Why Podcasting Is The Most Underrated Business Model (#448)

David Senra

I am probably the most optimistic person in terms of how good a business podcast can be. I started talking crazy, and then I have some friends who have built giant businesses on the back of podcasts. I was at dinner with them last week, and they literally pulled me to the side. They were like, "Shut the up! Stop telling people all this shit."

Sam Parr

Alright everyone, today's podcast is special. The guest's name is David Senra, and he has a podcast called *Founders*. I've listened to dozens and dozens of episodes. He basically breaks down different biographies that he has read about business people, artists, and anyone who's in the 1% of the 1% of their field. On the pod today, we talked about the difference between people who are somewhat successful and those who are absolute killers. We discussed what traits they have and the commonalities among them. It's super fascinating to hear from someone who's read literally 300 or 400 biographies and studies this for a living. He talks about the commonalities of these killers, whether they are UFC fighters or billionaires. It's really fascinating, and I think you're going to dig it. My favorite part is when we discuss a really cool quote from Joe Rogan describing Jon Jones, who is an amazing UFC fighter. We explore the difference between Jon and the rest of the people, and somehow David weaves that in with business people. He lists out all the business people who he says are the 1% of the 1%, the killers, and talks about what traits they have and what you can learn from them. I think you'll enjoy it. Check it out! Talk soon. Yeah, you know, I understand why you'd live in Miami if your family's there. I don't love New York, but I'm eventually going to move there for family. The family, you know, supersedes all the other stuff.

David Senra

That's the only reason we stay here. My wife is Colombian, so 70% of Miami-Dade County is Hispanic. All her family's here. I've been traveling a lot more for work, and like the day I leave, my kids wake up. Her mom is here, her grandmother's here. So, from my kids' perspective, Colombians and South Americans in general are very... I like their multi-generational housing. My wife grew up in a house connected to her grandparents' house.

Sam Parr

yeah I dig that too

David Senra

Oh, that's incredible! I didn't have anything like that when I was a kid. I was like, "Man, I really want to live in California," but I'm just going to stay here for family. Then, you know, I'll spend my summers in California.

Sam Parr

what'd you do before founders pod

David Senra

I've done a **ton** of businesses since I was about 18 years old. I think you and I are around the same age; I might be a few years older than you. The business I was working on right before I actually started Founders was this thing called **Robo DB**. It was a way to track the true origination points of robocalls through the payment network. It was just a business that was kind of like a clever hack, but I wasn't interested in it the way I was in podcasting. I was obsessed with podcasting for years. I remember my friend Eric invited me over to his house one time, back in 2010. He said, "Dude, you gotta come over and watch this new podcast." Do you remember the guy from **Fear Factor**? I said, "Yeah, I watched Fear Factor when I was in high school." So we went to his house, and it was when **Joe Rogan** was on the white couch, streaming on **Ustream**. There would be things falling down, and he had the cheesy kind of effects with stars or sparkles and stuff like that. I was like, "What is this?" He said, "Oh, you can also listen to it on your phone anytime you want." That just blew my mind. I could not believe that!

Sam Parr

But how do you... were you successful, or were you kind of like a struggling entrepreneur? Is this your first breakout?

David Senra

This is the first thing that's going to make me a lot more money. I was making like dentist or doctor money for a long time. You know, I was not struggling, but not nearly what a successful podcast could do.

Sam Parr

how big is the pod now in terms of listenership

David Senra

It’s crazy right now! A few weeks ago, I just cracked over 100,000 individual listeners.

Sam Parr

per episode

David Senra

No, no, overall, like when I sign into my podcast host, it says "unique listeners in the last 7 days." That's the only metric I pay attention to. I'm not big on metrics; I don't focus on them at all. I just try to create what I want and then put it out into the world. But the one number I want to see grow is that unique listeners number. Founders is also weird because you could discover it now, and since the back catalog is evergreen, I'll talk to people who listen to the latest few episodes, and then they'll go back and listen to stuff that I did like 6 years ago or 5 years ago.

Sam Parr

And it's just you, right? Like, because you're part of what Colossal was, that it...

David Senra

col I think colossus

Sam Parr

Colossus, sorry... mhmm. And so they sell your ads and they take a cut. So, is it just you and a producer, or what?

David Senra

Nothing, just me. So, Patch, I love... we were talking a little bit about this yesterday. The one thing I love about the podcasting industry is how positive everybody is. I listened to Pat's podcast for years; I was taking notes on his podcast. I went back and looked since 2019. Last year in May, my podcast became a subscription podcast. You could listen to the first 30 minutes, but to listen to all of it for the first 6 years of its existence, you had to pay to upgrade. Right? I had no... yeah, yeah.

Sam Parr

what you wait oh I didn't know you've so you've been doing this for 6 years

David Senra

yeah starting in 2016

Sam Parr

oh wow that's crazy I so to me like you just got on my radar like a year ago maybe

David Senra

Everybody was like that. So, Patrick played a big role in that. David and Ben from Acquire also played a significant role. That was just on your podcast. What happened was Patrick randomly tweeted it out. You know, he's got this massive, very valuable audience in terms of size and average net worth. I would argue he has the most valuable business podcast audience in the world. If you consider the average net worth of his audience, it's extreme. He just randomly tweeted out, like last May, "Hey, I never find new podcasts to listen to. I think David Senra's Founder's Podcast is excellent. You should listen." I was like, "What the heck? I know you, dude! I listen to your podcast. This is crazy!" I had become friends with this guy named Sam Hinkie. Sam Hinkie is the former general manager of the Philadelphia 76ers. Now, he's an investor in Silicon Valley, and I knew he knew Patrick. So, I screenshotted that tweet and said, "Oh shit, look what your friend Patrick said." Then, Sam immediately put me in a group chat with Patrick. He said, "You two should know each other." The first time we talked, we spoke for like an hour and a half.

Sam Parr

we had

David Senra

Like the same interest for *Addicted Podcast*, *Addicted History*, *Addicted Entrepreneurship*, and all sorts of stuff. So, we were just friends for a long time. Then I had several people, Rob Moore being one of them, and we should probably talk about that.

Sam Parr

David Benford, Rob's been hooking me up constantly. Like, I'll talk to him and we'll email back and forth. He's always helping me.

David Senra

okay so this is the positive sum nature of podcasting I've served

Sam Parr

And for those who don't know, Rob Moore and Andrew Huberman are partners on the podcast.

David Senra

Rob is the co-founder of the Huberman Live podcast. So, okay, here’s the interesting thing. One of my favorite quotes is from everything I could find on Steve Jobs. One of his superpowers was that he was gifted at finding markets full of second-rate products. What you guys realize, I think, as well as like people, is that when you're inside podcasting, the perception is completely different than when you're outside of it. It's like everybody's saying, "There are too many of them. It's too late to get in. You need to start a long time ago." What happens is that everybody who starts a podcast quits. When you get in there, podcasts in general are full of second-rate products. Rob Moore and Andrew Huberman, and I put David and Ben up here as well, have first-class products and a first-class approach to building their business. So, Rob, I've never talked to Rob for less than two hours. Every single time we talk, he... Look, dude, look what I have on my desk.

Sam Parr

like what's that oh rob is that a human tweet

David Senra

Yeah, it's Rob and Andrew who have been so relentless in supporting me for no personal benefit. They just keep... like every time Andrew tweets about me, the fact that I was one of his favorite podcasts, his founders, he sends me up to church just from his tweets. So Rob's like, "Hey, we have this new studio. Next time you're in California, come out and I'd love to give you a tour." Our mutual friend, Andrew Wilkinson, had invited me to Victoria, so I was like, "Oh, I'm actually flying to Victoria next week." That's a pain in the ass to get to from Miami, so I'll just stop in California for a few days to see you. I meet up with Rob, and we talked... is Rob.

Sam Parr

in la is rob in la

David Senra

Yeah, Rob's in Malibu. I met up with Rob, and we talked podcasting for seven straight hours.

Sam Parr

that's crazy

David Senra

Literally, we meet up to have lunch. We stay at the same spot. They're like, "It's dinner now." We're like, "Let's have dinner." And then we stayed there the whole time. Then he's like, "Let's go to the studio." They are like to me, I think not only is Huberman's audience size crazy, but if you break down how they think about the quality of the product, how they think...

Sam Parr

about quality of the business model

David Senra

Like, there are ideas I got from Rob that I told Andrew, or that I told Ben and David, that they're now using. That's going to wind up making them $1,000,000. The way they set up their business, their ads, everything... they're just first-class dudes.

Sam Parr

Are you... I see that you're always tweeting out what looks like a screenshot from Kindle. How many books a month are you reading to pull this off?

David Senra

Okay, so I think this is me. You were talking about the advantage I think you have at Hampton, which is really **special**. It's an echo of what Bloomberg used to build his very unique business. Your business is going to produce a lot of proprietary information that's extremely valuable to other founders, and then you can repurpose it. Do you know how many people I've had dinner with that tell me about the Hampton blog? You guys just launched it!

Sam Parr

Oh really? We... I think we just... we just... we just like... I threw it together like I think two weeks ago.

David Senra

I heard about some guy doing concrete or some shit, or like gravel or something. He was like searching. They told me that he was like searching through like...

