Metaverse IRL, Bollywood Protein Powder & AI Gadgets That Suck (#507)
Metaverse, Wearables, India Fitness, and Parking Lots - October 13, 2023 (over 1 year ago) • 48:58
Transcript:
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Shaan Puri | Whenever I hear stuff like this, like when people say, "You know, money doesn't make you that happy," or "After this amount, it doesn't really do anything for you," it's like, yeah, you're probably right. But I'm just gonna check.
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Sam Parr | yeah I would like to find out I'd like to find out I'm a | |
Shaan Puri | go ahead and I'm a go ahead and test for myself yeah | |
Sam Parr | Alright, we're live. Can I start the podcast by doing something that you're going to dislike? Can I complain? I want to complain... oh.
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Shaan Puri | everybody wants that | |
Sam Parr | I'm having a really **shitty week** and I'm having a **horrible day**.
So basically, in my personal life, there's some stuff going on. We thought the pregnancy was going to have one due date, but now it might be another day. I don't have the supplies I need, so I have to go and buy the stuff this weekend that I think I need. I'm really stressed about that.
At Hampton, we are dealing with having to make policies that I'm not used to making, like maternity leave and things like that. Those conversations are exhausting to me.
Then, I got sick this week and I took this medicine that made me bloated. I don't know if you can tell by my face, but I've gained **15 pounds** in the last **3 days**. I feel like you need to poke me with a needle and let out some air. I feel miserable. All of my fitness gains that I've made in **3 years** feel completely erased.
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Shaan Puri | rank those from worst to least worst | |
Sam Parr | the bloat is the number one | |
Shaan Puri | worst thing to be right | |
Sam Parr | It has to be... but listen, I have the worst thing. Listen to this; you'll find this hilarious.
I did David Perell's podcast. He asked me to look at his edits. I log in, and let me read to you the first edit that he made. His editor wrote, "This is a note from David. He goes, 'Hey, can you remove the "I love Nazis" part? It's a little distracting. Clean it up.'"
Basically, on the podcast, he was like, "What do you like to read lately?" I was like, "Oh, you know, I've been loving history. I've been loving war in particular. I love Nazis; I like reading about that." And I just log in and I'm like, "Remove the 'I love Nazis' part."
So anyway, I've had a hell of a day, dude. I feel bad, and it's like 11 AM. Am I being... am I soft right now? Or should we just pull the plug on everything? Whoa, whoa, whoa.
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Shaan Puri | millionaire has gas or whatever | |
Sam Parr | by the way really funny we we were at a dinner | |
Shaan Puri | With these guys who are like these other founder-investor type guys, someone was like, "Oh, do you want this?" and Ben goes, "Nah, I'm kidding."
Like, "What? You don't like this?" He goes, "Nah, I just feel bloated."
Then the whole table turned.
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Sam Parr | And looked at him, they were like, "Are you a pregnant woman? Why are you saying you feel bloated?" I was like, I never heard a guy say, "I feel bloated."
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Shaan Puri | I'm not saying it doesn't happen, but I am saying you should never say it. It's just one of the facts.
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Sam Parr | it's the what what was | |
Shaan Puri | your list of like drinking from a straw holding a cup | |
Sam Parr | of coffee drink from straws holding a | |
Shaan Puri | Saying "bloated" is now on that official list of things to never do. It makes you look super soft.
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Sam Parr | Men do not drink from straws. Men never hold mugs or cups with two hands. That's a rule; you don't do that.
Another rule that I'm thinking about making is: if you get a drink and there's a lid on it, you always take the lid off.
And for sure, for sure, men do not stay bloated. Yeah, yeah, we could add that to the list. Add it.
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Shaan Puri | To the list. Alright, good, good. We got that settled.
Okay, so besides your petty complaints, where do we want to start? What do you got?
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Sam Parr | so you have facebook are you talking about the lex mark interview mark | |
Shaan Puri | Yeah, so I see this thing. Lex Friedman does this interview with Mark Zuckerberg, and here's the setup about it. I don't know when Facebook rebranded to Meta, but I think it was like two years ago or a year and a half ago when they changed the name to Meta. People are like, "Okay, why?" And he's like, "Because the metaverse."
The metaverse might be getting on that bloated list of words you should just never say. It's like if I was like, "Hey guys, I'm logging in to the information superhighway real quick."
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Sam Parr | it's like you know how they used to call the | |
Shaan Puri | The internet, back in the nineties, is what they called the internet. So, you know, the metaverse was always this dorky thing. And, you know...
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Sam Parr | the problem with it was like people | |
Shaan Puri | are like oh okay must be is it awesome is there something awesome | |
Sam Parr | I don't know about and then he they're like so what what is it mark | |
Shaan Puri |
And he's like, "Well, it's digital identities and avatars." And they're like, "Oh no, we're LARPing now? What are we talking about here?"
So then the demo... Ari, can you pull this up? Pull up the initial demo where he was like, "The future of work, check it out! Facebook's Horizons" or whatever. And he pulls up this...
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Sam Parr | that's me | |
Shaan Puri | goofy avatar of sam parr | |
Sam Parr | if you're on youtube you can check | |
Shaan Puri | It’s this absolute cartoon, like the Sims version of Mark Zuckerberg standing in front of a tiny Eiffel Tower, which makes no sense. They were like, “Yeah, you don’t need to do business meetings on Zoom anymore; you could do this.” And everyone’s like, “I’ll never do that.”
So, you know, it looks... I mean, the stock price tanks. People are like, “He’s wasting all this money on the metaverse. He’s, you know, this guy’s clueless,” and the stock tanks. But I always believed, as you know, we are pro-Zuck on this podcast.
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Sam Parr | he's hard to bet against | |
Shaan Puri | He's hard to bet against. So, I start buying the stock. I'm like that guy who liked the GameStop stock, you know? And he's like, "I like the stock."
