Dave Portnoy vs The World, Extreme Body Monitoring, "How Much is Pomp Worth?", and More
Cancel Culture, Portnoy, E-commerce, Drive-Thrus, and Pomp's Net Worth - November 19, 2021 (over 3 years ago) • 01:15:10
Transcript:
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Sam Parr | I've heard a phrase: "It's like basically what rich nerds do on the weekend, everyone will be doing in 10 years."
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Shaan Puri | Right, yeah, and that's exactly what this is.
Alright, on this episode, we are talking about the Barstool Sports drama: Dave Portnoy versus the world. We have a "Billy of the Week," this guy Brian Johnson, who to me is kind of like the Elon Musk you've never heard about.
We have two business ideas: one around an e-commerce concept and another one for restaurant drive-thrus. Then we end with a funny story about this dog walker that went to Sam.
We also play a little game called "How Much is Pop Worth?" where we guess how much our friend is worth because he just gave back all of his investors' money and he's just going to invest his own money from now on.
So that's the episode. Hope you enjoy!
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Sam Parr | Did you see, Sean, that people were tweeting saying they liked what they heard from Ben? And then he retweeted that.
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Shaan Puri | As he should, dude. I retweet every compliment... not every compliment, but if I get a bunch of compliments, like if I check my phone and there's a bunch of compliments in there, one of those is definitely getting retweeted.
I think it's obnoxious when other people do it, but I also notice it. So I'm like, "Oh, this is effective... obnoxious but effective."
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Sam Parr | We have some cool stuff to go over today, but the coolest one is the Day Port Noise stuff.
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Shaan Puri | yeah let's talk about this I've been wanting to talk to you about this | |
Sam Parr | same | |
Shaan Puri | Since it happened, and it's still happening, that's great. It's like there's just more that's come out.
Also, I think you surprised me because I thought you would be so pro-Dave Portnoy, and I think you're actually not, based on our text messages.
So first, explain what happened, and then we'll debate it.
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Sam Parr | Okay, so let's start with this: if you don't know who Dave Portnoy is, he is the founder of a company called Barstool Sports. They're basically known for **smut bro comedy** that's actually pretty genius, and I'm typically a fan of it.
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Shaan Puri | it's like if espn was drunk this is what they would this is the news they would make | |
Sam Parr | yeah exactly that's a great way to describe it and dave portnoy is a he's what and this isn't an insult but he's kind of like trump in that he's like ridiculous and he's got fans that will do anything for him and he plays this part that's exaggerated and silly and and just overboard in everything he does so the business insider released an article last week on friday or thursday coincidentally right when barstool which is owned by a publicly traded company had their earnings call they released their article at the same time and it basically was an 8 month investigative journalistic piece where this woman named julia black spoke with loads of people who had sex with dave portnoy and this is basically either him or her or both the girls dm ing dave and dave had there were screenshots that said something like do you wanna be famous if yes I'm a good place to start so like saying like some silly ridiculous douchey stuff and the women saying like I would love that yes I'm in and they have sex no problem but in the article some of the women accused dave of having basically rough sex nothing like illegal I believe was he was being accused of but basically like saying like he spit in my mouth I had to wear a leash he filmed me things like that not illegal then hearing this dave gets livid and he goes on a scorched earth war mode where he goes after business insider and he mocks them because their founder henry blodgett years ago got in trouble with the sec he goes after our friends morning brew because they are owned by business insider and he is just going crazy on everyone and the fans of dave portnoy are attacking these people like crazy and it's become a little bit of a frenzy and it's pretty wild that's basically the summary | |
Shaan Puri | Right, I'll fill in a couple of tidbits. So, what do you need to know to have an opinion on this?
Dave is not married; he's a single guy. I think he's in a relationship now, but, you know, he's a bachelor, right? So he can do whatever he wants. He's a rich guy.
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Sam Parr | he's in his forties | |
Shaan Puri | He's in his forties, and there's always this kind of like, "It's not illegal, but is it wrong?" thing when it's a guy who's 40-something. I don't know, what is he, 44 or something like that? One of the women was 18 or 19... 19, I think. Yeah, 19 or 20, something like that.
So, you know, there's always this sort of thing where you're like, "Okay, it's not illegal, but is it right?" Some people have an opinion on that.
Alright, but whatever. He's known for being like... not a loudmouth, but he speaks his mind. He doesn't pull any punches, so he's direct. I think he's a fairly honest guy, and he's honest.
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Sam Parr | to the. | |
Shaan Puri | Of fault sometimes. So, for example, when the news story hits, what do 9 out of 10 people do? Especially CEOs of companies, presidents of companies.
He's not a CEO; he's like the chairman or president. You know, you're supposed to sort of lay low. Your publicist will release a press release that says, "We categorically deny any wrongdoing. The truth will come out," and you let it blow over, hoping you didn't get canceled.
He did the opposite. He comes out immediately on Instagram Live, or it's Instagram IGTV, and he just says, "Look, my lawyers say don't say anything, but I'm going to say exactly what's going on here."
So here's the deal: these guys have been, I've known for months, putting out a hit piece. They contacted dozens of people that I've been with, and they said they're fishing for something bad about me. Then these people would come tell me, "Hey Dave, you know there's a reporter asking around if you've done any wrongs to me." And I said, "No, because you haven't. But just so you know, this is what's going on."
So he knew this was coming. Finally, it drops, and he addresses it directly. He basically turns it on them. He said, "You try to cancel me, I'm going to cancel you."
All of a sudden, on Twitter, "Cancel Business Insider" is running because he's like, "Look, you're trying to profit off of this story." You act like...
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Sam Parr | oh which is part of the story which is this article is paywalled | |
Shaan Puri | it's paywalled and they're | |
Sam Parr | and they're sharing it like crazy | |
Shaan Puri | They're putting tons of ad money behind this. "Come read this story about Dave Portnoy, the bad guy. We are exposing the bad guy, but you just gotta pay $9.99 a month if you want to read this story."
So he's like, "Dude, you're using my name and likeness. You made up this story where there's nothing wrong. These are consensual relationships with legal adults."
You know, he's like, "I feel bad if somebody felt bad after we hooked up and they didn't like me or they didn't like what they did. Okay, that's one thing, but this was a completely legal, consensual thing. What are you digging up here? What are you trying to say?"
And then he goes on the offensive, whereas most people are on the defensive. He goes on the offensive, so he's getting people to cancel their Business Insider membership. He's getting people to unsubscribe to Morning Brew.
Unfortunately, a bunch of people started sending death threats to our friend and people who work there, and that's not cool. | |
Sam Parr | he and | |
Shaan Puri | And he's like, "Go buy my pizza! My pizza's out in stores! Let's go, go, go buy it!"
There was another angle to this, by the way, that really pissed him off. I think he was a little bit mad at the hit piece. Then, I think he went scorched earth once there was a reporter for Business Insider that started reaching out to Barstool's advertisers.
The reporter was saying, "Hey, are you aware of the story we wrote about how bad Dave is for business?" They were basically trying to take money out of their pockets by getting the advertisers to cancel their relationship with Barstool.
In my opinion, that is not journalism. That is like warfare, as far as I'm concerned. And it is warfare as far as Dave was concerned too. So that's when he went really nuclear.
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Sam Parr | So, alright, let's say a few more facts here. I'm going to try and be as factual as possible, but you know, I'm going to paraphrase at one point.
He did a live thing on YouTube and he made jokes, but I don't know if they were jokes. He said something like, "I think I'm going to hire a private investigator to go and follow every single Morning Brew employee and find everyone who they've had sex with to see if there's any dirt there."
What else has he done that we didn't mention that was part of the facts?
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Shaan Puri | Well, I guess we should say what the sort of crime or wrongdoing is. The Business Insider article made it sound like a girl goes to his house, knowingly that Dave wants to hook up. She hooks up with Dave, feels shaken up about it afterwards because it was kind of kinky and crazy.
She sleeps on the couch, leaves, and a few days later, she tells her friends that she's feeling depressed and suicidal. Her mom, I think, is the one who went and reported to the police, saying, "Dave is a bad guy. You guys need to be on the lookout for him."
The police are like, "Wait, what did he do?" And the mom's like, "I went to the fish market, and they said that he's here with a different girl every week."
It's like, alright, you know, being a player is not a crime. I understand you're upset that your daughter had a bad experience, but that is not a crime, you know?
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Sam Parr | And in a follow-up on his feed, he tweeted out a picture that she sent him afterwards. It said, "I wanna get with you again."
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Shaan Puri | He basically leaked the DMs, and the DMs were essentially about them hooking up. She slept on the couch, and then she shared a photo online of her with Dave, kind of to get attention from her friends and whatnot on social media to get the likes. You know, her posing next to Dave.
