The Rise Of Russian Oligarchs & The Russia-Ukraine War

Sam Parr

This Ukrainian guy, their leader... this guy is badass. Have you seen him just wearing green t-shirts giving press conferences? Yeah, he's amazing. This guy's amazing.

Shaan Puri

This guy is... I don't know much about him. I don't know what's going on, I don't know what's like kind of media portrayal versus whatever else, but the guy does come across like a goddamn hero.

Sam Parr

Alright, let me tell you a quick story. I don't know if you're gonna like this topic, so I want to get it out of the way. If you like it, we could spend the whole time on it, but I'm not sure if you're gonna be into this. "I'm intrigued." Yeah, yeah. So it's about the most popular thing going on right now: the Ukraine-Russian conflict. It's not exactly about Ukraine, but it's about Russia. Something that I've always been interested in is the Russian oligarchs. So, have you ever studied those folks?

Shaan Puri

not studied but you know okay tell me about it

Sam Parr

Okay, so this starts... I'm reading a thing, so you're going to see me look off. This starts on November 3, 1995, in a remote Siberian town called Surgut. Basically, what happened in this small cabin is that an auction took place for the right to lend the cash-strapped Russian government tens of millions of dollars. So, in '95, the Russian government wasn't doing so hot, and they needed money. They got these banks to come to this meeting and said, "We need some money. We need to borrow some money." Also, as collateral, they were going to put up shares of some of the large state-owned companies. At this time, Russia was transitioning from being a communist nation to a more privatized country. They still had some state-owned oil companies and mineral companies. Basically, if you think of ExxonMobil, the government owned that. They were trying to figure out how to make this so private individuals could get involved. At this meeting, only two bidders showed up. If more bidders wanted to come, it was kind of a pain because, conveniently, there were no more flights. The airport shut down, and you couldn't even book a flight to come into this small town. By the way, your camera's okay? You're there? So, basically, what happened in this small cabin is that one company made a bid to loan money to the government. They loaned something like $500 million, which was about $100,000 above the opening bid. So, people were bidding to loan money, and this bank loaned money to the government. Then, the government had to pay back the loan at a certain point.

Sam Parr

Like a year later, if they didn't [repay], the bank was then given the collateral - the shares in this company - to auction off. They could keep 30% of the profits. Obviously, the government didn't pay back the money, and there's a lot of wondering why they didn't pay it back. Basically, the idea is that the current president was like, "Obviously this is all... we're all planning this, so don't pay this back and give us a little bit of whatever." So they don't pay it back.

Shaan Puri

Saying it's collusion, they basically... there was a handshake, wink-wink agreement about what's going to happen here.

Sam Parr

Yes, and so the government doesn't pay back the loans. Now, this bank basically has a minority ownership in about 12 large state-owned corporations. They holler at 8 to 10 guys who are already relatively successful and say, "Do you want to make a bid on this company? I'm going to make sure no one else bids on this company, but I'll give it to you. Are you interested?" And that's exactly what happened.

Shaan Puri

and why would they do that why would they hook up these individuals in that way

Sam Parr

They did it for three different reasons. The first reason, and a lot of this is just like hearsay... The first reason is the person who was president at the time. Who was it, Ben? What was his name? It was the fat guy who had...

Ben Wilson

a heart attack boris yeltsin

Sam Parr

Yes, he basically said to these 8 or 10 businessmen, "I'm gonna hook you up. You guys hook me up when I'm in office. Hook it up, I'm gonna hook you up, whatever." So that's one theory. The second theory is that they wanted experienced managers to run these companies. The third theory is that even though these 8 to 10 oligarchs put bids on these companies and basically bought the equivalent of ExxonMobil, we're talking about a company that's worth $1,000,000,000. They paid $100,000,000 for this company. These managers, these oligarchs, these 8 to 10 folks, a lot of them were mildly successful, but they were all in on the government. They were all friends, you know, they're all homies. They basically took on risk. These companies did have debt, and they had to collude with other people and fire the rest of the managers of the company. So it was basically almost like a private equity thing, but it was pretty dirty.

Shaan Puri

Alright, and then I forgot to tell you this, but this is the most important thing. I can't believe we didn't talk about this earlier, to be honest with you. Because if you're listening to this and you like what you're hearing right now, and you haven't gone and subscribed to the **"My First Million"** podcast wherever you get your podcasts, then that's the thing you've gotta do. There's nothing more important than doing that right now. And don't do it because I said to do it. Do it because you wanna do it. Do it because that's who you are.

Sam Parr

And the government was like, "Yeah, we need... we want these mercenaries to be in power because if they make these companies better, our government's gonna be better. Russia's gonna be better." And so they basically... profits after this whole deal, profits to these companies grew by 50x, market cap grew by 100x. So there's... here's an example. The reason I got interested in this is there's this guy named Roman Abram... What's his name, Ben? How do...

Ben Wilson

you say his last name I think it's abramovich

Sam Parr

we're gonna call him roman

Shaan Puri

So I think Ben even knows what the hell you're talking about right now, which is impressive. He's like a part of your brain that's outside of your body, and you're like, "Brain, what's that name?"