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Sam Parr | I like the stock by the | |
Shaan Puri | way did you see the movie that came out or the show that came out about that on netflix | |
Sam Parr | I'm gonna watch it yeah I'm watching it | |
Shaan Puri | for sure it's a solid b + it's like a for guys like us it's entertaining we're gonna we're gonna make that the official | |
Sam Parr | rating of dab we're gonna call it dab decent at best that's our new rating it's dab | |
Shaan Puri | how is that | |
Sam Parr | it's dab yes exactly so so anyways we | |
Shaan Puri | We like the stock. We buy it because we believe that this guy is not going to go all in and lose.
Now, fast forward about a year. Here’s what the metaverse looks like now. He goes on Lex Fridman’s podcast. It looks like he and Lex are talking to each other, but they’re actually thousands of miles apart doing this podcast. They’re wearing the new Quest device or whatever.
Check this out: this is unbelievably realistic. It looks identical to their faces—the freckles on their noses, the lighting, the mouth movements while they’re talking. It’s super, super realistic, which is funny because both of these guys barely move their mouths, actually. So it looks a little stiff, but it’s because Lex Fridman and Mark Zuckerberg...
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Sam Parr | stiff | |
Shaan Puri | The stiffest guys on the planet. You know, the guys who don't show emotion. So it wasn't really that good of a demo in that sense, but kind of amazing. Now, it had a black backdrop; like, they don't have the background stuff built yet.
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Sam Parr | But yeah, so explain how that works.
So basically, what I'm seeing is Lex and Mark are wearing what looks like an Oculus, but slightly different. It's basically an Oculus. Are there cameras outside of the...? | |
Shaan Puri | That's it! Wow, that's it. So, they're wearing this headset, and what happened is they both did this scanning process.
Right now, it's not like a sustainable thing, but that purple image is the 3D codec scan, basically. They went and got this scan done, which today is kind of a manual process to do this.
In the future, the device itself or your phone will be able to do this scan for you. You'll just... it's like Xbox has a thing called Kinect. I think it works the same way. You basically stand in front of it one time, look to the left, look to the right, look up, say these 10 sentences, and move your hands around. If it's like, "Cool, I've now recreated you perfectly digitally," from now on, that's how it will be.
By the way, this is going to be like the DMV. What ends up happening is whatever you look like when you got scanned, that's you online now. So, I could be sitting there with disheveled hair, having not showered, with a beard on my face, but if my avatar is when I looked my best, that's how everybody will see me in my meetings and on the podcast or whatever. | |
Sam Parr | It's like when you die and go to heaven. What do you imagine someone to look like? You know, like which age are they for eternity? That's sort of like this, you know what I mean?
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Shaan Puri | I feel like it should be whatever you remember them by; that's what you see. So, you know, that would be my hope.
Right now, they're doing this 3D scan to create this advanced model. That's the thing—why is this not released to everybody? They have to figure out how to do that scan just like on a phone so that anyone could do it.
But after that, the thing was incredible. I just think about the progress in one year from that cartoon.
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Sam Parr | that's awesome cartoon avatar in front | |
Shaan Puri |
... of the Eiffel Tower. This is unbelievable! And now, when you see this, you're like, "Oh, okay, I kinda get this metaverse thing." Like, this is cool. They were hanging out in a room, they could play ping pong together, they could do an interview together without ever having to travel, without ever having to leave their space. That is pretty impressive.
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Sam Parr | Dude, what do you think about Mark Zuckerberg's patience? When everyone was like, "Nerd, what are you doing? This is the stupidest thing ever!" he knew how amazing this was going to be.
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Shaan Puri | Did I just imagine like the Arthur fist? He just clenches his Arthur fist. If that's his only outlet of emotion, then he's like, "Continue." Nothing changes.
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Sam Parr |
He just walks around with a notebook and he'll cross a name off a list every once in a while. Like "revenge... haters... got them." Or you'll just see someone like they put on...
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Shaan Puri | high school crush then it's the winklevoss twins and now the list is just super long | |
Sam Parr |
Like someone will insult him in an interview and he'll be like, "Hold that thought," and pull up his notebook. Until you see him in a bill... Sean with two 'a's... or cut it. No, no.
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Shaan Puri | no mark I like the stock I like the stock | |
Sam Parr | Dude, he's totally pulled this off. We always have said this, but imagine this: a guy who's been at the top of the game since he was 20 years old. He's married to the same woman the entire time, has a happy family, has hobbies, and has never had a major scandal—at least nothing involving his personality. Super ripped.
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Shaan Puri | don't forget | |
Sam Parr | super ripped fit seems pretty nice this guy's awesome man by the | |
Shaan Puri | The way you just described LeBron James is also an exact description of LeBron James. Also, yeah.
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Sam Parr | They are the same. They both were big shots at the age of 20. They're both ripped to certain degrees, or different degrees. They both have never had major issues. LeBron has been with his high school girlfriend forever, right? They're married.
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Shaan Puri | savannah yeah | |
Sam Parr | and and he has a bunch of kids and like his family it seems like | |
Shaan Puri | I saw LeBron at the Wynn Casino one time, and I was like, "LeBron!" Then I went up to him and tried to dap him up. His security was there, but he was walking, so I wasn't bothered. It was clear I was being quick; I got off the blackjack table just to do it.
When I tell you that my hand was a tiny pebble in this man's giant hand, I have never felt so... honestly, so supported. I felt so taken care of when I just put my hand in this guy's giant mitt. It was unbelievable to see a human hand just wrap around my whole hand.
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Sam Parr | yeah women aren't the only people who like to be hugged and like | |
Shaan Puri | everybody needs a big spoon and I found mine it's lebron james | |
Sam Parr | Yeah, alright. So, have you heard, dude? Wait, have you seen this thing, Zozofit? Z-O-Z-O-F-I-T.
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Shaan Puri | oh was this the like motion capture thing | |
Sam Parr |
It's a suit. This guy in Japan came out with this thing... That's right, I've been paying attention to this for 10 years. It has never lived up to its hype.
