7 Creators Who Make Over $50 Million/Year From YouTube (#408)

Sam Parr

So he's got is it the daily wire is that what it's called

Shaan Puri

The Daily Wire is a subscription media company that was created as an alternative to mainstream media. It emerged in response to the perception of "fake news" in the mainstream media. The idea was, "Why don't we create an alternative?" The Daily Wire has seen some insane numbers. It's only in its third or fourth year, and it generates over $100 million a year in subscription revenue.

Sam Parr

yeah and have you heard of their their spin off jeremy's razors

Shaan Puri

no what is it

Sam Parr

Dude, you gotta go to this! I've had a hell of a day. I'm not gonna say who, but check this out: a friend wanted to come skateboarding with me, so naturally, he got a concussion. I took him to the hospital.

Shaan Puri

by the way did you even get like an hour of skateboarding in or was this like 5 minutes

Sam Parr

I got an hour in, yeah. Then he was getting hyped up seeing me do stuff. He fell and hit his head, so we took him to the hospital to get his concussion checked out. Turns out, while we were there getting the scan, his appendix ruptured. He had to stay there overnight and was rushed to a different hospital for emergency appendix surgery. So, this head injury basically saved his life. They were like, "I don't know, like this is just a gift from God, but you definitely could have died from this."

Shaan Puri

Did the appendix get damaged in the skateboard fall, or did it just happen to occur at the same time?

Sam Parr

Separate. It's just a weird turn of events. Very separate. So that's where I've been, so I'm a little disheveled, but I'm wearing my cool guy jacket now. That's my new thing. I'm gonna be the token cool guy. You could be the nerd. Congrats! No, this is real leather, bro. This ain't the Tesla vegan leather. But I'm in my cool guy outfit, so I'm good to go.

Shaan Puri

Yeah, cool is what I would describe that as. So that's cool. Alright, where shall we start? Where do you want to start? Are we still... is Sam still showing up to the BYOB empty-handed, or is he bringing ideas to the table? Where are we at with this whole Sam does research thing? I know you started with a doctor's note there, so is that your excuse for why you don't have any topics?

Sam Parr

We... I just went over a lot of my topics. I was the one who did the topics. Oh, you want to talk about your new seed oil-only diet? Ain't that what you told me you're doing? A seed oil-only diet?

Shaan Puri

all oil diet dude

Sam Parr

So, seed oils are all the rage right now. Is it just in my world? We started talking about them and now I'm seeing it everywhere. People are so anti-seed oils. My friend Dennis was like, "Screw it, I'm only eating seed oils from now on."

Shaan Puri

I looked yesterday at the bag and thought, "You know what? I kind of want to have one of these little pretzel things for a second." So, I decided to check the stats on this. I was like, "Ah, it's not so bad. Not too many calories, whatever." Then, I looked at the ingredients and saw canola oil or something like that, you know, sunflower oil, whatever these things are. It was a small voice in my head that just told me, "These things kill you." So, I decided to put it down and drink a big tall glass of water instead. That was a pretty big net win for me.

Sam Parr

Yeah, I don't know why it's bad for you, but someone on Twitter told me it was, therefore it's true. If it's written down on Twitter, or if it rhymes, or if it's like a cute phrase, I automatically believe it.

Shaan Puri

Alliterations, rhymes, or... for people I don't know, any one of those three, and I'm in. Let me tell you two things. First, you said something about, "Oh, it's beautiful, it's well done," and it reminded me that yesterday I found what would be an amazing D2C product. Not amazing like $100 million, but a D2C business that I know would work really well and be very profitable. I'm looking for someone who wants to operate it. I'll simply give you an idea and a playbook, and then I'll take my share. We can start this company together. Basically, it would require someone who's good at things that are beautifully done. I think this requires a feminine touch. So, I'm sort of fishing in a dry pond here with this podcast. To our four female listeners, if any of you are interested, you have a 25% chance each to step in and take it. Or to one of our male listeners, if you see a female today, let her know about this opportunity. I'm looking for somebody who could create a product that is beautifully done. I have no doubt in my mind it would be a successful D2C product. You would just need to be good at a couple of things: creating an aesthetically beautiful brand and short-form video content, like TikToks, or getting them made by other people if you don't do them yourself. But it'd be easier if you could handle it.

Sam Parr

for you you you have been the palm of your hand tell me what it is

Shaan Puri

I can't tell you on air because I don't want everybody to copy it I will tell you off air

Sam Parr

wait really

Shaan Puri

yes

Sam Parr

Dude, this is the lamest segment ever. Is that really it? That's really what you want to do?

Shaan Puri

That's really what I'm going to do here. If it happens, then we can reveal it. If it doesn't happen, then I'll also reveal it because I have nothing to lose at that point. So, just not yet.

Sam Parr

I was going to remind people... This is usually a segment where I remind people of our **gentleman's agreement**. We work for you now, but all you have to do is go to our YouTube channel and subscribe. That's the gentleman's agreement. It's called the "gentleman's agreement" because I can't check to see if it's true, so it's just based on trust. But after that... [Note: The speaker seems to have trailed off or been cut off at the end, hence the ellipsis.]

Shaan Puri

I just violated it

Sam Parr

Yeah, that's lame. So if you want to do the gentleman's agreement, we owe you now. But alright.

Shaan Puri

Alright, I'm in the penalty box, but I'm gonna fight my way out. Okay, here we go. I tweeted something out the other day that I think is very interesting. It reminds me of Doug DeMuro, a YouTube creator. He's not just going to make money off YouTube ad revenue; he has built a business that is basically a $50,000,000+ empire off YouTube. Why did I ask this question? Well, your boy's gonna start doing YouTube content, but your boy also wants to make more than $50,000,000 doing this process. So, I wanted to see who has done this before because I'm not really interested in being a pioneer. The pioneers get slaughtered, right? So, I don't want to be a pioneer doing this; I want to be sort of a fast follower. I was looking for examples, and I got a bunch out of this tweet. I want to read some of them off to you and see what you think about these. The first one...

Sam Parr

By the way, when you tweeted that, I don't know if it's because I know you well or if everyone could read between the lines, but it was very much like, "Tell me what to do with my life."

Shaan Puri

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, "Hey, could you just validate my parking pass here?" Yeah, I need something. So, the first one's right up your alley: **more plates, more dates**. Love it! **More plates, more dates**. You probably know this story a little better than I do. I didn't know he was doing this because I've watched his videos. He doesn't really pump product as much, or at least in the clips that I've seen.

Sam Parr

if you watch closely he does not not in an obnoxious way

Shaan Puri

Right, so this guy, Derek, is a super likable guy. He puts out great content. I'm not even really interested in testosterone and steroid usage, and sometimes I am with certain athletes, but usually not. However, I find myself just watching this guy's videos because I like him a lot. Apparently, he's got a brand or maybe two brands. One brand, you know the name of it.