Sam Parr

like war dogs

David Senra

yeah

Sam Parr

like looking for the looking through a database of government contracts and seeing what he can fulfill

David Senra

Yeah, so what I realized when I texted you yesterday is that I'm doing similar things. I realized this is the magic of what you said, which was really smart: "Rich people read a lot," and it's very true. Our mutual friend Andrew Wilkins had just tweeted out, "I wish I could short entrepreneurs that don't read," and that's what I found as well. It's like, not only do the people I study have to be so good at what they do that someone wrote a book about them—like, that's crazy, right? Then you read their books, and they're constantly reading biographies, studying great work that came before them. So, the Bloomberg idea was that his business is fundamentally about selling a $27,000 a year subscription or whatever it is. His business collects a bunch of unique information, and he made a bunch of atomic pieces of content, sort of like a media company, as a way to get his brand out there. Ninety percent of the people that read his media will never buy a subscription, but his media spreads around everywhere. Just like there are a ton of people that go to read your Hampton blog. You know, obviously, I think you should do a podcast. If you do short-form content, whatever, it's going to spread out like that. Then, you know, 1% to 5% of those are going to convert to members. The more members you have, the more data you have, and the more data you have, the more members you have. It just keeps going. So, to answer your question, I just hit episode 300. I've read over 300 biographies of entrepreneurs so far, which is over 100,000 pages. What I realized is that over time, I input all my highlights into this app called Readwise. Everything you see externally are just highlights that I like. The one I posted yesterday, we were talking about Bloomberg, and I was like, "Oh, let me go back and read through my highlights on Bloomberg." I found one where he said, "You should try to love what you do because if you love what you do, you do a lot," and then, you know, that compounds everything. I put that out, and immediately, these hit. Then people discover the podcast, and they start listening. So, me, you, and Bloomberg are kind of running the same idea but in different industries or different... well, you know.

Sam Parr

Dude, I used to read a ton up until about two years ago. I like to listen to books; I have one that I'm listening to and one that I read at night. I enjoy listening while I'm on walks. There's this one narrator who I love. Have you ever listened to "Titan" or the book "Tycoon" about Vanderbilt? The narrator is awesome! I was like, "I love this narrator; it's so good." So, I went and found books just by that narrator. I started scrolling through and I'm like, "Oh my God, this guy has narrated 1,500 books or something like that!" It's like "How to Win Friends and Influence People" and all these business-y, self-help-y books. Then I looked at his LinkedIn and thought, "He's reading all these books; why isn't he more successful?" I got angry because I felt like that didn't work for me. So now, I read mostly for fun. If I don't like something, I brush it off and put it away. I quit reading nonfiction books; now I strictly read biographies or history.

David Senra

So, your friend Ryan Holiday has a great post where he shared his top 25 biography recommendations. The intro to that post is excellent because he's like, "Listen, you go to the most successful people in the world, look at their bookshelves. They read a lot of stuff. They all read biographies, all of them, without exception." He's like, "Some of the most high-value reading you can do." You notice that as you read through the biographies, like they're all doing this. Now, here's the thing: this actually clicked for me the other day. You know Eric Jorgensen, right? Yeah, yeah.

Sam Parr

yeah he helped naval write the thing

David Senra

Yep, so he gave me this fantastic book recommendation that I had missed despite his game, Peter Bevelyn. It's a book on Buffett and Munger called, "All I Wanna Know Is Where I'll Die So I Don't Go There." There was something that Buffett and Munger were saying in that book that really clicked for me. They kept saying, "Listen, we're gonna share everything we know with you guys. We know that most of you are just gonna listen or read it and never do anything." I thought about that for a long time. I was like, "Oh, so learning is not memorizing information," like the guy you were just describing. Learning is changing your behavior. If you don't change your behavior, then you didn't actually learn. So, therefore, if I'm not applying the lessons I'm learning in this book for my own business, that means I'm just wasting my whole life. I'm working seven days a week; I'm giving a lot of my life energy to this. I think that's the important part. It's just like, these people didn't just read. They took this idea and thought, "Okay, how can I apply it to my business?" Then they actually changed their behavior, which is the key.

Sam Parr

No, and I've done that a ton. I mean, the reason I read biographies is that I look for patterns. I ask myself, "What mistake did this person make, and how do I avoid it? Where did they win, and how do I lean in on that?" Then, like, the way that I kind of... this sounds really lame, but we make a joke that I call myself a "manifest cowboy" because I'm a little...

David Senra

bit of

Sam Parr

I'm a redneck, but the reason being is I'm pretty good at setting 5-year and 10-year goals. I stay focused and work backwards to achieve them. There's this one book called *How to Get Rich* by Felix Dennis. I love that one. I was like, "Alright, what?" He had cancer, I believe, or I don't know if he had cancer when he wrote it, but he died soon after. He said, "If I could do it all over again, I would try to be financially secure by age 35 and then just putz around." I was like, "Okay, let's do that." So I worked backwards. How do you just have the bills handled, and then everything else is just icing on the cake? I'm pretty good at that, but I...

David Senra

when's the last time you read it

Sam Parr

I read it all the time. I refer to it; I use it like a textbook. So, when I think about equity and how much to pay people, I go and read the sections that he talks about. If you just Google "How to Get Rich free PDF," there's a website that has it. I bought many copies and I have a bunch of his biographies. I refer to that constantly. I'm like, "Alright, what did he say about this?" He gives pretty practical advice, like on company credit cards—how do you issue your company credit cards and office space? So, I refer back to it constantly.

David Senra

Andrew Wilkinson gave me advice. He said, "What I did was read the book before I got rich, and then you read it after you get really rich." Yeah, I thought that was really great advice.

Sam Parr

We, so you and I are both UFC fans. Yes. I was asking you, "What should we talk about?" and I was like, "I want to talk about the difference between the people who are pretty good and absolute killers."

David Senra

yeah

Sam Parr

And you were like, "Oh, that's just like in UFC." That's kind of the same way. But I, because I'm fascinated with... I listened to yours. I think his name is Sam Brofman, the guy who started Seagrams, which eventually turned into like all these other things. And then I listened...

David Senra

to savage

Sam Parr

He's a savage, you know? He almost reminded me of myself—not in the savage sense—but he did a few funny things. He was like a hermit and didn't go anywhere unless his wife went with him. I'm the same way; I don't go out unless my wife pushes me because I have a little bit of social anxiety. When it came to business, he was pretty brash and told people exactly what he thought. However, in social situations, he was super non-confrontational. If I go to the grocery store and I don't see what I'm looking for, I leave. I don't ask. You know what I mean? I'm like, "Dude, I can't. I just don't even want to ask for help because it bothers me." But anyway, I listened to him, and then I listened to Napoleon. That one was really good.

David Senra

Oh dude, look at this book. Sorry, Sam Altman said the best book he's read in the last few years is this one. It's really hard to find. It was first published in 1955.

Sam Parr

is that the concise history one I can't see no

David Senra

No, no. I'm about to do this in like two... probably two episodes. It's called "The Mind of Napoleon." It's Napoleon's old... [expletive] words.

Sam Parr

that's cool

David Senra

yeah so because they say everybody's obsessed with sam altman right now because of chat gpd I didn't mean to interrupt you but napoleon's

Sam Parr

Well, Napoleon had this amazing saying. I forget if I heard it from you or Ben Wilson, but it was something like, "You and I are not the same. I am born of a people of conquerors," or something like that. He had this feeling, like he was just saying, "I'm here to conquer, get out of my way." He had that mindset at a young age, and I thought that was really insightful.

David Senra

There is something that you picked up on where people... It's fascinating how, like, you'll listen to founders or read a bunch of biographies. You realize that the most successful people in the world, you're like, "Oh, I don't want their life." That's the way I feel. First of all, you said something really smart too. It's like people dislike manifestation or visualization, and they think it's like... like willie-poofoo nonsense. Okay, that's fine. I can just tell you it pops up in the books over and over again. I told you yesterday I'm reading this insane biography of Tiger Woods. This dude is like 8 years old, listening to motivational tapes, writing it out, and on his wall, it's like, "I am powerful. I will achieve my goals." Over and over again. You see this from Edwin Land, Steve Jobs, Estée Lauder, Bob Noyce, founder of Intel, Arnold Schwarzenegger. Have you read "The Education of a Bodybuilder"? I want to send you this book. I was going to ask you for your address to send it to you, but I was like, he might have already read it.

Sam Parr

I've heard about it I've never

David Senra

Read it. The first 113 pages function as an autobiography of Arnold when he was 30. He talks about the visualization technique. He said he would lay in bed at night and just picture himself on stage, holding the trophy of Mr. Universe or whatever in his hand, with everybody essentially bowing down to him. He felt like a conqueror. To use that example, what I find is that a lot of people, like even Felix Dennis, had wise advice. However, that guy had a hole in his heart that could never be filled. He spent $100 million in a decade—$10 million a year—on cocaine, alcohol, and prostitutes.

Sam Parr

yeah

David Senra

You know, like, that's a *fucking* crazy story in that book. What I love about autobiographies is that entrepreneurs usually write them towards the end of their life. They don't hide anything. They're like, "I was messed up. I was a bad father. I cheated on my wife," or whatever, you know? So, to tie this into the UFC thing and the conquering aspect, there's that quote I've... I think it's...

Sam Parr

I am of the race that founds empires is what it is

David Senra

So, I want to read this quote that you and I were discussing. I think Joe Rogan is obviously the world's leading expert on MMA. That's the stuff I wish I could talk to that guy about. I hope I get the chance just to ask him. I just want to talk about MMA and all the knowledge that's in his brain. I was very curious about what was going to happen with this Jon Jones versus Ciryl Gane fight.

Sam Parr

So, for those who don't know, Jon Jones is this very controversial character. At age 22 or 23, he was the first UFC fighter sponsored by Nike. He was the golden boy and became the champion when he was just 20 years old. He's a killer and has never lost, but he has also hit his girlfriend before and has been arrested for drinking and driving. He's a mess—a killer on and off the field.

David Senra

Did you ever see the video of him? Remember, during the pandemic, people were lighting things on fire? There were all these riots, and they did it in Albuquerque, where he's at.

Sam Parr

and he stopped them and he yeah

David Senra

You saw that? Could you imagine if those two guys—there are two small guys, like young kids—spray painting and vandalizing stuff? And John is just walking around, saying, "Give me the can, give me the can, give me the can." Like, dude, if you know who that is, you'll give him the can.

