MFM #167: Answering Your Questions On Investments, Businesses and Life

Sam Parr

I would know more than I am, but this guy's Tim and his brother... I'm not that close with him. I'm friendly with him, I'm friends with him, but I'm not that close. Like, if you told me that they were worth over $150,000,000, I wouldn't be surprised. And they still act like they're poor in... kind of a funny way, which I enjoy. And they're...

Shaan Puri

invest humble and they're like super hardworking still

Sam Parr

And they invest in everything. Today we're going to answer a bunch of questions, but did you see Truong's tweet about the guy selling the card?

Shaan Puri

no what is this

Sam Parr

Truong tweeted out this video that he found from probably the nineties or early 2000s. It's a guy who's trying to sell you on his business card, which is a big square. You open it up, and it pops out. He's just really intense. But the video got... it's funny. You haven't seen this? No? Oh, well, this won't be any good then. The video got like half a million views, and people are making websites about the tweet or about the video based on his tweet. It was just funny. You just have to see it.

Shaan Puri

to have some videos now or like he tweeted something that already had half a 1000000 views

Sam Parr

no it did now

Shaan Puri

Oh wow, Trung is a master of finding great content. That guy is really good! I have this apprentice who's working with me, Chris, for content. He's basically...

Sam Parr

the redheaded guy

Shaan Puri

Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's kind of like shadowing me, and he helps me produce my content. He's learning as he goes. I told him, "You know, success is being Trung." So like, that's the level, that's the top bar. That's what you need to measure against. Here are five examples of awesome things he's done. So he called Trung and was like, "What's your secret? What's your process?" Basically, Trung was like, "Oh, you know, I kind of browse the internet a lot." And you know, there's no way you can... it's like asking Michael Jordan, "How do you jump so high?" It's not easy to describe how you do the thing that doesn't feel like a real process for you. You know, you're just doing it naturally, intuitively.

Sam Parr

He's a machine. One time I called him at 11 o'clock his time - he's in Vancouver - and he was at the park playing with his son. I was like, "Trung, I'm not trying to get on you because I'm not your boss, but don't you have work to do?" He was like, "Bro, I got up at 5 AM. I already wrote tomorrow's email." I was like, "Alright, sounds good."

Shaan Puri

okay he's a machine so I didn't see this video is is it worth talking about given that I didn't see it or what

Sam Parr

it's too long to go through that

Shaan Puri

Okay, people and myself, let's go to Twitter after this. Let's go to @trongtfan, I think is his handle, and go look at his thing.

Sam Parr

and he the funniest thing that he's done lately is he owns onlyfans.com

Shaan Puri

Dude, that slayed me! It was so funny. So, he has OnlyFans, but he spells "fans" P-H-A-N, like his last name. It's just a network for only people with the last name "Fan," and I just found it so funny.

Sam Parr

Oh, that was weird. For some reason, it's funnier than what I think he came up with.

Shaan Puri

**Brand new.** Yeah, now we don't like it so much. **Stupid joke.** Stupid idea.

Sam Parr

Alright, today we're going to answer questions. It looks like we have about six pages of text questions, so dozens and dozens of text questions. We also have a few dozen audio questions from people calling in. Some of the text questions were good, so I'm going to start off by reading a few that I think are cool. Let's do the first one. This guy's name is Johnny Volk. He asked, "What are you both personally investing in right now?"

Shaan Puri

by the way do you know johnny volk do you know who this is

Sam Parr

he I talked to him on twitter and he's joe speiser's buddy

Shaan Puri

He lives out here in the Bay Area, about 15 minutes away from me. He's a super successful e-commerce guy. He has been in e-commerce for 10 years and recently sold his company, I don't know, about a month ago or something, for tens of millions of dollars. He's a big investor in my rolling fund and several other rolling funds. He's really an ultra-nice guy, so this guy is super legit. He's asking, "What are you both personally investing in?" So, do you want to go first? I think your answer is probably more interesting.