I've been [excited] about this forever, but it's a suit that they send you. It's a bodysuit you put on, and they claim that it knows all the dimensions of your body. Then you could buy clothing that fits perfectly to it.
It doesn't work [as promised].
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Shaan Puri | That Sam's been telling me about for 7 years: Denim, Brett Adcock, and Zozo Fit.
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Sam Parr | I love Zozo Fit! Man, I've wanted it to work because I've got huge thighs and a fat ass. So, finding pants for me is... | |
Shaan Puri | weird facts but okay | |
Sam Parr | I've it's just it is what it is just | |
Shaan Puri | well explain this guy so this guy is a japanese billionaire right like he's like a | |
Sam Parr |
He's a Japanese billionaire. He came up with a media company, which I think is originally how I found him. Then his new venture was starting a clothing company. He planned to mail everyone a "Zozo suit" for free so you can find [your perfect fit].
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Shaan Puri | perfect fit | |
Sam Parr | Right, like perfect fitting clothing. It turns out I think the clothing company didn't even do that well, but people were like, "Yeah, can I just get this Dozo fit thing and just use it for everything? Also, tell me if my muscles are getting bigger or if I'm losing weight. Tell me about it all."
So he just says, "Alright, fine. It's $50; like, it's going to be really cheap, and you use your phone." It's like when you see the "Lord of the Rings" movies being made and they're wearing these weird suits with these balls on them. It's basically that—it's a suit like that.
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Shaan Puri | by the way | |
Sam Parr | and you're like | |
Shaan Puri | Somebody should be making this with just AI now. You know, like calorie counting apps have been around forever.
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Sam Parr | yeah and you | |
Shaan Puri | used to have to man you know you'd be like okay it's lunch and you'd open myfitnesspal or whatever and you'd be like | |
Sam Parr | I've been using myfitnesspal every day for years | |
Shaan Puri | And you would be like, "Yeah, I had a chicken salad." They're like, "How many ounces of chicken?" It's like, "I don't know, dude. I didn't weigh it."
"Eight ounces?"
They're like, "Cool. Light dressing or medium?"
And it's like, "I don't know. That sounds like a personal question. What are you asking me about?"
So, you had to manually input all this. Well, now there are these apps like Snap Calorie and stuff like that. You just take a picture of the thing, and it's good enough now where it can actually guess the calories.
I would say it's still not all the way there because it doesn't know, let's say, how much oil was used in cooking this, for example. But we're getting to that point where you could just take a picture, and it knows the calorie count.
Well, I think we're also going to get to the point where if I'm on some e-commerce site and I'm like, "Am I a large or a medium? I don't really know." I'm going to be able to click a button, and it's going to turn on my camera. It's just going to scan my body and be like, "You're an extra large. I hate to break it to you."
And, you know, that's what's going to happen here.
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Sam Parr | you're 61 like ÂŁ200 you don't wear mediums | |
Shaan Puri | in the metaverse I could be any size I want sam right I might be a small to | |
Sam Parr | medium I might be | |
Shaan Puri | Just medium, but you get what I'm saying. I think that this is all going to become like, "Oh, your phone can just do that now." You don't need to wear this haptic bodysuit from Zozofit. That's where this is definitely going.
If I were a really smart team that was good with computer vision and that sort of thing, I would do something like this. It might not even work for the first year, but like two years from now, it should be able to work really well.
Then, that is a thing you could sell to every e-commerce site in the world because every e-commerce site wants lower returns. Every apparel and fashion brand wants lower returns. The way they can do that is by getting the perfect fit for people.
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Sam Parr | what's do you wanna talk about rewind or the clav klaviyo thing | |
Shaan Puri | Yeah, oh, one last thing on the Facebook topic. Here’s my random prediction: in 10 to 15 years, Facebook, or rather Meta, is going to own the largest work platform. I think they’re going to be the Zoom or whatever, because this experience where it feels like you’re in the same room as a person, and you can pull up PowerPoints together, you can do all that stuff without traditional video conferencing.
I think whoever does that right is going to take over the work call space, and I don’t see who could do it better than Facebook at this point. They have such a lead in terms of technology.
So, I think we’ll look back and tell our kids, “Yeah, Facebook back then used to be about sharing photos of yourself at parties from college,” and they’ll be like, “What? The thing I use for work every day?” It’s like, yeah, that’s the difference. I think in 10 years, it’s going to be like that.
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Sam Parr | I have some cash sitting around that I was going to use to pay taxes. Should I just hold it?
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Shaan Puri | that for you | |
Sam Parr | Yeah, should Mark Zuckerberg keep an eye on my money for me? Exactly, you're holding his money, alright. | |
Shaan Puri | So now, rewind. Did you see this thing that came out? It was pretty controversial. There are two companies that came out with this on the same day, which we'll just say "rewind" because that's the one I remember the name of.
It's this pendant she wears, so it's like a necklace. It's like, you know, the Angelina Jolie necklace where she was wearing the blood of a small child in Africa or something? Yeah, I don't know what's going on, but like it...
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Sam Parr | It was worse. It was Billy Bob Thornton. It was... what's it like? The blood is the blood of Billy Bob Thornton, just like motor oil, just sweat. | |
Shaan Puri | So, there's this pendant that you wear now. I don't know if you saw this, but it can, while you're wearing it, record everything—everything you say and everything that's said to you. It's going to automatically transcribe that and then save it locally on your phone.
So, if you're ever wondering, "What did that person say?" or "What did my wife ask for groceries?" or "Did that person incriminate themselves?" you can now have all that transcribed and stored for you on your phone. Some people...
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Sam Parr | are like did that guy reveal where the bodies are or not | |
Shaan Puri |
Yeah, we found out if Adnan Syed killed that girl or not. You know, he wore the Rewind pendant. He was an early adopter.