Then, he was like, "Do you miss me?" and she replied, "Yeah." They were basically planning their next hookup, but it never happened. The insider article made it look like he traumatized or almost raped these women, but then he released the DMs, which were basically them joking around after the fact, saying, "Do you miss me? When are we going to hook up again?" The girls definitely seemed down based on the DMs.
Now, that's not to say it wasn't a bad or weird experience, but again, that's what the allegations were, and that's what came out.
I wanted to get your take on two things. First, is this an offensive versus defensive strategy? What do you think about this in terms of the art of war? What do we learn from something like this?
Cancel culture is everywhere. I think you and I both don't like it. We don't like the general quick trigger that exists with cancel culture and how that's becoming more common for a variety of reasons. But then, how do you deal with it? What's one to do? So, what do you think about this offensive versus defensive strategy?
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Sam Parr | There are two parts to the story. There's the actual deed and the things that he's accused of, and then there's the reaction.
In terms of the article, it's clear he has done nothing illegal. I don't agree with what he did, and I personally find it to be a sleazy and unethical move. That said, my ethics don't exactly...
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Shaan Puri | to hook up with somebody much younger than you or what what bothered you | |
Sam Parr |
I think that's weird. Yeah, I think a 45-year-old fooling around with a 19-year-old... I think that's a little weird. But I think that's people's right to be weird, right? The law, there's a clear cutoff. You could do what you want, right? You're not...
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Shaan Puri | putting me in the leash in bed but if that's your thing that's your thing there's the who am I to say | |
Sam Parr | I don't want my daughter to be part of that I don't want my family | |
Shaan Puri | to be part of it | |
Sam Parr |
I wouldn't do that to people, and I don't really want to be friends with someone who does that. So I don't agree with it, I don't want it in my life, but people can do what they want as long as they're adults who are consenting. That's cool, you know? There's a difference.
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Shaan Puri | Between "you did something wrong and need to, like, not have your job" or "your company needs to suffer and you need to go to jail," there's a distinction. Your reputation needs to be besmirched versus "I don't like that behavior, I don't want to do it myself, and I don't really want to hang out with people who do that."
Those are two totally different responses. What you're saying is more like the second one, which is "I don't want to do it, and I don't really think it's cool. I don't want to hang out with people who are doing that." But, you know, you're not saying that this guy's a trash bag.
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Sam Parr | Totally. Well, I don't know if I'm... do I think he's trashy? Yes, totally. I do. But there's nothing wrong with that, right?
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Shaan Puri | snook his | |
Sam Parr | trash I don't like it yeah there's nothing wrong with that you know everyone can live their life long | |
Shaan Puri | straight bullet here I don't know why I had this thought to hit her like that | |
Sam Parr | So, I do think that he's trashy, but that's his right. You could do that.
Now, the reaction I think is totally inappropriate, and I think it makes him look butthurt. I think it makes him look weak. I think it's a bad move.
The reason why it's a bad move is because Dave has fans. He could be like, "Well, you know, I'm only joking." Maybe he could say, "I'm not saying that I'm going to do something bad."
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Shaan Puri | right | |
Sam Parr | But I didn't believe this until I had someone close. So, I'm friends with the Morning Brew guys, and I see how... I actually think that they're fearful that something bad's going to happen because Dave's fans are going to go after them. I believe that might actually happen.
Because of that, I think that when you have that great responsibility and the power of these crazies who will do whatever you say, you have to act carefully. I don't think that he's being careful; I think he's being harmful.
Additionally, a lot of the people who work at Morning Brew are just like my company. They are young, talented, but inexperienced 24-year-olds who don't know how to handle a lot of stuff because they're still learning. I saw Dave tweet at some of the young people who work there, and I was like, "I mean, this guy is just a bystander. He didn't do anything wrong. Why are you making fun of him?"
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Shaan Puri | I think it was... I agree with you. I think it was a big mistake to go pick on the little guy. He had it right at the beginning when he was picking on the big guy.
"Oh, Business Insider, you're trying to ruin my reputation. You're trying to hurt my business, my advertising, my revenues, and my name. You're trying to profit off that."
It's a good move to go after Business Insider, the brand, the big name, the CEO of that, who's like, you know, some 50 or 60-year-old guy who's rich and successful. Yeah, okay, that's fair game.
But when he was going after Morning Brew, that's a different company, bro. They didn't even write the article. Just because they own this asset, you know, that doesn't make any sense. If they own a rental property somewhere, are you going to go deface it? That doesn't make any sense.
So I thought that was a bad look. I thought that picking on those founders who didn't say a word against him and picking on the employees of that company... now you're punching down. I think that was his tactical mistake in this art of war. I liked what he was doing; I also disliked the...
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Sam Parr | which is don't | |
Shaan Puri | buy my pizza thing | |
Sam Parr | like hold on stop there | |
Shaan Puri | yeah | |
Sam Parr |
Stop there. Swinging below, that's the rule here. Swinging below, you can't do. So like when you're trying to create an enemy, you always gotta go up, right? You always have to go up. If you go down, you're a bully. If you go up, you're David.
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Shaan Puri | Yes, exactly. He had the momentum on his side because he was the one being picked on. He said, "I've done nothing wrong," and he has fans. He could have mobilized the army if he had stopped at canceling insider memberships. He could have said, "Go cancel your membership over there because these guys are just trying to make a quick buck on the salacious story." That would have worked; that would have been the good version of revenge.
Then he went to the bad version of revenge.
Okay, so that's the offensive versus defensive. Let's say that something happened to you. Would you go on the offensive, or would you be a "lay low" kind of guy?
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Sam Parr | Offensive, offensive for sure. Yeah, I think it's good to go on the offense.
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Shaan Puri | Even though, like, I guess, have you ever had a situation like this come up where you had to kind of go on the offensive?
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Sam Parr | thank god no I don't think so I don't think so | |
Shaan Puri |
Okay, good. I'm glad. If you ever need to go on the offensive, I got your back. Because that's the other thing - he did it all himself, whereas he could've had other people kind of go to bat for him and create a little bit more... not just one man versus the world.
I also see you have a business idea here. What is your business idea?
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Sam Parr | wait I do | |
Shaan Puri | There's one under here. I don't know, did you write that? Maybe Ben wrote that. It says, "Business idea: Twitter beef as a service." Is that you?
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Sam Parr | oh my god no that's not me | |
Shaan Puri | but let me wait | |
Sam Parr |
Let me tell you one thing... or there are some more facts to this story that are actually quite interesting. A publicly traded company bought Barstool - like, they bought part of it about 2-3 years ago, maybe a year ago. I forget exactly. I think recently they announced they're going to buy the rest of it.
So, how much of Barstool is made up... or how much of Penn, the owning company, do you think Barstool makes up?
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Shaan Puri | it's a hard question I don't know | |
Sam Parr | pen the answer | |
Shaan Puri | okay yeah go for it | |
Sam Parr | I think it's like **8%**. So, in terms of revenue and value, what's Penn's market cap? **$9,000,000,000**. Okay, so Barstool was bought for **$600,000,000**, I think. Their revenue is probably around **$100 million**. Penn's is probably like **5%** or something like that.
It's a small percentage; however, Barstool makes up a significant amount of the brand equity of Penn. Very few people knew about Penn before. It was a regional casino, I believe, on the East Coast. Now, it's a global name because of Barstool and because of Dave.
So, I would argue that while it only makes up **5%** to **10%** of the actual metrics for business, it actually accounts for **60%**, **70%**, **80%**, or even **90%** of the brand equity.
Here's the thing: the stock went down **30%** the other day when this got announced. In my opinion, I wouldn't want to own this stock necessarily because I think more of these things are going to happen. However, I think Penn is actually an interesting buy right now.
If Barstool only makes up about **8%** of their business and the business is doing pretty good, the ad business would have to go away almost entirely for this to make a meaningful impact. Yet, the stock went down **30%**. This might be a good stock buy right now. I was looking at the math, and it might make sense to buy.
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Shaan Puri | The stock market, Sam, I love it! Stock pick at the end of this segment.
Yeah, I just think that's probably right. I think Barstool is going to go away, and you know, this 20% dip that it's taken is not a permanent thing. But I would say, **not financial advice** before we get sued.
I think this is going to be something you see over and over again. You see it with Dave Chappelle right now; he's going on the offense. You saw it with others where they just disappeared. They all lay low for a bit, right? Louis CK, or you know, the different people who got canceled, they go disappear for a while, and then they come back two years later and sort of beg and apologize, trying to get back in the good graces of things.
