulling in $500,000 to $1,000,000 a year for themselves.
But the problem is that it's getting harder and harder. In 2013, you could sell almost anything and scale a 7-figure business. Now, there are a lot more dominant, more sophisticated players, and it's incredibly hard to enter the business. The Amazon algorithm is much smarter, making ranking incredibly expensive and difficult.
Also, Amazon treats their sellers poorly, so it's kind of a mixed bag. I could take a month and do nothing, letting my team run it, and it can go perfectly. Or, I could get an email tomorrow saying my account has been suspended or killed, and I need a lawyer to reinstate everything, or I'm just crushed.
So anyway, Sean, I wanted to fill you in on this because I thought it was cool insight. I didn't know about that.
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Shaan Puri | Yeah, that's a good insight. So, a couple of thoughts on that.
The first is, I think he's right. You know, back in 2013 and 2014, it was a lot easier to do it than it is today. That seems consistent with what I've heard. In fact, it seems like the formula is to build a successful Amazon business in 2013, 2014, or 2015, and then start teaching other people how to do it because it's too hard to do anymore. So now, you start giving away the sort of secrets and you become a teacher for the next three years. I think that's the career path right now.
The other thing that comes to mind is when I was talking to Andrew Wilkinson about this. He used, I think it's a Charlie Munger quote, or oh no, it's a Nassim Taleb quote, which is, "It's like picking up pennies in front of a steamroller."
You know, there's a high probability you can make a little bit of money consistently every single time you reach down to pick it up. Then there's a low probability of complete disaster. That's what he's talking about when he says you can get a letter tomorrow that means complete disaster.
For example, you could get a letter tomorrow that says, "Your account is suspended. Goodbye." And that's it. Or Amazon could cut the rates in your category. I have a friend who was doing $1,000,000 in book sales as a third-party bookseller on Amazon, and then Amazon was like, "You know what? Our take rate on books is no longer 10%. We're going to do 25%. Thanks." And that killed my friend's business.
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Sam Parr | That happened to me the other day. In our transcript, someone mentioned, "Just so you know, Amazon changed the fee."
Basically, I have various blogs, like my personal blog, and it makes just small amounts of money—around $3,000 to $5,000 a month—from Amazon affiliates. I don't even check it; it just runs because I've written a lot of content over the years.
They changed their rate, and someone told me in the group. I forget what I was earning; I don't even check it. I think I was earning between 6% to 9% for affiliate revenue, and then they changed it to... they halved it. So that money just halved.
It's no big deal for me because it wasn't a significant income stream, but if you're Wirecutter or BuzzFeed and you made $100,000,000 from this, it's a huge deal.
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Shaan Puri | right yeah that that 20% cut makes a makes a really big difference | |
Sam Parr | No, no, no, no. It wasn't a 20% cut. It was way bigger than that. It was like half that. It halved. | |
Shaan Puri | Ouch! What category are your links mostly in? Is it electronics? Is it one category, or is it just across the board?
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Sam Parr | They rated and lowered it across categories, but across the board, it's close to half. My categories were probably personal care and electronics. I mean, just anyone who... yeah, or books. A lot of books. | |
Shaan Puri | Right, okay. I want to know another topic. So, we're good on Thrasio? Do you want to add anything else?
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Sam Parr | no did you not want to | |
Shaan Puri | No, I think it's consistent with what we thought. You know, I like when people fill in the gaps with information that we don't have.
I'm not an FBA seller; I don't know the ins and outs of that market. I just think it's interesting. We talk a little bit about it, and then people fill in the gaps. In the next episode, we come back a little smarter. That's a nice little formula we have going, so I appreciate that.
If we ever talk about stuff, you know, tell us more about what you know that we don't.
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Sam Parr | Before we go deep into serious stuff, do you want to talk about... I want to give you feedback that I got from listeners. Sean, you ready?
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Shaan Puri | am I prepared for this is this harsh critical feedback you need to oh okay great | |
Sam Parr | No, okay, so what I'm noticing with this podcast is that we have a similar amount of views each week. I think it's the same people over and over. I think we're part of people's routine, which is cool.
I believe that one of the secrets to growing a podcast is you have to have guests. When we had Andrew, he shared it, so all of the people who like him came and listened. I hope we've got him hooked and that they're going to listen from now on.
So, the way that we're going to do this is we're just going to get more guests. But here's what people keep telling me—and this isn't about Andrew—they like it when it's just you and I riffing and making things up on the fly. | |
Shaan Puri | Yeah, I've felt that. I think it's even more pronounced on these Zoom calls because the pace is a little slower. When we're in person, it's a bit better. I think having that third guest in the seat definitely helps.
However, the third guest has to bring the energy. You can't just be successful and smart; that is not enough. You have to bring energy and know what people want to hear about.
So, you know, that's the rubric for guests, which is hard when you're also trying to find famous guests because they help the show grow.
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Sam Parr |
And just for the record, Sean and I have recorded... I think we've done it a bunch of times. I personally have done it a bunch of times, and it was with wonderful people who I like, and it just turned out to be bad, and we just don't publish.
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Shaan Puri | yeah we throw it away and we don't even tell the answer we just throw it away | |
Sam Parr | yeah and I've done it | |
Shaan Puri | a couple times with | |
Sam Parr |
Throughout the years, for whatever reason (I don't even remember what I was recording stuff for), I've interviewed someone who was like an amazing operator, and the content was whack. And I'm like, "Well, trash."
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Shaan Puri | yeah exactly | |
Sam Parr |
And so anyway, the feedback that we're getting, Sean, is that people like us because they say that I'm more optimistic and you're more down-to-earth. They love that we riff, and they can't get that anywhere else. But you and I are like, "Let's go get more guests," and unfortunately, people don't like the guests... that [having guests] helps us grow.
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Shaan Puri |
Yeah, well, we'll keep mixing it in. Dude, I had a call yesterday that I was like, "If I had just recorded this, this would have been like one of the dopest podcasts ever." It was just me and Furcom. We have a call every week now that's just called "Cool Shit."
He lives on like the edge of technology. He's basically in the dark web... not in an illegal way, but sort of like he's on the forefront of what's interesting about [technology].
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Sam Parr | He's just a nerd. He's like a very typical Silicon Valley engineer. Just, yeah, a nerd. But he knows a touch of reality in a good way.
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Shaan Puri | He knows me well enough, and also he loves money enough where he knows how to take that stuff and bubble up the bits that are interesting—the bits that are relevant—and not just get lost in the weeds of technology.
So that comment was amazing, but unfortunately, it didn't record the other thing I was going to say about being a guest on other people's podcasts.
Being a guest on other people's podcasts is another way to grow. I had Ishan reach out to like 50 podcasts yesterday and just say, "Hey, I'll go on and talk about it." I just sold my company, so I can go on and talk about that.
We built a podcast that did 1,000,000 downloads in the first 6 months. We could talk about how we did that. I think guesting on other people's podcasts might be a good way. You did this with Gary Vee with Pump.
