The $70M/yr Sports Bar + Sleepy Industries Worth $100M

Shaan Puri

Alright, so we gotta talk about this. This business is really, really cool. It's a product I want to use, and I think it's a business that could be kind of big—revolutionary, maybe. Yeah, you probably saw this because it's been going viral over and over again. I always look for products that have this "playground virality," meaning anytime somebody shows you that they're using it or they share a picture of it, it immediately sparks a big reaction. So, I saw... I'm going to share these three posts. Check these out. The first one is this Reddit post. I go on Reddit and I see this post in the r/damnthatsinteresting subreddit, which is one of my favorite subreddits. It's basically a video of somebody inside this venue. It's like a sports bar meets IMAX. You're sitting there, you've got a beer, you're just hanging out with your friends, but there's a giant screen—it's almost a dome—that's over you. It looks like you're front row at a football game, in this case, and the cheering crowd is going crazy. But it looks like you're in the stadium, even though you're not. You're just in a bar. This is called "Casm," or as I'm calling it, the "Mini Sphere." Some people have probably heard of it; you've probably seen the sphere in Las Vegas. It's this giant dome in the middle of Las Vegas, and it's this insane $2.3 billion project that is just remarkable. It looks kind of cool. It's like one of those things where it's like humans built the pyramids, and then we built the sphere. It's a marvel of engineering and technology. Well, the Cosm is basically a mini sphere. It's like a 2,000-seat venue that you can use for sports games and all this stuff. Now, they've got a couple of them popping up. I think this is really cool. I think it rides on a bunch of big trends. Out-of-home entertainment is a big deal. I think people are looking for places to congregate, to drink, to eat, and to enjoy themselves. Movie theaters are sort of stale; I think streaming has kicked movie theaters' ass in a way. Now, this is the out-of-home way of punching back. I think this thing is going to be a much better way to watch live events and live sports than sitting at home.

Sam Parr

Yeah, so basically, if you're listening, if you see the photos, it's as if they built this massive... it's not even a bar. It looks like a science center. It's like a huge building that they're constructing just for this thing. You go in and it's like, did you ever go as a kid to the science center where it has the... what was it called? The Omnimax? Yeah, like a planetarium where the screen is all above you. That's basically what it is. But they had to raise $250,000,000 to build this because it's like a massive project.

Shaan Puri

They just raised that a few months ago. They built the first two without... or they built the first one at least without that because that was in July.

Sam Parr

Who funded that?

Shaan Puri

So, the story of this is there's a guy who's behind it. He started one of the biggest real estate property management software companies, I think called RealPage. The guy's name is Wynn.

Sam Parr

Oh yeah.

Shaan Puri

Something Wynn... So he has this thing called RealPage. RealPage got bought by Thomas Bravo for about $10,000,000,000. This guy made a couple of billion dollars out of it. He then starts his own kind of...

Sam Parr

By the way, you might be confusing the name. **Steve Wynn** is the guy from Las Vegas, the casino guy.

Shaan Puri

Yeah, I think this guy's name is also Winn, but it's spelled W-I-N. Yeah, so...

Sam Parr

That's okay.

Shaan Puri

It's a different Steve Wynn that is behind this one. He has a venture capital firm called Marisol Capital. So, what he did was actually produce... you said it's like a planetarium? No, no, no, it is a planetarium. Do you know the backstory of this? No? So, he went and bought three companies. He bought the companies that make the science planetarium equipment for every museum or science place. Then, he bought another company that handled the LED screen part of it. Finally, he bought another company that focused on cameras and technology. So, it's a roll-up of three or four companies now. Because of that, they have... they're basically the biggest player in developing this type of technology and these types of screens. Wow! What he did was realize, "Hey, this is cool, but it doesn't have to just be for the planetarium." You could use this for sports if you send your own video crew to film the courtside or fieldside seats at these different venues. They are basically a full-stack operation. They have rights with the leagues, like UFC, for example. They have rights with certain football leagues, and they send a full production crew there. So, it's not just what you see on TV, but bigger. It's its own thing. They have crews that are almost like VR, where you see them right there by the end zone. As the player crosses, the camera turns with them. Then, they have a live production team that cuts between the different cameras to show what's going to be on that huge screen. So, that's the backstory of how they did this.

Sam Parr

That's amazing! I did not realize that that's how it started.

Shaan Puri

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Sam Parr

I really want to go to one of these. I've had a friend whose name is Hat. I think you know Hat. He went to the one in Dallas and he sent me a video of it.

Shaan Puri

I do not have a friend named Hat. Who's our friend named Hat? He... he...

Sam Parr

He messaged us about it. He hosted the Dallas MFM.

Shaan Puri

Oh, okay. Gotcha.

Sam Parr

You're friendly with a guy named Hat, and he sent me a video. He was like, "Hey, I'm in Houston," and it was some sports game. I was like, "That game is not in Houston." He's like, "No, no, no, this is a screen. I'm not here right now; this is a screen." I genuinely thought he was there. As soon as UFC is on, I'm going to be paying money.

Shaan Puri

It is this weekend, actually. So, this weekend's event at the Sphere, the fight card they're having, I believe is going to be shown there. They basically have a mix of things; it's not just sports. So, there's sports, but then they also have Cirque du Soleil. If you want to see "O" in the best seat that ever existed, plus backstage access and the chance to follow one of the performers in the air, you can go watch "O" at this event. I was doing the math on this, and I don't have the exact numbers here, but here's the rough math on a venue like this. They have general admission, which is kind of like standing room only. You could literally see people just sitting on the floor, and those tickets are $22, so super cheap. They're going to make money on those people through beer and French fries or whatever. Then they have booths or tables, where each seat is kind of between $50 and $200, depending on the day and the event. They could fit about 1,000 general admission and 1,000 premium people into this venue. They have shows all the time because they have the Cirque du Soleil, an art exhibit, an orbital space exhibit, and sports events. They have 64 events this month and barely in the next coming month. I don't know what the occupancy is like, but it's pretty easy to see that this venue is probably generating somewhere between $4 to $6 million a month in revenue right now, not counting all the alcohol sales. So, I would say on the low end, maybe $3 to $4 million on tickets, and on the high end, you could double that once you factor in all the food and alcohol purchases.

Sam Parr

I talked to this guy the other day for Money Wise. We did this podcast with him, and he basically made something like **$25,000,000**. He owned a tech company, sold it, and got **$25,000,000** in cash. He still owns **$25,000,000** in equity in the business, and he's based out of Canada in a town of about **2,000** people. He sold the business, made his money, and whatever, but he still has his office in that small town. He said that in this small town of **2,000** people, he employs roughly **50** of them. He owns the fanciest office building on the main street, and they have barbecues and events every week where the community comes and hangs out. It made me sad that I make money on the internet and that I work remotely with remote staff. It's hard to see the magic that you're working so hard to create. Hopefully, your output is magic, where you create products and services that people love. It made me really bummed, and I thought, "I want to get into more physical stuff" or to be able to physically see my creation, even if it's just employees in an office. When I see products like Kosm, it seems trivial, like, "Oh, we're just doing this. It's just a place where people can drink beers and watch sports." But it's more than that. To see this as your output, like, "I'm creating something that is physical that I can go and see and be proud of," while people are watching and enjoying it, I am envious of that as someone who does most of the digital stuff.