I think that going on the offensive is going to become much more the norm. You're going to see that now. He is perfectly positioned to do this because, like you said, he is a Trump-type character. He always speaks his mind; he's always kind of off the cuff. He has devoted, diehard fans that will believe him even when he's in the wrong. They'll back him up. So, you know, I think that was working in his favor here. | |
Sam Parr | if you're the ceo of penn how do you feel right now and what do | |
Shaan Puri | you do I don't know who the I we should look him up I could tell you | |
Sam Parr | who his name's jay he's a young guy his name's jay | |
Shaan Puri | Say, if I could just look at the person, I can figure out... No, it's Jane Cicotte or something like that.
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Sam Parr | yeah that's what I mean j j or j he's like a youngish guy he looks like he's at his mid forties maybe 50 | |
Shaan Puri | it's a girl jane | |
Sam Parr | the ceo of penn | |
Shaan Puri | yeah p ceo of penn national gaming jane cicati or something like that | |
Sam Parr |
Well, for the... like there was a guy who... Oh yeah, I see what you're talking about. The guy that you see, his name... You see that's **Jay Snowden**? Yeah, he was the guy who was like... He's the President and Chief Officer and Director of Penn Gaming since 2020. I don't know what's going on.
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Shaan Puri |
I don't know why they have two... Okay, whatever. You know, I think they're probably a bit nervous about this whole thing, but you gotta know who you're getting in bed with when you buy Barstool. You know it's coming with the hair on the deal, and the hair on the deal is its greatest strength. Which is that, you know, the big personas, the "no fucks given" attitude towards content... Well, they're using this content. Also, he turned scandal into more content.
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Sam Parr | but do you tell dave to chill to cool it or do you just stay out of it entirely | |
Shaan Puri |
You've got to have him find the line, right? That's what we were saying. We're showing some points where he crossed the line in the wrong way. So there's like:
1. Don't turn this into an actual legal problem, and
2. Make sure you're doing this strategically in the art of PR war here.
You need to be punching up, not punching down. You need to... don't sic your... you know, don't have that. Do you teach him?
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Sam Parr | Do you teach him, or do you say, "Dave, you cannot do this again. Strike one"? Like, are you disciplining him or not? I think you're...
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Shaan Puri | I think you're good | |
Sam Parr | at it | |
Shaan Puri | You're getting in the car, you're sitting shotgun with him. You say, "Okay, look, I know how you feel right now. Normally, we would say this, but I know you don't want to do that. You don't want to just kind of hide away and let this thing blow over.
Okay, we're on board, but let's set some ground rules. We want... here's how we want this to end, right? It's like a negotiation with someone who's taken people hostage. It's like, how would you like this to end? Do you want to get out of here? Are you trying to hurt people? What are you trying to do?
Okay, I can help you get there. You want a pizza? Let me order you a pizza right now. You need a car? You need a getaway car? How about you let someone out, and then I could work on that car for you?
That's the way I would be talking to Dave if I was, you know, Jane Sakati. | |
Sam Parr |
Dude, these businesses... When you buy media companies - HubSpot did it with us, and we're not anywhere near as extreme - but when you start getting into that territory of "every company is a media company," I think it's good. However, a lot of people do it not realizing that these are some of the consequences.
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Shaan Puri |
Right, yeah. You're in the media all the time.
Alright, let's do another segment. I got some ideas for you. I want to do some business ideas.
So, I've been looking at a bunch of e-commerce companies, and I'm in e-commerce myself, plus I invest in a couple and I'm friends with a bunch of store owners. We look at kind of the numbers, and I look at some businesses that are doing well, some of them are not doing well. I wanted to share with you an idea that I have that I don't know if it's a really dumb idea or really smart idea. I can't tell...
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Sam Parr | okay | |
Shaan Puri | You tell me which one you think it is.
Okay, so in e-commerce, e-commerce is amazing because there's way less friction. You don't have to get into a car, drive to a store, and spend the time. You know, you could be on your phone, on the toilet, shopping. You push two buttons, and hey, it's going to arrive in two days. That's kind of a magical, amazing thing.
What's the one downside? Well, the downside is it's hard to know if the product is any good or bad because you didn't see it, you didn't feel it, you didn't touch it, and you don't know if you can believe the reviews.
But even more than that, in the whole huge category of e-commerce is fashion and apparel. Fit is the number one thing. Like, you know, you're wearing a black fitted shirt right now; it fits you very well. But you don't know if you're a large, an extra-large, or a medium in different brands. It's always different.
Isn't that just kind of a crazy thing that we just don't know what size we should buy? Like, that's the stupidest reason for... I think.
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Sam Parr | it's crazy | |
Shaan Puri | accounts for like 40% of returns or something ridiculous like that right like | |
Sam Parr | I think it's crazy | |
Shaan Puri | Returns account for somewhere between 3% to 10% of revenue for these brands. The reasons for returns are often not that the item was defective; it just didn't fit right.
So, how do we solve this problem? I invested in a company called Bolt that does one-click checkout. It's basically like, "Hey, why do you have to type your card and address in every single time?" If you do it once, we should just let you check out again, saving that information. You know, you don't have to create an account with every single merchant.
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Sam Parr | I I does it work for shopify | |
Shaan Puri | So, Shopify has their own called **Shop Pay**, and Amazon has their own one-click checkout. **Bolt** is the reason it works because it's for everybody else. If you are not on Shopify and you're not named Amazon, then you probably want to offer the same level of frictionless checkout.
But you can't get people to make an account with your little leather boots company. You know, maybe they made an account with this jacket company, and now they should just be able to check out at the boot company, even though the jacket and the boot company are two different things.
Alright, so **Bolt** is kicking ass, and it's a multibillion-dollar company already. They made checkout more frictionless.
So, how do I make deciding to check out more frictionless? Here’s my idea: I think you gotta have a brick-and-mortar location. I think you basically put up pop-up stores. You put up actually nice, showroom-style stores in LA, San Francisco, New York... you just go through all the major cities. Go to the top 20 cities and open up in downtown a fitting booth called **The Perfect Fit** or **True Fit**.
So, what is True Fit? You go in, and this thing is gonna measure you head to toe using the best technology in the world for scanning a body and knowing its exact dimensions—like a tailor measuring your crotch and all that. It's gonna basically measure you automatically, like when we get a DEXA scan or something like that. You go lay down in this thing, and it's gonna measure you for five minutes.
Now you have your True Fit. Any store you go to, you could just log in with your True Fit, or just save it in your browser and on your phone. Basically, it just gives a store your exact sizes and fit, and maybe even your preferred fit—like do you like things tighter or looser?
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Sam Parr | do | |
Shaan Puri | You like it baggy around the stomach or tighter on the stomach, right? Maybe you even have that level of preference.
Every store is like an API. Every store would just say, "Oh cool!" Just like we all have the metric system, we have this standardized system that we can use to describe the length of our items. We can use inches, millimeters, or whatever it’s going to be, depending on which system you use.
But we need a central system for fit. I think if you created this, you could just say, "Come in, you get scanned for free," and now you're going to have better fitting stuff—better fitting shoes, clothes, jackets, all that on every website you visit.
Then you go to the websites and you say, "Hey, would you like people to return less of your stuff? Would you like them to know exactly what size to get without having to look at your size chart and measure how many inches their chest is?" Like, yeah!
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Sam Parr | it's brilliant | |
Shaan Puri | Ridiculous! So now you just ping the system. The system says this person should be a large in your clothing, in your brand. So that's the idea. What do you think of this?
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Sam Parr | So, I think it's amazing. Let me... let me look up "Zozo Suit" (Z-O-Z-O Suit), one word.
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Shaan Puri | I've seen this before. This is the motion detector thing. It's like they send you this black suit, right? Well, how does this work? It's a rich guy, right? Didn't this billionaire create this?
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Sam Parr | Yeah, so I'm going off memory. I think it was 4, 5, or 6 years ago. There was a guy in Japan who was a successful entrepreneur, I think in the clothing space. He owned some type of fast-casual Japanese clothing company, right?
He created this suit, and it was either free or like $5. Basically, it's a bodysuit. If you've ever seen behind the scenes of *Lord of the Rings* when they're filming on the green screen, or if you've ever seen a bobsledder, you know how they have the suits that go over their head? It looks like that, but it's all black and has polka dots all over it.
You put it on, and then you hold your camera or phone up to it. It's supposed to figure out the dimensions of your body. He was going to mail one of these to everyone in Japan or something like that, and it failed. I don't know why it failed; I just don't think it worked that great.
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Shaan Puri | yeah | |
Sam Parr | However, are you looking it up? When was that? I'm looking at it now. Was it like 5 years ago?