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Sam Parr | Yeah, I've probably... so there's a caveat there. I've probably been a guest a hundred times. Over the trailing six months, I have it set on my calendar from 3 o'clock to 5 o'clock. That's only for guesting on podcasts.
I would do it, and some of the small ones just drove nothing, right? It was a total hit or miss. I would spend like three weeks doing it, and it's almost like... and you probably like this... it's like being a comedian. You just say the same stuff over and over, and you kind of figure out what hits.
It's fun; it's almost like therapy. You just talk about yourself, and it's cool. But it definitely gets a little repetitive, and the results are not always there. But they are sometimes.
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Shaan Puri | Yeah, and you know the thing you said at the beginning, which is for podcasting, you get this base. It's the sticky, sticky base of people who want to listen to it all the time. It becomes a part of their routine. They start to really love you.
That's very different from other products I've built, where I'm like, "Alright, I want to get millions of users to just visit this page or use this once a week or subscribe to this and kind of forget about it." A lot of the products I've built have been like that. This is the opposite. It's like an army of 100,000 people who will go to war for you. I think there are people in this group who would, if I said, "Hey, I need you to beat this person up," they would go beat that person up. There are people who really have your back.
When I started this, I remember I was talking to Sully, who was the very first guest on the pod. He was like, "You know, what are you thinking next? You just sold the company." I was like, "You know, I really like this podcast thing." He goes, "Okay, is that a business?" In some ways, it's a step down, right? It's like, I'm going to make way less doing this than I did in my last business or any other business I want to do.
I was like, "Look, I want to just be in a million people's earballs every morning. If I did that, I just know that that's a good thing. I don't know how to get there, but I'm going to do that. I'm going to have to get into a million people's earballs every morning on their way to work." I think that's powerful.
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Sam Parr | Yeah, I mean, it may or may not be a business, but it definitely will lead to way more opportunity. I've had a lot of... I mean, I've been doing the content thing a little bit before the podcast, so I kind of understand it. But the podcast definitely is different.
I remember I went to New York, Sean, and I just tweeted, "I'm gonna be over here," because I was there for hustle advertising stuff. I just tweeted, "Yeah, I want to be here." I had 200 people wanting to come, and so we only let maybe 20 come.
We're in people's ears, dude. Like, these people... this kid Ryan said something to me, and he's like, "Yeah, you know, because you said how much you like this thing." I was like, "I don't remember what you're talking about." They think they know you, and it's funny.
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Shaan Puri | And you know, the other thing I like is that the people who listen to this are actually pretty smart and successful.
I think a lot of podcasts about business cater to the lowest common denominator. It's like, "Oh, the wantrepreneur is their core market."
In our Facebook group for this podcast, I posted something saying, "Hey, I'm doing something cool for people who have a business that does over $1,000,000 a year." There were over 100 replies just in that Facebook group from people who have businesses doing over $1,000,000 a year.
These are not like the entrepreneur who's at their 9 to 5 job or a college kid or something like that. Of course, there are people like that, but the audience is also mixed with a lot of interesting, successful people. There are a bunch of VCs that listen to this; it's crazy.
So anyway, enough about the podcast. Let's give people some other topics or ideas.
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Sam Parr | alan says my video looks good now I I I know what | |
Shaan Puri | I mean, one other thing: you kind of have the mic to the side of your mouth. When you turn, your voice goes in and out. So just keep it like this: talk directly into the mic.
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Sam Parr | Let's talk about one more thing regarding the podcast. My house looks crazy right now. I had to go and buy this mic, and I've had to set this all up. Dude, it's been so hard to set up a Zoom thing. It's hard... I hate this stuff. | |
Shaan Puri | I know you want that business to exist, which is "push a button and give me a dope podcast" like turnkey.
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Sam Parr | Yes, oh, and for anyone who's listening, this is podcast-related a little bit. I promise I'll finish up with this, but this is awesome.
So, my friend Neville Badora, he sponsored the last podcast, [copywritingcourse.com](http://copywritingcourse.com). I'll plug him! I did like a happy hour with him. I mean, I don't know, at dinner or we were just shooting the shit because we haven't been able to see each other because of this stuff.
He used a DSLR as his webcam, and it was awesome! It looked so amazing. It made him look like a Greek god. It looks like he's... it's all like... I don't know about cameras, but it does like you're blurry in the background.
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Shaan Puri | I think it's called like "Bouquet" or something like that.
So, I saw on YouTube there's this guy, Gary Tan. He's an investor in Silicon Valley; he's one of the wise commoner partners. He did this YouTube video titled "How to Look Like a F***ing Amazing on Zoom." I was like, "Dude, this makes sense! This is the new equivalent of wearing a suit to work now," right? Just sitting on Zoom and not looking like shit, with your room looking like shit.
This video only had 1,500 views, but he's like, "Look, this is the camera I used, this is the mount, this is the lens. Here's how you get that blurred background look." He looks amazing!
Then, when I saw that photo, the screenshot you had of Neville, I was like, "I bet you he watched that video." There were only 1,500 views, but I was like, "Anyone who's watching this..."
The other guy who did it was Niamh Dror, the founder of Product Dot. Now he has Shrug Capital, and he does it too. It really does look amazing. When I saw that, I was like, "I should do this."
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Sam Parr | So, I'm gonna do it. I didn't know about this video, so last night I bought $700 worth of stuff. I bought... so I already have these Philips Hue light bulbs. You know what those are?
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Shaan Puri | yep yep | |
Sam Parr | where you I just say alexa turn the lights on | |
Shaan Puri | right they're like smart | |
Sam Parr | Yeah, it's going to turn the lights on. So, I bought those, but you see back here behind the couch? I'm going to put them there, and it's going to shoot up. I hope.
We have our room... oh wait, I forgot I'm not using my camera. We have a room clean. Anyway, you'll see it. I'm into all this. I like it.
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Shaan Puri |
So this guy reached out from Twitter who's done a couple of e-commerce things that are kind of interesting. I was talking to him, and that's his new thing. He's basically... he initially was targeting Twitch streamers because he's like, "Look, when you're a streamer, you're basically broadcasting from your bedroom."
Streamers invest in all this like:
- Artwork
- Cool lights
- Wall panels
- Smart speakers
- All this stuff to make the room look good
And he's like, "I'm gonna make an e-commerce store that's just gonna do that."
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Sam Parr | what's it called | |
Shaan Puri | I'll find the name of it. I don't know if he wants me to kind of add them, so we may have to bleep this if he's not into it. But I'll say it right here: it's called **Visual Candy**. This guy's smart; I like this guy a lot.
So, anyways, with the room... you know, work from home. I think this extends a lot past where his initial market was, which is YouTubers and Twitch stars. Now it's any professional who's going to spend some amount of time in a home office. Just think about the amount of home offices that are being built out right now because people need infrastructure for this. But that's going to stick around once COVID goes away.
