Why You Should Side Hustle As A TikTok Realtor, Conan O’Brien Gets Acquired For $150M & More

Shaan Puri

So somebody had tweeted out something which was like: > "Hey, if you needed a side hustle that was gonna generate like $3K to $5K a month, and you could only work... let's say a couple hours during the week and half a day on the weekends or something like that, what would you do if you didn't know how to code?"

Sam Parr

are we good

Shaan Puri

I'm a whole different guy, Sanfarr. You're looking at a man four days into clean eating, and guess what?

Sam Parr

are you really

Shaan Puri

Now I'm on time. Guess what? Now my kids love me. Guess what? The stocks went up today for the first time in like 5 months. So a lot of things are going well here.

Sam Parr

what are you eating

Shaan Puri

I'm just like

Sam Parr

I don't

Shaan Puri

I'm not sure if this is healthy or not, but I'm currently consuming a lot of meat and protein. I'm avoiding anything bad and not eating late. I'm not doing anything unhealthy.

Sam Parr

Dude, listen to this thing that I'm doing. It's called MyBodyTutor. Have you heard of it?

Shaan Puri

I have heard of this

Sam Parr

is it

Shaan Puri

is it like a text messaging thing somebody like

Sam Parr

It's way more primitive than that. Basically, I pay them either $600 or $700 a month. I don't remember if it's $599 or $699. This woman named Heather is like my coach. She calls me every single morning, and I have to tell her what I ate and what I'm going to eat today. Then, I write down on MyFitnessPal what I've eaten the day before. She'll say, "Yesterday was bad or good, here's why. Tell me what you're going to eat today." That's all it is. It's a 5-minute phone call, and it's amazing. You should try this; it's actually quite good.

Shaan Puri

Try this: the fact that I don't want to try this tells me that I absolutely should try it. I think I might do it because, yeah, I don't know. I'll tell you what's embarrassing. What's embarrassing is that a day and a half into just eating clean—it's not like, you know, "Oh, my daughter's leftover macaroni and cheese. Alright, let me just eat these three spoons before I put it in the sink," or "Oh, there's a free cookie here at this thing. Let me just grab that." A day and a half in, I felt a difference, which tells me how poorly I had been eating. If I could feel a difference just from a day and a half of eating perfectly, right?

Sam Parr

What do you eat normally that's bad? Are you talking about like processed foods? Just clean meat, just like no sugar and not processed?

Shaan Puri

No sugar, not processed, not late-night snacking or whatever. Just cutting it off at a certain time. Sometimes, I'll be like, "Oh, I'm working. I got calls, I got the pod, I got all this stuff going on." I'm excited, and then I look up, and it's 2 PM. I haven't eaten anything, and I'm like, "Alright, the next edible item in sight is just getting devoured." It's like a stress eat at that point. Yeah, it's getting got. And then you thought this party size of Doritos was for a party? No, it's getting got right now. So, have you ever heard of someone doing a line of Oreos? When you get the Oreo tray and it's got like three columns, and you do a whole line? You just take a whole column out in one sitting. That's something that would happen before, you know, just on an inconsistent basis.

Sam Parr

I'm down, man. I like to do Oreo cereal. You just get a gallon of milk and a sleeve of Oreos and just go to town. So I'm on board with you, man. I like all that stuff too, but you just can't do it.

Shaan Puri

Yeah, I can't do it. Alright, so we got a bunch of stuff. Let's do some of these topics. I don't know where you want to start. Oh, actually, I just see my topics. I don't see yours. Do you have any?

Sam Parr

I had a few we went through a lot of them the other day but well well one thing that is quick

Shaan Puri

the classic we went through a lot of them the other day the classic

Sam Parr

No, I'm usually really prepared. But do you see that Conan O'Brien's thing got acquired? Team Coco?

Shaan Puri

Yeah, you texted this. So what is it? Does he have a podcast network, or is it just his one podcast?

Sam Parr

it's a podcast network but I think he's the heavy hitter and it's sold for 160,000,000

Shaan Puri

or something you said right like a a pretty

Sam Parr

150 to 200... I forget the number, but they have 16,000,000 downloads a month. We have, oh, 2 million... 2 or 3 million a month. So what does that put us worth? Ours is a business, like it's the people listening. You guys are richer than, like, Conan O'Brien's audience.

Shaan Puri

Yeah, and we're way better looking and way more funny. So, you know, if you just take his multiple and you say, "Alright, divide by 8..." We don't do public math, so that's unfortunately just the problem. We're not gonna know how much we're worth because we don't go into public math. Let's move on to the next topic.

Sam Parr

I think that's $20,000,000

Shaan Puri

Who bought it, by the way? Sirius. Sirius bought it. Okay, so he's going to go exclusively to them.

Sam Parr

Yeah, but honestly, I'm going to call our shot a little bit. I don't think that it's going to be that crazy that in a year or two, we get paid like $10 or $20 million a year to license out to Spotify or something like that.

Shaan Puri

I would enjoy that. That sounds a little crazy—$10 or $20 million sounds a little crazy. But then again, it sounded crazy when, for example, The Ringer got bought by Spotify. They were a sports network of podcasts led by Bill Simmons. Bill Simmons was sort of like the Conan O'Brien of that network. They got bought for $200 million. What's crazy is it's not even exclusive to Spotify, which is just wild to me. That's how favorable these deals are. In the same way that Joe Rogan, when he got paid by Spotify, had to take his content off of YouTube, but he's still on Apple Podcasts, which is pretty crazy. So when The Ringer sold to Spotify for $200 million, I think they were doing about $15 million in revenue when they got bought for $200 million.

Sam Parr

Crazy! That is absolutely crazy. Was it only one podcast, or do they actually have a bunch more?

Shaan Puri

it was like yeah 12 maybe or something like that but but they've

Sam Parr

got a few winners

Shaan Puri

It's like three winners. Then, there's one big winner, two small winners, and a bunch of long-tail stuff that kind of doesn't matter in terms of how big it is. But also, I think for them, the thing is, it's not like they were bought for a revenue multiple. It's not like Spotify was like, "You know what? We're going to buy this revenue multiple because that's going to get priced at a favorable rate in the market." It was just like, "We need to strategically move into podcasting. Okay, go get Rogan, go get The Ringer, go get the one that got bought that's up our alley, is that startup one, Gimlet?" So they bought Gimlet also for a lot of money. They bought Anchor, that podcasting tool that... it didn't suck; the tool was cool, but nobody was using it. They bought that thing for like $150 million, which is crazy to me. So they splurged, and I think that splurge window is now closed.

Sam Parr

Well, listen. If you're a listener and if you work at Sirius or Spotify or something like this, and you want to throw a few more [dollars] our way, we are motivated by money. Yeah, we do things because people pay us money, so we could have that conversation.

Shaan Puri

I enjoy commas with many zeros around them

Sam Parr

Yeah, so anyway, if you're listening and you want to make an introduction or help us get paid...

Shaan Puri

Can we talk about this? Okay, so I have a few ideas. I have a couple of things I want to talk about later: 1. I want to talk to you about this new version of plastic surgery that I think is interesting 2. I want to talk to you about a virtual reality project I saw that was actually doing pretty significant revenue 3. I want to talk to you about this "bionic reading" thing So I have a few things I want to talk about, but first, can we talk about this meme? The "drink in a colo" meme?