Sam Parr

This is so funny because you're a ranger. John Jones is like 62, probably. Well, now he weighs 260 pounds. I mean, he's like one of the scarier people you could ever see, and he's athletic. The guy's a freak. But he comes off... this is why this is interesting. He tries to come off like a nice guy a lot of times in interviews. When you listen to him talk, you think—or at least I think—this is learned behavior. You are actually a little more sociopathic than you are not, and you will kill someone easily and sleep like a baby at night.

David Senra

100% so this is the fascinating thing about setting history. This is what Joe Rogan said about Jon Jones, which I think is going to remind me of a young Bill Gates, which we can talk about. He says, "Joe is like, listen, there are human beings that have a ruthless competitive drive that is terrifying to the ordinary person. Jon Jones is a bad guy who is trying to be a good guy. If he were living a thousand years ago, he'd be on a horse with a battle axe, chopping the heads off of everyone, and everyone would be running. These dominators have always existed. He is a fucking conqueror. That is the thing that's inside of him that leads him to be the GOAT (Greatest of All Time). Without that, you don't get there. There's a thing inside of some people that is a driving force that allows them to overcome the greatest people around them." When I heard that, I wasn't thinking about Jon Jones. I was thinking, "That's Michael Jordan, that's Jeff Bezos, that's a young Bill Gates, that's Edward Land, that's John Rockefeller, that's Carnegie." They have this ruthless competitive drive. To me, they are a different species than the average person. So the example of that is, I did this excellent biography of a young GOAT Gates. In my opinion, it's the perfect biography. It's like, I don't need to know what their great-grandfather did for a living. Just tell me the struggle. Give me a little background on what family they were born into, then tell me the struggle, and once they're rich, end the book. There’s a book called *Hard Drive: Bill Gates and the Making of the Microsoft Empire* that covers the first 35 years of Bill Gates' life. It ends right after the Microsoft IPO, and I'm obsessed. The reason I have a solo podcast is because my podcast idol is Dan Carlin, *Hardcore History*.

Sam Parr

right and is he by himself

David Senra

100% he's got a giant audience. We should actually talk about podcasting if you're interested in that. A lot of people share numbers. He had said, "Don't let me forget the thread on pumpkins," by the way. He mentioned that the latest episode, published about two years ago, got 19,000,000 downloads. Then he said, "Oh wait, it turns out some of them were double counted." So, in any case, cut it in half; it's 9. He's got an audience of probably 10,000,000 people that listen to him.

Sam Parr

That would be one of the biggest episodes of the year for most every podcast. You know, the big dogs get 1,000,000 or 1.5 million per episode. But rarely, you know, Joe Rogan, if he interviewed someone like Bernie Sanders, that maybe got 5 or 8 million or something like that.

David Senra

So, Joe's audience... Joe has more data than anybody else, and all of the Spotify exclusives have more data than anyone else. He said, "Remember when they tried to cancel him?" This is also the magic of podcasting, man. We have to be careful here because we could talk about it forever. The problem is, you have people that don't... If you listen to Joe, or you listen to... I've listened to you and Sean forever. I knew who you guys were even before we met. I know Manifest Cowboy; I know the terminology. We have an idea of who you are, like the persona, before you meet them, right? That's the magic of podcasting. It's like we're not just creating content; we're creating relationships at scale, which is very powerful. Still, most people underestimate how powerful this is. So what happens? You have people saying Joe Rogan's racist. They cut the clip, and then they say he's anti-vax and everything else. They try to cancel him. But then, someone who's listened to him for ten years, for ten hours a week, is not going to be swayed. You're not going to tell me anything about Joe that I don't know. He said his audience added 2 million people. I think he went from 12 million subscribers to 14 million subscribers on Spotify. Those are the numbers I've heard. It speaks to the fact that he's still the biggest by far. Even the top shows, like yours, are at 1.5 million without YouTube and everything else. It's still crazy how big and successful Joe's show is.

Sam Parr

what about bill the like the bill

David Senra

So, Bill Gates is... I was doing an episode on him and I had just been listening to Dan Carlin's "Wrath of the Khans" series on Genghis Khan for like the 15th time. I realized, like, oh... you see Bill Gates a little nervous and Bill Gates is...

Sam Parr

not who

David Senra

You think he is... It's like this is Genghis Khan and a Mr. Rogers costume. He's in disguise and he is unbelievably relentless. So, there's this guy named Michael Moritz. He is now a billionaire and one of the people who helped scale Sequoia. But at the time, he was just a journalist. It's a perfect example. He was writing for Time magazine and he was meeting Bill. You know, Bill's probably maybe 28 or something like that. They do an interview, and Bill's like, "Hey, I'll give you a ride to the airport." They get in Bill's car, and Michael's like, "Oh shit, somebody broke into your car! What happened here?" Bill responds, "What are you talking about?" Michael says, "Your radio! It's like somebody stole your radio." Bill replies, "No, I ripped it out." Michael asks, "Why would you do that?" Bill explains, "From my house to Microsoft office is 7 minutes. That's 14 minutes a day. From Microsoft's office to the airport, I go there 3 times a week. That's 15 minutes round trip. You know, 30 minutes or 15 minutes each way, 30 minutes round trip." He adds this up and says, "So that's like 2 hours in the car. And if I have a radio, then I'd listen to it. And then I'm spending 2 hours not thinking about myself." There are all these crazy stories because somebody asked the other day, "What's the largest bootstrap business of all time?" Paul Graham answered, "Microsoft." People are like, "Oh, they took VC." No, no! They were printing money. They sold 1,000,000 shares of Microsoft for $1,000,000 to a VC. They did not need the money right before they went public to get expertise. That was a bootstrap business. The year before this, in 1980 money, the year before Microsoft IPOs, they did $140,000,000 in revenue and $38,000,000 profit.

Sam Parr

that's insane right

David Senra

He's the same. And then there's this extreme John Jones, the serial game thing. When you hear about how he thinks about his competitors, it's not just enough that he needs to win. He's like, "I have to destroy you." So there's this spooky story in one of Bill Gates' biographies. I've read two of them, and Bill would be able to tell you that in the software industry, he knows the CEO of every single software company. He knows what their revenue is, where their product is right now, and he knows everything about them. They all have a bunch of frenemies. He's like, "I want to destroy you," but he would talk to you. A lot of them were getting customers at these early days of software conventions, which was very new. There was this guy, Philippe Khan, who Bill was trying to destroy. Philippe literally wanted to put him out of business. He told his employees, "If we lose a $50,000 contract, that's not just $50,000; that's $100,000 because we lost $50,000 and our enemy got $50,000. So you just cost $300,000." He was psychotic about it. So Philippe goes over and sees Bill sitting by himself in a foldable chair, just looking at something. Philippe walks up to him and says, "Say hi to Bill." He realizes what Bill's looking at; he's looking at a picture of Philippe Khan. He's in public, in a corner of a convention center, staring at a picture of his enemy. What Joe said about John a thousand years ago: we lived in a zero-sum game. If you wanted to build wealth, what did you do? You took their land or took their resources from somebody else. Yes, a thousand years ago, that personality type would have been a leader, leading an army. It just so happens that this same personality type that exists today has existed forever and will exist forever in the future. They can run companies and build wealth. When you study the personalities of these people, it's like they're all like that. Thank God we are living in a free market economy, or else they would be pillaging and doing everything else.

Sam Parr

Well, that's why my favorite era of American history is around 1890. That's about 20 to 30 years after the Civil War, so America is kind of getting back on its feet up until around 1920. In 1920, the Sherman Act, which was the anti-monopoly act, started coming about, and then the SEC was established. So, between 1890 and 1920, America was really the Wild West. We had some technology; you know, we had cars, and I think phones were coming about, along with the telegraph. We had railroads, and the stock market existed, so we could make wealth. But there were a few things that you could do. For example, Andrew Carnegie and his partner, Frick...

David Senra

henry k frick

Sam Parr

Yeah, like when people would... when the union workers would boycott and protest, they killed them. They hired a private police team and they went a private army.

David Senra

yep

Sam Parr

And they literally beat like 10 of them to death. I don't think anything happened. I don't know if anything happened.

David Senra

no because they also own the politicians

Sam Parr

Yeah, and it was wild. There was a time when JPMorgan loaned the U.S. government money. A lot of people don't know this, but JFK—John F. Kennedy, the president—his father, Joe Kennedy, was like the 7th richest man in America at one point. He got rich from insider trading. Then, after he was already rich, he created, or he was the first head of the SEC, which made insider trading illegal. It was like hardcore crony capitalism. That's one of the reasons why I like reading about John Rockefeller. It's because of all the things he did. He was dishonest once or twice, but for the most part, he was a ruthless competitor. He didn't lie and he was honest, other than one big time he lied. But besides that, he was pretty straight.

David Senra

And how crazy was it that his employees... He never raised his voice, and he never said an unkind word to us. Now, his competitors? That's a different story. He's completely ruthless with them. But inside of his company, you're not going to find anybody that worked inside of Standard Oil who would say otherwise. And then, obviously, they hid all the things they owned. This is actually an idea I stole from Rockefeller.

Sam Parr

He wasn't really like his competitors. I mean, he was ruthless, but he would go to them and say, "Hey, I would like to buy you. This is a very fair price. Come and join me, and I'll make you rich." Many did, and they got rich. He said, "If you don't join me, I'm going to destroy you. So let me know." To me, that's like saying, "Look, we can work together, or I'm going to end you. You can pick." But he wasn't necessarily rude about it.

