The Crazy Story of Google’s 7 Angel investors

Shaan Puri

Today I'm gonna tell you about 7 strangers who made the greatest investment of all time sam I'm just gonna put my finger to your lips and just say let me cook here because I got something for you I'm just gonna I'm gonna take you down a road here alright so I've been down this rabbit hole dude for the last I wanna call it 6 hours preparing for this podcast because I just got obsessed with the random story and lore of the first people that invested in Google this is crazy so this is the story of all the people who invested early in Google and the the lessons from this are not about investing in Google this was like you know 20 years ago but how crazy the world of angel investing is and how much you can almost create your own luck and I wanna show you how these people created their own luck step by step so first let me show you something alright sam check this out do you recognize this building

Sam Parr

just probably something in downtown palo alto

Shaan Puri

what you're looking at is 165 university avenue also known as the lucky office also known as the karma building you might recognize a little better here when you see one of the companies that was started here so Google was started here before Google was started there paypal was started there before paypal was started there logitech was started there after Google was started there a a company called danger was started there sold for 500,000,000 to Microsoft by the guy who created android right after that this office is legendary

Sam Parr

who's in there now

Shaan Puri

well it's had a little bit of a cold streak recently and it's kinda like ed sheeran says ed sheeran believes that rooms have songs and he's like once a studio has been mined by like 4 or 5 great artists it loses its magic it's there's no more songs left in the room that's kind of what's happened to this office now hey let's take a quick break to talk about our sponsor today hubspot has put together a list of 200 ai business ideas these are business ideas that you could create using ai and it's a list of 200 they did a huge brainstorm so you could check it out if you just click the link below you can get access to these 200 ai ideas I'll give you an example of a couple of them one of them is you could build an ai dressing room so let's say you go to an ecommerce site and you wanna see what something would look like on you you can use ai to actually take a picture of you and show you what the clothes would look like on you or what the makeup would look like on your face it's pretty cool right or ai tools for real estate brokers maybe something that takes their listings and makes them more more fancy more more more beautiful and attract more buyers so check it out it's a brainstorm of 200 possible ai ideas brought to you by hubspot you can get it free in the link below alright I wanna take you through the first few people that invested in Google and how it happened do you recognize this guy here do do you recognize either of these 2 guys

Sam Parr

the guy on the left is sergei he's one of the founder is that sergei or the other guy larry

Shaan Puri

yeah that's sergei

Sam Parr

sergei and the guy on the right is that eric schmidt

Shaan Puri

it's not eric schmidt it is a guy named andy bechtelstein does that name sound familiar no maybe if you just look at these murdered out guys from

Sam Parr

from the

Shaan Puri

yeah these murdered out red corvettes from the early nineties here this might ring a bell or 2 what you're looking at are some of the ogs of silicon valley these are the founders of sun microsystems

Sam Parr

do you

Shaan Puri

know what sun microsystems did

Sam Parr

it was one of the first big companies was it making microchips

Shaan Puri

workstations computers basically

Sam Parr

okay

Shaan Puri

and they made their own chips also also they ended up making chips they ended up making their own operating system they ended up doing a lot of things these guys were like the ogs of the og that first guy the indian guy that's vinod vinod khosla so that's vinod vinod khosla there's bill joy there's andy and then there's Scott mcnealy alright so these are the 4 founders of sun

Sam Parr

dude by the way for the record they look dope

Shaan Puri

they look dope as hell oh that's funny

Sam Parr

the corvette and the flex that doesn't exist anymore and I think it's fantastic I think this is great

Shaan Puri

first of all they're all on cell phones guess what cell phones hadn't been invented yet so I don't even know what they're holding they're they're just like a corded phone that gets running into their car with the little you know like the spiral cord anyways these guys are awesome so andy wakes up one morning and he's got an email in his inbox and it's from 2 stanford students larry and sergei the founders of Google and they're pitching him on an idea for a new kind of search engine you know the way that search engines worked at the time was there were these ask jeeves there was altavista there was yahoo and all of these companies back in the early nineties they were you know search engines that had some combination of manual curation so they had like editors picking what goes upfront for people where how do you find what you find or you would search and it would just try to match the words that you're typing to the website and these 2 phd students said hey we have a new way of doing this it's called pagerank and what pagerank does is it basically says this is a genius insight the genius insight was of Google was that instead of just showing you what our editors say is the right answer when you search for murdered out red corvette instead of just giving you a a word batch for it we're gonna show you a link to the website that other people are linking to social proof right so if other websites are linking to your website that means your website's probably pretty good and the more important those websites are so like let's say the wall street journal links to you that matters more than if sean's website links to you and they had this insight that they could create better search results this way they said we'd like to show you and so he says I'll see you tomorrow morning 8 am he sees them they pull up in a parking lot he's in his the story says porsche so maybe one of these is a porsche

Sam Parr

one of those is a porsche

Shaan Puri

okay great so as you could tell I'm a car guy 1 of those is a porsche that's andy's car larry and sergey show up they have a little laptop and they are trying to show him a demo of Google and they show him they say search for something he searches for something and the results come up and it's magic the results are way better than you would get out of a traditional search engine and they start telling him their their thesis and what they're gonna do and how they're having they're thinking about raising money to go actually turn this into a company and he says guys there's a lot of things we could talk about right now but I think it's easier if I just give you money and he goes back to his porsche and he comes back with a checkbook he writes them a check for $100,000 and he writes it out to Google inc and they're like Google they're like hey we haven't even incorporated the company yet and he goes it doesn't matter and they go but what about valuation he goes guys this is the best idea I've ever seen take the money start building and he leaves he gets back in his porsche he drives away and he doesn't even know how much of the company he's just bought because he didn't even agree on a valuation a number of share price none of that he invests the money he walks away he invests at a $10,000,000 valuation Google today is like multiple $1,000,000,000,000 right

Sam Parr

so he

Shaan Puri

owns 2% he owns 2% of this company he doesn't even realize this at the time because they haven't decided on a valuation and he's so excited about this company and if you remember the four levels of luck he's basically has that luck favors the prepared mind he knew when he saw this company that this was he goes this is the greatest idea I've ever seen and and this is the guy who created sun at at the time he's the he's like the man right this is like if elon saw something and invested in a company he's like no this is the best product I've ever seen and this is the guy that made tesla and you know spacex and building rockets he's like no no no this is the shit so andy does that he's so excited he goes and he tells the next guy in our story and this is the next guy do you know who david sheraton is

Sam Parr

he's another og like cisco or something like that or zoo one of these like big things that I don't even know what they do but they have a huge building