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Shaan Puri | Yeah, I don't know what the time frame is for this, but I remember you told me about this multiple years ago. You were like, "Dude, this is crazy." | |
Sam Parr | I thought this was such a good idea, and there were people. So, I used to go to Grail.com.
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Shaan Puri | I think it's still going. October 29, 2020. So, last year, one year ago, they launched the Zozo Suit 2. You know, they're still going with this.
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Sam Parr | I think it's great! I remember going on Reddit, and there were these subreddits where you could buy and sell fancy clothing. I would buy and sell clothing on there.
There were these guys that would kind of bootleg it. They would download the app and then use the suit to get their own measurements. They would write that down and use it as their way to do sizing.
I actually think that the suit could do a better job than what you're describing. It's freaking amazing if it works right, but I don't know if it works well. If it does work, the idea of this is awesome. People were also using it; athletes were using it for their body measurements. You could use it to see if your muscles are growing or not.
Additionally, there was this one scale that never really took off. They had a Kickstarter, and when I saw it, it was amazing, but it was a little too expensive for me to try before it got built. Basically, it was a scale that looked like a normal bathroom scale. You stand on it, but then this arm comes out.
This arm would do a loop around your body and wrap around you. It would use a camera to scan your body and tell you all about whether your measurements are going up or down. I thought that was amazing! I love those things. Do you remember that scale?
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Shaan Puri | yeah I know what you're talking about | |
Sam Parr | was it called like naked or something something like that | |
Shaan Puri | didn't didn't seem to catch on but I think there's something here | |
Sam Parr | it's called naked nakedlabs.com | |
Shaan Puri | and I think that yeah | |
Sam Parr | I think it's | |
Shaan Puri | I think it's harder to do as a startup. I actually think that this is better to do if you're Amazon or Bolt.
This might be my free idea for Bolt: "Hey, guys, here's what you should do." You've raised $100 million. You might have to pour $40 to $50 million into developing this network of stores that has this technology.
Basically, all day, it would just be measuring customers. But in this case, it would also be driving people to put in their information so now they can just check out with Bolt anywhere. You're on file, but you not only have their payment info on file, but you'd also have their size info on file. So now I would...
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Sam Parr | buy so much more stuff | |
Shaan Puri | Bolt becomes more valuable to every merchant because it not only stores payments, but it also has their customer fit information.
I also think that this is not the easiest thing. It's not just about scanning the body; you actually need to see how the clothes fit on somebody. So, you'd almost want, if you're going to do this perfectly—and I don't know if it's a good idea or not—you'd almost want like 10 shirts that are like the stock shirt fits.
It's like, "Okay, try these 5 on. Yeah, that looks good on you. Do you like how this fits?" Yes? Okay, you are a size medium, specifically this many centimeters. All your measurements are here, and you prefer the fit of X.
So, we know how to translate that now to any brand and how any brand can use that against our standardized measurement system.
I feel like this is a kind of impractical idea, but I just wish it worked because it would reduce friction so much in shopping. It would make people way more willing to shop and result in way fewer returns.
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Sam Parr | We asked Mark Lohrey. Mark Lohrey was the guy who started Judd.com and sold it to Walmart for several billion dollars. We asked him, "What's an idea that you would work on right now if you wanted to sell it for $100,000,000 in two or...?" | |
Shaan Puri | 3 years this is what he said | |
Sam Parr | And this was it. He said, "The number one problem, the number one cost that our company has at Walmart.com, the third or fourth, or second most popular e-commerce website in the world, is returns due to bad sizes. So if you figure out a way just to help us save that, just a little bit, we would pay a whole lot of money for that."
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Shaan Puri | right | |
Sam Parr |
And you know, you actually could do this where you could, if you weren't techie, you 100% could just open up small shops that were like $2,000 or $3,000 a month in rent. Have two tailors there and then go out to some of the bigger retailer brands and be like, "Hey, will you put our logo on your site and help us?" and...
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Shaan Puri | There are scrappy ways to do this. You might be able to partner with existing stores and just have a booth with an agent there who can manage it. So, you may not even need the space.
Alright, this is one idea. Let me give you another idea about the future of shopping. I don't remember where I heard this, but someone was talking about it, and it was like a no-brainer moment for me.
We all know that software keeps getting better, and robots keep getting better. So, what's going to happen to all these trucking jobs if we have self-driving trucks? What's going to happen to all these retail cashier jobs with stores like Amazon Go, where you just walk in, pick up an item, and walk out? It just knows from what you picked up off the shelf how much to charge your Amazon account.
It looks kind of amazing, and I think those are two of the most popular jobs in America: truck driver and retail cashier.
So, what is even further down this path? Here’s an easy one that I thought was kind of cool: restaurant drive-thrus. You know how it goes. You pull up, roll down your window, and they say, "Oh yeah, welcome to McDonald's! What can I get for you today?" And you're like, "Let me get the number 3." They ask, "What do you want to drink?" Blah, blah, blah. So, why do you...
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Sam Parr | what a number 3 at mcdonald's is | |
Shaan Puri | a number 3 at mcdonald's I'm gonna go with a double cheeseburger what is it | |
Sam Parr | I think it's a double cheeseburger or a quarter pounder number 1's a big mac and | |
Shaan Puri | a big quarter pounder | |
Sam Parr | number 2 is the 2 cheeseburgers that was my that was my order | |
Shaan Puri | and then I think number | |
Sam Parr | 3 is quarter pounder | |
Shaan Puri | see I'm more of a a chicken sandwich kinda guy so that's what I get | |
Sam Parr | that's like a 7 | |
Shaan Puri | I think, yeah, there's like the **shitty fried one** that's like the **8**, and then there's like the kind of **less fried one**.
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Sam Parr | artisanal one | |
Shaan Puri | Yeah, the artisanal one with like a tomato on top. Now, now you're healthy.
So, the idea here is: why does that person have to be in the store? Like, they don't, or they don't?
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Sam Parr | like we have zoom | |
Shaan Puri |
We're doing this podcast in two different cities, you know, 100 miles apart. Why can't... why doesn't that person just stay at home on Zoom, just taking orders from me in every location? So there's no downtime.
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Sam Parr | Okay, we talked about this before. There are these things that look like Segways but with an iPad screen on them. There's a woman you can talk to, and she's rolling around the store. Those have never taken off. They've never taken off. | |
Shaan Puri | They've never taken off. I know why, by the way. We had one in our office. It's called Double Robotics; that's the name of the company.
At first, it's like, "Oh wow, this is cool! You could be working remotely." But you're the remote manager, and you're just wheeling up behind people's desks, like, "Hey, hey, how's it going?" Then they turn into faces on the iPad.
For real simple reasons, it doesn't work. For example, it can't go upstairs. So if you have any stairs in any part of your office, it just can't get there. It can't open doors, you know? If you have a meeting room, it can't get in. The iPad would die, and it's like, "Oh, fuck, the iPad's dead right now." Okay, we're going to have to go charge this. Never mind, just call me.
That happens three times, and then you just start skipping the robotics thing because you're like, "Just call me, dude." We always end up on the call anyway for one of these five reasons, so just skip that whole step.
It never really took off because it was too complicated. It was too fancy. The drive-thru thing... you don't even see the person anyway. They're literally just a speaker in the wall.
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Sam Parr | when you give them money you do | |
Shaan Puri |
Yeah, yeah, because that's a separate person, right? That's like... that's their other job. You know, that's like they do this other thing. And while they're trying to give you your change, they're talking to the next person in line.
This should just be... imagine the downtime. So, like, you know one of the reasons that Uber is expensive is because there's a whole bunch of time that a human is driving around without a passenger, right? Because they're driving from one trip to the next.
The same thing happens in drive-throughs. There's... there's like time in between cars, in between orders. But if I...
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Sam Parr | was remote I could | |
Shaan Puri | I will be working at five locations at once. Anytime somebody has a person there, I just hop on. I connect to that screen, talk to them, and then connect to the next screen. There's no downtime. | |
Sam Parr | There's this crazy stat where I think it's like 1 in 16 Americans have worked at McDonald's. Have you ever heard that?
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Shaan Puri | no but I I believe it | |
Sam Parr | It's something like 1 in 16. You know, McDonald's is one of the largest employers in the world. They basically call it, like, internally or even externally, "the world's greatest first job." So, the whole shtick is that we're really good for just people.
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Shaan Puri | who are forever | |
Sam Parr | Yeah, and they embrace it, and I think that's smart. When I think about my aunt, I have an aunt who's been a cashier at a grocery store for 40 years. That's just her job; she still is.
