How Jason Yanowitz Bootstrapped Blockworks To A +$20M/yr Company

Jason Yanowitz

And the real story of Blockworks: I went home that afternoon and thought, "I'm launching a consulting firm to help companies figure out Ethereum."

Sam Parr

Alright, we're live! This is it. This is how we start, man. We get in.

Jason Yanowitz

you just rip into it

Sam Parr

we get right into it where are you calling from your place looks nice is this your apartment

Jason Yanowitz

yeah yeah this is blockworks office yeah we got a new office like about a year ago in manhattan

Sam Parr

how many how many people do you have like 60

Jason Yanowitz

I think we're up to 65. Maybe we had 6 people start this week, so I think that might put us at 65.

Sam Parr

What's the pitch for what you are? You're just, I mean, at a high level, a crypto media company. But what did I tell you the other day? I said, "You do everything right. You do things the right way."

Jason Yanowitz

Wait, let me just get this straight... So is Sean not joining us? Because, do you know that Sean DM'd me one day? He gave me his cell phone number. He said, "Dude, hit me up. Would love to meet and chat." I've never met the guy. He gives me his cell phone number, I text him. I go, "Yo, it's Jason Yannozzi. What's up man?" I said something about Friend Tech. Guy ghosted me, never... just left me on read.

Sam Parr

really

Jason Yanowitz

this was gonna be my time on air to call out sean but alas

Sam Parr

Well, you called him out. No, Sean's out. Sean's getting a nose job. He's out with surgery this week.

Jason Yanowitz

really

Sam Parr

yeah but but he'll he'll hear this

Jason Yanowitz

alright

Sam Parr

sean's a ghoster man sean is a ghoster I give him a hard for I give him a hard time for

Jason Yanowitz

that

Sam Parr

but you know he brings the heat so he he gets a pass

Jason Yanowitz

so what are we talking today

Sam Parr

I don't know, man. Tell people, like, you're under the radar, but your business is shockingly big. I think it's going to be incredibly successful. What do you... what's like the pitch for what Blockworks is?

Jason Yanowitz

Blockworks started 6 years ago. My co-founder Mike and I launched it in December of 2017. Basically, the thesis back then, which remains the same, is that crypto as an asset class and as an industry is going to grow exponentially over the coming years. This was back in 2017 when most of the information about the asset class was basically siloed on Reddit and Twitter. Our thesis was that as the industry grew exponentially, those investors and professionals who came into the industry weren't going to listen to "CryptoPanda" or "CryptoWhale" about this new asset class. They wanted a professional source of information, kind of like Bloomberg or The Wall Street Journal for crypto. So, we said, "Hey, let's go build it," and that was 6 years ago. What we've built is basically, for the first 5 years, a media platform—a media company. We own the largest network of podcasts in the industry. We have a couple of big newsletters, and I think we have the best team of reporters and journalists in the industry. We also own a couple of the large conferences in the industry. A year ago, we thought the industry was ready for deeper, what I call, almost like bottom-of-the-funnel information about crypto: data, analytics, research, and protocol governance. That is our subscription platform that we launched called Blockworks Research. So, that was a year ago. We're a media and information platform focused on crypto—a crypto-native media and information company. Do you...?

Sam Parr

Say how big you are. Did you see the research, my guy? So, I have Eugenio. He's my... he had your revenue and EBITDA. Was that all correct?

Jason Yanowitz

yeah it's crazy oh like he's doing like he's that guy's digging

Sam Parr

He said, "In 2023, you're gonna do $25,000,000 in revenue with $8,000,000 in EBITDA." He says, "In 2022, you did $257,000,000 in EBITDA. Is that right?"

Jason Yanowitz

I'm not going to say specific numbers, but what I will say is that last year we had a goal of $20,000,000 in revenue, and we pretty decently exceeded that. We've been profitable since day one. We bootstrapped the business for the first five and a half years, and then back in April or May, we raised our first outside round of capital from 10T, Framework, and the Sanjell of Santiago. We raised $12,000,000 at a $1.35 billion valuation, and we've been profitable since then. Since we started, we did a decent bit of EBITDA last year. This year, those numbers are wrong because, just to share a little bit of insight into the crypto market, I don't know how closely you follow it, Sam, but the market has just gotten crushed. What's actually done really well for us this year is our subscription revenue on the research platform. However, the ad market across the board, both in crypto and digital media, has been tougher this year than last year. You probably talked to the Morning Brew guys or saw the BuzzFeed numbers because they're public. It's been a challenging year for the ad market.

Sam Parr

is it coming back now

Jason Yanowitz

it's the ad market is just starting to come back

Sam Parr

yeah but you guys crushed it on conferences I mean I went to your conference what did you have 5,000 people there

Jason Yanowitz

the conference the final number was a little above 4,000 this year

Sam Parr

Yeah, I mean, that was amazing! It seems like you killed it there. I think that, like, I'm a media nerd. I believe that everyone who has a media business, or who works in the media business, they hate it and they love it. I hate it, but it's like an art that I'm addicted to. I hate selling ads, but I love creating media. When I look at media, it's an interesting business because the barrier to entry is really low, particularly for the written word. Well, even for podcasts. Everyone can write; therefore, the pool of people who think they're good writers is significantly higher than, like, building some other type of business. I think that most people do it really poorly, myself included. I've made a lot of mistakes. But whenever I hear you talking about your guys' business, I'm like, "Oh, I see." From the outside, I see a crystal clear path to, like, $100 million in sales. You just do the same stuff but more and more, and you are thoughtful. Man, you do things right. I think that you're one of the more under-the-radar operators in the space.

Jason Yanowitz

Thanks, man. That's why I think a digital media business is actually one of the best businesses to start. It's not going to make you a billionaire. There's no like, "Go start..." You had the flying guy on the podcast the other day. That's what you'd go do if you want to be a billionaire. A digital media brand, I think, is the best venture into entrepreneurship for first-time founders. Mike and I were just roommates at the time, and we were 23 when we launched the business. We basically just woke up at like 4 AM, jumped on LinkedIn. We had no media business; we didn't even know what media was. We just wanted to host an event because we went to an event and realized they made like $5,000. That was big money to us. So, we just jumped on LinkedIn every morning. We would wake up and send like 300 messages. If 10% of those people replied, that's 30. You get like 3 out of the 30 to actually buy a ticket. Our first event in February 2018 had 220 people, and we made top line $12,000, I think it was. So, we were off to the races. Then we ended up building a media company basically ass backwards, right? Like how you probably started at The Hustle was with content.

Sam Parr

yeah you you did it horribly

Jason Yanowitz

Horribly, horribly, horribly. I would argue, though, that the problem with most media companies—and the reason they don't work—is because they're started by folks who can't monetize. They're usually started by a podcast host or a newsletter writer in 2023. They're brilliant at content but they don't understand how to sell. So what happens is, they're a year and a half in, and they're like, "Oh shit, I need to monetize," but they don't know how to build a business. They know how to create great content. For us, we did events, then we linked up with Pump, right? We got into the podcasting game. Our first podcast was Pump's, which used to be called "Off the Chain." Now it's called "The Palm Podcast."