Shaan Puri

oh here it is

Sam Parr

Roman's famous. Roman (we're just gonna call him Roman) owns Chelsea, the soccer team. So he's like a famous guy, and he owns this, you know, 200-foot yacht. He's like a big deal. Basically, he paid $100 million. Him and his partner Boris paid $100 million, and they've just... they came up with a little bit of money and then...

Shaan Puri

went and hollered at like other rich people and

Sam Parr

They said, "Hey, loan us some money. Let's buy this company." They paid $100 million for a company that is now like the 8th or 10th largest oil company in the world. So imagine paying in the mid-nineties... imagine paying $100 million for ExxonMobil, right?

Shaan Puri

insane

Sam Parr

And so, these companies exploded. Now, they exploded partially because what these owners—these 8 to 10 oligarchs—did was they purposely tanked the company so it struggled for a long time. Then, they bought out the rest of the minority shareholders. So, it's again cronyism there. Secondly, these were government-run companies, so they were poorly managed. However, these private individuals did a pretty good job of making them better, and they became far more profitable. This created about 8 to 10 individuals who were worth up to $40 billion. At one point, one of them was worth $83 billion. You know, things have changed, but it created so much wealth among these few folks, and it also trickled down. Here’s the craziest part: a bunch of the managers of the company—basically, there was the Minister of Oil or something like that as a government official—he set up one of these companies and eventually became president of one of them. Now, he is worth $8 billion, even though he was a government official. I thought it was interesting because I actually wanted to read a book about these folks. I was like, "Oh, who's this rich guy that owns Chelsea Football Club? Let me go and learn from him." What I realized is that I pretty much can't learn from him. I mean, I could maybe learn some stuff, but his process is not replicable. I can't replicate it because he was like 38 when Russia had just fallen, and he basically turned $0 into being worth now about $20 billion—all through this cronyism. I thought it was incredibly interesting. Have you not heard about these folks?

Shaan Puri

I've never heard any of that in my life. It's crazy! It's like a... it's like the Big Bang for Russian rich oligarchs. It's like there was this one meeting and it kicked off this series of events that, you know, seems kind of unfathomable. How would that be allowed to happen or just happen? But then they also consolidate power, right? Like, didn't Putin basically take all their money and consolidate all their power?

Sam Parr

Here's the second interesting part of the story, and I actually learned this from listening to Ben's podcast: Basically, Putin was considered like the anti-corrupt guy for a minute. When he was elected, he was like, "You know, I'm not gonna stand for that nonsense," and he made an example of one of the guys... one of the billionaires.

Shaan Puri

his last name

Shaan Puri

starts with a k

Sam Parr

I'm not gonna try to pronounce it. It's... it's a challenge. He put this guy in jail for 14 years, and he literally put him in... So, in Russia, for some reason, they put you in these like cages and you could take pictures of these folks. Have you ever seen that? Like a Russian serial killer picture or anything? Like, no?

Shaan Puri

wait so it's like visible from the outside you mean

Sam Parr

Yeah, it's like the mugshot, but it's literally a cage that sits on you. People can come and take pictures. It's weird. Anyway, this guy was worth at the time like $15,000,000,000, and Putin arrested him for not paying taxes and things like that. He put him in jail for 14 years. He goes to the other guys and says, "You want that to happen to you? No? Alright, let's play." So, a lot of people think that Putin is the richest man in the world, right? He owns one of the most expensive homes in Russia, in the world. It's like a $1,000,000,000 to $2,000,000,000 house. People are like, "Whoa, how'd you do that?" And so, a lot...

Shaan Puri

of people think dollar house

Sam Parr

yeah ben was telling me all about

Shaan Puri

like $1,000,000,000 house wow I don't even realize that

Ben Wilson

It's got... it's like a skyscraper. Yeah, it is like this town complex. It's got private beaches, it's got pools on pools, it's got guest houses. Basically, it's got a hotel on it. It's like... "house" is maybe not the right way to think of it, but it is a house. It's a private residence for Putin.

Sam Parr

And... but basically, there's no proof of this, but a lot of people... Because even when the Panama Papers were released, they couldn't find Putin's accounts. But basically, a lot of people are like, "Well, so he made an example out of this one guy, and he went to the rest and goes, 'Y'all wanna play? Let's play.'" And... and now Roman, by the way, I...

Shaan Puri

was really hoping you'd attempt a putin accent there kinda disappointed not gonna lie the story is good but

Shaan Puri

it's just missing that little something

Sam Parr

I think that

Shaan Puri

You or Ben giving it a shot? Ben, I think you have a little bit of the Russian twins in your speaking. You could...

Ben Wilson

yes they say me I they tell me I speak good in russian accent

Sam Parr

I will is this like racist can I do this is this okay I don't know

Shaan Puri

don't worry

Sam Parr

it's borderline

Shaan Puri

that's I

Sam Parr

don't think it's a race

Shaan Puri

This... we are... we have the cancellation vaccination. You're allowed to do a funny accent here and people as...