Sam Parr

yeah yeah

Shaan Puri

So, Sam texted me while we were on vacation, and I was like, "Dude, this is perfect for the pod." He saw a tweet from Moyse, who came on the podcast the same day or the next day or something like that. Moyse said something like, "I don't know, could you pull it up? What the exact phrasing is?" But he was just tweeting about some business thing. He said, "Oh yeah, I was drinking a cola with the founders of this blah blah blah app." Then he mentioned some business thing and rightfully pointed out how hilarious that intro is. It's like, "I was enjoying a cola with my friends, and then we just decided to start talking about, you know, cash flow."

Sam Parr

I met with the Triple Whale founders yesterday for a call. They were exhausted from a day of traveling, but we all left with so much energy. Genghis Khan conquered 30% of the world during his reign. We want to do the same, except the world is now the digital marketing sphere. But the intro was, I met with these founders yesterday for a call.

Shaan Puri

That tweet is hilarious on multiple levels: 1. First of all, the benefit is "found to swear cola." Hilarious! Who drinks cola? I don't know. 2. Who says "cola"? Cola... First of all, that's like... who smokes and drinks soda still? I don't know. 3. Second, who calls it cola? 4. Third, why is that relevant for the tweet? It's so funny!

Sam Parr

Yeah, so we have to do a series of tweets where we talk about something profound. But the intro is like, "You know, I was getting some caramels with a friend," or "Yeah, so..." It just has to be like the most random stuff.

Shaan Puri

Snapping off a beef jerky with my buddy Timmy, he told me about how the self-storage market is really going under right now. It's like, yeah.

Sam Parr

I thought it was "Who says a cola?" Do you think that's what he meant? Is a colt like he sat down for like Pepsi? Like, it's...

Shaan Puri

It is... it's like, you know, at our board meeting today, we poured out a peppermint schnapps and decided to... like...

Sam Parr

a fanta yeah that is weird like it's

Shaan Puri

Just like... so that's new. If we ever do an event or a conference, it's like that's the passcode. How do we know you're real? Are you a real listener? Are you really loyal? It's like you need to be able to come up and tell us a story. Tell us a story that starts with, you know, "So I was eating at Dunkaroo," and you know, it just had a question.

Sam Parr

Yeah, or we gotta do the most extreme thing ever. So, I was doing this thing where you suck on a piece of candy and then spit it in your friend's mouth because it changes the taste. Anyway, we're talking about... that's not important, but we were talking about the economy.

Shaan Puri

Side note: It's so good. It's so good. Yeah, that's my new shit. You know, my last shit was "I have moved straight to the end because of Elon," and I have moved straight to the end. That's done. And my new shit is... Yeah, me and my buddy, we're doing the spaghetti thing where we each take one end of the noodle and suck on it. But when we got close to the middle, we realized the problem with COVID.

Sam Parr

And then we started talking about the recession and how it's booming. That's pretty good... drinking a cola. Alright, so wait, really quick, do you think that he was trying to be funny?

Shaan Puri

No, that's the best part. I think he was just saying what happened, and that in his mind is what happened. Even the second part of the tweet alone... Alright, take the Cola part out, just being like: "I met with the managers of Dripple Well." You know, Genghis Khan... if you bring Genghis Khan into whatever sentence you're saying...

Sam Parr

I'm talking about doctor pepper yeah

Shaan Puri

You are dramatically overestimating whatever you're doing in life. It's like the same way where if anyone's like, "Yeah, you know the way that Tesla came out with the Roadster first? So we're also doing a high end of digital marketing attribution before we go low end." It's like, no, you're making yourself equivalent to Tesla. Anytime you're like, "Genghis Khan conquered 30% of the Earth," whatever the next sentence is, better be *fucking lit*. Instead, his was like, "We're doing the same for digital marketing." That also was just hilarious to me.

Sam Parr

Is Cole do... Is Moyes born in America? Yeah, he was. He was born in America.

Shaan Puri

I think they were born in pakistan and then they moved when they were like 7 or 5 or

Sam Parr

something like that is that like a pakistani thing where they call like soda cola

Shaan Puri

I don't know, maybe because I have a cousin who came over from India when he was about 20. He would always be like, "Hey, can I have a Coca-Cola Light?" I would be like, "What? What did you just say?" He would always say the full name of things. It was like, "Okay, yeah, like, oh, is this covered by Nationwide Insurance?" I was like, "Yeah, it is funny you ask."

Sam Parr

this is awesome we could go with this forever

Shaan Puri

Yeah, it's too much. It's too much for me. Alright, so I want to talk about a couple ideas. Did you see this thing about... I have this link in here. You can see it's this surgery that guys are getting that costs $75,000, but it'll make you 3 inches taller. Did you see this thing? They break...

Sam Parr

Your text is like a great thing to send to a friend who is a little short. You're like, "Hey, heard the news?"

Shaan Puri

good news

Sam Parr

congrats congrats heard

Shaan Puri

About the breakthrough... the scientific breakthrough. Oh, what happened? Did they get a vaccine? No, they break your femur and they'll put a rod in, and it'll make you 3 to 5 inches taller. This thing is apparently just popping off. I've just been looking at this like, what are the big problems that nobody wants to admit to but are real? I just think that that's an interesting prompt for business ideas. So, it's like our buddy Craig Clemens does this. One of his products is one of his best-selling products. He's got these D2C companies that do, I don't know, over $100 million a year in sales as part of his bootstrap thing. I think one of their products was some toenail fungus remover. It's just like the unsexiest thing, but it's common. It's actually something that people really want to get rid of, right? Or something that people really want to change. I think height is another one. I've seen this now in two places. First, I saw this surgery thing, and I was like, "Oh, that's funny." The article was written almost like, "Can you believe this crazy thing people are doing?" In my mind, I was like, "Yeah, I can totally believe that." I think being 3 to 5 inches taller is **fucking awesome**. Yeah, exactly! If you're going to be a breast implant...

Sam Parr

breast implants are like a fake ass like yeah this is this is I'm I'm on board

Shaan Puri

Exactly! I was like, you know, being taller is just awesome. If you gave me 3 inches, I'd be very happy. I'd earn more money and I'd be more liked. That's just a thing. Ben, how tall are you? Like 6'4", right? Yeah, correct. You already know the advantage you have. You're so privileged, dude! You shouldn't even talk to this podcast; you're so privileged. Yeah, you're speaking from tall privilege right now.

Sam Parr

check your privilege

Shaan Puri

yeah you need to check your tall privilege at the door right now

Sam Parr

I had a girlfriend one time—not like a girlfriend, but like a girl I was familiar with—who told me, "I can't tell if I think you're actually handsome or if you're just tall."

Shaan Puri

Yeah, by the way Sam, in your course there's a review for me saying something like: > "Sam's copywriting course works! I got 3 extra inches in 2 weeks!" ...or something like that. Did you write that? Because people keep coming at me to be like, "That's so funny!"

Sam Parr

coded it

Shaan Puri

Yeah, they're like, "Dude, that's so funny!" Either I blacked out or somebody's just impersonating me because I don't remember writing that, but it's hilarious.

Sam Parr

Basically, if you go to trycopythat.com and scroll all the way down on the sales page, you'll see a review by Sean Purry. It says, "Loved it so much, it gave me 3 extra inches! Totally 5 out of 5 stars." I thought you did that, which was funny, but the fact that someone else did it and wrote your name is funnier. Yeah, dude, I knew a guy. So this is an interesting question. I know a guy named Nat, and he's got an app. It's called... I forget exactly what it's called, but it helps you with a Kegel. Do you know what a Kegel is? I don't. I think a Kegel is the exercise that you do, or is it the muscle that needs to be stronger? It's the exercise. It's the exercise that you have to do that keeps you from pre-jacking early. I guess that's an oxymoron.

