I Sold A Company For $800M At 29... What I’m Doing Now | Jack Smith Interview (#470)

Jack Smith

You wake up at something like 3 AM or 5 AM. The first two to three days, the only instruction they give you is, "Hey, feel how the breath feels on your lips when you're breathing in and out. Okay, see you in three days." And you sit there. So, it's really extreme what...

Shaan Puri

this is my management style too

Sam Parr

Alright, we're live! Here we have a guest, Jack Smith, one of my best friends from my wedding. He’s an amazing person. I don't even know how to describe you, Jack. I guess the top line is that you started a company that you sold for about $800 million when you were 29. That's like the headline—impressive stuff! But we have you here because you’re just one of the more interesting people I know.

Jack Smith

Okay, well thanks to Harry, I also thought it was kind of an interesting contrast coming after Rob. He was describing himself as the pinnacle of human optimization, right? Like, he plans how long it takes him to go to the toilet each day.

Shaan Puri

and

Jack Smith

Then I was thinking I may be an interesting contrast. I'm like human procrastination, like the exact opposite of that.

Sam Parr

Yeah, but you do optimize stuff. Like, Sean, I don't know if you know this, but it's like Jack. One time we went to his birthday party, and his wife made him a cake in the shape of an Amazon box because he had this, like, walk-in closet. But it was basically a room in his home, and it was full of Amazon boxes. You're like, "Jack, what is that?" And he has this Excel spreadsheet that he keeps. Anything that he buys, ranging from a backpack to baby apparel or baby accessories. One time he was obsessed with chocolate. He would literally buy 50 versions, test all of them, and then rank them on this attribute system. So he has these huge lists of everything that he's tested, and he's done this so much that... haven't you been banned from Amazon like multiple times?

Jack Smith

Yeah, and then also Bonobos had this policy for... I don't know if they still have it, but I think for many years they had a policy where you could return any item, even if it was used, up to 365 days after purchase. So, I had a spreadsheet tracking when I bought everything. Basically, I got a new wardrobe every year because I just sent all my clothes back on day 340 and then got it all as credit. I bought an entire new wardrobe every year. So, yeah, I got banned from Amazon a few times, and Bonobos should have gone...

Shaan Puri

You and Rob have more in common than you think. He's planted his poops, and you're planning your returns, of course, in a giant spreadsheet.

Sam Parr

Which, by the way, we should give some background. So basically, your company was called Vungle. You were how old? 22? 21? 20? So, the story that you always tell is that you got into an accelerator or an incubator. I think you had one idea, but it wasn't working out. Then you just mocked up a PowerPoint. It was about a mobile ad network. So basically, you would see an ad in between levels of games. You brought it to developers, and they were like, "Oh yeah, this is way better! If you could actually build this, we're in." You did that a bunch of times where you got maybe $1,000,000 in commitments, like, "Yeah, I guess if you build this, we would spend this much money." Then you took that and actually hired a developer, Bryant, who is now the co-founder of Webflow. You built that business, and then it spiraled into this thing where I think you'd only raised $10 million or $15 million, maybe $17 million. And within 7 years, I think, when you sold, you guys were doing $1,000,000 a day in revenue. Is that right?

Jack Smith

Is that what this is? That region? Yeah, maybe. Yeah, about $100 million in revenue.

Sam Parr

It was absolutely crazy. And then you sold it for... I forget what, $800? Yeah, yeah, kind of in that region.

Jack Smith

And I mean, what's interesting as well is obviously Sean talks about having worked with Ferkwan at AppLovin. AppLovin launched about 6 to 12 months after us. So I think, as another example, you don't have to be the first to market. Like, everyone's jumping on the AI trend right now to be first to market, but actually, you don't have to be the first to market to be the biggest. AppLovin was one of the slower movers, and to give context, they, at their peak, have been multiple times bigger than Fungal. They went public and probably at their peak had a market cap in the region of $10,000,000,000. Now they're a bit lower because of the market crash.

Shaan Puri

No, they're **9 billion** now. They were **20 billion** at its peak, or something like **20 to 25 billion** at its peak. What do you think they did? Why did they have kind of a, let's call it, **10 to 20 times** bigger outcome if they started a year later? When you look back, what did you learn from that?

Jack Smith

and it was also interesting because one

Shaan Puri

of our investors besides furkan being a beast

Jack Smith

One of our investors came to us and said, "Oh yeah, we're backing... we're looking... we're investing in this company. They do video advertisements inside of mobile apps, etcetera. They're called Apple Avenue." They're like, "You're describing our company! What are you talking about? You're investing in... dude, that's what we do for DuPage!" Actually, they're called Web Win, Web Investment Network. They invested in... I think they're the only investor. They invested in Vungle and AppLovin.

Shaan Puri

mhmm

Jack Smith

They're great guys, but at the time we were like, "Fuck!" So, they have massive wins. One bit we observed is actually Applovin and Vungle. We thought that, at the time, before Vungle, mobile ads were monetized through banner ads, like kind of on the internet. You know, when the internet first started, you had these crappy banner ads. We were like, "Well, they obviously suck, so we're gonna do video ads," which is 10 times better. But a difference that Applovin made is they didn't only do video ads; they did everything. They were like, "We don't care what you want to spend money on, we'll just take your money." So, they were one platform where you could do banner ads, video ads, everything. I think that enabled them to capture a bit more market share. Perhaps the founding team being more technical helped as well. Like I'm saying, I'm a crappy engineer; I could not build Vungle from scratch. Sean, listening to your story on one of the more recent episodes, you described Ferquan making that dashboard for Adam so he could just look at the apps and poach them. We did similar bits, but perhaps more technically. One of our hacks was that we actually had a team of about 10 people in Pakistan. Pakistan is so cheap, so we had an entire office, and they had one job. This is why it was really easy to recruit there: we said, "Just play mobile games all day." We got them all iPhones and just had them play games all day. Whenever they saw an ad, they would write down what the ad was advertising and what ad network was using it. So, they basically built us our lead generation database by playing all the games. Maybe we did it manually; they did it by looking at the SDK source code. Interesting, right?

Shaan Puri

yeah that's amazing

Sam Parr

You're like, last night someone was asking me. I was at this dinner, and they were like, "Have you ever met anyone who created a business, sold it, and was wealthy enough to just retire?" I was like, not really. Basically, everyone I know who's started a company and had some type of success, usually after some amount of time—6 months or 3 years—they usually get to something. Sometimes it's more intense, sometimes less intense, but they usually do something. You're actually the only person I think I know who was incredibly successful at a very young age—like 30 years old or whenever you sold it—and you actually have not ever started another business. You do a lot of odd stuff. For example, I'll be like, "Jack, what are you doing now? You got any projects?" You're like, "Yeah, I have like a ton of pen pals in prison, and I set up this thing where it's this website where inmates can order any book they want to. I ask them to create a book report on it." I'm like, "That's so interesting! Do you think you'll ever get back into business? Is the reason you just spend all your days seeking out all these interesting topics? Is that what you're doing now?"

Jack Smith

so I would not say that I'm retired at the moment because when I think of being retired I think about having no stress and just like sitting around reading books all day or something like that you know actually I am working on a bunch of stuff but they're not just it's not taking approach of trying to build another $1,000,000,000 company when I think back a trait I noticed in many entrepreneurs and I observed in myself is that I think I was successful early on because I had a chip on my shoulder I had something to prove and doing my first startup in london it was really hard to do a startup and I also felt like people kinda didn't respect me I've they like people just just kinda thought I was a joke or whatever and I kinda felt inside I thought I was like I think that I can build something successful I didn't want I didn't aspire to be super rich or anything I just wanted to build a big company but I had that chip on my shoulder something to prove now when vungle sold when I kind of reflected I was like I don't think that I have that chip on my shoulder anymore and I think if you're gonna try and build a $1,000,000,000 company you or or really venture that company or something you have to make a lot of sacrifices right and have a drive about why you're doing it and when I sat I'm like I don't need more money now and I don't have this thing to prove anymore so when I sat with it I felt what is gonna motivate me more now is where can I have an impact and kind of impact the world not necessarily trying to impact a 1000000 people in the world but even if I just deeply impact a few people in the world I think that will be a driver to a reason why to work on this because making more money is not enough of a driver for me and all of us 3 we're in this chat group right about founders that have sold their first company and it seems that the majority of people have this crisis I've sold my company but I don't know what to do with myself and I'm good at building companies I don't really need more money but shall I just do it because that's what I'm good at and I can't think of anything else to do and also I don't wanna just sit around so it seems a challenge many others are facing for me the conclusion I came to was where can I add impact and that looks like setting up some charities and a project that I'm working on at the moment you guys have talked briefly about it before it's moved to portugal to set up a kind of digital detox type place for people to switch off from technology and be in nature so these are the kind of things I'm doing I mean that one it will hopefully make money but money is not the core metric if it's been a success or not even if it doesn't even if it breaks even or loses a bit of money if just it can heal people people say like yo that changed my life was super healing to me and people talk about it that is success for me with that project

Shaan Puri

dude you are

Sam Parr

The first person I've ever met who does a lot of things that are now more popular is Jack. I remember one time Sean, Jack, and I were hanging out. We were playing frisbee golf; it was just us, and it was like 10 AM in the morning in San Francisco. I said, "Jack, you're being a little quiet. What's wrong?" This was after an hour of playing. He said, "Oh, I was doing ayahuasca for the last 3 days." I was like, "What? What's ayahuasca?" He explained, "Well, you go to this house, drink this thing, and then you throw up. You're supposed to find yourself or whatever, and you have a shaman guiding you." I asked, "When did that end?" He replied, "Oh, I came straight from there. I was there like an hour and a half ago." Jack would do that stuff way before this type of psychedelic experience became popular. Another thing Jack would do is come and speak at Hustle Con. He'd say, "Hey, I gotta go." The next day, I asked, "Where are you going?" He said, "Oh, I'm going to Bali for 3 weeks for a silent retreat." I would see him leave with basically no clothes and a massive bag—like a whole carry-on or a checked bag full of books from the library. I asked, "What are you doing?" He said, "I was just overwhelmed with all the people. I gotta go to Bali now." He would go to the silent retreat for literally 3 weeks and not say a word. Now, I'm talking to my quote "normal" friends—my friends who are doctors, lawyers, whatever—and now they're doing it. You do so many things that are so odd, and now everyone's talking about psychedelics. These silent retreats are significantly more popular. You've been doing that since 2012. I remember you telling me about all this stuff. This is the craziest thing I've ever heard of, and you've been doing all that now while it's way more popular.

