Our Producer Had A 90-Minute Phone Call With Mr Beast…
MrBeast, Hypnosis, Ambition, and Building - July 19, 2022 (over 2 years ago) • 01:06:25
Transcript:
| Start Time | Speaker | Text |
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Sam Parr | Alright, let's do this. I've got a few things to talk about, but first, Sean, let's talk to Ben. Ben had a big night.
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Shaan Puri | Why are we even talking? We are now the sideshow. We're the openers, actually, for the main event. Ben "Main Event" Wilson, what's up, dude? How are you feeling?
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Sam Parr | well let let let's set the scene here | |
Shaan Puri | tell him why we're just gonna hype it up | |
Sam Parr | So here’s the setup: Sean and I were chilling last night when we got a text from Ben. He said, “Hey, look who just followed me!” and it was Mr. Beast.
For context, everyone, Ben is our producer here. Ben has a podcast called *How to Take Over the World*. It’s fairly popular but growing quickly. So, your Twitter only has like 1,000 or 2,000 followers, right?
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Ben Wilson | 4000 4,000 4,000 | |
Sam Parr | So, we get this message and you said, "Hey, look who just started following me!" It was Mr. Beast and Sean. I made fun of you, saying, "You know, that's nothing, no big deal."
Then you sent a text message to us saying, "Been on the phone with them for the past hour and a half." We were like, "Wait, what?"
We don't really know anything else, so of course, there's going to be some stuff here that you can't talk about. But what happened?
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Ben Wilson | Yeah, so I got back from Utah with my in-laws on Saturday. I was feeling a little jet lagged and was about to go to bed early. As I was getting into bed with my wife, I looked down at my phone and saw a notification that said, "MrBeast followed you."
My first thought was, "Oh yeah, MrBeast followed me!" I jokingly thought, "Hey, give me my social security number and I'll Venmo you $5,000." So, I literally saw it, put down my phone, and kept chatting with my wife.
Then, I picked it up five minutes later and looked at it again. I realized I actually didn't see an underscore; I didn't see anything wrong with this. I clicked on it, and it was verified. It was MrBeast, and he just followed me! I was like, "Oh, that's weird." I only have 4,000 followers, so it's not a normal thing for me to just pick up MrBeast.
Then, I got a DM two minutes later. He said, "Hey, I listened to your podcast. I think it's cool. I would love to chat sometime. I don't want anything from you; I just want to learn." I responded, "Cool, yeah, let's talk anytime. I'm free anytime you want to talk next week."
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Shaan Puri | you sound like you're playing it cool but inside what's going on | |
Ben Wilson | Yeah, so inside I was like, actually even outside I was like, "My wife is Katie." I was like, "Katie, Katie, Katie!" Once this starts happening, and she was like, "What?" I was like, "Mr. Beast is following me!" She's like, "What's a Mr. Beast?" I was like, "No, I gotta call someone else." That's why I texted you guys, because she doesn't get it. I need to talk to someone who gets it.
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Shaan Puri | katie leave | |
Ben Wilson | the room | |
Sam Parr | yeah go get me a 12 year old stat who could have a discussion about this | |
Shaan Puri | katie get your nephew on the line yeah | |
Ben Wilson | she's | |
Shaan Puri | getting mad | |
Ben Wilson | At me if I talk smack about her, though. Once I explained who he was, she was very, very excited.
So, I messaged him, and I'm trying to play it cool, like, "Oh yeah, cool, I could make time, no problem." | |
Shaan Puri | I run or crawl to you | |
Ben Wilson | And then he hits me with the Sean, and he's like, "How about right now?" I'm sitting there in my boxers in my bed, and I'm like, "Yep, I am 100% ready to talk right now. Call me."
So he called me, and apparently he does this at night. He goes for walks and just calls people who he thinks are interesting. He tries to download their brains and learn anything that he can.
We talked for almost two and a half hours in the end. He's a very cool dude, and I learned a lot of cool stuff.
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Sam Parr | well well like well and yeah | |
Ben Wilson | I mean | |
Shaan Puri | what did you guys talk about | |
Ben Wilson | We talked about a lot. It was, you know, just like a personal conversation, so I'm not going to share everything that we discussed.
For me, the coolest thing he did was... I've known for a long time that I need to take my podcast to YouTube. I got to ask him, "Okay, so how should I do this?" He basically walked me through how he would do it.
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Sam Parr | and how would he do it | |
Ben Wilson | General game plan. Basically, I was saying, you know, should I do segments? Should I do clips? Should I animate it? Should I do me on the screen?
What he said is, "Do the full episodes." You probably want to edit the scripts a little bit so that it's not quite so casual.
Because podcasts, like, you listen to as you're washing the dishes, it doesn't matter that it's not gripping every second of the audio. But for YouTube, it does need to be gripping every second. It really needs to pull people in, second by second.
So he said you need to edit your script a little bit for video. Do animations, make it highly produced, and do the full episodes, like 45 minutes to an hour long. That was the basic strategy.
Then he gave me some comps, some channels that I should make it similar to.
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Shaan Puri | some some | |
Ben Wilson | homework to study up on | |
Shaan Puri | What did he want to ask you? Right, because he called you. So, you know, was he looking for something? Was he just saying, "Hey, tell me about... you know, I'm walking around. I want to hear. I've listened to your podcast, and I decided I'd like you to say it out loud to me live." Go! Like, what was he interested in?
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Ben Wilson | He was laying in bed and he said, "Ben, tell me about my heroes." The funny thing was, he didn't really know, so we were just talking about random stuff. He said, "I just want to learn from you."
I don't know what's up, man. That's kind of how he went into it, and I was like, "I don't know what's up with you." So then we just started chatting about random topics. I asked him a lot of stuff, and he told me a lot of cool things that are not public information.
At the end, he was asking me sort of about like a guru. It's honestly very similar to what I told you about that finance guy who asked me and wants me to be his guru.
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Sam Parr | the background is that | |
Ben Wilson | very similar | |
Sam Parr | The background of that is like this: a person worth $100 million hollered at Ben and said, "Just tell me what mistakes I'm going to make before I make them," based off of historical people.
So, Ben's podcast is basically him reading three books on titans of industry and breaking them down into a 2 or 3-hour podcast. By that theory, Ben is a three-book expert on a lot of different people.
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Shaan Puri | If you're going to listen to one, go listen to Edison. I think it's amazing. Sam, what's your favorite one? Edison, to me, is by far my favorite.
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Sam Parr | What's the richest Rothschild? I like the Rothschild one, but I do think the Edison one is the most impactful because it has a significant impact. We all know the outcome of Edison.
The Disney one, people liked, but I didn't like that as much because Disney is not as interesting to me. However, that one's probably the most popular.
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Ben Wilson | So interestingly, for Disney, I almost did a follow-up at the end of it because I listened to Mr. Beast's interview on Joe Rogan. The stuff Mr. Beast was saying made me think, "Oh, this person is so similar to Walt Disney that it's almost kind of spooky."
Maybe I should make a podcast, just a quick 10-minute one, pointing out the similarities between Walt Disney and Mr. Beast. When he got on the phone, he said, "I love the Walt Disney one; that really resonated with me." I was like, "Oh, that doesn't sound like..."
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Sam Parr | A lot. Why? Like, you're pretty under-monetized, but I think it's going to catch up soon.
I think what's going to happen—and we said this six months ago—you make these comments like, "Oh, you remind me of Walt Disney."
So if I'm the person who, like, if I'm Mr. Beast and you said it to me, I go, "Really? What mistake? What am I doing wrong?" Or like, "I'm thinking about doing X, Y, and Z. Did Walt do this? Did it work or did it not work?"
You're this weird fortune teller type of person. Did he say something like that to you?