Sam Parr

but you were just selling ads for him right

Jason Yanowitz

We were doing everything. I would go into Palm's office seven days a week, Saturdays and Sundays too. I would put the mic in front of his face. I learned how to use GarageBand; I was editing the podcast and producing the podcast. We were designing the things on 99 Designs. I was selling the sponsorships. We were doing all of it. Then we built that business out and hosted shows for other people. We realized that while this business was great for revenue, it sucked for intellectual property because we don't actually own the content.

Sam Parr

yeah you're just an agency

Jason Yanowitz

Yeah, then COVID hit and 80% of our revenue got wiped out overnight because 80% of our revenue came from events. That's when we pivoted into, like we said, "Let's go do the media thing."

Sam Parr

How much could you say, how many... how much in sales would your one event do?

Jason Yanowitz

yeah our biggest one I mean last year we did like well over 10,000,000 from permissionless

Sam Parr

Dude, that's insane! My whole thing with events was I started with HustleCon. I did the same thing as you, where I threw it together and hosted it in six weeks. I think the first time I did it, I made $50,000 in revenue and about $20,000 in profit. The second time, I think it did around $160,000 in revenue and maybe $50,000 in profit. Then, the third and fourth times, it varied between $500,000 and $1,000,000 in sales. I don't remember what the profit was, but the margins got smaller. Events were hard. I knew these events could get big, but I screwed it up. What I did was I made the event about... I just looked at what a TED Talk was, and I thought, "I'm just going to do that." I got people on a stage, and people sat in the audience and listened. That was really dumb from a money-making point of view. I knew that some of these events were doing tens of millions in sales, and I totally screwed it up. The way you really make revenue and income through these events is that the speakers are simply a way to get like-minded people in the audience. You make money through more expensive ticket sales because you're doing networking. You make money not through sponsorships—people call them sponsorships—but through booths. It's basically just a marketplace that day where people are making deals.

Jason Yanowitz

Conferences are basically just **three-day marketplaces** where you build the marketplace and then shut it down three days later. That's what the show floor is.

Sam Parr

Sheldon Adelson. So, there's a guy named Sheldon, I think his name's Sheldon Adelson. He might have just died. He started this thing called Comdex, I think it was, and it eventually turned into CES. I think it rebranded. But anyway, he created this conference called Comdex, and it was like the computer show or something. It was right when computers were getting popular in the seventies, eighties, and nineties. He built it up and actually sold it for $1,000,000,000. But Sheldon Adelson's the guy who basically made the Vegas Strip happen. He noticed that this conference was essentially creating a marketplace. He thought, "Oh wow, I'm basically just creating a real estate business." He was selling corner space because that's the best space. Then he realized, "Well, shit, I'm just going to get into the real estate industry," because he saw loads of different parallels. Anyway, when I read that, I was already pretty deep into my one big event, and I was like, "Shit, I did this all wrong."

Jason Yanowitz

I don't even think you did it wrong you just needed to go bigger so the secret with events so we started with small events the thing that a lot of entrepreneurs get wrong with events is the business model of small events is a is a really good experience for attendees it's really fun you bring people together good community building it is a shit business model so the kind of secret to events is you need to figure out how to go really big and go bigger and bigger and bigger and what we found out some early insights was let's say you have a company like like like coinbase right and coinbase might pay us $1,000,000 to sponsor a conference if we launched another conference they're not gonna go pay us 2,000,000 they're gonna take that 1,000,000 that they allocate to their blockworks conference budget and they're gonna cut it in half so then they're spending 500 with us here and 500 with us here so but we're doing twice the work right to go run 2 conferences so we basically consolidated all of our things we now just have 2 conferences digital asset summit and permissionless and the reason for that is like that is the best business model for conferences is bigger is better what's really tough is big conferences you have to plan out years in advance so our events team would like us to book venues like 4 or 5 years out we can't do that because crypto is too cyclical so we but we still have to like I think we just booked our 2026 venue or or or we're like about we have we have the we have the contract for them so and why that's really tough for our business is because crypto is so cyclical and if you think you're planning a big event but you don't end up having you're not able to host the big event you can crush your business right coindesk almost died in 2019 because of that reason they had like I don't know 10,000 + people in 2018 and then in 2019 they fell to like 2,000 people right they fell 80% and that almost wiped out their whole business and their takeaway from that was hey maybe events big events aren't gonna come back big events aren't gonna be big like crypto events just aren't gonna be big again and what happened is you end up losing money on the upside when the when the market comes back you lose money on the upside so for us like it's just a big challenge to running a a conference business in such a cyclical industry is you have to plan these things years in advance but then you're basically asking yourself to like predict market cycles very tough thing to do

Sam Parr

but you're big enough now that like you said that like cities are like courting you right

Jason Yanowitz

Yeah, cities... the bigger your conference gets, the more GDP you bring into a city. I forget the specific number, but I think for Palm Beach last year, we brought in like $3,000,000 to $6,000,000 of GDP to Palm Beach just in those 3 days. So, the mayor of Palm Beach came to our conference. He really wanted us to come back. The bigger your conference gets, the more cities—and even countries—will court you. Countries will court events like Web Summit and Money 2020, and they'll give them big upfronts.

Sam Parr

How much do you think that upfront was for a Web Summit? Web Summit has about 50,000 people.

Jason Yanowitz

Yeah, a couple million, probably. I don't know, $55,000,000 maybe. Maybe some money in tax credits.

Sam Parr

That's insane, man! I... yeah, I mean, like, I haven't cracked the code for an event, but you have. That's why I like hanging out with you. But, like, it's freaking stressful.

Jason Yanowitz

it is stressful

Sam Parr

that's one of the reasons why I hate events

Jason Yanowitz

Yeah, 50% of tickets get sold in the four weeks leading up to a conference. So, imagine the fifth week out from a conference. You're basically thinking that 50% of your attendees aren't coming, and you know it because we have six years of data that they're going to come. But it's stressful. Ultimately, the conference serves as the reason we were able to bootstrap the business. It serves as the cash flow into the podcast, the research business, and into the digital and news aspects, and all that stuff.

Sam Parr

And another thing that I like about hanging out with you... So, for the listener, I spent my summers in Brooklyn. One year, Jason was like, "Hey, there's this apartment in my building that's available. You wanna rent it out?" And I was like, "Hell yeah!" So, I lived three floors below you for about four months and hung out with you a bunch. An interesting thing about you is you're one of the better storytellers I've ever hung out with. Sean Perry, partner Sean, is awesome at telling stories. You've told some of the craziest stories I've ever heard, particularly one about when you won a... did you win a Corvette?

Jason Yanowitz

Oh man, so I was super nervous for this podcast. Not because I'm nervous to go on podcasts, but I was telling Dana last night, "I'm actually pretty nervous for this podcast." Sam knows too much about me to make this...

Sam Parr

This... I'll give you a pass on anything you don't want to talk about. You don't have to. I asked you ahead of time... I.

Jason Yanowitz

said what don't you

Sam Parr

I want to talk about... I'll share anyone. I think Sean and I joke that if you were really good at gaming, if you were good at poker, or if you were a hacker... a lot of people who end up with huge amounts of financial success were doing something "gray" early in their career. Before they realized, "Oh, I should follow the book and do things by the rules," because that is way better for long-term success. But they had that "gene" in them.

Jason Yanowitz

a 100%

Sam Parr

You told this story, and when I heard it, I was like, "Oh yeah, it would have been obvious at the age of 16 or 18 that you were going to be a massive success." When you told me this story, it was one of the crazier things I've ever heard of.