Shaan Puri

I like how you just shortened it. You know, like if I just say half the word, it's half as bad. The other thing... I think women do it, which is supposed to be just like, good for you in general, but also...

Sam Parr

it tightens for women it kinda tightens

Shaan Puri

it helps them feel helps helps sex feel better for them I think is the idea

Sam Parr

Well, this guy created an app for men to help them avoid "jacking early." I think he kills it. And then, you know, it's not like you're doing pretty well. Take care of them.

Shaan Puri

yeah wait what I I guess let me guess it's doing pretty well

Sam Parr

Yeah, it's doing good. And so that's like another one. I don't know if that's that big of a market, but what else is there?

Shaan Puri

I think it is a huge market. I mean, look at what Roe and Hims did, right? They took erectile dysfunction and wrapped a brand around it that you won't feel embarrassed to be associated with. The value of Hims is partially the telemedicine piece, which means you don't have to go to a doctor and talk to someone face-to-face about this. So, it reduces shame on one end. On the other end, it reduces shame in another way: you get the package with no label on it, making it completely discreet. Secondly, they made their brand cooler so that you don't feel like a schmuck for using it. You don't feel like something's wrong with you or that you're broken in some way for using them. That's the value of their brand, and that's why they built literally a $1,000,000,000 brand doing that.

Sam Parr

Yeah, here's another one. Have you ever cheese grated your foot to get the callus off? You know, country like...

Shaan Puri

that's the most country thing you've ever said no I have never done that

Sam Parr

like you know like with parm have you ever had like oh

Shaan Puri

I know what you're talking about. I've seen a girl doing this on... it's like the equivalent of a sweet potato peeler or whatever, and they just use that on their foot to get their calluses off.

Sam Parr

Yeah, so I just sent it to you in the chat box. It's basically, I bought one the other day because I had just like calluses on my foot. It's essentially just a cheese grater, like for Parmesan cheese. They just call it a foot file. The guy, Colossal Foot Rest, is what they call it. It's got almost 100,000 reviews.

Shaan Puri

Oh my God, this thing has 82,000 reviews on Amazon. It's just like, what?

Sam Parr

greater that they just have you ever seen a product

Shaan Puri

With more reviews than that, like the whole lot has at least the bottom... whatever has that many reviews.

Sam Parr

Is that crazy? It's a $10 cheese grater made in China that they just call a foot file. Is that insane? That probably cost them 50 cents, right?

Shaan Puri

No more than that, but like, yeah, it's still profitable. That's crazy because they're just going to get somebody searching, right? Like for something like this, the other one that's the height one that I saw. So, somebody's doing this on TikTok, and the ad is brilliant. They're selling a shoe, like a men's platform shoe. It's an insert into a normal shoe that's kind of like a heel, but instead of the heel being on the outside of the shoe, it's on the inside. So, your foot, just your heel, gets elevated from the inside, like a Dr. Scholl's, but it gives you 2.5 inches inside of a shoe. So, how do they sell this? The TikTok ad looks like... you know this thing in comedy called a "man on the street" interview? Basically, if you ever watch those late-night shows, they'll go to Times Square and ask people, "Do you support whatever this thing?" People don't even know what it is; they say stupid stuff. But it's basically a dude walking around with a microphone out and about, like Times Square or outside of a nightclub or at a bar, and they just ask questions. So, the ad on TikTok has the guy interviewing girls. He's like, "Alright, be honest, does size matter when it comes to height for guys?" Right? Or something like that. They immediately get you because, first, this doesn't look like an ad. Secondly, you kind of want to know what the girl says.

Sam Parr

because every man is all types of it

Shaan Puri

Exactly. Because it's preying on an insecurity. It quickly cuts between the girls, and they'll be like... it ranges from a girl being like, "No, okay, yeah," and then, you know, it's kind of like her admitting it. The next one is two girls who'll be like, "Hell yeah! She won't even date a guy if he's not 6'5." And she's like, "No, no, tell the truth. It's true." It's kind of preying on the guy's insecurity, like, "Oh man, girls really care about this." They won't admit it, but if you get them to be honest, they really do care that that extra height matters. They'll be like, "What's the perfect height for a guy?" And then they'll be like, "6'1." And they're like, "You know the average guy is 5'9?" And they're like, "Yeah!" And then they're just laughing. It's like four of those cuts of that interview. Then they do an even better version of it. I've seen one where the guy's wearing it, and they're like, "Did you know that he's wearing this thing right now?" And they're like, "No, I had no idea." It's basically like people can't tell that you're wearing these things. So they're addressing the objections that someone would have. First, they create the demand, which is that girls will find you more attractive if you're taller. Then they address the objections, which is, "You don't look goofy for wearing stilts." And so they're like, "Oh, I had no idea! No, you can't tell! Oh my god, that's awesome!" Like, that's so clever. They supercut that together, and I saw that and thought, "Man, this is a really effective marketing campaign." It's also an interesting product category that I wouldn't have otherwise really thought about.

Sam Parr

That's actually interesting. Yeah, this is pretty cool. That is a good one that people are embarrassed about. They need to do an ad about how, like, everyone who says they're 5'11" is really just 5'9" because no one's actually 5'11". Like, you just... yeah, if you did a man on...

Shaan Puri

The street, you're like, "How tall are you?" and they're like, "Yeah, 5'5" or 5'11." I'm 6'0." And they're like, "Okay, cool, we have a thing right here, just stand up." And they're like, "5'0."

Sam Parr

It's 6, Steven. No, it's 5'11". You're either 5' or you're 6 foot. Yeah, that's true.

Shaan Puri

never never met a 6 footer in your life it's like a leap year

Sam Parr

I've never met a 6 footer in my life dawg you 510 just admit it

Shaan Puri

51061 no in between

Sam Parr

god skipped that we went from 511 to 61 but you but you ate 6 even

Shaan Puri

god doesn't make mistakes but he never made a man 6 foot even

Sam Parr

That stamp wasn't made, so like anybody says they're 6, even that ain't true. That's why my men always say, "Yeah, I'll be at least 6'1."

Shaan Puri

let me tell you another tiktok marketing thing that I think is pretty clever that I saw have you ever heard of it's probably probably not it's pretty pretty niche but this thing called farkate apartments I have it on here it's farkatekte so it's basically there's a woman on on tiktok and she's a real estate broker or a leasing broker and I'll tell you how I arrived at this so somebody had tweeted out something which was like hey if you needed a side hustle that was gonna generate like 3 k to 5 k a month and you could only kinda work like you know let's say like you know a couple hours in during the week and a and a and you know half a day on the weekends or something like that what would you do to do that if you didn't know how to code and one of the interesting answers was oh I'd be a leasing agent because if you can get an apartment leased up you get I think the 1st month's rent or something like that as the broker and so the rent is gonna be you know in new york or san francisco or these big cities the rent's gonna be like 3 grand 4 grand 5 grand 6 grand and so if you just lease 1 apartment right so if you get one apartment leased you know that's 5 k right there that's pure profit essentially and what I saw was that some people what they're doing is they're creating popular tiktok accounts just showing unique spaces or like in this case she shows like hilariously I think hilariously bad apartments like she'll walk into this place she'll be like alright this this apartment this condo is exquisite and like whatever you know queen's here and then she'll be like you know how many bedrooms is it there's no bedrooms there's just this loft actually it's not a loft actually it's just this like area above the kitchen where there's like a pipe above your head but like there's like 3 inches to go to sleep up there if you can climb up and like oh you know do you like the soothing sounds of water well the toilet keeps running so you'll have that zen vibe and so she's like kinda making fun of like how overpriced apartments in new york are and for like how how little you get for how much you pay which is just a great viral hook right so instead of just doing the literal thing which is go to find an apartment be like hey guys here's a great apartment she finds hilariously bad deals makes that her tiktok