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Ben Wilson | Yeah, a little bit. He got into the like, "Well, what mistakes should I look out for? What do you think I need to be wary of?" | |
Shaan Puri | There's a Charlie Munger quote that's like, "Tell me where I'm gonna die so I know I never go there." Right? Like, I'll just make sure I never go there.
It's kind of that, but I'm also sure there's the upside. Right? Like, it's not just about what mistakes were made, but also how did they make their greatness happen? I think that's actually more of what people care about—how do they make their greatness happen?
Then, I can kind of draw parallels to my own life, like, "Yeah, I am just like Edison and the Rothschilds and Disney, after all." You know? So similar, right?
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Ben Wilson | I think, you know, like for Mr. Beast, the parallels are super easy with Walt Disney. The only time that Walt Disney slowed down in his career was for about a decade. This was because Walt loved to be working on new things, but everyone convinced him, "Oh, actually, you have this enormous multimillion-dollar animation studio now. You just need to be working on pumping out more full-length animations."
When he did that, the whole thing kind of went downhill. Then he goes crazy and starts obsessing over little toy trains, really going off the rails. But those model trains then get bigger and bigger and become Disneyland. That is when he comes out of his funk and starts innovating again.
So for Mr. Beast, it's just like, "Don't let anyone convince you that you need to be working on the reasonable thing." You need to follow your unreasonable passions because somehow, great things are to come out of that.
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Sam Parr | I I that's | |
Ben Wilson | kind of the paradox | |
Sam Parr | For context, Walt Disney... I can't imagine he was more successful than Mr. Beast was at Mr. Beast's age. But how big was his business when you say things were becoming unsuccessful and he started focusing? What does focusing mean? Like, was he the CEO of this company?
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Ben Wilson | Walt was essentially the CEO of Walt Disney Studios. This was in the forties and early fifties. It was not huge, but it had around 100 to maybe just over 1,000 employees. That's how big Walt Disney Studios was.
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Shaan Puri | Damn, dude! Well, Ben, I think this was cool as hell. I'm so happy for you that that happened. These are cool moments along the way and they serve as signals that you're on the right track. You know, Sam discovered you. I don't know when he came out here.
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Sam Parr | and started talking | |
Shaan Puri | about it | |
Sam Parr | it was a year ago | |
Shaan Puri | And you did this awesome thing! There's a Twitter clip where you did an interview, and you were like, "I'm listening to my First Million," and I hear Sam say, "Man, I found this podcast I love. It's called How to Take Over the World."
I thought to myself, "There's another podcast called How to Take Over the World? How cool is that?" And then you're like, "Oh shit, he's talking about me, Ben Wilson! He just said my name."
Then, I went down the rabbit hole after Sam mentioned it. I was like, "That sounds really interesting. I don't like to read biographies, but I think I'd like to listen to two hours." That's just, you know, like one commute, and I could know the story of Edison. I listened to Edison 1, and I got hooked.
I called you basically right after that. I think I DM'd you and called you, saying, "Hey, let's partner! I think your thing is gonna blow up. Come work for us on our podcast, and we will help cross-promote your podcast. Let's take this to the next level."
These are the little happenings that occur along the way. Now, you know, Mr. Beast is following Sam and me, recognizing your talents for what they are. Honestly, I think you have a great thing going. I'm really happy for you that this happened. I think it's such a cool thing that occurred.
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Sam Parr | I think what would be cool, and I think this might happen, Ben. Here's what I'm going to predict is going to happen in the next month: you're going to record an episode with Jimmy, Mr. Beast.
You're going to record an episode with Mr. Beast, and I think you should ask him. You should text him and say, "Hey, next time you want to do a Sunday talk, can I just record it? We're going to talk about history, and I'm going to make it an episode. Do you care?"
It's going to be really cool because it's going to be like when Elon Musk went on, or when... I forget, it was like Hardcore History. Elon Musk went on a couple of shows like "Wait But Why" and "Hardcore History."
And it's like, dude, Hardcore History is bigger than you, Ben. But even to the mainstream person, they were like, "Why is Elon Musk appearing on this nerdy niche thing?" And it blows it up.
That's what's going to happen. All the young people are going to be like, "Why is Mr. Beast on this history thing? What is going on? Who is this?"
I think that's what's going to happen, and your life is going to change. I predict that's how this story is going to play out.
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Shaan Puri | You should definitely reach out with some ideas. You just need to figure out what the idea is for how he could join you on the project. If you can get that one thing right, it will be like an inflection point for you and what you do.
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Sam Parr | Well, it should be: "Why Mr. Beast is the new Walt Disney."
You're going to be like, "What?" and I'm going to tell you—I'm Jimmy, right? I'm going to explain to you how you are just like Walt Disney, but I'm going to do it in front of everyone. You can ask me questions, and I'll explain to you why. That's why I think you are just like him. I think that'll be really cool.
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Ben Wilson | I think what I would want to do is, if you would let me, go down to North Carolina and interview his parents, interview his friends, and actually kind of make a semi-documentary, an audio documentary out of it. The making of Mr. Beast.
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Shaan Puri | That would be sick! Also, you could say, "This is part one of hopefully many parts to come." I'm going to document your whole journey and how this turns out. But you're only 20... what is he, 25 or 26 years old? Something like that. It's like, you know, this is part one.
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Ben Wilson | You know what's funny? Part 1: I was talking to him and I was talking about, like, just...
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Shaan Puri | Look at the smile on your face, bro! This is like, you know, wow. I have never seen this sort of deep happiness inside you. This is amazing.
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Ben Wilson | So, I was talking about how these guys call me up and think I'm their guru. I might do a consulting business off of it, like a coaching type of thing, because there seems to be a market for that. He was like, "Oh yeah, I could see that. That seems like something I would have gone for when I was younger."
I was like, "When you were younger? You're 24 years old! How much time is there of when you were younger?"
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Sam Parr | he's like I used to feel just like that yesterday | |
Shaan Puri | Yeah, you're like, "He's like, yeah, when I was younger." You're like, "I have a child. I'm 7 years older than you and I have a child." Alright, that'd be... that's funny. That's awesome! He just big-dogged you in a very nice way.
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Ben Wilson | yeah he did | |
Shaan Puri | He did you a favor. He kind of, like, "sh*t" on you in the most gentle way possible. In a way, that's helpful to you. | |
Ben Wilson | yes exactly | |
Sam Parr | well congratulations that's cool alright I'm excited to see what's gonna happen | |
Ben Wilson | thanks guys | |
Sam Parr | alright sean I have what | |
Shaan Puri | else we got | |
Sam Parr | I've got a few interesting things for you. Let me tell you the first interesting thing that I'm doing in my life and kind of an interesting business.
So, I'm on this app called Intro. Are you using Intro?
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Shaan Puri | I don't use it, no. But let's explain what it is. It's basically like you call an expert for an hour and you pay for the time. You do like a 15 or 30-minute call with them.
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Sam Parr | Yeah, that's all it is. It's... and that's not the end of the story, but that's like, that's all it is. It's just you pay money to talk to people. It's consulting. My buddy started it, so he asked me to do it, and I said, "Yeah, fine, I'll sign up, whatever."
So when you and I were in Miami, this man and woman, this husband and wife, came up to me and started talking to me about hypnotherapy because they knew that I was afraid to fly. I've got like a pretty hardcore claustrophobic thing. I don't take subways, I don't fly, and I also have an addictive personality. I love sugar.
So they knew that, and they were trying to pitch me on using their services. They kept emailing me, and I just... I ignore everyone. I don't reply to emails, really. Eventually, they booked an intro call with me, and I charge... I put it at like $2 an hour.