Sam Parr

Yeah, one's called **Merrick Health** and the other one is called **Gorilla Mind**. Yeah.

Shaan Puri

So, Gorilla Mind... if you go to Gorilla Mind, it is getting, I want to say, almost 2,000,000 to 12,000,000 visits a month. Right? So let's say about 1,000,000 visits a month. I think it's pretty safe to say that this brand is doing about $1,000,000 a month in revenue. So, that would be $12,000,000 a year in revenue on its supplements.

Sam Parr

brand I think more I I would take the I would take the the more on that one

Shaan Puri

Yeah, that's a con. I would say a conservative estimate would be that I wouldn't be surprised if it was as high as $4,000,000 a month. Supplements are an amazing niche to be in, right? Everybody wants to be in the supplements niche. So, that's great. Just gave you, by the way, two pronunciations of "niche" back to back just to appeal to both sides of the aisle.

Sam Parr

you totally redeemed yourself

Shaan Puri

And then Merrick is this TRT clinic. They basically help men stay young, so they offer hormone replacement, hair loss treatments, sexual wellness, and all this stuff. This thing's gotta be doing pretty well too. I think they also do the semaglutide stuff as well. I don't know if he started this or what, because it has like 200 employees on LinkedIn. Is he just a partner, or did he start it?

Sam Parr

I think he's an equity owner. I don't know if he's *the* guy, but I think he's so popular that it appears as though he's a main guy, and he's definitely pulling his weight. I know a lot of people who use Marek Health. I don't know anyone who uses Gorilla Mind. I think Gorilla Mind's a horrible name for a supplement company, but I trust Derek. I think the branding on this is wrong, but it's interesting. What's really interesting is like... he sells creatine. Do you know anything about creatine? 1. It's awesome 2. It's basically... [pauses] Hey...

Shaan Puri

have you ever heard of creatine it's awesome yeah but it was a tip of creatine hold on even an oz there

Sam Parr

I'm almost positive that creatine is like a commodity... it's almost all the same. And he's selling it, but he has an upcharge. He marked it up because it's Derek. But yeah, that's a good example of a creator killing it.

Shaan Puri

And by the way, these examples I specifically said, "You get kicked out of the party if you come here and you say Joe Rogan or Mr. Beast." It has to be somebody else, like not the examples everybody always talks about. So here are a couple others. Okay, I'll go in order of the ones you know to the ones I think you don't know. So another one you know is Kayla Itsines. I don't know how you say her last name, Kayla Itsines, I think.

Sam Parr

No, I think it's like... it's new or something. I think it's pronounced a little bit different. But if you're one of the four women listeners, they 100% know who she is. There's one... everyone knows who she is.

Shaan Puri

pronounced like hermes or something like that on this podcast or

Sam Parr

like hermes

Shaan Puri

yeah I was I I I you know I got a lot of shit for that

Sam Parr

Yeah, one time I heard you pronounce it. You're not exactly good at pronouncing things.

Shaan Puri

my mouth doesn't fully work

Sam Parr

yeah I got a a thick tongue

Shaan Puri

So, she created this app. She's like a fitness influencer type person and ended up creating an app called the Sweat App. I believe they sold it for **$400,000,000**. So, her and her husband or boyfriend, and then they broke up but kept building the business together. I don't know what ended up happening there, but it sounded like there was some drama. **$400,000,000** on this exit, so I thought that was a great example of not just saying, "Cool, I'm gonna hold up a detox tea and get paid $5,000 for a shoutout." I'm actually gonna create a business off of my following. Mark Rober... So, Mark Rober, he's a former NASA engineer. He makes engineering videos like, "Oh, I built the world's biggest T-shirt cannon."

Sam Parr

I love this guy

Shaan Puri

He built a... yeah, he's a really likable guy. He's like, you know, the science teacher—everyone's favorite science teacher type of guy. He has a monthly subscription box, I think, that does like... it's a science kit. You get to build little products yourself, and that's a great idea. Super on brand. It's $25 to $30. This thing is, I think, doing a million dollars a year pretty safely. He's got a very, very big following.

Sam Parr

23,000,000 I think on youtube I mean he's like one of the big guys

Shaan Puri

Yeah, he's been around for a long time. Okay, another one you probably know: Ben Shapiro. So, Ben Shapiro is... by the way, I'm going to make a little prediction. You don't agree with everything he says, but you kind of love this guy. Yeah, yeah, awesome! Yeah, I'm objecting. I also feel the same way. Yeah, I like his nerd swagger.

Sam Parr

And he's just fast-mouthed. He says things very distinctly and quickly. I don't believe in most of the things he says; I believe in maybe some of them. He's pretty religious, and I'm not into religion, but he says a lot of stuff that I'm like, "Dude, just the fact that you came up with that pretty brutal reply so quickly... I respect you."

Shaan Puri

Yeah, it's like a rap battle, right? At the end of the day, you know, whoever kind of insults the other person the fastest and the best wins. And he does not have a thick tongue like your boys do. So, he's got that thin tongue.

Sam Parr

yeah he's good man so he's got is it the daily wire is that what it's called

Shaan Puri

The Daily Wire is a subscription media company that was created as an alternative to mainstream media. It emerged in response to the perception of "fake news" in the mainstream media. The idea was, "Why don't we create an alternative?" The Daily Wire has seen some insane numbers. It's only in its third or fourth year, and it generates over $100 million a year in subscription revenue.

Sam Parr

yeah and have you heard of their their spin off jeremy's razors

Shaan Puri

no what is that

Sam Parr

Dude, you gotta go to this. Just Google "Daily Wire Jeremy's Razors." So basically, Dollar Shave Club or Harry's Razors was one of their big advertisers. Ben Shapiro is conservative, or he's right-wing, whatever you want to call him. Naturally, the left hates him, and the right loves him because they feel like they're being canceled all the time. Harry's Razors was one of their biggest advertisers, and they bailed. They said, "We're not gonna associate with Ben. You know, you're screwed up." The founder, or one of the co-founders and CEO of the Daily Wire, his name is Jeremy. If you go to Jeremy's Razors, you'll see the website. They made this crazy video that’s actually pretty hilarious, regardless of whether you agree with them or not. They created this hype video that was launched nine months ago, and it has 22 million views. They're selling a million dollars. They basically just took Harry's Razors; their site is identical to Harry's Razors, but they just call it Jeremy's Razors. The picture is of this guy who's smoking a cigar. It's basically a big middle finger to Harry's Razors. On the about page, it says, "Harry's and the Daily Wire had a deal. They paid us; we advertised their razors. But after we said that boys are boys and girls are girls, they publicly condemned our views as inexcusable and misaligned." And you know what? You're damn right our values are misaligned. We value truth and the right to speak. We embrace masculinity and the courage to uphold it. So that's like their whole shtick: it's us versus them. Regardless of what you feel about that, whether you think it's right or wrong, they capitalize on something, and it's doing well.