Shaan Puri

Sport, drink beer, but they can watch sports and drink beer in front of a huge screen—a big ass screen. Now, I know what you mean. I would feel that way, but I've done a restaurant, I have an e-commerce thing that has physical products, and I've also done some events. Every time I've done any of those things, I hate it. I'm like, "Oh my God, this would be so much easier. I would enjoy my life so much more if I could do it." I am so much happier sitting behind my computer, on my laptop, in my boxers. You know, I told you about the Peter Levels photo of him sitting on a couch with his neck scrunched in the worst posture, no shirt, boxers, laptop on. That, to me, is the Jordan logo. Dude, that is the Jordan logo! That is somebody dunking from the free throw line of life, and that's what I want. I don't want any of this shit where I have to have a brick-and-mortar venue. I know it sounds romantic, but no. Can I tell...

Sam Parr

You know, something that's going to sound stupid and ridiculous, but I think it's true and it's going to make a lot of money.

Shaan Puri

Stupid and ridiculous, but I think it's true. It's gonna make a lot of money. Damn, dude! Did you just do a personality test? That was awesome! You just described yourself. Is that your bio?

Sam Parr

Yeah, there are people who are like E, F, G's or whatever. I'm like an I, D.

Shaan Puri

E, F, G

Sam Parr

I do it.

Shaan Puri

It's a new Myers-Briggs.

Sam Parr

Dude, that was awesome! Yeah, I... I don't know what you are. Are you an *moron*? Listen to this. You know how... let me think about the best way to phrase this because we're coming from a moron's perspective. Alright, there's something that I think has not been touched on for forever, or at least in the startup world, and it bothers me. The reason why it bothers me is because when Tesla came about, it was like, "Oh my god, this is the craziest thing ever! No one would ever touch us." But it has worked. Now Rivian and other car startups are emerging. Same with SpaceX. When they started, it was like, "This is ridiculous! You can't make a hardware company that goes to space." That's ridiculous! Now we have Andromeda and a bunch of other stuff like that, and they're getting funding. They're proving that this is a good idea. There's a category of products inside your home that you probably have used today, and it boggles my mind why there's no innovation. To put this in perspective, I believe there are about 15 million cars sold per year. There are about 13 million units of this product sold per year. Basically, everyone in America has them. They cost *thousands* of dollars, and the lifespan of these products is about 5 years. That product is the washer and dryer. It boggles my mind why we have not seen more innovation with the washer and dryer. And yes, I'm going to say "washer" because with an "r," that's a weird Midwestern accent. I'm going to get that out of the way because people are going to make fun of me. But what's been killing me is, and I've said this for years, that there's not a good 2-in-1 washer and dryer. So this company called LG came out with this like 22-in-1 washer and dryer the other day. It was in the Wall Street Journal, and there are videos on YouTube talking about this washer and dryer. These nerds like me who are into this technology are going bananas that this technology is actually coming to fruition. The main critique of the washer and dryer in one is that it was really hard to create. When you have a washer, it has to be water-sealed. But when you have something that's water-sealed, it's hard to increase the temperature. So how do you put heat in there to dry your clothing? That technology is actually really hard, but these guys are slowly getting around to where it's actually working. It's amazing how big some of these businesses are that sell mostly washers and dryers. If you look at Whirlpool, I believe they're publicly traded. Last year, they had $22 billion in sales, and about half of that revenue was from washers and dryers. What's crazy to me is that this is compared to Rivian, which is a venture startup. Now I think it's publicly traded, with $2 billion a year in sales. It's crazy to me that a lot of these sexier industries in the hardware space—cars, rockets, self-defense—are getting funded and are popular. But the washer and dryer, in particular, I'm making a prediction that in the next 10 to 15 years, we're going to see a lot of movement in this space. I think the appetite is big. I'll give you another example. There's this company called Impulse Labs. Have you heard of Impulse Labs?

Shaan Puri

No, I've never heard of them.

Sam Parr

So, **Impulse Labs**—you can make the same case that I made for washers and dryers; you can make that case for ovens or stovetops. If you look at stovetops, the majority of homes in America have electric stovetops. Electric stovetops are a huge pain because of the way they work. I believe there's basically only one temperature, so it's like an on or off situation. When you use an electric stovetop, even though you put it on high, that just means it will self-regulate. It stays on for a certain amount of time, then turns off for a few seconds, and then turns back on again. With medium heat, it will turn off for longer. You know what I mean? It tries to stay at that same temperature, which actually makes a huge difference in your cooking if you're into making nice meals. It's a huge pain. These guys called **Impulse Labs** have built technology where you have a battery that’s charging all the time. When you want to use your stove, it turbocharges your stovetop. This keeps the heat at a steady temperature and gets hot really, really fast. They've launched these new stovetops, and when I hear their argument about how big this business can be, I kind of buy into it. I think this actually can work. Now, the downside is that you have to raise $100 million potentially. But when you're thinking about stovetops and washers and dryers, these are actually really, really big markets—similar in size to car companies—but they are drastically underfunded and potentially have less competition than a lot of these other industries because there aren't many startups attacking this.

Shaan Puri

Well, I think this is pretty interesting, but I would poke a few holes in your argument.

Sam Parr

There's many, but this argument that I presented, it's like we're going to call this "string cheese."

Shaan Puri

Swiss cheese... I think it's the way you look.

Sam Parr

Yeah, Swiss? Like, no. It's string cheese. There's no...

Shaan Puri

There are ways around it. Fill back some holes in this string cheese here.

Sam Parr

Let's keep the analogy going.

Shaan Puri

So, the problem with the kind of rockets and cars... and let's just take cars for example. I think the reason that Rivian and Tesla have had so much heat when they came out, even though they weren't selling that many units, was that people see that, first of all, cars are much more expensive than washers and dryers. So, that's the first thing.

Sam Parr

Oh yeah, that's true.

Shaan Puri

Of maybe 10 times higher price per unit. So yes, they sell the same number of units, but at least 10 times higher, maybe 20 times higher in a lot of cases. On top of that, you buy multiple of them. So, like, I don't know, when you get like... I haven't replaced a washer and dryer in 5 years since I've been living in the place.

Sam Parr

Well, have you lived in one home for one place? Probably not for four. I've lived in one house for five years.

Shaan Puri

But is that the shelf life of these things? Do you have to replace them after 5 years?