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Sam Parr | Yeah, I've really loved this. I'm really into it. I've gone to Amazon and I've tried buying all the stuff. It's kind of complicated because I didn't know which batteries do what. I was like, "Where does the camera need to be?"
So, I'm doing this. There's another thing called Cam Link. I just looked this up; it's made by Elgato. I went and looked at it, and they built this entire thing for streaming for gamers. It looks awesome!
I'm definitely going to start buying this stuff. I'm probably going to drop $2,000 on all this gear. I think we'll turn our other bedroom into an office. I really like all this equipment!
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Shaan Puri | Dude, I love buying stuff! When I get on a buying streak, I'm like, "Yeah, you know what? I deserve this. I need that."
And like, what's the problem here? Actually buying things is not... I don't know, there's something cathartic about it. Just the act of buying feels *fucking great*, and I love it.
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Sam Parr | Yeah, but for me, I've been having to call 1-800-GOT-JUNK and having to spend... like if I buy a new desk, the boxes are so big I gotta pay $100 just... | |
Shaan Puri | to rip it off is insane especially here in san francisco the box problem is insane | |
Sam Parr | I fucking hate it. I hate it. It's one of the reasons why I moved. I live in a house now; I used to live in a building. One of the reasons was because I didn't have to worry about the trash. | |
Shaan Puri | Right, well, no matter how much space I have—because I thought, "Oh, I got this new house. I was like, now I have a garage, I got this tradesman alley, I got this extra closet." But it's that same principle.
I think it's, I forgot, like Parkinson's Law or whatever, which states that "work will expand to fill the time you give it." So, let's say you have a week to do the project. Guess what? It's gonna take you a week. If you had a day to do that same project, it would have only taken you a day.
In the same way, like junk, your stuff will expand to fill the space you have.
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Sam Parr | So here, let me... I've thought about this a lot. Let me get wise here.
Okay, I'm an amateur beekeeper, so I have bees. Do you know this? No? You didn't know this?
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Shaan Puri | at your house right now you have bees | |
Sam Parr | The right now, so they actually went away. But since 2013, I've kept bees. For the most part, I'll tell you all about this. In my life in Los Angeles or in San Francisco, for 10 years, I've lived in Glen Park. It's a nice neighborhood in San Francisco; it's residential, though.
I've always had a backyard, and I wanted a hobby that was not expensive. I didn't want it to turn into a business. I just wanted something fun that I could do outside. I made a list of hobbies that I could pick. | |
Shaan Puri | and just pick the lamest one | |
Sam Parr |
And beekeeping came up on top because:
1. It doesn't cost a lot of money to start
2. If you want to, you can just leave it alone and not do anything
3. Or, if you wanted to, you could poke around with it and be active with it
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Shaan Puri | so low maintenance | |
Sam Parr | Low maintenance, it only costs $300 to $500 to get into the hobby. You don't have to buy a bunch of stuff to keep up with it, and it allowed me to be outside.
So, I became a beekeeper in 2013, I think, and I've been doing it for a long time.
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Shaan Puri | long do bees live like do you still got a bee that's around from then | |
Sam Parr | No, no, no, no. I think they might only live for like a few months. They cycle through.
So, I bought about 10,000 bees and I get honey from them. I just give it away, and I call it "Southern Sam's Sticky Icky." I've had bees for years. When I lived in Soma, I only lived there for a year, and then I went back to Glen Park. I just kept them on the roof at my office.
You can have bees! I would have 10,000 bees just on the roof of our office, and no one would know. They stay to themselves mostly. They go out and get pollen, turn it into nectar, and it becomes honey.
Anyway, here's the interesting thing that I've learned. This is where the wisdom comes in: bees fill the space that they are given with honey. If you give them a lot of space, they will always fill it. If you don't give them a lot of space, then they just won't make it.
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Shaan Puri | right | |
Sam Parr | and | |
Shaan Puri | so it's the rule of the sticky icky | |
Sam Parr | And so, I've learned this through bees that humans are the same way. If you give them a lot of space, then they will fill it with a ton of stuff. If you give them not a lot of space, they just won't buy stuff. You just won't get stuff.
That's the important thing. So when you think of, "I'm gonna get this huge house so I'll have a ton of room and I'll have more space," you're going to fill it to the brim with crap, and you will no longer have space. It always works that way.
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Shaan Puri | Okay, that's amazing! I love that story. I didn't know you were a beekeeper. I've known you for like six years and had no idea.
By the way, we both studied abroad in Sydney. I took a class because when you study abroad, you're trying to have a good time; you're not trying to learn. So, I took the easiest class I could find, which was a bee class.
I learned all this interesting information about bees. Here are two quick bee facts, if I remember correctly from 10 years ago:
1. When the queen bee goes to mate, she leaves on an expedition. She will mate with as many male bees as she can along the way. After mating, she basically kills them right afterwards by breaking their backs, and they die. She gets impregnated by all these bees.
2. There's another fascinating aspect about bees that people have learned, which is a significant evolutionary insight. In a beehive, many of the bees could be fertile, but they choose to be sterile. They opt to take care of the queen bee's offspring because they are all related—about 25%. They're all like quarter-sisters or something like that.
It turns out, in a Darwinian sense, your genes are better off surviving if you tend to these half-sisters and quarter-sisters rather than trying to have your own kids and survive. That's the crazy thing about bees!
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Sam Parr | Bees are awesome, man! It's a great hobby. You can get into it for **$250**. All you have to do is go to Amazon and type in "beekeeping kit." Someone will send you the kit.
Then, you can check your local Craigslist. You might even be able to buy bees online, but that could take a few weeks. If you go on your local Craigslist and type in "bees," there is a farmer nearby who you can pay **$100** to. They'll give you **10,000** bees and set it up for you.
It's super easy to get into, and it is so fun! You could eat... I mean, I get... I gotta think about this. I probably get **5 to 8** gallon milk jugs' worth of honey a year.
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Shaan Puri | producing okay cool I want some honey also related to this idea of like people buy stuff and people love stuff and people will fill their space with stuff and bees will fill their space with stuff if you want a good 5 minutes go on youtube and type chris d'elia girls love things and you will have a great time for 5 minutes okay and now that brings to me to a random startup idea so I don't think this would work so let me start with that but there's something interesting here where so netflix recently you know netflix in the last few years started going heavy into comedy so comedy used to be like hbo kinda owned the space where they would do you know hbo specials and then that kind of dried up and comics are like cock roaches they'll always survive it's like okay we'll go play in the dingiest room we'll go on stage we'll get a netflix special we'll get a hbo special okay we're back to the dark room again like they won't quit because they're like degenerates and now podcasting has been a huge boom for them so chris d'elia who also just had a netflix special come out these guys make tons of money right so netflix started cutting like 10 $20,000,000 checks I believe to these comedians because they know that comedians have these like rabid followings and the content is good it's unique sort of proprietary content but I think that there's a product out there sort of like a crunchy what crunchyroll did for anime I think somebody could do for the mid tier comedians I think you could make a sort of $5 a month $7 a month sub subscription to the the the comedians that are not gonna get netflix specials right so not chris rock and not seinfeld and chappelle and and all those guys but like the next tier down like even you know one level below like the whitney cummings of the world right because they are still getting netflix specials and I think you could add them up and it doesn't have to be the hour long special it could be like a 10 minute set set or a 20 minute set or something like that and I think you could get I think each of them have a few 1,000 fans that would pay to be able to access that exclusive comedy content and and so you would if you just aggregate all the comedians then it's a sort of all you can eat pass where as a viewer I can discover other comedians too so anyways I think that there's a business potentially for a mid level netflix for comedians where you aggregate them what do you think | |
Sam Parr | Great! I'm looking up information so I can... my brain's rolling. Let me tell you what I think.