Jack Smith

Vipassana is a type of silent meditation. So, if someone says they've done a silent retreat, often they're talking about this thing called Vipassana. Yes, I think it has become more mainstream nowadays, but it has actually been a popular concept for a long time. However, I've never done it, and it is actually a really extreme approach. Many people I speak to who have done it say it's kind of like if you can't swim and you jump off an Olympic diving board. It's a really extreme approach to switching off and feeling burned out. Some people, I think, are doing it because, well, I know people tell me they did it because it sounded like a challenge, but it's not necessarily a good thing. To give an example, you go for 10 days. My friend did it, and his pillow was made out of concrete. It's run by monks, and it's a nonprofit. They have about 300 locations around the world, and it doesn't cost any money; you maybe pay a small fee. You're not allowed to make eye contact with any other person there. Your meals are like rice, and you wake up at something like 3 AM or 5 AM. The first 2 to 3 days, the only instruction they give you is, "Hey, feel how the breath feels on your lips when you're breathing in and out. Okay, see you in 3 days." And you just sit there. So, it's really extreme.

Shaan Puri

this is my management style too

Jack Smith

But this is really popular. What I did was inspired by Bill Gates. He had this thing called "Think Week," where he just goes to a cabin in the middle of nowhere and reads for a week. I thought, "Oh, that's awesome!" I found this place in Indonesia, and it's totally different from Vipassana because they don't have any rules. The only rule is, "Don't talk to each other," but you can make eye contact. You can do whatever you want; you don't have to do any meditation at all. For me, I just took loads of books, and I came out of that each time getting all the benefits that these people doing Vipassana retreats talk about. I feel super reenergized, my mood feels off the charts, and I'm super happy. I'm having an amazing time reading all these books I've wanted to read all year, and the food is amazing—it's grown on their own jungle/farm. So, I'm like, "This is an amazing experience, and I feel awesome and have these benefits." But then, the other guys are like, "Oh, I spoke to one guy this morning. He's totally glad he did it but would never want to go through that again. It was one of the hardest experiences of my life." I'm like, "Well, you can actually get a bunch of the same benefits, but you don't have to torture yourself." I've never found a place like this in Indonesia, and for many years, I felt that I just have to do this, which is expand their concept to other continents around the world. So, I'm starting in Portugal. If that goes well, hopefully, then expand to America, etc.

Shaan Puri

That's awesome! You put a couple of things on the sheet that I want to do. You said "business opportunities," so it sounds like you're not starting another business. You've been able to resist the temptation, even though you're good at business and see lots of opportunities. So, share with us a couple of these random ideas that you have on this list.

Jack Smith

yeah because I know you guys like I think the audience likes different business ideas and things that are also actionable with my first million why so I was kind of thinking to myself and one business I don't know if you guys have come across this but it was kind of interesting to me it's a company not vc backed or anything but it's called nomad capitalist and it's this guy and he's kind of made a name for himself as the leader for rich people that just wanna go around the world he organizes a conference for like family offices and he has a book and he has this brand called nomad capitalist and if you look on reddit loads of people talk about it I actually did a prescreen call with them and I also read the reviews about it etcetera they're basically just a reseller for tax lawyers because tax lawyers just suck at marketing you know and he's got a podcast he's got a book he's just really great at marketing and he's got this like he's like oh the best track strategy is to like have free passports I help you get multiple passports and set up a bank account in another country etcetera did a call with them and they basically wanted $25,000 retainer and then what they'll do is they'll just make you a report and they're like alright the $25,000 you can later put it towards whatever things we propose for you but I was like okay but then as I did more research I kind of just myself found out like wait I can just cut out you and just find an awesome tax attorney myself and pay $3,000 I don't need to give you 25,000 but he he had he's he's doing really well and he also has this level like if you pay him $75,000 you can like go and hang out with him on an island in person and he'll he'll he'll be your concierge so some of these people I think is just like rich people having too much money and they don't wanna do the research or reference checks to find good tax people they're like oh well this dude his website looks really great he must be a thought leader he's got this book he's on all the podcasts I'll just hire him because also I found tax attorneys they don't give you a simple answer to the freaking question you know I'm just like I I I wanna do this whatever and then they're like oh it's really and they they use all this jargon they just suck at speaking plain english he does he's so he's built a really good business and I was thinking I think a business opportunity is building a reseller layer on top of these industries that just suck at marketing or communicating what they do you know so he's doing it for tax international tax for really rich people and I was thinking there's probably other industries where just make an amazing brand website write a book go on all the podcasts and make a brand about yourself hit really great name right like nomad capitalist to do that for other industries I thought was one idea so what do

Sam Parr

you get what do you get

Jack Smith

For the $25,000, he's like, "I'll make you a report." They'll make you an 8-page report telling you, "We think that you should set up a trust in Bermuda," and that was going to cost you $30,000. The $25,000 that you paid us, you can put that towards the trust in Bermuda. But basically, he's just taking a cut; he's just taking a referral fee from the lawyer. You know, it only costs $5,000 to do the trust. So basically, if he gives you the report and you don't like it, he keeps the $25,000.

Shaan Puri

So, this is... oh my god, this is the business model that the "Think and Grow Rich" guy does, and Dave Ramsey. I've come to realize what they did is... I know somebody who reached out to, who got into "Think and Grow Rich," Robert Kiyosaki's, like, you know, book and blog.

Sam Parr

You're getting confused. *Poor Dad, Rich Dad* is the Robert Kiyosaki guy, or whatever his name is—Robert something. *Think and Grow Rich* is Napoleon Hill.

Shaan Puri

yeah yeah sorry that's what I meant rich dad poor dad did I say did I say the other one yeah yeah yeah yeah so he reaches out to the rich dad poor dad guy who I think is that kiyosaki guy and he's basically that like he's got a philosophy he's like look this is the way to get rich and it makes sense and you're like cool I want to do it and he's like awesome reach out to one of our you know reach out to our headquarters and we'll do a call and we'll get to know you and we'll tell you what we think you should do and it's just a layer reselling tax strategy and so what he did was he paid 20 k to these guys to get a connection to a tax strategy lawyer a tax strategist and lawyer who then did you know saved him a bunch of money he actually saved him like 80 ks or something like that so he's like oh yeah this is a great deal I put in 20 got 80 then he introduced me to the tax guy and the tax guy is like cool yeah for all this it'll be 6 k and I was like oh but like I saw my brother and I was like you know you you paid 20 I paid 6 what what do you mean and he was like well yeah like that I was like where did the other you know where where did all the other money go it's like oh that goes to like their central agency like that filters the deal so they don't just take a cut it's not like we get a 10% referral fee they mark up the whole service by 3x and keep 66% of the 3x markup in order to do this and then dave ramsey does the same thing so I was like you see dave ramsey right like you know america's you know favorite uncle or whatever and he's doing this call in show he does all this stuff and I was like how much and and we had done this feature on him on pod that blew my mind sam you knew a little bit about this but he has like a huge campus of like his office it's like it's in tennessee he's got like you know multiple buildings hundreds of people on staff I was like dude how big is this guy's podcast that he could pay for that that sounds a little outrageous like what's going on here and it's basically the podcast the books all of that is just lead gen for people to come to him and if you go to his website it'll say what do you what do you need you want insurance you want a mortgage you want to learn how to save money you want tax help talk to people with the ramsey shield and basically what he does is he goes and finds local people in your market he he they have to pay to apply so they pay some numb some amount of money and like you know a couple $1,000 to get certified and when they're certified so he makes money off them but then he for them it's a no brainer because they're gonna get leads from his giant top of funnel like his website if you go to like whatever the traffic you know analysis on similarweb it says he gets 10,000,000 visits a month on his website so he's getting a huge amount of traffic that he just funnels down to these providers and he basically gets his cut and they and these advisors all have the shields like what does the shield mean it's like our team has vetted them I was like vetted what you don't know if these guys are you know what are you actually doing out here and I'm pretty sure this entire business is making like 300,000,000 a year and this is or more a combination of basically his like the the ramsey trusted advisors and it's basically like they follow the ramsey rules and it's like what are the ramsey rules it's like oh you know there's parts of his philosophy that they follow and and so they can they can either pay for the leads or they pay for the certification and just off this lead gen he's just generating just like tons and tons of cash and then on top of that he's got his like his university and then he's got his media ad stuff so the combination of all those is sort of like a 300,000,000 + a year empire which is pretty insane and it's doing exactly what you described jack it's a it's a layer that I call it a router business it's gonna route you to mhmm the service you want

Jack Smith

yeah

Shaan Puri

And you know, I'm the router because I'm the trusted source. If I do a good job of curating or hand-selecting, and people get a good outcome from it, then this can be a sustainable business. So yeah, I think you're absolutely right on that.

