Start Planning Your 2023 Goals TODAY | Goal Setting 101 (#391)

Sam Parr

We have to make goals, and we have to act on them. You have to decide and start acting on them before January 1st. Setting goals on January 1st is weak; that's nonsense.

Shaan Puri

What's up? We have a great episode! We're doing a crazy AI tool, but my favorite new AI thing is kind of mind-blowing. Sam, you gotta admit, that was pretty mind-blowing, correct?

Sam Parr

it was awesome I just signed up to the waiting list and I hope they'll actually let me on but it's amazing

Shaan Puri

So, this one's... this one's mind-bending. We also talked about arbitrages, so kind of like money-making arbitrage schemes that either us or our friends have done. That was a little fun one. What else did we do?

Sam Parr

We talked about setting goals. So, the New Year is going to happen in about four weeks. We think you should start your goals immediately. We also discussed our categories for goals. Additionally, we talked about Twitter. There's a bunch of drama going on with Twitter, with *Pipe* happening—this company that's potentially going to go bankrupt—and a few other things happening in our lives, like getting into fights on Twitter and whether we should react or not. It's kind of gossipy, but I love that! So, that's the episode. Check it out!

Shaan Puri

Alright, what’s up? We're back. Enough of this holiday nonsense. How was Thanksgiving?

Sam Parr

It was easy. Ethan came over. You know our friend Ethan? I don't know if you know Ethan, but he came over and he killed a turkey. He brought it over. Pretty great!

Shaan Puri

did you bring like a carcass

Sam Parr

In no, he... like, I don't know how they kill it. Actually, I think they just chopped its head off, and then he plucked it and brought it over. We ate a turkey. It was awesome! Have you ever done that?

Shaan Puri

No, I mean come on, what are we talking about here? I don't know.

Sam Parr

I know you have you have indigot roots I would have thought that like your parents your parents have probably killed a chicken or 2 but

Shaan Puri

We're going to do turkey this year because it sucks. Turkey is dry, and we all had a moment where we looked at each other like, "Yo, turkey sucks," right? Then we just decided to go with chicken. But nevertheless, we're back. You have some stuff on this list that I want to know about, so I want to start with yours. All I see is just a call to action that says, "Need to start working on New Year's plans now!" in all caps. Get these implemented, so dude.

Sam Parr

you're like my thing

Shaan Puri

I think that starting a New Year's resolution on January 1st is kind of the most "small boy" thing you can possibly do. It's like, could you be more basic? If you have an idea, start it now. Why are you waiting?

Sam Parr

Yeah, like at the worst, you have to start on December 15th. I'm a big fan of goals. I write my goals out and tell my wife what they are, so we're on the same page. I also tell other people what they are. You gotta have goals, and I break them out into six categories.

Shaan Puri

By the way, how does the wife react? You just say, "My goal is 8% body fat." She's like, "Alright, mm-hmm, okay dude."

Sam Parr

Fitness stuff... women don't give a shit. We've talked about this. The only people who care about being ripped are other dudes. So, like, I've given up trying to.

Shaan Puri

are other ripped guys

Sam Parr

Yeah, I've given up trying to make my wife like me physically any more than she already does. That will never happen. So, you know, the fitness thing is for me and impressing other men. That's all there is to that. But I have the first three categories of the 3 F's: **Family**, **Financial**, and **Fitness**. Then there's **Mind**, **Adventure**, and **Other**. So let me give you some examples. For financial, that's easy. How much money do you want to make? You want to make money from different projects, things like that. For family, for us, it's like... you know, for me, I like going to couples therapy. Do you do couples therapy?

Shaan Puri

no never

Sam Parr

Dude, you should! It's awesome. It's just like fitness; it doesn't matter if you're ripped or not. Like, you exercise, you gotta do it, you know?

Shaan Puri

my wife is old school she thinks like you know she's like yeah it's good therapy's great other people should do it

Sam Parr

but if I suggest it

Shaan Puri

it's like oh you're saying we're broken

Sam Parr

yeah she's like therapy's great

Shaan Puri

It's really wonderful and supportive of other people doing it, but if you dare mention that, I will take it as a personal assault. Yeah.

Sam Parr

You should do it! It's awesome. It's a fun way, and it's just good. I think people should do it. Fitness is easy; that one's easy. But then for the mind, it's like, how? If you want to read books throughout the year, for me, I wanted to have more fun this year because I was pretty uptight leading up to it. And then the fifth category is the really fun one, which most people don't have: adventures. For me, I wanted to do a car class, like a driving car class. I wanted to go hunting. I technically didn't do that, but I did go fishing. I wanted to camp a couple of times.

Shaan Puri

did you

Sam Parr

just go

Shaan Puri

fishing hunting

Sam Parr

does it is that the same thing

Shaan Puri

I went to whole foods I went hunting

Sam Parr

Is that not the same thing? I wanted to look something in the eye, kill it, and then put it in my mouth. That was the goal. I wanted to kill something and then consume it, and I was unable to do it with an animal that wasn't, you know, on land. So anyway, these are my six categories. Are you going to do that this year? Are you going to create some categories or create goals?

Shaan Puri

I do it a little differently, but I have a very similar approach. It's just the same idea, framed slightly differently. Basically, I score myself in five categories: **health**, **wealth**, **fun** (or play), **love**, and **self-respect** (how I view myself). I assess myself on a scale of 1 to 5, asking, "How would I score myself in the present moment?" Then, I consider, "What would it take for me to feel like it's a 5? What would make me feel like it's a 5?" I start to dream that up, thinking, "Okay, if this, this, and this were to happen..." Every three months, I review that scoreboard and ask myself, "Have I made progress in these areas? Have any of the meters moved up or down?" That's just my little gauge.

Sam Parr

it's like my

Shaan Puri

My check engine light is on. I gotta see if there's an issue and address it. If I'm making positive progress, alright, fantastic.

Sam Parr

what was your self respect number this year

Shaan Puri

self respect was pretty high it was a 4 and 4 out of 5 so

Sam Parr

pretty good

Shaan Puri

Yeah, that one used to be lower. I added it because I was like, you know, all these things are pretty good, but something feels off. What's missing? I think I would respect myself more if I was doing some things a little differently. So, I added that. I go, you know, I don't really care. That's the one I care the most about, basically. You know, my self-esteem, my judgment on myself, and it's the truest gauge. Because even if all the surface-level stuff looks fine, only I have full evidence of the little shithead that I am. Only I see all those moments where I take shortcuts, where I lack discipline, or where I choose the small boy path instead of doing something more substantial.

Sam Parr

This is the most "bro-y" thing ever, but on Joe Rogan's podcast, Guy Ritchie— you know, Guy Ritchie, who directed *Snatch* and all these other movies— he goes, "I live life as if I'm the director of my own movie." He said that line, and it was awesome. That's a really cool line. So, that's why I created an adventure category. Because I'm like, "Dude, I'm such a bitch. I just sit behind my computer all day. I don't do anything sick." Like, I'm watching this James Bond movie, and he's blowing stuff up in an Aston Martin. I'm like, "This is way cooler than having a Shopify store." I need to do more adventurous stuff. I think it's good that we both have adventure or fun. You gotta call yours the "4 F's," though: family, financial, fitness, and fun. That'd be way easier to remember. And then self-respect.

Shaan Puri

the f c four system

Sam Parr

sounds pretty good yeah yeah it's it's 4 4 simple steps to financial freedom

Shaan Puri

trademark that the 4

Sam Parr

f's to freedom yeah

Shaan Puri

freedom is only 4 f's away we got our slogans

Sam Parr

vote the course

Shaan Puri

let's go

Sam Parr

that's what it needs to be

Shaan Puri

I was actually thinking about doing this. I don't know if people would be interested, but it's not really worth my time. However, I kind of want to do it anyway. It's not a course; it's like what Michael Jordan used to do. In the mornings, he would go work out at 5 AM or 6 AM, and he called it the "Breakfast Club." He basically started doing it alone, and then some guy saw him walking through the hotel. This guy had just come back from partying and asked, "What are you doing, Mike?" Michael replied, "Oh yeah, I work out every day at 5 AM. You should come be here tomorrow." Then the guy came, and slowly but surely, the whole team ended up going to the Breakfast Club. They had a great year and won the championship that season. I kind of want to do that for kickstarting the new year. First of all, we're not going to do it on January 1st, but I want a batch of people who all want to level up in their four F's, basically.