Sam Parr

long as russian

Shaan Puri

if you're listening and you took that too seriously just swipe over and delete the podcast and go on with your life

Sam Parr

and to wrap this up basically the way that these guys all work now is

Ben Wilson

a lot of these oligarchs

Sam Parr

Are part of the peacekeeping efforts. They're helping Putin negotiate peace. The way that this situation is intertwined is just bananas; it's crazy. I was trying to learn about these folks, and I thought, "Oh, well, there's nothing to learn here. I can't do this. This is just crazy." These guys are so wealthy, and it's trickled down. A lot of them, when that happened, were in their thirties, like 35 or 38 years old. That's why I got interested in this. I remember years ago reading about these folks and thinking, "How does a 38-year-old become worth $3 billion? What the hell? How does a 38-year-old become CEO of a diamond mining company?" And it was... that's.

Shaan Puri

a stupid question what does the word oligarch actually mean

Sam Parr

I think it just means when there's a small group of people that are in power, but basically it...

Shaan Puri

sort of like a cartel basically

Sam Parr

yeah not well that's like what do you

Ben Wilson

Say, Ben, it's just like the way that it is classically defined: - Over here you have a **monarchy**, which is ruled by a single person - Over here you have **democracy**, which is ruled by everyone - **Oligarchy** sits in the middle, like rule by a few people

Shaan Puri

a handful right

Sam Parr

Yeah, but when we talk about Russian oligarchies, a lot of times people will say that just means like Russian rich people, Russian wealthy people. The way that I'm using it is that there were literally like 9 guys who were given these 12 companies. Now, amongst those 9 guys, there were like dozens more where Roman was like, "Hey, I need a homie. I need a cousin to come and run this thing. Hook it up." So, there's like... it's trickled down beyond that, and so now there are 100 of them. Quick interruption: Do me a favor, scroll down and you're gonna see a link to The Hustle. So, if you want to stay up to date on the tech and business news you need to know, check out The Hustle. It's a daily email. I used to help write it; I love it. So, check it out. Scroll down below.

Shaan Puri

I'm on a Business Insider news story about Putin's wealth right now, just because I wanted to see the $1 billion house. So the house is actually $1.35 billion. It's a crazy palace with three helicopter landing pads and stuff like that. But the thumbnail was Putin doing basically like a Bowflex [exercise machine].

Shaan Puri

So, he's basically saying he's got both cables and he's clearly about...

Shaan Puri

To do like a peck fly, and that was the thumbnail they chose. Not one of his palaces or his cars or anything like that. They chose Putin wearing... no, wearing cashmere sweats that cost $1,400 and then a matching top which just looks like a Hanes t-shirt. His workout outfit total was $3,200. And then it's just like every picture is hilarious. It's like him posing with champagne... it's only power photos, which is really funny.

Sam Parr

To me, keep in mind this is a guy who, before this, he was in the KGB. So it's like the CIA of America. This is a government-salaried person for the last 30 years, so this...

Shaan Puri

Is crazy. Yeah, Ben, how did you feel? So you did the "How to Take with the World" episodes about Putin, and I called you up about this. I was like, "Ben, re-release the episodes. A lot of people are curious about Putin right now. Just re-upload them as new episodes." But you’ve kind of researched this guy a lot. I mean, can we talk about this Russia-Ukraine thing for a second? So, what's your reaction to this? And I guess, like, you know, the disclaimer is we're not experts; we're just friends talking about, like, "Yo, did you hear what's going on? What do you think about this?" So, Ben, what did you think? Because you've spent a lot of time reading about this guy.

Ben Wilson

Yeah, my reaction is probably different from most people's. I think most people who listen to my podcast view it as an anti-Putin podcast. They think it's pretty hard on him, and in some ways, it is. It calls him out for some of the bad things he's done, including murdering people and possibly conducting a false flag domestic terror attack on the Russian people. So, it's not a pro-Putin podcast. Having said that, I think a lot of people's reaction has just been, "Putin is Hitler. He's going to keep marching through countries until we stop him." All he wants is more power and more territory. He's a megalomaniac, someone who, as Sam said, was a part of the KGB. He was part of the Soviet Empire when it was a big empire. He watched it fall from grace, and then he saw his country get looted in the mid to late nineties. He kind of said to himself, "Alright, well, America was supposed to come in and make the situation better. I'm never trusting these guys again." So then, he's watching Ukraine get pulled closer and closer into the European Union and NATO orbit. They're basically saying, "Okay, yeah, they're aligning with us, but that's their prerogative. Don't worry about it. We're not going to invade Russia or anything." And he's basically saying, "No, that's his red line. I will never trust you guys again." That doesn't make what he's doing right, but I think it is important to understand where he's coming from. Understanding his motivations can help us make the right decisions.

Shaan Puri

And what do you mean by "America"? America was supposed to come in and fix what? What do you mean by that exactly? So you're saying post-World War [something]?

Ben Wilson

No, so it was essentially as the Soviet Union was coming down. I can't remember the name of it, but there was essentially a committee with a bunch of Harvard guys who came into Moscow and were like, "Hey, we're the experts. This is how you do capitalism." Initially, there was some optimism, right? Of, "Okay, well, America seems pretty great, so the Union has not been great, and we're excited about this capitalism stuff."

Shaan Puri

turns out they just they just wear the sweatshirts never went to harvard

Sam Parr

got them

Ben Wilson

That's right. They were pulling the band, they were wearing the Georgetown Law sweatshirt, but they didn't go to Georgetown Law. And so... things... the Russian economy really crashed during the '90s, and so that's what I'm talking about.