Jason Yanowitz

I'll tell an abbreviated version because I don't think it's as interesting as you do. But I've always had this kind of entrepreneurial spirit.

Sam Parr

don't don't give me the abbreviated version

Jason Yanowitz

I've always had this entrepreneurial tick like I my parents shared this story with me the other day I guess when I was in like 4th or 5th or 6th grade or something I would buy this is not the story I'll get to the story but I would buy mlb showdown cards on ebay that I thought they were marketing it poorly and like maybe the picture was bad or the description was bad I'd buy the mlb showdown cards I'd take a nicer picture with a nice camera re upload the this exact same card to to ebay with just a better picture and better marketing copy and sell it for like 2 x what we bought it what I bought it for so I've always had that kind of bent this has pulled me down good rabbit holes like that or like blockworks and then some less good rabbit holes which I think is the story you're getting to summer after senior year of high school I summer after senior year of high school I wanted some money some summer money so I went to my parents and was like hey can I can I get some money I'm in high school I don't have a job let me get some money they're like you're not you're not getting money we're not giving you money go my I remember my mom said I think your friend jake is getting a job at taco bell go work with jake at taco bell I said I'm not going to taco bell and we we would go to taco bell every day I love taco bell and so I was like I'm not going to I'm not working at taco bell so my buddy was a year above me in school and he would he he went to school at the university of hawaii and he was back from his freshman year of college he's like hey I heard about this thing where it was actually the soylent podcast guy or the soylent guy brought it up on his on your podcast with him it's he's like most companies spend like 40% of their budget on marketing these there are another type of company that spends 0 on marketing 40% on affiliates who market their products for them and that was kind of the pitch that my buddy gave me he's like if you're able to sell this energy drink to other people you can make money you get like a percentage of what they make and again I'm 18 I didn't know anything I just wanted money and I didn't wanna work at taco bell so I signed up I bought like 30 energy drinks and started telling people that like hey you drink red bull and monster you should you shouldn't do that you should buy these healthy energy drinks from me go you go to like yenowitz dot you know the web the website.com and anyways I I I did it for a couple months didn't make any money I get to college I went to emory down in atlanta and I really didn't wanna be like the energy drink guy you know I'm trying to be like cool on campus freshman didn't want didn't wanna be like the energy drink guy and I talked to some friends they didn't wanna do it but then I discovered like digital marketing and actually like noah kagan and like all those people like that whole crowd they were kinda booming back in the day like they were just kinda finding some success and found that whole crowd of like that guy branson something or

Sam Parr

russell branson

Jason Yanowitz

Yeah, I figured out how to create landing pages. I went super deep down that rabbit hole, and the business got crazy. So, you got paid like a percentage. This is where I didn't realize what I was doing. Looking back, there's a lot of uncertainty. I'm not sure if I would do this again. I actually think about whether I would let my kid do this in the future. But yeah, I ended up having 4,600 people in my downline and had about 1,000 people in France, you know?

Sam Parr

The reason is that it wasn't just about making money from selling this drink. You were making money from enlisting people to sell it for you. So basically, it was a pyramid scheme.

Jason Yanowitz

multi

Sam Parr

Multilevel marketing... Yeah, you told the story. You're like, "I told my parents what I was doing," and they're like, "Jason, you know this is a multilevel marketing." You're like, "What do you mean? I'm just selling a drink." You didn't even know what that meant, right?

Jason Yanowitz

I... so this company was the official sponsor of the Phoenix Suns. Dr. Oz was on my... if any of my friends from college are listening to this, they're going to laugh at this because they have heard this pitch probably a thousand times. I used to get on Skype; it wasn't Zoom back then, it was Skype. I'd give this pitch to a room of 500 people. Dr. Oz says that, you know, a can of this and a handful of almonds is the healthiest thing that you can put in your body, blah blah. So they had all these big names. I had no idea. I really fell for the pitch that it was like, look, a lot of companies like Nike spend $1,000,000,000 on marketing. Why don't they just spend $1,000,000,000 giving it to... when Sam tells me about Nike, they should give Sam like 10% of that. What I didn't realize was there's all these companies; there's this multilevel marketing. I didn't realize that there's this whole industry. And it wasn't until... well, to bring this story home, in the car, it wasn't a Corvette, it was a BMW. I got so high up in this company or had so many people below me that the company gave me a BMW my sophomore year of college. I tried dropping out my sophomore year; I got like a 2.2 or 2.4 GPA. Obviously, my parents wouldn't let me. They knew... they were like... I later learned that it was a big debate my parents had about whether or not to let me keep doing this. My mom wanted to shut it down from day one, and my dad was like, "It'll teach him a good lesson." I don't think they thought I was going to be successful, but it wasn't until Bill Ackman and Carl Icahn got into that really crazy battle over Herbalife, and I watched the full thing. I watched the whole presentation about Bill Ackman that I realized, I was like, "Oh my God, he is explaining this company that I'm working with." And then my roommate junior year, you know, one of my best friends, basically slapped me in the face junior year. He's like, "Alright man, we're going to get internships. You should join us. Stop doing this. Stop doing this thing." And we... and it shut down.

Sam Parr

What is it? How much money do you make if you have 4,000 people on your downline or whatever it's called?

Jason Yanowitz

I bet I was making probably $1,000 to $1,500 a week as a sophomore.

Sam Parr

but don't but that's 4,000 people is a shitload of people I would've thought you'd make way more

Jason Yanowitz

There were people making $1,000,000 a year who had, like, if there... I probably had $4,000 on one side and like $600 on the other. If my sides were like even, then I guess they probably did some model internally that has made the company more sustainable if it was like even. So, yeah, that's what it was. But I was... I mean, I was 19, right? I was a year and a half after wanting to work at Taco Bell or not wanting to work at Taco Bell. So, like, that was crazy, crazy, crazy money for me.

Sam Parr

And you're just like giving speeches in front of hundreds of people on Skype about why this drink is awesome or why the business is awesome.

Jason Yanowitz

Basically, the pit... yeah, kind of both. So, the difference between... so you brought up pyramid schemes. The technical difference, as the regulators see it, between a multilevel marketing company—which I would call very shady but technically legal—and a pyramid scheme, which is illegal, is the percentage of people who buy the product for the product itself versus the percentage of people who buy the product just to get access to be able to sell it and make more money. So that's the reason something like Amway or Herbalife can still exist. There’s actually a pretty high percentage of people who just buy the products because they like the products. Or like Cutco knives... and all those. So yeah, Cutco knives is a...

Sam Parr

Is a multilevel marketing... I mean, I've got a ton of friends that sold Cutco knives. You know what's crazy? They all say awesome stuff about the product. So, like, an MLM isn't inherently unethical. I think, like, wasn't Tupperware an MLM?

Jason Yanowitz

This company had been around for **10 years**. That was the other thing; it had been around for like **10, 11, or 12 years**. They sold to people who were **50 to 60 years old** and wanted to get protein shakes and all that stuff. It was a really good product, but nobody did the money part of it. They just got it and might tell some friends, but like most people who use Amway products, they don't tell their friends about it. They just actually like the products. So that was this company. Then they realized, "Hey, who wants money more than anyone?" **19-year-old kids**. So they launched, and what do **19-year-old kids** drink? They drink energy drinks. That's when they launched that. They did flashy marketing, sponsored the Suns, and got Dr. Oz as a spokesperson. All this stuff, and that's when it really took off. That's when the percentage of people buying the product to make money started to outweigh the number of people buying the product for the drink.