Sam Parr

Okay.

Shaan Puri

Gotcha. The other part of it that I think is hard is with Tesla and Rivian. I think the thesis is that all cars eventually go electric. So, you basically take the entire fleet of cars and say these are all going to have to switch to electric. The traditional carmakers are not going to be able to keep up. These guys will figure out how to ramp production before the traditional carmakers figure out how to go electric. I don't know if that's proven out to be true or not. I mean, Tesla has obviously beaten the traditional carmakers, and I think Tesla's worth more than all of the other, you know, next five carmakers combined, type of thing.

Sam Parr

It's ridiculous.

Shaan Puri

And whereas I don't think the 2-in-1 necessarily... maybe it's true that 2-in-1 basically replaces all combos. I'm not sure. The last thing I would say is that a lot of these have switching costs. For example, you know, the stovetop. Even if I like it, I'm not going to rip out my stove to do this. It's only going to be, let's say, new builds that are going to put something like this in, like the stovetop. Whereas with a car, the switching cost is lower because I can always get a second car. I can trade cars. It's not the same as ripping up my kitchen in order to get these. So I think that's the hard part about some of these. You have a lot of capital and a lot of difficulty, but some pay out, you know, 10 or 100 times. That's why the funding goes to the space companies, goes to the military, you know, weapons companies, and goes to the car companies before it's going to go to some of these. That being said, I have the June thing. I have the June oven, and I gotta say it's good, but it's complete overkill. I think the hard part of this is... like, I don't know if you've ever used it, but there's a camera inside of it. So you put a bagel...

Sam Parr

Inside, stupid.

Shaan Puri

And it just says, "Wait, wait, wait, I got it! Bagel!" And I'm like, "Yeah, cool, still gonna push toast." The fact that this camera was in here that recognized the bagel is like a cool demo, but ultimately, it's not that important of a feature compared to, you know, just not being $1,000. The thing I think that you'd have is like $1,000 or more. So yeah, I'm not super convinced on these, but I do like where your head's at, which is: what are these sleepy industries that need innovation? Where size is there, sleepiness is there, but the innovation is super low? That, in general, is a good place to go if you're really determined and can make some things happen.

Sam Parr

You know who kicks ass in one of these spaces? It's SharkNinja. Have you heard of SharkNinja? They make Ninja and Shark; it's two different brands but under one company, SharkNinja. I believe it's a bootstrap company that started in 1994. It got bought and went public, but within six years, they were doing $100,000,000 in revenue. By year eight, they were doing $250,000,000 in revenue. They're based out of Boston, an American company. The products that they make are amazing. They have created some of the best products. For example, their vacuum is incredible. I own the Creamy, which is like the greatest thing ever. They helped innovate and create the air fryer. Some of these appliance businesses have been shockingly good and surprisingly bootstrapped.

Shaan Puri

Well, you know, my favorite one of these that's not as hard to do but also kind of a sleepy industry is HexClad. Do you have HexClad? Do you have any other pans?

Sam Parr

I'm thinking about buying some, so convince me why I should buy them.

Shaan Puri

Well, dude, I don't know. I think, though, one of the things here is that customers have a different awareness and sophistication level. So, I don't actually know what would make a great pan. I'm sure there are people out there who are like, "No, no, no, only cast iron" or "only this type of pan" or "it's all marketing," whatever. But I'm in the bucket that's like the fat part of the bell curve where it's like, damn, marketing just kind of works on me. I saw that Gordon Ramsay invested $100,000,000 into HexClad, which is a stunning amount of money. Let me make sure... how does Gordon Ramsay have a $130 million stake in the startup? Let me make sure that I have this right. So, I guess it's his studio. Studio Ramsay Global, a partnership between Fox and Gordon Ramsay, is investing $100,000,000 into HexClad. So, not him personally, let's say, but him and his venture studio or whatever, his venture firm.

Sam Parr

Their website is beautiful, and I want to buy HexClad right now because of their website.

Shaan Puri

I bought it. The pan's pretty good. I don't know if they're the best pans ever, but they're good, and the branding is great. The visual of it is appealing; the pan itself has little hexagons on the bottom, making it an instantly recognizable product. When I look in my cabinet, I have all my generic pans, and I can literally see the difference with the hexagon pan. It ties to the name. Then you have Gordon Ramsay as the influencer behind this. It's just pans, dude! It's a sleepy industry that everybody needs. It's a high-value, high average order value (AOV) product, and these guys crush it. They do $100 million in revenue, and they're sold in Costco. They have amazing distribution. I think they're one of the biggest Shopify stores overall. It was such a non... I don't want to disparage them by calling it non-innovative, but it's not rockets and it's not electric cars, right? It's nonstick pans. But it is very well done, and I'm very impressed with their execution. It's a great business.

Sam Parr

Were they just... was it just a get a first?

Shaan Puri

Here's what it says: In 2013, the two co-founders, Danny and Cole, had worked for a now-defunct cookware company and decided they wanted to start their own. So, they started working on it. They dabbled with a couple of products and began selling in 2016. By 2017, they secured a deal with Costco, and the business has doubled almost every year since. They are now one of the top Shopify sellers in the world. They have one of the biggest Black Fridays of any company. They said, "I've never heard of anyone who sold more than us on Black Friday," which I think is just pretty dope. It's a very well-done product that makes you feel elite by buying this pan. Whether the pan is elite or not is sort of secondary. It's an amazing example of what brand marketing and influence can do for you.

Sam Parr

Speaking of food and cooking, do you have any plans for the holidays? Because I've got an idea for you.

Shaan Puri

Okay, are you inviting me over or what? What's happening right now?

Sam Parr

That's even better! Okay, good. This is even better. Are you free? I'm free. Alright, I've got like a little 8-week project for you, if you're interested. You know, it's no big deal. It's just a little small project. It's like the equivalent of a super Lego.

Shaan Puri

Okay, go for it.

Sam Parr

Weight Watchers, do me a favor: Google "Weight Watchers stock" right now.

Shaan Puri

Yeah, okay.

Sam Parr

What's their market cap at?

Shaan Puri

Jeez, 58,000,000! What happened, Oprah? What happened?

Sam Parr

That's what happened. Oprah left. Oprah's gone. Are you serious?

Shaan Puri

That listen.

Sam Parr

To cause this, well, they lost $110,000,000 last year, and the business declined by 2.10%.

Shaan Puri

What happened? I think those epic hit them.