Shaan Puri

Gotcha. Okay, so he's like, "I've... you fool me once, you know... shame... shame on whoever..." Okay, so that was your reaction to this as you were sort of thinking about that. Sam, what was your reaction as you kind of saw this all play out?

Sam Parr

My reaction... let's talk about this from a, I mean, first of all, I was like, you know, screw Putin. I'm not a fan. But let's discuss this from a business or management perspective. When I saw all this happen, I've been watching a lot of videos on Reddit. Admittedly, that's a U.S. website, so I'm trying to figure out what the truth is. I'm seeing two things: 1. I'm seeing videos of Russian POWs. They say, "I didn't want to be here. We were tricked. We thought we were going to practice. We didn't know what was going on." They also say, "We thought you guys were going to welcome us with open arms. We thought that you were going to love us. What are you doing? Why are you being angry at us?" 2. I'm seeing the tanks, and the tanks are terrible. They're from the '80s and '90s; they're bad. Their weapons are subpar. So, I'm seeing that they just seem a little chubby, and people don't have nice haircuts like they do in the American military. They just seem undisciplined. It doesn't seem like it's a well-oiled machine. That's what I'm seeing.

Shaan Puri

These are the most random observations about this whole thing. It's like Reddit videos of guys being like, "I thought this was a practice war."

Sam Parr

that's what they've been saying dude

Shaan Puri

chubby face sold in 19 eighties tanks like what what are you talking about

Sam Parr

I mean, look, when you see that, you're like, "Oh, this... you're like... I was afraid of you, but maybe I shouldn't be." Like, you're out.

Shaan Puri

of shape

Sam Parr

And the second thing is this guy, this Ukrainian guy... their leader. This guy is badass. Have you seen him just wearing like green t-shirts giving press conferences? Yeah, he's amazing. This guy's amazing.

Shaan Puri

This guy is... I don't know much about him. I don't know what's going on. I don't know what's like kind of media portrayal versus whatever else. But the guy does come across like a goddamn hero. Right? Like when you think of the word "hero," what do you think of? It's like, you know, the president who says, "I'm not just ordering you to war; I'm going to the front lines." And by the way, this guy's the finance minister. He's here. This guy's, you know, this is my press secretary. He's here. "Hold this gun. You don't know how to do it? You have it backwards. It doesn't matter. Stand here." And like basically sending out a video being like, "Hey, Putin, go fuck yourself," or like, "Bring it on." Basically, the only thing cooler he could have done is if he was like, "Putin, meet me at the border. You and me, unarmed, hand-to-hand combat. You win, you get my country."

Shaan Puri

I win. I get your country. That's the only one level up this guy could've done as far as being, you know, the real.

Shaan Puri

Life... Macho Man Randy Savage, which is kind of the way he was coming across. He's like a real hero—brave, like very brave.

Sam Parr

Incredibly, what I'm learning... when I watch the news, I try to go beyond just thinking, "This is bad, and I want to help." The thought is, "How can I use this to improve?" My takeaway here is about what Putin has done. They showed him giving a press conference, and he was at this huge table, while his generals were literally 20 feet down the table. He was kind of by himself, which represented him being a little distant. In contrast, this other guy was literally on the streets, toasting coffee in the morning. My takeaway is that in order to get someone to do something, you have to make them want to do it. You can't force them to do it because if you force them, it's a short-lived, short-term thing.

Shaan Puri

right

Sam Parr

And with the Ukrainians, there was a poll where 90% of them support this guy [likely referring to President Zelensky]. They are all in the streets, they're all... pouring styrofoam into bottles with gasoline because that's how you make napalm, and they're using it for Molotov cocktails.

Shaan Puri

yeah

Sam Parr

And they... it sounds weird, but it seems like they're happy in the sense of having a sense of purpose, a community, and a mission. Maybe "happy" isn't the right word, but rather "purpose-driven." That's the takeaway I have from this: if I'm going to convince people to do stuff like run a company or work at one, you need to make them *want* to do it, not force them to do it.

Shaan Puri

Yeah, that's a great point. They definitely have the spirit right now, and the morale... There's sort of like a rally going on right now. You know, especially under these circumstances, adversity is something that pulls people together. So it's definitely done that for them. Or it'll break you apart, depending on what your sense of purpose is.

Sam Parr

this guy's killing it

Shaan Puri

man yeah

Sam Parr

This guy's... it's been real. It's been a really good... I don't think we've had that in America for a while. It's been a really good example of wonderful leadership. This guy is killing it, and he also uses really cute phrases. Like, he says something... at least sound bites. He's like, "I don't need..." He was... America offered me a lift to get out of here. [He said,] "I don't need a lift, I need armor-piercing bullets."

Shaan Puri

yeah yeah

Sam Parr

That's what he said, and I'm like, "Oh my God, dude! You are Rambo! You are wonderful!" He's saying all the great stuff, and that's important. There's a reason why... have you ever heard about how they describe old Roman emperors as orators, you know, people who could speak well? Yeah, now I understand why.