Shaan Puri

This is so good! Wow, this is an amazing, amazing little case here. The video, that's the launch video for this, starts with... it's like professionally made. Basically, it starts with the sound of a car in a parking lot. It shows the parking signs, and it's like, you know, the Daily Wire. Then it says "God King." A guy pulls up in a McLaren, gets out with a blowtorch, and goes inside to blowtorch a bunch of Harry's merchandise, setting it on fire. It's such a smart thing to do—to take this great business model, right? The classic kind of Gillette razor cartridge model, and then just say, "No, this is the one done by us, for us." That is so smart! I feel like that just opens the door for them to do this in five other categories.

Sam Parr

yeah it's a very very intriguing case study of what these guys are doing so yeah that's a good one

Shaan Puri

Can you write the word "Jeremy" on a stick of deodorant? Yes, you can. Alright, great! Can you write "Jeremy" on a tub of toothpaste? Great, yep, you sure can. What else can I write the word "Jeremy" on? There's now a guy running around grocery stores being like, "We can write Jeremy on that! We can write Jeremy on this!" Oh my god, guys, that...

Sam Parr

was doing these massive yeah they're like hey

Shaan Puri

republicans like sunscreen let's do that white people get sunburned this is gonna totally work yeah

Sam Parr

interesting case study alright what else is there alright so then there's kinda like

Shaan Puri

The Emma Chamberlain... but a lot of people talk about her coffee thing. People know that Pat McAfee.

Sam Parr

killing it

Shaan Puri

You know, he kind of did. He did a 100, a 4-year, $120,000,000 deal with FanDuel for his NFL show, which is pretty insane. That's like an absolutely insane brand deal to pull off. Okay, then there are some others that I hadn't even heard of.

Sam Parr

he's also the host of like wwe do you know that he's like an announcer there he's kinda cross I went down

Shaan Puri

a very deep pat back feet rabbit hole one night because I was like I think I love this guy

Sam Parr

he's amazing

Shaan Puri

And I was like, "I'm doing this for the pod, this research." Then, three hours in, I realized this isn't for the pod; this is for my soul. I just enjoy watching this whole journey. I was also like, "I don't think there's even a story here for the podcast." I just think I really like this content, and I never talked about it. I just did three hours one night and never brought it up.

Sam Parr

There was one time when I thought about our setup, and I'm like, "We should do it standing up." Because he stands up when he records, and I love it.

Shaan Puri

he also wears a tank top which I know you love

Sam Parr

yeah so win win

Shaan Puri

Alright, so here are some others that I didn't even know. Who are these people? Danny Austin. Have you ever heard of this person?

Sam Parr

no okay

Shaan Puri

So, she created a brand called **Divvy**, and it's basically scalp care for women. She took a problem in her life—maybe as she was aging or postpartum—where she was struggling with hair loss. This is actually pretty common for women. I know my wife, after we had a baby, experienced this. Your body is producing different hormones, and many women complain about hair thinning or hair loss. Anyways, she created a brand. At first, she was just talking about the struggle, and then she found a solution. Her content resonated with everyone. They were like, "Oh my God, Danny, you're so vulnerable and authentic! I'm so glad you're speaking up on these issues. You are a beautiful queen!" Then, she sold a solution, which was the scalp care product. She did **$20 million** in the first ten months—something crazy like that. It just took off right away, like a rocket. I really like that one. There's another by...

Sam Parr

Do you ever watch dandruff videos on TikTok? That's like my favorite type of content. Are people just flaking off dandruff? You ever do that?

Shaan Puri

people have people like popping zits too

Sam Parr

Dude, because I got crazy dandruff. If I like, itch my head, there's gonna be a snow day. I'm always looking for a good dandruff shampoo, and I love watching dandruff videos on TikTok. It's a huge niche.

Shaan Puri

don't wear black around sam

Sam Parr

yeah not good

Shaan Puri

So, there's this woman named **Mindy McKnight**. This is another cool example. She started a brand called **Cute Girl Hair** because she was just doing hairstyles. I love that name! YouTube, yeah, great name. Honestly, amazing name. She was making YouTube content just doing hairstyles for her girls. That's cool content! "Oh, here's how we do this hairstyle. Here's how we do this one." It's kind of like, you know, what your big sister should have taught you or something like that. I think her story is that she has five kids. I might butcher this story because I just don't remember; this was like a couple of weeks ago when I saw this. But I think she's got five kids or something like that, and they all have different hairstyles or textures. They may have adopted or something like that. So, her content is showing this wide range of hairstyles and how you can make them all look cute, no matter what your hair is, right? That's great! She does a launch with **Walmart**, and it's the second biggest launch with Walmart. They're doing nine figures in sales—over $100,000,000 in sales! Her YouTube channel has 5.5 million subscribers. Her twin daughters have a YouTube channel with 7 million subscribers, right? This is just kind of insane how big that launch can be when there's total alignment between the creator, their personal story, their content, and then their product once they have the distribution. That was pretty inspiring to me. I really like that! And now, I have a good excuse to spend all day just making fun content for free and being like, "Don't worry, one day this is all gonna become actual work. This is not just me getting to play around and, like, you know, be on YouTube all day."

Sam Parr

alright well what else is there I mean cute girl hair great name what else you got

Shaan Puri

well okay I just gave you 7 but like we can keep going if we if we'd like

Sam Parr

Oh, I thought you had a few. There's one guy that I find very fascinating that I saw someone mention on your thing. Guzman. His name's Christian.

Shaan Puri

I didn't know who this was. A lot of people mentioned him. So, Huisman, he's, I guess, a fitness influencer. He's got Afflete or something like that—Afflete.

Sam Parr

Yeah, his... I don't know if his... I think his niche is like Texans. I think he's Hispanic, so I think he has like a huge Hispanic following. Basically, he's like a ripped guy, but he has weaved his family into his content, so you know about his life and he's like a family guy. He launched something like a 50,000 square foot gym called **Alphaland**. So probably not in your wheelhouse, but it's called Alphaland and they have a sister branch for beta dudes. [Laughs]

Shaan Puri

do we go there to

Sam Parr

watch what's going on in alphaland is there like a is there like a gymnastics like part of that

Shaan Puri

we stretch we stretch and watch other men workout yeah

Sam Parr

It's called **Alphaland**. It's like a 50,000 square foot gym. I figure it's in San Antonio, Houston, or Dallas... one of those places where you'd expect an Alphaland. He also has a clothing line, and I think he's killing it. I think he's doing big business.

Shaan Puri

Right, I like how you acted like you hadn't been there or don't have a membership, but like we don't. Okay, yeah, so these are my $50,000,000 creators. All of these people, I think, have built off of their YouTube content an empire that's easily worth $50,000,000 or more.

Sam Parr

You made fun of me for not preparing, and you prepared that list. I think I knew more about all of them than you did.