David Senra

Yeah, so the one thing he said was so badass. He was trying to buy somebody out, and they were persistent. He said, "I have ways to make money that you know nothing about." He was betting on this. I always say there are very common themes that reappear in the history of entrepreneurship. I have maxims for a bunch of these. My favorite one is: **"Excellence is a capacity to take pain."** It's just like, you're not going to achieve large success without being able to tolerate pain for extended periods of time. Another one is: **"Bad boys move in silence."** They find an advantage and they shut up about it. This is what Steve Jobs realized when he was trying to build Pixar. He was just like, "We can't get any fucking data on how profitable this is," because of the transition from selling hardware to just pure animation—trying to build the first computer-animated movie. Steve Jobs was like, "I don't get why we can't get any information on this." Then he realized, "Oh, the reason that you can't go to the library and check out a book that says, 'The Business Model of Animation,' is because there's only one company that ever did well, and it's Disney. They don't want anybody else to know how lucrative it is." He realized that they made *Snow White* like 60 years before, and right when he was doing negotiations with Pixar and Disney, they re-released it and were selling like VHS tapes. I think they might have had DVDs at that time.

David Senra

And they're like, "Wait a minute, you sold 28,000,000 copies of a movie you made 60 years ago? That's all profit!" They made, he said, a quarter of a billion dollars in profit on that one movie by releasing it with the latest technology. So, I actually took an idea from John D. Rockefeller. Rob Moore plays a role in this. What Rockefeller would do is he had these secret allies. He entered into an industry that he felt was very disorganized. He ended up building relationships and alliances with all the people in the oil business. Remember, when he jumped into the oil business, it wasn't what we think of as oil today. He was a refiner selling kerosene for lighting and stuff. He actually made more money in retirement because, after he retired, he still owned a significant amount of equity. This goes back to Felix Dennis and the ambition of the core. Now it's like, "Oh, my stock is even worth more." What he would do is go around and organize all the other people in the industry. I did this with a bunch of podcasters. Like you and I just started texting about this. You share information, build secret allies, and say, "Hey, this guy figured out this for your podcast; you should use it." Everybody in the podcast industry is extremely positive. I listened to your interview with Brandon Schaub, and he said the same thing. He mentioned that Joe told them they have an obligation to help each other out. For business podcasts, they're all kind of like satellites and loosely defined. So, Patrick and I have been going around building relationships with these people and sharing information. I was at the Acquired guy's house in San Francisco a few weeks ago. They have one of the most profitable podcasts compared to audience size. They said, "Well, Patrick told us we weren't charging enough, so we tripled our prices. Then we sold ads and tripled them again." And it's like, "Holy shit, he was right!" So that idea is: no gatekeeping, just share information and try to help people as much as possible. That's an idea from Rockefeller.

Sam Parr

When you read about some of these killers, do you think they are different than you? Or do you start becoming like them? Do you think that just surrounding yourself with them is going to change your behavior? Or is it just like aliens exist and you are not one of them?

David Senra

No, here's the thing. I don't know if we were recording. I like how you guys just jump right in, by the way. So, I don't think most of our discussion was caught on the recording, but I am very glad that I have a wife and two kids. Up and down, here's my thing. It's like the thing that I don't like, and it's very present in all these books, is that if you're an adult, it's your job to figure it out and not let people take advantage.

Sam Parr

of you

David Senra

Right, so if like John D. Rockefeller gives you a bad price for your business and you accept it, that's on you. You hear this on the podcast: I'm induced since the state of rage is when people mess with kids. I can't stand them. Up and down my family tree, I was the first person to graduate high school in my family, much less college. I'm the first male in my three generations not to go to jail. So, like, up and down on both sides of my family tree, I just see a lot of terrible parenting. This is not necessarily my parents; they did the best they could considering both sets of their parents were not great people. But I saw drug abuse, I saw sexual abuse, I saw people going to jail, cocaine, all this crazy stuff. So I was like, if I'm going to have kids, I'm not going to be a bad father. I think the fact that I have a kid and a wife that I get along with really well saves me from not working all the time. I think if I didn't have that, I would literally work from the time my eyes open in the morning until the time they close. The scary part is, like, I’m trying to compare myself to... you know, you can't compare myself to Rockefeller. But I have a little bit of that in me too. I hear from a ton of people who listen, and they're like, "I think like that too." The whole thing is about learning from their experience. They get to their life, and they're not necessarily happy, you know? So I don't want that. I don't want to destroy everything around me because I chased professional success. But I think men in general, you know, type A aggressive men, that's what successful people are. Super successful people are crazy; they're not normal humans. It's probably 1 to 5% of the population that are borderline sociopathic. I'm not saying most people are, that's a little extreme, but they're willing to do whatever they can if you get in their way.

Sam Parr

So, I've been lucky that as I've gotten more popular for content and business, a lot of people in different fields whom I previously looked up to, like Lance Armstrong, will message me. I'll get an opportunity to hang out with them. This isn't just about Lance, but I've been fortunate that it's been a bunch of different people. I'll go and hang out with them a couple of times, and then I think, "I don't want to be around you ever again." I don't enjoy being around them. I've had a bunch of people who, if you told me when I was 12 that these people wanted to talk to me, I'd be like, "That is sick!" Now, I just feel like I don't like being around you. It's actually not enjoyable being around some of these people because it feels like... well, I don't know exactly how to describe it, but it feels like we're in a pissing match when we're together, and I simply don't enjoy it. So now, I have a rule in my household: no new friends. By default, whenever I talk to someone, I assume I'm not going to be friends until, after a while, we can cross that threshold. But by default, it's, "I don't trust you, and I'm not going to let you in." Whereas before, it was like, "Oh, anyone who wants to holler at me? Yeah, I'm in!" Then I go and hang out with some of these ballers and killers, and I think, "Oh, this is a very unenjoyable hang." There are a bunch of people who maybe Ben might know who we're talking about. There are a couple of people who are some of the most famous and successful in the world. We've been lucky to hang out with them, and then we'll go hang out with them after the podcast, and I'm like, "Oh, this is just miserable. I don't want to be around you at all."

Sam Parr

Being is for the... to what you said about the most successful people being crazy. Not only are they crazy, but I don't want to be around them. It's not fun; they're not fun to be around. You really see that there's a price to pay, which is that you are in the 1 percentile or 99 percentile of these other traits. This usually, but not always, means you're going to be lacking in a handful of other traits. Sometimes, that's like whatever the traits are of you wanting to be near someone, I guess, like physically and hanging out with someone.

Hubspot

that that's my everybody's like okay like are you doing all this are you gonna do you wanna run like the next apple like what are you doing this for and I'm like no like out of the 300 people that I've studied the the person that I wanna be the most like is the the closest person that I've studied and read about that has come to mastering life is a guy named ed thorpe right and so it's a who's here so this is a fucking crazy story so it's episode 2/22 and the crazy thing is like usually the the episode titles are just the book I read right this says my personal blueprint right and because what he did is like first of all he's ed thorpe is one of he was the guy that made the first quantitative hedge fund right the reason I liked him is because what I think you were talking about earlier like you have varied interests right where you need a balance because I've also heard you speak enough where I'm like okay he's clearly type a and driven and like if you didn't have your wife or you didn't have these other things I could also see you go and not sociopathic but like you know no limit to the kind of empire you want to build you have a chip on your shoulders it's like all of them I do too so I see that ed thorpe essentially like what he did is like he made a ton of money as a quantitative investor right but once he had more money like he didn't need to worry about money anymore he refused to trade time to make more money because he understood he's like more money is not gonna make me happy but by time is limit he was a good father he was a good husband he was he followed his own intellectual interests like he had fun he there tim paris just interviewed him and I would highly recommend going to youtube and just type in tim paris at thorpe and look at that guy's picture and tell me how old you think he is I've done this a bunch I did it with my wife I go how old do you think he is she said I don't know 65 he's fucking 90 because he learned when he was really young that physical fitness was really important and so he gave me the best heuristic for health he goes I view every hour in the gym as one less day I'll spend in the hospital at the end of my life and the guy is still doing like pull ups he looks fucking fantastic right he's like no I think he's it might be like 92 and so this whole balance of like your friend ryan holiday actually I I learned this from his content was like what it means to be a convicted human we've known that forever we just get distracted it's like you want work that has meaning you want good relationships you wanna have fun and you wanna make sure that your body's healthy and you should feel good that's it there isn't anything else I love what you just said because the same thing when you have a successful podcast you get hit up on all kinds of fucking crazy experiences which is actually you know huge benefit but it's like man I'm not going to build a 1,000 relationships that are like an inch deep I just talked to the same people over and over and over and over again it's like you have a limited amount of people you can actually be friends with and yet we're all connected so we're like we're hugely distracted so I was like okay I'm not smart as a dork he's way smarter than me so I'll just fucking copy his blueprint I'll write that down I'll be a good father I'll be a good husband I'll take care of my health I'll have work that I'm really fucking obsessed with but I put guardrails on right and like I'm not going to keep trading money or time which I'm we're gonna run out of for more money when I'm I'm not even spending the money I have 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

Sam Parr

I love our new crm

David Senra

our software is the best hubspot grow better

Sam Parr

I want to ask you some more questions about history, but first, let me share a quick story. I have a friend who's in his low forties and is worth $1,000,000,000. He has a publicly traded company, and he was telling me about a phrase he uses: "It's never enough." He shared a story about visiting a guy's home who was worth $50,000,000. This guy was complaining about living in a fancy neighborhood, saying that his $6,000,000 home was not as good as the other homes in the area. Then my friend went to see another guy who was worth about $500,000,000. This guy was saying, "Yeah, but you know what? I don't have a super yacht." Finally, he met another guy who had around $1,000,000,000 to $2,000,000,000. This guy was complaining, saying, "I can't get a sports team, though. It's just not enough." So, yeah... it's interesting how that mindset persists.

David Senra

I don't wanna be around people I I think you hit it don't be like I don't wanna be around people like that

Sam Parr

It's never enough, and that's what I've also learned. Because, like, I've thought that when I've hit certain points, I'm like, "Well, I won't want anymore." It's... you always want more. It's a very challenging thing.