Sam Parr

Well, let me make an argument as to why Weight Watchers is going to start selling Ozempic and why Sean is going to own 10% of the company. So, listen, that's your little 8-week project, your holiday project. Weight Watchers was started, I think, in the sixties. The way it started was there was this housewife in New York City. She was a little overweight and she got a bunch of dieting tips on how to lose weight. Then, she created an 8-person support group where she got her friends to give her $2 per meeting. They met once a week, and it helped everyone lose weight. They were held accountable, and they loved it. She did it for about a year, and then eventually, this one man and his wife were like, "Hey, you should lose weight. You should go to this woman's support group. I bet you'll lose weight." This guy was a businessman, and he was like, "Hey, we should definitely make this a thing." Her name was Jean, and he said, "Hey Jean, this should be like a business. This was amazing! I actually lost weight, and it changed my life a little bit." So, they came up with this idea to franchise the business, and they launched it in 1963. By 1968, they had 1,000,000 members, each paying a monthly fee to attend a local meeting based on their dieting advice. It was a local meeting where you would go once a week or once a month to have your support group. Then, by 1968, they sold the business for $350,000,000. They sold it for $71,000,000 then, which is something like $400,000,000 in today's money. Oddly, they sold to Heinz, the maker of a lot of foods that are the opposite of what Weight Watchers would suggest. But anyway, they did their thing, and then Oprah comes into play. When she comes into play, the stock takes off. She buys a bunch of stock, and then within weeks, she has tripled her money. It booms and takes off. Well, over the last handful of years, her Weight Watchers plan has been shedding her weight to watch her stock, and she's been losing a bunch of her stock and selling it. Now, it's plummeted, and the stock is horrible. So, in my opinion, if I'm Weight Watchers, I think I'm just going to start selling Ozempic. That's what I'm going to become. If I have millions and millions of members who are subscribed to me for weight loss tips, if I needed to, you know, just only care about money, my new game is, "Hey, for an additional $300, $400, or $500 a month, we really can guarantee that you're going to lose..."

Shaan Puri

Weight... they're definitely going in this direction. So, I didn't realize this, but do you know who the CEO of Weight Watchers is? No? Her name is Seema Sistani. The reason that name sounds familiar is because she was formerly the COO of Meerkat. Do you remember Meerkat, the live streaming app?

Sam Parr

What?

Shaan Puri

Yeah, so she worked with Ben Rubin, and when they turned into Houseparty, they ended up getting acquired. Sima now ends up being the CEO of Weight Watchers. She recently wrote an email to the team a couple of months ago, and it says, "Team, as this week draws to a close, I want to take a moment to address some of the breathless media coverage I'm sure you guys have seen." Basically, it says, "Hey, we're in a good cash position. We have strong liquidity. The work we do matters. Our business is healthy." It also mentions, "We've repositioned the company to grow with a clear differentiator. We're going to offer a full spectrum of weight care, from behavioral—which is what they've been doing—to clinical. Clinical being, you know, the sale of essentially semaglutide-type products is where they're going with it." So I think it's kind of interesting what you're saying because I don't know what the price of a Weight Watchers subscription is.

Sam Parr

If you don't have insurance, semaglutide is somewhere between $500 to $1,000 per month.

Shaan Puri

Per month, exactly. And so, like, let's...

Sam Parr

If your insurance will cover it if you have diabetes or if you're obese.

Shaan Puri

And I think, isn't there a government proposal to make, like, I don't know, free Ozempic available to everybody? Isn't there some proposal that's going to cover it, and the government would somehow cover this?

Sam Parr

Well, the Ozempic issue is basically highlighting a problem with the healthcare system. It's funny that Ozempic is like the straw that's breaking the camel's back. But they're like, "Dude, in Europe this drug is $5; in America, it's $1,000. What the hell is going on?" Something like that. So, it's kind of...

Shaan Puri

Like Novo Nordisk, which is the company that makes Ozempic, they're not only, I think, the most valuable company in Europe, but on top of that, I think they spend more on lobbying than any other company right now. They are pushing very hard for U.S. lobbying, which is insane. So, Weight Watchers' subscription is $9.99 a month right now for the first 9 months. If you just take the idea that they're going from making $100 a year per paying customer to, you know, even if a fraction of the audience decides, "Yes, I'd like to push a button and start to get Ozempic," or start to get whatever their generic version is going to be called, they're going to jump to $5,000 or $10,000 a year for those customers. So, if you believe that they have the right distribution and they have the end customer relationship, they might be swapping out, you know, training wheels for Harley Davidson in terms of business models.

Sam Parr

And the business is quite large. Unfortunately, they lost a lot of money, but last year they did $900,000,000 in revenue and had a $100,000,000 loss. Those are huge numbers, but their market cap as of today is $60,000,000. I don't care, but it's going to be fun to watch because there might be a roller coaster here. And so, here, by the way, one of the reasons the business is not doing...

Shaan Puri

Great! Right now, my project for me was to decide whether to take Ozempic or to buy the stock.

Sam Parr

Because I might.

Shaan Puri

Do both. Well, maybe a little down and do both. A little of both.

Sam Parr

When I... okay, so when Oprah did it, the estimates are that she made a quarter of a billion dollars over 10 years of owning and then selling the stock. Basically, she announced that she was part of Weight Watchers, and the stock doubled in a matter of days. Then, in February of this past year, the stock went down by 25% just when she announced, "Alright, that's run its course. I did my thing, I'm out. I'm no longer involved." I think Sean Perry is going to be the new Oprah. I think that for $2,000,000, you can own 4% of this company. Did I do the math right? Or close to 4%? I think. Then just announcing it, we're going to sit through a good old-fashioned pump and dump.

Shaan Puri

Oh, woah, woah, woah, woah, woah! You just got us flagged. But, there are some agencies out here, dude. They're listening to podcasts now. You know we're big in the SEC right now, right? This podcast is going viral there.

Sam Parr

I'm joking, by the way, but I do think that a $60,000,000 market cap for a business that has these large numbers, even if it is a massive loss and a reputable brand, is questionable.

Shaan Puri

I'm just reading about them on the fly here while you're talking about this, but it looks like they made a **$100 million** deal to buy Sequence, which is a telehealth business that lets you do virtual prescriptions for patients who want weight loss drugs. They will start doing the **semaglutide** stuff soon, so we'll see.

Sam Parr

Yeah, I just thought this was interesting. I want to put it on record that we've discussed this because maybe there could be a... like this could be one of those big opportunities. But because $60,000,000 for a brand that's so reputable in some circles, but like everyone knows what that means, that's pretty amazing.

Shaan Puri

To me, okay, I like it. Sam's stock picks, by the way, there's a great buy.

Sam Parr

The way any stock pick I have... just don't listen to anything that I ever give advice on regarding stocks. It's horrible.

Shaan Puri

What's that guy? There's a guy who does this YouTube channel called **GoodWork**. I think he's part of **Morning Brew**, and he put out this video that I thought...

Sam Parr

Had the best.

Shaan Puri

The best YouTube title that I've seen.

Sam Parr

I know, is it Zed?