Sam Parr

and what's the other one

Shaan Puri

yeah what says rtfm what does that mean

Jack Smith

oh rtfm I just meant like read the fucking manual so basically I was talking to someone have someone helping me with like mid journey and all this stuff just came out right and then I was just trying to figure out like I kinda just delegated to him like alright we let's just see if midjourney can help us so I said I'm building this like physical place and I'm like just see if it can make us some mock ups so take this image of a cabin and this image of the piece of land and just see if midjourney can blend them together and we even hired people of upwork to have or fiverr like midjourney experts to help us and the results sucked and then they was not doing what I asked and then he had said he'd been playing around with it for a while and then I was at some? I was just like oh fuck it I should this is gonna be a valuable skill I should learn how it works at least the first step I did is I read the midjourney guidebook that they have and it explains how to do it and then within 15 minutes I saw like hey guys we can do what I'm asking you just have to use this certain command do you have do you even read the fucking manual about how this works I think most people don't read the manual like manuals are boring right they don't read the manual they're just trying to figure it out themselves and look at youtube and then I was just like just read the manual it's pretty simple and so I think if you just do the basics that most people don't read the fucking manual about how midjourney works or chat gpt or something there's so many people that that ai is this merging trend but they're fucking lazy gonna read the 20 page manual and you can kinda just tell them like oh you wanna do that I'll just do it for you it maybe only takes you 5 seconds but you can just charge them a premium you know actually my wife she has a startup and she said there's this guy he's going around he's doing conference in a different country like every few days about ai and he's teaching business leaders like oh midjourney chatgpt this is how you use it this this this that I asked my wife I'm like what's that guy's actual credentials you know and he's not he's not he is just a nobody but he's saying that he's an ai expert because everybody is it only just came out recently and he's just running workshops and charging business leaders loads of money about how to implement this in your business and so I think if you just you know if you just don't sleep and just learn midjourney chatgpt learn all of these things only came out recently you can be a thought leader and write a book launch it launch on amazon a book how to use chatgpt in your business and and launch it for each vertical using chatgpt for lawyers and accounting and whatever I'd I've you guys are in the group I don't know if you saw sean is more active sam not but people were talking about this business case text just got acquired by lexisnexis for $750,000,000 and actually in the investor report it's kind of embarrassing but in the investor report the lexisnexis said the reason we pay $700,000,000 for this business is because they came up with 8 prompts for for openai about how to make it give good responses to law questions so they're kind of openly saying this business is just a layer on top of openai they just came up with 8 prompt texts and so we're buying them for 700,000,000

Sam Parr

well tell me more about this company

Jack Smith

I mean, I'm not an expert, but someone in the group who is in the industry said LexisNexis' competitor has just come out with some AI thing. So, LexisNexis, which is like a multibillion-dollar company, was like, "Oh shit, we need to get up to speed," right? And we need to get up to speed fast. So, they just paid this ludicrous amount, or what people were saying is ludicrous, because they need to get up to speed. But literally, in the investor report, they said the reason we are buying this business is because they have **eight proprietary prompts**. And anyone who's used GPT or anything knows that's like not very much intellectual property or whatever you're buying, you know?

Shaan Puri

I think Case Tech has been around for like 10 years, though. So whatever they were doing before, you know, they were around. I think they have on their website that their analysis shows 10,000 law firms use them. So, you know, it's not literally just 8 prompts, but I get your point. And definitely, they got the AI premium on the exit here because it became strategic—immediately strategic and urgent for LexisNexis. I'm totally with you about the idea that you could become an expert in Midjourney and ChatGPT in like 9 days. Nine days of trying to do things and then basically figuring out how that applies to certain verticals or jobs is definitely a thing that can exist and shouldn't exist. I had the same experience. I was trying to use it in my e-commerce business and I was like, "How do I do this?" I just reached out to the guy at Runway and I was like, "Hey, I'm trying to take an image and make a very similar image." I explained that I couldn't do text-to-image because I couldn't describe the image. I had an image and I wanted another one like it, and I wanted actually 50 variations of it. He was like, "Oh yeah, we have image-to-image. Just go over here." I was like, "Oh, thank you!" I didn't even know which tool to use. I wouldn't have known what it's called or how to do it. Then, I did it, but there was one problem. He said, "Oh, just change this setting, blah blah blah," and then it just fixed it. I was like, "Wow, that's amazing!" It saved me so much time. You really do have to play with these things, and most people don't have the time or the patience to go play with them to figure out how they actually work.

Jack Smith

As a business leader, you pay your lawyer $1,000 to $1,500 an hour to give you tax advice, right? Why would someone not pay that for a mid-term person if they can answer their question in an hour for a world-leading thought leader?

Sam Parr

Mark Cuban has this great blog. I don't think he updates it anymore, but he was writing it for maybe a couple of decades now. It's really old, and I used to go back and read his old posts. A lot of people don't know this, but he actually got his first $2 or $3 million of wealth when he was 31 because he started this thing called Microsolutions. It was basically, I forget how he described it, but it was like an IT agency. So, if a big or even a small company was implementing Oracle or something like that, he would help install it on everyone's computer and then teach people how to use it. He goes, "The reason my company was successful wasn't because I necessarily was an expert on this stuff, but I was the only one." He used the same acronym; he said, "I was the only one who read the fucking manual." He would stay up late at night and read the manual, learning how HP computers worked. The next day, he could go and talk to a business owner, explain how it works, and say, "Yeah, we can install that thing or this thing or that thing." Then he would go and read the manual on those other things. That's all he did. It was hard work, and he stayed up all night reading these things. But that's how he became an expert in the stuff—he just read the manual, which no one does. It's pretty funny because he used the exact same acronym that you have; I think he has a blog post that has the exact same acronym.

Shaan Puri

Here's what he said exactly: It's a blog post called "How to Win at the Sport of Business." He goes, "Every night, I would take home a different software manual and I would read it. Of course, the reading was captivating. I'm reading Peachtree Accounting, WordStar, Harvard Graphics, you know, Lotus, Apex. Every night, I would read some after getting home, no matter how late it was. It turns out not a lot of people ever bother to RTFM (Read The Freaking Manual). So, people really started thinking that I knew my stuff, and that's all I was doing."

Sam Parr

yeah it's hilarious and he like talks and

Jack Smith

he talks about that in

Sam Parr

A ton of different blog posts where he talks about "read the freaking manual." It's quite good, and he attributes that to a lot of his early success.

Shaan Puri

You have a few others that I gotta ask you about. Okay, so you wrote on this little cheat sheet, you wrote "hack," you know, non-obvious barriers to entry for business. Then you said "hacking the iPhone to record screen." What are you talking about here? Non-obvious barriers to entry for business?

Jack Smith

sure and I mean as I said you don't have to be the 1st mover to market to be successful in business but when an entirely new product comes out there are opportunities to the product that's why I was able to hack linkedin ads the app the hack we've talked about before because linkedin just launched it so it was not properly bug checked and all that stuff you know now the idea I was saying or it's not necessarily a business idea but where you could discover opportunities for me and to give an example is that you might have a wedge or like a business you might have a you might have a hack this it's not a business but maybe it can go somewhere from that initial kind of hack you know so to give an example with fungle back in like 2010 the business I had before we were making educational videos like how to use adobe photoshop and stuff like this so like videos about desktop like computer applications and fairly around that time I think a year before the iphone app store had launched and I was reading this gartner report like alright iphone apps are gonna blow up and then I was kinda feeling like wait so we're doing this for desktop and apps on your computer why could we not do the same on your iphone now that nowadays it's very easy to record your screen on the iphone right like you just pull down and tap record screen at the time you could not record the iphone screen now I read a little bit online and I kind of felt like hey I think I've looked up these different pieces of hardware it's like a camcorder mixed with like this cable you plug in with the iphone but you have to jailbreak the iphone etcetera etcetera I was like I reckon or I just have a hunch that if we put these together I might be able to figure out how to record the iphone screen now my cofounder he was like dude this is fucking waste of time like you've got 48 hours to try this out otherwise we need to move on alright now not that many people know this but actually the apple store lets you buy a product and you can return it within 14 days even if you used it a macbook an iphone an ipad you can return it used so we had an intern it was his first day there and I basically said our company we have about $1,000 in the bank account and I told him like take this credit bank credit card and I told him just spend our entire budget at the apple store I want you to buy the latest iphone and latest ipad and your first task as the intern is jailbreak this and we have 48 hours to figure out if we can record the screen from this because my cofounder thinks it's a waste of time I think it's not and and we and then we're gonna return it off within 14 days so we have a time time buffer because we don't have a $1,000,000 to just throw around so we're gonna play around with this iphone max 14 days then we're gonna send it back we managed to record we managed to record the screen it was a free it was taking like a camcorder cable you had to jailbreak the iphone etcetera etcetera but we managed to get this unique thing where we would could record the screen of the iphone at that time we didn't have anything useful to do with it it's just like okay great we can record the screen in the iphone what can we do with this but later on when we built the video ad network when we came up with the idea about the video ad network that vungle is today obviously if you're gonna run a video ad an app needs to have an advertisement to run right and we were the only because we had just started with this we actually just had an in house production studio that we that's how we we initially made money by charging $500 to make a video for your app but $500 that kinda sucks but what we did is we parlayed that idea at some.