First of all, Quibi... I imagine is trying to do something like that. So, is Quibi even how you say it?
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Shaan Puri | quibi that is | |
Sam Parr |
It's pretty stupid. I mean, look, I think with Quibi, it actually can be great because the people who are running it are like super smart. But it does not look like a good bet now. Still, it might be... Anyway, they're trying to do something like that.
Second, I think that is a great idea, and I think the way that I would find out how to do it is I would look up Quello. Q-E-L-L-O. Have you heard of Quello?
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Shaan Puri | never heard of it | |
Sam Parr | Okay, Quello is cool. So, what Quello is, it's an app on Apple TV. I think it was started way before its time.
It features live concerts and was started in 2010. It's available as an app for your phone, but I think it's best on Apple TV. You can download it, and you pay $10 a month. | |
Shaan Puri | sometimes $10,000 a month | |
Sam Parr | I think it's **$10** a month, and you just get access to a library of live concerts. Have you ever wanted to do that, or is that just me?
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Shaan Puri | I kind of do this on YouTube, but YouTube has enough free content. I listen to a bunch of Red Rocks concerts, right? Because there's a concert venue called Red Rocks, which is awesome. Anytime a musician goes there, they film it with epic cameras and sound, and they're just available on YouTube for free. But this is cool. I like this.
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Sam Parr | It's awesome! It's better than YouTube, but YouTube is great too. The reason it's better is because, like, if you buy a concert DVD, the camera works a little bit better and the sound is a lot better. I love live music, so I am a big fan of this.
They have 70,000 paying subscribers and were recently acquired by Stingray Communications, which is a publicly traded company in Canada. It's a cable company.
So, if I were you, Sean, and I wanted to launch this, or if I was a listener and wanted to launch this, I would look up Stingray Communications. I would go and read the filing for that company and figure out exactly what Quelo does. That's what I would do. I would learn about how they did it because it's a relatively niche thing. They only have 70,000 subscribers; it's not huge, and they've been at it for 10 years. So, it's not a big number, but I think it is an incredibly viable business, and I think it's great.
Another thing I would do is look up Discovery Channel and then National Geographic. Are you familiar with National Geographic? Obviously, right? Okay, National Geographic is still a huge company. Disney recently bought into it at a $1 billion valuation, and they still make $100 million a year from their magazine subscriptions. Is that crazy? That's insane!
But here’s the thing: National Geographic was a nonprofit. The good thing about nonprofits is you can go and see all the numbers. So, I would look at Discovery, I would look at National Geographic, and I would look at Quelo to see what they are doing because those are relatively niche subscription companies that crush it.
So, long story short, great idea!
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Shaan Puri | okay cool alright what else we got you wanted to talk about this carta thing | |
Sam Parr |
Yeah, so I am a user of Carta. I think the product's only okay; it's still quite frustrating to use. But Carta laid off a bunch of people the other day.
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Shaan Puri | like a 167 people | |
Sam Parr |
Yeah, and they raised money and their CEO, Henry, wrote this message that he made public. He said something like:
> "It was not your manager's fault for laying you off. It was 100% my fault. In fact, it was the opposite: your managers tried to help you, and I'm the one who reviewed every list and I said we're gonna fire this person. So blame me."
I think that was great. I thought it was a great message.
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Shaan Puri |
So, high level, he was basically saying:
> Hey, we laid a bunch of people off, and I'm going to publish the announcement I made to the company.
Presumably, [he did this] so other CEOs and other companies can kind of learn from this, use this, or take solace in the fact that "I did this too." I don't know whatever the purpose [was].
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Sam Parr |
Yeah, content marketing... He published this, and I typically fall into the category of "all press is good press, go ahead and do it." I thought this was kinda lame. Do you agree?
And I tweeted at Henry, and I want him to come here and I'll say this to his face: I think he seems like a cool guy, but this move, I think, was kinda lame.
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Shaan Puri | Right, I would agree. I've kind of followed this guy for a little while. I've read some of his other stuff and seen some interviews. He seems like a good guy, a smart guy. I think Carter's a good product, and I like some of the other stuff they've done. They have a "Next Chapter" program basically to help people who want to leave the company. They don't make it this awkward exit; they celebrate it and whatever, you know, in theory.
So, I thought this was lame mostly because I thought two things. I thought it was tone-deaf, and secondly, I didn't think the actual statement was very good. The premise of what he was trying to do—what is the upside and what is the downside? To me, it looked like he was trying to pat himself on the back. I know he would say, "That's not what I was trying to do," blah, blah, blah, but I think he was trying to pat himself on the back and also, you know, give a little bit of sort of, you know, put Carter's name out there again.
It's kind of like the Buffer way of publishing everything—the good, the bad, the ugly—and you get attention. But I just thought it was tone-deaf. It also seemed like what he wanted people's reaction to be was, "Wow, great leadership! Way to take responsibility! Great CEO-ship!" And he got that, but not from me. When I read this, I was like, "This was a pretty horrible way to do the announcement."
And I'll tell you why he started... Okay, so here's like, I'm just going to bullet...
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Shaan Puri |
The summary:
He goes over the last few weeks, saying, "We're talking about recession planning. I said layoffs were likely, and today is the day. I can't delay it any longer."
[Pause] Weird start.
Then he says, "I'm sorry if I sound robotic. I'm reading off a script because I don't know if I can get through this without something to lean on."
[Commentary] You're not the victim. Don't say that.
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Sam Parr | that's also kind of yeah that's that's pretty lame | |
Shaan Puri | Yeah, lame as fuck. Then he says, "Okay, let me start with the details. We're going to lay off 161 employees; that's 16% of our company. It's going to be different across the company."
Alright, whatever. Then this was weird. I thought it was just like, "If you are one of those affected, you'll receive an invitation from your manager. If you do not receive a meeting invitation, you are safe." I was like, "Okay, Hunger Games. A little odd way to do it." But, you know, in a Zoom world, I don't know if there is a better way to really kind of mass do this where you can't have the information come out until it needs to come out.
But I just thought, like, it's anxiety. That's a very anxious feeling thing. Also, you gotta know if you're the CEO and you say that, people's minds just start racing in that direction. They're just imagining what the next hour of their life is gonna be. They're not even gonna hear the next three paragraphs you say; like, their mind is gone. They checked out. It's thinking about themselves.