Sam Parr

how big was that company

Jason Yanowitz

I don't know I don't I don't have metrics the ceo I think went to jail for a year or 2 though

Sam Parr

oh my god that's well I have a lot of like

Jason Yanowitz

I wasn't even sure I wanted to talk about this on the podcast today because I have a lot of... not regret, but it is inherently kind of a shady thing to discuss, right? It's like multilevel marketing, which is a shady thing. I didn't realize it at the time. I truly drank the Kool-Aid so hard; I really had no idea. The debate I have is, I don't have any kids, but if I had a child, would I let them do this? The immediate answer is no. That is super shady. However, it did teach me... I know for a fact I would not be here today if I hadn't done that.

Sam Parr

why is that

Jason Yanowitz

Blockworks started with just me posting a lot on LinkedIn about crypto. Nobody was posting on social media or LinkedIn back then. It gave me the confidence to post on social a lot. It helped me understand that most of growing a business at the beginning is just grit, hustle, and really focusing on marketing and sales. It's less about the product initially. Eventually, that changes over time as you find product-market fit and all that kind of stuff. It taught me that there was nothing in the world I wanted to do outside of building a company. I realized I didn't know how to build a software company. You have some geniuses come on the show who are coders, but I wasn't like that. It just gave me the confidence to go do it.

Sam Parr

you were you thinking about any other different ideas before you started blockworks

Jason Yanowitz

Yeah, I was desperate for something. I was really desperate to do something, but I had a bunch of bad ideas. The way Blockworks originally started... Who's the consultant that you had on the show? **Sam Ovens.** Yeah, so the way Blockworks started, Sam Ovens plays a role. I wanted to start a consulting practice because I read Sam Ovens' stuff. I didn't buy his course, but I saw all of his ads and I was like, "This dude's making it." It was funny hearing about that New York photoshoot that he did. You know what I'm talking about? I remember seeing that ad. Obviously, now I know how the game works; that wasn't a real thing. But I wanted to do what Sam Ovens did: start a consulting firm.

Sam Parr

By the way, Sam Ovens is this guy who came on our podcast. Nowadays, he's like a really nerdy, almost intellectual type. He started a software company and he's doing everything right. But previously, he started this thing called Consulting.com. He rented out this slick apartment, slicked back his hair, and wore a bright blue blazer. I don't think he did anything unethical, but he was selling the dream. He was like, "I started a consulting business that makes money. I'm going to teach you how to do that too for this amount of money." He came on our podcast and he was like, "I don't remember exactly what he said, but I think the energy that I got from him was he's like, 'I don't regret doing that because I helped a lot of people, but I was playing a part that wasn't authentic to me.' I got bummed out. Maybe there was a little regret. He's like, 'I’ve fucking played a part like I was an actor.'" I don't think he regrets it because I don't think he did anything wrong, but he just pushed it to the limit.

Jason Yanowitz

Yeah, so I saw those ads. That's what I wanted to do. I was really sick of my job and wanted to pursue that. I used to go to this thing called Brunchwork or something in New York. I don't think they exist anymore, but I'd go to all these events. They had a session on how to build a consulting firm at 2 PM on a Sunday. I thought it was great. So, you just get...

Sam Parr

sucked into these like scabs

Jason Yanowitz

I let me... one day, if you ever talk to Mike, he'll tell you about the Jerry Seinfeld ticket flipping scheme. Did not make money. Anyways, I got there an hour early because I thought it was at 1 PM. They were doing a talk on Ethereum, and I already knew about Bitcoin since 2015. I was living in Budapest and heard about Bitcoin in 2017. This is 2017 now, and I got really into Ethereum from this talk. So I decided, I went home that day, and the real story of blockers... I went home that afternoon and thought, "I'm launching a consulting firm to help companies figure out Ethereum."

Sam Parr

hours after learning about ethereum

Jason Yanowitz

Hours after, I was like, "Sold the dream!" I thought, "This is what I've been looking for." Well, I had known about Bitcoin for two years. I was already listening to Bitcoin podcasts and stuff, and I had kind of heard about Ethereum, but it didn't click. I didn't get it. I came home, and I was living with four guys at the time. One of them was Mike, who's my co-founder. We remember it slightly differently. What I remember is him saying, "Let's do it," and then waking up in the morning and saying, "Hey, this is a horrible idea." I currently work in consulting. Nobody's going to buy consulting from us because they don't trust us. We're 23 years old; we need to build trust with the community. I asked, "How do we do that?" He said, "What if we hosted events? We went to that event last month that made some money." So, we started hosting events to then try to sell consulting. And six years later, we have no consulting, but...

Sam Parr

Hey guys, really quick. So, you may know this, but my beginning in business was as a copywriter. I'm a self-taught copywriter, and what that means is I figured out what motivated people. Then, I figured out how to use the written word to get them to do what I want them to do. That could mean selling them a product, writing a speech, or even giving a speech and getting someone to buy into a particular movement. That could be recruiting... hell, you could do it for dating. It just basically means figuring out what motivates someone and how to use the written word to get them to take action or to think a certain way. The way that I learned how to copywrite was through a technique called copy work. Copy work is a famous technique that's not really popular anymore, but it used to be really, really popular. You basically take writing that is great—writing that you love—and you write it out by hand. You copy it and make notes of what particular things that writer is doing that makes it special. This is the exact same way that you learn how to play the piano. When you want to learn how to play the piano, you learn how to play "Happy Birthday," then you learn how to play "Jingle Bells," and then maybe a rock and roll song, and then maybe a hip hop song. Eventually, you can combine that all together after a few years, and you learn how to make music that's your own. The same thing goes for writing. That's how I learned how to write. I locked myself in a room for six months and I just did this for many hours a day. I created a program to make it easy, so you could do that. It's called **Copy That** (copythat.com). You can go there and check it out. It's a 10-day exercise to make it really easy to learn how to write. If you want, you can just do this on your own. You could find great writing and just literally copy it by hand. I know it sounds crazy, but it works really effectively. But I made something that makes it a little bit easier, so check it out at copythat.com. We will talk soon, and now, back to the pod.

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Sam Parr

Dude, it's so funny. I think that, like, alright, so Blackworks is going to be a huge success. I don't know how big, but I believe you're going to have a multi-$100,000,000 exit before the age of like 33. Very likely. What are you, 28 now?

Jason Yanowitz

29

Sam Parr

You're going to be worth at least **$100,000,000** in the next five years, I would imagine. That's my prediction. But in order to get there, I think people—like we, Sean and I talk about this all the time—there's always this revisionist history of, "Oh, I had this great idea." When in reality, you just do dumbass, kind of meathead stuff, and you can iterate your way through it. Then, after you reach some type of sustainability and mastery, you're like, "Okay, I actually clearly see the path now." Maybe you'll go back in time and say, "I had this revelation that we have to build this big thing." You mentioned your story earlier, where you thought crypto was going to be a big thing, but no one was covering it. In reality, it was like, "Ethereum sounds sick. I need a job. I'm just going to host this event and see what happens." You know what I mean? You just kind of do things, and sometimes it works out.