They're like, "Hey, you never answer our emails." To be honest, when I met them, I did... you know, we do the nice thing when we meet people. "Oh yeah, you know, this sounds great. Maybe I'll do it sometime." You're just trying to be polite, and I said...
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Shaan Puri | find a time | |
Sam Parr | yeah let's find a time | |
Shaan Puri | and let's run away from from potentially talking to each other | |
Sam Parr | yeah and they booked a call with me and they goes you said you're gonna do it we can't get you down so we're just gonna pay you money right now and we're gonna sit down and do a hip what's it called hip what do you call it hypnosis I guess a hypnosis session and I'm like okay I don't know what that what that's about but I I do it and it kinda has changed my like the game for me and so what yes and I'll explain to you what but I keep getting the words screwed up hypnotherapy what is it called hypnosis they this woman so she has an app her name is grace I think get grace.com is like her app and then I don't know I think like grace.tv if you go to get grace.com I'm sure you'll see all about her her name's grace and she told me she's like look here's the deal a handful of of executives pay me a $1,000,000 a year to do to be their personal hypnotist I'm not gonna pay you that or I'm not gonna charge you that but if you like it you have to tell people about it I said whatever fine but I'm not paying you $1,000,000 she's like that's fine but you just get let me give you 5 sessions and if it changes you let me know if you want to talk about it and so I do this do this thing it's totally worked and so basically what it is is you know how you do breath work and meditation you just like kinda like sit down and get quiet and like you hear like a voice in your head like it's maybe it's your headphones it's andy from headspace and he says like all right imagine like the sun is pouring on your mind or on your brain and it's leaking down to your body and causing you to like relax and you're filling with like relaxation whatever you basically do that but then she talks to you while you're in that state you know that meditative state and she says things like you know imagine yourself on a beach in your safe space and imagine like there's 4 year old you and you're explaining to him how you're trying to overcome like you know the sugar addiction or whatever the thing you're trying to overcome and so and tell me what you say to that person so you're basically just like you're getting spoken to and you're sometimes speaking back in a meditative state not like that interesting when I did it I was like oh like I thought I was gonna be in a trance but for some reason this has been wildly effective I think it could be placebo I think it could not be but I don't care I haven't had sugar in like 3 weeks since I started this and I like am like kind of an addict with that stuff and it's like to the. | |
Sam Parr | Where I get sick if I think about it... It's been crazy fascinating. She gets all these people to pay her $1,000,000 a year. Is that crazy?
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Shaan Puri | Who's paying her? Did she name names? Who's paying her $1,000,000 a year? That sounds a little far-fetched.
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Sam Parr | It does sound a bit far-fetched. On her website, she is the founder of Clearco. Clearco, what are they called? They're called like Clearbank or something. Yeah, that guy is one of her testimonials. Then she told me about other people who I actually don't know if I'm allowed to say who those other people are. Oh yeah, so that's fine.
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Shaan Puri | great but do you you do you believe her | |
Sam Parr | Her website, yeah, her website is **gracesmithtv.com**. On there, you can see testimonials from people. So, could she be like, kind of pulling my leg?
Yeah, I mean, I didn't look at her financials, yes, 100%. But I don't know who... I mean, would someone live as well, I guess?
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Shaan Puri | Way different. I, for some reason, imagine her to be like 70, but she's not. She's very young.
So, Grace Smith is the world's leading hypnotherapist. It is a **seven-figure investment** to work with Grace. Wow, that's amazing! You can work with her team for less or download the Grace app for free.
Okay, Grace app for free? That sounds promising.
Alright, so the founder of Clearbank... wow, she's been on, you know, whatever some of these books are, Jimmy Kimmel. But it's not... it's called the Noit. It's like the Noit.
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Sam Parr | it's the brazilian version it's the brazilian version of of jimmy kimmel yeah | |
Shaan Puri | so okay so yours was around sugar or is around your fuel plant | |
Sam Parr | We're going to address the flying thing later, but I was going to try and do sugar. It's actually been effective. I'm shocked to say it's been effective.
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Shaan Puri | That's kinda crazy. I like it, and it makes me want to do it, which I think is probably, you know, pretty common.
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Sam Parr | she told me to tell you that you can do it for free too if you want | |
Shaan Puri | oh okay great how do I get over my what do I even have I don't have as many people | |
Sam Parr | The problem is that you're emotionally healthy, so I don't know if you have issues.
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Shaan Puri | get over this happiness thing I got every day | |
Sam Parr | yeah so I don't know if like it's going to impact you I don't know like if you have any diet yeah | |
Shaan Puri | But yeah, it could be food-related. Like, you know, do I really want that cheese pizza? Maybe I'll just never eat a cheese pizza again after I talk to Grace. That could be kind of nice. | |
Sam Parr | It just kind of interesting, but it could be a thing where it's like, "Man, I gotta meet with this woman every week." If I tell her that I ate sugar, I'm gonna feel like an idiot. So, I mean, that could be it. I don't know what it is, but it's kind of interesting.
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Shaan Puri | using that mybodytutor after you had mentioned it on the podcast so like did | |
Sam Parr | you really | |
Shaan Puri | they definitely had a bump I signed up I paid for it so I was like alright let's try this out | |
Sam Parr | it's legit right | |
Shaan Puri | For multiple weeks, it's super legit. I mean, there's no hocus pocus. It's like, here's a kind of coach who's a nutritionist who's really going to help you. So, I have this woman, Haley, helping me. I don't know if she's the same one you have.
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Sam Parr | I have heather | |
Shaan Puri | Okay, so I don't know about Heather, but Haley's amazing. A lot of it is just like the basic psychology of accountability.
Right? Like, I tell her I'm going to do something, and I take a photo of every meal. I have to think to myself, am I going to either A) be a big fat liar and just not take a picture of this bag of Cheez-Its that I'm about to eat, or B) take a picture of it and be like, "Yeah, I know I told you I was going to eat good, and then I just ate bad," even though clearly I could have just not eaten bad.
So, it's helped so much to clear up, like, I don't know, let's call it 30% or 40% of just random mistakes that I would have been making.
Then there's the strategy. Okay, she gave me this, and I'll share a specific example. She told me this thing: "Alright, I snapped a picture of a meal I ate." She goes, "Whoa, big meal!" and I'm like, "Yeah, yeah, you know, whatever." Her job is to kind of judge my meals, right? Okay, fair.
She's like, "Do me a favor. Before you eat, I want you to just, on a scale of 1 to 5, take note. Just observe how hungry you were when you started the meal. If 1 is absolutely starving and 5 is absolutely stuffed, like, were you starving when you decided to eat, or were you like a 2 or a 3 on the hunger scale? And then when you were done, were you like, 'So stuffed I need a nap,' or are you like, 'Okay, I'm full, I'm done?'"
She's just like, "Don't change anything, just give yourself a number before and after every meal." So, I started doing it. I was like, "So what do I want? Like, you know, start at a 2 and end at a 4?" She's like, "No, you kind of want to start at a 3 and end at a 3."
You know, you basically want to be like, "Okay, it's been about 3 hours. I think I'll eat now. I think I could eat. I don't have to eat, but I could definitely eat right now."
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Sam Parr | you're creating like patterns and being consistent | |
Ben Wilson | and when I'm done eating it's like | |
Shaan Puri | I don't stop eating when I can't physically eat anymore. I stop eating because I'm like, "Cool, I've had enough of my meal," and I can move on. I know that there's going to be more food in a couple of hours. I don't need to stuff myself to the brim here.
So, literally, these are very small nuances. I noticed, oh man, I really do tend to eat poorly when I get to a one because then I'm just like, I'm redlining. My decision-making is very poor there. Normally, if I eat at a two and I finish at a three, I'm very proud of those meals.