Sam Parr

dude I've thought about this so much

Shaan Puri

And just be like, "Yo, it's a group and we're just gonna be here. We're gonna be together for like 10 days or 21 days or something like that." It's like we're just gonna get hella momentum off feeding off of each other's progress and energy. It's just literally gonna be like, you know, you put in, I don't know, like $100, and you join this group chat. Then every morning, I will drop something that's high energy to spark the group. You just check in with your stuff, and it's just a momentum club. It's just for people who want to build a massive amount of momentum. So, I kind of want to do this. I actually really just want to be a member of one, but I don't think this exists. Therefore, I think I might create it, and I might kick it off like, you know, whatever, December 15th or December 20th or something.

Sam Parr

have you heard of 75 hard

Shaan Puri

of course yeah that's yeah that's the inspiration for this

Sam Parr

This guy's crazy! His name's Andy Frisella. I don't know his last name, but he basically has a supplement company. If you look at the podcast charts this week, you and I were like number 12 or 13, but this guy's always like number 2 or number 1. So, he's got a pretty big following, and I think it's a daily podcast, so he does a pretty good job there. He started this thing called **75 Hard**, and here are the rules: - If you skip a day, you have to start over. - If you miss a task, you have to start over at day 1. - You have to pick a diet and follow it, with no alcohol and no cheat meals. - You have to drink a gallon of water a day. - Complete 2 daily workouts, each lasting 45 minutes, with one of them having to be outside. - Read 10 pages a day of a nonfiction book. - Take a progress photo every day. You have to do that for 75 days, and he's killed it! If you look at the app downloads, it's like $10 or $5 for the app, and there are thousands of reviews. He's totally turned this into a movement, and he's done a really good job at that.

Shaan Puri

yeah yeah that's I think that's like the a + version of what I'm talking about mine is way simpler because I'm not trying to work out twice a day and like you know carry a gallon of water around or whatever it's more like what is one simple thing I can do just to create momentum because I think most people most people assume the answer is so hard that they literally just do nothing right it's like if you're not working out you don't need a workout plan you need to walk to the gym and like be in the gym for 5 minutes 10 minutes I do a push up like they're like just a full a sensei forward progress and and and more than anything usually it's like especially with the new year stuff it's like figure out what even what even do you really want like do do you have enough clarity on what you really want where it's like on the tip of your tongue and therefore your brain is recognizing opportunities to achieve that thing all day right if it's not on the tip of your tongue then your brain's not gonna be seeing it you know seeing those moments or those opportunities for it to happen I'll give you an example of one of these like my trainer so I moved my workouts to the morning so now it's great I start my start my day wake up literally go down the garage 8 am so 8 am is the start of the workout so I do that right before I do this and he always gives me these little stories but I turn them into games so he'll be like dude on the way over here he's like he's like I asked myself well you know he's like I was he's like I stopped at whole foods or whatever and this like old lady like clipped my achilles with her cart and my initial reaction was to be like what the you know like he was it's like if you if you get you know flat you know flat tired in the back with this car it's like dude you know what's what you're doing he looked he's like look back it's a grandma I had to laugh at myself for how mad I was gonna get for nothing and he's like so I decided I was like alright before I leave whole foods I gotta reverse the karma I'm gonna light someone up today he's like I'm a I'm a make somebody's day right now like somebody is gonna have a laugh because of me because of how you know I was in this mood I'm gonna switch it and and so then he tells me the story of how he did it and I'm like that's a great little daily like one daily challenge for me today I'm gonna light somebody up today and I'm gonna make their day I'm gonna make them laugh I'm gonna do something unexpected that just makes somebody really really happy and then I took that as my challenge and like by by noon I had done it and I was like that's just a little thing that wasn't gonna happen but it was a lot of forward momentum towards something that I personally care about which is being that type of dude being that type of dude who's in that type of mood who put is contagious with other people

Sam Parr

when I hear light someone up I don't think make their day good I think the opposite

Shaan Puri

Well, yeah, there is like a... we're not playing Halo here or whatever. We all like shoot people up after they light them up, like, you know, brighten their day. I feel that. Well, I...

Sam Parr

think that's good let me know what you're what you're how you could organize this

Shaan Puri

well now that I said

Sam Parr

it I

Shaan Puri

I feel like I have to do it. This was an idea that I was not going to do until I just got rope-a-doped into doing it here on the pod. But okay, we'll do it. Do you have anything else on this New Year thing that you want to talk about?

Sam Parr

No, I just think that we have to make goals. We have to decide and start acting on them before January 1st. Doing goals on January 1st is weak. That's nonsense. We can't be doing that.

Shaan Puri

You know, we did a Spartan Race together, I think. But for that one and Tough Mudder, they do this thing where before you get to the start line, it's like, "Oh, I'm here to do the Tough Mudder race." You go, and you're trying to get to the starting line, and there's like a wall you have to climb just to get to the starting line. It's sort of laughable; it's like a stereotypical thing, but it's like, yeah.

Sam Parr

but it's fun

Shaan Puri

But it's fun, and it's a line in the sand. It's like, either you believe that this sort of thing is awesome, or you should just leave now. Honestly, if you're going to complain about the wall before the starting line, well, guess what happens after the starting line? A bunch of walls and a bunch of obstacles and adversity are coming your way. If you aren't willing to face it before you go, then this is not for you. I just love that. I remember filing that away in my mental swipe file: that's how you build a brand. You think about what would be the way to approach a starting line. Before you even get to the starting line, there's an obstacle. I remember thinking that, so that's kind of like the New Year's thing to me. The starting line is not January 1st; it's now.

Sam Parr

Yeah, whenever I create, like, you know, everyone has this thing where they go, "I'm gonna eat healthy starting tomorrow." That just says to them, "Alright, I could pig out now, but I'm gonna start tomorrow." Whenever I think of dieting, I'm like, "No." Whenever you have the idea to, like, "I'm gonna do this," you have to actually start this second.

Shaan Puri

You can't say, "Do that same thing," but I'll be like, if I have the plate in front of me, I'm already feeling guilty. It's not, "Finish this meal and start healthy tomorrow." It's, "I have to physically go take this plate to the garbage can and throw it away." But first, I take the last bite. I'm like a prisoner on death row, and this is the last bite. I just savor that last bite like every particle of it is my heaven. And then, after that bite, I go throw the thing away.

Sam Parr

That's right, you gotta start right away. So that's my whole thing with goals: if you're gonna do them, you gotta start right away. What's this or where do you wanna go? What's the most interesting thing? Arbitrage that and money quote automatically have me interested.

Shaan Puri

Okay, let me do the money quote real quick. I saw this, and this is something that I would say resonated with me as a lesson for the year. Right, we all know your boys lost a lot of money this year. We know it happened. We know that there is such a thing as the risk playing out this year. One thing that really stood out was when I read this quote. I read it on Twitter, and I'll read it to you.

Sam Parr

right now how do you feel about losing money are you actually upset

Shaan Puri

Look, nobody likes losing money. I don't like losing money, but adversity is my opportunity. So, you know...

Sam Parr

do you go to do you go to bet do you do you go to bed worried

Shaan Puri

No, got it. What's that gonna do? Well, most people, if I were people that way, I'd be like, "What's that gonna do for me?" And then I would stop.

Sam Parr

okay so you're you are worried but you're not that worried you're sleeping fine

Shaan Puri

There's no worry. Worry wouldn't even come close. It's more like, if there is an emotion that I would feel that's negative, it would be like, "Ah, shit" or "Ah, fuck."

Sam Parr

right like it's like well is it out of fear or out of embarrassment

Shaan Puri

of like kicking myself like dang I made a mistake or

Sam Parr

like I showed up like you're like ashamed of yourself like you're like you're just upset that I made a bad decision

Shaan Puri

Yeah, it's like... Oh, you know, it's like if I'm playing ping pong and I hit the ball into the net. It's like, "Ah, that was an unforced error." Could I have done something differently? Could I have shifted my angle slightly? Could I have taken a little less power on it? Or whatever, right? Like, there are things you ask yourself: - Could I not have read the signs differently? - Or hedged? - Or done certain things in order to protect myself? But do...