Jason Yanowitz

There's always basically a... so like that is true what I said about like we had this vision that crypto would be this institutional asset class. Because once we said, "Hey, how do you host an event? What should we talk about?" I think our first talk, like one of our first events, was like "Crypto in the Institutional Age of Blockchain" or something. We had that vision, right? But yeah, I think you are dead right. I think that is almost a problem that gets pushed: everybody thinks that founders had this vision from day one. But if you talk to founders who have built big companies, 99% of them do not. They never did at the beginning. Second-time founders actually do, I've noticed. Second-time founders will have a vision, but honestly, like 100% of first-time founders? There's no grand vision. It's this kind of... it's this like, "How did Blockworks get built?" I don't know. We took one foot in front of the other, day after day, and like slogged it out. That's how you build your first company. The second company, I think, is different. The second company can be like, you know, robotics and like all this other stuff. But you can have a grand vision, but not for the first company.

Sam Parr

Yeah, I don't think it is. I remember when I started my first venture. The very first thing I wanted to do was start a newsletter. Then I had this horrible idea. I had just read the biography of Ted Turner, and he employed all these people. I thought, "That sounds amazing! I want to employ 10,000 people." Then I had a team of 10, and I realized, "No, I definitely don't want 10,000 of these assholes hanging around. This is just too hard." I mean, great people, but he inspired me, and I thought, "Oh my god, I don't want all these people." I made so many mistakes, but then the second or third time around, you definitely have a more clear vision. You also have more wisdom, and that shows up in the sense of, like, "Look, after we do this for 2 or 3 years, I have a feeling we're going to be able to do this in like 5 years." You have a little bit more vision, but you know, it's still pretty murky. You also have a lot more patience and trust in the cycle or in the evolution because things evolve. But when you're first starting stuff, you're like, "This isn't even going to work."

Sam Parr

B let alone like thinking about. C and d you know what I mean

Jason Yanowitz

100%. I think that's a big fallacy. I also think the other misconception is this idea that it gets easier as you grow. Being a founder is this weird thing where you kind of hold constant the rate at which you can tolerate problems, and everything else becomes this variable that moves. You're always, as a founder, in this zone of maximum pain. Whenever you are able to, if you're ever below that threshold of maximum pain, you take on more stuff. I thought at the beginning, "When Blockworks hits 10 people, man, it'll be a lot easier." Then I thought, "When Blockworks hits 30 people, it'll be a lot easier." I don't know, I was just listening to Patrick Collison, the founder of Stripe, on a podcast. That dude's in maximum pain right now.

Sam Parr

you think so

Jason Yanowitz

Oh yeah, he is reading between the lines of that company. He is in Max Payne, and it doesn't get any easier.

Sam Parr

do you have you read the have you read the elon musk biography

Jason Yanowitz

I'm reading it right now I'm like 200 pages in

Sam Parr

I haven't started it yet, but all my friends keep talking about it. His life sounds miserable. I wouldn't trade what he has for a million years. It sounds miserable; his personal life sounds awful, his professional life sounds awful. Everything about it sounds bad. It does not sound enjoyable in the slightest.

Jason Yanowitz

can I flip the script am I allowed to ask you a question here or so

Sam Parr

this is the conversation

Jason Yanowitz

You guys were talking with the Soylent guy about what you're optimizing for, basically. Some people optimize for money, right? Some people are optimizing for happiness. He said things like, "You know, every person has a duty to make a big impact on the world." So, some people are optimistic.

Sam Parr

about that agree with him I did not agree no

Jason Yanowitz

I know, I know you called him out on that. But what are you doing? Because you're doing Hampton again. You probably have enough money where you could just sit on it and put it in some treasuries for the rest of your life. But you're doing Hampton again. What are you optimizing for?

Sam Parr

I'm optimizing for **fulfillment**. When I took time off after selling my first company, I was incredibly lonely. I think Scott Galloway talks about a "loneliness epidemic," particularly among young men, and I experienced that. I felt low, alone, and quite unhappy. While I was proud of my previous experience, I felt lonely. I started the business because I wanted a new challenge. I wanted to achieve something and succeed, but more so, I wanted to be less lonely. I wanted to be in the trenches with a team and create something together. I think that young men—and I imagine young women, but I'm a young man, so I can only speak from that perspective—need something to chase after with a team of people they enjoy being near. That's really what I was optimizing for. I'm also optimizing for **living life on my own terms**. The reason why I'm not willing to do what John said—he mentioned, "You gotta build something big"—is that I don't want that. I feel like you're signing up to live a life where you have to do a lot of things. There are three categories: what do you want to do, what should you do, and what do you have to do. I only want to spend my time doing the things I have to do and the things I want to do. I don't want to do things that I should do. For example, if you have a huge company with 10,000 employees, you have to do a lot of meetings with them and talk to your investors. I don't want to do any of that. There are things in my life that I have to do, and I'm okay with some of those, but I want to maximize my time for things that I want to do. That's what I'm maximizing my life for: spending my time how I want to spend it, not doing things that I should be doing. Does that make sense?

Jason Yanowitz

yeah it does make sense

Sam Parr

And I think that when you sign up for those... I think that like Brett Avcock was on the pod yesterday or Monday. He's this guy who goes big. The thing about him is I believe he's happy; he's doing what he wants to be doing.

Jason Yanowitz

I listened to him he sounds like it

Sam Parr

And I'm happy that freaks like him exist, but I am not that person. I don't want to go into the warehouse or his factory on a Sunday and mess with robots. That's just not how I find fulfillment. I would rather read a book and be by myself on a Sunday. So, I just don't want to sign up for those big world-changing ideas because I feel like you're obligating yourself to live a life for other people. Do you know what I mean?

Jason Yanowitz

do know what you mean

Sam Parr

was that how you feel

Jason Yanowitz

Kind of... I think fulfillment's a good way to put it. But if I had to distill that into a couple of different things, well, first off, there's **safety and security** in starting your own business. I think it is one idea that is in people's heads in the U.S., especially for people who graduate from good schools and then go into the workforce. That idea has been broken in the last year, which is going to be really interesting to see how this plays out. Working at a big tech company has been perceived as a safe thing to do. However, the number of people who have been laid off from big tech and banks recently is incredibly high. So, I actually think there's more safety and security in doing something that you own, where you can manage 100% of the risk. You can be the best employee somewhere, but if all hell breaks loose and the company doesn't have a good business model, you can get let go. I think there's safety and security in doing your own thing. I also think there's **autonomy**. Just the type of personality that I am... I've never done one of those Myers-Briggs assessments, but I'm sure it would say I need my own autonomy. I would not work well in other companies, I would say. Then, I think there's this need to grow personally. Building a company is also a very personal growth type of thing. There's no way Blockworks can grow if Mike and I don't become better as humans. I like that it's this forcing function to become a better person.

Sam Parr

Yeah, and I think in a weird sense, and I don't want to act like this is some big world-changing idea or that what I'm doing isn't selfish, but it's almost like being an artist. You know, I joke about it. I'm like, "Dude, just give Pablo Picasso a freaking tuba and he'll make art out of it." And that's sometimes how I feel about when I'm playing on the internet.

Jason Yanowitz

yeah

Sam Parr

We were talking about different ideas that you're tinkering with or different opportunities that you're spotting. What interests you at the moment? You're not going to go and start anything because you have a full-time gig, but what interests you?