Shaan Puri

arista network okay he also invested in I think vmware that sold to cisco for $700,000,000 so I I took the screenshot off of Google it says the quiet billionaire oh I forgot to say andy's nickname is the golden boy well david sheraton's nickname was he was the billionaire professor this guy is a professor at at at stanford but he's super wealthy like a multibillionaire he's also on many lists as the cheapest billionaire as the top 10 cheapest or most frugal billionaires you'll ever meet a little quote from him on it they were like dude you're a billionaire why don't you like you ride your bike everywhere you don't even have like a fancy car you still live in this old house that you lived in before you got rich what's the deal and he goes honestly I kinda hate the idea of living like a billionaire he goes I'm actually pretty offended by that sort of thing you know the type of people that live in houses with 13 bathrooms and so on something's wrong with those people this is david sheridan he gives away tons of money so he's given away you know tens of 1,000,000 of dollars to universities to schools to education to philanthropy but he himself just rides around like a doofus with a bike helmet out on his old bike and he just that's how he lives his life and he's great

Sam Parr

so can can we just say really quick that the professor billionaire type I think of all the billionaires they might be one of the best

Shaan Puri

maybe your

Sam Parr

favorite I think so

Shaan Puri

I thought criminal billionaire like silk road type shit

Sam Parr

was good they're cool those are cool but they're not aspirational like I wanna be friends with them but like the aspirational one is the professor billionaire you know the guy who started renaissance the big hedge fund professor billionaire ed thorpe was a professor billionaire those are the best billionaires

Shaan Puri

but what about I thought you loved like the just the ruthless tycoons the the

Sam Parr

I like reading about them they're fun to read about they've got great stories but if you could be anyone you did you you wanna be billionaire you were the professor of billionaires great

Shaan Puri

so andy tells david sheridan he goes hey you gotta talk to these guys they're at stanford he starts he meets the guys he also writes a check-in the same round again like 100 $150,000 so he he puts it in okay so now

Sam Parr

and was he a billionaire when he made that deal or was he just successful

Shaan Puri

billionaire but successful he had started a company called granite system he had and eventually he does create arista networks which is like a multibillion dollar company but at the time was like you know let's call it probably had tens of 1,000,000 of dollars

Sam Parr

and he is really rich now I just googled him holy crap

Shaan Puri

yeah like 10,000,000,000 + right 20,000,000,000

Sam Parr

like yeah closer like really rich like top 100 rich

Shaan Puri

yeah he's him and andy both of them they they both are now so he this guy's made this guy ended up making over $1,000,000,000 just off his Google shares okay so he meets david now who's the next person that finds out about this little little company called Google that started by these 2 students on campus well david goes to a holiday party and at the holiday party he meets another person do you know who this guy is yeah ron conway ron conway this is gonna be a little bit of a long session because ron conway is a goddamn legend and I kinda knew ron conway was the man I've actually met ron conway before and I just he just has this presence he's got a bit of an aura about him but is he

Sam Parr

like a forgetful professor type because like where he's like always taking notes and he's like always moving and doing stuff and he forgets stuff is that a he's

Shaan Puri

always taking notes so like this picture he's got this light yellow legal pad when I met him he also had the yellow legal pad and he was furiously writing notes and we were just at like a lunch we were at like a lunch with the mayor and he was just writing like copious amounts of notes and he was just like always on the move he was moving and if somebody asked him a question he would just if somebody came to introduce themselves he's like how can I help you do what you're doing and he was just like get to the ask like what's your ask if I could do it I'm gonna do it and then he would jot down a note on his yale legal pad cool I'll make that introduction and like literally like 7 minutes later the introduction was made like this guy moves at a different speed

Sam Parr

you know like in the mafia when the godfather has a wedding his daughter's wedding everyone in the town can come and ask him one favor he's like that every day

Shaan Puri

exactly I you said is he also like the forgetful professor I think he's more like he's more like santa claus he's he's saint nick

Sam Parr

okay

Shaan Puri

he's like saint nick after with like a triple espresso and so he's just moving okay so okay so ron conway goes to this holiday party and the way he tells the story is he goes I get to this party and I'm in a tuxedo and I goddamn I hate being in a tuxedo I'm so uncomfortable and I just see I see david there he's also in a tuxedo and I go up to him and I go david let's talk about something else because I'm so uncomfortable with this tuxedo right now and he goes david had invested in in his fund and he goes david the deal is you invest in this fund cool I'll invest your money but you gotta be telling me what you're seeing and like you gotta be my eyes and ears on the ground he goes david what are you seeing at stanford what's exciting right now he goes oh I just I just invested in these 2 phd students that are doing the search engine thing and he had invested in askjeeves so he knew okay search engines big deal if somebody says there's a new search engine that's better than askjeeves I got I'm interested I wanna check it out so he asked david can you arrange for a meeting and he tries to get this meeting and he kinda fails they they're like they're busy they're like look we're not taking angel investors we want vcs but they go but but maybe you can actually help us get a vc

Sam Parr

was ron a legend then or a legend in the making

Shaan Puri

legend in the making

Sam Parr

got it okay

Shaan Puri

are you do you want do you want the quick backstory on ron that's pretty insane

Sam Parr

yeah

Shaan Puri

alright so he ron conway starts off as an entrepreneur he starts this thing company called altos computing so he's also making computers like sun and he ends up taking it public and then they get their ass kicked the personal computer comes out the pc and the pc starts kicking their ass they end up selling the company but they do well and his early investor was sequoia so he goes to don valentine who's like the guy who created

Sam Parr

og yeah

Shaan Puri

the og of og investors and and don's like alright ron what do you wanna do next what's the next company you're gonna start he goes honestly I never wanna manage a 1000 people again that was that was a nightmare I don't know what I wanna do but that's not it and he goes that's a bummer like you know my my hope is you're ready to start a new company and I was ready to write the check but if not maybe you'd be a good investor how about I recruit you descoa why don't you come follow me around for a couple weeks see if you like this investing thing so he follows he follows don around and he's like hey this is he goes hey I think you could be pretty great at this but you know what you should do you should do this thing called angel investing it's a new thing and angel investing at the time was actually a term from hollywood it was about investing in movies

Sam Parr

I think they called it super angel or something wasn't it like even like a different term