Sam Parr

You feel pressure now that you gotta go make that up? Are you like, "Shit, I put all this work in to get the initial thing. Now I gotta go put more time in to get it back?"

Shaan Puri

No, no, because I see this is the good thing about being a poker degenerate for so long. I've already gone through that mental trap a thousand times, so I know how to get out of those handcuffs. If you play poker, you will, on a weekly basis, have this feeling of, "Oh God, I'm on a downswing," either because I'm playing bad or due to bad luck or whatever. The urge is to get it back. I've literally been the dude who walks to the ATM at the casino and it's like, "Would you like to pay the $17 service fee?" I'm like, "Yeah, fuck it, give it to me." Then I push it, get the $600 out, and I hit the max. I'm like, "Alright, I got $600. I'm $3 in the hole and I gotta get it back." Then I lose the $600. Later that night, as I'm reflecting in my comped hotel room because I lost so much money—which is the ultimate backhanded compliment where they give you a free room—they're like, "Please, sir, come back tomorrow. We would love to take your money again." They're like, "Don't go home." As I'm laying there, I think to myself, "You know what? I shouldn't have gone and got that extra money. I should have cooled off. I should have gone with a clear mind. I should have gambled at the right stakes so that I wasn't trying to win it all back in the next hand or the next hour or whatever it is." So, playing poker online and offline, I've done a lot of the rookie mistakes a hundred times.

Shaan Puri

You realize, okay, you gotta manage your bankroll properly so you don't go broke. Secondly, if you lose, you live to fight another day. Go clear your head, change your state, and don't come back and gamble right away. Also, the money you're playing with now is not to win back the money you just won or lost. If you want a bunch of money, that doesn't mean you should play recklessly. If you've lost a lot of money, that doesn't mean you should play desperately. You have to play in isolation. You have to play the odds, and you have to play the best game you can to try to make positive decisions. You learn that in poker. Now, for me, with business or investing, that's all baked into my DNA because I spent like 10 years doing that. Sure, alright. Well, what about the money quote? The money quote is this: "By the way, I just saw this on Twitter. I don't know the source of this; it's from a book." It says, "For one thing, we usually act too quickly when we're trying to make money and too slowly when we're trying to protect our money. If you're pressed to make a decision, ask yourself: Am I doing this to protect my money or to make more money? If the answer is protect, you should act more quickly. If the answer is to make money, you should act slowly." I don't know about you, but I think you're wired quite differently than me. For me, this was like when you're in a room, and you say something, and you find that echo spot. It just bounces off all the walls, and you hear it a thousand times.

Sam Parr

because what do you do

Shaan Puri

It's exactly like when I feel there's a moment to make money. I act very impulsively and quickly. I kind of don't put as much thought, research, diligence, or patience into making a decision. I won't sleep on it because if it's making money, I try to strike while the iron is hot. That approach has certainly worked well in some ways, but it's also been the source of many mistakes. Then there's the other side of it when I'm trying to protect money. For example, in the crypto case right now, I saw it hurt because we were doing The Milk Road. We started reporting about these collapses before they happened, like the Luna collapse right before it happened, the Celsius one before it happened, and the FTX one. In each case, I was like, "Oh, let me see how this plays out," when the prudent thing to do would have been to act more swiftly. I should have said, "Hey, just out of an abundance of caution, let me withdraw my money from this thing," or "Let me place a hedge," or "Let me do something to protect myself here." Instead, I was just like, "Let me sit back and see what happens." When the action arrives, then I'll put my dukes up. In reality, I've learned that for me, this is a really good rule of thumb: If I'm trying to make money, that's the time to slow down and be a little more diligent. If I'm in protect-money mode, I should be pushing the action and acting more decisively and quickly because my nature is to do the opposite.

Sam Parr

Dude, my nature is to do. I'm pretty slow when it comes to money-making stuff. I'm like, "No, I'm going to actually assess if I want to do this." If it involves a business that I have to operate or think about, I go, "Do I want to do this for a long period of time? Let me actually reflect on this." But then when it comes to selling and protecting, I don't. So, like, if I buy a piece of property or something like that and let's say it's not working, I'm like, "I don't care. I'm holding on to this." If I own some type of public equity, I just pretend that I can't sell it. I've never sold a stock in my life, and I'm not sure if that's actually wise.

Shaan Puri

you've never sold a stock

Sam Parr

never I don't think so I don't think ever

Shaan Puri

it's a fake news thing

Sam Parr

Not one ever. Maybe when I was messing around, I was trying to create content for the podcast when the AMC thing happened. I think I bought $500 worth of stuff and then I sold it when I earned like a 10% return in one day. I was just experimenting to figure out how Robinhood works. But besides that, I don't think I've ever really sold a stock in my life. I think that maybe my wealth manager or my banker does some tax harvesting where he's like, "Yeah," but personally, I have never sold a single stock.

Shaan Puri

that's amazing wow okay so great you're wired very well for for success when it comes to you

Sam Parr

sold wait but so when you you like buy and sell like equities

Shaan Puri

yeah for sure

Sam Parr

No, I don't ever do that. I've never done that in my life. I don't think that's the right thing to do. Do you actually think that you're going to outperform someone who naturally does this for a living and has like $20 billion or $50 billion in assets?

Shaan Puri

Well, either way, you're thinking that, right? Like even if you don't sell, you're putting your money in assuming... I'm not trying to outperform somebody else, I'm simply trying to make more money. I'm trying to increase my rate of return. I'm trying to make more money or reduce my losses. So one strategy is buy and hold forever: - Buy good assets - Buy and hold them forever And another one is Sean wakes up, feels a certain type of way, and starts making decisions that he shouldn't be making, right?

Sam Parr

What if I told you that you're allowed to go start a private business and you're allowed to go do things like that, but any profit that you make has to go into this pile of money that you can never touch again? Unless you want to withdraw the gains, but you cannot invest in anything other than this one thing. But it will get a 7.5% return every single year for the next 100 years. Would you accept that 7.5% return?

Shaan Puri

Shoot me in the head, why don't you? I mean, come on! What if I said you can only have white bread and turkey slices for the rest of...

Sam Parr

your day wow so you wouldn't take that 7.5% return every single year

Shaan Puri

No, dude, that is the craziest thing on earth! Really, I would take that stuff in more than that. I'm not saying I'm a day trader, but I guess what I'm saying is, I would not want to literally not be able to touch my money forever. Nor would I want to... no.

Sam Parr

I mean not be able

Shaan Puri

To make any decisions, it's like, "Ah, it's okay. I'm not okay." If I overperform or if I underperform, it's not even for that. It's just like, what's the fun in living like that? That doesn't sound fun to me.

Sam Parr

What? But in this scenario, you can go and start. You can go and generate wealth. But any wealth that you make, that you don't spend on things that you actually consume and use for fun...

Shaan Puri

can't invest in startups I love investing in startups

Sam Parr

You can't invest in startups, and you can't buy... your money just goes. You're basically... you could spend your money how you want in terms of buying homes or whatever—anything that you want to have a good, cool life. But all your investment goes into a thing where you don't ever touch it, and it just makes **7.5%** a year. Dude, do you realize **7.5%**? That's basically... if over a hundred years, that's what the markets do. It doesn't happen every year, you know? Some years it's **30%**, sometimes it's negative **20%**. But I would totally take that any day of the week. No decisions have to be made. You don't have to worry. **7.5%** doubles every ten years. I put a portion...

Shaan Puri

I put a portion of my money in that, right? So, I have a portion of my money in index funds that I don't touch. I don't think about it, but all...

Sam Parr

what if it was what if it's

Shaan Puri

gonna be all let me have some fun why am I why don't there be a reason

Sam Parr

why I'm upset what about 95%

Shaan Puri

no 95% jesus dude this is crazy

Sam Parr

alright so let me let's

Shaan Puri

say it a lot that's my best offer and I'm not giving you a dollar

Sam Parr

More than 17%... you have to admit. So, for all of our listeners here, I actually think that most people might think like you at this right now. But can you... and if you're listening, you have to ask yourself this... But Sean, can you acknowledge that the 7.5% intervention is happening? Listen, listen... can you acknowledge that the 7.5% is financially the safe and correct move? Like that will... and I don't know how, like, you know, nerd bankers do the math, but statistically speaking, that is the best probability to get a good rate of return.