Shaan Puri

No, no, not the Zen one. His Zen one was also great. The Zen one was "Is Zen gonna kill me?" and the boys. Now, the new one is "Can this extremely loud man make you rich?" It's a picture of Jim Cramer who's like, you know, shilling some stock. I thought it was awesome.

Sam Parr

Dude, their videos... he's the best! Like, I did... he's the absolute best.

Shaan Puri

I want our YouTube team to just look at these titles and thumbnails. This is what winning looks like. This is what we need to do. I'm just going to read you some of their other titles. So, his other titles include: "Saudi Arabia: Go Saudi Arabia! Go in Sicko Mode on Its Sci-Fi City State." It's the picture of that giant wall that Saudi Arabia is building. Another title is: "Helping a 4th Grader Explain Her Loser Dad's Stupid Hedge Fund Job." Lol, yeah, it's great.

Sam Parr

Yeah, I'm a big fan of this guy. He's really good. Austin, one of my best friends, is the founder and CEO of Morning Brew. I give him a hard time because Morning Brew has not been able to hire interesting talent. Hiring, retaining, and developing talent in a media company is really, really hard. You have to find interesting people, which is difficult. The most interesting, creative people are typically also the biggest pains in the ass to work with and to retain. This guy, along with a few others, is a really good example of how a media company finds talent, nurtures it, and makes them huge.

Shaan Puri

Yeah, he's doing amazing. Good job! What is his name, by the way? I don't know the guy's name, but...

Sam Parr

Dan Toomey

Shaan Puri

Toomey, yeah, Dan, you're doing a great job.

Sam Parr

So, I moved to this new city. It's called Westport, Connecticut. It's a 35,000-person town. I've been reading all these books about biographies of politicians and stuff lately. I thought, "I don't really know anything about politics. I'm going to see if getting involved is even interesting." So, I just emailed the mayor, which I didn't know if that was a thing or not. But I found her email and I emailed her. Now, we're going to go get lunch together.

Shaan Puri

Would you say lunch?

Sam Parr

With the mayor, I said, "In a small circle of the internet, a very tiny corner, I'm a little bit popular." I'm not sure what that means to you, if anything, but I'm just trying to make myself look a little bit important to you. I would love to hang out and introduce myself with no agenda. That's all I said, and she said, "Absolutely."

Shaan Puri

And so, what's the plan here? What are you going to do? I don't know yet.

Sam Parr

I gotta figure out how to be conniving and how to take over a town. I don't have a plan yet, but I just thought it was interesting.

Shaan Puri

Are you going to binge like two seasons of *House of Cards* or something and just start to get yourself in the mindset?

Sam Parr

Yeah, yeah. I'm just gonna come with armed guards that just take over. It's just... I'm gonna pull a coup. It's gonna be a coup. I'm the mayor now! Yeah, I'm the mayor. I don't know, I just think local politics are a really interesting way to actually have a real impact. But it kind of just seems fun. I didn't know that you could email a mayor and they would reply, but they did.

Shaan Puri

It reminds me of when we got to college. My buddy Dan, that you're given like a school ID, right? A school email address. So his was something like [email protected]. The first thing he did, which I would have never thought to do, but he's a weirdo and a genius, is he goes and emails dnc7 or no, dnc4 and dnc5. He's like, "Fellas, I'm here! I don't know who you are, and I don't know what those initials stand for for you, but I'm here to carry the torch, the legacy. What do you guys do?" And like one of them is a banker somewhere. It could have led to, you know, like an internship basically just by sending out a random email being like, "Hey, I'm the new guy in town that has the same, you know, I'm the next in the alphanumeric sequence here for us."

Sam Parr

And did they become friends?

Shaan Puri

I don't know. I feel like he just would open up all these doors and look inside, like, "What's in this closet?" You know when someone comes into your house and says, "Oh, what's this over here?" That's how people are.

Sam Parr

Do that with their phone number. They change one number in the phone number and they text them, saying that their phone number comes.

Shaan Puri

Yeah, exactly.

Sam Parr

You said something a few weeks ago that had an impact on me, and I've been meaning to bring this up too. But I had to test this out. You told me that there have been a few weekends where, from Friday to Sunday, you did phoneless. I thought, "That's a great idea!" The problem is that I'm an addict of all types and sorts, and just like everyone else, getting rid of my phone is really hard. So, I looked for a solution and I found this thing. This isn't a sponsored thing; I've never talked to these guys. I just think it's cool. Have you seen this? It's called **Brick**.

Shaan Puri

Yeah, I've DM'd these guys. They're young guys. I don't... do you know who? Did you look them up?

Sam Parr

Yeah, so I looked them up. Let me explain what this product is. I think it's only $49. For people listening on their headphones and not looking at a screen, I just showed a brick. It's like a 2-inch by 2-inch square made out of plastic, just like 3D printed plastic. The way it works is you download their app and you say which apps are allowed. In my case, I think I've allowed texting, phone calling, and email. Basically, I use this brick and I touch my phone with it. It bans or makes every app on my phone unusable except for the ones that I've allowed. I can't use them unless I touch this brick again. There's an emergency button within the app, but I can only click the emergency override three times. I could override it if I'm away from this brick, but if I leave this brick at home, I can only use the apps that I've allowed on my phone. Shockingly, this works really well. I like it, I love it! I think these kids who started it began when they were like 20-year-old college students. Is that right?

Shaan Puri

Yeah, something like that.

Sam Parr

And I think this business might be amazing. You know, it's only $50. It's hard to make a lot of money on $50. But what's interesting is that we build all this technology to get what we want: new, more convenient, better. Then, after a while, you get used to this life, and it gets better, more efficient, and more addicting. You want to create things now that will undo all of that. So, I've been testing leaving my phone at home. I've been testing, but that's a little bit inconvenient sometimes because what if there's a real emergency? Do I have to buy a dumb phone? But then, to buy a dumb phone, I need a whole different cell phone plan.

Shaan Puri

It's like a safe for the pantry. You put your snack in it and then you lock it. It's like this can only be opened at 7 PM.

Sam Parr

Yeah, well, one time I broke it to get to my phone. It's messed up how bad I am. So this brick, so far, I think is the best solution I have found.

Shaan Puri

That's cool! Yeah, I looked into this because I was curious about it. I think it's a really cool idea. I like the design of it too, by the way. I like the name of it and how it just "bricks" your phone. I love how "bricked up" you are about this whole thing. So, I think it's a great product. I don't use it personally, but I have thought about doing the kind of dumb phone/smartphone thing. This does seem better than having two phones, but I would lose this brick for sure. So, what is it? If I lose this brick, can I just use my own phone to put in the emergency and be like, "Hey, I need my phone back"?

Sam Parr

Yeah, but only like 3 or 5 times. I forget the number, but after a certain number, then the app, like the brick, doesn't work. You gotta go buy a whole new one.

Shaan Puri

It's like a nicotine patch for cell phones.