Shaan Puri

Yeah, because you are like a real consumer of content, right? Like, I'll be like, "Oh, they used this technology in this music video," and you're like, "Yeah, I love that music video." I'm like, "I haven't watched a music video in 17 years." I went to your house, and you just had music videos on TV on loop.

Sam Parr

I love music videos

Shaan Puri

I was like this is what you watch and you're like oh just leave it on

Sam Parr

yeah I love music videos

Shaan Puri

I just ran out of questions because I was like, "Wow, this is just a different thing that doesn't happen in my world."

Sam Parr

No, I watch music videos constantly. So, yeah, that's one of the ways I know about stuff. Also, my wife is a little bit younger; she just turned 30. So when we were dating, you know, only a couple of years ago, she was like...

Shaan Puri

in her twenties okay

Sam Parr

Yeah, well, hey, I said younger than me, and she's got a younger sister. So I'm kind of... I’ve got my toe in the cool kids market.

Shaan Puri

Yeah, you see people. You leave the house, take supplements, watch music videos, watch movies, read biographies. You do a lot of things that, you know, I simply don't do. I'm just like a heat-seeking missile for what's the interesting story. Then my stories are typically like, "Did you know that there's this?" For most normal people, it's like, "Yeah, I love that! Love their channel."

Sam Parr

you're I've been

Shaan Puri

watching the mark over for years

Sam Parr

"You're a potato. What you see is what you get. You could pull the skin back a little bit, it gets something new." "I'm like an onion, bro. There's layers... there's lots of layers. It goes all the way to the core. The layers don't stop."

Shaan Puri

yeah but french fries are made out of me and I think that that's kind of a win

Sam Parr

Dude, alright, let me tell you something interesting. This is more so... I want to put this on record that I brought this up about 2 years ago. But have I... Remember when I told you about the company Bring a Trailer?

Shaan Puri

Yeah, you said you were talking about car companies or auction companies or something like that. You were like, "Dude, there's this thing you've been told that this is like a long time ago."

Sam Parr

years ago ago

Shaan Puri

You were like, "Dude, there's this thing called Bring a Trailer. It's sick! You can just buy a car on this auction thing." I don't even know how it works exactly. You're like, "It was started by this guy, Doug DeMuro."

Sam Parr

you're you're confusing 2 things

Shaan Puri

oh no it was the guy from inbox or whatever right

Sam Parr

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it was started by the main guy—I forget his name, Nathan, I think. The non-main guy, but also co-founder, I think his name is Gentry Underwood. He started this company called Mailbox, which is like an email thing that sold for reportedly $100 million to Dropbox, like, before it even launched because it built up such a huge waitlist. It sounded like a cool product; I don't even think it got launched. But anyway, it's this website called Bring a Trailer. If you go to it, it just looks almost like a blog. It's fairly unsophisticated, honestly. I think it's WordPress. What they do is cater to this neat niche of car enthusiasts who like things from the seventies to the early nineties, which...

Shaan Puri

like your jacket I don't

Sam Parr

Like my jacket? Yeah, exactly like my jacket. It started out small, but it was recently announced that they sold something like **$1,200,000,000** worth of cars in one year. They made something like **$100,000,000** in net revenue with about **80 employees**. You go to their website, and it's so basic, yet people love it. There's this guy named **Doug DeMuro** who has a YouTube channel where he reviews all types of cars. He does it just with an iPhone, and he always has what you might call a "bacon collar." Have you heard of a bacon collar? It's where you wear an undershirt under your white shirt, and the collar's all shuffled, or the white sleeves are coming down below your polo, you know?

Shaan Puri

what I'm talking about okay so your undershirt is showing is that the idea

Sam Parr

Yeah, where you're like... It's like where you're wearing... Imagine a guy wearing cargo shorts and like an Old Navy t-shirt with a Hollister polo above it. And you have a bacon collar... He just looks totally disheveled. It's incredibly unprofessional looking.

Shaan Puri

Okay, I got the definition: shirts that have a wavy neck due to being stretched out or from improper care.

Sam Parr

yeah it's just like it's just like the very typical like

Shaan Puri

how my shirts look dude

Sam Parr

Yeah, you're a bacon collar guy, so that's what this guy is. Doug's a bacon collar guy, but he's hilarious, lovable, and likable. He's built this YouTube channel where he'll review a $2,000,000 Ferrari as well as a $30,000 Honda Pilot. It's pretty hilarious. He's got 3 or 4 million subscribers on YouTube now. I told you about him maybe 2 years ago, or maybe 3 years ago. He launched this new company called Cars and Bids, and it's very similar to Bring a Trailer. So, I predict that this is actually going to be a multi-hundred-million-dollar exit, and I want to make my prediction there now that that's going to happen. But what's really interesting here is curated auctions. I think that's very fascinating because the reason it's fascinating is if you go to eBay... have you been to eBay in the last 5 years?

Shaan Puri

I have not

Sam Parr

Dude, no. Like, not a lot of people do. Of course, a lot of people do, but like, not a lot of people do. It's because it's one of those things; no one goes there anymore.

Shaan Puri

perfect description it's got like 100,000,000 visitors you don't know any of them

Sam Parr

Yeah, it's too crowded. No one goes there anymore. It's one of those things where, like, you go to eBay and... do you like that one?

Shaan Puri

I was smooth it was really the timing that I enjoyed there

Sam Parr

You go to eBay and you get overwhelmed with options. There's a couple of businesses that I've been looking at where I'm trying to think of what a curated auction could be. Because I think it's... it's cool and it feels like a beautiful experience, you know? That's what we... that's our phrase: **"It's just a delightful auction."**

Shaan Puri

but it's just beautifully done yeah it's beautifully done really well done

Sam Parr

Anytime people can say "handcrafted" or "ultra premium," that's what this is. I really have been digging this. I invested in a company that is doing this for homes because I've been looking at what are big-ticket items that people will buy online that they previously didn't. But they will because it's more well-curated. For example, we talked about Hodinkee. I can never say it right, but we had Kevin Rose, the founder. They sell watches, and you can buy a $40,000 watch online. They do a really good job of editorializing it. So I've been thinking, what are other categories where someone can buy something online that's $30,000 to $100,000, even $1,000,000+? If you curate it nicely and describe it well with beautiful photos, it can work. In the same way that Airbnb... I don't know if you know this, but they used to send out photographers to the really nice listings. They realized, "We charge $1,000 a night; with better pictures, you can charge $1,500 a night." So it's worth it to us to help you make your property look better. What else is like that? These curated auctions can work because I think they're really cool companies to run. They're really hard to break into, but once they work, it's like the people working there are important. The community has taken hold. You are just there to help the community; it's no longer your business that you're pushing down people's throats.