So, little things like that. For example, I was like, "Yo, give me a grocery list. I'm going to Whole Foods, just give me a grocery list, and I'm just going to buy only that stuff." I only want that to eat at home. Let's make this simple.
So, she gave me an exact grocery list. I went and bought all that stuff, and I was like, "Oh, this is great."
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Sam Parr | So, it's an amazing service. Helpful!
Yeah, my coach was like, "Anytime you want a snack," because I would snack a lot, she suggested, "Get a baked potato, put it in a paper towel, rinse it, get it wet, and just put it in the microwave for 5 minutes."
I started eating that, and I'm like, "Oh, this is delicious! This tastes wonderful!" And it's only 150 calories.
So, I was like, "What the heck is a sweet potato?" I didn't know what a sweet potato was, you know what I mean? It's like... Dave.
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Shaan Puri | that's what you call your girlfriend when you're | |
Sam Parr | In high school, yeah, it's like Dave Chappelle when they do "Switching Spouses." When the Black guy goes with the white family and he goes...
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Ben Wilson | what the fuck | |
Sam Parr | Is a parsnip like... he doesn't know what a parsnip is? It's like, "I don't know what a fucking sweet potato is." Who's Renee Zellweger? That's what he says.
Yeah, that's... it's been a good service. I like my body tour; it's good.
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Shaan Puri | Me too, me too. This is not an ad; we're not paid to do it. I genuinely like the product, and it's helping me.
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Sam Parr | Also, it's like **$700** a month, and I don't want to spend that anymore. But I said the only way I'm quitting is if...
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Shaan Puri | I'm not paying it's like 200 250 something like that | |
Sam Parr | I do the thing where they call you every single day | |
Shaan Puri | oh okay | |
Sam Parr | So, they call me every morning, and I can't cheat because my wife and family know that I'm doing it. They're like, "Oh, you're gonna tell Heather that you just ate?" I was like, "Oh, fuck."
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Shaan Puri | Well, that was the biggest thing. I had to make a decision: am I going to be 100% honest, or is this 90% honesty, or 60% honesty? You know, there are levels to this whole honesty thing.
So I was like, "Alright, I decided if I'm going to spend this money, I gotta do 100% honesty." I don't know this person; I've never met this person. She's going to be my little confidant for every single thing I eat, and the exact thing.
Like, yeah, I did just put ranch on my potato. That happened, you know? I can't explain it; I just did it. So I'm like, I gotta take the actual photo of the actual thing every single time, no matter what.
I think that also, like, the commitment to actually doing it right is what makes you get a good result from things.
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Sam Parr | do you want me to keep going you wanna do another one | |
Shaan Puri | you want | |
Sam Parr | me to do another one yeah let's go alright have you heard of aviator nation | |
Shaan Puri | no what is alright | |
Sam Parr | So, this is this week's "Billy of the Week." Have you heard of Toms Shoes? Remember Toms Shoes? Like, "Give 1..." | |
Ben Wilson | of course | |
Sam Parr | Buy one, give one type of thing, you know, like the hipster shoes. Well, anyway, the guy who started it, his name was Blake, by the way.
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Shaan Puri | you go to africa are we is everybody just running around in thom's shoes they better be at this. | |
Sam Parr | Yeah at this. Yeah | |
Shaan Puri | 20 years thom | |
Sam Parr | Yeah, that's for sure. Thom's shoes better be like the official shoe of South Africa. Everyone should have a pair of Toms shoes.
So, her name is Paige. How do you say their last name? Mikoski? Blake might... | |
Shaan Puri | like that | |
Sam Parr | And so anyway, this woman, Paige, and her brother, Blake, who started TOMS, got kind of popular. They received seed money because they were on this show called "The Amazing Race." So, they did that and got a little bit of seed money.
Whatever the case, he starts TOMS the same day she starts a different company called Aviator Nation. Now, you are not in the target demographic of Aviator Nation; it's mostly women, particularly young girls in high school and I think middle school. It's like a status symbol a little bit.
Basically, she taught herself how to sew just by watching YouTube. She started going to fairs, like Venice Beach flea markets and things like that. She would sew interesting stripes on old vintage sweatshirts. Nothing breathtaking, but kind of cool. She would make like $5,000 or $10,000 a day every once in a while when she would go, and it was kind of working.
She bootstrapped this business, and 16 years later, she owns 100% of the company. In 2020, it did $70 million in revenue. In 2021, it was $110 million in revenue. In 2022, it's going to double again, so it's going to be north of $200 million in revenue. Last year, she paid herself a $50 million dividend check, and she's buying a lot of... oh my god, she's buying a lot of real estate with it.
In an article I read, Forbes estimated that she's worth around $350 million, but she said the number is at least double that. She recently acquired her 9th property, a $15 million lakeside house in Austin. She has other homes in Malibu, Venice Beach, Marina del Rey, and an Aspen ski chalet. And she...
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Shaan Puri | Just that if she didn't subscribe to "My First Million," none of this would have happened. That is **fucking crazy**, dude.
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Sam Parr | yeah she said she reads the milk road every day | |
Shaan Puri | yeah she subscribes and shares with friends like unbelievable | |
Sam Parr | Yeah, what a sweetheart! Have you ever heard of this business? I've never heard about it until Forbes did an article on it.
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Shaan Puri | No, and this... I don't know why, but I'm almost mad. I don't even know what I'm mad at, but I'm just like this.
Because you go to the website, and this literally could be like someone's school project. This could be like an AliExpress demo site. I don't mean that to kind of put it down, but I'm like, "What am I looking at?"
This is basically like a shirt with four stripes on it. It's like, you know, a sweater with a lightning bolt. It's like a dude wearing black shorts with a yellow stripe on the side.
And the shorts? Oh wow, the shorts are $168.
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Sam Parr | So, I forgot to add that. That's like the shtick, which is that sweatpants are $160. So, like, the items of clothing are...
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Shaan Puri | a 100 luxury brand | |
Sam Parr | Yeah, a little bit short of luxury, but basically, my friend Joe told me that his kids wear it. They always want it because they'll see girls in school wearing it. It's like $150 for a pair of sweatpants, and so it's a little like...
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Shaan Puri | A mystery box for me? Like, how do you do this? How do you make something just arbitrarily cool and in demand when it seems like there are a trillion alternatives to this?
I kind of get it when it's established brands. It's like, "Oh yeah, well, you know, Louis Vuitton or whatever. They have this history of being seen as valuable, so therefore people will continue seeing it as valuable."
But this is just like some woman at her dining table who was like, "Nope, you know what? Three stripes on the hoodie, $800. This plan will work." And like somehow it did. I don't understand. Explain this to me. This makes my head hurt.
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Sam Parr | Listen, in that book, what's Peter Thiel's book? "Zero to One." He talks about, like, there's basically these... I don't remember the words he used, but he said there's like a moat or like the truth. You have to know something that no one else knows. Basically, you have to figure out some secret, some type of technology that others haven't figured out.
But he goes on, and Peter Thiel is like this kind of autistic-like genius. And he's like, the fifth one is branding, which I don't know anything about. I don't know about cool, but I know that that's important. That's kind of what he says in the book. He's like, "Branding is like a moat." But, you know, I don't know anything about moats. I just do technology.
And I think that I've been chatting with... remember how we had Sofia Amoruso on the pod? She's the one who started Nasty Gal, and she's got all these other new projects going on. And like a woman like her, just everything she does to me is just cool. It just looks well done. | |
Shaan Puri | When I met her, I was like, "Oh yeah, whatever you are selling, I'm buying." I dig your vibe; you seem awesome. I don't know, you're wearing like six rings right now. I don't even own one! I feel like I should own six now. I don't know what's happening, but I am drawn to your lifestyle, your charisma, your whatever.