Sam Parr

I'll go first. Right now, the bulk of my liquid net worth is in publicly traded companies. I own a bunch of HubSpot and a bunch of Airbnb. Besides that, I don't own anything else above $50,000. It's all in...

Shaan Puri

so you're super concentrated in those two companies basically

Sam Parr

Yeah, but then I have more money in the S&P 500. So, like, the total stock market index, I’m going to invest around $250,000 to $500,000 in the next probably 18 months in startups. I own six figures worth of investments in a variety of real estate funds, including Sweaty Startup in Vancouver. Then, I own my house and I'm in the process of buying multifamily properties. So, I would say I have like...

Shaan Puri

If you just broke it out, you're like, "You know, roughly, okay, 70% is in the stock market." Really, in the two companies, you know, where my wife works and where I work, something like that.

Sam Parr

No, I own way more S&P 500 than I do HubSpot and Airbnb. But I would say that **90%** of my net worth is in the S&P 500. Yeah.

Shaan Puri

Oh wow, S&P 500. Okay, so just like a low-cost index fund, basically a Vanguard fund.

Sam Parr

Simple stuff. My goal is to invest somewhere around 1% to 3% of my net worth over a period of time into angel investments.

Shaan Puri

Gotcha, cool. And then some real estate mixed in. Real estate being, you know, the house you live in and some other projects other people are doing. You're not currently buying and owning real estate at the moment.

Sam Parr

I'm going... I own my house, but I'm going to buy 16 units. I also have, I mean, I'll say like half a million dollars in cash just sitting in a checking account, which I think is too much money. When I bought my car, I just paid cash out of there. I own six figures of Bitcoin and Ethereum, of which I owned most of that Bitcoin since 2013. I just bought like $75,000 worth of Ethereum a few days ago because you and a few others told me it was interesting.

Shaan Puri

Nice! By the way, we got some criticism—constructive criticism, I would say—which was like, "Oh, the last few episodes feel like, you know, rich guys talking about ways to make a bunch of money." Which, honestly, is a good description for the podcast. But I get what the person is saying because they're a fan, and they're like, "That's me raising my hand." I think I basically was like, "Oh, this BitClap thing is cool," and it sounds like a total Ponzi scheme. So people are like, "What do you got?" We're talking about Jack selling an NFT for like $70,000,000, so it just sounds a little bit crazy. I think, you know, although I think your answer is great because I like knowing how people invest their money, I think most people are very closely guarded with that info. People don't tell you what the hell they're doing, so you're kind of on your own to figure stuff out. You don't really have any data points to triangulate because all the wealthy people don't want to talk about what to do with their wealth unless it's with other really wealthy people. So I think it's great you said that, but as you were saying it, that was just ringing in my head of like some guy being like, "Why are you guys just talking about money?" But it's like, well, that's also the theme of the podcast in a way, right?

Sam Parr

And that was also the question I'm trying to answer. I'm trying to be truthful, but also, when we started this podcast—when you started this podcast a year and a half ago or two years ago—it really wasn't a bunch of rich guys talking. It was a bunch of hopefully soon-to-be rich guys talking about stuff. And we've been talking about the same things the whole time.

Shaan Puri

Yeah, oh, you mean us? Yeah, at that. Yeah, because... I put this out there in the manifesto when I started this thing. I think it's unfortunate that talking about money—how to make money and what you do with money to earn more money—is considered taboo. It's kind of like low class or something to talk about. The reality is, most people want more money. People try to signal and say, "Oh, it doesn't matter," and all this stuff. I know a lot of people that want more money. Most of the people in my life, if I had the option, would you like more salary or less? Would you like more in your bank account or less? The answer is more. If all the people who have money are really guarded and don't talk about it, and don't want to seem like they're bragging, what that really does is trap the information from others. So that's kind of my overall view of it. I know you're similar because I remember being kind of stunned when we first became friends. You just Facebook messaged me and asked, "How much do you make?" I was like, "Whoa, whoa, bro, what's going on here?" But I was like, "Okay, you know, ballsy question."