David Senra

It doesn't have to be that way, though. I had the advantage because, like, this is the crazy thing about podcasts: you just said you never know who's listening. So, I got invited to have a two-hour lunch with Sam Zell, right? And that's *fucking* crazy! It came inbound. Sam had listened to the podcast I made on his autobiography, and he's like, "I want to meet that guy." So, Sam...

Sam Parr

zell sam zell is a real estate guy he's got a great book called am I being loud enough or

David Senra

am I being subtle or

Sam Parr

Am I being subtle? Yeah, am I being subtle enough? He's probably close to 90 now. He's kind of 81. He's got this blue-collar vibe about him, but he's worth probably $5 to $10 billion, something like that. He owned all these real estate ventures. He created the REIT, I think. Then he owned Schwinn bicycles. He owned the LA Times, I think, or the Tribune, something like that. So he's like a tycoon.

David Senra

He... so you're... and you'd fucking love him. He's 81 years old. He sold his real estate company for $38 billion to BlackRock or Blackstone. I don't fucking know; you know they're all being the same. So, you know, who the fuck... how often do you get to meet somebody that sells their company for $40 billion? I couldn't believe it was going to happen. I thought it was like, "Oh, this isn't really happening." I was like, "Oh, maybe it's going to be like a lunch I've been invited to," and it's like... like 20 people there. It's like, no! He sat eye to eye for two fucking hours. And he's not like that. The reason I got back after that lunch and I told my wife, "I want that. I want that. I want to be 81 years old, completely still, unbelievably curious about the world around him, still doing deals. Doesn't give a fuck. He's not one of these media trade guys."

Sam Parr

only wears blue jeans I think

David Senra

He invented... he takes credit. It's like, "I invented business casual." I'm like, "Sam, I don't know if you should claim to have invented business casual." It was hilarious that you would say that. He will not wear a suit, still rides a motorcycle, and I think he smoked weed. It's crazy. But the advice that he gave me was, "David, the richer you get, what you realize is..." One, he goes, "You'd be shocked at how many rich guys I know that aren't having fun," which is describing exactly what you're saying. You go to their house, and they're talking about other people or what other people have. I'd run the other way. Sam didn't talk about that. He goes, "Listen, money... there are very few true luxuries in life." The richer he got, he said, "I just kept buying nicer versions of the same stuff." So, I'd buy a house, then get richer, then buy another house. He said, "This is stupid." So, he's like, "I basically own nothing." He has a place in Chicago and a compound in Malibu. That's his words, by the way, because he's like, "I have a compound in Malibu." The advice he gave me over and over again—he said it five or six times every two hours—was, "Optimize for freedom. If you get freedom, you get to choose what you do, and then you'll have fun. If you have fun, you'll be really good at it, and the money will come. But do not give up your freedom for money," which so many rich dudes do. It's crazy. Then he goes, "None of that shit matters. I could buy everything I want." He said, "I rent a bunch of stuff," which reminded me of you because I know you hate owning a house.

Sam Parr

and so I was like renting yeah

David Senra

He's like, "Don't own a bunch of shit, just rent it when you need it." Because if you own it, then you have to take care of it. This advice is from the guy who, obviously, is all about assets. He was buying; he's still buying a ton of businesses. The day before I saw him, he was like, "Dude, I'm 81." His eyes lit up as he said, "I just spent $300,000,000 buying 75% of this company that makes $50,000,000 a year or some shit." He just loves the deal. He's like, "I'm going to be doing deals until I die," just because he likes the game. He treats it like a game, but he's like, "There's only one true luxury in life: try to get to private jet money."

Sam Parr

really what what are what was it like meeting charlie munger

David Senra

So that was **fucking crazy** too. And again, because Andrew and his partner Chris... it was fascinating. I heard your podcast where you guys had met Chris and spent time with him. I got to have the few hours before we had dinner with Charlie Munger. I had a super long lunch one-on-one with Chris, and that dude is fascinating. I wonder if he'd ever come on your podcast.

Sam Parr

I'm gonna hang out with him tonight I wanna be with him tonight

David Senra

Okay, yeah, like you should... I know he's more private. He's another guy where I think he knows. One of the things I love about Chris is that he's wicked smart. But one of the things I thought was so cool is that he showed me his calendar when we had lunch. He said, "Look at my calendar. It's like every day at 3 o'clock, I'm picking my... I think it's his son... up from school." He's not going to be, you know, he's obviously rich and successful and will continue to be more rich and more successful as he carries on. But he's not doing it at the detriment of being a **shitty dad**, which I admire a lot. I *fucking hate* shitty dads.

Sam Parr

so what was munger like he he was he was present

David Senra

So, Munger has this line where he's like, "Oh, I didn't succeed in life because of intelligence. I succeeded because of a long attention span." He definitely has a long attention span, but that dude is way smarter than me. If anybody's...

Sam Parr

even even at 98 or what the hell is he 95

David Senra

So, he's 99. Anybody is going to have some level of cognitive decline at 99. All I could think about is, if that is who he is at 99, imagine trying to compete with that dude 30 years ago.

Sam Parr

what was his house like

David Senra

I had to be careful because I got into a little bit of a situation. They want me to keep some of that stuff private, so I can't answer that question.

Sam Parr

was it fancy was it was it as you'd expect

David Senra

which

Sam Parr

is very very very nice

David Senra

No, he is very authentic. If you read Munger and talk about Munger, he's like, "Hey, don't have a lot of silly needs in your life." His whole thing is just like, I truly believe that he just wanted to show what he could do with his brain so he could make a ton of money with his mind because he's really smart. He wears like, you know, he lost... do a...

Sam Parr

flannel in your in your picture I think like a flannel from amazon

David Senra

So, Costco is one of the favorite companies of Jim Senegal, who I love a lot too. One of the reasons I admire Costco is that they could have made more money but chose to pass the benefits of their group buying onto the customer. As for Charlie, he says he is not someone who wears fancy watches or clothes. He just buys books, as far as I can tell, and talks to interesting people. He makes a ton of money, but he's not in it for the money. He says, "I didn't want the Ferraris; I wanted the independence."

Sam Parr

Who all have you listened to or spoken about, besides Ed Thorpe, that you think is in your top five people? Like, who do you believe will conquer the world if given the chance? They are the top; they are the 1% of the 1%.

David Senra

I mean, I think the selection here is that every single person is in the top 0.0001%. To get on Founders, you have to live a life somewhere where somebody wrote a book about it. What I would say is, I just got done reading James Dyson's autobiography for the fourth time, and it is my number one book recommendation by far for entrepreneurs. He's written two autobiographies; the second one's fine, there's nothing wrong with that. But I'm done with the first one because the first one he writes after 14 years of struggle. What I admire so much about this guy is that he's not necessarily like a conqueror in the sense that he's going to go around... I don't think he'd be like a Napoleon in other times. But what I love is that my favorite entrepreneurs are very adamant about what they want to do in life and how they want to run their business. It's not formulaic. They're not going around asking people for advice, like, "What do you think I should do? What should my product look like? How should I run the business?" No, they have a very set mindset of how they want to build the product, how they want to build their business, and how they want to spend their time. You know what I call that?

Sam Parr

I call that they **bend reality** to their will. You know, they **kick their dent in the universe**. That's what I always call that. I'm like, they know what they want and they bent reality to fit what they wanted.

David Senra

Read that, dude. You could read his biography in a weekend. It'll blow your mind because it's like, "Why is this guy not quitting? What is happening here?" He's borrowing; he's got two mortgages on every single house. He's crying at the end of the night, and everything is going to be successful, and he just won't quit. What happens is, you fast forward now: James Dyson is 75 years old. He owns 100% of the Dyson company. That company is probably worth $20 billion. It makes supposedly a couple of billion dollars a year in profit for his family that they take out of the company. What I love is the company he owned before Dyson vacuums was this thing called a Ballbarrow, which looks like a wheelbarrow with a ball at the front. He goes and rents, does a photo shoot for the Ballbarrow at this massive estate that has been in England for like 300 years. Twenty-five years later, he buys it. He's like, "This is my shit now."

Sam Parr

I I've talked to

David Senra

a lot of people

Sam Parr

Who loves that book? One thing... So, I remember when I just got started in my career. I was firmly in the mindset of, "I'm gonna pull myself up from my bootstraps, and I'm gonna make this happen." Then, I remember when we were selling our company and everything got done. That was the first time in my life where I thought, "Luck is so important." Even though I think I'm a badass and that I could will myself to a significant amount of success, in order to achieve *uber success*—which we'll describe as liquid $100 million—there are lots of people who have these killer attributes. However, one or two things, both in their control and out of their control, can go wrong or right, and that can absolutely change everything. For example, John Rockefeller didn't know that a car was going to be invented. Or take Zuckerberg; he would have kicked ass no matter what, but it just so happened that the phone came out, and that helped a ton. You know, we've seen a lot of fortunes created during a pandemic. Luck is real. When we sold our company, that was my first big win. The CEO, Brian, got into a nearly fatal accident afterward. I'm like, "Dude, if that happens four weeks prior, I don't know if this would have gone through." I still think I will be very successful, but imagine if I was selling my company for $1 billion or $2 billion, and the CEO or the buyer got killed or quit. Do you think that luck isn't real?

David Senra

Of course, you said something great on the Acquired podcast. You're like, "I've met a lot of these guys. It's like they're 20 times richer, but they're not 20 times smarter." Yeah, and a lot of the... Rockefeller is a great example, right? The best way to describe it is like moderate level success. You know, you could probably get to tens of millions of dollars in net worth. That's like playing poker, right? This is a skill set you can get. But like, to be like Jeff Bezos... the funniest thing is, I had dinner last night with two founders. So, you guys know that Jeff Bezos' private jet has a private jet? He takes off, and there's another one. Like, that level of stuff... there are so many things I gotta break. The idea is like, he knew he was gonna do it.