When I think about this stuff, like the self-checkouts and not having someone there at the drive-thru, I'm almost positive it's 1 in 16 Americans—it's something shockingly high. I have worked at McDonald's.
Do you think that you have an obligation as an employer to continue doing some of these minimum wage jobs just so you exist to further society along? Otherwise, if that isn't the case, then you're going to have to do some type of universal income or something like that.
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Shaan Puri |
Yeah, it's going to be creative destruction, and it's going to be rocky before it gets good. I think you have to let the progress happen. So, you know, here's how this is going to go:
Today in California, they're paying... if you go look at any McDonald's or Chipotle or whatever, it's like "Now hiring! Please, *please* come work here! $24 an hour!" And it's like, wow, $24 an hour for this? This is not a minimum wage job. That's like 3 times the minimum wage. And they're still having trouble getting people to come work there.
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Sam Parr | they it's not 3 times a job what's the what's the what's the make $8 right | |
Shaan Puri | the | |
Sam Parr | minimum wage in california is like $15 now | |
Shaan Puri | California is higher now, but it's still double the minimum wage. And that's for McDonald's. So what does that mean? You know, that's just going to cause prices to go up or it's going to cause some stores to close because they're just not economical when you have crazy labor costs.
So what's going to happen is, first, they're going to do the remote thing that I talked about. Instead of paying somebody $24 in California, they're going to find somebody in Nebraska who can Zoom in and say, "Can I take your order?" As long as they can say that and push a button, and they're willing to do it for $12 from home, that's going to happen.
Then that's going to get replaced because they're going to be like, "I'm tired of paying this schmuck $12." What? Oh, Amazon just released its Alexa product for all brands, and I can just have it be like an Alexa where it just asks a question and then it just auto-figures out what I want. Cool! Just like at airports, you know? People check in at kiosks now instead of at the front desk.
The companies are going to go this way; they're going to go towards automation because it just makes too much financial sense.
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Sam Parr |
I don't think you should get in the way of progress, but are you bored with remote work?
"No dude, I'm so fucking bored. I'm so bored. I... you just miss hanging out."
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Shaan Puri | out with people | |
Sam Parr | I miss hanging out. I miss it so much. I feel like I have way fewer friends right now. I am so bored, and I find myself going to Target like three days a week just to walk around and see stuff.
I go to Whole Foods all the time. I purposely won't go once every two weeks or once every ten days for a big trip. Instead, I'll do lots of small errands. I go to the corner store all the time. I find myself just going, thinking, "Let's go shop." I just need to get out and be around people.
If the people went away from that, I would also be pretty bummed out.
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Shaan Puri | Well, I think it would just shift, right? Like, okay, so now with all this free time, what do you go do? You go do something else.
So you go do something else that gives you that people hit. You'll unbundle the socializing part from the cashier part. You know, like, okay, the cashier can become a robot.
So I'm going to get my people hit from something else. I actually think there's going to be a whole new job that is just basically like a software supervisor. I just think that's going to be a job.
Software is going to replace what a lot of people do, but then it's going to get stuck. It's not going to know how to solve some problem or it's not going to understand somebody's accent at the drive-through.
Then you, as the supervisor, are going to step in and say, "Hey, human here. Yeah, I can help you out. Sorry about that. Sorry this stupid software doesn't work well."
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Sam Parr | I want this to exist. I hate it. I hate it, but I agree it's inevitable.
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Shaan Puri |
Inevitable, for sure. I think there's going to be a whole set of jobs called "software supervisor" or "robot repair" or "robot manager." You're just going to manage robots. It's like:
"What is my job? I used to have to walk around and pick up these things. Now this machine in the warehouse goes and picks up everything. I just have to watch the machine to make sure it doesn't hit something else, and if it gets stuck or needs some grease, I go grease it."
Because I'm a robot manager, that's what I do. And that's going to become the normal job.
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Sam Parr | yeah I agree with you I think it's gonna happen can I show you something cool really quick | |
Shaan Puri | yeah what else you got | |
Sam Parr | Alright, Ben, hit it! $1,000,000 isn't cool. You know what's cool? A $1,000,000,000!
Alright, we got an interesting segment. You like that? This is "Billy of the Week." I'm going to talk to you, Sean, about this guy named Brian Johnson. I showed you this guy.
Let me give you a little bit of background about who he is. I'm not actually going to talk about his business. So, Brian Johnson started a company called Braintree. If you are an entrepreneur or you work in e-commerce or anything that takes payments, you probably know what Braintree is. It's a payment gateway; it's basically Stripe but different.
He bootstrapped the company for a long time, raised a little bit of money once it was already quite successful, and then sold it for a huge amount of money. This was like 5 years ago, I believe. They also bought Venmo. Braintree bought Venmo and then sold it to PayPal.
If I had to guess, he's probably worth at least $1,000,000,000. That's how much money he made. I think he sold it for like $600,000,000 or $700,000,000 or $800,000,000. Yeah, it was $300,000,000.
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Shaan Puri | a few 100,000,000 yeah so something like 300 more like 300 I think | |
Sam Parr | Oh, got it. Okay, so he's in the range. Maybe he's very wealthy. This guy is incredibly interesting because he just launched something called **Blueprint**.
If you go to [blueprint.brianjohnson.co](http://blueprint.brianjohnson.co), his name is **Brian** (B-R-Y-A-N) **Johnson**. He's doing something pretty amazing. Basically, he's spending all of his time right now trying to lower his biological age.
His chronological age, his real age, I think is 45, but his biological age is 35. He's measuring all 70+ of his organs. He's measuring...
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Shaan Puri | All right, nobody knows what this is. What the heck is it? So, chronological age is the number of years you're alive, right? That's what that is. | |
Sam Parr | yeah | |
Shaan Puri | and then what biological age is what | |
Sam Parr | Yeah, so frankly, I'm not entirely aware of how they measure it. But I know that I have one using a site that Huberman, who was on our podcast, promoted. It's called InsideTracker, and it tracks your blood and different parts of your body. It tells you what your biological age is.
I think they do that by looking at the averages, but frankly, I'm not sure. They basically say you can be 50 years old but have the body of a 40-year-old. This biological age thing is like a standard way of measuring, but I don't know what all goes into it.
And by the way, you're right.
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Shaan Puri | 800,000,000 is what he sold it for. Okay, so I'm on 800. So, you're right about that.
Now, let's go to this guy's thing, which, by the way, he's doing something else too. He's basically creating like a Neuralink, which is the same thing Elon Musk is trying to do. It's like a brain... | |
Sam Parr | It looks like a helmet, and you could think something, and it happens. Exactly. So you could think like...
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Shaan Puri | It can just read your brainwaves and it can cause something. They can type out a text message off of a thought. That'd be the dream or the idea.
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Sam Parr | And this new thing is this blog where basically he's measuring everything in his body. He said LeBron James spends $1,500,000 a year to improve his body. I'm spending more than that. I've developed all the tests; I've got as much money as you could possibly have. My whole goal here is to lower my biological age.
I test all my organs, and when I test them, I put all the results here so anyone could do it. He lists his diet, his workout, everything. Let me just read what he had for breakfast.
Breakfast was **super veggie**. He basically had broccoli, cauliflower, spinach, mushrooms, garlic, salt, and vinegar. Ugh, that was his breakfast.
For lunch, he had leafy greens, veggies, berries, seeds, and nuts.
Dinner was **nutty pudding**. I don't know what that is, but it included almond milk, macadamia nuts, chia seeds, blueberries, raspberries, and pomegranate juice. That's it.
Then he lists all of his supplements, and there are like 20 of them.
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Shaan Puri | Children's hemoglobin, you know, like horse serum. I go with this guy's... yeah.
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Sam Parr | He's like eating crazy stuff and he's jacked. So, he's ÂŁ165 and probably only 5'10" or 6' tall. He's not huge, but I think he has 6% body fat. He has all of his body fat measured, and he has all of... I don't know how you can click through this and see all of the attributes for each organ and things like that. I don't understand a lot of it, but it's incredibly fascinating.
I think it's fascinating because, A, I just find this interesting, but B, I've been saying for a little while that I think what this guy is doing is going to be very common—not in 5 years, but maybe in 15, 20, or 30 years.
The reason why I've always thought this is weird is that this is one of the biggest problems we have as humans. How often have you heard the story of a person who just found out they have cancer, and it's like stage 4 or stage 5? Had they known earlier, it could have been cured. It's crazy how reactive we are to health and not proactive.