Sam Parr

The reason why I actually dislike that view is that if someone criticizes you for talking about money, it's because they are making the assumption that, because you have money or because you don't, you are somehow better or worse. In my opinion, just because you have money, that gives you no intrinsic value to me. You either are interesting or you are not interesting. What makes you interesting to me is that people are just trying ambitious stuff and doing neat things. Oftentimes, that's correlated with money, but it's not always the case. I knew this lady who would do these amazing art exhibits where she would paint gold phones and just do interesting stuff. I was like, "Wow, that's super badass! That's so bold of you to try that." She wasn't wealthy at all, but I thought it was so cool. To me, it's about just being an interesting person. I don't really care if it's money-related or not, but oftentimes, it is.

Shaan Puri

Right, for me, I have like 3 or 4 different life games that I'm very interested in. Let's say right now I'm interested in the fitness game. I'm a total beginner; I'm a white belt at the fitness game. I have a trainer who's more like a black belt. You know, look at his body, look at his lifestyle—he's extremely healthy. So, I want to learn about the fitness game. I also like learning about the happiness game. How do you become a happy person? How do you control your mood? How do I master my mood? I'm really interested in that. I think about it a lot and talk to people about it. Then there's the money game, and there's also the making things that people want game. I like all these games and I admire the people who have done well in them. I'm better at some than others. In some, I'm a total beginner, and in others, I'm like a blue belt or a purple belt—where I've done something, but I'm by no means at the end. So, anyway, that's a tangent. But to answer John's question, did you want to say something else about that?

Sam Parr

no I answered

Shaan Puri

To answer John's question, I'm kind of similar. I tweeted out my holdings a while back; maybe I'll do that again. I need to go back and recalculate, but I tend to hold about **10%** of my wealth in cash. I think cash is being devalued, and I don't want to hold cash. Cash doesn't earn... you know, cash sitting in the bank is nice for a rainy day, but it doesn't earn you more money, right? The **0.001%** I get from Wells Fargo or whoever is not going to help me. I have a good-sized stock portfolio. Basically, I would say beyond that, it's almost like **50/50** of public equities—so stocks—and, you know, crypto right now, and then angel investing. I'm currently angel investing through the rolling fund, **$4,000,000** a year, but that's not my money; that's mostly other people's money, and I get a carry on that. I get a **20%** carry of the profits, so that's kind of like investing, but I'm not investing my own money there. I'm looking at real estate right now, but the problem with real estate for me has always been: a) I'm a beginner at that game, and b) I don't want to sign up for more work. So I'm looking for ways to get real estate that I directly own, but I don't have to do a ton of work. Those two are kind of at opposites with each other. I don't invest in other people's real estate funds right now.

Sam Parr

Has your net worth or total portfolio increased a significant amount since your deal? It seems like you weren't very active before, and now you are very active. Has that helped you?

Shaan Puri

It has increased because, you know, the stock market has been doing amazing the last few years. Then with the deal, you know, like when we got bought, the Amazon stock price was $18.50. The Amazon stock price today is $3,110. So just while working there, you're going to get pretty significant gains in your holdings. Because we got bought, a large chunk of the RSUs were just in that one company, so that did well. Crypto has done extremely well; Bitcoin has done extremely well, and Ethereum has done extremely well. So those have really worked. Then, kind of like the side hustle money from the podcast, email newsletter, stuff like that, sponsorships, that sort of thing has been really nice. So that's actually picked up as well, where I wasn't doing that before. I'd say, yeah, but I would also say what really changed was my attitude. I just started acting like a guy who's got $100 million, for better and for worse. I take bets that are kind of too big for my bankroll sometimes, and that's a risk. I might pay the price, but I sort of just started carrying myself and acting like, "What if I wasn't worried about money? What if I wasn't worried about going from A to B? What if I just knew that I'd get to B pretty much regardless?" How would I bet if that was the case? So I started making slightly larger bets and just being more active, whereas before I was a little more conservative with how I was investing.