I think that's like the, you know, whatever works for Nasty Gal. I think it works for Goop and stuff like that, where there's just something about certain tastemakers and trendsetters where you're like...
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Sam Parr | exactly | |
Shaan Puri | alright I just wanna like I just wanna drink whatever you're drinking | |
Sam Parr | Well, if you Google this woman, Paige, she kind of has that vibe. She's like the Jessica Simpson version of Nasty Gal. Maybe a little bit less edgy, but still cool, right? You know, like just a little bit more like...
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Shaan Puri | she always looks like she just got back from coachella yeah oh you just got back | |
Sam Parr | Yeah, like she's not gonna do coke with you, but she'll have really good peach iced tea. It's still cool, and you're always like, "Oh, what the hell? What the fuck is this hibiscus stuff?" That type of vibe.
Anyway, I like her. I love this woman, Paige. I've been reading all about her. This company is really, really cool. You're in the e-commerce space; a bunch of our friends are in the e-commerce space, and it's really hard right now. I read about this woman, and I was like, "Oh, well, she sure makes it look kind of easy."
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Shaan Puri | It's kind of insane. I think that's why I have such a big reaction to it. Because I'm in e-commerce, and I'm just like, "How? How do you do this?"
You ramped up to $200,000,000 in sales with like the most competitive common category: shirts. Oh no, yeah. Okay, what makes your shirts good? They're just cool, you know? I'm like, "Yeah, yeah, but that doesn't count for $100,000,000."
And it's like, actually, it can if you really are cool enough and you build that grassroots thing. What I want to learn, and I don't know if there's a way to even figure out this backstory without doing a bunch of work, but there is something to the foundation of cool, right?
So, how do you build a frame, a foundation, or like a ladder that will, you know, start it? It sounds like she went to festivals, and her first store was in Haight-Ashbury in San Francisco. With the right group of people, you start getting going, and then it kind of spreads from there.
I've never understood that when it comes to fashion. I never understood how to spin that.
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Sam Parr | So, if you Google Blake Mycoskie, you’ll see his house. He has a vintage Toyota Land Cruiser truck with a golden retriever and a cool Pendleton blanket laying over the hood. There are skis on top of the truck in front of their Malibu home.
Even though they’re just wealthy, so maybe it’s easy to have all that cool stuff, there is a sense of style that he’s always had. I think part of the cool thing is you’re just good looking, to be honest. I think that’s definitely a... | |
Ben Wilson | I think you got | |
Shaan Puri | to the root of it | |
Sam Parr |
Right, I mean, like Brad Pitt could wear anything and then I could wear the same clothing. It's just... he just looks better. He's just better looking. I mean, of course, he's cooler, but there are a few other things I think that are a little bit more learnable and replicable when it comes to that. But these people definitely have it.
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Shaan Puri | It reminds me, so yesterday I was talking to my mom. My mom's in town; she's visiting my house. I started doing this thing where I recorded a podcast with my mom because I really wanted to hear her story.
We all talk to our moms, but we don't really talk. It's often surface-level stuff where it's all about the kids. Moms are great because they're all about you, but how often do you really sit down and ask them questions about themselves, their upbringing, and what made them who they are?
So, I recorded this podcast with my mom because, you know, parents are getting older, and I always wanted to have it. It was amazing. One of the things she told me—I don't know if I shared this story on the podcast before—was about her trip to America and how she got here.
It wasn't hardship in the way you might think, like, "Oh my God, we were smuggled in on boats, and we had to walk through the Rio Grande with just our noses above the water." It was hard in a way that's very relatable, in that unknown sense. You just don't know what you don't know.
Then you're in a situation, and there's nobody to help you. She talked about how she got on the plane and saw the seatbelt. They said, "Fasten your seatbelt, ma'am," and she thought, "A plane seatbelt is not like any other seatbelt you've ever seen," right?
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Ben Wilson | and she got on the wall | |
Shaan Puri | She was like, and she’s just clacking it together over and over again. She was so happy, like, "Oh my God, thing number one done! I could do this."
Then she was like, "Alright, I'm flying to America. I don't want to miss my stop," because she'd only ever been on a train. So she was wide awake for like 16 hours of a flight, thinking, "When are they going to announce the America stop? I need to get off this plane."
She didn't know that a plane just goes to one place and that's it. There were so many things. When she got to the place, she got to JFK or something like that, she needed to transfer to Pittsburgh. She just didn't know. She was like, "I think I'm in America. I didn't really know beyond that. I have to get to Pittsburgh. What is Pittsburgh?"
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Ben Wilson | how old | |
Shaan Puri | Is she... she was like 20 at the time. To put it in perspective, her 20 today is like a 7-year-old because she had never been to a restaurant and she couldn't speak English.
She told me once, "Yeah, right before I went to America," and she shared this with me yesterday. She said, "As part of our school thing, we went to a restaurant and I'd never eaten outside of my house." I was like, "Oh, okay."
She continued, "There was a fork and knife on the table. I knew what they were, but I didn't know how to hold them. I'm looking around and everybody's doing it so fast. I'm like, 'Okay, what are they doing? How do they pick this up?' I basically didn't eat. I paid for the most expensive meal of my life and I didn't know how to get the food into my mouth. I was so embarrassed to use my hands that I just didn't do it."
As I was hearing these stories, I realized we all have these moments where the world seems too mysterious for us. It's like, "I don't know what this black box is; it's completely foreign to me and I don't know how to operate it."
Her trip to America had like five of these moments. She talked about when she finally got off the plane and an American guy met her. He said, "Okay, you clearly look completely panicked. Do you know where you're going? Do you have family to come pick you up?" And she was like, "No, why would I have somebody's phone number?"
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Sam Parr | would she go to college or something | |
Shaan Puri | She was even younger; she was actually 17. She started high school three days later in America when she came. She came because if you arrive right before your 18th birthday, you're not considered an adult yet, so you have to do way less paperwork.
Her dad put her on a plane at 17, saying, "Go! You're about to turn 18 in three days; you need to get over there." Her brother was already here, but she didn't know how to get to his house. She didn't know all the steps it took to get there.
So this guy asked her, "Do you have a phone number?" She replied, "Yeah, I have a phone number." He said, "Okay, let's go to this pay phone." She was confused and said, "I don't know what this is. I don't have money, and I don't know how to do this."
He put quarters in and made the call. She talked to her brother, who was surprised and said, "Whoa, you're here! I didn't even know you were coming. Okay, stay exactly where you are. Don't move! I will go to the airport and find you at the phone booth. Do not move an inch."
She agreed, and the guy who helped her set up the phone call had to go catch his next flight or he was going to be late.
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Sam Parr | does she speak english | |
Shaan Puri | She could read English, but she couldn't speak it. She had never practiced speaking, so she was here and she was like, "Oh shit."
I'll never forget, she said, "I was trying to... I was done with the phone call, but I didn't understand how to hang up the phone. I couldn't figure out how to get the pay phone back. What was the original starting? I didn't remember."
She said, "I remember I just left it hanging, like the cord hanging, the phone was swinging. I walked away and I was so scared the police were going to get me for what I just did."
Everything was so new. On the way home, we stopped at a 7-Eleven and I was like, "This is a palace! Look at how much stuff is here! Look how bright these lights are! I've never seen lights so bright in my life."
Every little thing was so amazing. I say this for two reasons: one is, if you haven't done a podcast with your mom, go do it. It's amazing. Even if you don't have a podcast, you don't need to publish it.
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Sam Parr | people are gonna have as good of a story as that | |
Shaan Puri | I don't know... I feel like everybody's got a story when you start to dig in. For my mom, it was almost like she didn't think about this stuff. It was only halfway through when I got to the interesting bit because it was all just so buried in her head. You know, what does she remember from 40 years ago?