Shaan Puri

he became a super angel but like it started with just angel investing he goes you know what you don't even have to start your own vc fund you could just invest your own money just small checks 10 20 k checks and then hey when you see something cool you bring it to me it's sequoia right and so he tells him we should go do this and ron decides alright I'm gonna start angel investing and basically he he starts angel investing his own money very quickly he decides he's he's like I've made one great decision in my life and it's in 1994 he's like alright I could just be an investor he's like but if I if I'm competing competing against guys like don I have no advantage right they've been doing this they're just more skilled more experienced than me they have a better brand than me and they just know that game inside and out he goes but what can I do to differentiate he goes well what if I actually just start investing what if I pick a niche and he goes and so don's like okay is your niche gonna be com like hardware computers just like you just did with your company he goes no all I know is I hate hardware so what's the opposite of hardware software what's this new thing the internet and at this time by the way the browser hadn't even been invented like mark andreessen is still a student at university of illinois he hadn't even graduated yet but he's like I think there's this thing software we needed it for our computer for our hardware and and there's this new thing called the internet fuck it I'm all in on the internet and he just decides he's like look it's a thing that's at 0 so he goes the beautiful thing is there are no experts so I can't be behind because this thing just started so I'm gonna go in this thing at 0 I'm gonna get to watch it grow and by the time you know this thing's 4 years 5 years in I'll be the expert and he goes that's the greatest decision I ever made in my life and he goes by the way it's now 2025 I'm still all in on the internet he's like I this this thing I I thought this thing was small then he goes I still think it's early days and so he he goes on the internet now around 1999 he's been angel investing he raises a fund he raises a fund for $25,000,000 from other people to be the silicon valley you know angel investing fund sv angel if you've heard of it and yeah actually at the time it was called something else angel investments or something like that but he decides I'm gonna invest in silicon valley companies he raised $25,000,000 the dotcom boom hits it's getting hot he raises the next year another 175,000,000 and his his approach is just spray and pray he's investing in anything and everything that he sees and so he's made like 250 investments by the time the dotcom bubble bursts and when it bursts he's like oh shit and they go to him his his he's only working with like 4 or 5 guys and they're like hey what's our strategy like the market's crashing he goes our strategy is we don't invest anymore like our strategy is I think it's over I don't know I don't know what to do like there's just no there's nothing to invest in now and so he's he's like but my hope is that one of these deals that we did early on is a winner and basically what he says is that when the dotcom bubble burst 80% of our companies just went to 0 but luckily he had Google and he had invested in Google along the way and Google carried him okay so how did he end up investing in Google because remember they didn't want an angel investor they wanted an institution well the thing about ron conway is that ron conway is known for being just extremely generous so even if he's not gonna invest in the deal he's just like I'm gonna help the founder and he his philosophy was and a lot of people say this but he actually did it his philosophy was all I do is I am as in service of the founder I'm just gonna help as many founders as I can and money will be the byproduct like money has to come if I help enough great founders money has to show up and paul graham basically calls us the the ronco principle and he goes paul graham describes this he goes I he goes I noticed when ron conway goes I've never heard one instance of ron conway behaving badly to any founder and that's incredible because this guy's invested in like thousands of companies he goes in fact I went looking for examples has has anyone had an experience where ron conway treated you poorly or didn't act in your best interest he goes and instead I just got this outpouring of people being like no you know what he had nothing to gain from some a situation and he just went above and beyond and he goes so paul graham hears this and says you know what actually maybe there's something to this actually I've heard about a couple other investors that are like this and he goes maybe this is not just like a a funky coincidence maybe there's a bit of a strategy which is so much of angel investing is getting invited into deals and if your reputation is just one where you just always act benevolently then it's actually not just like an act of generosity or charity you're actually building a reputation that's gonna get you into the next deal the next deal the next deal and that's exactly what happened here and so ron conway who by the way just side note go to sv angel's website if you were trying to research this company what would you what would you pay attention to

Sam Parr

which companies they invested in

Shaan Puri

and what do you see there

Sam Parr

pinterest coinbase facebook openai snapchat twitter rippling reddit okta anthropic square

Shaan Puri

every hit company is on this list every hit silicon valley company is on this list paul graham when he

Sam Parr

airbnb brex checkr like everything ever like literally ever every company

Shaan Puri

paul graham did a talk where he interviewed ron conway and he goes alright if you need to remember one thing from this I'm gonna say a bunch of words but just remember this one one sentence ron conway is the man he goes I was gonna do an intro talking about the hit companies you've invested in and then I realized it's actually shorter to to write down a list of the hit silicon valley companies that you missed and he had 3 it was like he missed salesforce he missed kickstarter and he missed one more I forgot which one it is and he's like it's insane the number of hits that you've invested in and he goes and the funny thing is that ron doesn't even spend like I don't know if you know about his like investing style but it's exactly the same as yc which I find fascinating which

Sam Parr

is why he just like $100,000 in every single thing

Shaan Puri

he meets you and in 10 minutes he makes a decision and he ron says it's usually 3 to 5 minutes and he'll just decide on on the spot in 3 to 5 minutes yc has a 10 minute interview and then they make their entire decision off 10 minutes so the 2 best pickers the 2 best angel investors in the history of silicon valley both make all of their decisions in under 10 minutes isn't that insane

Sam Parr

and so how much does he invest

Shaan Puri

initially he was investing like you know 25 k then it became a 100 k then became 250 k

Sam Parr

I'm not sure if that strategy would work now because there's so because I think that then in the 2000 nineties and things like that there if you had the gumption to be one of the people who like threw your hat in the ring and like got a meeting and did this I think that because the barrier to entry was high because there was a higher ratio of like freaks doing this shit you know now it's because it's like cool that there's a lot more noise but I I don't so I don't know if that would work now

Shaan Puri

well let's look at their list here anthropic that's recent openai that's recent hugging face that's recent right like these are the big if I said what are the best companies in the last 4 years you know that to be invested in openai anthropic hugging face like these would be in that list you know he's in uniswap which is was the big one in the crypto phase like you know 5 years ago or whatever so I think this still works but the trick to making it work is not just that they make snap decisions right like his decision you know his process was basically they're like what's your thesis he goes I had no thesis he goes I went into angel investing when there wasn't even really a word he goes there was no thesis that you could have at the time I just alright the internet's cool and then he's like I he goes I I realized one mistake pretty quickly which was that the more I tried to judge a you meet a founder and they have a idea they have a personality and then there's a market and basically if you try to blend those together and you try to make a decision off the the mix of the idea the founder and the market you lose if you love the founder but you hate the idea you also lose he goes airbnb I didn't love the idea but I love the founders

Sam Parr

so what does he pick 1 of those 3 or just the person he's just like I just pick the founder

Shaan Puri

he goes and what I do is I was like I'm just gonna invest in the founder it's the founder's job to figure out the idea and they'll chain they often they change the idea and he goes and by the way I'm not just investing in this founder for this company I'm investing in this founder for life because he goes I realized that the best founders start multiple companies so for example he put one of his first employees when he started doing this was his son topher and his son's 13 years old and his son makes his first investment at 13 at a little company called napster and he's like oh I heard about napster but I don't know about this shit topher go use this thing and tell me if it's amazing topher comes back the next day he's like dad this is the craziest thing I've ever seen I can get any song I could download anything this is changing the game I'm downloading bits of the song from other people around the world it's the like this is mind blowing this decentralized thing and he's like cool alright let's go invest in this thing he he goes and he meets the founders alright he had already met the founders that was his diligence and he invests in sean parker and sean fanning and he's like cool anything you guys do from here on out I'm in and so napster didn't work out but sean fanning's 4th or 5th company ended up being a hit napster didn't work out but sean parker's next company was facebook and he's like I totally didn't get facebook I didn't know how social networks would make any money it seemed like college kids you know posting pictures of their drunk you know escapades like didn't seem like somebody was gonna be money but sean parker's in and I just I've decided sean parker's a founder that I want it back and so I invest in facebook too