Shaan Puri

golf equipment

Sam Parr

golf equipment

Shaan Puri

golf equipment

Sam Parr

really how much is a an expensive

Shaan Puri

equipment how

Sam Parr

much why do you say that

Shaan Puri

Well, you have an enthusiast market. You have kind of a knowledge gap: which one should I get? What's better? What's worse? Blah, blah, blah. You have a super premium price. I think a golfer, over the course of their lifetime, is going to spend probably upwards of $10,000 on equipment. I think that the thing you want is like cars; you want a high ticket. You need the ability to drive high ticket customers to something. So, I think that's one area where people will nerd out on the content and get there. But what you said, by the way, is a perfect lead into two things I want to talk about.

Sam Parr

wait let me say mine livestock livestock

Shaan Puri

like animals

Sam Parr

Hell yeah, dog! Dude, listen to this: my cousins, they're cowboys. So they buck bulls. They surprise... they've called.

Shaan Puri

if you

Sam Parr

Ask them what they do, and they'll say, "I buck bulls," which means they live in rural Oklahoma. When I went to their house once, instead of going to the community softball game on a Thursday night, we went to the community rodeo. There were only about 20 people in the stands, but they were practicing their rodeo. Basically, you get on a bull, and bulls are mean. They want to kill you, even if you raise them. The riders get on these bulls and try to stay on as long as possible. The person who stays on the longest gets a prize, while the bull that bucks the hardest, based on judging, also wins a prize. Some of these bulls cost $50. My parents bought into a bull for $50,000, and they receive a portion of the offspring, as well as a share of the winnings from the bull.

Shaan Puri

and these bowls investment

Sam Parr

they make money off of it yeah and they so like

Shaan Puri

well money are we talking here what what did it do

Sam Parr

The return's not like that great, but you know, you get a couple grand every once in a while. So it's not that great. And like, the bull can break its leg and you're screwed. But, like, the should...

Shaan Puri

we should we go have these on a bull

Sam Parr

It's pretty interesting to own a bull, but it's a huge sport in certain parts of the country. My cousin went to college on a scholarship for bucking bulls, for being a rodeo guy. And all these folks, they... it's cash. They'll come to the rodeo with like $10,000, $30,000, $40,000 in cash, and they're playing right there on it. It's very fascinating. Have you never been to a livestock auction?

Shaan Puri

sure haven't

Sam Parr

dude it's dope it's awesome

Shaan Puri

I do think we should go have these on a bull. If there's a bull dealer in the audience, hit us up! We are in the market for one, and we'll livestream our bull purchase. Yeah, this is great. Okay, so livestock, that's one. Yeah, sure, I like that.

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Shaan Puri

Alright, I think I've kind of done this, but I went even deeper down this rabbit hole. So, I gotta bring him back as a new "Billy of the Week."

Sam Parr

$1,000,000 isn't cool you know what's cool

Shaan Puri

A $1,000,000,000. The new "Billy of the Week" is an old "Billy of the Week." It's Sam Altman. You would think, "Sam, what? You know, you got nothing new to say here." What's Sam Altman? We all know Sam Altman. We've talked about Sam Altman. Dude, Sam Altman's... Sam Altman's onion status—he's got layers. Okay, so I want to read you some of the interesting things. I went down the Sam Altman rabbit hole last night. Here's why: he did an interview, and I was watching his...

Sam Parr

well you gotta explain who he is for the new chapter

Shaan Puri

For people who don't know, Sam Altman is an entrepreneur in Silicon Valley. He created one company called Loop'd, which didn't go that far, but he sold it for $40 billion. He went through Y Combinator, the big accelerator down here.

Sam Parr

when he was like 19

Shaan Puri

And the founder of Y Combinator was super impressed with him. He kept him on as a partner and eventually named him president of YC, which is like being named the dean of Harvard after being a Harvard student because the dean thought you were so special. So that's literally what he did. He became the president of YC and grew it. He then created the nonprofit OpenAI. He then left to go work on OpenAI, which is now behind ChatGPT. ChatGPT is one of the fastest growing tech waves out there, basically an artificial intelligence platform. I think they launched ChatGPT and got 10 million users in like 10 days or something ridiculous like that.

Sam Parr

it's worth $40,000,000,000

Shaan Puri

The company's worth, you know, somewhere between $20 billion and $40 billion now. He's the leader of that thing too, and he's a prolific investor. He's invested in a bunch of things. Alright, so I got some of those facts coming, but that's... most people know Sam Altman. I'm not bringing up a surprise. If you listen to this pod, you probably know who he is. Okay, but here's some of the things I didn't know. I was listening to this interview, and they said, "You invested in this fusion company." I'm thinking, "Okay, fusion. I still don't know what the hell that is, but I know smart people talk about it. Okay, great." And they go, "You led the investment." Okay, that's fine. He led the investment. He wrote a $375 million check into Helion, and I was like...

Sam Parr

what

Shaan Puri

You know, like... rewind. What did this person just say? I literally went back and re-listened to it. I was like, "Oh, I didn't know Sam Altman has like a giant venture fund." Surely, he's not writing a $375,000,000 check himself. As far as I could tell, that is what he did. He wrote a $375,000,000 check himself. That got me down this rabbit hole of, "Where did... how did Sam Altman get so wealthy?" Because I've heard several stories now. For example, when he started OpenAI or even when he was president of Y Combinator, he donated $10,000,000 to a science research project that he created, right? To donate $10,000,000 means you’ve got a lot more than $10,000,000. At that time, I was like, "How did he get $10,000,000?" Because again, his first startup, which he was like, whatever, 18 or 19, sold for $41,000,000. Out of that, he said that he got $5,000,000. So somehow, he parlayed $5,000,000 and in a very short amount of time, about 4 or 5 years, was now donating $10,000,000. That was the first...

Sam Parr

thing I did it was that short

Shaan Puri

That didn't make sense, and I was like, "Okay, so he's... you know, this is now maybe 6 years max later." Okay, then what else did he do? He also donated to... you know, when he started OpenAI, but they didn't say how much. Then this $375,000,000 check. So I started going back and trying to figure out what's going on. So, he starts Loop, sells it, and nets about $5,000,000 from there.

Sam Parr

how old was he at that $5,000,000 like 22 23

Shaan Puri

Yeah, something like that. I don't have the exact timeline, but I think he's in his early twenties. It's pretty safe to say that he then starts investing in startups. So, his second investment is... drum roll please... the best investment of the decade: Stripe. He was one of the first investors in Stripe. There's this thing that I've noticed, which is in D2C (direct-to-consumer) brands, they call your first couple of months your "golden cohort." I noticed this about our customers in my e-commerce brand, but I've also seen it across many brands. For some reason, that first batch of customers you get has a much higher lifetime value (LTV). It kind of makes sense because these are the people who immediately resonate with your message. They are willing to adopt your product before you're a big brand. They probably really have the problem you're solving or are heavy enthusiasts. There's an equivalent phenomenon in investing. For some reason, it's very common for people's first 5 to 10 investments to do extremely well in the world of angel investing. For great investors, often their best hits come early. For example, Chris Sacca, who is one of the best early-stage investors of all time, had some of his earliest investments in companies like Twitter, Uber, and Instagram. These were part of the first 10 to 15 deals that he did.