But then she did remember once I got on the right trail. The other thing is, when I hear the story about this woman who just puts stripes on a T-shirt and grows it like crazy, I’m saying that kind of like it looks so simple. But obviously, there's more to it; I just don't know what the "more to it" is.
I'm sure there are people who listen to this podcast and hear us talk about many things. They might feel like we say it like it's so obvious, but it's completely not obvious to them. It's like, "How do I hang up the pay phone? How do I connect the seat belt?" I don't know, and that's okay. Everybody's got that black box, and then later you look back and you laugh.
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Sam Parr | but like yeah I couldn't | |
Shaan Puri | believe it | |
Sam Parr | You and I... you're not an immigrant, but most of my friends, and I think you as well, are either immigrants or children of immigrants. I feel like I'm the only one not in that category among those I'm close with. My wife is, my family is, and you are too.
What you notice when talking to these people—many of whom are immigrant entrepreneurs or children of immigrants who are also entrepreneurs—is that I often wonder, "How are these people succeeding?" They come from a place where things were much harder.
For example, I didn't have to learn how to use a payphone; I just knew. But then you hear the stories about your mom, and you realize that's why they succeed so well. She had to learn how to use a fork, which must have been pretty humiliating.
You're frightened when you get on a plane. To her, it sounds like it would be as if you sent me to the moon or Mars.
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Shaan Puri | you know | |
Hubspot | What I mean is, you're like, "What the hell? I don't know anything." And it's like, well, okay, I landed it. I found my brother somehow.
What's the worst that could happen? They're going to send me back to this place? I mean, it can't be that bad. Failing... at least.
So when you talk about people who are like, "Well, I don't know what to do," it's like, yeah, but it's kind of straightforward. You just can't really be afraid to do it because the worst that's going to happen is not that bad.
You know what I mean? If this woman from India can come knowing nothing and she ends up with this big family and your parents are pretty successful, it can work out if you just take a little bit of risk. It's pretty inspiring.
Our software is the worst. Have you heard of HubSpot? See, most CRMs are a cobbled together mess, but HubSpot is easy to adopt and actually looks gorgeous.
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Shaan Puri | I think | |
Sam Parr | I love our new CRM. Our software is the best: HubSpot. Grow better!
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Shaan Puri | Yeah, I think that's where the 22 common immigrant traits come from.
Number one: a willingness to grind it out in a way that's like, "nothing is beneath me." You know, like, she was like, "Two weeks later, I had a job as a waitress." This is someone who had never been to a restaurant, now hired as a waitress in America and couldn't speak English.
Her brother was like, "How the hell did you get a job?" And she said, "I don't know. You said we needed a job." So, she just kept going to different places. Every hour, she went to a different place to interview. This one liked her, and they just gave her the job.
She thought, "Okay, I have to go at like 4 in the morning before school, and I'm going to help clean the stuff, and then I'm going to go at night." That's what she did.
You get this grit side, but then you also get the question: "Why are immigrants so cheap?" It's because they've operated with no safety net before. Now, when they have some resources, they're like, "Don't squander them." They remember what it was like to have no resources, with no net to catch you if you fall.
So, yeah, they don't like to spend too much. Even once a lot of immigrant parents end up in America and get rich, they still live very cheaply. I think it's because if you've lived like that, it's like someone who grew up in the woods. You might wonder, "Why do you sleep on the floor still?" And they might say, "I just do. Don't ask me too many questions."
It's like, "I know I have a bed now, but I don't need the bed. I don't want to use that right now because I feel like anything could happen."
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Sam Parr | and so well a lot | |
Shaan Puri | of my that same fear | |
Sam Parr | And a lot of my friends... so my mother-in-law's from Haiti, and I would talk to her. Did I tell you how she started this pillow business? I don't know how big it is exactly, but I imagine it's in the mid six figures.
She asked me to drive her two hours to the airport, and I was like, "Why?" She said, "I want to ask you how Shopify works. I think I want to create an online store where I sell these pillows." I was like, "Alright, whatever. I'll explain to you how to do it."
But I like... people ask me this all the time, and they never follow up. They never do anything.
So, she calls me six weeks later and says, "Alright, I got my first sale. Now what?" I was like, "Oh my god!"
I was talking to her, and the way that they would describe it, you know, my in-laws as well as my other immigrant friends, it's kind of interesting. When you take these immigrants and you put them in America, where there are pretty strict rules and laws, and like mostly the government can't take things from you, and your stuff is mostly protected, it's like, "Well, this is easy. This is not easy mode."
We all know the rules, and we know that people are mostly going to follow the rules. This is easy; this is just a board game. You just gotta play it.
So, I'm always inspired hanging out with those types of people.
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Shaan Puri | Yeah, for sure, me too. You said something just now which I think is an important little thing. I tell people this stuff all the time, and very few take action. You know, most people just don't do anything with this.
I've been kind of admiring a bunch of people who've built cool things for us that I just want to call out as kind of awesome. I don't know where it leads, but I like that they did it knowing not where it leads. Something good is going to happen.
I'll give you a couple of examples. Somebody created this thing—I don't know if you saw it—they put it on Product Hunt. It's like the MFM Ideas System. I wish I knew the link off the top of my head, but if you go to Product Hunt and search "My First Million," basically, he went and indexed, like, I don't know, 30 or 40% of all the different ideas we've said on this podcast.
For example, we mentioned, "Oh, Mailchimp but for inside your company because you need to write internal newsletters," blah blah blah. So they'll take that idea, he timestamped it, and you can go to the website. It'll just be like, "Give me an idea," and it'll give you an idea. Then it says, "Listen to it," and you click it, and it opens up in Spotify or whatever player, exactly where we talked about that idea.
I was like, "Wow, this is so awesome for us, but also for anybody who's a fan of the podcast." Immediately, I was drawn to this person. It's such a hack to stand out just by doing a useful thing.
There's so much energy that gets spent reading books, listening to podcasts, and asking people for advice. You know, instead, spend actually like a third of the time and actually build something or make something that's kind of interesting. That will get you so much further.
There's another guy who built this thing called WriteLikeShawn.com. Have you seen this?
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Sam Parr | that was really good it was great | |
Shaan Puri | This guy created this thing. He trained GPT-3, like the AI model or whatever, on a bunch of my Twitter threads. He goes, "Oh yeah, I trained this AI to write like you." So watch, you can just type in any topic and it'll spit out a Twitter thread.
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Sam Parr | and I was like okay yeah I did it it was awesome it was great it's actually | |
Shaan Puri | Awesome! This guy... someone put it in there. Let me find it. He put in... I'm gonna pull this up.
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Sam Parr | It's pretty amazing how the language is. It is like I put something in there and the cadence sounded exactly like you.
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Shaan Puri | So, okay, this person wrote about how to pick up girls or how to be happy. It goes, "You don't find happiness; you create it." Most people go through life searching for happiness. They think that when they find the right job, the right relationship, or the right house, they'll finally be happy. But the truth is, happiness comes from within.
Here's how you create it yourself:
**Number 1:** Do something that makes you happy every day. It doesn't have to be big; it can be small.
For example, this is a *fucking* computer that's writing a very realistic-looking thing here.
Here's another thought: Why don't we do public math?
Somebody who's a fan of the podcast said, "We don't do public math." Think about it. When's the last time you did math in public? I mean really did math—subtraction, multiplication—not mental math, but using your fingers, a calculator, or a piece of paper. When's the last time you saw someone do math in public?
It's almost like we're ashamed of it. We don't want people to see us struggle with math. We think they'll think we're stupid. But the truth is, math is hard, and it's normal to struggle with it.
So let's start doing public math. It changes our whole perspective. By the end, let's try to practice public math.