So whatever the next three paragraphs are, ignore it.
Then he goes, "Alright, the moral conflict." This is the part I thought was whack. So he's like, "In a couple of town halls ago, I said there were two perspectives around layoffs. The first is the shareholder perspective: we're reducing costs and protecting cash, or what matters. The second is the employee perspective, where nothing matters more than saving jobs and helping employees in a time where it's like unemployment at levels of the Great Depression."
So each of these are clear; they're unambiguous and they're correct from their perspective, but they are diametrically opposed. This creates a conundrum for CEOs. CEOs sit between shareholders and employees and wish that they could do both. For every CEO, they have to deal with this conflict.
I chose to manage this conflict by taking the shareholder perspective and deciding who should leave, and taking the employee's perspective on how to help. To me, I was like, "What is this paragraph? Like, dude."
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Sam Parr | What the fuck, dude? It's all the same. You're just trying to build a company that makes a profit and works with good people. That's the same thing.
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Shaan Puri | Yeah, and like, think about your audience. Do you think your audience gives a shit about the shareholder perspective and the dilemma you have as a CEO? How you've chosen to straddle this as a CEO? It's not even about you.
So, I just thought this was the part that was really odd to me. It seemed like he... I don't know, I wouldn't have included this in the statement. I thought that this made it look quite bad, and I would not want other CEOs emulating this part of the statement.
What matters is your audience—your employees. You need to know, "Hey, this is really hard for us. We tried to analyze every situation, cut every other dollar we could before we cut anyone's jobs, and we did that. But this is the path we have to go."
You know, this is... I'm terribly sorry. I did not manage the company in a way where we had enough buffer. This is a failing on my part. This is the worst day in my time as a company, and it's for all of us.
So, like, here's what this means for you. All you have to say is, "This sucks. We tried everything we could. This was the last resort, and here's how we're going to make it right by you." Not like this theory about how shareholder value matters and the CEO has to straddle these things. It's like...
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Sam Parr | Yeah, I think that... and I think that not only does nobody care, I think that is just a silly way to look at it.
When you're building a company, step 1 is to create something that people want and get it into their hands in a profitable way. Okay, that's step 1. That is just the basics of a company, which is you make something that someone wants to give you money for, or you make something and you make a profit off of it. Right? And if I was...
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Shaan Puri | I don't think that's step 1 but that is the fundamental premise of it | |
Sam Parr | That's the fundamental premise, is what I mean.
If I were him, I'd be like, "Look, here's the deal. We expect it to grow a lot faster, and we are investing in this. The plan would have worked, but this thing slowed everything down. So, we just have to cut things that are not profitable."
That sucks, and I'm sorry that it sucks, but that's what's going to happen. I think that if you just say that in a more straightforward way instead of all this shareholder value stuff, people already know that. People already know.
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Shaan Puri | They're all adults in the room. They understand this **fucking** crazy virus that's happening, and companies across the board are having trouble. Some companies have no revenue now. People get that that's happening.
It's just like, okay, so what's going to happen at our company? Oh, at our company, they've tried everything they could. They're making the... the sort of... this is what he needed to say: this was our last resort. We did this in a way where we're not going to have another round of layoffs because that creates, you know, a...
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Sam Parr | I wouldn't say that I would I would say we're gonna try not to | |
Shaan Puri |
Yeah, like you know that is our goal and how we did this. But even then, that's speaking to the people who are staying, you know, really at this. You just have to speak to the total group and just say:
"Some of you are going to be affected. Here's how it works, here's how we're doing our best to make it right, to do right by everybody who's done right by us. This is no fault of your own, this is a fault of ours in running a company that did not have the margin of error to deal with..."
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Sam Parr | I think that, like, what I would just say if I had to do this—which I hope I never have to—but I probably really will have to one day. Not like I'm saying at our company, but... well, I'm not implying anything. I'm just saying that one day, if I have a long career—which I will—then you got to say, "Look, I have 100% of the flock that I have to manage and take care of."
Sometimes that might mean that I have to fire 30% of the flock in order to take care of the other 60%. That is just how life works, and this just sucks. I'm trying to make this in such a way that the 40% are not completely hung out to dry, but this is just what I have to do. I'm sorry that this is the situation, and if you want to blame someone, blame me. And that's that. That's pretty much all you have to say.
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Shaan Puri | Yeah, exactly. You don't need the epic speech. Right now, we're kind of like, "Look, I think we're clear that personally for us, this didn't come across great." We weren't like, "Oh wow, that was epic."
On the other side, you know, we're just kind of off the cuff coming up with what a better speech might be. But the reality is that in this case, you basically have a speechwriter. You have a multibillion-dollar company, and you have time to think about this.
What we're reading is his output after thinking about it, and that's the part that I thought was a little...
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Sam Parr | Also, I wouldn't have published it. I wouldn't have published this because it's like, "Dude, take this on the chin."
By the way, I know I'm criticizing this guy. I don't know him, and I will say this to his face. I'm sure he's actually a good dude; this is just a big miss.
But I would say, "Dude, you gotta take this one on the chin. Just accept this as a loss."
Be a man and say what you want to say to your people, which is that it's your fault. That's wonderful. I wouldn't publish this.
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Shaan Puri | Agreed. I didn't understand that, and also, I'm not sure what the upside of that was.
Now, on the other hand, I think they did some things great. The actual actions they were taking for people were commendable. They said, "Look, we're going to extend the COBRA health insurance till the end of the year," because health insurance is super important, especially right now. They didn't have to do that, but they did.
They removed people's cliff, and they invested their shares. They didn't have to do that, but they did. They also provided a bit of severance; they didn't have to do that, but they did. Additionally, they have this sort of alumni network where they're trying to help people get jobs.
Cool! I liked all of that action. I just didn't like the preamble. The whole "pat on the back" thing seemed a little bit like, "Please, can I show you my leadership during this adverse time so you can tell me I did a good job?" That's the part I didn't like.
I liked a lot of the action, and like you, I don't know this guy, so this is not a personal thing against him.
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Sam Parr | I've heard a lot of positive things from friends who work with him. I just think that, like, I value and applaud Carta for raising this money, going big, and trying to make something happen. I applaud them for over-hiring in hopes of it working out. I applaud the risk-taking.
I want people who are listening to understand that just because Sean and I are criticizing this guy, you still have to take risks and try this big stuff. It's not going to work all the time. Good... I mean, not good, but whatever. That's just how it is; it comes with the territory. I just wish he would have taken it on the chin a little bit more. | |
Shaan Puri | Right, okay. I got another topic that's on a more positive note.
I feel like I had some "haterade" spilled on me, and I gotta wash that off. Yeah.
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Sam Parr | and by the way sean you and I typically aren't I'm rarely a | |
Shaan Puri | hater exactly | |
Sam Parr | We're rarely haters, so I want to end this by saying I hope these guys crush it. I hope they do wonderful. I believe and think they actually will. I just think that this one move was a stupid move, but it's probably a very long and positive journey.