Sam Parr

and I feel like that's the only stuff he did like those were the hits and then everything

Shaan Puri

He did so well that he retired, right? He became a billionaire and essentially retired from the game because he was like, "Well, my first fund was like whatever, 6,000x. I'm good." Sam said that in his first 40 deals, at that time, he had invested in 40 deals. It was 2 years in, and he said that 5 of the companies were doing really good. Then it was like, "What's really good?" It was over 100x. So, like...

Sam Parr

what's that

Shaan Puri

that's not really good that's ridiculously good

Sam Parr

So, what's a $50,000? How big of it? Maybe $25,000. What's 100 times $25,000?

Shaan Puri

well you're violating the no public math rule but

Sam Parr

is that 2.5 or 25,000,000

Shaan Puri

so 50,000 turns into 5,000,000 for a 100 x

Sam Parr

wow okay

Shaan Puri

And so, you stack five of those. That's pretty good. I was like, "Okay, where did he get all this money? How was he doing all these deals? Was he just investing out of that $5,000,000?" The reality was, yes, he was investing personally. I texted a friend and said, "Yo, I'm looking up Sam Altman. Where did he write this check personally? How did he get all this money?" This is somebody else who's young, smart, and friends with Sam and that crew. He replied, "I think this check was personal. This $375,000,000 check, I think so, but it might have been an SPV." I was like, "Dude, I feel like there's some underground, you know, like team prodigy thing where if you turn 18 years old and you're a phenom, Peter Thiel just gives you $100,000,000." I was laughing and said, "You know, I think you're in that club too." He was just laughing and said, "Yeah, Peter does actually back it." So, I go and I Google it. Sure enough, Sam Altman, right after he saw his first thing, raises a $21,000,000 fund from Peter Thiel. This is...

Sam Parr

Like 100%, dude. I know a few of these prodigies. There is... there is a club. They exist. So people talk about, like, you know, "Oh, it's just like... it's..." What did they say? You know, "It's that boys' club and I can't ever break into it." Unfortunately, that's true. It's real. They exist. You and I aren't in that club. Maybe we have our own club, but these types of elite clubs... they're real. They're 100% real.

Shaan Puri

So, somebody said something. They were like, "You know, Sam, they're asking Paul Graham." I think they were like, "What stood out to you about Sam?" From the very beginning, I've talked about this before. From the very beginning, I think in 2007 or 2008, Paul Graham wrote a blog post about who are the five most impressive people he's met in Silicon Valley or who he admires or looks up to, or whatever. It was like Steve Jobs, Larry and Sergey from Google, and Sam Altman. It was like, "One of these does not belong." One guy invented Apple, another guy invented Google. Who's this kid I've never heard of? He was like, "When I talked to Sam Altman, I think, 'Oh, this is what it would have been like to talk to Bill Gates when he was 20 years old.'" I was just like, "What an epic call for a guy who's now gone on to do some pretty amazing things." There was a story I had never heard, though, or two stories I thought were pretty remarkable. I think there was a situation where, at his school when he was in high school, there was a protest from like the Christian or Catholic... you know, some protesters that were like, you know, protesting the... I forgot exactly what it was.

Sam Parr

He's from my hometown. He probably went to a Catholic school in Saint Louis. If I had to bet, that's where he went.

Shaan Puri

I think it was a... I don't remember exactly what the protest was, but it was like, you know, here we go. So basically, a Christian group boycotted an assembly about sexuality. They were going to have an assembly about sexuality at his prep school, John Burroughs.

Sam Parr

yeah john burroughs in saint louis

Shaan Puri

And so, Sam Altman basically takes the mic, announces that he's gay, and then asks the school whether they want to be a repressive place or a place open to different ideas.

Sam Parr

baller

Shaan Puri

And then baller, right? And then the college counselor goes, "What Sam did changed the school. It felt like somebody opened up a big box, and then all the kids of all kinds got to be let out into the world." You know, it just kind of... it drew a line publicly.

Sam Parr

that's a really good way to describe it by the way

Shaan Puri

And that is just an amazing story. I love that story! He also talked about, like, "Okay, I want to read you some other amazing quotables," because this guy's kind of remarkable. We just respect people who, kind of, would you say, "let the freak flag fly"? The people who just do life their way, and their way happens to be different than the traditional way.

Sam Parr

The craziest thing that he did was he gave a speech announcing something big, and he wore two double pop collars that were pink and green. I love that guy. I remember seeing that.

Shaan Puri

on the girls conference like a big deal a life highlight for most people there's all these amazing anecdotes from these these articles that I was reading so one goes so they got so they got in a him and his brothers he's got brothers jack and other max max and so they one of them started this company called lattice and like you know he had some phrase about what lattice was doing and and so sam invests in asana the a different company and he writes this blog post about like you know just quickly you have morning of kind of writes this writes this blog post where he goes how did he go he goes he goes yeah I you know I invested in asana because I think it's great it's gonna make people more productive because they do a b and c and it turns out that a b and c were like the same marketing material that jack his brother was using for lattice and so the article is talking about it's like jack is like super pissed he's like dude you just invested in them for the exact you know that's our mission statement why are you saying they do it and sam was like oh dude like I'm so I I totally I must have just totally spaced like I must have heard you say that so many times over the years that like it just kind of became like a a a set of words I know I I totally didn't intend that edit edits it but jack's mad calls the mom and is just like you know sam did this and they're and and sam's like are you still mad at me or whatever and they're fighting and then they're like and then the end of the story goes like like and then jack looks over at a board game called samurai that's on their bookshelf in their home and says you know sam won every single game of samurai when we were kids and always declared himself the samurai leader because he's he always has to win he's always in charge of everything this is all and then says sam altman shot back you wanna play speed chess right now and I just I read this and I was like that's literally like if chad I told chad gpt to like make up a story about like young silicon valley nerds who are competitive a competitive streak you know like oh yeah it's called alpha land wanna take this outside and play some speed chess instead of seeing who's the real man

Sam Parr

yeah that's alpha land in silicon valley

Shaan Puri

Yeah, so I thought that was hilarious. There's another one that I thought was a kind of an amazing thing. Did you know that at some point, he basically sold... what did he do? He sold... yeah, so the story goes he decided to get rid of all his comforts except for the 3 or 4 things. He kept a four-bedroom house in San Francisco, and he kept his cars because he loves cars.

Sam Parr

it was like a mclaren like really crazy

Shaan Puri

He has two McLarens and something else. He kept a property in Big Sur in case the world ends. He has a reserve of $10,000,000, and he's like, "The annual interest should cover my living expenses, and I can just spend the rest of my money and my time trying to improve humanity." So he's like, "I can just whittle it down to what are the things I really care about."