Jason Yanowitz

I mean, don't just focus on crypto right now. I'm like, head... super deep into crypto. I think there are other startup ideas. If someone waved a wand today and said, "You can't work in crypto," what would I do? I would probably look at two, maybe three things. There are probably two things I would consider that I think are huge opportunities. First off, remember when everyone started creating like the "Uber for X"? I think we're about to see that with Beehive, actually.

Sam Parr

what is that what does that mean

Jason Yanowitz

Beehive's this newsletter platform that's just like a **10 times better** newsletter platform than anything on the market. I know you are friends with the ConvertKit guy, so sorry to... sorry.

Sam Parr

to hit him I like tyler I like convertkit too or I like behive too

Jason Yanowitz

I'm also super biased because I'm an investor in Beehive, but we don't use it yet because it'll be enterprise scale soon. It's more for the individual creating their newsletter. All they did was have a super deep understanding of newsletters. Tyler was, I think, the CTO of Morning Brew before this. They just had a super deep understanding—right, deep domain expertise—and then they built a really slick UI/UX and a technologically more powerful platform than anything that exists on the market. I think you're going to start to see people basically say, "Hey, Beehive was able to do this in newsletters," but there are all these platforms: Campaign Monitor, SendGrid, Sailthru, ConvertKit, Substack. They just built a product that is ten times better. I think you're going to see people try to do this for other industries. If I were doing it, I would do it for conferences. We have used six different ticketing platforms in six different years at Blockworks, and it's always been a nightmare to find a ticketing platform. We like our current one actually kind of a little bit right now, but in the past, it's just been a nightmare. There's this company called Hopin that was one of the hottest startups of the year a couple of years ago during COVID.

Sam Parr

I heard the founder took a $100,000,000 in secondary

Jason Yanowitz

yeah he did he did I actually heard it was even more than that but he

Sam Parr

that's insane

Jason Yanowitz

Yeah, it's insane. They raised a **$7 billion** valuation and then just sold for **$15 million**. So, down from **$7 billion** to **$15 million**. And they sold for... wait.

Sam Parr

hopin just sold hopin sold

Jason Yanowitz

hopin sold for you should you should fact check me on this but I think for 15,000,000

Sam Parr

no way no way

Jason Yanowitz

RingCentral acquires Hopin events and session products for $15,000,000.

Sam Parr

Holy shit! The founder took over $100,000,000 in secondary funding. Yeah, that's his day, dude. He won that one.

Jason Yanowitz

yeah he did win

Sam Parr

that one

Jason Yanowitz

Oh my God! Anyway, that's what I would do. I think Hopin could have dominated this market, but they had this stupid thesis that virtual events were going to take over physical events, which was like the dumbest thing I've ever heard. So, they failed. If they had just built a better product for event hosts and conferences—something that was just a ten times better product—that's a loss in business.

Sam Parr

that's a shit business

Jason Yanowitz

no it's a good business

Sam Parr

No, I don't think it is. I think that if you look at Eventbrite, look at their market cap. I haven't looked at it in forever, but I'm pretty sure it's been slow growth. Are you looking it up? Let me know what it says. I also think that there's this company called Splash. Do you remember Splash? Splash.com.

Jason Yanowitz

oh yeah you're right you're right

Sam Parr

I remember they rebranded to **Splash**. It was great; it was like Eventbrite, but they just made a slicker landing page for cheap or free events. It was really fun! I created so many events with Splash. I think it was splash.com, but I have no idea if they still exist. The problem with them, or I think the problem was, that most events were like $10 or $40 or something like that. They could only earn like 2% or 3% of the ticket sales. It seemed like a really small business that raised tens of millions in funding that never came to fruition.

Jason Yanowitz

So that's a good pushback. I would go enterprise. The reason I think probably Eventbrite didn't work is because they were trying to sell to random people just setting up events. It was kind of like Partyful, if you know Partyful. And then they were kind of flirting with...

Sam Parr

yeah so many people are using that I I don't think that will work

Jason Yanowitz

They're kind of flirting with enterprise but like weren't really doing it. Eventbrite, like their probably cost of support alone is like a total nightmare just because they have like anyone can go create an event on... you know what's a better comparison? Sam, Bizzabo. I would just go make like a 10 times better Bizzabo.

Sam Parr

what's bizzabo

Jason Yanowitz

It's an enterprise events platform. They sell it like SaaS, and it's about $20,000 to $30,000 a year for a subscription. You host all your events on their platform, and they don't take a cut of the ticket sales, I don't think. But the platform sucks; it's a terrible product. However, they just dominate the enterprise event space right now.

Sam Parr

why are you interested in hair transplants

Jason Yanowitz

The rate of balding in men right now is significant. The hair transplant space is one of the fastest-growing markets in all of medicine. Hold on, I was actually researching this before. Did you ever get LASIK eye surgery?

Sam Parr

no I'm afraid to do it I should do it but I'm afraid

Jason Yanowitz

So, LASIK 20 years ago was this kind of sketchy thing to do, or maybe 25 years ago. Now, the success rate is **99.9%**. The costs have come down **95%** for the surgery, and everybody gets LASIK. It's like **$1,000** or something like that. Before, it was way more expensive and way riskier. I think you're about to see the same thing happen with hair transplants. First off, the market size was **$5,000,000,000** last year, and it's projected to reach **$30,000,000,000** by **2031**. So, in **8 years**, it's going to go from a **$5,000,000,000** market to a **$30,000,000,000** market. That's a compound annual growth rate of **20%** year over year. The people that you are selling to are the most desperate cohort of individuals. Right? Like, I started losing a little hair on the back of my head, and that sucks. That is a thing that you don't want. I think you see this already with Hims and the other one—I forget, Roman or something, whatever the name is. They're selling the fear of balding, basically, and they've been able to create these huge businesses. If you look at the hair transplant market today, it's a bunch of just kind of semi-shady plastic surgeons.

Sam Parr

who like billboard like like billboard having

Jason Yanowitz

Well, billboard... yeah, exactly. Those kinds of people. You have to sign these waivers where it's like, you know, 50 pages of "I will not sue you," is what it sounds like. I just think there's an opportunity to build something better, to build something like that.

Sam Parr

Can you tell me how... So, a thing that, before I started Hampton, I was really interested in the research business, particularly data. I screwed this up with Trends. Man, at the hospital, we had this business called Trends. I charged $300 a year. It's really dumb, and I went fairly broad. We should have just done that before a more narrow niche. You're one of the few companies, I think, that's going to... a few media-first companies that's going to pull off having a totally non-related income stream to ads. How does your research business work? Because what I've noticed is that there's very little innovation... not innovation, but there are very few younger people talking about it because it's not very sexy. But if you look at a lot of really large companies, for some reason, a lot of them are in England. There are a lot of research businesses that are making hundreds of millions of dollars a year, and they've been doing that for 50 years. But they're so big, and the founders are dead. So, I like to go and read the biographies, but I'm like, I don't even know how you started this damn thing because it's been lost in 50 years of history. How does your research business provide value to the user, and how do you operate it? How does it work?