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Shaan Puri | Together | |
Sam Parr | How does... how did... how can I make one of those? Because I would like to do that for my stuff and still write emails for me. So what do you do? Do you just tell GPT-3 to read all of your tweets and it gets to...? | |
Shaan Puri | The... yeah, we should just get this guy. So this guy, Adil Pickle, is his name; it's his Twitter handle. I told him because I put it in my newsletter, "Check this out, this is awesome!" and it crashed the site. It ran up a $1,000 bill before it crashed the site.
He's like, "No, my side project." I was like, "Dude, I'll pay your bill. Just let me own the thing and I'll pay your bill." It's my... it's right. Like, Sean, I'll buy it off you and then you don't have to worry about this stuff.
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Sam Parr | Because I think it'd be cool to... I love John Steinbeck. I've been reading it. You know, you don't even know who that is, do you? He's a famous American author, a classic American author. You know, like from the crew that wrote "Catcher in the Rye," that type of stuff.
I would love to write my marketing emails like those guys. I think it'd be cool if I could figure out how to teach GPT-3 what I want to go to.
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Shaan Puri | different crying in the background I don't know if you could hear it | |
Sam Parr | it's alright what topics do you wanna go to | |
Shaan Puri | well there is a couple others on this like gpt 3 thing | |
Sam Parr | yeah | |
Shaan Puri | Like, so basically, the AI has gotten really, really good at really specific things. Like, I don't know, have you played with DALL·E? That's the other one that...
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Sam Parr | I've seen craziest shit on earth that is way crazier than gpt 3 | |
Shaan Puri | dall e | |
Ben Wilson | is what it is yeah | |
Shaan Puri | It's the picture version of this. You just type in any concept, like "sandbar surfing while smoking a cigarette," and it'll generate like 12 pictures.
AI illustrates Sam Barr on a surfboard smoking a cigarette, and it'll give you a bunch of variations.
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Sam Parr | dude I told it to do | |
Shaan Puri | wild shit | |
Sam Parr | I said, "Do real-life grown-up Cartman and Bart Simpson," and it made a real-life image that looked like a photograph of what a grown-up Cartman from *South Park*, a cartoon, would look like. It was crazy!
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Shaan Puri | It is so impressive, and this is like the demo version. It's not even the real version. I'm going to start doing a thing. There's this company I want to invest in that does this with voices.
So basically, he sent me a clip of Gary Vee reading "The Milk Road." It was that good! You know, it goes, "Good morning," and then he's just like in the Gary Vee voice. It read the thing, and it sounds exactly like Gary Vee.
Then he's like, "Here's Jordan Peterson doing it. Here's Joe Rogan doing it. Here's Gary Vee doing it." He's like, "If you give me like 16 hours of your podcast audio data, I can make your voice a synthetic voice." So then you could just type something, and it'll record the audio for you the way you talk.
I was like, "What in the world is going on?" This stuff is so amazing to me. It's really captured my fascination, and it's just the beginning. This is going to get so much better, and it has all kinds of crazy implications.
You're not going to know what's real and what's fake because fake and real are going to be indistinguishable. Like a deep fake video or a photoshopped photo, but for everything—voices, videos, drawings, whatever. Twitter threads—it's not unreasonable that most of the content you read on the internet is just going to be written by computers.
Dude, I'm sorry, but you're going to go on Twitter, and it's just going to be auto-generated content from brands and people that are just plugging it into the AI, and AI is spitting out good content for us all to consume. We may not have Hollywood at some point.
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Shaan Puri | It'll just be like computers making movies and the rest of us just, you know, wallowing. What's that movie where they're like fat people sitting in wheelchairs and just sucking down Slurpees and watching stuff? It'll just be that because it's like, "Oh, we don't need to do the work to make stuff anymore." The computers make awesome movies; we just watch them.
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Sam Parr | Dude, let me tell you a quick story as we kind of wrap up. You know how it's been not cool to live in a city lately? It's been cool to live in less popular places like Portland or Austin.
Last night, I went to a wedding. It was my wife's buddy's wedding, so they weren't really my friends. They weren't like our startup, eat nerdy friends. I sat at this table and listened to the people around me. I didn't know who any of them were, but we just started chit-chatting.
The person next to me started a business that had raised **$30 million** at the start. All these people were about 28 years old and had raised that amount. The person next to them had a company that, in two years, hired **300 people**. The person next to them had a startup that they sold for **$140 million**. The next person had a VC fund that raised **$1 billion**. This person graduated college in **2009**, so they are about **33 years old**.
Then, the person next to them was a partner at one of the biggest management consulting firms. So, it's like... mostly like...
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Shaan Puri | Then there's some poor English teacher in the middle who's just like, "What am I? What is this? Come on, come on! Why do I do it here? Why am I the one doing real work out here?" | |
Sam Parr | So, no one was douchey at all. The reason why I even knew that was because they had seen Sarah post about me. They were like, "Oh, you do the podcast about startups?" I was like, "Oh yeah, okay, so you must be in startups too."
"Yeah, I work at this company."
"Oh, what do you do there?"
"Oh, I actually started it."
So, they were trying to be cool about it. It was pretty inspiring to be around these people. I'm used to sometimes being like a big shot among my non-entrepreneurial friend group. Then I go around these people and I'm like, "Oh my god, this is incredibly motivating."
I actually think that there's a world where it's a little unhealthy because, you know, this money stuff doesn't actually matter that much. But it's kind of bullshit that I'm comparing myself to others. Still, it's incredibly, incredibly motivating. That's something that I miss about San Francisco, and we had that for a little while.
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Shaan Puri | Yeah, that was the best part about San Francisco by far. People would ask, "How's San Francisco?" and I would say, "Oh, well, the city is basically Gotham City." You know, it's cold; it's not actually like warm California weather. It's super expensive, and there are all these things.
But the upside is, if you want to hang out with some of the most ambitious, interesting people who look at the world a little differently and are kind of crazy enough to go pursue it, you're just going to keep bumping into them everywhere you go, regardless of what you're doing. Sure enough, your brain will start to change to be more like them.
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Sam Parr | Dude, what's funny is I feel like our friends weren't even ambitious. Like, you know, Jack Smith is not an ambitious person. He just works on interesting things, and it just so happens that they become huge money-making operations.
Or, like, we have a few friends that are ambitious, but then we have a bunch of friends that are just like, "I don't..."
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Shaan Puri | I think Jack is more of an outlier. Jack is more curious and mischievous than he is ambitious. But I don't think most people are like Jack; I think Jack's a bit of an outlier.
I don't consider myself to be ambitious. Do you consider yourself to be ambitious? You are ambitious. Yes, you are.
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Sam Parr | I don't consider a lot of our friends to be ambitious. We just like doing interesting things, and it just so happens that the output is... yeah.
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Shaan Puri | But yours is like, okay, Jax is like, "I like doing interesting things." As in, he'll build an ergonomic chair in his garage to see what that's like. Your version is like, "I like doing interesting things that are highly profitable."
And, you know, there's a caveat. There's an important caveat to yours. You're not just reading novels from the 18th century. You're like, "Okay, how do I spin up this thing that's gonna get to six figures in revenue very quickly?" Right? That's your version of what's interesting to you.
So, like, what's interesting to people? Okay, Furcon, I would say, is very ambitious. He's not very money-minded. Right? Ambition is not money. It's like, but he's super interested in new tech.
So, you know, our office would have, like, "Oh, here's his why. Why doesn't the TV remote work?" "Oh, sorry, I changed the TV. I took the chip out of the TV and put a Raspberry Pi in."
And I was like, "Why can't I use this beer tap?" "Oh, because I put a drone that floats above it." And like, "Where's my computer?" "Oh, I needed a place to put my 3D printer."