Sam Parr

or

Shaan Puri

Or really good deals. Then she basically says, "If you want an apartment, come to me." I don't know if this is exactly her model, but because I just looked at it real quick, I think that would be a model that would work. Create content. Like we've seen this on Instagram, there's an account called "Zillow Gone Wild," which is just hilarious to watch. It's just crazy homes from Zillow. You can kind of make like "house porn" or "apartment porn," where it's just really interesting stuff—like really interesting apartments or really interesting homes, really overpriced, really underpriced, whatever. Then use that as your lead generation. For example, "By the way, do you actually just want a 2-bedroom apartment? Come through, get it through me. Here are my listings. You can actually see if you want something that's not overpriced." I think just doing something like that, you could have a lot of fun and build a pretty solid business. I mean, I'm sure she's doing way more than $5K a month, but I just thought that was going to be interesting.

Sam Parr

I looked up this word I've never heard before. It's a Yiddish word that means "poor quality." So, who's this lady? What's her handle?

Shaan Puri

It's just that... it's that word, those words. You got "**Farf Farfakte Apartments**" and that's her TikTok. She has 37,000 followers and, like, you know... like "Here's a huge loft in Brunswick" and I have 108,000 views on that video. Right? So she's showing...

Sam Parr

that's crazy

Shaan Puri

These things... but then she has her actual... she's like a comedy actress and realtor. If you want my real rentals, you know, go to compass.com. Go get them, right? You can email their crushes. Yeah, so I thought this was great, and it's completely differentiated from what most people do. I'm trying this right now with The Milk Road, which I'm really obsessed with. The idea is that if you combine two things that are usually not combined, you don't have to be great at either one of the things because you've created a whole new combination. This happens in food all the time. You've talked about this formula in food, like a jumbo donut. It's like you don't need to have the best donuts; just do a huge donut, and then people will come to you for that, right? Go for the biggest! Make a green ketchup, purple ketchup, or Dorito tacos. It's not that it's better; it's just so different. So with The Milk Road, we're doing this right now where I'm trying to create... basically, it's not funny enough where it would just be a straight-up comedy thing. I don't know, but it's a podcast. A lot of... yeah, it's like this pod. Yeah, I don't know why I'm trying to go for this far-fetched example. This podcast... are we the richest? No. Are we the smartest? No. Are we the best prepared? No. Do we have the best insights and research? Absolutely not.

Sam Parr

are we

Shaan Puri

The funniest... no, but do we have the right combination? Like, we're having a good time. We make ourselves laugh and make you laugh just enough. We're like, it's business, and it's just enough business and just enough to make you laugh. That's what I'm trying to do with The Milk Road now. I'm trying to do the same thing. It's like there's crypto information, and there are a lot of people trying to be the smartest guy in the room with crypto. It's like a big brains contest. You go into a room, and everybody's trying to have this like 9,000 IQ. It's like, well, we want to be smart, but we're not going to be the smartest because who the heck knows who's the smartest? It's really hard. But we can also be slightly funny, and we would differentiate ourselves from everybody else doing crypto content. So I'm pretty interested in this idea of stacking unique skills. You don't have to be the best at either; you just have to be just dangerous enough at both. But if you combine them, you're completely differentiated in your market.

Sam Parr

Can I ask you about a crypto story really quick that you might know about? I need you to explain it to me. So, do you know anything about Sam Bankman-Fried? That is his name, right? Bankman-Fried?

Shaan Puri

of course

Sam Parr

so how old is he is he under 30 still

Shaan Puri

he's like 29 30 30 once

Sam Parr

I know I know he was under 30 at once but is he still under 30 at once

Shaan Puri

I should know they are currently the leading sponsor of the Milk Road. So, FTX, go get your account! He is 30 years old, exactly on the dot.

Sam Parr

Alright, that was a bad joke I made, by the way. I said, "I knew he was under 30 once, but is he still under 30?" That was good, actually.

Shaan Puri

I I just didn't figure it out

Sam Parr

Alright, so this, like, basically when he was 28, he was worth around $20 billion, right?

Shaan Puri

Yeah, he's the... I think he's probably, him or the guy from Binance, they're the richest person from crypto besides whoever Satoshi is.

Sam Parr

That's crazy! So, he said in an article the other day, "I'm thinking about spending $100,000,000 on the upcoming presidential election, but I'll probably cap out at about $1,000,000,000." That statement is just ridiculous. Not that it's wrong, it's just a crazy chain of words added together in one sentence. I didn't think I would hear someone say it, let alone a 30-year-old. What type of person is this guy to become that rich at like 28?

Shaan Puri

He also has a unique skill stack. He was, I think, a trader or an analyst at Jane Street, so he's kind of like a smart quant type guy. And then, you know... I think I've told this story before. Do you know the story about the kimchi arbitrage or whatever?

Sam Parr

Not exactly. I know that he did some arbitrage, but I don't understand why Bitcoin would be cheaper in Korea than it would be in America.

Shaan Puri

Well, it's all about access and the liquidity of the market. Some markets, like Japan, have the hardest access. For example, the government's crackdown on exchanges means you can only get it in the black market or on these small niche exchanges or foreign offshore exchanges. There's been a lot of friction because of that.

Sam Parr

like and you can't access coinbase.com

Shaan Puri

Yeah, like at a given time in Japan, you couldn't easily buy Bitcoin. Because of that, to buy Bitcoin in Japan, you were paying a premium. So, in theory, let's say Bitcoin is priced at $30. You could buy Bitcoin for $30 in America, and if you had a way to sell it in Japan, you could sell it for $32,000. You could just infinitely make a $2,000 spread. It's kind of like, great! How much capital you got? Pour it all into Bitcoin in the U.S. and then sell it all instantly in Japan. You're not really taking much risk because you're just quickly flipping it for that premium. A lot of people were trying to do this. I think there was a spread of about $5 in Japan or something like that at the time. But nobody knew how; it wasn't easy to go sell the thing in Japan. Again, if it was that easy, there wouldn't have been the premium in the first place. What he found was that, I think it was in Korea, there was a smaller premium, but it was easier to get around. So, what they did was they literally flew to Korea or whatever, and they talked to local banks. They were like, "Hey, we would like to have an account that will allow us to wire money in significant size every day, in and out. Can you support that? Can you support that action?" Because I'm going to basically be transferring in, like, you know, call it $2,000,000 in and $2,000,000 out the same day, and it has to be the same day.

Sam Parr

Just calling that action makes it sound cooler. Can you support that action? That's such a better word than "beyond."

Shaan Puri

Can you handle that size? That's my new ship. There, also, by the way, just being like, "Yeah, we gotta be able to do it in size," or like, "Yeah, they're moving in size." Forget.

Sam Parr

It was going to say "action" instead of the word "amount." So, like asking my wife how much beef she wants me to buy at the store, I would say, "How much action do you want?"

Shaan Puri

How much action are you trying to get on these ribs? In terms of oat milk, you can... Are we trying to move size? Yeah, it's crazy.