Jason Yanowitz

Basically, in crypto, there are things called protocols, like Uniswap, Aave, and Compound. Then there are these layer ones, like Ethereum. You've probably heard of Solana and all these other things. The industry is moving from treating these protocols like they're weird, esoteric things to treating them for what they are, which is just businesses. For example, MakerDAO will do $100 million in revenue this year. That is a business. They have people they pay, like employees and contractors, and they have profits and costs. However, nobody talks about them like that. What Blockworks Research does is provide a platform for investors who allocate to crypto assets. It allows them to look at these crypto protocols and examine their user metrics and financials, as well as get research on them. We're very early to trends with what's happening with the protocols. You can look at the governance, so if you want to see who's voting on different proposals or who the big stakeholders inside the protocol are, you can find all of that inside the platform. So, while it might not be useful to you, it's incredibly useful if you're a crypto fund that has about 2% of their portfolio in crypto.

Sam Parr

And you're getting... So the way that you built, like the V1, was did you just go and find like a dozen or something public or private databases and aggregate all of the information into an easier-to-use way? And then do you write articles on your findings?

Jason Yanowitz

We started with research. So, what we began with was hiring analysts and having them write what feels like almost sell-side research on these protocols. We put it behind a paywall. It was super easy. We started with $25,100 a month.

Sam Parr

I don't know. I don't know what "sell-side research" means. You're using these words, and I don't know what they mean. So, I'm going to interpret it as disrespect.

Jason Yanowitz

It is disrespect. It's like these 10-page research reports. You’ve got a lot to learn, my friend.

Sam Parr

I don't know fucking anything dude

Jason Yanowitz

It's these like 10-page reports on how something is doing. So there'll be what's like the sell side, you know? In finance, there's no...

Sam Parr

I don't know anything, man. You had a family in finance; you know this shit. My dad sold onions for a living.

Jason Yanowitz

I love onions! So, anyway, we have deep research on these protocols. Instead of a news story, which might be a couple of hundred words, there's like a 10-page report. It details how we think the asset's going to do, how we think the protocol's going to perform, and how the user metrics looked in the last quarter compared to this quarter. All of that went behind a paywall. That's how we launched. Then we did what you're talking about, which is we basically just started. There are all these protocols where they vote publicly on what to do, and it's called forums and proposals. Tracking that is a total pain in the ass because it all happens in Discord and on these disparate sites. We manually scraped all that information, put it into a database, then built a front end for that and put it behind the paywall. Now we've automated most of these processes, but back then it was just a lot of very manual uploading. Then, two weeks ago, we launched our analytics product, which is like the data product where you can see the user metrics and the financials for any of these protocols. So, if you want to look at, "Hey, what was Ethereum's revenue yesterday?" I can tell you that. Or, "What was Ethereum's revenue compared to Solana's revenue yesterday?" I can tell you that too. I can provide user metrics for this exchange versus that exchange; I can tell you all of that.

Sam Parr

how much did the first product cost to build

Jason Yanowitz

We have a team of 8 analysts and a couple of engineers. It costs around $1,000,000.

Sam Parr

And how big do you think this business could get? Just the research side. I think Politico Pro, what were they doing? They were doing like $100 million in revenue, weren't they?

Jason Yanowitz

Mhmm, yeah. Politico sold for **$1 billion**. The reason Politico's business was nice was that they had a huge media business, and then about **0.01%** of their audience converted into the research platform called **Politico Pro**. So, we think it can get much bigger than that. We believe there are a lot more ad dollars and a lot more research subscription money in finance than in politics. On the low end of the spectrum, you've got Politico, which sold for **$1 billion**. The **Bloomberg Terminal** is like the super high end. It's almost like saying you want to build a Google or an Apple; Bloomberg is one of the best businesses in the history of the world. They'll do like **$9 billion** in subscription revenue, so that's a crazy business. But somewhere in between, there's **Refinitiv**. Right? Nobody knows Refinitiv; they're a capital markets information platform. They sold for, I think, **$27 billion**. Then there's **Cap IQ** and **FactSet**—a lot of multibillion-dollar companies just built on the back of basically one asset class. Like Bloomberg was just bonds, and then you expand out from there.

Sam Parr

are you taking all your personal money jason's money from the company and buying crypto right now

Jason Yanowitz

So, Mike and I don't pay ourselves that much. I mean, most of my money is just in Blockworks. Like, if Block... like, it's just... yeah, I don't have too much money yet.

Sam Parr

but you're heavy on crypto right

Jason Yanowitz

per

Sam Parr

I mean of what your of of your liquid portfolio

Jason Yanowitz

Of my liquid portfolio, until very recently, I was 100% in crypto.

Sam Parr

yeah you're insane man I think that's so stupid that is insane

Jason Yanowitz

You and my wife agree, so that's not the case anymore. But if it was up to me, I'd be 100% in crypto, really still.

Sam Parr

that's crazy man what why

Jason Yanowitz

I have deep deep deep conviction on this industry

Sam Parr

yeah more conviction than the energy drink

Jason Yanowitz

Slightly, yeah. I have deep, deep, deep conviction that this is one of the best things to work on for the world. From an allocation perspective, like a risk-reward perspective, there's no better industry in the world to work in than crypto right now.

Sam Parr

I was talking to Sean the other day, like through text. I was saying that my preferred route for personal finance is just like his argument. I asked him, "Do you think that the trailing 100 years is going to repeat itself?" He kind of responded, "Well, I actually don't believe that." Okay, so because I believe it, I think an 80/20 split of stocks and bonds is the way to go. But what I think is, if you have a private company like Blackworks, like I used to, it's reasonable to keep most of your liquid money in almost entirely bonds or T-bills or some type of liquid but low rate of return, safe bet. Then you have what's called the barbell strategy. You keep the rest of your money in a high-risk investment, which would be your private company. I would say your private company is not a crazy high risk because it's a profitable business with years of operating history. But if I'm in your position, my criticism of that portfolio is that you have your liquid money in a high-risk bet at the moment. You also have your private money, or the majority of your net worth, in a somewhat high-risk investment. Doesn't that freak you out? I know you're neurotic like I am. How do you go to bed at night thinking like that?

Jason Yanowitz

It doesn't freak me out. I don't... it doesn't freak me out at all. And here's one difference: you have money, right? Nobody ever got wealthy through diversification. No single person ever got wealthy through diversification.

Sam Parr

Wealthy... it's just not in cash. Your black work is wealth. It may not be cash money, but it is wealth. It is something.

Jason Yanowitz

I get that. And then you could make the argument that, look, if crypto works, Blockworks is a, you know, billion, multibillion—whatever you want to call it, 100,000,000—whatever number you want to assign to it. So I'm basically already betting big on crypto. So yeah, put it in equities. That's the reasonable thing to do. I'm not... I think you're probably right. I just am... you know what it is? It's this cheesy Jeff Bezos regret minimization thing. It's like, you know what would kill me, Sam? If I didn't have any of my personal money in crypto and crypto went the way I think it's gonna go. That would kill me to my bones. You know what wouldn't really faze me? It would suck, but I would be like, at least I took a bet. If crypto went down another 90%, it wouldn't faze me at all. I'd be like, you know what? I took a bet.

Sam Parr

And even though I make fun of you, I respect that. I think that I do respect it. I believe you're in a really good position. You're no different than the Brett Adcock who we just had on. You have an idea, you have a vision, and you think the world's going to go one way. You're talking the talk and you're walking the walk. So, I deeply respect that. The good news is that you're such a wonderful entrepreneur that everything's going to be great in the grand scheme. However, I always like to push back on people who are pretty...