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Shaan Puri | Right, and look, you know there's a big difference between criticizing a person versus criticizing an action or something that was done. This is definitely about not liking the message, not the messenger.
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Sam Parr |
Can we just say, by the way, that a lot of people in media - like those who have these podcasts and newsletters - they're all... haters of the people they're covering. Is that not the craziest thing ever?
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Shaan Puri | Yeah, well, I think it's like a fair trade. So, there's this guy, Eric Weinstein. Have you heard this guy's podcast?
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Sam Parr | I like him | |
Shaan Puri | It's called the Portal. Smart guy. I don't know too much about him, but he runs like Peter Thiel's fund.
So, he's been talking about this concept lately that's called **kayfabe**. Have you heard him talk about this?
No? Okay, so he's like, "Hey, there's this wrestling term called kayfabe" (K-A-Y-F-A-B-E). What kayfabe is, is like, you know, in wrestling, it's basically a fake fight, right? WWE is like a prearranged sort of agreed-upon fake fight where I'm the hero and you're the heel, or I'm the good and you're the bad, whatever.
The dialogue is sort of an agreed fight for both of our betterment. The more we feud, the more popular we both become. The fight itself, like, we sort of agree to do this.
He talks about how this happens in the real world too. Right now, I see this whenever Trump goes and does his briefing, and then there's that one guy from CNN, Jim Acosta, I think is his name. Yeah, and he's always there. Trump is like, "Okay, yeah, you're next," and then he asks this question, and Trump rips him. That becomes like the 7-minute YouTube clip, and CNN talks about it all day.
On one hand, it's like, why doesn't Trump just kick this guy out or revoke his press credentials? On the other hand, why doesn't this other guy either fight back or take some other action?
Every day, the same sort of thing plays out, and I think in reality, it serves them both extremely well. CNN gets awesome content that people want to watch because it's juicy to see the president fight with somebody. Trump also loves the attention, whether it's on the left or the right, good or bad. Then he drums it up as, "Dude, those liberals are always trying to say this," and then the right supports him more because he has an...
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Sam Parr | enemy | |
Shaan Puri | that's attacking him right and so there's like this dance that | |
Sam Parr | They're doing so, I get that. Fantastic, I get that. But here's what I don't get. I'll give you a very specific example. This pissed me off so much.
There's this woman named Natasha... I forget how to pronounce her last name. It's like "Tuz" anyway. She was a blogger for Valleywag, which was pretty funny and all, but they took it too far. All they did was make fun of Silicon Valley.
Then she worked at BuzzFeed, and then Wired magazine, and now she's at The Washington Post. She had this article that says, "Silicon Valley now deems luxury housing an essential." | |
Shaan Puri | good | |
Sam Parr | Yeah, good. So, people are still building multimillion-dollar condos. In the first line of the article, it says the mayor has deemed luxury housing, as well as all other types of housing, including housing projects and this other stuff, as essential. It was in the technology section of the Washington Post. Oh yeah, here it is: Natasha Tiku.
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Shaan Puri | yeah | |
Sam Parr | Tiku... T-I-K-U. I've met her before, and I was like, "What the fuck?" That's like saying, "I'm gonna write an article in TechCrunch and be like, can you believe these billionaires are able to buy $1,000,000 cars?"
Then in the article, I'll be like, "But also, anyone can buy any car, including a $1,000 Mazda, a $20,000 Honda Civic, or a $50,000 Mercedes." It's like, what? And then why is it in the tech section of The Washington Post? Oh my god, this pisses me off.
So, I looked this woman up, and she's very educated. She went to NYU and then like Columbia Journalism, or just like Ivy League—just a really smart woman. I'm like, why would you study for 8 years or however long it took and spend hundreds of thousands of dollars when you're just gonna... | |
Shaan Puri | to do this | |
Sam Parr | I hate that you're just going to hate the people who you write about. I don't understand it. Why not just go and write about something that you want to celebrate?
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Shaan Puri | Of course, they'll say, "We don't hate them. We're just, you know, reporting on the stories. We don't hate them."
So, there was this really interesting thing that happened recently. Before coronavirus, there was this guy, Balaji, who is pretty popular on Twitter. He was at Andreessen Horowitz and a bunch of other places, including Coinbase. He's kind of one of those guys on the forefront of things.
Back in January, he showed up at a crypto meetup wearing gloves and a mask. This was in January when nobody in the U.S. was really worried about this. Everyone was kind of laughing, asking, "What are you doing?" He responded, "Well, you know, I think that there's a, you know, maybe small probability that this coronavirus thing that's happening in Wuhan is going to be a major, you know, global pandemic." People were like, "Okay, Balaji. Alright, thanks."
And so, this writer came out...
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Sam Parr | and do you have vox | |
Shaan Puri | the vox a recode writer yeah so recode rider recode | |
Sam Parr | oh my god this infuriates me | |
Shaan Puri | Go ahead. The quick story here is that the Recode rider reaches out to Balaji and says, "Hey, I want to get your comment on a story we're doing about, you know, Silicon Valley's reaction to the coronavirus." This was, again, early on. He was like, "Yeah, I'm not interested. Why don't you report on, like, who cares about what the Silicon Valley elite think about coronavirus? You should report on the state of testing, the state of the spread of the virus, and all these other important facts that should be reported on."
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Sam Parr | and he tweeted out that he that that happened | |
Shaan Puri | He screenshotted her DM and tweeted it. Then all the journalists were like, "Dude, she was just asking for a comment. Why are you putting her on blast? This is why people hate Silicon Valley."
He was like, "No, no, no, no. I know this game." He talked about this strategy called "befriend and betray," where the journalist comes to you and says, "Hey Balaji, you're an expert. I would love to get your take on this thing." All they're trying to do is write the story.
The headline of the story came out something along the lines of, "Why Silicon Valley is not doing handshakes anymore." It was laughing at Silicon Valley for overreacting to the coronavirus. This was early on, before all the lockdown stuff. | |
Sam Parr | He said, "I promise you the headline's gonna be: Silicon Valley nerds refuse to shake hands."
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Shaan Puri | and that's | |
Sam Parr | what it was | |
Shaan Puri | Pretty much what it was... Now, the body of the article, I went back and read, was actually somewhat fair. It was just reporting what was going on, how, you know, whatever. But he was right about the headline. The headlines are often written not by the journalist but by the editor because the editor needs to drive clicks, blah blah blah.
Anyway, this is a pretty interesting feud. If you want to hear more, Jason Calacanis did a podcast with Vology that I thought was pretty awesome.
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Sam Parr | So, I can't stand that, particularly given me. People are always like, "Oh, you're a tech bro." A lot of journalists will say that, and I'm like, "You work at Vox. If I'm tech, so are you." What does that mean, tech?
I had a journalist from The New York Times come and interview me. She was like, "So, what do you and your tech bro friends talk about?"