Sam Parr

Yeah, and it's awesome. That's exactly what it is. I think it's actually pretty good, and it's cheap enough that I'm going to just start gifting these out.

Shaan Puri

It's a great passive-aggressive gift, right?

Sam Parr

Yeah, it's like getting your Peloton, I guess.

Shaan Puri

Hey, asshole. There's...

Sam Parr

Something you need? Yeah, but these are awesome, by the way. I think it's called MPC. Is that the technology that they use for this? Is that the thing?

Shaan Puri

I think.

Sam Parr

NFC, sorry, which is like a very, very, very tiny chip, and then the rest is just like 3D printed plastic. There are interesting ways to make this fun. You can 3D print anything and just touch your phone. For example, if you have a music event or a small club at your home, or if you have an event like a book club with about 10 people coming, you just touch your thing. Everyone touches the thing, and that brings up your phone. There are a bunch of cool ways to make this fun.

Shaan Puri

So, that can brick anybody's phone or just your phone?

Sam Parr

If you have the app, I think it could brick anyone's phone.

Shaan Puri

Okay, well, there's a next level to this.

Sam Parr

Of course, of course. But it's actually quite cool. Have you seen the things where you go into comedy shows and you put your phone in one of these airtight bags?

Shaan Puri

I hate those things, but I understand.

Sam Parr

I hate them too. They're at the local school where I live. They're starting to do that for the school, so you have to leave your phone in these bags.

Shaan Puri

Yeah, my 4-year-old is in TK, and she's told me her friend has a phone. She's like, "Yeah, she showed me. It's a real phone in her bag. It's hers." I have some questions. I'm like, are we friends with the parents? Do I just text the parents and be like, "Yo, you got your kid a phone?" Or do I just text the kid and be like, "Is this a real phone? What's going on?"

Sam Parr

That's insane.

Shaan Puri

Can I finish with just a pro tip? A life pro tip, a little framework, a little bit of value here at the end. I feel like we gave some dessert, and now it's time for a quick vegetable.

Sam Parr

Alright.

Shaan Puri

Alright, so I have a friend named Stan. Stan is a Silicon Valley OG. What's interesting about Stan is that for many years, Mark Zuckerberg personally tried to recruit him. Stan always said, "No, no, no, no." Zach just kept reaching out, kept trying to recruit him. Eventually, he got Stan to join Facebook, and he ended up running Messenger, the multi-billion user product inside of Facebook.

Sam Parr

What does a recruitment from Zuck look like?

Shaan Puri

So, he's, you know, he's not one to kiss and tell. He didn't give too many details or brag about it too much, but I got the sense that not only was he recruited, but he had reached out to him many times over the years. Eventually, he made him an offer, you know, to get so good he couldn't refuse. So, he joins. I asked Dan, and I go, "Stan, what are you like? Why are you so good?" Then I was like, "No, no, no, bad question. Let me ask a better question: What are you doing differently than the average person here in Silicon Valley who has maybe the same skill set as you but isn't having the same results as you?"

Sam Parr

Are you asking why Zuck wanted him or why he's had success throughout his entire career?

Shaan Puri

I knew Zuck wanted him. I didn't ask why Zuck wanted him. I asked him specifically, "Why are you having more success than the average person who has the same skill set as you?" Is it that you're just working ten times harder? Are you ten times smarter than somebody? Or do you know something or do something differently? He told me a few things, but the one that stood out—this was many years ago, by the way—still sticks with me. He said, "You know, in Silicon Valley, we're big on being data-driven. Data, data, data... and data's awesome. But what I found is that most people, when they look at data, already have a story in their head about what they think happens or what we need to do. Then they simply just search for data that's going to confirm that story, or they squeeze the data until it fits that cookie-cutter story that they want." He said, "I'm different because I just do one thing differently. I look at the data and I ask a simple question: What story is the data telling me?" And "What story is the data telling me?" is a much better question. For example, we were just looking at the Weight Watchers stock, and I asked, "What happened?" You said, "Oprah." I was like, "Oprah? What happened?" And you said, "Oprah happened." But if you actually look, the stock falls off a cliff as soon as the Ozempic trend started. That was the date Oprah left—I think in like 2014 or something. She left a long time ago, but the stock really fell off a cliff when Ozempic took off. The data is telling us that something happened in early 2023 that really hurt Weight Watchers' stock. Then I looked at what actually happened. I felt this in one of my companies too. In my e-commerce stores, we've been beating every month's forecast, and then August was the first month we didn't beat. I asked the team, "What happened?" My CMO will give one answer, our Chief Product Officer will give another answer, and then the website guy will give a different answer. How am I supposed to figure out which answer is correct? The way I figure it out is I told them, "Post the data first and then tell me the story." Because what always happens is they tell me the story first, and then they'll go find some data that might cherry-pick a bit of data that might support that, but they'll leave out a bunch of other data.

Sam Parr

Well, it's like... you ever played those things where it's like "find a word"? It's like the puzzles in the New York Times. Like, "find this word." It's like, if I already know...

Shaan Puri

I'm looking.

Sam Parr

For this word, yeah, where like if you... if I know I'm looking for this word, I think I could find it. But if you tell me that I gotta find a variety of words, I might find those first.

Shaan Puri

Exactly, exactly. So, what we did was I just flipped it. I said, "Before you give me your idea about what went wrong, can you first just show me the picture of the data? Like the full set of the data of what happened." Then it should tell us a story. So, we just started asking the question, "What story is the data telling us?" I think that is just a much better way to approach data decision-making. I think that is a great hack that this guy, who has had amazing success in his career, says, "This is one thing I do differently that I think leads to a different result." Because every time I do that, you know, it's like, "How do you be right more often?" One way is just to remove a bunch of your bad habits and biases that are causing you to make bad decisions. I think this is a good habit that would lead you to make better decisions, so I wanted to share that.

Sam Parr

That's kind of a weird... if for you to think, for him to think, "Why am I so successful?" Not weird... weird's the right word. That's a very particular.

Shaan Puri

Well, I specifically asked, "What are you doing differently?" Not "Why are you so successful?" but "What do you do that's different than the average person who's got the same skill set as you?" What is it that you do differently? So, for example...

Sam Parr

I know that it... you know.

Shaan Puri

Sam, you're a great writer. I feel like you know why you're a great writer. You might say, "Well, I practiced a bunch," or "I read," or "I naturally have a gift for it." A different question is: What do you do differently than other people who also write blog posts or write newsletters? What would your answer be?

Sam Parr

I potentially am significantly more honest than most people. I explain all of the bad sides and the good sides upfront in a particular story, which makes people like and trust me more. So, I try to be the opposite of sensational.