Jack Smith

We made the best videos of anyone. Like Applovin or whoever, they couldn't make a video. So what they'd have to do is spend $1,000 hiring a creative ad agency, who probably used a camera to record the iPhone screen. As the app developer, you had to do loads of work and send them all your image assets. We could literally record the screen of the iPhone, which others could not. So what we said is, "Hey guys, you can no longer buy a video from us anymore." The people loved our videos; they were the best quality videos. But we said, "Even if you offer us $2,000, we don't make videos anymore." However, if you spend more than $25,000 on our advertising network, we'll make you the video for free. Our videos are the best, so they're going to convert amazingly as well. You can use the video on your website and stuff, but you cannot use this video on Applovin or any other network; it's proprietary to us. That was a hack that worked for Vungle. What I would say is, obviously, you have to have a credit card that has this limit and check that Apple actually allows this. If I were 20 years old and had a credit card—because America gives credit cards—I would go to the Apple Store the first day the Apple Vision Pro comes out. I would try to hack it, jailbreak it, and play around with it. I would look up how to jailbreak it and try to find hacks, like how to record the screen of the Apple Vision Pro. That's not going to be a feature at day one. No one needs to do that. If you can hack it and do that, you have something proprietary that you could launch a business off the back of. I would return it within 14 days and maybe go to another Apple Store and buy it again, or get my friend's file or something. But that is one opportunity. It's a hack; it's not a business. However, that unique hack that no one else has can lead you to have a barrier to entry to be successful and build a $1,000,000,000 business in a tangential industry from there.

Shaan Puri

I love that! I love that you also have a couple of points here. You said, "Why I believe in the law of attraction and practice applications." This is interesting to me because I think there are people who believe in the law of attraction, and they also believe in horoscopes, crystals, and other things too, probably. Then there are people who are more hyper-logical, rational, problem-solver types that typically don't believe in something like the law of attraction. I would have pegged you as more of the practical, logical problem-solver type, but you're saying you believe in this. So, tell me why you believe in this and what do you mean by practical applications?

Jack Smith

yeah people that are really rational like my brother-in-law it's a bit hard to talk about this topic because they're so rational I'm pretty rational but I'm also open minded to stuff now law of attraction the interpretation many people with the crystals take and I kind of it was kind of funny because I went to somebody that did this alternative kind of kinda like massage therapy but like alternative and then she was doing it at her house but then on the bookshelf was like a book like how to manifest well to be like a billionaire so like but then I'm like well you're in this like really crappy studio so how's that going for you you know like on the extreme alternative side that you're talking about sean like doing horoscopes or sweater I'm somewhere in the middle where I'm like law of attraction so popularized by the book called the secret if you just do it at the basic level it's just like oh just like think about what you want and it will manifest and appear to you but actually there's a book that I like called practical law of attraction and what it's kinda saying to be honest it basically I didn't know about this stuff when I was launching my business but it kind of actually reaffirmed the stuff I was already doing in my life to be honest which is like clearly clearly feeling and defining what you want and then taking steps to get there now why I think there's a practical application on why I do believe in it I don't believe that you just think of it and then nothing happens I think now to give a let me give let me just give an example story that reaffirms this I was I was living with my roommate and at this time my business was going pretty good but he was trying to launch a business off the ground and he was 35 and he was trying to fundraise raise a seed round and he could not raise any money at all and his mindset was just stuck about feeling sorry for himself like he was just like oh I read on techcrunch about 18 year olds getting into y combinator but nobody respects me like I have way more experience than him but investors they must just they don't value me they they blah blah blah he's feeling sorry for himself he's having negative energy I mean a prime example of it was like one day he called me and like really like anxious and he's like oh my god jack like a letter from the irs arrived for you and I'm like dude I'm sure it's not that big of a deal but he's like dude what what the fuck he's freaking out right and lo and behold it actually was a refund check they were giving me a refund but he had this negative mindset and I feel that obviously people study body language and all this stuff but I feel that law of attraction works because there is so many micro signals and body language we're projecting to people all around us that we're not in control of and don't even know and so I feel for me I and my cofounder we were convinced we're gonna raise funding and we're the shit and I think that investors and stuff can tell you know you can tell if someone's bluffing so he's going into this meeting and he's got a 100 rejections and he's feeling sorry for himself he's already going in with the idea that these people are not gonna invest in me and so they are just sensing that this guy's a loser right versus me I'm just like we're gonna waste funding and so when I say something like an investor one time asked us like how's your fundraising going we had no investors but we told him like oh it's going amazing we're just we've got a bunch of top tier people interested we're just deciding who's gonna be the best fit for our business and the guy kind of freaked out and actually gave us a term sheet because I think he could tell that we believed it we were not lying because we actually believed it now what was amazing with my friend is at just at some.

Jack Smith

I just noticed him adopt a mindset shift just one day basically and at some. He basically just said like alright look what I've been doing thus far it it hasn't worked and and he also was saying that he looked at me a bit as a bit inspiration because jack just he doesn't worry about this stuff you know and he's like I realized that I haven't go been going all in because I'm scared that if I don't raise funding I'm gonna look like a failure to my network and so if I try and do a business again then they'll think like oh well he failed at the last one I'm not gonna do it again but he's like he's like from this day forward I'm adopting a mindset that if I do not raise funding for this business I'm never going to try and raise funding for a business ever again this is my one shot and I'm gonna go all in and he looked up all his connections on linkedin and he was not embarrassed about rejection or that he would look stupid to them in the future he's like I'm going to ask every single person in my network for investor intros literally within a month or so he raised amazing seed round business now has raised over $25,000,000 because he just went all in and I think that people could tell that he had the conviction you know he's telling them now he's not feeling sorry for himself like I can't raise money he's like I'm gonna raise funding and this business is gonna be fucking huge and just it was amazing to see him adopt that mindset shift and so that is an example for me of law of attraction it's like yes you're manifesting it and whatever shit but you're actually believing it and you're projecting it to others now think he's adopted that new mindset right so if an investor rejects him in his original view that would have reaffirmed his original view right like oh all the investors hate me and I'm never gonna raise funding because I I just got rejected if with this new mindset actually it doesn't necessarily have to change every single outcome in every interaction you have but it also changes how you view them if one investor projects him now you would just be like oh well I'm gonna raise funding so I guess this guy was just not fit I just move on to the next one you wouldn't see it as reaffirming that you suck you would just be like oh this investor's an idiot like I'm still gonna raise funding it doesn't distract you from the path so that is what I was thinking about when it comes to law of attraction

Sam Parr

And we've been friends for a while, but I remember very distinctly... You might need to fill in some of the details, and I'll try to be vague, and you can decide what you want to share. I remember distinctly, I think we were at my apartment in Soma when you came over, or we could have been at my house in Glen Park. But I remember hanging out with you, and you had just... Vungle hadn't sold yet, but you had sold some shares to live off of because you basically didn't have a lot of money. You sold some shares and you got maybe $100,000, but you lived off that for like 3 years. It was at the very end of that money, and you didn't even tell me. I asked, "How are things going? Do you have enough money to last until you think the company's gonna sell?" And you were like, "Yeah, I think it's gonna sell for a whole lot of money, for $100 million, and I'll be fine when that happens." I was like, "But how are you now?" For some reason, I remember I saw your Robinhood account or one of your accounts, and I don't know if you remember this, but I think there was single-digit thousands of dollars left because you had made a really dumb trade. Do you remember that? You were totally calm. I remember being around you, and it was like... You're one of my three best friends, and I remember thinking, "Oh, you're my family now." You have inspired me because you were actually living what you're talking about now. Do you remember that?

Shaan Puri

do you remember when that happened

Jack Smith

And I mean, in line with that, basically, yeah, I got a bit of money, like, as you said, a secondary, right? I was living, and then the money was running out. It doesn't last forever. I think that I saw from the previous episode people talking about specific numbers, right? So I think that when I left Vungle and then tried doing Ship, it didn't work out, etc. But I didn't have many savings at Vungle. I think I got a $120,000 salary. We paid us after we raised funding, but prior to that, we never took any money. Just to help me out, because I was like, "Hey dude, I don't actually have any money," my co-founder at Vungle helped give me an introduction to some people that bought a secondary of some of my stock. Now, I think that I can't remember, but I think it was $500,000, and I hadn't held the stock for five years, so it was not qualified for this thing called QSBS yet. I basically had to pay a bunch of... you probably have to pay half of that in tax being in California, right? So I had, let's say, $250,000 left. That's not a lot of money in San Francisco to pay your rent and food if you have no other income. Now, I was advising companies and stuff, but they don't give you money; they give you equity. They're not giving you cash, and my money was running out. And Sam, like you said, I didn't have much money left. People were saying to me, "Hey dude, what are you gonna do if you run out of money?" I was like, "Oh, I guess I will have to get a job," but I'm not really contemplating that right now. I don't have a timeline for when the business is gonna exit, but I kind of feel something is telling me that I'm gonna be alright. I'm not freaking out about it. Even worst-case scenario, I'll move back in with my parents, whatever. But I was not making a plan B.