Sam Parr

Which is a huge difference in our philosophies. I'm way more conservative than you—way more conservative. Yeah, and I don't think I was telling Abreu. He was like, because I told him I started angel investing, he was like, "Who do you think is gonna have a better portfolio?" And I was like, "That's kind of interesting." My answer to him was, I think my portfolio has a higher chance of being pretty good, whereas Sean's portfolio has a higher chance of being amazing or zero.

Shaan Puri

Right, yeah, that's true. That's definitely true. I guess the style of who you admire sort of dictates what you do and what blueprint you create. For example, I was really inspired by Chris Sacca's approach. He went from being, you know, a bit of a degenerate gambler, like me. He took his law school money and was day trading in the stock market during the dot-com boom. He rode it up to $10,000,000, taking $25,000 and turning it into $10,000,000. Then, he went in the hole for $4,000,000. That was a crazy degenerate gambling run! If you haven't heard me talking about my bets in crypto, you know I used to play poker. I obviously have a gambling problem as well. So, I have that risk and reward profile. The other thing Chris did that I found pretty inspiring was that he bet on someone he believed in, which was Ev Williams when he started what became Twitter. When he saw that it was a winner, he went all in in a way that most people do not. Most people would have let their $25,000 check sit and been really excited, fingers crossed, hoping Twitter becomes a thing. He quit his job and started showing up at the office every day, asking, "How are we going to make this thing grow? I want this thing to grow." He went out and personally fundraised for the company, even though he wasn't part of it. He was out there pitching investors to invest in Twitter. He ended up buying $1,000,000,000 worth of Twitter stock before it went IPO and was, I think, their first or second largest shareholder at IPO. He made $1,000,000,000 off of his Twitter holdings because he knew when you have a winner, you gotta go all in. What I've seen in technology is that the winners get really, really big. You kind of want to play small bets initially and then follow on really hard. When you see something that actually works, be really bold in the way you approach it. If you strike out, I kind of just think about it like this: I have a lot of faith in my skills. Even if I went to zero today, I think in three years, I'd be right back where I want to be, or right back where I am today. So, I don't feel like there's a huge risk in terms of that. But anyways, that's a little bit off topic for one question.

Sam Parr

Alright, let's do the next one, which was a question that I actually have for you as well. Update us on your rolling front. Is it what you expected? Are you more or less bullish on it?

Shaan Puri

It is not what I expected in that I didn't really think too much about it before I started. To be honest, that was kind of impulsive. I was just like, "Oh yeah, that sounds like a cool idea. Let me try it and see what happens." But I thought, okay, I already angel invested. This is just going to be that with some bigger checks or, you know, do a few more deals. Now that I have to deploy $1,000,000 a quarter, I actually have to carve out more time. I have to consciously go and invest in more companies. So, it's more work than I thought initially. I brought on Romine and Zach, and Ben helps me with it. They do a lot of the heavy lifting. For this year's YC batch, Zach himself referred in 22 of the companies. He was the number one, I think, referring to YC, so he knew a bunch of the YC companies before they even got in. We looked at those deals, and then Romine and Zach went through every single deal on Airtable, vetted them, made a list of the interesting ones, did meetings with them, and then brought the most interesting seven to me. They were like, "Hey, we think these are the ones to do." So, I've been able to handle the additional work. It's more than I thought, but I found really good people, so that's helped.

Sam Parr

who's this guy zack

Shaan Puri

Zack is a young engineer. He was a Y Combinator (YC) founder himself, but that company didn't work out. I met him because he listens to the podcast, or I don't know how he reached out, but he's like, "Hey, I heard your thing about rolling funds. I'd love to help. I just want to see a bunch of startups and help a bunch of founders while I think of my next thing." It just turns out he's super well-connected with the young founder community. Because of that, he's referred a huge number of people into YC and into On Deck. He has this really great network and is able to see things earlier than most. So, I brought him into the fund and gave him a chance to have some upside in this thing.

Sam Parr

that's badass and then are you more bullish or less

Shaan Puri

More... yeah, like the same. I don't know. I have a friend, we have a mutual friend, Sully. He wanted to get involved in a business of mine. He texted me something because I was like, "I don't know, is this... I don't want to give up equity." But, you know, I think you're good. You're the...