Shaan Puri

yeah totally there do I've been so I don't normally read the news or watch the news at all I like never never turn it on don't read the newspaper don't go to cnn I don't do any of it and and people sometimes like I don't know make fun of me or sort of tell me I'm an idiot for that just yesterday some guy was like you know terrible life choice you know you gotta you gotta be in tune with the world's realities and I was think you don't in my head I'm like if you think the news is the world's reality like you know you're watching the world's worst reality show and but I you know I didn't say anything to him because you know let him do his thing obviously you know the news is is making him a happy cheerful person so so I I've always had this mindset which is like don't get pulled like basically I find that when people get really into government and politics the the phrase that my trainer said to me that makes more sense is like these people can't govern themselves but they wanna talk about you know what the government could do and it's like most people fail to even govern themselves you can't get yourself to do what you should do why are you so worried about what everybody else should do if you can't even get yourself to do it and I I've always sort of taken that as like a a way to not get sucked into like 2016 I had friends who were crying about trump and all this stuff and you know I said like I get it it's not who I would have voted for but I just don't worry about that like that's just not I don't worry about the government I worry about government myself the exceptions being oh there's a pandemic I should probably like figure out what's actually going on what is the recommended course of action although that basically you know was was not really paid off because we got a bunch of bad information you know at first the second thing was okay there's a war going on and this is my first experience really like watching a war break out like there's been wars that have just been going on forever like india and pakistan at the border like you know israel palestine there's skirmishes all the time and afghanistan like you know I didn't even realize we were in it till we pulled out you know like as ignorant as that sounds like it just wasn't top of mind and I didn't you didn't see it play out day by day this is the first time I've really seen it play out day by day so there's definitely like a kind of a crazy thing to see I mean just to see like just to see people basically take a stand was like kind of like inspirational then to see like experts coming out like on the internet like being like hey civilians this is how you like do urban warfare from your your bedroom window and like there's this guy who's

Shaan Puri

like an

Shaan Puri

Urban warfare expert: "You need to drag all your furniture out into the streets in an S pattern. Your goal is to make it so that their vehicles cannot easily roam your streets. They need to be making all these different turns. Everything—desks, lamps—toss it all into the middle of the street." Secondly, you know, drink water because you can't go three days without it. So make sure you're hydrating; otherwise, you can't fight anybody. Third, here's how you make a Molotov cocktail. Fourth, he just had this checklist, and I was like, "Holy shit, is this real life?" Then you see crazy things. You see, you know, there's what you see in the news versus what I'm seeing in these Telegram channels where people are posting videos from the ground. So you see totally different perspectives.

Sam Parr

how'd you get in those

Shaan Puri

Ben had linked me to two of them. I was sharing some links with him, and he said, "Check this out. There's a Telegram group where you can just get it. It's all in Ukrainian." I can't read the text; I can only watch the videos. There’s a heartbreaking video that went viral of a dad saying goodbye to his daughter, knowing he may never see her again. She doesn't understand; she's like a four-year-old kid. I have a two-year-old daughter, so that just shattered me. You see that, and you're like, "This is wrong. This is so wrong." What’s going on just hit me in a different way. I had heard on the All In podcast that they were discussing this. They mentioned that right now, the U.S. sentiment is, "No, don't go fight other people's wars. Don't send our human lives into that." Then, Dave Friedberg said something interesting: "I wonder how that'll change as the media starts to come out. As you start to see videos of atrocities, kids, and women, people are going to have a different reaction when they see that." And that’s exactly how I felt when I saw that first heartbreaking video. I thought, "We gotta do something. I gotta donate some money."

Sam Parr

that same video

Shaan Puri

I gotta do something here, and so it's just been crazy to see how it's all playing out. "Crazy" is really the only way I could describe it. It's crazy that this is happening, it's crazy the way it happens, it's crazy that life gets turned upside down for people... All the things I care about on a day-to-day basis would instantly be out the window if something like this happened. Then you see the financial side. It's crazy that this war is... I forgot somebody said this, like "banks not tanks." It's like we're basically fighting Russia with financial warfare.

Sam Parr

It's crazy. It's way worse like this because I was telling Ben, "I'm like, Putin screwed up. He's gonna... he screwed up the only thing that really matters: **Rule number 1, don't fuck with the money**."

Shaan Puri

yeah

Sam Parr

like if you mess

Shaan Puri

with the money paper putin

Sam Parr

Yeah, because money is... like, the most important thing. Money is more important than lives often, or at least that's the perception. So yeah, it's screwed up. I want to tell you... I want to pump your ego. So, do you know who... You said something - you didn't say it as eloquently as I'm about to explain, but Nassim... How do you say his name?

Shaan Puri

I gotta I'm too bad

Sam Parr

At names, Talib. Okay, so he tweeted something really good. Basically, he is the guy who wrote *Antifragile*. I forget what else he did, but *Black Swan* is another one of his works.

Shaan Puri

black swan yeah

Sam Parr

And he's kind of an oddball, but "eccentric" is a better word. He basically says, "Don't read the news." That's what he has said for a long time. He's like, "Don't read things." He says, "Don't read the news, only read things if they're like 50 years old." That's his whole [philosophy]. And he tweeted this out yesterday.