So, I actually think that what he's doing, which is proactive, is going to be the future. I don't think it's going to be this extreme because, like I've always said, even though drugs are bad, you still have to get messed up sometimes. You can't be eating macadamia nuts and shiitake mushrooms for every meal. You know what I mean? You have to have some cake and tequila once in a while. So, I'm down to get messed up occasionally, but I do think that this is pretty cool. | |
Shaan Puri | This is amazing! I can't believe I haven't seen this before. So, it's new.
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Sam Parr | it's this is like 2 months old | |
Shaan Puri | This is one of the most amazing things I've ever seen. I'm just clicking through it right now, and I don't even want to do this podcast. I want to go read all of this, and I want to see what's...
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Sam Parr | missing right | |
Shaan Puri | So, I totally agree with you that the future looks more like this than it does like today. It is crazy that we don't know what's going on inside our own body.
In fact, there's a question that you can ask yourself which gets you to think a little bit differently and see the world a little differently.
That question is: In 50 years, or let's say we look back 100 years ago. A hundred years ago was the year 1920. How many things in our day, how many things that they did back then would just seem so primitive?
Right? So it's like, okay...
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Sam Parr | wait did you say 50 years ago was 1920 | |
Shaan Puri | 100 years ago... So, 100 years ago is 1920, right? Let's say 100 years ago, I don't know the exact timeline of things, but like...
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Sam Parr | you know 1920 like | |
Shaan Puri | alcohol just happened | |
Sam Parr | Yeah, so smoking was far more common. You could advertise cigarettes to people, and you could smoke anywhere you wanted. So that was quite common. | |
Shaan Puri | Like, there's a whole bunch of things. So, all the things we do... If I look at my day today, it's like, well, nope, there was no internet. There was definitely no cell phone. There was definitely no... I don't even think there was... like, I don't even know. Like, could women vote? I don't know when all these things happened, but like, the world.
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Sam Parr | it was just happening right around then | |
Shaan Puri | The world looked very different, let's put it that way. It felt completely normal at the time.
If you think about it, and you fast forward to today, then you go forward a hundred years. When I look back and see slavery, I say, "Wow, that's crazy! I can't believe that was okay." Or, when the Holocaust was happening, I can't believe people just stood by while that happened.
So, what are the holocausts of today? Personally, I believe that people will look back and think, "You just killed animals all the time? You just murdered them for food? Like, you murdered them for lunch?" For that number 7.
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Sam Parr | At McDonald's, we're going to do it. We're not necessarily going to do it about that, but I think what they will say is, "So you would just raise these chickens, like a million of them, under this barn, and they would be shitting on each other."
Or these cows, they're born into this pen, and straight from the pen, they go straight to the butcher where they're killed as veal. You treated them that way, so the mom never... I think that we're going to be like, "I can't believe you."
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Shaan Puri | **Treated animals this way, people are starting to feel that now, right? That's like where a lot of the vegan and plant-based stuff comes from. You see what's going on in a farm, and you're like, "This is horrible." It's horrible from a moral and ethical level.
For example, my wife's vegan, and I was like, "Yeah, okay, I get it. Killing animals to eat them is probably not good." That is killing a living thing. I love my dog, and if I spend time with a horse, I kind of love that horse too. Cows, you know, they're not that far off; they're not that different.
I guess I could see how, if I had to think about it emotionally, that would feel really wrong. But what about, you know, just having milk and eggs? It can't be that bad, right? What's wrong with milk? I love cheese! What's wrong with cheese?
Then they showed that, you know... [earmuffs if you're sensitive]... you can't handle this stuff, but basically, the way that the videos I was watching explained how they get milk is like this: A cow gives birth to a baby, and then they separate the baby from the mom. They put it nearby enough so the mom can hear the baby crying for milk, but it can't reach it. This way, the milk gets produced at a much higher rate or whatever.
First of all, to even get them pregnant, they artificially inseminate them. They basically rape them with their arm with a plastic bag over it. They just keep them pregnant year-round, so they're constantly pregnant in order to constantly be producing milk. Then they're constantly taking the babies away to cry, and then they go kill the baby for food. The mom just keeps milking.
So it's like, yeah, it's a pretty messed up thing. Once you know, it's pretty hard to get past that. | |
Sam Parr | I'm down... I'm down to kill them, to eat them. I just, I would like to treat them a little nicer before we kill them.
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Shaan Puri | What I'm saying is that's going to be seen like, you know, I treat my house slave well. I feed them... like, oh, I don't.
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Sam Parr | I think I | |
Shaan Puri | think that's how it's gonna be seen a 100 years ago I think the way we treat animals today | |
Sam Parr | dude we've been eating animals since the beginning of time I don't think that's gonna change | |
Shaan Puri | it's gonna change | |
Sam Parr | you're on drugs I think we're gonna treat them nicer | |
Shaan Puri | You are on drugs. It's gonna change because we're going to have a good substitute, which is lab-grown meat.
So, people are going to be able to make the same steak they want without killing the animal. In that case, killing the animal is going to look absolutely barbaric. It's going to be only a hobby sport; it is not going to be the way you feed the population.
So, God...
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Sam Parr | I think you are so wrong about this | |
Shaan Puri | okay fair enough but there is a thought experiment that I believe that in a 100 days | |
Sam Parr |
That's exactly what we're going to do. I think we're going to treat them better. I totally think that's why I am trying to buy... yes, before we murder them.
Yeah, dude, I'm higher up in the food chain. I'm gonna eat you. I think I've been trying to buy a cow here. Have you... you know you could buy like a whole cow? Like, I... you can drive to the farm here in Austin and like see the farm, and then you pay like $10 or $8 a pound. Yeah, and you could like buy the cow. I've been trying to do that because I think that's a good way to do it, but it's... I have...
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Shaan Puri | To talk to you guys, my thought is that you can think of a whole bunch of things. One, what else is going to seem barbaric? I think the health thing that you're talking about right now, which is that you can't know what's going on in your body at any given time.
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Sam Parr | like it's fucking crazy | |
Shaan Puri | It's fucking crazy. They're going to be like, "So you just... you were just winging it?" Like, yeah, you know, we'd go to the doctor like once a year and we just say, "Hey, is everything alright?"
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Sam Parr | inside once the time you've been to the doctor bro dude don't go to the doctor then don't go to the doctor | |
Shaan Puri | I haven't been to the doctor in like 5 years. I made an appointment and I missed it because I was late. You know, I'm late to everything. I was late to this podcast, and I was late to the doctor. | |
Sam Parr | I I haven't seen a dentist in like 20 years | |
Shaan Puri | for for sure a dentist you can miss me with that so there's basically like you know | |
Sam Parr | there's no. | |
Shaan Puri | But I'm down to have like some chip in my body or some blood sensor. I want to know at all times what's going on in my body; I just don't want to go to the doctor.
So yeah, that's going to be seen as crazy. It's like people who, you know, if you go drive around without a map or something, it's like, "Whoa, whoa, you renegade!" We're going to be seen as the ultimate renegades for having just lived life.
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Sam Parr | I agree | |
Shaan Puri | Not knowing when there are cancers and blood diseases that are just floating around in our body is concerning. It's like, "Hope we caught it in time." You know, "Oh, we didn't? That's too bad." It's crazy to me.
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Sam Parr | have you heard of the the the mayo executive health clinic or | |
Shaan Puri | health check out I've been thinking about doing it it's like | |
Sam Parr | I'm gonna | |
Shaan Puri | do it | |
Sam Parr | I'll do it with you | |
Shaan Puri | explain it it's like $5 right now | |
Sam Parr | Right, let's use our NFT money and do it. So basically, yeah, let's do that. It's $5,000 or $6,000, and it's posted by the Mayo Clinic. They have locations in probably Indiana, I think Notre Dame, and I think they have another one in Arizona.
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Shaan Puri | yeah there's arizona in | |
Sam Parr | the house california | |
Shaan Puri | I don't think they're the one in california | |
Sam Parr | I think arizona is the closest one is it arizona | |
Shaan Puri | but describe what it is because I didn't know about this until a buddy told me and I was like oh shit yeah we should do that | |
Sam Parr | Yeah, I've been thinking about doing it, but I wasn't sure if it'd be beneficial to me at my age. I thought maybe it would be more beneficial a little bit older.
But basically, you spend $5 to $8 and you go to this Mayo Clinic hospital, ultimately in Arizona. You stay there for 2 nights and 3 days, and they just do a ton of tests on you. You get an MRI done, you get all your blood work done... I don't even know. I mean, you just get... they have a list. If you type in "Mayo Executive Health Checkup" or something, they have it.
And basically, in order to get... so when we sold the company, I had to get this thing called... and even before we sold it, I had to get it because we were big enough to where, like, if Sam or I got sued, it could be bad for the company. So we would get this thing called Board of Directors insurance. Have you heard of that?