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Shaan Puri | Yeah, I was going to ask you to do this. So, tell the story of your New York Times story. This is an amazing story you've told me before.
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Sam Parr | Yeah, so first of all, I made sure I recorded it. I had to because I knew that this person was going to take me out of context.
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Shaan Puri | so what was the context you went to new york or how how did no | |
Sam Parr | she came here she goes hey you seem like an insider I I wanna come and learn all the things that people are gonna are talking about be frank with me yeah and I go okay fine come I know what you're doing come on and but maybe it could be positive like maybe we'll become like we can exchange cool information maybe you'll write something positive about me maybe I'll just whatever and maybe it'll turn out good and she comes she goes can I record this I go yeah I'm gonna record it too and and because I I didn't want anything to be taken out of context and she goes so like you're like a tech bro like what do you and your tech friends talk about and your bro friends and I was like first of all why are you calling me a bro like what do you and your tech chick friends talk like why would you ever say that to me you don't know me and that's just rude to to say anyway and I and she I go well I don't know I go you're in tech you tell me she goes no I work at new york times I was like you guys just announced that most of your revenue comes from digital like you're why am I tech and you're not tech like you are tech and she goes well it's just different I was like well you tell me what do you you you and your tech friends talk about and she goes well we're not whatever she like tried to dismiss it I was I was like anyway I go well we talk about just like you know sports and I was like I don't know we just talk about normal stuff like cool diets or like cool food like all types of weird stuff and it was just so odd she was just so trying to like it was so much like an other like I am an other from you and I'm like I don't I don't understand this this this this dichotomy here like we are actually in the same industry I work in publishing so do you we both make make most of our most of our money from the internet like why are you calling me this tech bro you don't even know me and she's like what you don't listen to joe rogan do you I'm like well yeah I do I listen to a lot of cool stuff I I I read and this is true every morning I go to cnn and then I go to fox news and then I go to huffpo and then I go to breitbart because those are all like kind of the opposites I read all types of stuff I like joe rogan I like oprah I do all types of stuff why are you trying to like set me up for this gotcha moment | |
Shaan Puri | right | |
Sam Parr | And it was horrible. I hated it.
To sum this up, the headline—by the way—was: **"We have multi-million dollar mansions, high-rise waterfront condos, and a stately Victorian, all deemed 'essential' under public health orders in San Francisco and Silicon Valley."**
Then, in the first paragraph, it restated the headline and added, "as well as housing projects and low-income housing, all deemed essential."
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Shaan Puri | right | |
Sam Parr | it's oh my god I can't stand it I'm like why would you | |
Shaan Puri | I remember this. When we bought Bebo back, we had purchased it for $1,000,000 at an auction. We were going to relaunch it as something new, and nobody knew that we had bought it back. It was done in a courtroom, kind of on the low.
I knew a reporter, and we were kind of friendly. We had mutual friends, so I thought, "Okay, hey, I want to give you a scoop." I told her about the embargo and invited her to do an interview. She was like, "Great!" She came over, did the interview, and we explained the whole thing. We talked about what we were doing, blah blah blah.
The next day, the article comes out. This is the person we gave the scoop to; we could have given it to anyone. The headline was, "Remember Bebo? Yeah, that Bebo." It was something like, "Bebo is dead, remember Bebo?" Literally, it was like "LOL" in the headline, making fun of it. The whole article was our conversation, which was legit.
So, I texted her, "What the fuck? What is this headline?" She replied, "I'm sorry, I don't get to do the headlines. My editor does the headlines, and he just decided that the thing that would drive the most clicks is talking shit about the buyback."
I thought, "Yeah, right. It's like buying MySpace back and trying to relaunch it." I said, "That's fair, but wow, what a shitty move to pull when you're given an embargo. You have all these other elements of the story that you could have used as the lead."
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Sam Parr | Sean, I don't blame her or him because I think that just because you gave her an embargo, she should still say the truth and express her opinion. She shouldn't hold back if she thinks you're stupid and what you're doing is stupid. Just because you gave her that, she should say it.
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Shaan Puri |
That's true. The two things that I thought were weird were:
1. The headline and the story were so disconnected.
2. The story was what she actually thought and the content of her interview, which...
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Sam Parr | is positive frustrating | |
Shaan Puri | And then the headline was just something completely different, written by a completely different person. It just shows kind of like the way the inside of those organizations work.
The second thing I thought was just kind of whack was like, no heads up. There's a sort of human connection to this too, right? If I've done you a favor by giving you an exclusive piece of news, even if you're going to write something that you know I'm not going to like, when you're like, "LOL, this thing is dead," right? It's not going to come back. Then, you know, to surprise the person, I think is an unnecessary extra slap.
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Sam Parr | Oh, I just... I so disagree with you. I totally agree with your first point, but I don't agree with your second. Which is, if I'm going to say something negative about you, I'm not going to give you a heads up. I'm just going to say it.
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Shaan Puri | But that's dumb, dumb business, right? You cut yourself out, then going forward, right? Like, we had a bunch of other stories that came out in the coming years, and guess who never got a word? Right, her. She just cut herself out for no reason.
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Sam Parr | Yeah, I mean, I think it's definitely a hard thing to balance. This is why some people, like for example, if someone says that they're a conservative news site, one of the reasons why they probably could keep giving conservative people a good look is so they can get positive coverage.
So, it's definitely hard. But me personally, if someone comes on this podcast and they say, "Will you make me look good?" I'm like, "No, I'm not going to make you look good. I'm not going to make you look bad." We'll talk, and if I think you say something dumb, I'm just going to tell you that's stupid.
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Shaan Puri | right | |
Sam Parr | I'm not so... I think that if I agree with that game, I've got to suffer both the positive and the negative consequences.
The positive consequences are that maybe they're going to think I'm great and they'll tell the truth. Also, as a quote journalist—or I don't know what you want to call me, or both of us—we're going to find the truth.
But also, if someone thinks negatively about us, we have to live by that.
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Shaan Puri | Yeah, I don't mind getting negative press. I did mind the sort of dissonance.
Also, I don't know... I just think, like, it is again bad business for that person because you burn your own bridge. Whereas if you're like, "Hey, look, I just want to let you know the article is going to talk about this and it's going to mention this," right?
There are going to be some negative parts, which we're skeptical about. The disease could've kept that relationship. They didn't lose the relationship; that doesn't affect me, it affected them.
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Sam Parr | Maybe telling you ahead of time that it's going to be negative is not bad. But, if I think that what you say is bullshit, I'm going to say it no matter what.
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Shaan Puri |
Yeah, that's right. Nobody wants the other side. Otherwise, nobody will read this stuff if you're not telling it like it is. If you're not telling your actual opinion, then... you know, the whole ecosystem doesn't work.
But alright, anyway, do we have any other ones we want to talk about?