Shaan Puri

what was the dumb trade

Jack Smith

I was day trading, like options trading and all this stuff, and it's kind of funny.

Shaan Puri

they're like 2 150 k is not a lot of money in san francisco for food rent and my day trading business

Jack Smith

I, with hindsight, realize it's very stupid, but I was day trading and trying to make some money. When I look back, I actually spent a few hours a day because I got interested in trading. I learned options trading and all this, but I would have made more money if I had just put it in the Vanguard VTI, which tracks the S&P 500. I wasted all this time and, yes, lost a load of money. So that was just a negative trait of my experiments, I guess.

Shaan Puri

the way you described it I've heard described differently so tony robbins did this this is a video on youtube of him talking about this where he says like you know you've ever heard of the phrase like a vicious cycle and if you know vicious cycle is kind of like what you described your friend was initially doing which is he draws these 3 circles he says first one's belief second one's action third is results and he goes like what do you do when you like let's say you're you're supposed to do something but you don't really think it's gonna work and it doesn't even matter what it is like you know you're looking for the salt and you know your girlfriend says it's in the cabinet but you already looked there you don't think it's there so you kinda you go you don't really rummage around too much because you don't believe it's there right so basically low belief typically creates you know low or weak action and low or weak action almost always creates bad results and then the the message the story we tell ourselves is see I knew it I knew it wouldn't work and then it just reinforces the low belief and that's the vicious cycle that happens for people you know it could be I don't really believe that I'm going to stick to this diet and so therefore I'm not really that hardcore but I start to slip and then my results say nah you you never stick to what you say and then you reinforce a low belief right it could be on the end it could be business it could be personal it could be whatever and then there's the exact opposite which is the virtuous cycle the virtuous cycle is massive belief this is gonna work what happens when you believe something's really gonna work you wake up before the alarm clock you get out of bed you start doing it immediately you can't wait and you take massive action what happens when you take massive action for a while you start to get good results or massive results when you get massive results it reinforces the belief see I knew this shit was gonna work and so that and there's basically the that's the difference between winners and losers is which side of that cycle do you go down and like the the core thing is there's some people who just wait for a result to happen to to inform their belief and what what that basically means is I'm going to sort of wait to hope to get lucky and then I'll start to believe and I think anybody who's in the kind of entrepreneurial bucket the the pre req for any result is the belief and and you have to have that sort of massive conviction or massive belief in yourself and in what you're doing and that part is the that's the law of attraction part that's the part where it's faith it hasn't happened yet you believe it will happen and because you believe it will happen you're right it's not like law of not like the secret where they're just like close your eyes and you say I'm not you know there are no weeds in the backyard there are no weeds in the backyard you look oh there's still weeds in the backyard well you didn't take any action you didn't go and get rid of the weeds is is you know the action is a is a requirement to actually do this mhmm you you also mentioned one other thing on that which you said you have to feel it versus just say it yeah is there a difference there because I when I talk to people who who kind of really believe in this they overemphasize this feeling feeling it part versus just saying it or or try to believe it in your head

Jack Smith

So, my wife is totally not into this at all. Maybe it just doesn't work for her, but she's like, "Dude, I can't just feel that it's gonna work." It doesn't work for her. But for me, maybe I'm just delusional or I just have conviction in something. Sometimes, you feel it's gonna work. I guess one bit that is related to this is perhaps adopting different mindset personas. I saw this interview with Beyoncé, and they were asking her about her thing, like Sasha Fierce, right? Her nickname. They were like, "When do you become Sasha Fierce, and when are you just Beyoncé?" They were saying it was a joke, but she's like, "I literally become Sasha Fierce before I'm going to go on stage because when I'm Beyoncé, I'm nervous. I think people are gonna hate me or whatever." So, I just adopt this alternative persona that I am Sasha Fierce, and I'm going to kill this performance. People are gonna love it. It's amazing because she's adopting this persona, and she's really feeling it. I don't necessarily adopt this other persona, but that is the feeling that I think would be insane.

Shaan Puri

Yeah, I do the same thing. I also think about who you become. I have this persona that I created.

Sam Parr

angry patel like what do you all the same process

Shaan Puri

who are

Sam Parr

you gonna become

Shaan Puri

and and again this is another one that came out of tony robbins he he he goes he goes we we all have we all have a version of our personality like you know raise your hand if you've ever been super kind to others yeah you have everybody raise their hand raise your hand if you ever made selfish choices and been a selfish asshole everybody raises their hand it's like we all have all these features of our personalities like the question is who's driving the car right now and he's like you know people think that they come to this this weekend workshop and I'm gonna oh tony robbins he changed your life in fact when you go home people sort of mock you like oh so what happened you're a whole new guy now and he's like you know obviously you don't you know you don't become a whole new person after 35 years in one weekend but he's like you know one thing we will do is he's like I'm gonna take the most badass version of you and that's who gets to drive this weekend and if you if it's only for this weekend you decide after this weekend I don't want that person to be the one who's making decisions from now on alright fine fair fair play but for these next 2 days that's who's in charge we all have a version of ourselves that is the more badass version of ourselves the one that that does believe it's gonna happen the one that one that is decisive versus indecisive all these traits he's like and what do you call he's like what do you call when you I forgot what he said he's like he's like we're gonna make that that he's like we're gonna make that personality our bitch and he's like what do you what do you do when you train a dog you give it a name and you train it to come when you call it and he's like so you're gonna give it a name you're gonna figure out how you're gonna be able to adopt that state when you want to be in that state he's like that takes practice reps and we're gonna get a bunch of reps at it this weekend and you sort of you have to figure out alright what is the version of me that does have those traits that does walk that way that does make those decisions and then a can you call it on command or you're only gonna do it when you feel good are you only gonna do it when the weather's nice like no no you wanna be able to have that on demand when you want it he says the same thing like I think his real name is not tony robbins either it's like his original name was like anthony he's got some other last name he's like people see me now and they see me on stage and all this stuff they think oh man tony you're you're you're amazing you're you're you're just special and he's like no I was anthony blah blah blah I was broke I was fat I was all these things he's like I created this tony robbins motherfucker I created him and I was just like I like that part of the the thing that he was talking about because it's I think more empowering if you feel like oh you just are the way you are and that's it you're a fixed quantity and it was you know it's based on your genetics it's based on your childhood things you didn't have control of versus this idea that oh I actually have multiple versions of my personality there's some that I would want to be in charge more often than others and I can craft that I can create that version of me that I want that's a different mindset some people don't believe it some people are like really married to their kind of like their upbringing and their past traumas and their their dna that's not that's not how I look at the world at least

Sam Parr

Dude, this is getting me amped! I feel good. I feel like I need to go create my version of Sasha Fierce. Jack, you inspire me. I'm happy, and I feel thankful that we're friends. I feel thankful that you came here. You're a very inspiring person. I just feel... I feel you. You do have... it's like you're almost not inspiring because you're not this crazy intimidating person. Or I guess you're the right type of inspiring because you're not this crazy intimidating person. But you have... you're very mild-mannered. I'll be with you and other friends, and I'd be like, "Jack, I already know you know all about this topic that they're talking about." But you're just sitting here asking questions. Why aren't you like pumping your chest more? Or like, you are dressed like this bum right now at this thing. All these people think that you're just like one of my loser friends, but you're like, you know, successful. Not just in terms of finances, but you've got like this awesome experience.

Shaan Puri

friend dude can you can you help me out here a little bit

Sam Parr

Well, I'll be like, you're successful in all attributes. I know you're really insightful. I know that you're successful traditionally; you've got all these amazing things. But you don't even want me to brag about you. That's like, I feel like I've got to sometimes put you on a pedestal. But that's one of the things I love about you: you're just very, very...

Jack Smith

meek is

Sam Parr

A "bad word" because that almost sounds insulting, but you're very humble and you're very mild-mannered. That's one of the reasons why I love when you come on here and you explain some of these stories. Because you never, ever brag about yourself, and I like hearing you do that every once in a while.

Shaan Puri

check

Jack Smith

yeah well thanks for having me on again I mean picking up on that I mean what it is very important for me just to I I guess just from my childhood and stuff but I've always tried to be humble and I'm not judging any it doesn't I will have an in-depth conversation with like to give you an example I'm here in portugal right and there's a guy I pay a guy to come and pick up at my recycling I'll my cardboard he's taking the cardboard to the trash so trash man I'll have an in-depth conversation with him about how his life is going and stuff like that and I think it is good to remember that you can be successful and still be humble and not judge people about where they're at now sam like your father-in-law lives with like a celebrity and he said like the celebrity just fucking he lives in the same apartment complex and treats everyone like shit and ignores him he say and he and he's they're both rich and the thing to remember I think is where people are in their life now is not where they're gonna be in 10 years and people if you treat them like shit they're gonna remember like I when I was 1920 we pitched a vc in london a venture capitalist and we've been speaking to the associates we had a few meetings with them and yes we had nothing and our idea was terrible but the associate said like hey the partners agreed to have a meeting with you just like come by here at like 6 pm to come by the office and we're like okay it's a bit of weird times to come by but sure whatever and we had no money like spent the money my biz partner especially was in a lot of debt we spent the money got an underground ticket went there etcetera in within 10 to 15 minutes of the meeting getting started because the guy was asked these questions he's like you guys don't have a business this is just like shit and at like 6:15 he's just like yo I've gotta go to dinner so this meeting's over 10 years 15 however many years it's been more than 10 years later I we still remember that meeting and that guy treated us like shit he's still got a vc fund if he asked me for deal flow I'm not gonna give it I'm not gonna pretend that never happened I'm like dude I remember how you treated me when I was shit

Hubspot

Our software is the worst. Have you heard of HubSpot? See, most CRMs are a cobbled-together mess, but HubSpot is easy to adopt and actually looks gorgeous. I think I love our new CRM. Our software is the best. HubSpot: Grow Better. I call you when I describe you to other friends. I said, "I think Jack is the most interesting man in the world." There's this great quote: "To be interesting, you need to be interested." To me, that's the perfect description for you. You're the most interesting man in the world because you're interested in the most things, at the most depth, you know, in the highest variety. I've talked to you about, you know, five different things, and you've gone down a rabbit hole in each one of them. It turns out, because of that, you always have a really interesting point of view. What's been the best find? Like, you're talking about this chocolate rabbit hole you went down, and you may come out with a different conclusion than the experts or the people who've done this for a long time. What's an example where you came to a different conclusion yourself?