So, there's this... A bunch of people were dunking on him on Twitter. I think he tweeted out like, "1,700 people bought the thing on day 1," which is not that much. Like, I don't know, it's... You know, maybe that's... What is it? 1,700? It's like $60 a thing. [That's] $100,000 of revenue on day 1.
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Sam Parr | not that good | |
Shaan Puri | Day 1 of his thing... not that good. The tweet that went viral was like, "Oh, so we're just gonna be wearing a wire now?" Like, oh, this... | |
Sam Parr | is so we're just gonna walk around | |
Shaan Puri | we're gonna voluntarily just wear a wire | |
Sam Parr | great | |
Shaan Puri | I gotta say, at the same time, the answer is "yeah." You know what? You also carry around a GPS tracker with your location at all times that also has a microphone on it. You know what else you do? You have a camera device on you when you're in the bathroom taking a shower.
Like, we have already given up privacy everywhere, right? The line I used in my newsletter was, "Privacy is like vegetables. We give it up; we'll happily give it up for just the promise of a moment of pleasure or convenience."
That's because that's the junk food. We just go for the junk food. That's the reality of the situation. Very few people will opt for vegetables when they have the option for junk food. If this is tech that can either save you time, give you entertainment, or allow you to be lazier in some way, people are gonna do that.
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Sam Parr | I remember my family. I had some family members who were like, "Oh, this vaccine is just for Bill Gates to track us."
I'm like, "Hey, Uncle Ron, listen. He already tracks you. He already knows the story."
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Shaan Puri | I track you with find my eyes yeah | |
Sam Parr | Like "Find My Friends," I know where you went all day today. You shared your location with me.
Like, remember that 23andMe thing where we send in our blood? It's already being tracked. Okay, like, you're already being monitored. Mr. Gates already has everything he needs, so he doesn't need to do this.
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Shaan Puri | Hey Ron, you deleted your cookies anytime recently?
Yeah, oh, I forgot to delete my cookies.
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Sam Parr | Yeah, so like Bill Gates, he has what he needs. I will not be wearing this thing. Rewind, I don't wear any wearables because I don't want to be tracked. This just stresses me out. | |
Shaan Puri | That's surprising to me because I feel like you've done all of the blood testing, age testing, and injected random chemicals that some dude on Reddit said helped him feel stronger. Inject that in your butt. Like, on one hand, you're willing...
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Sam Parr | I'm drug free at the moment | |
Shaan Puri | well at the moment is the key phrase there so | |
Sam Parr | by the way it feels way less good | |
Shaan Puri | by the way hate it | |
Sam Parr | yeah it sucks | |
Shaan Puri | Why are you resistant to some of these trackers, but then in other cases, you're very into measurement and whatnot?
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Sam Parr | I am kind of like going to the more pure lifestyle, whereas I want less. I don't want drugs, and I don't want my cell phone. Most of the time when I go out, I don't bring a phone.
Yeah, like when I go out, I won't bring a phone. I have a Tesla, so I can use the directions on my car. For example, I went out to eat last night, and I didn't bring a phone.
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Shaan Puri | what | |
Sam Parr | is that weird yeah | |
Shaan Puri | yeah that's very weird | |
Sam Parr | I don't I I won't bring it so I I just don't bring it what happens | |
Shaan Puri | If you need to text someone, or what happens if somebody calls you? What happens if you get bored for 3 seconds and you need entertainment? What do you do?
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Sam Parr | Yeah, I don't... I just don't break a phone. Most places, I don't break a phone. So, like, if I'm going out for the day on Saturday, I won't have my phone with me.
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Shaan Puri | okay mister I'm better than everybody | |
Sam Parr | so you're saying about my telenas what were you saying no I | |
Shaan Puri | yeah | |
Sam Parr | So, I just have gone from... like, I used to have a Whoop. I had an Apple Watch. The only trackable thing I use is 8 Sleep, and I only use that because it makes my bed cold. But I don't even track any of that.
I don't track anything. I do the blood work stuff because that's just a fun hobby. But, yeah, my hobby is like pain. I like getting poked with needles. But, yeah, I don't do any of that stuff.
Do you track yourself? Like, do you... I like Whoop, I just don't want to track any of that shit. I don't care.
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Shaan Puri | I'm not a huge tracker. I actually just bought this Oura ring because I wanted to test my sleep before getting the surgery for my deviated septum and after. I wanted to see if my sleep improved or not. But normally, I'm not a big tracker. But yeah, I do take my phone, please.
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Sam Parr | yeah no I don't track any of that stuff so I'm not gonna be buying this thing are you | |
Shaan Puri |
I'm not gonna buy this thing, but I do... if I can. It's sort of inevitable. Like, I think if you just track forward in the future, we're gonna have... we're gonna wear a device on us that's a camera and a microphone, and we're just gonna...
Which actually brings me to the second Facebook announcement. Did you see the glasses that they had? The new Ray-Ban things?
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Sam Parr | so no but let me pull | |
Shaan Puri | It up... I've had the spectacles, I've had this... None of them have quite stuck yet. But it is kind of amazing. The demo is really cool. He's like, "Watch this! I can basically livestream, you know, just hands-free."
If I'm at something cool or whatever, I want to share this on my Instagram or share this with my friends. I can just push this button on my glasses, and it's a camera that's going to capture this.
Or if I'm at the park—this is a big one for me—I'm at the park with my kids. There are so many of these great moments, and just literally, it sounds stupid, it sounds petty, but the time it takes to get your phone out of your pocket, unlock your phone, get to the camera app, and do it... the moment is gone.
So I had these Ray-Bans that Facebook made that, while I'm working out or while I'm with my kids at the park or whatever, I can just quickly record anything on the fly. It just grabs the next 15 seconds and saves it to my phone personally. Then, if I wanted to share that, I could.
The video turns out really cool; it's like a first-person view. So I definitely am excited about this. I think this is another one of these breakthroughs I'm waiting for. I'm actually less interested in the glasses that show your email to your eyeballs. I don't really hear so much about that.