Shaan Puri

Yeah, you wrote an email to the mayor and you said your honest thing was in a small corner of the internet. Unpopular. I don't know if that matters to you, but I'm trying to impress you. I don't know if that worked, but I’m saying that to impress you. Nobody would say in the email, "I say that to impress you." Like, obviously, they do that to impress them, but nobody says that out loud. I think your gift is that you are willing to say the honest part out loud. That endears people to you, makes you more likable, and makes you more distinct. It makes you stand out versus the reasons that other people's writing might stand out. So I think that's a great example of the question: What is it that you actually do that's different? Versus, how do I become successful? Or, you know, how did you become successful? People will give you a different answer depending on the question.

Sam Parr

And I guess what I'm saying is calling him "weird" is not the right word because that sounds negative. What I mean is, that's such a particular and unexpected answer of like, "Oh, you just look at the data," and you're not judgmental about it. Versus coming to it with an emotion or a story to prove, it's like you're black and white about different information and you're not coming with an agenda.

Shaan Puri

It's a weirdly specific answer, I agree. Now, the caveat is this was like 10 years ago when he told me this. Also, I bet if I asked him the same question today, he would give me a different answer. Maybe that was just top of mind because of what was going on that day in his world or what he had noticed recently.

Sam Parr

Why did you... well, why did you just remember this now?

Shaan Puri

Because I saw the problem pop up in my own company, I was like, "Ugh, this is hard. I can't get to the truth because everybody already has a prebaked answer." Then when I tell them, "Hey, can we figure out what went wrong?" they say, "Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm gonna go figure it out." But really, it's just, "Oh wow, they never changed the answer." When I just said, "Hey, what went wrong?" they say, "Can somebody dive in?" and they come back with the same answer every time. It's like, "Wow, what's the point of diving in if you already had the answer?" Then when you dive in, you simply just go find one or two cherry-picked data points that support that. If I go look and I say, "Well, is that really true? What about this?" it kind of violates the narrative. So it's more like, "Maybe you're right, but that doesn't explain all of this." Then they're like, "Oh yeah, that's true." I needed my own team doing it. I think in general, if more people did this, they would be more successful, myself included. I'm guilty of this as well, where I have an immediate reaction of what we should be doing or what's bad about what we're doing or what's not working. Then I try to find data or examples that support it, versus first looking at the actual data and feedback and then saying, "What story is this telling me?"

Sam Parr

When you go through that, how often do you question if you are right or wrong? Or, put differently, what level of certainty do you have regarding your average big monthly decision?

Shaan Puri

It's a great question. What percentage certainty is my average monthly decision in situations where I have data? There are two types of decisions: 1. Decisions where we have information. 2. Decisions that will actually create information, meaning we're only going to know this by trying it, and that will gather more information.

Sam Parr

Like, here's what I mean. Every month or quarter, a business that is in the $5,000,000 to $20,000,000 range—like, somewhere in that area—it's like, "Alright, this definitely is working, but I don't know if it's going to be massive, medium, or it could even go out of business eventually." But there's something here. For those types of businesses, every quarter or month, there's a decision that can potentially change the trajectory entirely or not impact anything at all. I've noticed that it's like monthly or quarterly, and I ask myself... Before, I was very certain, like, "If I do this, I'm going to do this," or "We're going to figure it out." Now, I'm actually realizing that the decisions I make during those periods can be very impactful, both in a negative and a positive way. You can make a decision today that you pay for in 18 or 24 months. So, I used to be very confident, and now I'm less confident. I think this, but I want everyone to know: I don't know anything, right?

Shaan Puri

Right, and so...

Sam Parr

What I'm asking for you is: how do you come to these decisions with high certainty or low certainty?

Shaan Puri

I don't really think about it like that. If I had to answer that part, it would probably be **high certainty** for the next phase, the next chunk. Meaning, I know that I've looked at what the options are and what the information we have is. Of those two, once I take those... you know, I have the menu of options and I have the information that we have. I can make the right decision for this moment. That doesn't mean it's going to end up being right. It means, given what I had, that had to be the right decision. There were only other suboptimal decisions from there, but there's still some probability that that's not going to be true. I couldn't have known that because I just didn't have the information. I think I've done a good job of hitting the ball into the net. I look back because I do this often. I say, "Could I have known this?" or "Did I already know? Did I actually know deep down and ignored it?" or "Did I know or could I have known but I rushed?" I have cut those down a lot, mostly honestly because I work with Ben and I talk things out loud. When I'm talking out loud, I can literally hear... like I can litigate against my thoughts.

Shaan Puri

I can hear the holes in my argument, right? I'm comfortable enough with him to say it out loud and not feel stupid. Mid-sentence, I might say, "But actually, I think that doesn't matter at all," or "That might not even be true. I might just be saying that." I'll stop midway and just say, "But honestly, of all those things, the most important thing I said was this," and that actually wipes out all the other stuff. So never mind, let's go for a no instead of a yes. I'll just edit it midair because he makes me feel comfortable enough. We already have enough trust built up where it's only about getting it right. There is 0% about appearing right. In my other companies before, I think I was much more tied to maintaining some appearance of being smart and in charge, knowing things. I wouldn't litigate my own thoughts; I would not cross-examine them enough. I think that led to a lot of bad decisions before.

Sam Parr

And the reason I'm bringing that up is that I'm feeling this is a similar thing as I get a little bit older. Sometimes I have more success, and sometimes not. What I'm learning is that there are a million different ways to get different things done. For example, we saw the "founder mode" thing go viral, and everyone loved it. Maybe that is right for certain people. I could point to many examples of successes that are the exact opposite. They violate exactly what that person is saying is the law. As I grow and start making some of these decisions, I'm learning a little bit. It's becoming more about surrendering to the idea that I know nothing. It's like going back to where you were when you were 18 years old, feeling like, "I don't know the right way." When you're a little bit younger, you read all these books, like "The Lean Startup." According to "The Lean Startup," we have to do this, this, and this. So you just do that, and sometimes it works. But there are so many different ways to make the same thing work. Because of that, I find myself significantly less confident in having the right answer, but I'm kind of okay with it.

Shaan Puri

Well, I think there's a difference between confidence and certainty. I'm definitely less certain, but that doesn't necessarily mean I'm less confident. I can be confident that this is the right decision to make, but I can also agree that, hey, there's low certainty here that this is going to work or that this is correct. One of the things that's helped me is to figure out some words to describe this. What I found was that one of the big leaks was that I was miscommunicating my own certainty to others. I talk in a very confident way, or I'll say, "Let's do this." Even though in my mind I'm thinking, "Let's do this, and then we'll know by next Friday," or "We'll try it three times, and then we'll know after three times whether this was the right path or the wrong path." But I want to go try it three times. I want to give it three weeks, or I want to give it three months. I know that for certain, but that was coming across to other people like, "This is the way, and this is the right answer." Then they got a lot of whiplash when that would change. I'm like, "Why are you getting whiplash? We were looking to try it to know if this was the correct path or not, and it turns out we're going to turn." So, I found that I use this phrase a lot now, which is "let's turn over another card," which is like a poker term. In poker, you operate with your hand first; you have your two cards. You just know, "Should I fold here, or is it worth seeing the flop?" So, I'll say, "Let's see the flop here." The "let's see the flop" means let's take the call with the person, let's take the meeting, let's make the prototype, let's draft the thing, let's write down the plan, and then let's see after that if we want to do it or not. Sometimes we'll say, "You know what? Let's turn over another card," which means let's get to the next milestone of information.