Sam Parr

oh my god

Shaan Puri

So basically, what ended up happening was he had this company, like Alameda Research or whatever. He saw that the **kimchi premium** was a big deal. It was like if Bitcoin was $10,000 in the U.S., it was $15,000 in Korea. I think in Japan, there was a smaller premium. He was able to do it in Japan and made something like **$20,000,000** doing this arbitrage in one summer. It took him time to find a network of local banks that would let him wire serious money in and out. He had to make sure that they could repeat these transactions on the same day, so they had the money recycling. I think it was like this: take **$2,000,000**, buy Bitcoin, sell it in Japan, and then take the money they made in Japan. They needed to be able to wire it back so that tomorrow they could go buy again, say **$2,200,000** of Bitcoin based on the extra they made. Then they did the same thing the next day, **$2,400,000**, and they eventually profited like **$20,000,000 to $30,000,000**. So then he basically said, "Alright," and him and his small team, I guess this little crew that was doing this arbitrage... did he...

Sam Parr

have money ahead of time or was he just like a like a like living with roommates

Shaan Puri

Living with roommates, even now, he drives an old beat-up Honda or something like that. He sleeps in the office on a giant beanbag. There are tons of pictures of him just passed out on a beanbag in front of his desk. It's actually like two beanbags—upper body on one, feet on the other. It creates this tiny little SBF bridge in between them, and that's just the way this guy works. He's vegan and practices something called effective altruism, I think is what you call it. So that's his thing. His goal is this philosophy: to make as much money as you can so that you can give away as much money as you can. The essence of making money is to give it away in the most effective manner possible. So "earn to give" is the name of the philosophy of what they do.

Sam Parr

is that

Shaan Puri

What they're trying to do is... yeah, that's what he says he's motivated by. So he's like, you know, he's donated... I think he's donated about $200,000,000 already of his net worth. And he's, you know, this thing about "I'm willing to donate up to $1,000,000,000" in the next... it's like another way to make change. And it's not all political, it's like, "Where does the dollar have the most effect?" and that sort of thing.

Sam Parr

He did. I also read an interview, or was it you who told me, where he was like, "I don't even care about Bitcoin. I'm just doing this to make money." He said something to the effect that he's not particularly into traditional crypto stuff.

Shaan Puri

Yeah, he's... so there's a lot of people in crypto that are very missionary. If you listen to Brian Armstrong from Coinbase, he's like, he lived in Buenos Aires and he saw what happened to the Argentinian peso. He was like, "It's not right." People around the world don't have access to economic freedom. They live in a place where their currency gets devalued like crazy, and there's a better way. And it's crypto. I believe that to my core, and I'm going to... like Coinbase is going to help more people get into crypto because I think crypto is what matters in the world. Sam Bankman-Fried is just sort of like... you know, not that his mission is different. His mission is, "I'm an effective altruist. I'm trying to give away as much money as possible, so I need to make as much money as possible." In order to do that, I'm going to just... oh, you know, whether you're selling this or that, like cool. People wanted an effective trading platform for crypto, so I'll build that. I know this product and this need because I'm a trader, so I'll be able to do it that way.

Sam Parr

that's baller man and there was a meme of him gone

Shaan Puri

The other piece of the... I was going to say the other piece of the effective altruism is that they really use... they want it to be evidence-based. That like, you know, every dollar going in is having the greatest possible impact. It's one of their big things: how measurable is the impact?

Sam Parr

Dude, this guy is great! There's a funny meme of him going around. Basically, this guy, his name is Sam Bankman-Fried. Google him! He looks like you'd want him to look. He's kind of like a chubby Jewish guy who wears New Balance shoes, high socks, cargo shorts, an army green t-shirt, shaggy hair, and a huge Timex watch. He looks like a 50-year-old. There's a picture of him on stage with this beautiful interviewer. On his left is Gisele, and on the right is some other model, like Heidi Klum. I forget, but these are smart businesswomen who are just the most gorgeous people you've ever seen. And he's sitting in the middle, and they're all looking at him. The caption is something like, "Get you a person who will look at Sam Bankman-Fried like Gisele looks at him." It's hilarious!

Shaan Puri

yeah he's just kinda hunched over oblivious to the whole thing it's great is he

Sam Parr

is he like what makes him special

Shaan Puri

I know that's hard to say. I haven't met him, but we've met some of the other people at the FTX team. For example, their head of strategy is like 25 years old or something like that; he might be 24. He started off in customer service and is now the head of strategy. If I could comment on what I see as their culture, it’s that they go hard. What I mean by that is they are really sharp; they’re kind of like quants. It just seems like they work very hard and move as fast as crypto moves, which is very, very fast. There were no invisible walls for them. The company is based in the Bahamas, and they grew like crazy. When they wanted to do marketing, they said, "Okay, go get Steph Curry, Tom Brady, and Larry David," and that’s who’s going to be our spokesperson. They pulled no expenses. They bought an arena. I know the guy who did the athlete rights for them, and he basically said, "Yeah, we got on a call, and I was like, 'Okay, so what are your goals with sports sponsorships to help FTX? How are you going to measure this?'" He responded, "How much does it cost to have the Yankees stadium renamed to FTX Stadium?" I said, "Yeah, I don’t think that’s even for sale." He then asked, "What about every ad inside the stadium?" I told him, "That’s a lot, man. Maybe we should just kind of crawl before we walk and before we run." He said, "I think it would be most effective if we go get Tom Brady and Steph Curry and the Yankees. You go do that and then tell me when you have them." That was essentially the call. It was like, "Name your price," and that’s what they did. Guess what? They got all of them. It’s a pretty impressive strategy where there’s no tiptoeing around in this.

Sam Parr

I love those people. I call them "freaks," and I love them. I love these freaks. I love freaks.

Shaan Puri

What also is one of my favorite Twitter followers? I don't know if you follow him on Twitter, but he posts awesome threads that are not, again, propaganda for his company. However, it effectively serves as propaganda for the company. He'll just be like, "Here are my thoughts on raising money. Here's what actually happens." He'll say, "Investors want us to do this." At first, I thought that was just self-serving bullshit, but then I realized actually the game theory is this. He just talks and lays out these long threads. He's like, "Look, I'm not saying this is FTX's view. This is just my late-night thoughts about this topic." When you see him think out loud, you're like, "Oh wow, this guy's just incredibly sharp." He sees both sides of it. He's kind of like an independent thinker, and so he's one of the best follows on Twitter.

Sam Parr

Do you think working with him... Do you think that he's obviously intense, but is he like a hustle-hustle, "let's work" type of guy, like this alpha type of guy? Or is he more like a softball?

Shaan Puri

I don't get that vibe. I don't get "Wolf of Wall Street." I don't get the idea that he's like Genghis Khan, who took over 30% of the thing. It's more like obsession meets... you know, I don't know if this got cut, but I think this got cut out of our previous podcast where we were like, we kind of admire the Asperger's-y personality because it has the ability to focus really intensely. It also has the ability to think for yourself and not just go with what is the norm or societal expectations. So to me, when he says, "Let's go get the Yankees and Tom Brady," it's not because he wants to "swing our big d around" and show who's boss. It's more like, "Well, it seems like the most effective thing to do if we're trying to build trust would be to go to the most trusted athletes and get them." On a cost-per-fan basis, they're actually the most effective, even though the total gross dollar amount is higher. To me, that's how his brain works. It's not like, "You know what would be sweet, dude? If we go get the fucking Yankees, bro." It's not that. And so, he looks at the chart...

Sam Parr

And he's like, "Oh, what has the largest reach?" Okay, that makes sense. Yeah, just whatever's number one on that chart, just do that.