And like, eight out of ten of those turned out to be just like, you know, money sucks. There was no commercial value in the Raspberry Pi, or the mini drones, or the 3D printing, or any of that stuff.
It was just like the fifth one where he's like, "Yeah, I'm playing around with this crypto thing. You know, this thing called Ethereum just came out." And it just happened to be that that one turned out to be extremely profitable and, you know, changed the world in a bigger way.
But, you know, the interest was in, let's say for him, tech. Or like our buddy Xavier is just like, "Dude, how do I provide electricity to people in Africa who don't have it?" Right? That's ambition in a different way.
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Sam Parr | right | |
Shaan Puri | and that was inspiring right like I was like holy shit you're the biggest solar provider in africa | |
Sam Parr | But I guess what I mean is, in New York, I noticed that the ambition is like, "Let me crawl up this ladder and climb to the top." People want to be number one, and they’re going to kick other people off the ladder. They make sure to stomp on their faces as they're going up so those others can't get as high as they are.
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Shaan Puri | right | |
Sam Parr | Whereas it seems—and maybe I'm just being overly confident—but I think our situation is better than it appears. It's more like, "Let's create new ladders." You know what I mean? Let's just take our own ladder.
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Shaan Puri | It's like, here's the test of New York: do you know which finger can take the least amount of pressure before it gives up its grip? It's like, yeah, step on the ring finger, they're done.
In San Francisco, it's a little bit different. The virtue signaling is different; what you get rewarded for is different. You get rewarded for "I'm solving some big problem at scale: 1,000,000,000 users, $1,000,000,000 prize." That's what you're going for.
It's okay; you're high status if you're broke but going for a big, big prize. Whereas in New York, you don't get high status for being broke. It's like nothing in the day.
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Sam Parr | San Francisco, it's like the guy with the biggest ratio of wealth to poor-looking is like the winner. You know, you have to be like the most raggedy-looking dude with the most amount of money. Yeah.
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Shaan Puri | Yeah, make the most money and then give up all your possessions and live on the street. Like, that is the peak, right? That's like Jack. Go look at Jack Dorsey. It's like, okay, you build two multibillion-dollar companies, but then you grow a homeless man beard and you pretend you don't care about it. You give all your money away, wear a tie-dye t-shirt, and carry around a notebook while you walk barefoot. It's like, that's the highest status person you can be in Silicon Valley. | |
Sam Parr | what did you think of the peter lovells podcast | |
Shaan Puri | I thought it was dope. I think he's great. I like him. You know, I always liked his content, but I like him as a person too. I didn't know him before, and I like the way he thinks. I like the way he acts. I thought he was pretty honest; he didn't come on here and try to perform. He got the vibe. I think he's a hit. I like him.
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Sam Parr | There are a handful of people who we’re friends with and who we’ve talked to publicly. I think I would put them in the category of, "Oh, they’ve kind of figured it out." Of course, they’re flawed, they make mistakes, and they’re not always happy—just like normal humans. But in general, they’ve kind of got it figured out.
I would say **Dharmesh** is in that category. It’s like, "Oh man, you have a lot of the boxes checked." You seem happy, you have a good family, and your career is good.
**Jack Smith**, our good buddy, is another one of those people. He started a company that he sold for **$800 million**, but he doesn’t really care about that. He’ll never tell you about it unless you ask. But he’s happy and healthy.
Then there’s **Peter Levels**. I would put him in the same category. It’s like, "You kind of seem like you know what you want, you stick with it, you have principles, and you’re achieving exactly your ideal life." That makes me happy.
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Shaan Puri | You know, the tell that I figured out, like what's the quickest way for me to pick up on is that person. Those people, like some of our favorite people, are like that. I put Sully in that category, I put Furcon in that category, and I put a bunch of our Ramones in that category.
It's what percentage of your conversation do you talk about yourself versus asking questions or being interested or curious about other people and other things?
Then the second is, when you talk about yourself, what percentage is talking about the past stuff you've done versus stuff you're interested in doing or the future?
It sounds very simple, but if you go to their bios, very few of them even have their last company in their bio. Whereas if you go to my bio, it's like "sold Bebo." Right? Like, number one, the first thing I write in there is "sold the thing." You know, like I've done something cool. Please ask me about it. I love to tell you about my wins and like...
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Sam Parr | You're fairly close to being in that category of, like, I feel like you know what you want. Even if you don't get what you want, you're still mostly happy. | |
Shaan Puri | Yeah, and the thing that's helped me is that I'm getting away from doing that. I'm moving away from basically trying to seek validation in some way.
The second point is that this is why we talk about our past, right? To kind of give ourselves some status or to get some validation from others. It's like, "Here’s my background, here’s what I’ve done, therefore please give me some respect and whatever else."
Once I picked up that these other guys do that very differently, I started to shed that. It’s like somebody will bring something up in a conversation, and I think of an anecdote where I can tell them a really cool story of how I’ve done that. But then I realize, well, that doesn’t actually add to the conversation. They’re already convinced. Why do I need to do that? I don’t need to perform here; it’s fine.
So I let that go. That thought never used to be let go. It always used to be something I would immediately jump in at any opportunity to kind of, you know, "Hey, can you validate my parking here? Hey, here’s my ticket stub, can you please punch a hole in it?" That’s how I felt like I was doing stuff.
Then I noticed these guys don’t do that. I remember asking Sully, "I feel like you never... I kind of have to brag for you when we meet people because, like, dude, they don’t even know who you are. They don’t know how much of a hitter you are."
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Sam Parr | you are and and you wanna look and sean wants to look cooler that he's associated | |
Shaan Puri | With Julian, why did I bring this guy to this meeting?
Yeah, because this guy's **awesome**. And, like, hold on, you didn't do it. You didn't brag.
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Ben Wilson | let | |
Sam Parr | me brag | |
Shaan Puri | Yeah, and I was like, "Why do you do that?" I also feel like you don't even talk about or think about all the stuff you've done in the past.
He was like, "Yeah, I mean, I don't know. I don't really do... I don't really feel the need to."
He's like, "You know, I heard Kobe Bryant give a talk once." It was after Kobe retired, and he was talking about the new things he was into.
He's like, "I don't know if you know, but Kobe started making little mini movies." He got really into storytelling and movies, and that was what he wanted to do, right? Great.
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Sam Parr | stories movies and stuff yeah | |
Shaan Puri | And so, he was like creating... he created a production company. Kobe had said something that was like, "I need my next 20 years to make my last 20 years like a footnote. The next 20 years need to be the best thing I've ever done."
This is coming from one of the greatest Hall of Fame basketball players. Whereas, if you see what most players do when they retire, they put on a suit, they gain 30 pounds, and then they go sit at an ESPN desk. They talk about how the players these days don't get it. "Back in my day, we used to be so great."
They never move on to the next great adventure. They think it's implicit that the best work of their life was behind them. That's why they gain the weight, that's why they aren't as happy, and that's why they're nostalgic for the good old days.
On the other hand, somebody who looks at it like, "Oh, this next chapter is my best chapter," is going to go through life a little differently.
He told me, "When I heard that, I thought the same thing. My next company needs to make my last company be this little afterthought. We'll put it in the appendix of stuff undone."
If I think about it that way, then I won't put so much emphasis on it. I won't use it as my crutch for respect or attention or anything like that. I'm going to only make my new thing the way I do it.
I really respected that. I was like, "That's great."
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Sam Parr | have you heard the song damn it feels good to be a gangster | |
Shaan Puri | of course | |
Sam Parr | Basically, one of the lines he says is, "Real gangsters don't flex nuts because they know they got them." That's what we're talking about here. You don't flex nuts because you know you got them. | |
Shaan Puri | yeah exactly exactly | |
Sam Parr | I think that's the episode |