But a camera that's an always-on camera, I think is really cool to be able to share cool moments. Of course, there are privacy concerns or whatever, but I think it's going to happen.
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Sam Parr | I think it's weird that I trust... I kind of trust Facebook privacy-wise. Do you?
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Shaan Puri |
Well, you know what it is? It's kind of like that family member that... actually has, you know, they've done some shit, but they're like... I've known them for 32 years now. You know, like I guess I just kind of default to them. You know, at the end of the day, if I'm leaving my keys to somebody, it's the one I've known for 30 years versus... you know, even though they've gotten into some sticky spots. But like, I feel like it's a known evil versus an unknown evil in that sense.
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Sam Parr | yeah I kinda trust them for some reason I I definitely trust them | |
Shaan Puri | By the way, people in the comments are going to hate this because there's still a huge population of people that hate Zuck, hate Facebook, and hate that we say we trust Facebook. That's like blasphemous to a lot of people.
Anyways, let's move on.
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Sam Parr | Alright, listen. So, let me bring up this topic, and I want to hear about your experience with this.
Two companies went public in the last couple of weeks. You're probably big fans of both of them. I think you're more of a fan of one of them. What's it called? Klaviyo? Klaviyo? Klaviyo?
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Shaan Puri | yeah I I don't know which letter you | |
Sam Parr | say it | |
Shaan Puri | I call it klaviyo | |
Sam Parr | I think it's Klaviyo. So, Klaviyo is sort of like... it does everything. It's the email software, but mostly for Shopify folks, right?
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Shaan Puri |
For e-commerce, yeah. So if you want to send emails, you know, "Oh, your order is confirmed" or things like that. After somebody comes to my site and I grab their email address, email them every day until they purchase... for the rest of their life. You know, that sort of thing.
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Sam Parr |
So they went public. Let me see what their market cap is today... They went public, and right now their market cap is $8 or 9 billion. The founder, when it went public, he owned roughly 40% of the company still, which is amazing.
Another company went public... This guy started... What's the guy's name? [He] started Instacart. You know, I bet you've had run-ins with him.
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Shaan Puri | indian guy apoorva I think | |
Sam Parr | He seemed like a great guy. When he went public, he only owned 10% of the business.
What's crazy is, I tell people that your cap table is the one thing in your company that is irreversible for mistakes. Besides that, most mistakes you make—most, not all—you can reverse or fix. The cap table is the one thing you can't fix.
When I was starting a few of my companies, I remember wanting to raise money. I thought, "Oh, what's 10% here? What's 10% there?" I would just make my employee pool... you know, most people only make it 10%. We were going to make it 18%. We were going to go big! If the company succeeds, everyone should succeed.
I was really loosey-goosey with equity, and that's one of those things where now, when I look at people, it's like when they tell me, "Oh, you gotta sign this NDA before I tell you my idea," I think, "Oh, that's silly." That just shows me proof that you don't know what you're doing.
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Shaan Puri | right | |
Sam Parr | But with equity, it's actually one of the very few things that's really, really important.
So the difference between these two cap tables—the difference between 10% and 40%—we're talking like $5,000,000,000, which is, yeah, just huge.
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Shaan Puri | I don't know if it's a mistake versus one is a capital-intensive startup and one is software that's not as capital-intensive.
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Sam Parr | Well, both. I think both.
Instacart is, I guess, capital intensive. Maybe I actually don't know where that would be. Maybe it's the middle ground of capital intensive. Whereas Klaviyo, you could actually argue it's also middle because you have to hire lots of engineers. But maybe not.
My feeling is I actually think that people are too willy-nilly with their equity early on.
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Shaan Puri | right | |
Sam Parr |
I made that mistake at my first company, and it's a horrible, horrible mistake—one that you cannot recover from. There are so many examples. I know a guy who sold his company for $1 billion... well, actually $980 million. He made $3 million from it. I swear to God, it was because, as he explained:
> "We had 4 co-founders, we raised a lot of money, I gave so much equity to employees... it was insane."
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Shaan Puri |
He's like, "I lost my share certificates. I just don't know where to put them." Like, what's happening? How is that possible?
Have you heard the story of how Instacart got into Y Combinator?
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Sam Parr | No, oh, is that where they went and bought literally every grocery ever at Trader Joe's?
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Shaan Puri | No, I think that might be a different story. That's also probably a good one.
But basically, the story is like this: they were trying to apply late. All the Y Combinator (YC) partners were like, "No, sorry, it's too late to get into this batch. You'll have to wait for the next one."
Gary Tan, who is now the current president of YC, said, "You could submit a late application, but it'll be nearly impossible to get you in."
And they were like, "So you're saying there's a chance?"
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Sam Parr | like well | |
Shaan Puri | They read "nearly impossible" as possible. Yeah, right, because technically it's true.
Then they put together the application and get the reply the next day: "No." So they get rejected. He's like, "Okay, how about this?"
He opens up his Instacart app and buys a six-pack of beer. He sends it to the Y Combinator headquarters for Gary Tan and tells the driver, "Hey, this is important. Text me when you know it's done."
Then Gary Tan calls him and says, "Hey, what is this?" He replies, "This is the thing I was applying with. This is Instacart. I just went on my phone and ordered you groceries. I ordered you a six-pack of beer, and one of our delivery guys dropped it off."
It's the same thing that Jesse Itzler was saying the other day, where he was talking about the difference between a pitch and a presentation. It's the difference between the paper pitch versus getting someone to feel the experience.
It's that same thing. So Gary then emails the partners and he's like, "At that..." | |
Shaan Puri | I think that they called him back and they were like, "Hey, I can't believe we're doing this. We've never let anyone end the slate, but if you're interested, we'd like to have you."
For Y Combinator (YC), that means YC owns 7% of this company that ended up being worth, you know, $6,000,000,000. That one decision also goes to show the power of brand.