Shaan Puri

yesterday he's like accept my book coming this march

Shaan Puri

buy it pre order now yes and he tweeted this out yesterday and he goes most days

Sam Parr

99.9% of the news is noise. The last few days it's all signal. Newspaper reading is useless except in crisis, and I actually totally agree with that. That's what you said. I read the news every day, but I actually think it's kind of pointless until it's like an urgent, urgent thing. And that bar, the threshold of what's considered urgent, is actually really high.

Shaan Puri

Yeah, and also, there's a way to use the news to inform yourself and gather information. In my case, I have empathy for what's going on and I try not to think about it intellectually. However, the news can also use you, and you have to figure out where that line is. Are you using the news right now to gather what you want, or is the news using you as eyeballs that they're going to drain for their benefit? You bet your ass that, you know, Fox and CNN, every news channel, this is their payday. I'm not saying they don't care about what's going on, but this is when they get their spikes. This is when they say, "We have 24/7 news coverage. Stay here, don't move, don't change the channel. We are going to send you drip by drip, play by play updates." It's like, that's actually not the healthiest or most productive way to live your life—getting hooked onto their 24/7 play by play updates of this war. So, you know, that's the kind of caveat.

Sam Parr

So, this is the last I'll make, but basically, one of my heroes—he's on my wall here, you can't see him—is Ted Turner. Ted Turner started CNN, I think he started it in like 1981, but it was kind of a failure. It lost a lot of money until 1989 or 1990 when Iraq invaded Kuwait. The reason why is that he sent over a bunch of news stations and news reporters. It was one of the first times that a news reporter could, because of technology, film something and have it aired live. So, it was one of the first wars that was viewed live, and it changed people's sentiment about the war. It made CNN a huge company in just one year. That's kind of like what's going to happen now, except instead of a news publisher, it's going to be Facebook and Twitter. They're just going to crush it for the next couple of years because we're glued to it.

Shaan Puri

And dude, can I give you the kind of like the finance or crypto angle of what's going on here? So basically, the West is doing this financial warfare. They're like, "Okay, economic sanctions. We're going to make it hard to trade. We're going to make it hard to buy and sell goods." Then they're doing a form of, like, you know, they froze them out of SWIFT or kicked them off of SWIFT. Okay, so now you can't do international transfers. Then they froze the central bank assets, which was like the craziest move. That was the financial nuke. All of a sudden, they had $650 billion of reserves, and they needed those reserves. Why? Because their local currency is crashing. So I think the ruble lost, what was it, like 40% in the last day?

Shaan Puri

that's crazy

Shaan Puri

So, you know, the average citizen is the one who's paying the price, right? Putin basically attacked his own citizens here because the currency is crashing. Nobody wants to hold this currency anymore. There's a bank, and people are lined up to get money out of the bank. Normally, the way the government props up their currency to prevent it from spiraling to zero is they will buy it back using their reserve assets. They hold dollars, they hold euros, they hold gold, and they hold some crypto. They'll use that to buy back the ruble. But because it got frozen, they can't do that, and so that's going to cause the currency to fall. I think this time, crypto is not going to play as big of a role. You kind of have to bet that any country out there who's watching this is probably going to say, "Well, we probably don't want the U.S. to be able to just freeze all our assets." So why are we holding the dollar as a reserve? Why are we holding any currency that one country or an alliance can basically freeze our assets or cut us off or take us out of the banking system? I think you're going to see a pretty big move, first by the so-called "bad guys," basically those who are afraid of the West, to get out of the dollar and get more heavily into crypto. This is a wake-up call. Oh wow, they can just cut us off completely; they'll freeze our accounts. So, I think in the next few years, you're going to see different regimes switch over to digital currencies that can't be controlled by any one country.

Sam Parr

for a bunch of uneducated dumbasses I think we did pretty good with this one

Shaan Puri

Yeah, we probably just said one thing, or maybe it's Ben's Russian accent. That'll be where everyone just decides, you know, we're assholes and cancels us. But other than that, you know, whatever. I think it's good.

Sam Parr

if you have everything else I thought the ukraine stuff was awesome did you do you agree ben

Ben Wilson

yeah I thought it was really interesting

Sam Parr

I thought this was the most interesting news story. This is all I want to talk about. I think it's cool that we actually discuss it.

Shaan Puri

On this channel, it's funny, dude. I... So, you know, people don't want it either way. If you don't talk about it, it's like, "Dude, how are you not talking about this? What do you... You think your thing is important? There's a war going on!" Like, I tweeted something else out. I was like, "Oh, this is really cool how this is happening" - some tech thing. And some guy's like, "Bro, kinda insensitive, don't you think? There's a war happening."

Shaan Puri

I was like oh am I just supposed to not speak about anything else

Shaan Puri

okay and then you're talking about the war it's like oh now you're now you're a war expert

Sam Parr

Well, you wrote something in the Milk Road that was great. You said, "I think the opening line was, we're not gonna mention the Bitcoin price today because it's not really that important." I know what you guys are thinking: "Stay in your lane, Milk Road." The truth is, we know our purpose, but we want to talk about... [and I forget]. You went into a bunch of different stuff, but I thought that was a really good line. What did people say about the Milk Road writing about this?