Sam Parr

everything short he have a second private jet

David Senra

I'd love to ask him. I don't know, like, you know how people track private jets now? Some YouTuber made a video and they noticed that every time Jeff's plane lands, maybe it's like the people who don't want to be on his plane... I don't fucking know. But there's a jet that follows his other jet around, and somebody put all this together from public information. So that level of success, like, he knew, "Okay, the internet's growing." The "Everything Store" was a code name in the hedge fund he was working for, David Shaw, a billionaire hedge fund guy in New York. He knew, "We could sell books," and then he also knew he could sell all those things. But likely, he didn't know he could invent AWS. Like, there was no... all that stuff that happens. Rockefeller is a great example.

Sam Parr

Bezos, when he pitched the first investors, said, "I think this could make $100,000,000 a year if we're lucky."

David Senra

Yeah, it took him 50 meetings with venture capitalists to get his first $1,000,000. He said the most common question he was asked was, "What is the internet?" Dude, he's a savvy guy. He reminds me so much of Rockefeller. If you read Bezos's shareholder letters, they are excellent because he's telling you what he's doing. Just like the Arnold books that I recommended earlier, Arnold says, "This is my blueprint. This is what we do." He calls the shot and then goes and does it. Bezos does the same thing, but Rockefeller was 20 times richer, though not 20 times smarter. I think it's obviously about randomness and luck. Rockefeller was going to be successful no matter what. The business he was in, as you know, was wholesaling produce and other stuff. They were just traders. One thing that he did, which I think is really smart, is that he was 19 years old, working for two founders. He was just an employee, but he went back and read all of their books. He studied their entire company history, memorized all the finances, and knew more about the business than the founders. That kind of personality is going to win wherever he goes. Now, he could have stayed in that business and made a million dollars, but is he going to build arguably the most successful company of all time if it wasn't for the random discovery of oil? No. He didn't control the fact that he was in the right place at the right time. What I always say in the podcast is that you find these people who have the right skills, the right person, and are in the right place at the right time. If you're missing any of those, you're not going to build a $1,000,000,000 company or a $200,000,000,000 net worth. You need things to break through for you that are outside of your control.

Sam Parr

What do you think you're going to do next? Like, where... you know, what's your blueprint for 10 years?

David Senra

Okay, so this is where I start talking recklessly because I am probably the most optimistic person in terms of how good of a business podcasting can be. I started talking crazy, and then I have some friends who have built giant businesses on the back of podcasts. I was at dinner with them last week, and they literally pulled me to the side and said, "Shut the fuck up. Stop telling people all this shit."

Sam Parr

what's an example of a great business build on the back of a pod

David Senra

I'll tell you why. I can't... like, there's one that I don't have any intimate knowledge on. I can give you an example of that because...

Sam Parr

there's some

David Senra

Of that, I have intimate knowledge, so I'm not sure what I know if that could speak public and adult. But like ButcherBox, bootstrap, $500,000,000 of revenue, largely expanded from podcasting. And there's a ton of those in the industry; they're podcasting.

Sam Parr

bought bought buying podcast ads

David Senra

Yes, got it. And then look at... I mean, this is something I actually learned on your podcast, which I think you guys do an excellent job with. It was when you guys were talking about how Unilever came and bought Onnit, right? Yeah, yeah, I didn't know that happened. I knew about Onnit, I knew about Joe. I knew he owned like 30%, rumored to be around 30% of the company. But think about it: Joe has a ton of ad slots. Just that one ad slot that he randomly put in, he probably netted around $75,000,000, depending on what your actual purchase price was, Joe. So this idea is like... I started talking about how people, like, everybody knows because of Mr. Beast's thing. They're like, "Oh yeah, I could see why there are going to be some billionaire YouTubers," right? I think that is obvious now, given where Mr. Beast is. Highly likely that dude, unless he dies, is going to hit that. My point is just that the deep relationship people have with podcasters is not comparable to the relationship with YouTubers. It's not at all comparable, and this is not at all new. What do you mean?

Sam Parr

people are deeply are more they they like podcasters more like there's more affinity

David Senra

It's so... do you know Blake Robbins? He's at Benchmark. He has this... okay, so he'd be actually interested in somebody talking. He's the one that gave me the spectrum idea. He's helped incubate... what's the professional call of duty team? 100 Thieves or 40 Thieves?

Sam Parr

oh yeah yeah yeah yeah I know I know what you mean

David Senra

They went from $0 to like $80,000,000 in revenue, I think in about 18 months or something like that. So, their day job was developing an audience on, you know, Twitch streaming. Blake has a spectrum, and this comes to you: there are people out there that have heard you and Sean talk way more than they've heard their best friend's voice.

Sam Parr

There's a ton. Yeah, because when they put the headphones in, it's just us and them. It's usually for 50 or 60 minutes at a time, whereas a YouTube video is maybe 8 minutes.

David Senra

I've heard you talk for a hundred hours. We've texted and exchanged messages with investors online, but we've never talked in person. I was like, "Oh, I know Sam! I know what he's into. We have the same interests." I think we'll be able to talk about a bunch of things. So, his whole idea is on the spectrum of how much time people spend with content. On the far end, all the way to the left, are TikTok dancers. You know, they might have millions and millions of followers, but they spend 30 seconds on a video. If they try to sell tickets, they can't even fill a room with 3,000 people, even if there are millions of followers. On the far end of the spectrum, you have Twitch streamers. People spend literally 40 hours a week with their favorite Twitch streamer, or 30 hours a week, or 20 hours. He goes, "David, podcasting, you're just one step towards the left." He says there are going to be people who have listened to you speak for hundreds of hours, and that parasocial relationship is unbelievably deep and comprehensive. Like, you saw that I saw people had said that you're doing a public meetup, I think in Austin, right? Or a show? There are people flying in from Dubai.

Sam Parr

yeah it's crazy right

David Senra

Okay, so think about that. They're not flying into Dubai to watch like a TikTok dancer. They're not flying in, and your podcast is technically a business. You have all this other stuff you could do. It's like, how many brands do people identify with so much that they'll fly across the world? I just did this. I'm introverted as fuck, right?

Sam Parr

yeah you seem like it yeah so yeah or you seem like it's a

David Senra

Different one, yeah, but on 101. But with groups, I hate it. So, Shane Parrish from The Knowledge Project, Varnish Street, was in Miami. He's like, "Dude, let's do a public meetup." I'm like, "Oh, fuck," and I agree just because he did it.

Sam Parr

how many people came

David Senra

like 70 like I think around like 70 people came

Sam Parr

it's awkward right

David Senra

It's not awkward. I don't think I'd do it again, but here's the thing: the only thing I did to promote it was that Shane was supposed to send it out to his newsletter and never did. Thanks, Shane! I just made this one-minute announcement. About five days before the event, I uploaded it to my podcast. I said, "Hey, if you happen to be in the Miami area, we're going to do this. Here's where we're going to be." I'm like, "Alright, there's no way." My audience is in California and New York; Miami is not the spot for it. Yet, people flew down from New York and Washington, D.C., and drove for hours. I'm like, "What are you in town for?" They said, "This." I'm like, "Why? What are you talking about?" So, it's this deep level of relationship. To answer your question, my ten-year plan is just that I'm going to be making podcasts till I *fucking* die. I love doing it. It's the best job in the world. I think Sean tweeted out something like, "Podcasting is the best job in the world." You get to be curious and learn all the time, then you package up what you learn and send it out to the world. All this good benefit comes back to you: relationships, investment opportunities, businesses you can launch, whatever the case is. So, I'm just going to run the same playbook that Rockefeller does. Right now, you scale with ads. People pay a very high dollar amount because your audience is valuable.

Sam Parr

and thank you for for promoting hampton on your part of that

David Senra

that was more than my first car buddy for free

Sam Parr

I appreciate it, son. Hey, I hope you get more than enough value. No, that's...

David Senra

That's a perfect example. I didn't... you wouldn't have to ask me to do that because I got so much value from you. The weird thing that you probably experienced too is that people do the conversation you have with podcasters. If you're not on this side, you don't understand. A listener does not understand the stuff that every single person you talk to who has a successful podcast is like, "I'm never fucking going to quit. I'm never not going to do this." This thing is... it's like magic. So when I was like, "Dude, I think Hampton, first of all, is a great idea," because entrepreneurs have to be around other entrepreneurs. We do not think like anybody else. You go to... you said you're going to have a family. Once you start having kids, you go to these birthday parties, and then you're back into... you're outside of your bubble. Now you're in a random distribution of people, and every time I'm like, "Where's the entrepreneur in the room?" If there's an entrepreneur, I gotta leave. You have to be around them. Paul Graham has that great line where he's like, "Ambitious people are a star to be around other ambitious people. If you put them together, they bloom like dying plants with water," which is exactly what you're doing with Hampton. The funny thing is, like, "Oh, thanks for doing this." No, no, thank you for making your fucking podcast! I said, "Every day I get messages like, 'Thank you for doing it.'" I was like, "Dude, if you didn't listen, I get to read books for a living. I need to be thanking you." So that's the power of podcasts. To answer your question, it's like I'm going to vertically integrate.

Sam Parr

what's that mean what product are you gonna create

David Senra

By next year at this time, no one is going to be able to buy an ad on Founders. So, this is the crazy thing about having a podcast. You hit on it: super successful people read all the time. They also listen to business podcasts all the time. You are able to build relationships with them. For example, when I talked to Chris and Andrew, I said, "You guys can advertise for as long as you want, but ideally, what I think is to find a business." You guys buy businesses for a living and hire managers for a living. So, let's partner up on distribution instead of just doing an ad. You have people like Patrick O'Shaughnessy from "Invest Like the Best," who is literally saying, "Hey, whether we have to buy a company, scale it, or incubate a company, we need to find the founders' version of Tigas." What does that mean? This is something that I think is public now, so I don't think I'll get in trouble for saying this.