Jack Smith

Well, it was actually... I was listening back to our last episode, or maybe one of the previous episodes, and it was what we talked about there. I just looked at me and my co-founder. At least we just researched how ad networks work for a week. Then we were like, "Alright, we think this is how it works." Thomas, who runs AngelPad, was like, "Dude, you're coming to totally different conclusions in a week. I was working at Google for a decade, and there are people with decades of experience in this." But we just fought from the principle of the very basics. So the first bit, similar with AppLovin, is we were like, "Why are these ad networks charging based on how many times someone watches a video?" We built a video ad network and were like, "Apps actually just care about the end action." They only care about how many people install their app or how much money these users are going to spend in their app. They don't actually care how many people watch the video. So why is it that the industry charges that way? We kind of made a bet and said, "We will charge... it doesn't matter how many people watch your video. We'll just only charge you based on how many people install it." It was a bet. Luckily, it worked out. Sometimes you have to kind of make a gamble, right? Especially with an ad network. We had no idea if the business would work because the unit economics are kind of out of our hands. We don't know if this ad network...

Sam Parr

If it's going to work, you always do weird stuff like this that makes sense. But I'm like, "No, why would you ever do that?" So, for example, you named your child. Jack has a 2-year-old now, and you named your child "Baby." You told me, "I'm just going to name her Baby for the first 12 months because I want to get to know her." I was like, "Dude, everything about your life is weird. Can you just do something normal for the kid?" And you're like, "No, I think this actually makes more sense." Then I got to know her, and you talked about the naming ceremony. You did this thing where you named her after a year, and you're like, "This name fits her more." I had to get to know her a little bit, and after a year, I was like, "That actually makes so much sense." But it's so not normal. You're always doing these weird things that actually appear to be... well, you've done a lot of stupid stuff, but you've done a lot of things that are pretty amazing, even if they are not normal at all. That's one of my favorite parts about you, you know what I mean?

Jack Smith

Cool, thanks! I mean, also because I listened to the pod a lot, I noticed that you guys hadn't talked about Sam's massive announcement on all his social media that now he's going to be having a baby. So, I noticed you guys hadn't talked about that, and I had some of the different wackier things I've done with my baby if you wanted to talk about them. The naming ceremony was one of them.

Shaan Puri

Yeah, you know me and Sam, we’re just like guys. We’re just like, “Yeah, nice job with this thing. Alright, let’s move on.” You know, girls are like, “Oh my God, congratulations! I’m so excited for you! Wow, how... oh my God, you look... you’re glowing! Sam, you look amazing!” And I was just like, “Hey dude, good shit about the... you know, alright, let’s talk about business.”

Sam Parr

The your stuff's working! Congratulations! Well, I wasn't sure. I wasn't sure what I wanted to put on the internet.

Shaan Puri

mhmm

Sam Parr

and I haven't actually made my decision what

Shaan Puri

show you made your decision sam posted a shirtless picture of himself to celebrate the baby

Jack Smith

I was

Shaan Puri

Wow, that is an unbelievable combination there! What an upsell you created in this photo. How is this?

Sam Parr

got it

Shaan Puri

bump announcement with the shirt off flexing and sarah bumps in

Sam Parr

the middle of my stomach

Shaan Puri

She was like half cropped out of the photo. It's like, "Oh yeah, by the way, there's a baby over there."

Sam Parr

Hey, that's the only reason why we did the whole thing. Do you put your kids' faces on the... I don't think you have. Maybe on Facebook, Sean? Have you checked?

Shaan Puri

no I have but you only

Sam Parr

do it on facebook right where it's just like friends

Shaan Puri

well my wife does on her own instagram so you know that's like but you know it's just her friends so yeah

Sam Parr

I'm trying to decide what to do I think I don't mind but I don't know anyway I'm still like working through that

Shaan Puri

Let's go through some of the things you did on the parenting side, Jack. So, the naming thing—Sam talked about it. Yeah, let's finish that one. How did you come up with that idea? Do you think it was a good idea? And eventually, how did you actually end up naming her besides "Baby"?

Jack Smith

So basically, again, I think one of my values is that I don't like being told what to do. Mhm. And relating to what we were just talking about, I also like to question norms. So, preparing to give birth—or maybe even, yeah, preparing to give birth—what I read online and what the midwife, etcetera, was saying is that you have to pick a baby's name before you leave the hospital. This is so they can put it on her birth certificate and health documents. And I was like, "Why do you have to?"

Shaan Puri

do that

Jack Smith

like that's quite a short deadline they you have to pick a name before you leave the hospital

Shaan Puri

after you go through this traumatic experience

Jack Smith

Yeah, I was like, I don't really like being told to do that. Does she really need a name? Like, just being born, do you really need a name? You don't really need one. So, basically, I researched, and it varies state by state. But I found that as long as both parents consent—this was in Hawaii, where I was—as long as both parents consent within the first 12 months, you can change a baby's name without having to go to court or anything like that. You just fill out a form, and as long as both parents consent, we just had like a notary come to our house. You can change the name pretty easily. So I was like, okay, well, my first conclusion was I don't want to have to pick a name before leaving the hospital. That's too much rush for me, and it's also telling me what to do. My wife's last name was more important to her because she's Korean, and in their culture, they have like a book of last names and whatever. So we kind of made a deal: okay, the baby can have your last name, but I get to take the lead on the first name. I wouldn't pick it by myself, but I get to take the lead on what it is. So then I was like, okay, well, we'll just have the first name as "Baby." And so that is what we did at the hospital.

Shaan Puri

on

Jack Smith

The birth certificate, etcetera. So, I submitted it, and then I did get a call from the Department of Health or whatever, like a week later. They said, "Okay, we just want to confirm. I understand you've had a recent birth. Just want to confirm the name." I was like, "Yes, it is B-A-B-Y." They replied, "Okay, so just to clarify, the name of your baby is..." It kind of surprised me because I was like, "Yeah, that's correct." Then the guy said, "Okay, that's cool. I mean, actually, I've worked here for 10 years, and there have been one or two other people who've done this before as well." I was pretty surprised about that. Anyway, I also thought about Southeast Asian culture, like in China, Korea, and maybe some other places. They have this kind of ritual, just for fun, when the baby is about a year old. They put the baby on the floor, and on the other end of the room, they put down items like a stethoscope, a law book, and stuff like this. They just let the baby crawl, and whatever it picks is like, "Oh, it picked a stethoscope! That means you're going to be a doctor." It's just for fun; they do this.

Shaan Puri

indians do that too but it's just 3 stethoscopes yeah

Jack Smith

oh you're you're supposed to pick up all of them

Shaan Puri

exactly

Sam Parr

Yeah, except like 50 years ago, they started adding little motels that you could pick. You know, they're like, "Oh nice, an eco lodge."

Shaan Puri

alright take your one

Jack Smith

And for my bit, I was like, "Alright, what if we actually did that but we just have different names?" Then she can pick her own name. I also remembered that when I was first joining high school, on the first day of school, they were like, "Alright, everyone go around the room and say an interesting fact about yourself." I remember I couldn't really think of an interesting fact about myself. So I thought, "Oh, what if I do this? Then she's always going to have an interesting fact about herself." Right? Like, I picked my own name. It's pretty interesting.

Sam Parr

so I

Jack Smith

was like that's pretty cool

Sam Parr

And this, like, product obsession... you've done this with babies. So, Jack's actually the best gift giver of all time. What he does is, for my big life events, he'll send me maybe like three really big boxes. I bet you there was like $3,000 or $4,000 worth of products in there. He'll send me a variety of products, and then he sends you a list of paper that's like three pages long. It's a detailed description that says, "This is blank," and the reason why it's the best. He explains it, and sometimes it's really random. For example, he was like, "These are the best bath towels because they have a little bit of copper in them, which prevents molding." Or he even said, "My wife uses lotion all the time. This is the best lotion because it uses this vitamin or whatever." It was crazy! It was even like, "These are the best gummy bears because they're low in sugar, but they still taste sweet. They only use stevia." He did this with maybe 50 items. Then, when I told you we were pregnant, you sent me this box, but it was all baby stuff. You were like, "This baby formula is meant for babies that are three months old, but I actually think it's best for newborns because it's the same thing as the newborn one, but there's this small... I forget exactly everything." But it's like this massive list. Are you doing that now with all the baby stuff? Are you just literally analyzing every product?