Shaan Puri

Right, exactly. Like, well, if this has the arbitrage, then let's put all of our money into it and hedge it over here. It's more like that.

Sam Parr

all those choices

Shaan Puri

And so, I think that when they... in the same way, like the intensity of the company is high, but I don't think it's because it's like, "Bro, we gotta grind if we wanna make it." You know, like, "Oh, you take weekends off, you're soft." It's not that. It's more like, "Oh, I haven't eaten in 36 hours because I've just been really interested in this problem." I'm staring at my screen, and I forgot to eat and I forgot to shower. I also think, "I guess I'll just sleep on this beanbag because that way I don't need to commute." Commuting wastes at least, you know, an hour a day, and like, why would I waste an hour of my day? You know, I'm just... I could sleep on this beanbag. In fact, it's ergonomic or whatever. I think that's more how the brain works, where it's like this hyper-rationalism is what I would call it.

Sam Parr

Do I wonder what he's like as a CEO? Do you think he holds one-on-one meetings? He just does not look like...

Shaan Puri

Well, we should have a meeting with him and the head of whatever. They wanted to come on the pod, so I think they're protecting him a little bit. He's now super busy with press obligations or whatever. I think they were trying to have their number two guy in the company come on the pod, and this guy, Brett, I think he'd be really interesting too. But, you know, everybody wants SBF because he looks... he's the Zuckerberg, right? Like, Cheryl might be the secret weapon and the one who actually runs the show, but Zuck is this alien character that people are fascinated with. They want to poke him and be like, "Oh, look, it moves!"

Sam Parr

well I I

Shaan Puri

would love to get sam on

Sam Parr

I wouldn't mind having a guy who is his boss, you know? The guy who works for him, as long as the guy coming on would be cool. Like, we're...

Shaan Puri

only gonna ask you about sam is that cool

Sam Parr

yeah I was like oh wait no I don't think you understand the assignment we don't care about like you

Shaan Puri

that's not annoying right

Sam Parr

yeah dude

Shaan Puri

It's like if I meet someone who's like, "Oh man, love the podcast!" I'm like, "Dude, great! So glad to meet a fan." And then they're like, "Sam's so awesome! What's it like to be around Sam?" Like... oh, fuck you dude. I'm busy. I'm not gonna sit here talking about Sam.

Sam Parr

Well, we've had a couple of guests and they're like cool. They say, "Oh yeah, I worked with Steve Jobs." And I'm like, "Wait, wait. Alright, let's just focus."

Shaan Puri

scrap your current thing

Hubspot

So, as long as they're okay, like if they understand the assignment that it's strictly a learning environment... Like, Joe Rogan had this guy who worked at SpaceX, and they talked about what it's like to work for Elon. I was like, "Oh, just let's focus on that." The whole "go to space" stuff is cool, but just tell me what it's like to work with Elon. As long as they understand that's the assignment, I'm on board. 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. I think I love our new CRM. Our software is the best. HubSpot: Grow better.

Shaan Puri

Here's another interesting intensity-teamwork thing that I think is... you know, close enough transition. Have you seen this business called "A-Team"?

Sam Parr

I think

Shaan Puri

it's because I think it's just a letter a and then dot team is their website

Sam Parr

know that's like a and a famous tv show right you remember mr t

Shaan Puri

mr t or whatever yeah yeah that all I know is that much I don't I've never seen anything so so it's that same like I think they're kind of playing all that branding a little bit in the sense that like the idea is based so they just raised $60,000,000 they raised it from nfx who I I really nfx was early in them and and said good things I I respect nfx so made me pay attention now this is an idea that's been around it's been tried but maybe the time is right now and so that's why this is interesting to me so let me kinda give you my backstory of this idea and I wanna hear what you think if you think this is a good idea or bad idea so I once heard naval on a podcast talk about like the future of work he he was basically like naval was like you know I I don't buy this whole I I don't believe that we're gonna live in a world where you work 9 to 5 sitting in a desk in some office for 1 company and you work there for 30 years and you already you see that shifting like instead of working at a place for 30 years then getting your pension when you retire they like you know have a cake cutting ceremony in the in the in the lobby for you as they send you off to your death like okay now people started to hop jobs more and then people started to work you know remote and freelance and naval's thing was like he said I think the future of work is like ocean's 11 he goes you're gonna have your crew the same way that ocean's 11 is this badass team of like you know you got the pickpocket guy you got the ninja you have the like the comms guy you have the planner you have the like you know the guy who can go gather intel you have the hot girl who's the distraction and you have this you know you got brad pitt george clooney alright so that's the team and it's like you're just gonna get a message which says alright guys round up like we got one we got a mission to go on and everybody meets up and every everyone's doing other stuff and it's like what's the mission oh like you know ocean's lubbins we're gonna rob this bank or whatever and then it for for work it's gonna be like alright here's this brand that's trying to whatever they're killing the us they're trying to expand into india and so you might be the ocean's 11 team that continuously gets called on to take a brand and expand them into india and like you you wake up you get a page you know your pager basically goes off and says we need you the bat signal is up you all congregate you've all worked together so you know you you come as a group who's good at accomplishing certain types of missions you do those missions you rate each other you rate the company that hired you they rate you you rate each other on your team you go on your way and you get called in for the next mission and the money hits your bank and so naval kinda describes this thing and he's like you won't just have one team like you'll probably float around with a couple teams like if you're the pickpocket you've got like 3 teams that can call on you and and it just works that way so you get reputation that's built not on a resume but through this like verified ratings of like I've actually worked with this person you have not continuous work you get called on when there's a mission you'd sprint you crush it then you relax until the next mission you can work as much or as little as you want you may or may not even know the identities of the other people you could be like my name is my nickname is just whatever star wing and I just go in and people know me know me as star wing and I just that's how I work and like that's the future of work so that kind of fascinated me when he he described it he did it in the naval way which was like you know 1 tenth of the words I just use but twice as interesting and now I'm starting to see some startups pop up that are doing this and to me a team is is an idea of that where they're like oh you wanna build an ecommerce website well we have the designer the front end developer the back end developer and the like conversion optimizer and like they'll just swoop in and they'll just do it for you in like 2 weeks you'll get a better product than whatever and here's the big lump sum payment you you do for that team

Sam Parr

This is so amazing! I saw a meme the other day where a guy said, "I so look forward to the day where I'm just sitting at a bar and a stranger walks up and says, 'I'm putting together a team,' and I look at them and respond, 'I'm in! When do we leave?'" They were just like, "That's..."

Shaan Puri

yeah I live in the double bag you know

Sam Parr

Yeah, I'm putting the team together. You in, dude? This is awesome! Their site is amazing. This is one of the best landing pages I've seen in a long time. It's a .team. Look at those landing pages!

Shaan Puri

it's it's pretty good the hero image is really good and then yeah the examples

Sam Parr

Are good succinctly describe what they're doing. So you just get on, you just log on, and you see it. It's a relatively strange concept, and they describe it in like two sentences wonderfully. This is awesome! I'm not sure... I think it's quite bold to say it's the future of work. I don't think that that's what it is, but I think it's like a subset of freelancing that's going to be amazing. Yeah, exactly.