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Shaan Puri | yep yep yep | |
Sam Parr |
And so it's cheap, it's like $1,000 or $5,000 - I forget how much it costs. If you're a little bit older or you're unhealthy, I think sometimes you have to get one of these things done in order to qualify for that health insurance or to get a discount on it. Basically, you go to this place and they do a ton of different tests on you just to see how healthy you are. You're supposed to go once a year.
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Shaan Puri | right and so you do does it say what the scans are so there's a bunch of | |
Sam Parr | preventative tests level what they are | |
Shaan Puri | Yeah, like cardiovascular... okay, whatever. This is not going to tell us anything, but they test for metals in your body or other things that you don't get at the normal doctor. It sounds like, you know, over the top. I wouldn't really think about it, but the person who recommended it said, "Hey, you know, we're now all like 30+ and, you know, stuff happens. Hopefully not in your thirties, but sometimes in your forties, getting to your fifties, sixties, seventies, it becomes a probability type of thing."
They said, "We've been fortunate to make some money. The best use we can do of our money is health. So let's just do this thing. Let's just do it every year, we'll make a fun trip out of it, and let's go get this screening done. Let's just stay in front."
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Sam Parr | of us he's trying to get he's been trying to get ramon to do it I'll do it I'll I'm gonna do it | |
Shaan Puri | Yeah, so we should book this thing. Let's go back to this Brian Johnson thing.
He is basically monitoring his body at an extreme level. It looks like he's measuring the health and age of his individual organs. Then he's looking at, "If I take this 30 micrograms of melatonin before bed, how does that affect X?"
It's like the quantified self nerd stuff, but on steroids. This is like the most extreme example I've seen of it.
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Sam Parr | It's the most extreme example. I don't think it's a good way to live because, like, you probably don't have that much joy.
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Shaan Puri | No, this isn't for the normal person. This is for the human population that needs like **0.1%** of the population to be this weird, do these tests, push the boundaries, and live in the future.
There's that phrase... I forgot what it is. I have a simplified version of it. The complicated version is: "The future is already here; it's just not evenly distributed." But I just say, **the future is already**.
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Sam Parr | here it's | |
Shaan Puri | Just not everywhere, which is like the simple way of saying that, right? It's like this guy is living in the future. We're just not all living in the future right now. The thing he's doing, we will all know this level of detail about our bodies.
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Sam Parr | I've heard a phrase: "It's like basically what rich nerds do on the weekend, everyone will be doing in 10 years."
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Shaan Puri | right yeah and that's exactly what this is this is amazing | |
Sam Parr | have you seen a picture of him look look at look at his like look at him without a shadow | |
Shaan Puri | He's insane! So, he's 6 feet tall, he's in his 40s, and he has 3.5% body fat. He's insanely ripped, but he's also dead.
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Sam Parr | And he said, "That wasn't optimal. That was too low." So I went back up to like 6.8.
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Shaan Puri | yeah yeah it's pretty sick | |
Sam Parr | click that video | |
Shaan Puri | I found 6.8 was too low so I went to 26 yeah right | |
Sam Parr | Look, there's a picture of him. There's a video of him dunking or jumping up. He looks great, man. This guy looks super good. | |
Shaan Puri | He is to me, like, you know, Elon Musk gets a ton of worship because it's like, "Wow, you're the genius billionaire inventor, and you say dick jokes. You're my hero."
It's not that this guy is better than Elon or that Elon is worse than this guy. Nothing really like that. But man, I love finding these guys that are like... they're not like... they're no different. This guy is just as smart, has been super successful, and he is absolutely ripped, which, like, you know, somehow Elon has not been prioritizing that. You can tell.
So it's like this guy lives a different lifestyle, but it's like this guy will have one millionth the fame of Elon Musk right now. You know what I mean? Like, if I go look this Elon Musk dude...
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Sam Parr | he I think he's got 2,000 followers on twitter let's I'm gonna dm him | |
Shaan Puri | Yeah, like we should have him on because I think this guy's fascinating. We've actually talked about it before. By the way, we did him as "Billy" the week before this because he told the story about door-to-door sales.
I went on this long rant about door-to-door sales and how I thought that was like an amazing hack for hiring anyone who's done well with door-to-door sales.
So, Ilham has 63 million followers, Brian Johnson.
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Sam Parr | I think he's like 2 3 4 5000 | |
Shaan Puri | Yeah, like let's see... he's okay. He's at 27,000, so he's not nothing. But, you know, 27,000 compared to 63,000,000 is like... I think he got a bunch because he went on the Lex Fridman podcast, and that really boosted him.
But yeah, he's basically like, you know, one thousand more than 1,000 times less famous. I think these types of people are way more accessible, way more interesting to learn from, and just more fun to be a fan of than just being a fan of, you know, the Yankees type of thing.
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Sam Parr | Yeah, alright, let's get him on. This guy's fascinating. He's very interesting. And Ben, by the way, he's a Mormon, right? So, team...
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Shaan Puri | ben you're basically related to him ask your cousin if he'll come on then | |
Sam Parr | Yeah, don't you know him? All I can say is, "I'll see what I can do." Yeah, you definitely have a cousin.
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Shaan Puri | isn't there like a group chat | |
Sam Parr | Basketball camp with him or something? Oh, just a general enrollment chat. Yeah, yeah, like your social network or something. You surely have something just for this.
We do have a social network, actually. No one uses it, but we do have one.
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Shaan Puri | what is it called | |
Sam Parr | What's it called? I don't even know. Just "Tabernacle" or something. It's an app that was made by the Church Doors.
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Shaan Puri | by the church it's called nature yeah | |
Sam Parr | Yeah, I'll look that up. That can be the next episode. I'll tell you all about the church app. Just call them.
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Shaan Puri | Sounds like a business opportunity. If the Mormon social network exists but nobody's really using it, I feel like all you gotta do is, you know, airdrop some tokens and all of a sudden people will be using this thing.
By the way, did either of you guys... you guys don't own a... by the...
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Sam Parr | Way, just ask Mitt Romney for an intro. He knows them. Shit, yeah.
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Shaan Puri | There's definitely a group chat for the successful, super successful War Mints—the 1,000,000 of War Mints.
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Sam Parr | they all took the blood oath | |
Shaan Puri | so do you do you know what an airdrop is | |
Sam Parr | no I see everyone talking about it and I'm too afraid to ask | |
Shaan Puri | Okay, so basically, an airdrop is this amazing thing in crypto where you just wake up and find there’s $1,000 in your wallet that you didn’t have the day before. That’s what happened yesterday.
Anyone who owned what’s called a **.eth** (Ethereum Name Service) received this benefit. It’s basically like having a domain name, such as .com, .org, or .io, but for Ethereum.
When I did my crypto week, I thought, "Oh, I want to have my own namespace on the blockchain, in the Ethereum world." So, I created a **.eth**. How much...?
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Sam Parr | money did you get | |
Shaan Puri | So, I got like **$4** yesterday just for having [the token]. I only have one, but I have friends that have like **100** of these names. They've made like **$50,000** to **$100,000** yesterday.
Wow, really? You know, you bought this thing. Like, I paid **$100** in gas fees and **$200** in gas fees to get my name, and you know, that thing paid off with like a **$4,000** airdrop.
So basically, the organization that's behind this created their own token yesterday that will be used to vote on how this thing works. In the domain world, there's ICANN, you know what I mean? Like, this committee called ICANN gets to decide when there's a new domain.
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Sam Parr | which is bullshit | |
Shaan Puri | like dot photo or dot dot business or dot | |
Sam Parr | I can't get such bullshit | |
Shaan Puri | So, that's the governing body, right? In the crypto world, it's decentralized. The way it works is that everybody who owns a name gets to vote. If you're a user, you get to vote, and you vote with your tokens.
They airdropped a bunch of tokens to everybody, so everyone made a bunch of money. Nobody's going to care about the vote. It's like reading the privacy policy of a website; you're just like, "Yeah, yeah, yeah, agree, agree, sure, I'll vote with the majority. No problem, just give me my free money, please."
But this happens all the time in the crypto world. If you own an asset, the group that made that asset can airdrop more tokens to you, and those have some market value associated with them. For example, that happened with Bored Apes. If you had a Bored Ape, they airdropped you this potion that you could give your ape to turn it into a mutant.