Sam Parr

I've heard about this you I can say it so you can go you don't get in trouble if you want

David Senra

go ahead

Sam Parr

So, this is just rumors. Let me tell you the rumors that I heard. Okay, there's this company, and you could let me know so this way you won't get in trouble for revealing anything. **Tegas** is a company where I think what they do is if you wanted to talk to an expert, you pay them money, and they connect you with an expert. But they record all the conversations and transcribe them. So instead of paying money to talk to an expert, you could just read the transcriptions they had with any of the experts. Whatever I heard, they advertised on Patrick O'Shaughnessy's podcast. He saw how good it was going and he said, "Screw this! I want some type of equity. I'll invest a little bit, but I want a sweetheart deal." It was a sweetheart deal, and he continued sending them tons of customers. His equity holding in the company is worth tens of millions of dollars. Is that roughly accurate?

David Senra

So, I don't know the prices. I know he says this publicly; he put $20,000,000 into his company. He's got a giant fund too. My... is like, I don't know the valuations. I'm sure if I asked Patrick, he would tell me, but you know, it's none of my business. My... is that like, okay, Michael Elnick, who's a co-founder of Tigas, the CEO, and a *fucking savage*—he is like the guy we study, right? I was talking to him one time, and he was just telling me, "Oh, like, what do you do to decompress?" Like, he's building an incredibly valuable company. He's completely dedicated to it, and him and his brother both ran track at Brown. So, they blow off stress by running, like Phil Knight did in Nike. Then you ask him, "Oh, so like, how much do you work?" He's like, "Oh no, I take time off. I think Saturday mornings off, that's it." Oh, it's Saturday morning shakes! So, he's on it. I love his intensity. But he said, on one podcast, they only advertised. They had their first few customers from like, you know, word-of-mouth or their network. But you know, the first probably $50,000,000 to $60,000,000 of revenue, whatever it is, like Patrick's podcast, because of who's in his audience, helped them scale. As a result, like, then there's just a relation—there's a million things you could do. So, in Patrick's case, he's running a fund. Like, you can do equity. I'm not an investor. You said the other day when you were talking to Kim or Google or interviewing, like, you don't like investing in people's companies. Like, you want to build your own shit.

Sam Parr

Yeah, investing doesn't entirely give me a dopamine rush. I'm in the game for adventure, and I'm searching for a little bit of a rush. I find it to be very... it's so boring. You give someone money, and you don't hear from them for 6 years.

David Senra

I'm the same way. I'm not interested. I get so much deal flow, like, "Hey, do you want to angel invest?" I'm like, "No." Why would I? I just want to do my own thing. People say I'm stupid for doing that, but they have to understand it's not about maximizing for the most dollars made. That doesn't make any sense. We talked about how learning is not just memorizing information; it's about changing behavior. How many times do you see these super-rich people doing things they don't like for money? Then they get the money and wonder why they're not happy anymore. All that matters is how you spend your time.

Sam Parr

so what's your what's gonna be your tigus though what's gonna be your product

David Senra

I don't know what that... See, that's the thing. I was having a conversation with two founders about this last night. The good thing is, we have some ideas. Obviously, we'll share that when the time comes. But I have all these really smart, successful people that like the podcast and want to help. You know, like Andrew and Chris are tiny. I just met with their EIR [Entrepreneur in Residence]. I think they have more than one, but I just had a conversation with their EIR. Patrick's trying to help me. The guy that connected me with Sam Zell has like $20 billion of assets under management. He's just like, "Well, we can buy a company. We can do whatever you want." He also has investments in some companies to scale up podcasting, so he understands the power and he just likes the product. The thing is, that's where I'm going, but I'm not doing it for money. I'm doing it because I'm completely obsessed with podcasting. I think it's a miracle. When I start talking about podcasting, I'm like, "Podcasting's... it's to me, it's like the printing press for the spoken word." It's like as big a revolution as Gutenberg's printing press. It's just like it's on-demand audio that you can educate yourself with anytime you want, all over the world. That's crazy! That didn't exist when you and I were kids. They didn't exist. I remember being obsessed with talk radio and just having to listen to whatever was on the three or four dials at the time. Then going from that to streaming it in the browser... I remember when that happened. I was a grown man and I was like, "Oh, this is amazing!" Then when my friend Eric said, "Oh no, you can listen to Joe's podcast anytime you want," I was like, "What the fuck did you just say? That's crazy!" And then think about that. Like, if somebody... this is a young kid, so you and I both know Michael Secant.

Sam Parr

who's michael secund

David Senra

future oh oh or future

Sam Parr

Yeah, dude, he's in my phone as **Michael Future**. I never referred to him as **Secund**, his last name. Never. I was like, "I don't know."

David Senra

I don't know if I'm pronouncing it incorrectly

Sam Parr

Dude, he's at my house. He's at my house like twice a week, and I just call him "Michael Future."

David Senra

I like it's crazy I love how arrogant

Sam Parr

He is a guy at my wedding, and I didn't even... I barely even knew how to say his name. I didn't even know his last name. I just called him "Sievorussia."

David Senra

I love Michael's confidence and my... Being is like, imagine being, you know, in 2020. Because he would call and DM both me and you. Yeah, he's really good at it. He sent me a DM and he's like, "Hey, I love your podcast. I took an idea that I got from your podcast, made a video about it, and it got 10,000,000 views. Can we talk?" I go, "You did what? What the fuck?"

Sam Parr

Yeah, are you talking about a message? Not to dude, I always tell him he's at my house all the time. I'm not old; I'm 33, but he's 23. I mean, whatever, he's just in college. He'll come over, and me and Sarah will be like, "Michael, just tell me, what are the young kids doing nowadays?" He'll literally just sit there for two hours and tell Sarah and me all these phrases and words. I just listen; I don't even say a thing. I just say, "Just talk, just tell me what's up with young people." And he's like, "Well, just tell me..." and I'll ask him about his dating life. He just talks. So, I always try to... this sounds weird whenever I say this, but I always try to surround myself with younger people and I'm like, "Just tell me, I just want to listen. Just tell me what's going on." And he always does that for me.

David Senra

He's like, "You treated that one." One time he said something like, "Oh, what are you gonna be doing in 10 years?" I'm gonna be landing my helicopter on your lawn or something. But I love his confidence because, like, you at the...

Sam Parr

Beginning time, he said, "I've got some really bad news today. I just got back from the chiropractor, and they said that the chip on my shoulder is permanent."

David Senra

This is... he actually gave me a really good book recommendation. He texted me yesterday about it, and I’d never found it. It's like all these... like I...

Sam Parr

which one was it

David Senra

The ones that I'm obsessed with are the history of the American West and that personality type that's like, "Oh no, forget the East Coast! I'm going to go across and do this crazy journey in the West."

Sam Parr

By Philip Anschutz, or Anschwad, the guy who owns the biggest ticketing company in the world or something. It's called like AWE, whatever it is. It's the one that everyone knows. I think they own Ticketmaster, something like that. Whatever, it multiplied.

David Senra

lakers and the coachella he says I don't know if that's true but

Sam Parr

it's called I don't

David Senra

it's out where the west begins

Sam Parr

Yeah, and they own Coachella. Anyway, this guy Philip— a lot of people don't know this— he only has 10 reviews on Amazon. This 80-year-old, $20,000,000,000 guy has a book about the West.

David Senra

Yeah, and I already ordered it. The reason I brought up Michael, though, is because I think it's smart to recognize that we have an epidemic of people who don't believe in themselves. People think we have an epidemic of arrogance, but I believe the complete opposite. There are so many more people who can create businesses. The best description of what a business is, came from Richard Branson. He said, "A business is just an idea that makes somebody else's life better." If you look at it from that perspective, there are limitless opportunities. To have the belief that you can do that is something that pops up in these books all the time: belief comes before ability. However, society wants you to "show me" that you should have the confidence to deserve it. It's like, no, you don't actually understand. The belief comes before the building.

Sam Parr

Then that's why a lot of people, among my entrepreneurial friends, watched the Billy McFarland Fyre Festival documentary. They were like, "Yeah, he did the wrong things, but it almost worked." The reason why a lot of my entrepreneurial friends were forgiving of him is that they said, "Yeah, but I've been there. I've faked it until I made it." I remember I did this for my conferences too. I would kind of fib; I would tell these 15 speakers individually that the other 14 had already confirmed, which they hadn't. Luckily, I got them all to confirm, and it worked out. So it wasn't a lie, but there are so many examples where I promised something that wasn't real. I was like, "Oh shit, I hope I can deliver on these things." You know what I mean? That happens a lot.

David Senra

The, the, the... I was making with Michael though is, imagine being his age, right? And being able to listen to every single episode of "My First Million," every single episode of "Founders," or "How to Take Over the World." We gotta give Ben a shout-out because I think what he's doing is incredible. A perfect example is, dude, you should just make as many episodes as possible because you have Sam Parr saying your stuff is really good, right? Which is incredible! And you have Mr. Beast, literally the biggest creator on the internet, saying to only listen to one podcast. So I hope that lights a fire under Ben as well. But like, just the ability... I would kill! I would have killed for that. That's why I think podcasts are a miracle. I don't want to do anything else. Let's say I never launched any businesses to ensure a 10-year plan, which I don't see how that's even possible because there are a ton of entrepreneurs I know that want to partner on these things. But even if I just made podcasts and continued to grow the audience, and I just made money on ad revenue, like whatever... that's plenty fine for me. That's the way I like to live my life. You ever read... do you ever heard of Chuck Eager?

Sam Parr

chuck is that the guy who broke the sound barrier

David Senra

So, the crazy thing is, the miracle books are like... you never know when you're going to read some random sentence that you've never found before.

Sam Parr

everyone loves that guy's book all business people love his book

David Senra

So, I didn't know who the heck he was. I kept noticing this old guy on Twitter in a pilot suit talking hella shit, like unfiltered. I love these people who really talk about who they are; they're authentic. I read his book, and it turns out it sold like 5,000,000 copies the first year it came out in the eighties. It's one of the most successful autobiographies of all time.