Sam Parr

yeah the essentials

Shaan Puri

I need the essentials, you know, my McLarens, my $10,000,000, you know, whatever. It sounds a little trite because it's like, "Oh yeah, dude, like that's it." But in reality, if you know people in Silicon Valley, there's a never-ending appetite for more—more fame, more money, more everything. I actually think that somebody who can sort of figure out, "Well, dude, just accruing these money points doesn't do anything past a certain score," is onto something. So, what am I going to do with this money and my time to make sure I use my time on this little blueberry called Earth to the best advantage, right? So, I like that he had that perspective. Another thing that he said about being a prepper that I think you'll like... Let me read this quote to you.

Sam Parr

Dude, I think he was saying, "You know, in case there's a pandemic or something like that, I want a place to go to."

Shaan Puri

Exactly, exactly. So, somebody goes up to these guys at this conference or whatever, at this hangout meet-up, and he's like, "So, what do you guys do?" They're like, "We just kind of work and whatever." Then he asks, "What do you do for fun?" He replies, "Well, I like racing cars. I have five cars: two McLarens and an old Tesla. I like to fly rented planes all around California. Oh, and one weird thing—I like to prep for survival." They're like, "Survival? What?" He goes on, "You see, I have a lot of friends who are constantly getting drunk and telling me about all the ways the world is going to end. I read that this Dutch lab had modified the H5N1 bird flu virus five years ago, and it was super contagious. By the way, this is pre-pandemic, right? It's pre-COVID. So, I read about this lab that was modifying this thing, making it really contagious, and I realized that the chance of a lethal synthetic virus being released in the next 20 years was well, non-zero."

Sam Parr

And, "0." That's such a... whenever I hear that phrase, that's like, "Oh, you either are smart or you're trying to be smart." Either way, you've got my attention.

Shaan Puri

dude I have another one that when I was reading this and I was like he kept saying orders of magnitude

Sam Parr

orders of magnitude I love

Shaan Puri

That one decided that that's going to be the name of my gang. So if you want to join my gang, it's called "Orders of Magnitude," and we **mess things up** at levels that are **10x** the previous level.

Sam Parr

Dude, I'm gonna have like the subcommittee on that. We're gonna call it "Parabolic" or something like that. I'm just gonna come up with crazy names like, "Oh, you guys wanna join the Exponentials or not?"

Shaan Puri

Exactly. Yeah, it's the orders of magnitude versus... that's the Crips and Bloods. We go against the exponentials. So then he also says this before OpenAI. He goes, "The other one is that AI might, you know, get really powerful and be used to attack us. Nations will use it, and then people are going to..." He goes, "You know, I try not to think about it too much, but I have guns, gold, potassium iodide, antibiotics, batteries, water, a gas mask from the Israeli Defense Force, and a big patch of land at Big Sur that I can fly to if the world ever ends."

Sam Parr

Hey, that's crazy! What a baller! There's also a story of him walking around with Brian Chesky. Brian Chesky was about to pitch at YC, and this is when Brian had just started Airbnb. Airbnb was just getting going, and Brian was explaining the idea to Sam. Sam goes, "Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's cool. I think it's great. Can I see your presentation?" He shows him the presentation, and Sam goes, "Yeah, I think we can make like $100 million a year doing this." He then says to Brian, "Do me a favor, can you add a zero to every single number that you have up there? I need to see a $1 billion in revenue, not $100 million."

Shaan Puri

he goes change all your m's to b's

Sam Parr

yeah change all your m's to b's and that that's that's that's actually gonna be my dude

Shaan Puri

Voice stuff, as we say. Sam, you just needed our phrase: "No small voice." Change all your M's to B's. When I was done... mic drop.

Sam Parr

I used to work at this office, and they took the exit sign. You know how there are exit signs in offices, like above the door? They changed the exit sign to say "IPO." They molded it in such a way that it said "IPO," so the exit was an IPO sign. I always thought that was awesome. We need a new sign that says, "Change the M's to B's." That's what he did with Brian Chesky when he was...

Shaan Puri

fire marshal would like a word but yeah

Sam Parr

only nerds will survive only nerds will get that joke

Shaan Puri

So, he had another quote about that "M's to B's" thing. He goes, "Look, I listened to your whole presentation, and you need to change that." They're like, "Are you sure?"

Sam Parr

and he

Shaan Puri

Goes, "Look, either you don't believe what you told me, or I'm dumb and I didn't understand what you told me, or I don't know math." One of those three is what's true here. Like, either you're ashamed to say it, you don't believe it, or I'm dumb and I don't know math. Yeah, that's great. That's a pretty baller way to say things. I want to read you some of the other little, like, you know, isms. Okay, let me give you some more. So here's some quick chat advice. I'm pretty into my meme of the year, which is what I call the "midwit meme." I mean, you can throw this up on YouTube so you could see it, but it's basically like there's the dumb, the ignorant kind of beginner on one side, and there's the Jedi master on the other. And every in-between is the sort of stressor, type A personality that's like overanalyzing everything. My goal for the year, or for life, is to live life like either the dumb beginner or the Jedi master. It doesn't matter; they think the same way. And I want to not be the stressor, stressor achiever, type A over-analyzer type person. I'm just seeing that meme everywhere. When I meet people, I just classify them instantaneously. So, they're being right now.

Sam Parr

where do you think you've been historically

Shaan Puri

I started off, for sure, as the dumb troll. My first sushi restaurant startup, I thought, was the greatest thing in the world. My next thing, yes, even just when I applied for my job and moved to Silicon Valley, I got a job with a billionaire. I didn't know what the hell I was doing. But I was so dumb that my approach was correct. I was like, "Well, I'll just reach out to the guy and send him a letter saying why I'm the right guy for the job." Then, I thought, "I'm not really going to apply for other jobs. I'm just going to prove to this guy that I'm good at this job." That was my job search. I didn't do any of the traditional things. I just did what seemed like the dumb thing to do. But that would also be the Jedi move too, in that case. It's like, you know, find the thing you really want and chase it with reckless abandon. Don't just put a resume on 500 desks and see who calls you for the job. So, you know...

Sam Parr

I'm still a mouth breather. I think I'm still pretty far left on that. I'm still pretty stupid, so I'm glad.

Shaan Puri

I do it from time to time. I'll often do it with my e-commerce business. Like, Sully is my kind of mentor and coach on that side. If you like, he's the Jedi guy. I know he's the Jedi guy because he says something about frameworks. He goes, "Everyone in Silicon Valley talks about frameworks. I don't know what a framework is." At first, I used to think maybe I was too dumb. Like, should I learn this thing? I don't understand what everyone's talking about. Now I realize they're all dumb, and I think he's 100% right. I'd be like, "Hey, should we do influencer marketing for the brand, blah blah blah?" He's like, "Remember I told you Facebook ads? Just write the words 'Facebook ads' on your computer. Then, every time you think about doing anything else besides Facebook ads, look at that sticky note again."