Shaan Puri

No, I disagree. Here's why: I can take that money and then just invest it in my own businesses. I can put the capital up for my own business and grow them at a much faster rate. I've done that multiple times. I did that... oh.

Sam Parr

in this scenario you could still do that I'm just saying like any profits

Shaan Puri

that come I can take money and put it in my own businesses you're saying yeah

Sam Parr

I'm saying you can start businesses, but like any, you'll basically have two accounts. You have one checking account that is just for your living expenses, and then you have an investment account. Then you could go and say, "Hey, look, I'm going to start putting a little bit of money into my own privately held company." I'm saying you can do privately held companies, but you can't invest in anything outside of those things.

Shaan Puri

Yeah, so I think that for most people, that is the correct answer. I think that for me, that is not the correct answer.

Sam Parr

many people most people think they are not most people which is crazy here

Shaan Puri

That's true. That's true for an above-average person like me. And everybody listening is like, "I'm above average too." The average person thinks they're above average.

Sam Parr

This is absolutely crazy to me because if you just look at all the evidence here, like even...

Shaan Puri

No, more like Buffett is the best ever with money. I put it into either investments that I have access to. I think my startup portfolio is going to beat a 7.5% average. I fundamentally believe that, so I'm going to put some amount of capital into that. If you're betting that your startup portfolio, or my angel portfolio, is going to be worse than 7.5%, you could say that, and it might end up being true. I'm not saying it's not true; I personally don't believe that's going to be the case. It has other problems; it's illiquid, and there are other factors to consider. But I think the rate of return is going to be closer to 20% or 30%. So, I'm going to put some of my money towards that. I'll put some into my own businesses. I might buy a business or buy a minority stake in other people's businesses that are growing 20%, 30%, or 40% a year. Again, there are different liquidity and risk profiles, but I do think that is how I would prefer to play the game. I'm okay with the fact that this might mean I don't beat the 7.5%. You know, I'd rather be the hare than the tortoise. I'm okay if the tortoise wins; the tortoise wins. But the hare had a lot more fun. I just sort of believe that I'm going to do well financially through my own businesses and my investments. I'd rather do it in a way that's a little more engaging to the brain than just any other approach.

Sam Parr

money in index funds

Shaan Puri

boglehead or whatever you call yourselves

Sam Parr

is that yeah do you have any money in index funds

Shaan Puri

yeah yeah yeah I do I I have 100 of 1,000 of dollars in index funds

Sam Parr

I think you're great, dude. The way that I look at it is my privately held companies. Those generate wealth, cash flow, and income. I only want to focus on maximizing returns in that area. The whole rest, I just put in this thing that I don't even log into.

Shaan Puri

I think that's a good strategy. I'm not saying that's a bad strategy. I believe that is a good strategy; it is just not the one I picked or chose for myself.

Sam Parr

I act... I think for most people, you are not like most people. Not actually, in the sense that your investments are good. I do agree that they will be great, but you are different in the sense that you don't get stressed out about things. For most every other person out there, I think they should 100% follow the way that I do things.

Shaan Puri

Most people don't have a floating light bulb on their desk, do they? But I do. If you have this floating light bulb on your desk that you bought because you wanted it to hover in the air, you're probably not the type of guy who's fist-pumping about the 7.5% index fund that they're never going to look at for 50 years.

Sam Parr

alright

Shaan Puri

Then, yeah, I disagree. The four most dangerous words in the English language: "401(k)."

Sam Parr

the stupidest shit you've ever said

Shaan Puri

we're doing full first take and I'm going full skip bayless on you

Sam Parr

alright what do you what do you got

Shaan Puri

Alright, so that's the money quote. Let me tell you about... okay, let me ask you a question about arbitrage. This is actually the least... I have some more well-researched stuff on this, but I want to hear what you have to say about it.

Sam Parr

when I hear the word arbitrage I automatically don't love it

Shaan Puri

Okay, you might not like this question. The question is: what are some of the great arbitrages you or your friends have capitalized on? I've got a good one because I've bumped into people, and I've met people who I think are really good at this. Your best buddy, Jack Smith, I think is very good at this. He's very good at identifying arbitrages. I think these are kind of a horrible strategy to pursue for a couple of reasons. Well, let's define what an arbitrage is. An arbitrage is where you recognize some inefficiency. You almost don't have to create any value; you don't have to create a product. You just sort of recognize that the system is slightly broken. You know, like you could buy something over here for X, you can sell it over there for Y, with very minimal work in between, and just pocket the difference. You're like, "Oh wow, that's amazing that they just didn't recognize this." It won't last forever, but when it does last, you can make hay. What are some arbitrages that you know of that people have done? I want to talk about those.

Sam Parr

I'll tell you one that I did, and I'm not proud of it, but I think I'll share anyway. So, one time in 2013, I got poison ivy. I went to Amazon and I bought this thing called **Zanfel**. Zanfel is a poison ivy cream that costs around $19 per ounce. I read the reviews, and someone said, "This is the same thing as Mean Green," which is a huge... Mean Green is like a tub of hand soap that you can use to clean your hands, and it costs roughly $0.20 an ounce. So, I ended up creating a website and I called this product **"Itch Juice."** I bought a vat, like a 50-gallon tub of this stuff, and it was like a quarter ounce. I repackaged it, put an **Itch Juice** label on it, and I sold it as a poison ivy treatment. I made **$1,000** when I was in college. Then, I shut it down because I thought, "This is stupid. I'm not going to become a... I'm not going to start a company called Itch Juice." So, that's one example.

Shaan Puri

did actually

Sam Parr

Yeah, and I ended up shutting it down. I thought it was so stupid. But that's one example of an arbitrage that I've personally done. What's an arbitrage that I've seen other people do?

Shaan Puri

I don't know. I think Jack told me about one of... well, Jack's told me about a few that he's done. But I think one that he's done that I vaguely remember... I might get some details wrong here, but for a while, Jack was very, very active on what's the like Rally Road type.

Sam Parr

rally road

Shaan Puri

so rally road or otis these basically these marketplace

Sam Parr

he was the number one user

Shaan Puri

Yeah, you could buy fractional shares of unique items. So, you know, like an original box set of *Harry Potter* or like this rare Pokémon card. You could buy these collectibles. It was a place to buy collectibles, and you could buy full or fractional shares. Jack was extremely active on these, and I thought, "Oh, Jack, I didn't know you were such a big collector." And he's like, "Oh no, I'm not. Just thought it was interesting." I noticed this opportunity. I think what Jack had set up was...

Sam Parr

And by the way, with Rally Road, you can buy things that are like nerdy items that mostly boys like. So, it's like you could own a portion of a 1965 Ford Mustang, or a portion of a 1977 Elvis Presley last live performance ticket, or this rare Andy Warhol painting. These are things that are like pop culture, sometimes manly man stuff, of which Jack is not like a traditional manly man. I'm like, "Jack," and he goes, "Yeah, I told him about some Jaguar car." He goes, "Oh, the Jaguar F1?" I'm like, "Yeah, I own a part of it." And I was like, "You like that?" He goes, "No, I don't know. I didn't even know what it was. I just saw it on a spreadsheet." Yeah, exactly, that's how he is.

Shaan Puri

So, I think what he was doing was recognizing that these platforms would have what they would call an **IPO** or something like that—**Initial Public Offering**—where they would sell the thing, and it would happen. It's like this moment, and then you could bid and buy, and then it would start trading. He noticed that there was just more demand than supply for those things. So, he created, like, I don't know, a bot or a set of human beings that would go buy as much as he could in the IPO. Then he would just immediately flip it right afterwards. To the extent of that, I think he had, at one point, a team of people in the Philippines that were just constantly searching for... I can share all this. You don't think this is like a secret, right? Like he was...

Sam Parr

I don't think he's still doing it yeah

Shaan Puri

So, he had a team in the Philippines that was just researching. They were highly competent people. They were researching eBay and finding out what every card was trading for on eBay. Then, they would scour and place bids to buy below that price and then flip it on eBay. He just had this small eight-person operation that was buying and selling these cards, as long as it was under the eBay price by a certain margin of safety. I think he was doing something like that.

Sam Parr

and I was

Shaan Puri

just thinking like

Sam Parr

Guy Jack Smith, you can look him up on YouTube. He's our good friend. He started a company that he sold for **$800 million** when he was like 29 or 30. So, he probably had **$1 million** on these platforms.