Jack Smith

Yeah, I test out quite a bit. I mean, the reason I gave it to you as a gift is because you and Sarah had told me, "Oh, you should create a business like Jack's Box of your favorite stuff." I didn't actually want to do it as a business because I don't think it would make that much money and it's quite a bit of effort. But I wanted to do it for you guys because you kind of came up with the idea. I researched different products now.

Shaan Puri

do you publish your your research

Jack Smith

Well, not for baby products yet. I was actually thinking maybe to make a baby book or eBook just with different recommendations. You've seen on my pinned tweet on Twitter, I have my favorite products—just random products. So, I have whatever favorites... I don't know what I've got on there, but I've got like 20 products I shared as my favorites on Twitter.

Shaan Puri

And you're underscore Jack Smith, that's your thing. Let's talk about some of the other crazy things you're doing. So you have a guy watching your baby on a baby camera in Pakistan or something like that. What's going on? What are you doing with this baby sleep monitor thing?

Jack Smith

Yeah, I mean, I kind of feel bad because, you know, when speaking to new parents or if someone says, "Are you having a baby?" people often say, "Oh, prepare to never sleep again. You're never going to be able to sleep." I kind of don't say anything, but inside I'm like, "Dude, I'm sleeping better now than I was before having a baby." That's due to setting up various things. One of those is that, I mean, you have to have a house big enough for this, but basically we put my daughter a few doors down. Initially, if she would wake up and cry in the night, we found that she would wake up, cry for like 5 minutes, but then often go back to sleep. So she only really needed help if she was crying longer than that. I actually got the idea from Jonathan Swanson, who's the founder of Thumbtack. He called it a "digital night nanny." I called it "Deep Sentinel for babies." I know Sam invested in Deep Sentinel, and basically what it's doing is having a virtual assistant I have in India. He just watches my baby cam all night and has specific instructions. For example, if the baby wakes up and starts crying, he starts a timer. If she just cries for like 3 minutes and goes back to sleep, he doesn't do anything. But if she cries for more than 7 minutes, then he calls me and wakes me up. We have a special phone for that, and we have a backup phone in case that one breaks or something. So basically, we only get woken up if our daughter is crying longer than 7 minutes. Now, I would say I only have to tend to her. She's 2 years and 3 months, and she now only wakes up maybe once every 2 months. Otherwise, we don't have to do anything. So that was one idea Jonathan Swanson came up with, and it's been really good for me.

Sam Parr

What does that assistant say? That Indian person says, "Like when you're like, yeah, here's the job." I mean, are they... that's a pretty odd request, yeah?

Jack Smith

Well, one of the guys, actually, I had been working with this guy as a virtual assistant. Then he's like, "Oh, my brother's in India. He speaks a little bit of English, but not perfect English. He's looking for a job. Do you have any tasks that I can give him?" So I was just like, "Alright, let's do this." I think it's a pretty awesome job for him because he can multitask and do whatever else. I mean, the downside is that I don't know how they're working this, but he actually doesn't take off a single day in the year. He's working 365 days a year somehow. So I guess he's having Thanksgiving and Christmas with his family, but the baby monitor's on loudspeaker. I don't know, so he doesn't take any time off.

Shaan Puri

He's just not there, Jack. He hasn't looked at the camera in months. Yeah, he's like, this baby's 2 years old.

Sam Parr

He's going to... and your baby is going to just have some horrible separation anxiety. He's like, "I'm going to be crying for like 15 to 30 minutes," and like nothing ever happens.

Shaan Puri

Your baby's like his Twitch stream. So, what about some of these other things? You said, "I don't think that universities will exist in 20 years," and "I don't plan to send my daughter to school, let alone college." Okay, a bunch there... say more.

Jack Smith

so what I'd read this book somebody on twitter had recommended it and it's called like don't tell me I can't and it's written by this guy a kid who was like 14 and he it's it's this trend at the moment it's it's trending now but he's he's talking from his perspective that he was doing this since 3 years old or something how he was brought up that he was not homeschooled like homeschooling has been around a long time right he was what they're calling unschooled and this is actually a trend at the moment and he described how it worked for him but see how it worked for him is like his family was super poor and also his dad was an army veteran like injured in the army and so was in a wheelchair and stuff and so he was always kinda having to help out his dad and be self sufficient and so and the local school was like the worst in the country or something and they didn't wanna send him there so initially they were like alright we'll just try homeschooling you and so he was homeschooled for like 6 to 12 months but it didn't go that that well and one day his dad he said normally they were more encouraging but for whatever reason one day he just asked his dad like hey dad how do people how do people get rich and his parents are like really poor so maybe also touched on an insecurity his dad is just like oh why don't you just figure it out yourself you know why don't you just watch some videos of warren buffett he was I don't know we're not rich and then he did that he went and listened to loads of warren buffett stuff and it actually spiraled from there so unschooling is the concept that homeschooling is trying to rep replicate the school curriculum right like alright math science and you still have to do the tests and all that unschooling is there is no there is no curriculum the kid just learns whatever they want to learn and whatever is useful so he was saying from around an age of like 5 to 7 years old he was repairing their car and doing things like this and he'd grown up in a poor family but he actually started his own business and by the time he was 13 he like parlayed it like so initially he bought a tiny piece of land and got some animals on it and like sell the produce in his local town and stuff then he got he built he bought a super rundown house that was falling apart and the seller they built the house themselves and so they didn't wanna sell it just for money but he's like hey look I'll buy your shack that's falling down and I'm a kid and I'm gonna put on dedicate all my time to repairing it so it's it's restoring your legacy and so they really liked that and they sold it to him for cheap he repaired it and then flipped the house by the time he was 13 he had something like hundreds of acres of land he was managing and he said one time when he was about 12 he went out with some friends and they were complaining about what they were learning at school they're like oh we had to learn the names of the planets in alphabetical order when the hell are we gonna learn that we wouldn't need to use that in life you know they asked him they're like hey cole what were you learning at the moment and he's like oh yeah well I've just been looking into recently found it kinda interesting how rich people generally have like a pass through llc and then a c corp and then they can deduct this from their taxes on this and they have kids they're like what the fuck are you talking about you know but he got so not like crazy rich but he got he was only hunched leg and his dad he actually was like loaning money to his parents he's like they never asked me for money and I never asked them for stuff but like in tough times like I loaned money to my parents I bought a car from them just to help them out you know stuff like that and then for me I was thinking back in school like I learned piano in school I had some piano lessons and then at some.

Jack Smith

Had to do like, "Great!" You had to do, you know, playing chords. I had an exam, and then it was just so **shitty**. You know, it was not fun. I don't want to learn how to play these chords and music theory and stuff just to pass the exam. I'm like, "This sucks!" Now, especially nowadays, kids learning piano will do it by just saying, "What's their favorite song?" and they'll just learn to play the song. That's just really fun! I think that exams and stuff ruin the fun and curiosity of learning skills. For me, with my daughter, I'm just like, "How can I ensure that she's having fun for as long as possible?" Like this kid said, who was unschooled, he mentioned that he didn't learn traditional math, but when he had a need to learn a skill, obviously he would then learn it. Like, he's doing his taxes, so he has to learn math to do his taxes. But it's not because they're like, "Oh, learn the Pythagorean theorem," and you have no idea when you're going to use it. He identified, "I need to do my taxes, so I need to figure out how to do math." I think that's just a philosophy that I subscribe to a lot. I mean, it's wacky, obviously, but when you look at Elon Musk, he created his own school for his kids. Jeff Bezos created his own school for his kids. I think he only has like seven kids. You don't have to be a billionaire to take this approach. Billionaires seem to be thinking the school system is kind of **fucked up**. You don't have to be a billionaire.

Sam Parr

You could, but so what are you, Paul? What are you going to do then? So, fast forward, she's 6 or 8 years old. What are you going to do?

Jack Smith

Well, at the moment, she goes to this thing called Forest School. It's actually nothing to do with school. Basically, they just go to a forest, a bunch of kids, and they're just playing all day. They have a fake mud kitchen, and they are picking oranges and turning them into orange juice. They shear sheep and stuff. I'm planning to create my own thing like that but for a bigger age group. I'm just like, let's bring a bunch of kids. Anyone in a local school can come around. Also, I feel like instead of teaching them how to write and study whatever, wouldn't it be awesome if they could pick a topic? Or I could suggest some topics. For example, I could ping my buddy and say, "Hey Sam, could you teach the class a lesson on copywriting?" I kind of feel that if a 10-year-old kid pinged me and said, "Hey, I’m interested in business. Would you mind doing a lecture for my class? My parents will bring us to you," I would totally do it. So, I'm kind of thinking about stuff like that.

Shaan Puri

So, I love this! My sister actually runs a school like this called **Nature Kids**. Basically, they're just outside all day, walking around, going on trails. If they find something they like, they learn about it. If they want to climb trees, they climb trees—whatever they feel like doing. She has a traditional school and this nature school. By the end of the day, the traditional school kids are like dead. They have no energy; they're ready to go home and kind of just want to watch YouTube and whatever. In contrast, the nature kids, even though they've been out walking around all day, have way more energy, which is kind of counterintuitive. That's the first thing I've noticed. The second thing is that they know a bunch of things that are interesting to them. In traditional school, it's sort of like you're forced to learn something that's not that interesting to you. You begin to associate learning with boredom and being forced to do things. On the other side, with self-driven learning, it's great!