Shaan Puri

It's not everybody, but in the same way, the gig economy made it so that, you know, I can do things that didn't happen 10 years ago. You wake up, hop in your car, open up your phone, and this guy wants a ride over here. You drive over there, pick him up, drop him off, and cash goes into your bank. You made $16 for that ride. Oh, you want to stop working because you want to pick up your daughter from school? You swipe to log off, and you're off work. Now, you want to get back on later, you know, at midnight, and take people to the airport. Alright, you can do that again. That whole gig economy thing, where your phone just gives you jobs or work that will pay you small micro-payments for your micro-tasks, that's pretty cool. That's something that Uber, TaskRabbit, and DoorDash all brought to the table. So, I feel like there might be the next version of that, which is for highly skilled, cross-discipline work. For example, I know I could do this. I have 3 or 4 people where it's like, "That's the great developer, this is the great designer, I'll be the marketing guy, and this guy will be the... you know, whatever."

Sam Parr

The problem is that they're not available to do stuff, and this is creating an opportunity for them to be available. But, like, I've gone on the Shopify marketplace and I've used Upwork. Oftentimes, when I use Upwork, it's just like a guy in India who's the face of the operation, and he's got a team of like eight guys. Isn't that kind of what's already happening? They just package this in a far more sophisticated and sexy way.

Shaan Puri

Yeah, they did it in a more sexy way, and I think it's more for premium things. So, like, in the same way that if you don't want the India thing, but you want something sort of like what an agency does. Typically, what agencies do is they specialize in one vertical. So it's like, "We do SEO, we do Facebook ads, we do copywriting." What this is saying is, "No, you're trying to launch a marketplace. You're trying to launch a new NFT marketplace." Well, you're going to need somebody who's great at email marketing. You're going to need an engineer who knows smart contracts. You're going to need a designer. You're going to need a social media person. So, whatever they give you, the six cross-disciplinary people that are good at building marketplaces, that's just a different cut of the same idea of agencies.

Sam Parr

This is awesome! This is one of the cooler companies I think I've seen lately. This is amazing! Yeah, how'd you find this?

Shaan Puri

Because the guys I follow at NFX, they were like, "Hey, this company is growing really fast... like *fast*." I forgot what they said exactly, but it was growing super fast. I was like, "How fast?" You know, that's why I started looking into it. It reminded me of that dreamy idea that Naval had brought up, and I was like, "Oh, maybe now with COVID, maybe the time has changed." Where there's enough really talented people that are no longer locked into jobs because they're at home, they're remote.

Sam Parr

They've got all the right people. If you go to their team, it says that their featured advisors are the guy who started Fiverr, which is crazy. The guy who started Fiverr also started Lemonade. That's pretty wild! The CEO of Upwork is also involved, so they've got all the right people on board. Wow! Yeah, this is an amazing company. This is a badass find. I've never heard of these guys before.

Shaan Puri

Yeah, that's cool. Alright, take another idea off this list and another topic from this list, and let's do that.

Sam Parr

let's do that one

Shaan Puri

Yeah, I literally never read DocuSign. I just sign. This is more like I just needed to verify with you. Do you also do this? Like, dude, when I get a DocuSign, I'm not reading it. I'm not gonna lie, you can scan me pretty easily.

Sam Parr

The South Park episode... have you seen it? What they do is they create a... you know what a caterpillar is? No? So it's like...

Shaan Puri

do I wanna know

Sam Parr

they take a shade of 6 people and and they

Shaan Puri

they sell their mouths

Sam Parr

they sell their mouths to the person's butt and you just gotta stay there

Shaan Puri

okay

Sam Parr

And Apple... Apple does that to people because it says it in the terms and conditions in iTunes when you sign up. The whole episode is like, "Whoa, Stan, you didn't read the terms and conditions of Apple before you clicked yes? That's crazy!" Of course, like, you have to go do a caterpillar now because that's what it said. I can't believe you didn't read it. And it's like this whole thing, but dude, I've been getting DocuSigns lately where they literally just send me the sign page and they don't even send me... yeah, yeah.

Shaan Puri

Yeah, so people are like, "Hey, here's the doc." It's just one underline and it says, "Sign here." I'm like, "Sign what? Why am I signing?"

Sam Parr

Yeah, it's called the **signature package**. Basically, I've got it in the context of a company that I've invested in. They need me to sign paperwork for some reason because they're raising a new valuation, at a higher valuation. They literally just send me the signature packet, and it has 4 or 6 things. It just says "Sampar" and then a line for signing. I have no idea what I'm signing. So, yes, I do that because I just don't read the stuff. And sometimes they don't even send me the stuff to read; they just send me a fictive sign. I have no idea what it means. Do you get that?

Shaan Puri

Yeah, I've been getting those and I'm like... alright, it's one thing if I'm not gonna read it, but for you to not even write it? It's like a whole other level of arrogance here. And you know, poor form that we're taking.

Sam Parr

Work in because of like "Lawyer at FU.com" and just sign this schmuck. Just like, "Sign this, nerd." I swear...

Shaan Puri

The law firm's name is "Fuckman Banks." What is that? What do those guys do?

Sam Parr

yeah yeah he was

Shaan Puri

based in new york

Sam Parr

Yeah, why is Seymour Butz asking me to sign this stuff? They're just messing with me. Yeah, that's crazy.

Shaan Puri

It's like, you know, when people really want to get us to respond, they'll Venmo us money or PayPal us money, saying, "Oh, I'm being super creative to reach you, to get you to read my message," or whatever. And I'm like, oh, it doesn't really work. I don't really like that, and it makes me feel uncomfortable. You know, generally, the people I want to meet never do that. So I'm like, you know, generally this is not a good signal for you.

Sam Parr

The other day, these guys were emailing me to try their stuff. They were like, "What are you soft? You're not up for the challenge." I just replied, "I am not up for the challenge." They then responded with, "Okay, so you are correct. I am not up for the challenge."

Shaan Puri

I think people hear us out here, we're joking around, and they're like, "What if I take that joke to the next level and I make it weird?" And they don't know me, and they somehow think that's gonna work. It's like, this works because me and Sam have known each other for like 10 years, and the jokes are meant to be jokes. They're not serious. It's like... then you take that same idea, you make it serious, and you do it from a stranger. It's like, no, no, no. It's not the same thing.

Sam Parr

Yeah, I actually don't like that. The other day, this guy sent me an email, and in the subject line, it said something like, "You're a c*** sucker." He made me open it, and I was like, "Oh, I don't like that." I find that to be inappropriate and not cool. I'm not on board with that, and that's what he said.

Shaan Puri

But I can totally see how somebody would listen to this podcast and think, "They'll love that."

Sam Parr

yeah or like

Shaan Puri

It's like, "Why are you approaching me?" It's like... we're... that's what we're doing. We're like, "I love this copywriting," and you know, just do what you gotta do for the hustle. I was super annoying getting people to be conference speakers, like, "Yeah!" But I don't like when it happens to me.

Sam Parr

But I didn't call someone like a little bitch. Like, people would call me that. They're like, "What's up, you little bitch?" I'm like, "Dude, I don't..."

Shaan Puri

know you who was doing that somebody was doing that somebody who worked for us was doing that right

Sam Parr

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I have not called them out, but they called us a "little bitch." I'm like, "Dude, you're an intern. Don't talk to me like that." My friends don't even call me a little bitch. Like, what are you talking about that for? It was like, I think it was an intern that called us that. Oh, I know! I think it was Abreyu. Abreyu used to call us that.

Shaan Puri

I wasn't gonna call them out. You're like, "I'm not gonna call them out." Oh, unless it's Abreyu, in which case...

Sam Parr

It was a brayu. He was our producer and he'd be like, "Time to work, you little bitch," or something. I'm like, "Dude, don't talk to me like that." I'm gonna talk to you like that. It's like, "Why are you calling me that?"