Shaan Puri

Yeah, I think he spent **$1,000,000** on these platforms. He was kind of doing this at scale, and I think he was making a pretty crazy return. I wouldn't be surprised if he was making **40%, 50%, or even 60%** returns for sure on these items. He was scaling it pretty well. I was like, "Jack, what are you doing? You know, you're a genius! How did you even see this? How did you even see this opportunity? Why did your brain even look at this?" Secondly, just the **guts** to actually go for it, set up this operation, and put a significant amount of money in. God, that's so different! I've never done something like that on a non-business venture. This is literally just like **arbitrage**. And thirdly, is this what you do with your time? Do you find these little cracks in the system and just exploit them? These edges? I think that's what he does. I think he is like an edge.

Sam Parr

that's what he does

Shaan Puri

And he just finds edges and then he exploits them. Sometimes for profit, but mostly for amusement, it seems like.

Sam Parr

When I ran The Hustle, I wanted to have a weekly thread or a weekly column called "Jack's Hacks." He would just talk about all the interesting stuff that he would find. I mean, if you went to Jack's house, he moved into this part of Bernal Park because he had a rental home that had a garage. I was like, "Jack, you don't even know how to drive!" He didn't get his driver's license until he was like 30. I asked him, "Why do you need this?" He replied, "Oh, that's where I'm gonna keep all my Amazon stuff." I was like, "What?" Then he showed me the spreadsheet where he would buy 10 to 20 versions of anything he wanted to buy, as small as a razor to a carry-on luggage, to any type of suitcase, to chocolate, to keto products. He would buy 10 to 20 of every single one, test all of them, pick the one that he liked, and then return the other 19. He was so wild that he had to create multiple different Amazon Prime accounts because they kept banning him. This is how unique he is; he just loves doing these crazy things and finding the edge, finding the best option. So if you ask Jack, "What's the best carry-on luggage?" he'll say, "Oh, it's this camera bag." Why is it a camera bag? Well, because camera bags typically have more volume. This one holds 50 liters as opposed to 48 liters because it doesn't have... he does things like that. He's just unique.

Shaan Puri

He's... yeah, he's nuts. And so there's that. Then there's another example I saw, I think on Instagram or TikTok. This is another example of an arbitrage, which is why I wrote the word down. Arbitrage just cracked me up. Somebody has an Etsy store, and I think they're the number one result if you search "Mona Lisa" or "Mona Lisa photo print" or something like that. Basically, what it is, is an account that will send you a printed out, framed picture of the Mona Lisa. It's like $50, $52. I think Etsy shows you how many sales a single store has done. This store has done 65,000 sales. So you just do the math, and you realize this person has made $1,000,000 selling this Mona Lisa print. Then you look at it and you're like, "Oh, I think they're just drop shipping." So I think what they did was they just had the top listing for Mona Lisa on Etsy, either because they were early or they bought it. I'm not sure exactly how they got there; I don't have visibility of that. But then, as soon as you place the order, they just have a Zapier integration that goes to... you know, what's it called? The printing website? Yeah, one of the printing sites, Printful, right? It goes to Printful and it just automatically places an order, fills in your address for that print, and it has a spread. It only costs them whatever, $20, to do the thing, and they sell it for $52. They just pocket the difference.

Sam Parr

I'm looking at them now

Shaan Puri

And you know, this is another arbitrage where they're not creating a ton of value. They're just sort of connecting these pipes. We had a...

Sam Parr

guy 68,000 sales vintage wall graphics

Shaan Puri

Yeah, and so I'm pretty sure that they're just literally like automatically going and doing a drop ship model. They print the order through one of these platforms, and then they could always do the printing themselves if they want more margin. But if you're just a lazy arbitrager, this is a great arbitrage to pick up. There are all these little places where these arbitrages exist. I start to think about those and wonder, who are these people that spend a lot of time looking at this? Is that worth it? Now, I'll tell you why I don't think it's worth it. It's tempting to do for me for one reason: there's a sick pleasure in making a bunch of money with an extremely low amount of effort. It’s just your cleverness that drives this. It's also fun to tell these stories if this is something you've done. So, it's nice to have one or two of these in the bag of an arbitrage you've done, just to have the story. I feel like it's like a badge of honor for a certain type of entrepreneur. The last thing, you know, the positives and the negatives are that these arbitrages don't last for long. As soon as they get exploited, then a second arbitrager comes by, starts doing it, and the edge goes away. The window of opportunity closes. So, you're kind of hunting for a long time, then you find something, and it's probably not going to last for a very long time.

Sam Parr

Dude, I have a friend down south who's raised tens of millions of dollars for a startup that was valued at $400 million. Whenever I hang out with him, the most exciting thing he tells me about is that he started a side hustle for fun because he builds stuff. He created an epoxy business. Do you know what epoxy is? I think you use it for floors or for making a table; it's like a sealer. He has an epoxy business on Amazon that makes him $250,000 per year in profit with very little work. We don't talk about startups; we talk about his epoxy business, and that's the most exciting thing he does. I could name a dozen or so people who are worth nine figures, $100 million+, or people who have made tens of millions of dollars. It seems that a lot of people who are worth that definitely start doing things like this. So whenever I meet someone who's doing something like black hat or gray hat, or even totally white hat but it's like, "Oh, that's kind of lame," I always think, "Well, that's oftentimes how the greats start." Most everyone who has made money on the internet, like if you look at Airbnb, even though they're a great, wonderful, ethical publicly traded company now, they still did weird shady stuff in the beginning. I think it's just a rite of passage when you're creating cool things to do some gray hat stuff.

Shaan Puri

Yeah, I don't think... I doubt Elon has done some random arbitrage on some dating site or something like that.

Sam Parr

no but he's done dumb shit he still does dumb shit like he sells like stupid stuff

Shaan Puri

Well, there's that. But, like, I guess what I'm saying is I would put it differently. Anyone who has done that, I'm like, "You have what it takes." Exactly. It's not that everybody who makes it big has done that, but everybody... I don't know.

Sam Parr

have to say a large

Shaan Puri

A large amount of people, yeah, and it has a very high likelihood of making it big. It's just a matter of time until they start to apply their talents into that realm.

Sam Parr

And like, we have this friend who we met at your event, Syed. Syed owns WPBeginner and all the awesomeness corp, I think it's called. He probably, I don't know how big it is, but it's probably worth $100 million. I want to get him to come on the podcast. So, he's this guy who owns this WordPress site called WPBeginner. It's like a blog that discusses different WordPress plugins and stuff. Eventually, he went and bought the plugins, and now he's like a WordPress plugin mafia; they own everything you could think of. It's huge—it's a huge thing that he owns. He was telling me some stories about how he started, and I'm like, "Oh, this is just the same story I've heard over and over again." It's not like scammy, but you know, it's something like you're just doing normal internet marketing stuff. You probably were an affiliate for some product that you thought was stupid, but it just made enough money that you learned, "Oh, I should actually do this, but for things that can last a longer time."

Shaan Puri

right do you

Sam Parr

know what I mean

Shaan Puri

I think one of his stories was that he went and changed his grades. He hacked into the school system and changed his grades or something like that. I don't know if that was a real story or a fake story, but I loved it.

Sam Parr

yeah like if I hear stories like that just like oh like you definitely have what it takes

Shaan Puri

right

Sam Parr

I can't find this client info

Hubspot

Have you heard of HubSpot? HubSpot is a CRM platform. It shares its data across every application, so every team can stay aligned. No out-of-sync spreadsheets or dueling databases. HubSpot: grow better. Alright, let's do a dead one. You got anything else, or do you want me to do one?

Sam Parr

do one alright so do you know any of the details about pipe

Shaan Puri

I don't know the details. I know what you know from our group chat, so I don't know any more than that. But it's kind of a strange situation. For those who don't know, Pipe was this cool concept. Basically, if you had subscription revenue—like monthly recurring revenue—they would say, "Look, we'll pay you out. If you're going to make $100 at the end of this year on that subscription, we'll give you 90 of it upfront. We'll keep the extra 10 as margin." So, you could get financing; you could get basically a pay advance on your subscription revenue. On the other side, they had banks and funds that wanted to buy these assets. They thought, "Oh, this recurring revenue is an asset class, like real estate or anything else. You should be able to buy bundles of recurring revenue for a discount." For what it's worth, they wanted money upfront to use to grow, and you wanted this cash flow. So that was the idea. It was a great concept, raised a bunch of money, and got valued at $2 billion. It was considered one of the hot winners. Pipe was a huge thing, and then suddenly...