That potion and the mutants basically doubled the value of whatever you owned. So, if you owned a thing that was worth, I think the cheapest one right now is around $150,000, at the time there were like 50,000. People were basically getting a free $10,000 to $20,000 item airdropped to them by the organization. It's kind of insane. | |
Sam Parr | now that bitcoin's $67 what how much of your net worth is in crypto | |
Shaan Puri | I don't even calculate it anymore like I don't know I don't keep track of it | |
Sam Parr | over 50% | |
Shaan Puri | Probably, yeah. Probably because it's, you know, I basically started it. My goal was to put in 25%. I think I put in 20%, and then it started going up so much that I just stopped at 20%. You know, I should have just gone all in. I should have gone all in like I believed, and I should have gone to 80%.
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Sam Parr | what about what do you think what do you think pop has how much crypto do you think he has | |
Shaan Puri |
He says he was 90% crypto, but I don't think he had a ton of money at the time. The question I have is: he then started making easily a few million dollars a year over the last, let's say, 3 years.
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Sam Parr | I wouldn't say easily a few. I would say **2 years**. I would say **2 to 3 million** a year if I had to guess.
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Shaan Puri | Right, right. So that's a few million dollars a year for the last couple of years. Let's say, after taxes and all that good stuff, he got another $4 or $5 million from all of his content, sponsorships, and courses, that sort of thing.
The question is, did he convert all that into Bitcoin as he was going, or did he hedge? If he converted it all, you know, that means he's got... I would, if I was going to place a guess, say that if he had, when he was earning, Bitcoin's gone up about 5x since then. So if you had $4 million, gone 5x, that's about a $20 million stake at that point—not including whatever he had before that.
So I would guess the guy's net worth is probably... I'd set the line at $30 million, the liquid net worth, not including pretty good assets. | |
Sam Parr | not not not including the ownership of the deal | |
Shaan Puri | yeah start up investments that he made that are you know speculative and illiquid at the moment | |
Sam Parr | yeah I mean that'd be a home run | |
Shaan Puri | but I could be honest what what do you think would you guess that | |
Sam Parr | I'd probably say lower if I had to guess. I've got no information, but if I had to guess, I would say **15**.
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Shaan Puri | And I think when he started the brand name, a lot of it depends on what your base was, right? So like...
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Sam Parr | Well, he said in his art he wrote this amazing article about how he's quitting. Yeah, that was really fun, and it was a great article. You shared it as just great writing, and I agree with you. I think you shared it, yeah, and it was really good.
So basically, Pumps came on our podcast a couple of times. We should have him on again. He is this personality who has a Substack, has a podcast, and has a fund where he raised, I think, $100 million. And he basically... it was with a hundred...
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Shaan Puri | I don't know if it was a 100 but yeah go ahead something | |
Sam Parr | Well, tens of millions. Let's say he wrote a letter to his investors saying, "I'm shutting this down because I want more free time and I want to spend more time doing what I want. So here's your money back."
He goes, "I don't want to be a billionaire; I want to be a time billionaire." I love that. I completely agree with that move. That's totally the right move.
He basically said, without saying it, that he was unhappy because he was addicted to screens. He doesn't want to be on this dopamine game anymore, which is so common. We've been hearing that constantly.
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Shaan Puri | I've been hearing that a lot. Not surprising, the pendulum is swinging, right? We all got addicted to this substance, and now, you know, some of us are coming off of it publicly.
I read it a little bit differently. Here's how I read it: It doesn't really make sense for me to invest y'all's money now because I kind of have enough money on my own. I'm just going to invest my own money and not have to deal with any of you guys. I don't need to play this game of fees and carry, which will just make me want to raise a bigger and bigger fund, deal with more of you guys, and deploy more and more capital, which takes more time.
If I just invest my own money, I'm going to do much better. I'll make more money because I'll own 100% of my upside. Secondly, I don't have to deal with any people. I don't have to deal with anybody. I don't have to go fundraise. I don't have to write updates. I don't have to do any of this stuff.
So I kind of read it as, when I was famous but not rich, it was great to raise a fund. That was the only way I could invest a bunch of money. But now I'm rich and famous, and I don't need your money anymore because it comes with problems, right? It comes with work. | |
Sam Parr | has your has your mini fame exhausted you | |
Shaan Puri | No, not at all. I don't even really feel that famous at all, so I don't like it. I don't feel like I'm high up.
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Sam Parr | all the time to do shit | |
Shaan Puri | yeah but I just say no I just say no all the time so like | |
Sam Parr | Me too, but I find it to be tiring. For example, this young guy knocked on my door last week. He goes, "Hey, I was wondering, do you have a dog? I want to make some extra money; I would walk your dog for you."
I said, "Fucking A, good hustle! I appreciate that, but I'm not just going to give my dog to you. Write up a letter, tell me all about yourself, and put it in here. I'll determine if I think you're a good fit."
He did it, and I've been losing sleep each night because I don't need someone to walk my dog, but I want to give this guy a little bit of money.
I've been keeping up at night for like 5 or 7 days, thinking about how I'm going to reply to this guy. I get messages and emails, and sometimes I get it from people I love who want me to do stuff, and I'm like, "I don't want to do this." How do I say no?
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Shaan Puri | You should just say, "Look, you know, I would just be... you should just say completely exactly what you're saying, which is: I think your hustle was awesome, which made me want to say yes.
But I also realized I don't actually need somebody to walk my dog because I enjoy walking my dog. So let's do this: I'm going to pay you for a week of walking my dog. You don't have to walk my dog because I want you to be rewarded for what you're doing. I think it's really great, and I remember when I was you.
So, you know, here's this money. I need to sleep easy at night, and I also want to walk my own dog. And hey, if you ever want to do something else, you know, like maybe if I ever have a job for someone who I need a hustler to do something, I got your number. | |
Sam Parr | set up that | |
Shaan Puri | you'll make his day and then you'll be able to like chill out and not have to think about how | |
Sam Parr | He's gonna do it. I was just gonna Venmo him like $50 and be like, "I want to reward you, but make..." | |
Shaan Puri | It’s about making it a **magic moment** for him. So, like, this is a game I've been playing, and I think you should do this as much as you can. I'm really just giving myself this advice.
Let's say there's a situation like this. You could just say no, or you could be nice and give him $50. But what would make it feel amazing is probably just a little bit more than $50 and some message, like the thing I just said, which will make him feel like, "Oh shit, this guy's awesome!" He'll feel recognized for being awesome; he got validated for this hustle that he was doing.
Tony Robbins tells a story about being in a restaurant. The waiter was great; he had a big group, like a family dinner, and everybody needed something different. The waiter was so kind, hustling, making everybody laugh, and he even did a magic trick for my daughter. He was this young kid, about 21 years old or something like that.
At the end of the dinner, I already knew, "Hey, this waiter was great, and I'm going to leave him a nice tip." But then he said, "Who'd you say did this? Tony Robbins?" His kid suggested something, and he realized, "You know what? I'm not just going to leave him a tip. What would make this a magic moment for this kid? How can I do this?"
He decided, "Alright guys, when this guy comes out with our to-go boxes or whatever, like the final thing, we are going to give him a standing ovation in this restaurant." Oh!
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Sam Parr | my god | |
Shaan Puri | And he's like, he gets the whole table to stand up. They just start cheering for this guy as he's coming forward. He's like, "What is everything okay?"
And then he just says, "I need to talk to your manager."
He's like, "What?" He brings the manager over and just says, "Look, you know I've been coming to this restaurant for a long time. This is the best experience I've had. This waiter was amazing, and he really just made the night for our family. I just want to thank you for that. Thank you for hiring this kid."
He just kind of made the kid feel like a star. I think the story goes on, which is like, I think his daughter ended up marrying this guy or something like that. It ended up being some crazy story.
But just, he kind of left that nugget. He goes, "Just think about what's the little extra 10-20% you could do." It didn't take that much more effort to just stand up and clap for the guy. A little bit embarrassing, I guess, but...
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Sam Parr | that's embarrassing | |
Shaan Puri | Unorthodox, but it didn't require more money or more time. It was just a little creativity in how to make this guy feel like a little extra.
So, I've been doing that from time to time. I'll just see a situation and I'll go, "Okay."
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Sam Parr | dude you cheered you stood up and cheered or you're like not | |
Shaan Puri | In a restaurant, I haven't done anything I didn't want to do. It's the exact same thing, but I use this idea of making it a magic moment for the person.
It's like, you know, I could just do this, which would be the normal good thing, but what would make this really pop off? What would make this something that they will remember tonight? They'll go tell somebody that this happened for them.
Then I do that thing, and I never regret it. It's always like, you know, if my intention is good, even if the execution is slightly awkward, I'd rather be the guy that does that than be in my shell, you know?
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Sam Parr | I think I agree. Alright, fine. Lucky, lucky kid! I'll have to send him this podcast.
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Shaan Puri | alright we should wrap it up and yeah we're good | |
Sam Parr | alright that's the episode |