Sam Parr

alright so bringing it back to Google alright so bringing

Shaan Puri

it back to Google he goes to the Google guys they're like hey we want a vc but they're like alright we will let you in if you can go get a sequoia because paul graham asked him they go he goes you know when you invest in Google did you know like this is a huge company there's gonna be like an all time company he goes you know you could never think of a company as like a $1,000,000,000,000 company he goes but I did think it was gonna be really really big and I went all in trying to get this investment and he goes why'd you go all in and he goes well because they had 3 things he goes first super smart geeks that's criteria 1 2 really determined 3 do they do something that surprises me for example they're really smart geeks but they're also really charismatic or they're real he goes but that wasn't the case for them it wasn't the case for zuck that they're really charismatic he goes with zuck it was that early on he was talking to me about like getting into getting 300,000,000 users and he's like no service had 300,000,000 users so the fact that zuck had figured out like yeah we're gonna connect everybody a's like oh shit okay just the fact that this guy is saying things like that he has a level of ambition that's not really you know common and guess what I wasn't surprised when he turned down a $1,000,000,000 from yahoo because all he wanted to do was rifle focus on a product that would actually reach everybody so with Google he goes they were super strategic they he goes they they told me they go you could you could be in if he wants if you can get sequoia he goes okay that's great sequoia is great but why sequoia they go not just sequoia we need mike moritz he goes okay mike's great but why mike and he goes because mike is on the board of yahoo and what we're gonna do is we're gonna build the best search engine and right now yahoo has a deal with altavista altavista powers all of their search so we wanna cut 2 mega deals we want to be the default search engine on yahoo and once we convince mike morris that this is awesome he's on the board at yahoo he'll get us the meeting and then we wanna do the same thing with aol

Sam Parr

do they have like a product at this?

Shaan Puri

They they had a product they had users and and he talks about that he's like you know basically he's like I saw the searches the results were better and they had early users that were like the people who used it used it all the time so it wasn't like they had a ton of users but it's same thing as facebook the people who used it used it like crazy and so he and so they go we want sequoia and we want kleiner perkins he goes well you know you could have either or they don't usually like to do deals together he goes we want sequoia and we want kleiner perkins because kleiner perkins john doerr is on the board of aol or has a relationship with aol we need that deal too

Sam Parr

so they were cocky and smart and strategic

Shaan Puri

yeah they they knew what they needed and they were like we're gonna it's like an algorithm it's like that's the output we need so then we need to find the path to that

Sam Parr

well I've I I I've read stories of them the sergei and larry retelling the story and they were like we were full of ourselves we thought we were the best and we were pretty good and we and we acted like it

Shaan Puri

well there's stories of both right at one. They tried before this they tried to sell the tech for like $8,000 yeah and this is when they're like oh it's just an algorithm and then they had sort of gotten bigger and bigger so anyways so he goes so he goes I basically so from the time that that guy david sheridan tells about this company at this holiday party he goes I called them for 5 months straight every month I called them and finally I got my audition and at that audition they go you're in if you can get sequoia so he starts working the phones he gets them a meeting sequoia's in and klein and perkins is in oh actually there's one little thing before that he goes hey guys I'll lead this myself $10,000,000 and they go no we don't want you and he goes okay fine I'll go get your sequoia so he goes and he gets them sequoia into kline perkins but they're negotiating they both wanna do the deal they both wanna do the deal at unprecedented numbers they're trying to do it at like a $75,000,000 valuation which at the time was like bananas to do a $75,000,000 valuation but they they they believe that search was already like a big deal and they thought this was the new search thing but they can't agree who's gonna get the deal they don't wanna share it and larry and sergei get fresh after a month of back and forth to larry and sergei are like dude forget this we don't wanna be fundraising ron you said that you would do this thing 10,000,000 yourself was that bullshit or is that real he go they they go you you said you could make that happen could you actually make that happen he goes I can make it happen this is friday he goes I'll have it by monday if you want it and they go alright that's what we want he goes but honestly guys do you do you want that or do you want them to share the deal they go our first choice we want them to share the deal but if if they can't get their shit together we'll do it with you and again ron conway badly wants this deal but he he does what paul graham calls the most generous act in the history of silicon valley he calls sequoia he calls connor perkins he goes guys they're not bluffing if you don't have this thing done by monday they're doing a deal with me to do all 10,000,000 but they want this with you guys that's what they truly want you guys gotta figure this shit out by saturday morning they've agreed we're gonna do this and they carve out ron a little allocation because he put that deal together broke the deal yeah he he he gets the 250 k so that's how ron conway gets in on this deal one last little ron conway thing because it's just you said something about like mafia and here's ben horowitz from from andreessen horowitz he wrote a whole blog post called ron and in the blog post about ron he says ron is not an investor ron runs a network and in ron's network everybody who's a node knows you are important and there's a certain code of behavior that you have to have he goes to get into the network you must have a relationship with ron no I say relationship that means not not just I've met or I know more on this later he goes 2 you must answer when called ron makes sure that his network matters because he demands extreme reliability if he calls you to participate you must participate when called upon and he goes 3 that keeps you in what I call good standing with ron which is you must remain in good standing with ron to remain in the network if you do not act when called upon or you do not act well in terms of you you have some kind of bad behavior with founders ron will light you up and take your ass out of the network and he goes no matter what deal you're in it is more costly to be out of ron's network than it is to you know try to get get one up and because of that he is ensured that silicon valley works

Sam Parr

so people like this guy that much

Shaan Puri

alright listen to this story so alfred lin who ends up have you ever heard that name alfred lin before

Sam Parr

zappos zappos yeah

Shaan Puri

he he ends up being like the number 2 guy at zappos I think before that he had started this company he's like and he tells the story he's like yo so we had this company it was honestly he was on the brink of failure and he's like it it didn't end up you know he's like it it looked like the company was gonna fail and me and my cofounder were talking we're like alright have we tried everything and they're like well there's one investor we haven't talked to because we don't really know him super well but like ron did invest in our company early on and they're like we we had this deal if with this big company this fortune 50 company it fell apart and like there was no way if we lost this deal the company's dead so he goes I didn't know ron at the time and his investment was really small which is why we hadn't reached out to him yet we've we first went to our big investors but we struck out so he goes we had nothing to lose at this. So at 11 pm I wrote ron an email that said hey you don't really know me but I'm an executive at a company you're an investor in and we need a meeting in person with the ceo of this fortune 50 company we need the meeting this week and if you can't make it happen hey that's totally okay I understand but we may be going down and I'm sorry he goes he goes 2 minutes later this is 11 pm 2 minutes later ron writes back in a way that I now have learned is ron style it's immediate email short and it's all caps am on it all caps by the next morning ron had done it we got an 8 figure contract with that company that led to a 9 figure contract all because of this desperate email and eventually our company got acquired for 800,000,000 we were on the brink of death ron didn't know us from sam and he saved our ass