Jason Yanowitz

Also, just like the way the world is, I probably agree with you about the S&P. The S&P will most likely just keep doing what it's doing; it's a safe place to go. But does any part of you look at what's happening in the world and say, "Things might be a little different in the future?" Do you ever... do you know who Peter Turchin is?

Sam Parr

no is it wait is he a does he does he spell his name funny does it actually start with a t

Jason Yanowitz

It does, it does. So, alright, Peter Turchin is this historian and mathematician. He developed a field called **cliodynamics**, and he studies the cycles of cooperation and conflict among elites in societies throughout history. His argument is that periods of internal peace and cooperation are disrupted when the population of elites grows too large. Then, competition emerges among them for what are actually limited elite positions. Because there are too many elites and too few positions, this leads to infighting among the elites as they try to maintain their wealth and status. This infighting causes social instability and a breakdown in cooperation. Historically, that breakdown in cooperation and social instability does not stop until there's a crisis—something big, right? Say, a collapse, revolution, or whatever it may be. Then, a new cycle of cooperation resumes. I don't know if you tend to look at history through whatever lens you want to see it. There's the **Fourth Turning**, which is like these four big periods, and you can explain it like that. There's also this Peter Turchin cliodynamics view. But one thing I believe is that **crypto** is a better way out of this whole system.

Sam Parr

So, let me give you my argument against that. Cool, I think it could be true, and I don't know anything about this guy, but I want to learn about what he thinks. I know I read a lot of history books, and I do it for fun, not for trying to find the answer to this question. But what I've noticed is that when empires cease to be number one, they don't just go to not existing. Oftentimes, they just go to being like number five or number seven. For example, England. Or, let's just look at the iShares Emerging Markets ETF. For the trailing 30 years, its compounded annual return is something like 5 or 6% a year. So, the reason why I'm willing to bet that over the next 100 years, the trailing 100 years will repeat itself is because if it doesn't repeat itself, it's still not going to be that bad. It will go from... Actually, in the last 15 years, I think it's been crazy. I think it's been like 13% a year. I think that if it's not 7 or 8%, it might be 5 or 6%. Do you know what I mean?

Jason Yanowitz

yeah I kind of agree with that

Sam Parr

It's not gonna go away. It may not be as good, but it's not gonna go away. That's kind of my belief. That's what I believe in.

Jason Yanowitz

I I agree with that I I agree with that I think I think we're on the same page there

Sam Parr

I think that it's just far more exciting to read about America ending than it is about the same things happening over and over again. I don't...

Jason Yanowitz

I think America... yeah, I don't think America is going to end. And I don't think that this is my problem with kind of like the Bitcoiners, which you're not in. You don't spend time on Crypto Twitter, so you're a lucky man for that. But like, the best way for Bitcoin to really work is for the U.S. to collapse. That is a really **shitty** vision for the future, and that's why I don't align with a lot of the Bitcoiners. I would say Bitcoin's a good hedge, but I don't want Bitcoin to go to $1,000,000 because the world in which Bitcoin goes to $1,000,000 is the world in which civil war is back in the U.S. But Ethereum and what is happening in DeFi is a very different vision. That is a vision that says, "Look, these companies that were built in the likes of Amazon, Facebook, Google, and Apple have become far too powerful." The traditional way, or what the U.S. thinks is the way to decrease their power, is through regulation. I don't personally believe that that's the way to do it, and I don't think that will work. I think that the best way to build a better future is through crypto.

Sam Parr

As we wrap up, tell me the books and articles that you've read on this topic. Who is that guy? What was his name?

Jason Yanowitz

peter turchin

Sam Parr

okay and what are the other it sounds like you've read about this what else is good

Jason Yanowitz

4th turning is good

Sam Parr

how long is that book dude I I can't do read a 1,000 pages on this topic

Jason Yanowitz

What is your current thought on crypto, Sam? Just out of pure curiosity here, and like seeing something like permissionless with thousands of people walking around. Do you think that it is a scam? Do you think it's just not going to work? Do you think you're excited about it but you don't understand it? I'd just be very curious to get your take there.

Sam Parr

I'm not incredibly well-versed, so I will preface anything by saying that I'm not that knowledgeable in it. However, I would say that the major things in the space, like Bitcoin and Ethereum, I enjoy. I like the ideology of it; I respect that, and so I support it. I think that 90% of the rest of the stuff is a complete scam. I believe NFTs are, for the most part, total bullshit. I think Web 3, for the most part, is also total bullshit. The people who entered into that space are often horrible entrepreneurs looking for get-rich-quick schemes. They tend to slap "Web 3" or "NFT" onto their projects rather than building a widget that truly solves a problem that people love, which isn't just built to sell to others in that space. So that's what I believe. I own Ethereum and I own Bitcoin, and I like to sit on it. I enjoy the idea that it could exist because I'm in favor of the government not controlling certain things. I think it will exist for a very long time.

Sam Parr

Of time and will, it may potentially become more useful. However, most everything else in the space, I think, is nonsense.

Jason Yanowitz

cool interesting

Sam Parr

what do you think what do you think about that

Jason Yanowitz

I think you're generally right that there are a lot of hucksters who come into crypto. That was probably true two years ago. Anyone who's still in crypto is not a scam artist. It's true that no one operating in a market that's 90% down is trying to scam people. But two years ago, it was generally the same. I think, like you, love history. You read all the same history books that I do. There are a lot of parallels to new industries. For example, look at all the scammers who came into the oil industry in the 1870s. It's very similar because it's get-rich-quick money. The same thing happened in the railroad industry, the electricity industry, and the car industry. Basically, 90% of the people who came into those industries were scammers. I think that America, because we're talking super macros, is probably the most optimistic country in the world. That optimism leads to frauds, and you can't have one without the other. In places where they're not optimistic, they don't have frauds, but they also don't have companies that get built. So I think those are like... you can't have the best part about someone without also having the worst part about someone. They are one and the same.

Sam Parr

I think the worst part about crypto is that the people who were selling **bullshit** social media consultancies or agencies, then they got into selling crypto.

Jason Yanowitz

I agree I agree and now they're in ai now they're in ai

Sam Parr

And now they're in AI, and I think that's bad for that industry. It's like being a presidential candidate and the KKK saying, "We love you." You'd be like, "No."

Jason Yanowitz

no no get the hell out

Sam Parr

of here you know what I mean that's like what it's like yeah

Jason Yanowitz

it is like it's like we're like I don't wanna

Sam Parr

be suspicious

Jason Yanowitz

get out

Sam Parr

Of here, yeah. So, I think that's been quite bad for the crypto industry in the same way. Yeah, it is AI now, but that's kind of my opinion.

Jason Yanowitz

I agree

Sam Parr

what's your plug blockworks research yano on twitter what are you what are you doing

Jason Yanowitz

Yeah, you know, on Twitter, we got BlockworksResearch.com. I have a pod; we have 8 crypto podcasts at Blockworks. So if you like crypto podcasts, go to our site. I host one called *Empire*—that's the plug. Come to our conferences! *DAS London* is coming up in March 2024, going across the pond.

Sam Parr

well I appreciate you coming on that's the pod

Jason Yanowitz

that's the pod