YC was not trying; they weren't hunting down Instacart and having some genius idea. It's that the founders wanted that YC stamp, that brand, so badly that they were willing to jump through hoops and push through a "no" to get to a "yes."
And YC gets to make $100 of $1,000,000 off of it. That's the power of having a brand that people recognize, care about, and feel like it's going to help their odds of success.
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Sam Parr | Yeah, man, those guys have killed it. Then Paul Graham just **effed off** and lives in England now, in the woods, writing poetry and playing frisbee with his kids. Yeah.
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Shaan Puri | He booked the win, which nobody does. He's like, "Cool, I'm out of the race now. I'm gonna go enjoy my life." Not allowed.
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Hubspot |
"Our software is the worst." Have you heard of HubSpot? See, most CRMs are a cobbled-together mess, but HubSpot is easy to adopt and actually looks gorgeous.
"I think I love our new CRM. Our software is the best!"
HubSpot: Grow better.
Which one do you want to do?
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Shaan Puri | Yeah, okay. So, I don't even know really why this fascinates me, but it does.
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Sam Parr | this is | |
Shaan Puri | a little primer for this do you know what the indian hollywood is called | |
Sam Parr | bollywood | |
Shaan Puri | Bollywood, correct? You know that's the $100 question.
Okay, here's the $200 question: Do you know that Bollywood is the second biggest movie industry in the world?
Yes? Okay, good! There you go, that's a freebie.
Now, what you don't know, or what you probably don't know, is that Bollywood...
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Sam Parr | Famous people in Bollywood are like the most famous people on Earth, aren't they? It's like George Clooney times ten.
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Shaan Puri | Yes, exactly. So, like Shah Rukh Khan or Amitabh Bachchan, these guys are like gods. Meaning, if they get the flu or they get sick, there are thousands of people standing outside their building with candles, saying, "Take my health." You know, they can't die.
The reason why is that the stars in India are different. It's not like George Clooney. George Clooney comes onto the scene in his twenties, but he hasn't really made it yet. In his thirties, he becomes a star, and by his forties, he's kind of on the way out. He plays a couple of roles as old guys, and then he's done.
These guys in India, it's like you get picked when you're 20. They're like, "You're the star," and the movie is going to make you look like James Bond. You're only cool, everybody loves you, and you're the best. That's the role. Then people watch that movie and think, "This guy's the best." That same guy will be the hero in movies for the next 30 to 40 years. | |
Sam Parr | got it | |
Shaan Puri |
Like, he'll be 50 and he'll be like he's the big man on campus at college, and it's like, "What? This guy's 50 and he's playing that role?" That type of thing. And you know, the girl in the movie will be in her twenties, and he'll be in his forties or fifties, but he's like the hero, the stud, and so...
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Sam Parr | don't don't don't the movies even have intermissions aren't they like 3 hour long movies | |
Shaan Puri | Yeah, yeah, there's a halftime where you go and eat. It's pretty great, honestly. That's something that every movie should do.
The other thing about movies in India is that all music in India comes from the movies. So, every movie is a musical. That's weird, and every song comes from a movie. There are no hit songs that aren't in the movies; it's all one pie, right? So, it's like the center of culture.
Okay, so why does that matter? Why am I telling you all about this? Well, because one thing has really changed. Once I realized that, I was like, "If that changed, that's going to cause a whole bunch of other changes."
Here's the change: Most of these Indian stars that I'm talking about, when they're in their twenties and thirties, they look like your boy. Their body was a little round; it was a little soft. It was a normal person's body. And all of a sudden, these guys turn 50, and they're now absolutely shredded. Every... | |
Sam Parr | jack city | |
Shaan Puri | Jack City. Every single movie star now, like this guy Ranveer Singh, they're all jacked. They all went from normal-looking people, normal humans, to 55-year-olds with 12 packs.
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Sam Parr | the so if you think about that | |
Shaan Puri | You're like, "Okay, whatever, who cares?" These guys discovered testosterone, HGH, dieting, and working out. Cool, but there's like the carry-on effect. Again, these guys are gods; they're heroes in India.
So now, I met up with Sonia, who has a cousin in India. This guy's 12 years old. The last time he came to visit America, all he cared about was video games. He was like, "Oh, I love playing video games! Video games are amazing!" as any 10-year-old would care about.
The second thing he cared about was going to Target. He was like, "Oh, Walmart! Can I go to Walmart? Can I go to Target?" because he had seen Mr. Beast giving away $10,000 at a Walmart. He was like, "Oh my God, I can't wait to go!"
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Sam Parr | that's my dude revere singh looks like wolverine | |
Shaan Puri | Yeah, exactly. If you look at this guy, like 5 years ago or 7 years ago, when he got his break in movies, he did not look anything like this.
So, anyway, the guy came to visit, and I was like, "So, what's your favorite video game now? You wanna go to Walmart, buddy?" And he's like, "No, you have a gym." I was like, "Yeah, but you're a kid! What do you mean?"
Then he started going to the gym twice a day at my house, and all he wanted to talk about was the gym. I was like, "Oh, of course! All the movie stars got shredded; that became the new male ideal standard."
So, of course, now everybody there is on a fitness kick, which made me think, "Who's making protein powder in India?" I went deep on this and started looking it up. I was like, "If fitness is now the thing, if getting shredded is now the thing, the whole supplements and fitness industry that we have here is gonna translate over there. It's gonna be rebuilt overnight, and it's gonna be 10 times bigger."
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Sam Parr | India doesn't seem like a supplement culture as of now.
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Shaan Puri | Until these guys... If you go look at these guys' Instagram profiles, they're like, "This is my favorite peanut butter. I could eat that other peanut butter and get fat, but if I eat this peanut butter, I get fit." Sure enough, they're selling like hotcakes.
I ordered some from India; it just arrived in a giant styrofoam container. And I was like... now you see that whole industry blowing up. I would love to participate, but I'm a little bit far away from it. I'm not really in the scene, so it's hard for me to engage.