Sam Parr

that's hilarious

Shaan Puri

And he'd be like, "If you're gonna call me and talk to me about another idea, you better have been doing $500,000 a month. Don't call me about another idea until Facebook ads have got you to $500,000 a month." It's like the **Jedi simplicity** is something I now revere. He had a few Jedi quotes in this, and I'm going to read you one. He goes, "Founders will come to me and be like, 'Oh, you know, what if... I'm worried about saying this to my investors because then they're gonna think this, that might affect our Series B raise, blah blah.' He goes, 'Just tell them.'" Then he goes, "People are worried about... you don't know how your customers are gonna feel about this? Just ask them. You're worried about competitors? Don't worry about them until they're beating you in the market." And he's like, "Oh, you want to do these 5 things? You're trying to decide? Just pick 1 and do it. Most people just simply do too many things. Do a few things relentlessly." Another one he goes, "Every year, you need to think about how you're gonna add one zero to what you're doing, but don't think beyond one zero." I thought that's a good Jedi-ism. It's like a way to think big without being kind of like just a delusional talker and, you know, living in fantasy land. So, you had a bunch of those as I was reading this that I thought was pretty dope.

Sam Parr

He's great, man. I always see pictures. There's that famous conference in Idaho, like the Sun Valley thing, and you'll see pictures of...

Shaan Puri

him thing oh no the rich guy 1

Sam Parr

The rich guy... It's like we're at Davos or something like that, but it's all about the who's who. I think it's mostly media though, which includes everyone, like the Murdoch family and the people who run CNN. You see pre-ex-presidents there, and then you see Sam Altman. He's wearing cool running shoes with cool sunglasses, and his hair is all just shuffled. He is a very interesting character. Sam Altman's cool; he's kind of been a little bit under the radar while he's been building his company. But he said something the other day. Someone asked, "We're really hyped about GPT-4, can you tell us?" He goes, "All I can say is people are setting themselves up for a lot of disappointment. I don't think we're going to live up to your expectations," or something like that. I was like, "Oh, that's a pretty cool response." Now I'm interested.

Shaan Puri

Yeah, he goes with AI. There are people who think AI has changed the whole game and that every Google search is dead. AI is going to change everything. GPT-4 is going to be like, you know, freaking sentient and whatever. It's going to be amazing. He goes, "That's wrong." People who think, "Oh, ChatGPT, this thing's overrated. It's a big nothing burger. It makes this mistake, it makes this mistake, and you could trick it into saying this stupid thing," he goes, "they're also wrong. They're also being dumb, but in a different way." You know, they're being dumb because they're not realizing how fast this thing's going to improve. The other guy's being dumb because they think it's already there, but it's not there yet. You know, the truth is somewhere in the middle. I just thought that was a much better reply.

Sam Parr

I also thought there was like a couple of

Shaan Puri

Kind of remarkable little things that I want to share as well—things that I didn't know about Sam Altman. So, that first fund that Peter Thiel gave him, $21,000,000, in I think 3 years or so... let's see, in 3 years or so, the fund was up 10x already. You know, that's like what people want after, like, you know, a 10-year period. And in 4 years, he had done that. The second thing is, how did he do it? He made some pretty ridiculous bets. He was like, "Alright, if I want to help create like, you know, $1,000,000,000,000 of progress, that's gonna come from science and technology, not just like the next random app." So, he's like, "Alright, I gotta invest in more science and technology." He goes for Cruise, which was a self-driving car company that eventually got bought by GM for $1,000,000,000. But at the time, nobody was funding Cruise. Nobody was funding self-driving cars. It just seemed too hard, like hardware.

Sam Parr

seems like an obvious bet now looking back right I mean that team was like a +

Shaan Puri

Completely non-obvious back then, and they were struggling. He puts $3,000,000 directly into that one company. The same thing happened with this $375,000,000 check. The lady was like, "Most people can't write that big of a check." He goes, "Especially not into something as extremely risky as nuclear fusion." It's completely right; that's going to be like, you know, a zero or massive. And he's writing massive checks into it. He did this several times, putting like $1,000,000 into single bets that he had conviction on. He then reflects on it and says, "Of all the biggest winners, I looked at the five biggest winners that I had in that early portfolio. Four of the five, nobody wanted to fund. They were not oversubscribed. People generally thought they were bad ideas. In fact, I almost got talked out of doing them because smart people were telling me why these were bad ideas. Only one, Optimizely, was an idea that everybody thought was a good idea and that turned out to be a good idea."

Sam Parr

it didn't even do that well I think

Shaan Puri

Well, it did okay. I think Optimizely did go public in the end, so you know, it did make it. But maybe I'm wrong about that. But like...

Sam Parr

I thought it got bought by PE, but like it was... it compared to the other. Oh no, it says they have 1,000 employees. I'm wrong. Yeah, it must have been a hit.

Shaan Puri

So, the other ones, you know, Zenefits, Cruise, things like that. Basically, he was like Stripe. He's like, "Now Stripe's everything," but at the time, it was an 18-year-old kid saying, "We're gonna work with banks and change the payments industry." And the reality is, these guys don't know what they're getting into, except for a handful of people that believed in them. The same thing with Airbnb; he was an early investor in Airbnb, which was a non-obvious choice. So, he kind of got really into this non-obvious but correct mentality, which is the Peter Thiel school of thought too. He's like, "The investments that didn't work out, people also told me those were bad ideas." So, it's not that all bad ideas are good ideas; it's that some bad ideas are actually great ideas, and that's where all the returns are. You need to be willing to go where it's unpopular.

Sam Parr

Which is so easy to talk about, and it sounds like, "Oh yeah, just do non-obvious things." Therefore, any bad idea I see, I should invest in. I get so many bad ideas, and I think I would say no, these are actually all bad ideas. That's such a challenging thing to figure out. That requires so much talent or skill. I don't know what it is, but it's really, really impressive and really hard. Because looking back, Airbnb sounds incredibly obvious, but it's just crazy that he was able to pull that off.

Shaan Puri

Yeah, it's insane. So anyway, that's a giant, you know, Sam Altman-gasm, but the guy is just really interesting. He's one of the more interesting characters I think that exists in the tech world. So... yeah, I like some of those quotes.

Sam Parr

I think this was a 10 out of 10 pod, you know? So here's how I know it's a good pod: It's 12:30 in Texas where I'm recording this. Usually, I go and take a nap till about 2 o'clock after we have a good pod. I *require* sleep and rest, and that's how I feel after this pod. I'm like, "I need to take a nap," and that's how I know it's good.

Shaan Puri

Alright, great! Glad to hear it. Oh, and by the way, I'm going to show my tax return on the YouTube channel. Go subscribe, and then you'll see it. It's my first million on YouTube. If you want to see it, yeah, go subscribe!

Sam Parr

And if you find the glitch, you might be able to see his social security number. It's somewhere in there.

Shaan Puri

turn out then