Shaan Puri

Let's see, I'm going to open up this... This feedback thing is so helpful but also, you know, daunting at the same time because...

Sam Parr

Did you see... while you're pulling this up, I'll say something. Did you see when I tweeted out, "Are there any pro-Putin people here? What is your opinion? I want to hear your perspective." Because everyone I know is... yeah, is anti-Putin. A lot of people got pissed at me for asking that, and I thought that was crazy.

Shaan Puri

Yeah, I tweeted something similar. I was like, "Hey, you know, just trying to educate myself." I think I said something like, I forgot exactly what I said, but I was basically asking, "What would be the most pro-Russian reason for the invasion?" First, I was like, "Do the average people in Russia support this?" Then, my second question was basically, "What would be the strongest justification for doing this?" You know, if you're in Russia's camp. I didn't get too much flack for it because I had to hedge it like crazy. But it's so crazy that you have to really soften everything so much. I guess you don't have to, but if you don't, the discussion becomes about you rather than just being able to be intellectually curious and say, "Hey, I'm trying to understand. I'm trying to learn. I'm trying to think for myself." I'm not saying I disagree with anything; I just want to actually understand all the perspectives that exist.

Sam Parr

so I said steelmanning I wanna steal stealman this shit

Shaan Puri

for

Sam Parr

me dawg

Shaan Puri

I wrote, "What would be the most pro-Russian invasion reason?" Basically, if you tried really hard to think about why this is justified, what would you come up with? And... you know, then I got a bunch of answers. I got 26 answers to that, and I was like, "Okay, that's cool. That's helpful to hear."

Sam Parr

and what about the milk road what were the replies did anyone tell you to f off

Shaan Puri

I'm opening up

Sam Parr

What do they say to LeBron James when LeBron James gave his opinion on some stuff? Everyone shut up.

Shaan Puri

up and dribble

Sam Parr

just shut up and dribble lebron

Shaan Puri

yeah

Sam Parr

what did anyway they wouldn't have been there with this

Shaan Puri

shut up and podcast

Shaan Puri

what are

Shaan Puri

they gonna tell me to do

Sam Parr

shut up and type shot or I don't know

Shaan Puri

I'm going to read the first three good reviews. We have a system: it's like the milk cup emoji. One milk is terrible, three milks is average, and five milks is great. Here's the first five-milk review: > "The tone, the analysis, the new war in size humor... this has it all!" Another five-milk review: > "I like the insight into the conflict going on right now." And another one: > "I think you wrote this. Struck absolutely the right tone." Sam, is that you or is that a different Sam?

Sam Parr

that's not me I I replied I said this is really good

Shaan Puri

Okay, great newsletter today. Way to have a perspective and a sense of humanity. I'm glad you avoided the "business as usual" approach and dove into how crypto is involved in this. Then they complained about... I made this analogy because I'd said this thing which was like, "I love crypto when it's helping the underdog." Like when it banks the unbanked, or when people's currency is inflating and they could move into this to preserve their wealth. But there's an idea that, oh, Russia could use crypto to get around these sanctions...

Sam Parr

that sucks

Shaan Puri

and then

Shaan Puri

I was like, "Oh shit, how do I feel?" It's a moral dilemma in a way. And then I realized, you know, like technology is neutral. It's neither good nor evil, it's just used. I was like, you know, the example of a car: > You can use a car to drop off your mother at the hospital when she needs help, or you can use a car as a getaway vehicle to escape from a crime scene. It doesn't make a car good or evil in either case. It's sort of like amoral. Some people were... and some guys like, disagree with that. Alright, let me see if there's a one-star review...

Sam Parr

yeah was there any negativity

Shaan Puri

I literally... wow! This might be the highest rated one we've had. Oh, here we go, here we go. Here's one: "You should *effing* stick to crypto and stay out of politics." Okay, number one: awful.

Sam Parr

shut up and dribble

Shaan Puri

No, no, this one. Not one. One milk? Awful! Oh, I can't miss the opportunity to suck on some political... ask.

Sam Parr

you think yeah I you typically hear someone say you you'd kiss it but not suck on it

Shaan Puri

it's like I don't even know what to do

Sam Parr

kinda gross

Shaan Puri

I don't even know I don't even know what to make of that and they did the

Shaan Puri

thing where every other letter is capitalized you know like

Sam Parr

oh my god

Shaan Puri

Oh man, reading your own comments... I'm not sure this is even useful. I might just leave this up so people have an outlet, but it's like, "Here, go yell into this shoebox."

Shaan Puri

I'm not reading this stuff anymore

Sam Parr

I check all of it

Shaan Puri

We have a VA, but right now we check it all because it's new. The VA will basically summarize the feedback. It will say, "Here was your score, and here are the valid criticisms and the valid compliments." So, I'm just going to read that from now on and not the raw stuff unless I really need to go hate my life.

Sam Parr

Yeah, there's a bunch of... I'm actually, for this Maven thing I'm doing, I'm talking about feedback. I'm like, not all feedback is important. For example, if people complain about pricing, I'm like, "I don't really listen to that." I don't care what they say about price because I'm not going to change. Another thing is, if they say, "Well, I wish you would have sent that email earlier," this is what we see in the hustle. I might say, "Alright, we'll do it." But then once we started sending it at 6 AM and I would get complaints, I'd be like, "I'm not listening to this anymore. We're not doing it." So, it is hard to figure out what is actually important and what's not. For a lot of feedback, it's actually not important.