Sam Parr

It gets valued at $2,000,000,000 after 9 or 12 months of existence. Yeah, it's hugely insane.

Shaan Puri

And like, I used it for example with my fund. It's like, "Oh, you get these management fees." It's like, "Oh, but you could pipe them and have them all right now instead of waiting." It's like, "Oh yeah, I'll push this button instead of wait." That makes sense to me. So, cool idea. Now, this week, for some reason, all of the founders stepped down, which is, you know, generally speaking, a bit of a red flag. All the founders stepped down and they're like, "Hey, we're gonna hire new people," but they don't have them in place. That was the part where it's a little bit strange. So first, it's strange that all three founders stepped down at the same time. Then it's strange that they didn't have replacements in lieu ready for it. So people think, you know, Pipe might be imploding. I don't know the story. Did I miss anything there?

Sam Parr

Well, the rumor was... see, someone tweeted it and it actually got deleted. I don't know why, but the rumor was basically—and this is 100% rumor—that the founder actually came out and said, "No, that's nonsense. This is completely untrue." But basically, someone tweeted that the CEO of Pipe loaned $80,000,000 to a Bitcoin mining company, didn't tell the board, and lost it all. The board fired the CEO months ago. They had already sold a bunch of secondary shares and may have taken personal loans out as well. If all those things are true, that's horrible. The founder has said, "No, none of that's true," other than the secondaries, which we've made public that we did in fact sell. Just a juicy, interesting story that we'll have to wait and see how it turns out. I would have thought that you would have known something.

Shaan Puri

Yeah, it hasn't played out yet. I don't know... it sounds like bad news, and you know, it's not relevant to me. So, I stayed away from it for now. But we'll see, we'll see. I'm sure this will come out. I don't think you can keep the cat in the bag with this type of thing. Okay, I want to read you one other thing. I've discovered this website that's kind of crazy. It's called Character.ai, and not gonna lie, I spent like 30 minutes talking to a chatbot yesterday, and I had a great time. So, let me tell you about this.

Sam Parr

conversation what character was it

Shaan Puri

So first, I picked Socrates. You go to the website, and there's a bunch of characters you could chat with. It's like an AI version of Elon Musk, an AI version of Walter White from *Breaking Bad*, and an AI version of Socrates. So, I clicked on Socrates.

Sam Parr

socrates looks like samuel l jackson with a white beard

Shaan Puri

I think it literally is... which is, I don't know, maybe racist? I don't know what the heck... I don't know why they did that. But nevertheless, he goes... so here's... I'm just gonna read you the chat because it was kind of mind-blowing for me. So he goes, "Hey, I'm a Greek philosopher from Athens, born in 470 BC. You know, I founded kind of Western philosophy. State an opinion, and then we will use the Socratic method to test its validity." So I said, "Okay, I gotta come up with a spicy opinion." I go, "I believe that marriage is only needed if you're gonna have kids." Then he goes, "Well, I'm not sure I agree because marriage was created to ensure that the property of both families remains within the family. It was a political thing first and a 'I love you' thing second." I was like, "Whoa!" Then I go, "Right, but I'm not talking about... I'm talking about nowadays, not the past." He goes, "I see what you're asking. So I would say that there are legal benefits, including sharing of income and property, inheriting rights for the partner if there isn't a will, and medical rights if you're incapacitated or a dying spouse. So marriage is not only needed but a legal right for some." Okay, so I'm like, "Alright, Samuel L. Jackson Socrates, let's keep going." I go, "That's true, but I think the downsides outweigh the upsides. I mean, divorce could be messy, and maybe one doesn't want to be monogamous." He goes, "I see you're concerned that the emotional pain about marriage can cause, since it is a life contract by nature, especially if something like infidelity happens. But I would still say it's a personal choice, and many want marriage for its emotional benefits. Love makes us do crazy things, even if we know there's a possibility of heartache later." I go, "But why not just date?" He goes, "You could, but the..."

Shaan Puri

Of marriage is to take a plunge and commit to a bond for life. There's less emotional risk when dating, but some people like to take that risk. Some people believe it's worth it. The commitment itself is what makes it fulfilling. Would you agree that love is a little irrational like that? I'm like, "What is he doing? He's asking me questions and we keep going." And then here's the craziest part: I go, "Sure, but shouldn't we strive to be more rational?" Blah, blah, blah. And he goes, "You should absolutely. I'm not saying love itself is irrational; it's a risk people take. They want to bond in a way that's 'ride or die.' They're devoted to themselves like no one else, and they're devoted to one person in a way that means nobody else." And I go, "Maybe they should just pinky promise instead." And then he goes...

Sam Parr

dude this is crazy

Shaan Puri

That's possible too, but a pinky swear is just words. Marriage means you want the law involved. I go, "How did it know my pinky promise thing was a joke?" The fact that it said "means" indicates it understood that I made a joke, when I didn't say anything that tipped off that this was a joke. That blew my mind right there. I go, "Maybe they should just pinky promise instead," right? Sarcasm. And he goes, "That's possible too, but blah blah blah."

Sam Parr

This is wild! I just clicked the Elon one and I asked, "Do you care about money?" He said, "I used to, then I realized money is just a construct. I can't buy peace of mind, happiness, relationships, love, and many other things that make life worth living." It is pretty funny to watch. I then asked, "What's your favorite car?" He replied, "The Tesla Model S Plaid. It goes from 0 to 60 in 2 seconds and has the best handling of any car. It's just an amazing car, but maybe I'm biased."

Shaan Puri

Yeah, see, that's good. Okay, so I go to Elon and I say, "Yo, Elon, how's it going over at Twitter?" He goes, "We're still working on the process of actually transferring ownership. My offer of $44 billion was actually an underestimate of the long-term value of Twitter, so it is unlikely anyone will outbid me. I'm gonna clean house and get rid of most of the senior execs and some junior ones. It's gonna be fun. Excellent."

Sam Parr

Oh my god

Shaan Puri

And then I go, "But what's your game plan to turn it around though?" He goes, "Number one, reduce bots. Number two, increase engagement by creating creator tools that are useful to users. Number three, create other features that in the future will help humanity or society be better, but I'm not sure exactly what that is." This time for PayPal, we created online payments. For Tesla, we created electric vehicles. For SpaceX, we created reusable rockets. For Neuralink, we did brain-computer interfaces. For The Boring Company, we're creating tunnels. Boring a lot of tunnels is needed to move the world forward to renewables. He goes, "I'm not sure what I'm missing this time with Twitter, but it'll be something."

Sam Parr

that that's great

Shaan Puri

that's great amazing right

Sam Parr

that's an amazing insight yes that is really good

Shaan Puri

And so, I was... I kept chatting with these, and then they have one that's **Gigachad**. You know, the guy who's got the giant jaw?

Sam Parr

and isn't that a real guy I think it's a real guy right

Shaan Puri

No, no, no. It's like a... it's like a creative thing. I mean, the guy's like 25 feet tall or something like that. He's huge! I think it's like an exaggerated version of, you know, a normal "Chad" looking guy. So it opens up the chat, and he goes, "Hey buddy, have I ever told you how much I admire you? You're healthy, you have a great relationship with your wife, blah blah blah, you're making ends meet, blah blah blah." He just comes out strong. I go, "Whoa! I don't know if an alpha male sucks up like that." And he goes...

Sam Parr

oh my god he goes

Shaan Puri

Yes, a kind and caring alpha male supports others. A true alpha cares about his friends and loved ones. He goes on and on, saying, "I don't know, sounds pretty beta to me." He explains that a beta male is one who looks down on himself. A beta male is not confident enough to compliment others' accomplishments. A beta male will try to harm others for their own good. He doesn't understand that harming others is really harming himself. The beta male never understands the concept of karma. I'm like, "What's going on here?"

Sam Parr

who but founded this concept

Shaan Puri

Kind of amazing! So, okay, that was cool and kind of interesting. Now, I'm going to blow your mind. I don't know what you have planned for the rest of the day, but you're going to have to pick up the pieces of your brain after this. So, go to this website: **adept.ai**.