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Sam Parr | you have | |
Shaan Puri | one more thought on that | |
Sam Parr |
Well, I was gonna say... Didn't someone come on the show and I was like, "I'm gonna tell this person I think that what they're doing is really stupid"? And it's definitely awkward. When did that happen? Do you remember that?
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Shaan Puri | I don't remember that no | |
Sam Parr | oh man I think henry was here | |
Shaan Puri | Oh, oh, I know what it was. It was the woman from Everlywell. I think she came on with the tests.
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Sam Parr | oh I know I I was like I think nutritional testing is bullshit | |
Shaan Puri | right and you said it straight to her face and then she finally answered I'm not | |
Sam Parr | trying to pat myself on the back I'm trying to say like literally I don't even remember like did we call her out or no | |
Shaan Puri | no you literally said it to her I I kind of I kinda stirred the pot I | |
Sam Parr | was like oh yeah you did | |
Shaan Puri | why don't you tell her what you think about this | |
Sam Parr | yeah like | |
Shaan Puri | you like laughed and you told her | |
Sam Parr | tell her what you were saying like you know just go ahead and | |
Shaan Puri | say it yeah definitely set it up | |
Sam Parr | It's definitely awkward. Before and after, you're like, "I'm being nice to you," but like, "I'm definitely gonna roast you right now." It's super awkward, but I think if you do it a certain way, it's not that bad. It's like... they should understand.
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Shaan Puri | okay one last thing we we | |
Sam Parr | we totally went off the rails here go ahead | |
Shaan Puri | One last thing. Yeah, we did go through this podcast, which was about beekeeping and all kinds of other stuff, but whatever.
So, I'm going to take my hat off, and I clearly need a haircut. My friend Greg launched this website called **youprobablyneedahaircut.com**. It's basically surfacing quickly off the quarantine stuff where people were locked at home and everyone's hair was growing out. Nobody could go get a haircut.
He shaved a mohawk. What he's doing is connecting barbers who are also out of work. They're at home and can do a Zoom consultation to help you cut your own hair. So, that's awesome! If you need a haircut, you probably...
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Sam Parr | your hair looks good did you cut it | |
Shaan Puri | No, I'm gonna cut it, dude. It's awful.
Yeah, it looks good right now. I agree, actually, it does look good right now. But I looked at it before this hat was on it, and it looked awful.
So, I'm gonna do a couple of haircuts. I've been cutting my own hair for 10 years now. I have had the clippers.
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Sam Parr | I can tell you all | |
Shaan Puri | about it | |
Sam Parr | I know how to do a fade. The other day, I shaved it completely bald because I wanted to feel my... How do you do that, Sarah? My wife will help me.
But for years, I would do it on my own, and admittedly, it probably didn't look great. I watched videos on how to give a fade.
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Shaan Puri | right | |
Sam Parr | It's not that hard, but I've been doing it for years. Just because for a long time I was poor and I didn't want to pay money. But now I do it because I'm like, "Oh, I don't want to drive there."
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Shaan Puri | Yeah, it's annoying to go, and they always make me take my headphones out. I'm like, "Well, now I'm bored." You don't understand; I constantly have information going in through my eyes or my ears, and now you're making me just sit here like this. Yeah.
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Sam Parr | And also, I just don't want to talk to them. I'm like, I don't know... So, what I do is I close my eyes, and that's just a sign for "do not talk."
But I wish there was an app for certain barbers where I could click "do not talk to me" or "talk to me," right? Because for weird people like me, I'm just super... I don't like confrontation. I just don't want to talk. Just leave me alone. I'm like that at... | |
Shaan Puri | the confrontation | |
Sam Parr | Dude, I'm like that at grocery stores, you know? Jack Smith, he and I are the same way. We go to grocery stores, and if I don't see what I want to buy—even though they probably have it in a different section—I just won't buy it. Instead of asking, if I'm with Sarah, I'll be like, "Sarah, can we go ask for this?" I don't even want to talk to anyone.
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Shaan Puri | right yeah | |
Sam Parr | I think a lot of people are like that | |
Shaan Puri | Yeah, I think they added this into Uber where you could get in and be like, "Yo, let's not do that thing where we talk."
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Sam Parr | Yes, yes, and it's awesome. I just don't... I'm just uncomfortable and I don't want to do it. I bought more barbers here. You know, the last thing they know what they need at barbers is they just need like six different haircuts for men. You just feel like, "Give me the four."
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Shaan Puri | but they do have that | |
Sam Parr | A lot of barbers don't have that yet. You just say the same thing, like "short on the sides, a little bit off the top." Everyone says the same thing. It's like, show me a picture of like five people, and I'll just... | |
Shaan Puri |
Or dude, it could be unspoken because everybody just wants short on the side, a little less short on top, but shorter than it is currently. You should only have to say anything if you want some other shit like, "Oh, I'm going for this other look. I wanna do a look." Okay, then it's on me to tell you about the look. But if not, I just wanna sit down, no words, just do the short on the sides, a little short on top.
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Sam Parr | Give me like three opt-outs, like completely bald, just whatever the three are, and I'll just... By the way, just don't talk to me once I initiate conversation.
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Shaan Puri | and do my eyebrows because they're getting a little long I got long eyebrows everyone knows that | |
Sam Parr | Don't need to ask. Don't make me look cute. That's number four, right?
Also, they say, "Do you want the back of your neck rounded or squared?" I'm like, "I don't know. I don't care."
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Shaan Puri | yeah | |
Sam Parr | like I don't see it you you be the judge | |
Shaan Puri |
Right, exactly. I've asked him at one time, "What's the deal with this question? Because I don't know... is there a difference? What's the deal?"
Then someone told me - actually, one of the barbers taught me. They were like, "Look, if you do square, when it starts to grow back out, it's gonna look shitty. So it looked good initially, but then it'll look obviously not square after it starts to grow out."
He's like, "Do the round because then, even as it grows back, it blends in. It's not so bad."
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Sam Parr | Dude, this sounds like a Larry David episode. Like, what's the difference between a round and a square? I mean... | |
Shaan Puri | we tried | |
Sam Parr | We tried, so this one went off the rails. I think people... this is gonna hit with some people. So tweet at me and Sean and let us know if this is like random stuff.
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Shaan Puri | Yeah, just tweet like, "Yo, stick to the script if you want us to not go off the rails as much," or just say, "Go off the rails if you want us to." Well...
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Sam Parr | The good news is, Sean, we don't have to do that much work to research for next Tuesday because I actually had some stuff to go over.
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Shaan Puri | all of | |
Sam Parr | That stuff, I'm still stuck on journalists, beekeeping, and a bunch of stupid bullshit.
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Shaan Puri | yeah I'm mad again about that article from 10 years ago now I'm like still pissed | |
Sam Parr | Me too. I got mad. I'm friends with this woman who I talked about, and I'm friends with her on Facebook. I called her out, and it never fucking wins when I argue with people online.
How many of you do this? I end up looking like an asshole, and it just doesn't work. I do it all the time.
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Shaan Puri | alright man I'll talk to you later | |
Sam Parr | okay |