Shaan Puri

Totally, it's all noise or it'll whiplash you. You do one thing, and then they'll say one thing; you do the other. I remember at Twitch, this happened. We went to an exec off-site, and they're like, "Alright, so the feedback amongst the execs to the CEO and the COO was that you didn't listen to our input enough. We felt out of the loop. You guys just decided it was too top-down." Then the next off-site was three months later. They spent that whole off-site gathering feedback, asking, "What do you guys think? What are your opinions? What would you do?" They were trying to get the bottom-up feedback. Three months later, it was like, "Okay, let's read out the feedback from last time. You know what's happened in the last three months?" Like, God, can you guys just make a decision already? You're the leaders; you're supposed to just make a call. Why do you keep asking us? You're supposed to have the answers. It's like, wow.

Shaan Puri

it's like it's like really extreme whiplash of like you know

Shaan Puri

You are never happy one way or the other. The best answer I got was that if you take 10 pieces of feedback, they're all informative. Nine will inform you; they'll tell you about the person. It's not about you; it'll tell you about them. Then one will tell you something interesting or insightful about you. You have to figure out what's the 1 out of 10 and what's the 9 that's just about this person. For example, some guy tweeted feedback about my course, saying, "Oh, it's going great! You know, it's been awesome, blah blah blah." He was talking about how he loved the energy, like Sean just... it's like a performance. It's not just like, "Here's some slides." Then some guy replies, "Oh, it's a performance. It's all about energy." So basically, he thinks you know nothing insightful—probably just a big motivational talk, stuff you could've just found on the internet. The original guy responds, "Well, yeah, like, you know, 80% of anything you can just go Google and find. But the reality is most people are not going to know what to Google. Even if they do, they're not going to take the time to Google. So it's great to have it all packed in." Then the guy's like, "Yeah, yeah, yeah. All I heard is I'm paying $950 just to hear Sean pump me up." It's like, alright, so that's about him. That's not about the course.

Sam Parr

The biggest thing when we first started The Hustle... I remember we hired two or three interns. It was just me and another guy, and these weren't even full-time employees. From the beginning, we did this thing where every Wednesday we would go out to lunch. I remember the first time we had other people in that office. I said, "Alright, well what do you guys want to do for lunch?" and I got three or four different answers. I was like, "Oh, lesson learned. Never ask." And so from that point on...

Shaan Puri

we're going here

Sam Parr

And I said, "Here's what we'll do. Every week, someone else is the decision maker, but you can't ask. You just decide."

Shaan Puri

right

Sam Parr

And I found that people are just happier that way and life's easier. And oftentimes it's like that with feedback where it's just like... I'll listen sometimes, but most of the time I'm just doing what I want to do and I'm just gonna deal with the consequences, right?

Ben Wilson

can I yep

Shaan Puri

can I

Ben Wilson

Who designed the milk jar? Who did that little graphic?

Shaan Puri

I don't know if Ben got that made or if he found it somewhere. I think he got it made from a guy we featured in their DAO. It's pretty cool; there's a bunch of designers that got together in this DAO. I think it's called Vector DAO, and it's basically high-level designers who created an ad hoc agency. So, companies come to them, they pay them, and then anyone in the DAO can take the project. They can form a little guild, like five people, and create a team to design the project. Basically, it's like an agency that doesn't have a hiring and firing process. You just sort of join, and you can either contribute or not contribute at the end of the day. So, the thing is cool, but it's pretty expensive; it's pretty pricey. I think when we were featuring it, we talked to some guy. Ben met someone, and then one of the people in Vector DAO was like, "Yo, I just like the Milk Road, and your thing's so ugly; I gotta improve it." So, are they Indian, Sean?

Sam Parr

are they indian

Shaan Puri

I don't think they're Indian. No, they... and then Ben, every... what Ben does is he'll just post something and be like, "Hey, what do you think of this? I made this design." And the guy's like, "Ben, I know what you're doing. You just keep showing me stuff that's so ugly that I can't help myself but go fix it." Like, fine.

Shaan Puri

I'll fix it again and he's done that twice now

Sam Parr

So, I just did a reverse Google image search, and there's an article written in the India Times that is using your logo.

Shaan Puri

so may so maybe that one is

Shaan Puri

Maybe that icon is one that had been found instead of the design. But the guy designed all the banners and the breaks in the email itself, like the format of the design of the email.

Sam Parr

wow and look this

Ben Wilson

Is One Lady, because I really like the formatting and the design. It's really simple, like it's basically just that little milk jar and that color blue. I find it really simple but attractive and memorable.

Shaan Puri

oh thank you wow

Sam Parr

that's flattering are you describing sean or the logo

Shaan Puri

why am I blushing right now

Ben Wilson

katie's gotta watch out she's gotta watch her back

Sam Parr

alright that's the episode I think right

Shaan Puri

yeah we're 17 minutes sam's like I got a hard stop at the hour and then I'm like

Shaan Puri

just we just keep talking about random useless stuff