However, I'm on the hunt for finding the right investment in the Indian fitness scene because it is a necessary consequence of the movie stars getting shredded. Anyway, that's my take on Indian food.
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Sam Parr |
If you had to make a ranking of cuisine from "one" to "diabetes" - like cuisine that's set up to make you look amazing naked - Indian food would not be at the top of that list. There's no... Maybe Mexican food, like avocados, meat, rice. Alright, great.
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Shaan Puri | you've heard about the mediterranean diet you've never heard about the bollywood diet | |
Sam Parr |
Where's like the fried cheese and coconut milk diet, you know what I mean? It's not exactly set up to... like, what is it? Naan and ghee? Is that... yeah?
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Shaan Puri | it's just bread butter rice | |
Sam Parr |
Grilled cheese, butter, and fried cheese... it's not entirely set up to make you look good in the nude. So that's good. The Indians, maybe now they're going to understand macros and they're going to stay in the need for protein.
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Shaan Puri | Exactly. I went and looked up the Indian fitness influencers on Instagram because I was like, "Oh, there are going to be fitness influencers. Who are they?"
These guys have like 12 million to 20 million followers, whereas the same person in the U.S. market will have like 800,000 to 1 million or 2 million, just because there are so many more people.
People in India are absolutely addicted to the Facebook ecosystem of apps. WhatsApp is everything. The second best thing to WhatsApp is Instagram. You know, what's behind that? Facebook. That's just the internet there, you know?
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Sam Parr | And you know that you've had some success. India has had some success in the Olympics recently, particularly in the 4 by 400 meter relay. India got like 2nd or 3rd at the most recent World Championships. The most recent gold medal kick... | |
Shaan Puri | or is that real | |
Sam Parr | it's real | |
Shaan Puri | Because we used to have like an archer or something like that, a shooter. That was like the only guy who was even close.
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Sam Parr | To the guy who won the Olympics and the World Championships in the javelin, an Indian guy.
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Shaan Puri | wow | |
Sam Parr | and he looks great he looks he looks like a he looks like a like you wanna look like him | |
Shaan Puri | he's been eating eating some of that protein peanut butter | |
Sam Parr | No, the Indians are doing good in track and field lately. And by "lately," I mean like last year. It's like the only time an Indian has ever done half decent in track. Well, I... | |
Shaan Puri | It's amazing, really. If you look at soccer, there are like no Indian players. If you look at basketball, there are no Indian players. There's like none... zero. It's crazy.
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Sam Parr | I've never seen like a 6 foot 8 indian | |
Shaan Puri | No, they exist. Trust me, a billion people... you're going to see the bell curve. When you have a billion people under the area of the bell curve, you're going to get people that are tall.
There's one guy, actually, he's on the Kings' development team, Simbel Hari, 7'2" or something like that.
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Sam Parr | I've seen giants from every country. I don't remember seeing a 6-foot-8 Indian guy with a 35-inch vertical. I've never seen that.
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Shaan Puri | that I've never seen yes you're correct | |
Sam Parr |
Speaking of Indian things, our boy Anand from CB Insights... By the way, he came on here and we were just talking about cap table. He's only raised, I think, $8 or $10 million. There's a rumor - I told him, "I'm gonna talk about this on the pod, but don't tell me anything. I'm just reading this article that I read" - there's a rumor that they're about to sell for $800 million. So our guest Anand...
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Shaan Puri | that'd be pretty | |
Sam Parr | cool if they | |
Shaan Puri | Yeah, we were on the pod. I remember we were like, "This thing's gotta be worth $300 million to $400 million." He was noncommittal about it, but I think he probably knew it was worth more than that.
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Sam Parr | In the article, it said they're doing $80,000,000 in revenue. So, 10x revenue... that would be pretty amazing. I mean, if I had to bet, I bet he owns half the company. So, he would make many hundreds of millions of dollars, right? That would be huge. | |
Shaan Puri | And as a reminder, if people didn't see that episode, you should go watch it because he's an idea machine.
The episode we did with Anand is awesome because he has like 50 startup ideas that we went through and reacted to. He also tells the story of his father who passed away. His father owned a chemical plant in India, and Anand is running CB Insights, a tech startup in America that's doing well.
Then he just realized, "I have to deal with this." His father passed away, there's a plant, and there are like 100 people working there. So, he goes to India and learns how to run this plant while also running CB Insights. He gives it...
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Sam Parr | to the employees I think | |
Shaan Puri | He stabilizes it, gives, and then creates some equity plan or whatever, and then bounces. But it's really kind of an amazing story.
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Sam Parr |
Do you think that life... Do you think that life for Anand, let's say he sells... Let's say that he... I... He lives in New Jersey, so let's just say that he pays half in taxes. Let's say that he owns half the company, so he makes $400,000,000. Let's say that he walks away with $300,000,000. Do you think that there's a difference in life between $300,000,000 and $50,000,000?
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Shaan Puri | not really | |
Sam Parr | yeah I don't think so either | |
Shaan Puri | not really you know | |
Sam Parr | I I would imagine after 50 he can buy the | |
Shaan Puri | jet instead of rent the jet you know like what what what's the difference what what what is he gonna do | |
Sam Parr | yeah I don't think it matters no | |
Shaan Puri | I will say it's all relative to the person. For example, Mike Tyson found a way to spend $100,000,000. People can find a way to spend money, but then also Elon Musk took a couple of hundred million dollars and used it to fund his own crazy moonshot bets that nobody else would do.
For Elon, the difference between $50 million and $250 million was the difference between Tesla and SpaceX existing versus maybe they wouldn't have survived. He was able to put the money in. So, I guess for the right person, yes, but for 99.9% of people, no.
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Sam Parr |
Yeah, I don't think it makes any difference. Chamath had a good episode on "All In" and he goes, "After $50 million, it made zero difference. I could acquire everything I wanted to at 50 [million]." And anything else, he was like... it was like stakes in basketball teams, but that makes zero difference. It's just like a business expense.