Sam Parr

dude the takeaway from all of this san francisco's amazing now it's cool to shit on it because it is very frustrating it's a very I've lived there for 10 years it's super frustrating but I have missed out so much not being there and just like what people don't realize is san francisco's only like what 800,000 people and if I had a guess ron conway lives in like pacific heights marina area yep and just like walking around that area you feel it and you hear these like weird conversations and just being able to email someone and just be like I'll meet you at the coffee shop 5 blocks away that's special man just these types of interactions are special

Shaan Puri

so check this out so you said like I don't know if that approach would work because now there's so many more companies and at the time when there's very few people starting companies I'm about to work so they asked him this was kind of like when he was in his peak investing time they go so how do you invest he goes I only take meetings that come from my network so he goes I will get 5 pitches a day so I see 30 a week 30 deals come to my desk a week every single one is from a referral of a founder or investor that I know well that knows me and knows what to refer to me he goes I will invest in 1 out of 30 every single week he goes of the 5 that I get per day I'll turn down 2 or 3 just via email no phone call the rest we'll invest in and I'll invest in I'll make my decision within 5 minutes of talking to the founder they go well what are you looking for in that founder he goes I'm looking for 3 things insane 247 desire to work he goes I could tell when I'm talking to a founder if they wish they could just spend all of the time working on this and they view everything else in their life as like a nuisance or an obstacle in the way of doing this he goes have they warned their wife or girlfriend like hey I love you but I'm all in on this thing and I'm gonna be gone and I'm gonna be doing shit and like this is this is it this is my thing and I'm doing this he goes that's the first thing I look for he goes and when I he goes if I could feel it then I know it's gonna be infectious to other people because they're gonna have to recruit badass other people he goes lastly can they communicate why this matters he goes you know zuck it's not like he had like this crazy charisma or personality but when you talk to him it's the feeling we got when anjad from replit was on the podcast where it's like this it's like oh shit this is kinda bigger than I realized and this is like your life's work this is kind of this is gonna change everything isn't it and they sort of distort your reality to believe that this shit is even bigger than you could ever believe next week we're going to hang out with with jimmy mister beast and I always have this feeling every year we go to do this event with him we hang out with him we stay we literally like stay at his house and when you're there it's like what he's doing is the most badass important crazy shit that any human being could be doing and then you leave and you click a video like 3 weeks later it's like these friends are putting their hand on these chocolate bars and whoever takes their hand off the last gets like half a $1,000,000 of chocolate bars it's like wait this is just like this is kind of a dumb video but when you're there it's not a dumb video right it's fucking everything and he's able to like make you feel that way so that's kind of what he describes the last thing he talks about is he goes rifle focus on the product he goes I invested in square and all jack dorsey ever wanted to talk to me about was the product he goes I invested in twitter same thing all they talked to me about was the product I invested in facebook all zuck one talked to the product he goes pinterest pinterest I didn't really get it's like this pinboards like scrapbooking I didn't really understand it because I met the founder ben and he goes always talking about this product he goes then I met his his head of product or his like kind of his one of his core guys and I met him 3 times and every time he was wearing the same shirt and I go hey do you wear this shirt like often he goes I wear this shirt every day and you know what the shirt is it's a shirt with a circle and just the inside is just this word focus and he goes this guy literally every day wears this shirt that just says focus in the middle of it this guy was ex facebook and then he was at pinterest and this guy was just absolutely obsessed with all we need to do is focus on the product oh there's a meeting oh we got invited to speak at this event what are you talking about I don't wanna go there he goes to the.

Shaan Puri

Of being rude these people just wanna focus on the shit that their folk on their their product that's it

Sam Parr

so he he did Google he brokered the deal who are the other people

Shaan Puri

I want

Sam Parr

next guy ron talked to

Shaan Puri

who you see

Sam Parr

I see shaquille o'neal shaq not a chance

Shaan Puri

so shaq is sitting at the

Sam Parr

that that doesn't even make sense was he even famous then

Shaan Puri

of course shaq's famous this is a little nineties shaq is a is a nba star at this time shaq is in a hotel he's in a fancy I don't know four seasons or ritz carlton sitting in the lobby and he so this is shaq telling the story he goes I see 4 distinguished gentlemen in the lobby

Sam Parr

your shaq voice we gotta go lower

Shaan Puri

I said

Sam Parr

I see I see 4 guys

Shaan Puri

four four distinguished gentlemen he goes and what he says he goes the gentlemen don't know who I am but their kids do and their kids are like oh my god it's shaq and they run up to him and the cool thing about shaq if you've ever seen videos of shaq shaq is like a giant kid he's super playful he's super good he's super good to people that see him he does he's not like one of these celebrities that's like sunglasses hat on trying to like push people away at all times getting annoyed when you get in his space and so shaq goes I'm doing my job babysitting and so he just starts playing with the kids he's just babysitting while they're having a meeting at the end of the meeting ron conway comes up to shaq and goes thank you so much for playing with my my grandkids and so and so he just start chit chatting he goes yeah we were just talking about this investment that we're doing you know what you should invest in this company it's one of the best companies I've ever seen it's called Google shaq gets a meeting with with with I think I think I guess it was with larry and sergei he goes yeah it was an accident he goes I'm doing my job I'm babysitting and then he goes I asked him he goes I have a meeting with them sounded good I put in some money I forgot about it years later Google goes public he he doesn't even realize that he's invested in Google he reads in the newspaper that shaq has shaq is in the s one shaq's gonna make a killing off of this he goes I'm shaq what and so he goes and he remembers it's it's and so shaq turned and he's like yeah I wish I invested more shaq turned like you know a couple $100 into you know 100,000,000 + off of his Google investment

Sam Parr

way really

Shaan Puri

nobody knows how long he held it but you know it's pretty insane so shaq is the next one do you know who this is yeah rip rip this is I don't actually how do you say her name do you know who

Sam Parr

she is susan last name is a polish name wojowski I forget yeah

Shaan Puri

wojowski I I don't know what it is

Sam Parr

susan w

Shaan Puri

so so susan ends up getting in on the action early with Google but I don't know if you know the story how

Sam Parr

I know that she had a garage and they wanted to work there and did she like give them a free place to stay and work there and got like a little bit more equity

Shaan Puri

yeah kind of so her sister anne was dating sergei and anne says my boyfriend needs office space and susan wasn't wealthy at the time she was like a mid level like marketing manager at some company and her and her husband had just bought this house and then they were feeling a bit of a pinch about like kind of the the home and they're like you know what what if we rented out our garage so they put up an ad saying we'll rent out our garage and it's like oh actually my boyfriend needs a space so the Google guys rent out our garage for $1700 a month and they start working out of her garage and she just sees them working there day night and she sees she she hears updates just because she's bumping into them she quits her job she ends up being employee 16 at Google and so that's how she became a billionaire was by quitting her job to go work for the company that was working out of her garage at the time