Shaan Puri

yeah yeah brady you came in really hot you came in really hot

Sam Parr

That's your one word? What's this? Yeah, no, I mean I love him and he could talk to me now that we're friends and not coworkers. But when we were coworkers, I was like, "Dude, I was offended. I was like, please don't call me that. I don't like that." Zelensky deep fake? What's that? Oh wait, no, what's the history of the internet?

Shaan Puri

That's a longer one. I went down this rabbit hole of the history of the internet, like how it came about. It's pretty crazy stuff. I'm not going to do that one right now; that one's too long. But, okay, so, Zelensky deepfake. So, people know about deepfakes, which is like... I think a lot of people who listen to this probably know about deepfakes. But if you don't, it's basically the way that you can Photoshop a picture to kind of edit and make it look a certain way, and it looks real. But, like, oh no, that's been photoshopped. You can now do that with video, which kind of means...

Sam Parr

it's not as easy

Shaan Puri

right but that's not an app

Sam Parr

I can download

Shaan Puri

It's not yet. There are some, but like, you know, in a small way. The Snapchat face filter is essentially a bit of a deep fake. There's this app, isn't there?

Sam Parr

the baby one or or the one where where it makes you sad and cry

Shaan Puri

no is that on snapchat

Sam Parr

Yeah, or I... it's on Instagram. I think they show someone's face and they're like, "Hey Sean, why are you so sad? Why are you crying?" And you're like, "What? I'm not crying at all!" But it looks like you're crying and sad and... like, give.

Shaan Puri

A frown... and so that's one version of it. Then there's this app, I forgot what it's called. It's "Some Moves" or something like that. It's like some dance app, but basically, you take a picture of yourself standing there, and then it'll make it look like your body... it'll make you look like a great dancer, you know? You could go play something up there. I think you might have done this, where it's like...

Sam Parr

I think I think that's how you found it because I did it it looked like I was break dancing

Shaan Puri

Yeah, you're like, "Break!" It's like, yeah, just jamming out on a Wednesday. It's like, "Whoa, Sam could break dance!" Then it's like, "That looks not quite right. Wait a minute." And it's like, "Oh yeah, that's like a deep fake." Basically, it's a deep fake video. But they're getting better and better. Like, you'll see them do this with, "Oh my God, did you hear Obama saying the N-word?" It's like, "What? No!" And then you watch this video. It's a deep fake, but they can mimic his voice and his lips moving, talking, doing something. And then this is happening. It's becoming a big problem in the porn industry because people are doing this with, "Oh, there's some girl in my college, and I'll just take her picture and make it look like she shot this, you know, sex tape or whatever." And people are like, "Dude, that's like, you know, really messed up." But the technology can do that now. It can basically make it look like somebody was doing something that they never did. So this is becoming a problem. There's one with Zelensky, the Ukrainian president or prime minister, whatever he is. And there's this video going around of him talking. It's a real video, and then there's the deep fake video where it shows a trail of cocaine on his desk. And they're like, "Look at this! Your president's breaking down. He's using drugs! That's why he's saying all this crazy stuff." They added some stuff in the background of the video, and I'm like, "Oh man, this is just gonna get super crazy." How do you know what you can trust if you can't trust your eyes and ears anymore? How are we gonna prosecute crimes? How are we gonna prevent people from completely slandering your reputation?

Sam Parr

how are

Shaan Puri

We're gonna prevent people from... you know, like this was what people said that the Russians were doing with Hillary during the election. They were showing propaganda like "Hillary said this about black people," and they were promoting that in predominantly black counties where they were trying to sway the vote and get them to not turn out for Hillary. It's like... it was fake, right? But it was misinformation. So to me, I'm like, this deep fake thing is gonna be a **real** problem.

Sam Parr

and I think

Shaan Puri

There's opportunity. Well, there's one answer that a buddy was trying to work on, which was basically a way to certify the authenticity of the original mint of the video. So, it's like you can basically encrypt the original video so that if anybody wants to see, "Oh, this video of this guy saying this crazy thing, is this what was originally shot from the phone?" He was trying to do that, but really what you need is for the phone makers to participate. It has to be done at the hardware level because anything else could be tampered with. It's like, well, if it's just a video file I encrypt, then I could just encrypt it later. I could edit it first, then encrypt it. So, it has to be done as it's being shot. You know, Apple, Google, Samsung, or whoever these people are, they're going to have to bake it in where every video comes with a seal of authenticity.

Sam Parr

mhmm and

Shaan Puri

Then that's going to be a cat and mouse game of "Can that be faked?" Because you could put somebody in prison for a fake murder, you know? That's how crazy this is going to get if we don't have a way to fight against deepfakes.

Sam Parr

By the way, go to the chat of Riverside and click the link I just sent you. Tell me what you think about that deepfake.

Shaan Puri

oh that's you you dancing dude that's great

Sam Parr

yeah he said

Shaan Puri

He said, "Announcement: While you guys have been taking this time to chill, your boys have been learning to dance. Get on my level." And then there's the video of you. Okay, so it's "Get Sway" - Sway is the name of the app. So "getsway.app" is the name of the thing. This is hilarious, although it made you look a little chunky here. You look a bit like Will Ferrell in this video. So, you know, well... yeah, you could dance, but it also looks like you put on the COVID 30 [referring to weight gain during the pandemic].

Sam Parr

I was that that was pre influencer

Shaan Puri

Well, but it's like glitching. It's like... it's not your actual thing. It's because you're moving so fast, it's like it has to make it fuzzy. It can't have like a really sharp line.

Sam Parr

it's pretty good job obvious

Shaan Puri

for this app

Sam Parr

I mean, click left. Go to the left one. There's another one. I mean, it's pretty amazing for just a free app. What do you think?

Shaan Puri

you mean what do you mean click left there's no left

Sam Parr

there's a video to your left on the next picture to the left

Shaan Puri

on your profile okay

Sam Parr

I mean, it's pretty amazing. What's the app called? Get Sway? Yeah, I think it's pretty amazing. Anyway, I hope some smart...

Shaan Puri

People out there are working on deepfakes. I'm curious what people are going to do. The only solution I know is doing it at the hardware or the operating system level, and even that's probably not perfect. But if somebody does figure out a perfect way to do this, that's going to be very, very valuable technology.

Sam Parr

And I saw the Obama thing. Yeah, they made him kind of say some crazy stuff. Yeah, man... I agree, it is kind of scary. Well Ben, what do you think? How do we... Do we gotta get... Very, very eclectic. Very eclectic, but like, all very interesting stuff. And the cola stuff was all-time. Can't wait to drink a cola with you guys. What was your favorite one?

Shaan Puri

Your favorite non-cola? Doing the cola one, which one did you like? I think eating caramels is my favorite. It's just simple and amazing. It's so unexpected.

Sam Parr

I think my favorite was actually we were just eating spaghetti kissing in the middle when all of a sudden

Shaan Puri

My co-founder and I were doing the "kissing the spaghetti" thing, where you each take one hand, put it in your mouth, and meet in the middle. What we realized was that the recession...

Sam Parr

Yeah, and then we realized, "Yeah, that's a good one." The buzzer is like...

Shaan Puri

but the thing about co founders is it's like you don't address the first part

Sam Parr

and you gotta do this like in a keynote that's like a product like a c job product announcement

Shaan Puri

and never address it and never lie

Sam Parr

The office was grabbing each other's butts, and then it hit us: why stop there? You know, alright, we're out of here. This is great!