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Shaan Puri | Whenever I hear stuff like this, like when people say, "Oh, you know, money doesn't make you that happy," or "After this amount, it doesn't really do anything for you," it's like, yeah, you're probably right. But I'm just gonna check.
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Sam Parr | yeah I would like to find out I'd like to find out | |
Shaan Puri | I'm a go ahead and test for myself | |
Sam Parr | I think about that all the time as well, Ari. We did this episode where someone asked me, "What was it like after making a little bit?" I was like, "It feels this way and this way," but you should go and figure it out on your own.
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Shaan Puri | right you | |
Sam Parr | should you should you should double check my math | |
Shaan Puri | Naval had a great insight because, like, Naval is the wise guy in the tech and business ecosystem. You would think that someone so wise and enlightened would just say, "You know what? It's not what matters."
He does say it's not the main thing that matters. He emphasizes that the real goal is a strong mind, a strong body, and a house full of love. But he also acknowledges that nobody wants to hear that.
He goes on to say, "The easiest way to escape the rat race is just to win, and then you can let it go." That's far easier than trying to convince you not to play. I thought that was practical wisdom.
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Sam Parr | He's like, "It won't make you significantly happier, but you're not going to believe me until you do it yourself. So go ahead and get after it."
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Shaan Puri | Yeah, exactly! I love that practical wisdom.
Do you want to do any more of these? We can do one more. Do you want to do this Metropolis thing or IMG?
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Sam Parr | Well, let's do Metropolis. I don't know much about this, but I think it's pretty wild. What did you see?
So, we both got interested. I did a little bit of research, but basically, there's a startup. The founder originally had a company called, I think, Park Me. It was just an app that told you where parking spots were. He ended up selling it, but it wasn't like a home run of a success. I think they got their money back plus a little bit, something like that.
Then he goes on and he's like, "I did this all wrong. I have to think about this as an investor. We have to acquire parking lots, and we're going to create technology that makes it easy." So, you don't need to scan in when you go and pay at a parking lot. We're just going to be able to track your car automatically.
He's been doing this for a couple of years, and he just bought a parking lot—like a company that owns a bunch of parking lots—for $1,100,000,000. I saw that and I was like, "Alright, what the hell is going on here?"
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Shaan Puri | Yeah, the same thing caught my eye. The guy made like a $1,000,000,000 acquisition or something like that.
What I thought was the story is that there’s this one blueprint of business that’s a very good blueprint. This is the blueprint that Constellation Software uses, which is **vertical SaaS**.
So, what is vertical SaaS? Vertical SaaS is how, oh, there’s a... you know, every golf club in the country needs some golf club booking management system. This allows people to book their tee times, rent clubs, and have a membership, and whatever.
There’s some person out there that made some software, sold it to some golf clubs, and what a company like Constellation will do is they’re like, “Perfect!” Because that software is not going to be like... you know, Microsoft is not going to compete in that market. Facebook and Google are not going to compete in that market. Honestly, nobody really is going to compete in this market.
And if there is someone, it’s kind of so fragmented that as they start to get momentum and reach $1,000,000, $2,000,000, or $3,000,000 of annual revenue, we’ll just buy them. Then we’ll own all of the golf club software systems, or sorry, golf... what do you call them? Like the members' club or whatever it’s called.
But basically, vertical SaaS software. And so, the same thing for dentists and the same thing for whatever, you know, industrial rentals or whatever. So, vertical SaaS has been a very, very lucrative play, especially if you roll them up.
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Sam Parr | so have you been to constellation's website by the way | |
Shaan Puri | not they | |
Sam Parr | They give you like five categories of businesses they own. You click on one of the five, and then they give you a list of ten. You click on one of the ten, but they own so many businesses that they're basically linking to other companies that own other companies.
This means they own a holding company, which owns holding companies in these five categories. You have to click through four different websites to actually see the name of a company. So, they must own a hundred or even thousands of small software businesses.
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Shaan Puri | It has acquired over 500 businesses since being founded. I think they make offers to like hundreds of companies every year, if not a thousand companies a year or something like that.
To give an example, Jonas is one of these five groups. They have six groups in total. Jonas is one of the groups, and it says they do hospitality, clubs and resorts, spas and fitness, construction, payments, moving, and storage.
You click it, and it says, "So you go to Jonas Software, and it says we're a family of vertical market software companies." They own just under 140 companies under the Jonas umbrella.
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Sam Parr | it's crazy right | |
Shaan Puri | in 40 different markets | |
Sam Parr | it's crazy it's it's a it's a really wild setup to have | |
Shaan Puri | And if you haven't ever gone and read Mark Leonard's letters, it's definitely worth it. That's like getting an MBA. Go through and read all of his annual letters for the last 25 years or whatever. He's a very interesting guy with a very interesting company.
We've talked about Constellation before, but what's interesting is that I thought it seemed like the blueprint was to just buy vertical SaaS companies and roll them up. What this parking guy is doing is basically taking the vertical SaaS model and saying, "Cool, let's just own all the lots too."
Let's make a vertical company that's not just SaaS. It's got SaaS on the top, but underneath it is the real estate and the actual brick-and-mortar operations. This way, we can forget trying to sell our software to these guys and convince these old-school parking operators that they should use our system because it's more efficient. Instead, we'll just buy it from them in the inefficient state and then use our software to make it more efficient.
It seems like a pretty big bet, if I understood it correctly. But honestly, I didn't do a ton of research; it's just what I gathered from the tweet. | |
Sam Parr | They paid **$1,700,000,000** for a company that owns parking lots. Yeah, it's a lot.
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Shaan Puri | impressive | |
Sam Parr | that's huge right yeah alright do we wanna wrap there | |
Shaan Puri | yeah let's wrap it up | |
Sam Parr | alright that's the pot |