Sam Parr

ended up being up until recently when she passed she was the youtube ceo

Shaan Puri

exactly so she she worked on adwords for a bit and then when the Google she was a big advocate for like hey we should acquire youtube and when they acquired youtube they were like hey you were a big champion for this deal she ends up becoming the ceo of youtube for many years before she passed away and I think

Sam Parr

that sister of hers started 23andme correct

Shaan Puri

alright this is I don't think you know who this is

Sam Parr

no oh yes I do I do per

Shaan Puri

yes oh wow that's a that's a deep pull for you to know this so this is pejman now he did not actually invest in Google so I'm cheating a little bit but this is part of you said well my takeaway is the magic of silicon valley here's more of the magic of silicon valley okay so this guy's story is crazy he him and this other guy last name amidi I forgot I think it's like samid amidi or something like that amidi pers 2 persia guys so first persia guy starts a rug shop in silicon valley right in the heart of palo alto he's selling luxury persian rugs and right above his like right next to his his rug shop there's also some office space and so he he ends up renting on office space to the founders of I think it's like paypal or something like that paypal's early early founders were there there was a couple others and so he ends up and he's like he's selling rugs to these people he gets to know these people and then he realizes like wow Google paypal that

Sam Parr

like that classic gregarious like immigrant or persian guy person guy like hey my friend come here come here come my friend

Shaan Puri

exactly you want some tea let's have some tea they have a tea

Sam Parr

tell me about yourself tell me about yourself

Shaan Puri

he becomes friends he's right next to them he's selling them rugs he's selling them office space but he's like dude these companies you know made a killing and so they start taking their rug money and they start investing and become angel investors and they don't know anything about technology really but they're like let's just invest in the people that come in to buy the rugs if they seem interesting and so how does benjamin factor into this benjamin cold calls this guy and he's like hey I'm coming up to silicon valley and he's like can I give a can I have a job with you and the guy's like well have you ever sold drugs before he's like no he's like have you ever sold anything before he goes no but I could learn and he goes listen man I how can I give this job to somebody who's got no no experience he's like he plays on the the persian side and he says like how could you turn me down you haven't even met me yet just meet me and so he did agrees to meet him he hires him and so he ends up becoming basically like a a rug salesman for this guy and he over the next 15 years his english improves his confidence improves he becomes a bd's top rug seller in in his best year he moves $8,000,000 worth of rugs

Sam Parr

that's insane that's absolutely insane

Shaan Puri

one of his first out

Sam Parr

of a out of a storefront

Shaan Puri

out of a storefront palo alto

Sam Parr

and so that so that's like you know $600,000 of rugs a month or you that's so many dollars worth of

Shaan Puri

it's the same it's totally the same so along the way 30 grand is it

Sam Parr

what is that 20 grand a day of rugs

Shaan Puri

yeah and this guy's living he he comes to silicon valley he lives in an attic above a yogurt shop and then becomes a rug salesman and that guy ends up becoming one of the greatest investors in silicon valley and here's his trick so he's like he he meets somebody he starts selling rugs and one of the guys who walks in is this guy andy rubin andy rubin comes in he sells him a $5,000 persian rug and during the negotiation he's like so impressed with this guy he's like man you're a great negotiator what do you do he's like oh I'm a businessman I got this company and he's like tell me about it and he's in he's got this company called danger remember I told you one of the companies in the lucky office company called danger and these guys made do you remember the t mobile sidekick cell phone that's andy rubin made that yeah his next thing he made became android and so andy rubin's prolific

Sam Parr

and then now he's since done deepmind or some type of a like no no

Shaan Puri

he went he went and became like the head of mobile for like the big chinese manufacturers or whatever and then I think now he's doing like an ai thing so he's like and so he's talked to this guy and he goes to his he goes to his boss I mean he goes he goes we gotta invest in this guy's company he goes cool what does it do he goes couldn't tell you it's something technology super complicated I don't know anything about it but I'm telling you we gotta invest in this guy he goes he goes are you sure he goes listen if this guy was selling red balloons I would invest in it this guy is gonna make things happen and so he goes okay they write a $400,000 check into into danger and along the way he ends up becoming like a partner in their investing as he makes money from his commissions he takes every dollar he has basically $200,000 and he buys into like their partnership to be investing in startups and they invest in all these different startups so he meets joe lonsdale

Sam Parr

no way

Shaan Puri

after he'd done palantir joe's buying rugs whatever he gets introduced to him and he goes joe I would love to show you a rug he's like cool I'll come into the shop he goes no no no no brother let me bring the rugs to your house so he brings like a 100 rugs to joe lonsdale's house and his trick is he's like you learn a lot about a person when you go to their house much more than if you meet them for coffee or they come into your shop

Sam Parr

and at the time joe lonsdale would have been in his mid twenties right yeah

Shaan Puri

he's very young and he goes and he meets him and he's

Sam Parr

like in that persian rug game

Shaan Puri

he's in that persian rug game already and he's like he's like doing this next company adipar which by the way recently sold for a couple $1,000,000,000 and at the time he's like love this guy love adipar joe lonsdale we got to invest in this thing and he ends up investing in adipar he ends up investing in dropbox because one of the cofounders of dropbox is also persian and so he's speaking in farsi he's like chumming them up and he's like come on please let us in he ends up doing that he ends up investing in applovin which is now a $100,000,000,000 + company

Sam Parr

because I think the founder of applovin might be a persian guy right

Shaan Puri

I think so too I think so yeah he's iranian or or some somewhere from that area and so there's like this whole mafia that gets created off of this rug shop how insane is that

Sam Parr

dude do any wasp want to relate with me hey let's talk about baseball and hot dogs and cows like like where's my wasp that

Shaan Puri

dude okay I'll give you some credit you one of your best investments now is this company you told me about that I totally didn't get because I was like dude what are you doing you're just putting nicotine pouches in your mouth while we're doing the podcast and you're like yeah I always have one in and I was like what the hell are you doing and you invested in this company called lucy that was making like a nicotine gum or pouch at the time

Sam Parr

at the time it was a gum

Shaan Puri

and it kinda just wandered around for a little while didn't even seem like it was gonna take off but now this shit is taking off dude I think lucy's gonna end up being like a 500,000,000 or $1,000,000,000 company you invested early on in that because you were you were pouch bros with these guys

Sam Parr

yeah I did $25 into it and I when I did it I I was just like oh you started soylent and our mutual friend is josh and josh says you're you're cool and nicotine is addicting yeah like I guess cool sounds sounds good I'm in and so I invested $25,000 I think I only had a $100,000 saved up so that was like a big deal for me so hopefully and then I like messaged them and I'm like what's happened to you guys I haven't heard from you in like 6 years what's going on and then they recently hollered at me and it turns out it's going really well