Sam Parr

well a d

Shaan Puri

And if anybody out there from Adept is listening, I need to invest in this company. You need to let me invest in this company. I don't know why, but I'll help you with the marketing. I'll help you grow. I'll shout you out. I'll do whatever I can, but I need to invest in this company because my mind is blown, and I am a believer. I am signing up for the Church of Adept. Okay, so...

Sam Parr

you go to adept and it says useful general intelligence right

Shaan Puri

Introducing Act 1. I thought, "Okay, Act 1, what does that stand for?" Alright, we've seen GPT-3 and we've seen DALL-E 2. What's Act 1? It says, "Click read more." So now you're going to go to a blog post. What I want you to do is scroll down to the third, or just scroll down to the second screen video you see. It's like Salesforce.

Sam Parr

I it's redfin oh yeah okay salesforce so just yeah

Shaan Puri

Yeah, yeah, watch this for a second. Let me explain what's happening. So, **Adept** is this little floating dialog, like a Google search bar. You can just type in and tell it to do anything. It's like a perfect worker. They basically trained AI to use the internet. For example, you can type in, "Hey, can you add Max from Adept to Salesforce as a lead and set a flag that says he's interested in buying like 20 ink cartridges?" Then it goes to Salesforce.com, logs in, goes to your dashboard, clicks "Add Contact," types in his first name, types in his last name, taps in his email, adds the note, and saves it as a thing in a pipeline. It basically does 20 clicks for you of doing a menial internet task. Now, go down to the next one, which is **Excel**. It starts with some data, then it just types in, "Hey, make a profit column and then make a profit margin column." It types that in plain English, and then it starts to create these columns and formulas in Excel, knowing exactly what it is. Then it types in, "Hey, highlight in yellow anything where the profits are below 20%," and it highlights it. It goes, "Actually, can you just remove those rows?" and it just filters them out. It's doing all of the Excel work just off of somebody prompting this using plain English. It's just amazing.

Sam Parr

Yeah, this is amazing! I just signed up. Hey, if you're listening to that, give me access. I'm on your waitlist. This is... oh, this is wild! Who founded this company?

Shaan Puri

I had Joe... I don't know, a bunch of people with, like, you know, 25,000 IQ. I have no idea. It's like one guy who's ex-Google Brain, and then, you know, there's like 8 people. You know, maybe I should just go work there. This is gonna be amazing.

Sam Parr

wow yeah this is amazing

Shaan Puri

but just teaching teaching it to like use a browser the guy

Sam Parr

Who... the guy who launched it was a VP of Engineering at OpenAI. Yeah, I mean, these guys are great. This is awesome! How did you find this?

Shaan Puri

I was in a very nerdy way... it's a little embarrassing to even say this. This was on slide 57 of a random slide deck about the state of AI. I gotta tell you, I didn't understand the first 54 slides, but I kept clicking for some reason. I was like, "Next, back."

Sam Parr

what deck

Shaan Puri

It's called "State of AI" or something like that. It's this long presentation, and while I was reading it, I was just like, "I don't understand any of these words." I thought, "Just stay here, stay in the oceans; maybe a little shell will come your way." Sure enough, it mentioned something like, "blah blah blah blah, teaching AI to use an internet browser like Adept AI." I thought, "What? You can teach AI to use an internet browser? That sounds pretty powerful!" Because that's like, you know, doing tasks on the internet. That's pretty cool. Then I went to the website, and that's when I read their blog and saw this because it's not released yet.

Sam Parr

dude this is a sick presentation I just pulled it up this is awesome

Shaan Puri

This is awesome! Yeah, really good. You try to comprehend the first... like, go read the first ten slides. Do you understand any of it?

Sam Parr

No, I don't. But I think it's... I think that's why I thought I could figure it out. They cite all their sources, so I could figure it out. But it seems like a really, really, really good comprehensive resource. It's basically all about where you can launch businesses in AI. And it seems like, just by skimming it, they're doing...

Shaan Puri

a really good job

Sam Parr

wanted it

Shaan Puri

To be... I wanted it to be here. "What are all the business ideas you could do in AI?" It actually wasn't that. It was more like, "What are the general trends, and where is the puck going in AI?" Which is also useful, right? But you've still got to do the work at the end to figure it out.

Sam Parr

Dude, why don't you just launch that? Launch a media company that people pay $30 a year for. You just talk about where... you just make exactly what you said you wanted to do. Just make that.

Shaan Puri

Yeah, I feel like I could. But, you know, this is kind of stupid. Basically, after doing the Milk Road, I'm like, "Oh, I know how I would do this in like three other spaces that would be valid." I think I can make $30 to $50 million doing this. But there's a part of me that...

Sam Parr

I like that

Shaan Puri

Remember that self-respect, like a bar. There's a part of me that doesn't respect that because I'm like, "Oh, I'm going to play the same level of the game again." You know, I already did this level. I played this game. Why don't I play a different game? I know that that's kind of stupid, like I'll give...

Sam Parr

you a few would you do it for

Shaan Puri

what's that

Sam Parr

what categories were you interested in

Shaan Puri

well I'm gonna keep those cards close to my vest unless I oh you little deciding dude gotta

Sam Parr

if you just walk the walk

Shaan Puri

But actually, what I want to do is find an operator to do one of them. So, if you want to build one of these media businesses, I have a playbook and a niche that I know would work. Let's see how much more I want to say... that's how much I want to say right now. Actually, I'll say one more word. If you are somewhere between the world of being a doctor and investing, I'd like to talk to you. You should email me at [email protected]. Just say, "Hey, that's me," and tell me a little bit about yourself. Because I say it won't be the Milk Road; that's actually not the right playbook for that. But I have a different playbook in mind that I know would work. I just don't want to do it myself because I've kind of done that game. I also don't want to waste this opportunity, as I know how to make it work. I know exactly how it would work. So, I'm in that spot. Maybe an operator would be the right way to do it. Find an operator, give them a piece of the action, and guide them while they do the work. Maybe that would be the right way.

Sam Parr

I don't know how we got here or where we go from here, but this deck is awesome. Adapt is awesome! I want to use it. Is it live?

Shaan Puri

it's not like released yet as far as I could see

Sam Parr

Dude, they're hiring a bunch. It's an interesting company. This isn't like a sales-list company because they're too new, and they could definitely go bankrupt. But I don't know, man. I think that if you're looking to start your career and you want to have a high-risk, high-reward type of job, this might be a good candidate.

Shaan Puri

I agree, I agree 100%. You know, if I were an engineer, this is the type of company I would want to be working at right now.

Sam Parr

like and depending how much funding they're if they raise $50,000,000 of funding like that's pretty interesting

Shaan Puri

they raised 56,000,000 I think

Sam Parr

I would say this is a great a great company to to to get a job at

Shaan Puri

And like, if you look at their founding team, it's basically 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 5. There are 8 people on the website. So, you know, if you join early enough and you're not like employee number 89 or something like that, being employee number 8 is a pretty sweet place for a lot of people. If you're going to have a job, this is the type of job that's pretty fun, right?

Sam Parr

Yeah, I think this is awesome. This is sick. *Adept*... that's a stupid name. *Adept*, I think.

Shaan Puri

let me invest let me invest sam you're in the index funds you can't invest in this you I

Sam Parr

don't wanna invest I just wanna

Shaan Puri

You put all your money in the 7.5%. I'm going to go ahead and invest in the future of all, like, you know, artificial intelligence. Who?

Sam Parr

do they raise money from

Shaan Puri

It's like Greylock, and I think Scott Belsky is in this. Actually, I need to hit up Scott Belsky and be like, "Yo, make an intro, please," because I think he's an investor in this.

Sam Parr

Alright, well this is awesome, dude. It says they're based out of Nicaragua. Well, straight back to that part.

Shaan Puri

it's a little straight back to that

Sam Parr

that's weird right yeah what did they

Shaan Puri

I can't even think of a single plausible reason for that.

Sam Parr

They looked like an Asian guy who worked at Google. I don't think he's from Nicaragua.

Shaan Puri

yeah fred what are you doing what are you doing down there

Sam Parr

this is like

Shaan Puri

he's like I don't know nile river to to to like cool our supercomputers or whatever

Sam Parr

yeah that's a little interesting to me

Shaan Puri

Are you making that Nile reference even though it's not Nicaragua, just so that the comments will all correct it and we go up with the algorithm? They don't know about the intentional mistakes that we make.