Sam Parr

well he was famous back then when he did that he I think he broke the sound barrier is that right

David Senra

or

Sam Parr

so he broke 2 or something

David Senra

He was the first pilot to break the sound barrier, and I think he was the first pilot to become an ace in a day during World War II. He said, "I love killing Nazis." He mentioned that one of his favorite things to do is kill Nazis. There's a great line in his book where he talks about how great things can come from anywhere. He lived in a rural area in West Virginia, it's like Appalachian... where there's like a...

Sam Parr

yeah

David Senra

So, he lived in the Appalachian Mountains, completely isolated. He describes in his book about killing all these Nazis. He shot down five to become an ace in one day, shooting down five enemy planes. He goes, "The Nazis came up into the skies and they met a goddamn West Virginia buzz saw." That's the way he described himself. But he gave me another blueprint. Let me see if I can get the quote exactly right. This is the magic of having Readwise too, because I can just think of something and pull it up immediately. It's like a giant search engine for everything I've read. He gave me this idea about how you and I should avoid what you just described. You get around all these rich guys, and it’s never enough. They don’t seem to be enjoying life, which begs the question: what's the point of being rich? It seems to surprise them that they're not enjoying life because they don’t actually like what they do day to day. But they make a ton of money, so why the hell could you take one-third of your life to spend working at something you hate? How is it possible? Do you think you're going to reach the end of your life and feel fulfilled? It’s impossible. So, he says, "I wasn't a deep, sophisticated person, but I lived by a basic principle: I did only what I enjoy." And here's the part: "I wouldn't let anyone derail me by promises of power or money into doing things that weren't interesting to me." And so it took me...

Sam Parr

Isn't that funny how that's like... business people say it, pilots say it, it doesn't matter. A lot of people who I talk to, they ask me what my path is. If it's all about business, I'm like, "Not really." Because I don't give a shit if you're an artist, as long as you're kicking ass and you've defined what success is and you've achieved it. I think that's dope.

David Senra

It's all the same personality type, just applied to different things. Like, I could show you this. I don't know if you can see it on the camera, but this is one of my favorite dudes. He's my *fucking* watch. His name's Ernest Shackleton. I love reading about polar explorers. I like reading about athletes.

Sam Parr

that's the best book I've read in in probably 3 years

David Senra

Endurance. Yeah, yeah, it's excellent! I love it. I'm going to make a shirt, and I might sell it, but I'll just make it for myself with that picture where he's just covered in snow and looking like shit. I love the fact that he came up with his own motto: "By endurance, we conquer." It's like, we're just going to win because we're never going to quit. I think that can be applied to everything that you do, assuming that you like to do it. But yeah, I think Chuck Yeager is smart. So many people buy into this prestigious myth, right? They're like, "I'm going to go do this. I'm going to do activity X because it'll give me prestige." What prestige is, is you think other people are thinking about you, and no one is thinking about you. Humans are self-absorbed; that is our human nature. So, think about the person you... I listened to your Ariel Helwani interview.

Sam Parr

you're a big fan of his that's right I love ariel helwani

David Senra

You're a big fan of his. How much of your life is spent thinking about... You're a huge fan, you buy all his stuff, you listen to stuff. Less than 0.0002% of your life?

Sam Parr

right

David Senra

I wish people understood how few people are actually thinking about them. Therefore, you wouldn't chase prestige because prestige doesn't matter. All that matters is the people around you. Do they think you're a good person? Do they approve of what you're doing? Then there's your work. All that really matters is your own opinion. For example, Ben texted me the other day about an idea for his podcast. He added music and asked, "What do you think of it?" I told him, "I don't love it, and I don't hate it. I don't care about it at all. I thought your episode was fantastic; it was excellent! I shared it with friends." But then he mentioned, "Well, the reviews are mixed." I saw the tweets, and it's like some people are saying, "This is great," while others are saying, "This is bad." Exactly! All that matters is what you like. If you like the music and others don't, then let them go find another podcast to listen to.

Sam Parr

Dude, his music though! On that first episode, on "How to Think Over the World," that's the best intro song in podcasting. That intro song has helped make his podcast popular.

David Senra

The UFC... going back to the UFC thing that connected us. Like, go watch it. I know you have, but everybody out there needs to talk about manifesting. Cowboy Conor McGregor is literally in the documentary. The fact that he had somebody film him when he was flat broke, living in his mom's house, and owed money to every single agency in Ireland. He said, "I'm gonna be the world champion one day." He was literally manifesting this. Remember when he got the double belts? He was being interviewed by Joe, and he said, "I saw this in my mind." He goes, "Oh, look at that." He said, "I dreamt it. I literally saw it, and I made it real."

Sam Parr

that's why people like him

David Senra

That documentary is **incredible**. It's because he called his shot. It's like this... he just ruins.

Sam Parr

It by doing it, he ruins it by doing all the other dumb stuff, though. But it certainly... he's a... I have a love-hate relationship with him. It's like, you've got all this amazing stuff; I admire you so much, and I also can't stand some of this other behavior. You know what I mean?

David Senra

I think that's where your wisdom is. So, he's like, "Okay, I sold my company. I'm rich as fuck." You're still... you have a massive advantage. You can launch businesses; you can work on whatever you want. But you're realizing this: "But I also want to take care of my health. I want to spend time with my wife. I want to have a family. I want to be able to have freedom." I've heard you describe what's important to you, and this is like, "Yeah, that's how I feel too." Because my issue is, I'm not impressed by somebody successful for a year, 5 years, or even 10 years. It's like I like the people that never fucked it up. There's a great line that Charlie Munger said: "It's not getting rich that you have to worry about; it's staying sane." He said, "It's not part... and this is in a book. It's not normal to human nature to have unlimited resources or to be so much richer and then not fuck it up." Through draw... he says, "Through ladies' leverage and liquor is usually how rich men go broke."

Sam Parr

that's what my husband said

David Senra

Yeah, well, it's in his book. He didn't say it in person, but my being is like... I think there's a sense of wisdom there where it's like, "Okay, I already have this. How do I keep building on it?" People like Connor and Kanye West are examples too. They're gifted at a young age, and then their superstar success is so disorienting that, again, it's not just about getting rich; you have to worry about staying sane. They weren't able to stay sane. I want to stay sane, dude. I want to get to that point in my life when I'm 80 years old. I try to make decisions with that in mind. I knew for a fact that part of the reason I felt comfortable jumping all in on the podcast, even though I didn't know if I was going to make it a success or not, was that when Jeff Bezos said, "Well, I was making a ton of money as this hedge fund manager. I was 30 years old, I had an apartment on the Upper West Side, and I'm best friends with a billionaire who's mentoring me. He's already set for life." But he said, "I knew if I quit now and forgo my quarterly bonus and move across the country to Seattle to sell books on the internet, I feel that the internet is a life-changing technology, and I want to play a role in that technology." Your 30-year-old self can confuse yourself. It's like, "Oh, it's not as prestigious as working at a hedge fund. I'm going to miss out on a couple million-dollar bonuses," whatever it is. But he's like, "Your 85-year-old self is going to be like, 'You had a shot to play a role on the internet, and you didn't do it.'" That's how I feel about podcasting. It's just like, I believe it's a miracle. I want to play a role, and therefore, I want to get to that point in my life. I know 80-year-old me is going to be like, "Damn, David, I'm glad you risked it."

Sam Parr

I'm glad you thought

David Senra

you did that

Sam Parr

I'm happy you came on here. You're very fascinating to me. I've listened to dozens of your episodes, and I'm very eager to see what you become. I think it's cool. I didn't know that you've been doing this for six years. I know that I've listened to episodes like number 10 as well as like 300, so I guess I should've done the math. But congratulations on your success! It seems like you're kicking ass. It seems like you're in the groove, and it's really cool to see someone like you. It's really fun to see someone right when it's happening. That's kind of the cool thing about podcasting and Twitter and all this stuff; you can catch things in the middle—not before and not after, but as it's happening. That's where you are right now, and I appreciate you doing this. What do you promote? Just Founders? I call it Founders Pod. It's a Founders podcast. Founders, the Twitter. You're always tweeting good stuff.

David Senra

I want to say thank you for having me on. Like, seriously, I love your podcast! I would just say that one thing about podcasters is that it's obvious who has the magic. I've been telling people way before I ever messaged you, "You need to watch what Sam and Sean are doing." It's clear they have the magic; they have insane chemistry. I remember listening to you guys when you were like, "Oh, I'm only getting 60,000 downloads an episode," which is still super impressive. Now you guys have blown right past that! It's extremely obvious that you guys are really good at it. I hope you do a ton of it, I swear. And I know you might not be interested in this, but there's a massive hole in podcasting for the Pat McAfee version of a business podcast.

Sam Parr

I agree

David Senra

And I think you and Sean... like, dude, there is going to be a business podcast where you have Pat McAfee getting paid like $30,000,000 a year by whatever his presenting sponsors are. I forgot what it is. Dan Le Batard got that $50,000,000 contract from DraftKings. You see Spotify gave Alex Cooper $20,000,000 a year. The reported number for Joe Rogan is way bigger than what's reported. But my point is, there’s a gap in the business podcast space, which I think you and Sean have the best way to fill. If you did it every day, just like you did with your hour show, it’s a perfect length. The research... it feels like you’re hanging out with your smart friends and you guys are brainstorming together. There’s nothing else like what you guys are doing.

Sam Parr

Hey Spotify, if you're listening, I'm easy to contact. You can just DM me on Twitter, and we can talk. Thanks, Jeff.

David Senra

I appreciate you inviting me on that was fucking super cool of you

Sam Parr

I appreciate you doing this. It means a lot, and yeah, it was awesome. That's the pod! That's the pod.