Shaan Puri

yeah it's going amazing now shout out to john coogan and and the crew there okay so let me finish out the story here did you know that bezos invested in Google

Sam Parr

I heard that did he invest in it because he was getting a lot of traffic from it or why

Shaan Puri

I'm not sure there's he's I tried to find it he could not find like any of this backstory here but bezos invested 250 k pretty early in Google as well which is kinda wild it's the same way that you know Microsoft also invested in apple and kinda saved apple from failure at one? In time like like there's these stories of these people that you think are kind of enemies or competitors but actually at at a key. In time invested in each other I just thought that was kind of kinda cool alright I wanna share with you let's see do I have anything else oh there's one other hilarious story from this whole thing rod conway was like they go did you know that Google would make you know so much money it would be essentially the most profitable money best money machine man has ever made and he goes no he goes I still have google's first slide deck 10 pages 10 slides and it was all about the product and he goes the last slide which is always like the financials and the projections it just said thank you he's like dude where's that where's your financial slide and they go we we have no idea and he goes okay love it I'm in but how crazy is this like wild world of like meeting people at a party or the lobby of a hotel and hearing about this thing and doing this deal isn't this isn't this crazy

Sam Parr

but that's how it still is isn't it

Shaan Puri

it is

Sam Parr

like it's just that you don't get out you know you used to live there but you don't get out like

Shaan Puri

during during the tony robbins episode on our pod he he has this phrase he says which is proximity is power and he just talks about like literally just being close to the action is is like this most underrated thing you could do just being as close as you can to the people you wanna be around to the people you wanna be like because whether it's you hear a thing you meet a thing you start to do the same habits and lifestyle of those people proximity is power and like that's the crazy thing about silicon valley is like proximity is power principle

Sam Parr

I moved to where I moved because of family reasons but if I could live anywhere I think palo alto would be the place I think I I dearly loved san francisco but I got pissed off at it because of the crime but palo alto is like pretty amazing we do you ever think that you'd rather be there I mean you're you're an hour north of sf do you wish that you were an hour south

Shaan Puri

no I mean sf is now where the action is but so the question would be do I wish I was still in the city and the answer is I definitely would've I definitely know I would make more money if I lived in sf like it seems like it's a more expensive place to live but actually I know I would make way more money because there's just the serendipitous bumping into some people it's just a much greater headache

Sam Parr

though it's such a headache

Shaan Puri

but yeah exactly making money is not the only criteria and so like you know family wise it's much better to be in the burbs for me so lifestyle wise I'm happy with this choice but damn when I hear these stories it does make me wish I was backing on the action like I went and hung out with my friend luke in palo alto and we he was we went to his house and he was like you wanna take a walk and I was like yeah let's take a walk and we walked around for probably 2 3 hours and in that 2 3 hours he was like that's the garage where Google started and this is this and that's zuck's house actually and this is this person's house then we bumped into like somebody he's like oh that's where the founder of quora is and then we go to a we go to the starbucks there's like a little coffee shop there and like I get recognized by 5 people that I you know I just sit in my house all day but there's people who listen to the podcast and then they start telling me what they're up to and they're doing a cool ai company and then you leave the coffee shop and we just pop into our friend's you know like vc shop and we he's having a meeting he introduced us to those founders and so I'm like oh man dude the amount of serendipity I had in the hours just now was crazy and you don't you don't really get it until you until you experience it and so if there's like one takeaway from anybody who's who's like you know listening to this I would say my 2 big takeaways was number 1 proximity is power and like literally just showing up and being there being in the heart of the action for whatever scene you wanna be and how much that matters and the second was the ron conway principle of how do you just act so benevolently that your reputation is the product you're actually building you're not building a portfolio you're building a reputation the reputation builds the portfolio and the third one is the midwitt meme strikes again where it's like so the 2 best early pickers of start ups ever in the history of silicon valley both make their decisions based off of just do they feel like these people are fierce founders and they could figure that out in less than 10 minutes and then here you have people that are doing market analysis and segmentation maps and tons of due diligence and and this and that and they have thesis on on on all these different markets and it's like dude the best people are literally just amazing judges of people and they're making their decisions in 5 minutes and then they spend the rest of their time just helping people

Sam Parr

it's so exciting to hear these stories how much do you think that each of these investors made like I guess like if you and what was the first valuation

Shaan Puri

so the first valuation was 10,000,000 the next round was at 75 pre so ron conway this is now a decade + ago I think 2012 they asked him they were like ron how much did you they were they were like first were you scared off by the valuation I mean 75 pre today

Sam Parr

is a lot

Shaan Puri

is a high valuation for a series a company and you know Google obviously now it's obvious but like nothing's obvious at the beginning nothing's that obvious and he goes

Sam Parr

which by the way that's worth a $150,000,000 today so that's a a shitload of money like how am I ever so this company has to sell for a $1,000,000,000

Shaan Puri

right right so like they're like did this valuation scare you off he goes no I think that's crazy he goes companies are binary he goes a company the investing we do a company is binary it's either a huge win or it's a 0 I just let the market figure out the the valuation and then I invest once I've decided to invest I let the market decide the price he goes yeah we did great he goes for every dollar invested we got $400 out and this was back in 2012 and they go and they go is that the peak valuation or that's the current valuation he goes the peak valuation of Google is far in the future and he's like he he knew right and this is this is you know 12 years ago and Google has since you know you know at least tripled in in value since then so it's a pretty pretty wild return now I don't know how much guys like shaq and others got so ron got in at the 75,000,000 round the guys like andy or david that I mentioned at the beginning of the professors they got in in the $10,000,000 round right which is just just wild so you know a $100,000 became over $1,000,000,000 for each of those people

Sam Parr

and the crazy thing about pricing is like so Google was started I think 30 years ago right 30 28 years ago and the I don't what are they worth a trillion or something or 2,000,000,000,000 what's what's what's crazy is that the company is like the the equivalent of that would be investing in a company today and trying to convince yourself that it will be worth 6,000,000,000,000 do you know what I mean

Shaan Puri

like it's really $2,300,000,000,000 company today

Sam Parr

so in 30 years double that or triple that so like it's it's it's incredibly hard for the brain to think if I invest in this company maybe one day it could be worth a $1,000,000,000,000 that's like an inconceivable thing to think about and so that's why angel investing is the mind fuck like to think like like because you think like oh this is worth a 100,000,000 now the you gotta sell for a 1,000,000,000 and the founder's like no man it's like 1,000,000,000,000 like those the the the math behind all of this is very very very challenging to even like wrap your head around