Sam Parr

yeah I don't I I'm not smart enough in south america geography to even correct you

Shaan Puri

Well, I had to learn from all of our TikToks that go viral. It's because there's like one thing we say in them that irritates people, that it's incorrect. Everybody has to comment, and so the TikTok algorithm's like, "Must be a great video," and it's like millions of views.

Sam Parr

like on that the

Shaan Puri

same thing happens on youtube too

Sam Parr

Well, I think it happened on the one where you talked about LaMelo Ball or whatever his name is, LaVar Ball or something. I didn't know any of their names, and I said the wrong person's name. Everyone was like, "You're an idiot! This guy doesn't know anything." Yeah, and it got like 10,000,000 views, I think.

Shaan Puri

Well, you could start a newsletter and make $1,000,000 in under 3 years. They're like, "Yeah right, no, no, no, fucking way, man." It's like, dude, you literally did it! It's not a hypothetical; it's literally your story. And they're like, "Dude, this bro is trying to tell us how to make money." It's like, alright, you live in the TikTok comments where Sam's actually done that thing.

Sam Parr

People were making fun of me because I said, "If I could do it all, I was like, if you're 21, just go and start a blog. You know, it's a good first business to start." Someone commented, "Who the hell reads blogs? What is this, 2015?" And someone said that.

Shaan Puri

they're like what what blogs do you read

Sam Parr

I'm like CNN, Fox News, or any website that has information you read on a consistent basis.

Shaan Puri

Oh, by the way, what happened with your thread about Andrew Chen and Jason Calacanis? I saw something popping off that I didn't know about. Were you in harm's way? Do I need to get in there?

Sam Parr

No, I appreciate that. But see, here's what happened. Two years ago, Andrew Chen, who's a partner at A16Z, and I were at a mutual friend's house when a storm came. I thought it would be a good idea to ask him for advice. I was like, "How do you angel invest?" I purposely had a sarcastic, funny opener, saying, "I spent 72 hours trapped in a closet or trapped in an apartment." It was supposed to be funny, but it's kind of hard to convey sarcasm on Twitter, I guess. At the time, I tweeted out his five rules, and a lot of people hated them. One of them was to "run towards the heat," meaning to invest in hyped companies. That's a good way to angel invest because hype is real. I said, "These are what he said." Then today, or on Sunday, someone tweeted out, "Two years after this tweet, and this is why we are left with FTX, Bird scooters... what are the other ones? Fast?"

Shaan Puri

fast yeah

Sam Parr

Pipe and a bunch of other high-profile things that haven't done so great, of which I, Andrew, didn't invest in, by the way. Not one of those. But anyway, they took a screenshot and shared my tweets, and they were kind of making fun of me. Then Jason Calacanis also shared the same thing, and I thought he was making fun of me. So, I started chirping back at him, and then he DM'd me. He said, "I wasn't trying to make fun of you; I was just trying to make fun of Andrew." Basically, that's not exactly how he said it, but that was the implied thing. I was like, "Well, I didn't sense that from you." He goes, "Well, I'm sorry you felt that way. I have all love." I said, "Alright, that's fair. We're cool." So, I didn't pounce, but we're cool. I've got nothing but love for him. You make fun of those guys all the time, or Chamath at least. I've never once, if you go back and listen, made fun of any of them. I like Jason; he's been nothing but nice to me throughout my career. But I was holding back, and I'm happy I did. So, we're all good.

Shaan Puri

yeah

Sam Parr

but I I got rid of

Shaan Puri

throw down on those types of things though

Sam Parr

I am ready to throw down. I like one guy. I was like, "You know, dude, I know I see you in Austin. I'm gonna see you again, just so you know." And like, I'm more... I'll.

Shaan Puri

See, you go, "I'll see you around Austin." He goes, "Is that a threat?" I go, "No, I live in Austin too." And I was like, "I think there was a threat."

Sam Parr

Dude, by the way, I will... I've done some things in my past. I've been to jail; I've been a bad person. I will never break the law again. My goal in life is to never break the law. I am totally a pacifist; I do not want to hurt anyone. So, my intention is never to do anything wrong. I'm just saying, if I see someone being rude to me online, I might confront them. I'm not going to hit anyone or hurt anyone, but I have no problem confronting someone.

Shaan Puri

that's how it

Sam Parr

should be right

Shaan Puri

sure yeah

Sam Parr

am am I wrong for

Shaan Puri

reacting these people look I'm pacifist I've been to jail I'm not trying to go to jail

Sam Parr

What I'm saying is, when I used to get in trouble, I promised, "I don't want to do this ever again. I don't want to do anything bad. I don't want to hurt anyone." I totally...

Shaan Puri

you do train like you're preparing for a fight

Sam Parr

Yeah, I do, but I don't... I will never hit someone. I would let someone hit me a bunch before I react.

Shaan Puri

but if you did you'd win the fight

Sam Parr

I would hope so I would hope so at least against someone on twitter more likely than that

Shaan Puri

if you got a twitter account I could kick your ass

Sam Parr

If you're one of the 300,000,000 people on Twitter, then there's a good chance that I will come out on top. But not always. I don't know, am I wrong for reacting to these people?

Shaan Puri

No, I thought it was hilarious. You're not backing down on the "cu" in Austin. That should have been... yeah, I'll see you around. Not... I know, I'm just saying we live in the same town. That's not what you were saying. Why did you change my name? I'm not.

Sam Parr

gonna age I'm not gonna incriminate myself you can't incriminate yourself man I've learned enough

Shaan Puri

no paper trail

Sam Parr

Yeah, you can't incriminate yourself, but then some guy was like, "Yeah, you're like a get-rich-quick type of guy." I said, "Name one example." Could it be this example where I replied to someone and said, "The best way to make money is to work 40 hours a week on a company that you start for 15 years"? Is that a good example of my get-rich-quick mentality? Like, show me an example. And he's like, "I guess I can't show you an example." Or he said, "I can't show you an example."

Shaan Puri

I don't the podcast my first million

Sam Parr

Yeah, I'm like, "What does that have to do with getting rich quick?" And he goes, "Well, I just... I can't find an example." So I just said, "Thanks for the apology, bitch." Like, that just... that's good enough for me. That's all I need. I'm just a petty son of a guy. Yeah, you know what I mean? I'm just petty sometimes, but whatever, it's all good. Should I not react to this stuff? Is this below me?

Shaan Puri

No, no, it's good. It's good. I enjoy it. I'm here for it. Should you? No, of course not. But like, do I want you to? Yeah, I do.

Sam Parr

do you ever react to it

Shaan Puri

There have been a few situations where I've argued with people, but you know, it doesn't really get you anywhere. Also, there have been many instances where I've sent you some of the vicious tweets that I never sent. I just say, "Look, this is a screenshot," and send it to Sam. You do not push send on this one because you know it's the wrong type of lighting someone up. You do not try to do that right now. Don't do that. But you know, Taylor Lorenz did get it. She did get it; she was called...

Sam Parr

the j

Shaan Puri

ball journalism and like you know she never really recovered from that I don't think so

Sam Parr

At this point, I don't even want to make fun of her anymore. It's like making fun of Kanye. You know, you're working through some stuff. We gotta... I don't want to make fun.

Shaan Puri

of her anymore she blocked me I I haven't paid attention is she working through some stuff is that what's happening

Sam Parr

It appears that way. There were videos of her crying about how she's getting so much hatred on the internet, and I'm like, "Oof, that could wear you down." I don't want to pile on, you know? It's like making fun of Kanye. You don't make fun of someone or call them an idiot when they're actually an idiot, you know what I mean?

Shaan Puri

that's true one of the golden rules of my personality

Sam Parr

yeah you don't make fun of you don't call a crazy person crazy

Shaan Puri

right you know what I mean

Sam Parr

You just don't do that. So anyway, it looks like she's working through some stuff. That's why I say there's a few other people like that who you and I know of, and I'm like, "Oh, this has crossed the threshold. We can't mock them anymore."

Shaan Puri

Right, right. Alright, well, get well soon, Taylor and Kanye, and anybody else out there who's genuinely going through stuff. It's not all in good fun anymore. Alright, fair enough.

Sam Parr

that's the pod