Jack Smith

and exams right

Shaan Puri

Yeah, the pressure of that... Now, I love the story you told about that guy, but my question would be: I think unschooling, or sort of self-driven learning, is awesome when you're driven. So, what happens if your kid is not trying to, like, you know, flip a house and learn about pass-through LLCs? I guess the fear I would have, and I think most people would have, is that your kid doesn't really have any interest. They kind of just want to sit around and do nothing. So now you're unschooled, but you're not really having this kind of awesome, you know, self-driven curiosity. Are you worried about that, or do you think, "No, I can create that," or "This situation will mold a person to be more that way?"

Sam Parr

And also, on the other side, what if she wants to be a doctor or a lawyer? Where you need, you need, need...

Shaan Puri

to learn how to write

Sam Parr

credentials yeah well and you need credentials

Jack Smith

Yeah, I mean, great questions. At first, I'd definitely agree with you, Sean. It's one bit my wife has said: "You know, some kids are not like you, Jack." I was trying to make money when I was already little and stuff, and they might not take that approach. I think we just have to see how it goes as we go along. One other bit that was interesting is I visited a local Montessori school. So, Montessori... we're studying a bit, learning these different things, just my wife and I, out of interest. One bit they had, which is awesome, is exactly as you said, Sean. School finished, and we went there at the end of the day. So, whenever school finishes, 4 PM or something, there was actually a bunch of kids still there. They have a farm outside, and the head teacher was giving us a tour just because my wife made friends with her. She was walking around, speaking to the kids about what's going on in the farm, but she was not telling them anything to do. The kids were just giving her an update. So, she's like, "Oh, I see the rabbit cage is broken. What's going on with that?" The kid was giving her a detailed plan, like, "Oh yeah, we've seen this broken, and we've come up with a new roofing method that we're gonna implement," etc. The kids run the farm, and I was like, "That's awesome! What if you just have that but just scrap the school part?" This school is also quite religious, so we're like, "What if you just scrap the religion part?" As homage to Sam, about a bit, if she wants to be a doctor... I mean, yeah, I guess one approach is that I could just say, "Yeah, shit out of luck," or take the total opposite approach and just hire loads of tutors. Be like, "Alright, if that's the approach you want to take, then okay, I guess we're gonna have to get you up to speed faster than other kids." And I don't know how much you actually learn when you're 5 in school anyway, so maybe just say, "Alright, if you want to do that, you're gonna have to be super smart and skip a bunch of grades. Then we'll help you do it."

Sam Parr

I don't know. I just love hearing your stories. I mean, we could do this all day. I don't know, what do you think, Sean? How do you feel?

Jack Smith

yeah I've had

Shaan Puri

A few times with Jack, I just call him randomly and ask him about something. I think you are kind of more of a one-of-one, at least in my life, among people who are very well... I don't know, independent-minded is kind of the best way I would put it. I think you choose to lead your life how you want, and I find that inspiring. I also think that you are extremely, like Sam said, sort of curious. I think you're a great competitor when you need to compete in something, but you're not constantly trying to compete when no one asked for it. That's a very Silicon Valley trait—people are trying to compete in times that are... what are you competing on? Why are you trying to, you know, show that you're the smartest, you're the richest, you're the one with the most... whatever? It's an annoying trait, and I think it's great that you don't have that. So, I don't know, it's good to talk with you as always. Do you leave us with either a book or product recommendation? One of Jack's finds that you think people should check out, something you're passionate about, or something you think is awesome?

Jack Smith

Well, the book that I mentioned... I guess the book that I talked about unschooling is called "Don't Tell Me That I Can't." And I guess, like, spoiler alert: the kid... it really sucked because this kid was building something amazing, he actually drowned and died. Oh, okay. Right after he wrote the book. Kind of sucks, but it's a really short book you can [read quickly].

Shaan Puri

read it should've listened to the live story on

Sam Parr

that one

Shaan Puri

you should've told him not to go in there that wasn't the butter on that one yes

Sam Parr

Sick, sick way to end it. Good time to end the pod, you moron. So, what's the name?

Shaan Puri

of it

Jack Smith

Don't tell me I can't. It's just a short book; you can read it in 2 to 3 hours. It challenges a lot of assumptions you might have about education and stuff. For me, it was really inspiring to see this book.

Shaan Puri

I'm looking at your products on your

Sam Parr

Did you just say, "Wait, yeah, did you just say you should alert? You should have listened to the live?"

Shaan Puri

Yeah, the live guy just told him, "Don't go in." He's like, "Have you read my book? I'm going in."

Sam Parr

you're an asshole

Shaan Puri

Jack, I'm looking at your Twitter list of products, and you have this buckwheat pillow. I think I bought one of these. Are these like hard as a rock? Aren't they just super, super dense?

Jack Smith

You can adjust how much buckwheat is in it. I also have a pillowcase that divides into three sections, so you can adjust that.

Shaan Puri

why do people love these so much they you

Jack Smith

[I] need to get used to it a little bit, but actually it cured my neck pain and I can't sleep on another pillow now. And I think, Sam, you said as well that some of your friends even ship the pillow to the hotel before they arrive?

Sam Parr

Nick Gray does. Yeah, Nick Gray. Have you heard of this Nick Gray? Our buddy Nick Gray literally every time he goes to a hotel, he has his assistant send this pillow to the hotel. Then he just leaves it there when he's done, every single time. Sometimes, if he's going to stay at a place for more than, I think, like 4 days, he ships them a mattress.

Jack Smith

what mattress

Sam Parr

I swear to god you could if if you

Shaan Puri

Google nick gray I can't have a message from the hotel

Sam Parr

Google "Nick Gray pillow" and he'll tell you the story. Whenever I'm in a city and he's visiting, I go to his hotel room, and he always has that pillow. He gets it shipped there every time.

Shaan Puri

how would

Jack Smith

you get rid of the mattress

Shaan Puri

yeah well

Sam Parr

Well, I don't know what he does about the mattress, but if you Google it, I think he has a blog post on it. It's not just talk. Whenever he's staying somewhere, I'll go to his hotel and just hang out with him, and the pillow's there every time.

Shaan Puri

this is so funny wow

Jack Smith

So, basically, it's the best for neck pain. A pillow normally is like, you know, a rectangle. But ideally, you actually want your head to have less support than your neck. Otherwise, it puts your head at a weird angle, you know? With this, you can pull the buckwheat to one end, giving a lot more support to your neck, whereas your head is a bit lower. This allows you to lay completely flat, so you're not cranking your neck and waking up with neck pain the next day.

Shaan Puri

I was listening to this podcast of Derek Sivers on Tim Ferriss. Derek Sivers is a really interesting guy. They were discussing his business, which I think is web hosting or something like that. Tim asked him, "Why did you decide to do this?" Derek responded, "You know, sometimes I'll pick a project..." I'm paraphrasing here, but he said, "Sometimes I'll pick a project because I think about who's my customer and do I want to work with those kinds of people?" He explained that this business allows you to host your own personal website. He realized that people who have their own personal website for no reason—like just their own name dot com—those are his kind of people. I thought, "Oh, that's really great to figure out your filter for what's a simple heuristic." Not everybody you like does this, but everyone who does this, you kind of like. I think this is like trying every product to find the best quality of life levers. This might be one of those things because everyone I've met who does this, I like that person. You do this, Nick Gray does this, and it's kind of amazing.

Sam Parr

do you still have a sheet are you still tracking everything

Jack Smith

Not really a spreadsheet, no. I mean, for example, with the Bay Baby Box I sent you, I just looked around my house. I kind of anecdotally buy a bunch of stuff, try them all out, and then send back the ones I don't like. I just keep the best. So, I wrote it down for you. I don't have a fixed sheet. As I said, maybe I might turn it into a baby book, but I haven't yet.

Sam Parr

He had this closet at one of his houses that I used to go to, and it was like a walk-in closet. It literally had, I bet you, $30,000 worth of supplements in there. It looked like a pharmacy - it was like any bottle you could imagine. I was like, "Does any of this do anything?" He was like, "No, not really. You can't really feel... except this one thing." And he had like a Ziploc bag, and it had something that looked like tar in it. I was like, "Is this like heroin? What the hell is this?"

Shaan Puri

and he

Sam Parr

was like

Shaan Puri

yeah it works yeah

Sam Parr

It was like, he's like, "This is like Himalayan something." If you just take a little dab of this, it gives you some... what was that?

Jack Smith

It's called Shilajit. I haven't consistently found it to be repeatably amazing, but yeah, Himalayan Shilajit is like an extract from a volcano or some kind of mineral.

Sam Parr

dude it was like I swear to god it looked like a pharmacy

Shaan Puri

it consistently impresses anybody that you tell about it that's what it does

Sam Parr

he had like scales and it had like white powders on it

Shaan Puri

I mean

Sam Parr

It looks like a drug dealer. I was like, "Does any of us do anything?" I don't know how much money you spend on all of it. It was tens of thousands, and you're like, "This one thing is the only thing that is amazing." It was like a Ziploc bag of just this tar.

Shaan Puri

amazing alright jack we gotta wrap it up this is fun thanks for coming on we should do this again

Jack Smith

Thanks so much for having me! I love the podcast and I listen to it exclusively. To be honest, I don't listen to any other podcasts. I just listen to it in the car. So, thanks again so much! Thank you.