Shaan Puri

yeah totally and even when it's staring in the face I think I've told this story before but I remember sitting in a a conference room in silicon valley in 20 maybe 14 15 something like that there was some. In time where I was telling this guy I was like yeah I came out to silicon valley I applied to 2 places the place I'm at now and the other place I applied to was stripe there's only 2 jobs I'd ever applied to in my life and I didn't get the stripe job I got rejected I blew the interview and he goes oh actually he goes I'm investing in stripe right now and I go stripe now it's not like an angel investment anymore he goes yeah he he goes yeah it's a $3,000,000,000 valuation and I remember just thinking like what a dummy like you know you're 3,000,000,000 what do you think this is gonna turn into like 3 like I thought this the game of star wars to create a $1,000,000,000 company so hearing that one was already at 3

Sam Parr

it's already 3 x overvalued

Shaan Puri

it's like oh what are you hoping it gets to 10,000,000,000 and you triple your money like nuts and now it's you know a $100,000,000,000 company I would have 30 x my money even then and it was so obvious like anybody I knew used stripe it was so obvious stripe was the best company in silicon valley at that time and I talked myself out of investing in it because I just couldn't fathom the numbers right it just didn't make any sense

Sam Parr

it's because you think in absolute numbers so I remember one time my when I first started my company we were spending $30,000 a month and I met with the ceo of like a $1,000,000,000 company and I was like can you believe this I hired 2 people and we went from spending $8,000 a month to $30,000 a month how insane is that and he was like dude like I spend you know 300,000,000 a year like you these aren't he he was like you can't think of this as an as an absolute number compared to your real life this is just a a number on a spreadsheet and it doesn't matter how many zeros are behind it you just are these zeros going in you're getting more zeros out that's all you have to think about don't think about this in terms of like a real number and when he told me that that kind of like shaped how I how I viewed a lot of things

Shaan Puri

you need to do like the casino thing you have to take your cash trade it for these chips that are different colors you're not used to and then just try to make the chip stack bigger versus if you look at a you know a hand of blackjack you're

Sam Parr

playing $50,000 hand

Shaan Puri

that that's a month's rent or whatever it is right it's like a insane all of a sudden you just start making different decisions I remember like even it's not even the absolute number sometimes even relative will screw you up because I remember investing in tesla when tesla was like a like a 5 or $6,000,000,000 valuation and or I invested even before that I think it got to 6 or 7 something like that I'd made like 3 times my money and I remember looking at the market cap of the biggest car company I could think of at the time I think it was like gm or some some ford or one of those one of those companies and it was like a $26,000,000,000 company and I remember thinking like and I looked at how many cars tesla was selling and how many cars they sold it was like you know tesla sold like nothing compared to them and I just remember thinking okay okay the ceiling of this is like a $30,000,000,000 company like cool so like if I ride this out if if tesla became the most valuable car company in the world it would be a $30,000,000,000 that would be 30,000,000,000 to be like a 5 x from here or I could just take my winnings now and go and enjoy them I don't remember the exact number but I remember that 26,000,000,000 was like where the the car companies were at tesla today is not only is it today like a 1 and a half $1,000,000,000,000 company or whatever it is so it's now it's a 1 and a half $1,000,000,000,000 company so I was off by like you know more than 10 x I was off by like 2 orders of magnitude basically on top of that tesla is worth more than the next like 10 car companies in the world combined it's it's like a idea of like it

Sam Parr

will be

Shaan Puri

number 1 it it broke like it breaks my brain right like tesla is literally worth the all of the next 6 car companies they're worth like I think it's like I don't know it's like 600,000,000,000 or something like that it's like a oh no the big 6 are 477,000,000,000 tesla is 1.3 trillion right so it's it is just mind boggling what these things are

Sam Parr

it's hard it's hard to understand I mean didn't I tell you the the when I was trying to understand what a $1,000,000,000,000 a person worth $100,000,000,000 compared to a person worth $1,000,000,000,000 which what elon will be in 3 or 4 or 5 years if you have a $100,000,000 you're like ungodly rich okay but the equivalent of those 2 compare of those 2 the gap is the same as a $100,010,000

Shaan Puri

right

Sam Parr

isn't that insane so like when when I think of a $100,000,000 person I think you're one of the richest people I've ever met

Shaan Puri

dude my I think my there's this great quote about happiness it's like I have talked myself out of happiness a 1000 times but I've never once talked myself into it right I've never thought it's like I never thought my my way I've thought my way into unhappiness a 1000 1,000 different ways but I've never thought my way into happiness I don't know if I buy that quote exactly but I get the the premise of it which is like we could very much talk ourselves out of things or into unhappiness I think investing is very much the same I've now realized like especially in technology investing this may not be true for value investing but for tech investing where you're the whole game is like find the 1 or 2 psychos and the 1 or 2 like breakout categories that are gonna just break the entire game as a power law and these things are gonna become worth not a $1,000,000,000 not $10,000,000,000 but like a $100,000,000,000 or even a $1,000,000,000,000 each I think it's back to the like make a 5 to 10 minute gut based decision on the like quality of the founder or the overall space like the internet in 94 crypto you know in in the in the early 20 tens mobile now ai right it's like just oh is this the smartest person I know is doing something in ai that's enough I don't need to like the more I think the worse my returns will get is sort of what I've realized when it comes to to tech investing because it is all about the breakouts and the breakouts are not things that you could just linearly you know figure out we had shield on the pod the other day and he's like yeah I invested in bitcoin early and nvidia early we're like wow you're so smart he's like yeah I invested in bitcoin because I thought it was gonna become this other thing and I invested in nvidia because I thought about I thought it was gonna win in crypto mining so he's like you know even in the ones he was right even in the professional investor with amazing returns who picked the right two things to bet on over the last 15 years bitcoin and nvidia he got it absolutely right he did it even for the wrong reason right like it's like goddamn it what what are you supposed to do in this

Sam Parr

this was a great podcast that was a great story we should it would be fun I would love to do a series where we get the 1st employee or the 1st investor in or one of the first in legendary companies to come and and talk so like Google facebook reddit

Shaan Puri

I think that's the hack because getting the founder obviously is great super hard and they're also get they're also like still running the company and have to say certain things and like they've they've been so media trained

Sam Parr

and like the statue of limitations can be like past it so it's like if it's 10 years old it's like look no one's gonna get mad at you if you say that you guys like called the competitors and pretended to be a customer just so you can get like fake information you know what I mean like it's we're past that it's so you could actually reveal a bunch of stuff

Shaan Puri

paul graham asked ron conway he goes you've been doing this now for like either you were a founder and now you've invested in all these legendary founders what's changed and he goes he goes we drank way more back then he goes what that's the thing you're gonna say he goes yeah he's like every day around like 4 pm we had this woman donna who would like push a cart around the office with booze and we would all drink and he's like he's like we literally taught like work hard play hard at the same time like let's do this he's like there

Sam Parr

was a whole podcast

Shaan Puri

crazy shit going on and is in our company and he's like that's just what we did he goes now I go to these companies they don't do that at all they're much better about segmenting it they do play hard but they like happy hour on fridays after work like not like all the time during work crazy shenanigans going on

Sam Parr

dude that was great is that it that's it that's the pod