Shaan Puri

Where we will have more certainty of whether this is the correct thing to do or not. That language at least taught my little team, which is, they know now how much like, "Yes, we are doing this. We're committed to doing this step, but we're not committed to doing the next 1,000 steps." Because we're going to turn over another card and we're going to find out some more information. We're going to find out, "Oh, we think this guy is really great. Should we hire him? Let's turn over another card, let's do some reference checks, and let's give him the project." We don't need to debate more. We've already debated as much as we need to, given the information we have at this point. It's about getting more information. The other thing that's helped a lot is being specific about what information we need. So often, Ben will hit me with something like, "Well, let's see," or, "Yeah, I just want to look into it more," or, "I want to try it out." Then we'll just pause and be like, "Cool, what specific information do you think you lack right now?" If we don't have enough information to make a decision, what is the information we need? Then you often realize, "Actually, I just didn't feel confident enough to make a decision right now. I don't even really know what I'm looking for." So even if I spend another few weeks thinking about this or exploring this, I'm going to do it haphazardly because I don't have clarity on even what I'm looking for. I don't know what question I'm trying to answer here. Therefore, I'm probably going to still be as uncertain three weeks from now as I am today. But when you try to pin down, "Well, what do we really need to make this decision?" or "What extra information do we need to know?" you might be able to make the decision that afternoon.

Sam Parr

Mhmm, yeah. I mean, I guess I've become old, but I thoroughly enjoy it. These are the things I think about lately. It's just like, "Am I making the right decision?" You know, like what's that one smart dude say? "A life unexamined is a worthless life." What's that dude's name? Socrates. So I'm like examining some of my decisions and things like that. Anyway, I could talk about this stuff all day, but it gets pretty nerdy, I think.

Shaan Puri

I have another little exercise for you. I do this thing; it's on the wall over here, you can't see it, but I take every month and I just make a box. So it's like a 12-box grid. In it, we'll look back and we'll say, "Okay, last 6 months."

Sam Parr

A 12-box grid.

Shaan Puri

Each month is like a box. I just create a calendar-like layout, and then we look back and identify the one thing we did, or the things that made a significant impact that month. For example, we might have worked 24 days out of the month, but when you zoom out and reflect, you realize that only a few things actually mattered. Similarly, this could be a decision we made, a product we launched, or a buy/sell decision. It could even be a hiring or firing decision. We write these down in big font, so it’s something you can read from about 10 feet away. This means you can't just jot down your entire to-do list. When we do this, it’s surprising how each month has an embarrassingly low number of impactful items—usually just 1 to 3. Everything else is just the cost of doing business; it’s the noise that surrounds those few important things. The good part about reviewing this is that the more you look back, the more you start to recognize what might be the key focus for the month. You begin to realize, "Oh, this is probably going to be the thing that matters." This encourages you to focus and get that part right, as it could compensate for all the random activity and motion throughout the month. You start to see patterns of what could make it into that box, and you know those are the things that truly matter. So, this month, it seems like this is probably going to be the thing we end up writing in the box.

Sam Parr

And you never write it before.

Shaan Puri

Well, I don't know exactly before, right? Like, on a given day, I kind of know what I'm focusing on. In a given week, I kind of know what would make for a good week. But when I zoom out, it's like, you know, the decision to invest in X or the decision to bring on this person. This trip that we took had those five meetings in person that would not have been the same over Zoom. You know, spending those two days with that person who we think is just an awesome value add to our life. They are such a fun, awesome person, and going deep with that person rather than keeping it surface level. Little things like that. Or it's the decision to stop working on X project. That was the main thing we did that month, and that was huge because had we not done that, we wouldn't have had the time and the bandwidth to do this thing the next month. So it's usually things of that level.

Sam Parr

That's pretty good. I'm going to start doing that. Is that it? Is that the pod? Are we doing a Sarah's list on Wednesday?

Shaan Puri

Next episode, we're going to do Sarah's List. I have probably 6 or 7 companies right now that I think are good contenders for it. If you don't know Sarah's List, we'll do the teaser here: Sam's wife, Sarah, blew my mind. Sam and I were entrepreneurs, taking maximum risk and living off of nothing. You know, like Sam was paying himself about $20 a year or something like that at the time. I looked at what we were doing, which was this kind of 1 in 20 shot of success, mostly eating shit every day. We had to be innovative and take high risks. Then we looked at Sarah, who joined companies like Airbnb and Facebook—companies that I could have told you in my sleep were winners. She joined as employee 400 or 1,000 or something like that, not even betting on it when it was among the first 10 employees. The basic math was that if you get a job where you're making, let's just say, I don't know her number, so I'm just going to make this up: you get a job with a base salary of $150,000 a year, and then they give you a stock option grant that’s going to give you $40,000 a year of stock on top of that. So you get, let's say, a $200,000-ish stock package. If that company just basically 4x's or 5x's in a 4-year time span, you've made $1,000,000 without taking any of the risks that we were taking as entrepreneurs. And she did that multiple times. We realized, wow, there is a set of companies that are like... they're past the...

Shaan Puri

Of like, they're going out of business... out of the death trap of our, you know, the highly likely to die area. These are great businesses that will just keep growing and compounding. You could join them today as employee 500, and you will become a millionaire without doing any of the entrepreneurial stuff if you could just identify the kind of like 10 companies a year that fit that mold. So we take a stab at identifying those 10 companies, and that's what we call Sarah's list.

Sam Parr

And that episode, we're going to record Wednesday, so I gotta prepare for it. I have a couple of ideas, but it's really hard. This is actually a difficult list to make because I don't want to... you're not exactly giving advice, but some people take it as such. So, I want to make sure that it's good.

Shaan Puri

Well, we've also done a look back at the last time we did it, and I think our hit rate is pretty good. We'll do it again. We'll go look at an update and see what the hit rate of the ones we did last time was. We do not proclaim to be, you know, that these are all going to work. No way, right? That's not it.

Sam Parr

And the hit rate's good because we pick things that are obvious, and they get big.

Shaan Puri

Then it's like, duh, it's all relative to the current valuation of the company, right? So, oh yeah, that was already a $1,000,000,000 company. Cool, it's $6 now, so it's 6 times. Your $200,000 stock package is 6 times now.

Sam Parr

Alright, that's today's pod. We'll talk to you Wednesday.