Sam Parr

income thing

Shaan Puri

You're worth it. Yeah, so basically, he goes, "Look, if I try, I win." And with this, I'll try. I just loved it. I was like, "I've just gotta learn a lot from this guy's philosophy in business." He just has zero doubt and fear. I think that's a really valuable experience.

Sam Parr

You would know more than I do, but this guy Sully, Tim, and his brother... I'm not that close with them. I'm friendly with them; I'm friends with them, but I'm not that close. If you told me that they were worth over $150,000,000, I wouldn't be surprised. They still act like they're poor in a kind of funny way, which I enjoy. And they're...

Shaan Puri

invest humble and they're like super hard working still

Sam Parr

sully is sully is

Shaan Puri

super humble

Sam Parr

yeah and they invest in everything so these guys are interesting they're 2 brothers

Shaan Puri

Yeah, and Sully is the same way. Actually, when I first met him, I met him at... you hosted the Hustle Con dinner at my office. This is how crazy the world works. This is like one of those things where you can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them when you look back. You reached out, you cold emailed me saying, "Hey, I want to host a dinner at your office." I didn't know who the hell you were, but you made a strong pitch. You said, "I'm going to have all my speakers from my conference there. You can mingle, you know, meet all of them." I was like, "Alright, fair deal. You can use my office." At that dinner, I met Sully. Sully is now my best friend. We've done tons of deals together. You know, that wouldn't have happened if I hadn't said yes to something that was kind of a random thing.

Sam Parr

that's funny

Shaan Puri

At that dinner, I was like, "Dude, this guy's amazing! I've never heard this guy's name before. Why don't people in Silicon Valley know this guy?" So, I started Googling him. I found this story that back in the day, he had this company that was building Facebook apps, and he sold it for not a ton of money, but, you know, good for any normal person.

Sam Parr

like 2,000,000 or $3,000,000 or something like that

Shaan Puri

Between $1,000,000 and $3,000,000 is kind of what it sounded like. So, what did he do with the money? He had been building on the Facebook app platform and had seen that his app was growing really quickly. His app wasn't a great business; it was one of those silly Facebook apps. But he thought, "Facebook is not silly." So, he basically took a bunch of that money and, like Chris Sacca, he aggressively started buying up Facebook stock back then before it was public. Then he went to Florida and bought a bunch of real estate. I just thought, "Wow, this guy is really conducting himself well." At that time, I thought of myself as an entrepreneur, but I acted more like an employee. I wasn't playing the game to win; I was playing with these invisible handcuffs on me. I saw these awesome companies, but I didn't even try to invest in them. When I saw that this guy knew something was good, he was like, "How do I take all the money I have and put it into this Facebook thing? I believe in this." Simultaneously, he was going to build his next business right away. I really admired him, and I thought that was a great example to follow.

Sam Parr

He's a hustler, and I like him a lot too. Let's go to the next question, which is this: We'll answer this one quickly. What do you not talk about, or what do we not have the chance to talk about because it's low priority or off-topic, that you wish you could talk about? For me, it would be that I love talking about UFC. I'm a big fitness guy, so I love sports, weightlifting, and running. I wish we could talk more about fitness stuff, but I don't think it's on topic, and I'm not an expert on it.

Shaan Puri

If I could do a podcast shooting the shit about basketball or the UFC, that'd be awesome. But nobody really cares what I think about the NBA or the UFC. That's one idea. The other one is that I do kind of bring this in sometimes, but it takes up a lot more of my life than I let show here on the pod. On the podcast, I'm just talking about a bunch of different business ideas and ways to make money. In reality, I'm not just doing that all day. What I spend a lot more time thinking about is my mindset. What is my life operating philosophy as I go about my day to be the happiest and best person I can be? It's kind of cheesy to talk about, and no one really gives a shit, but I care a lot about it. I think a lot about it, but I don't really talk about it much. I do.

Sam Parr

I think about that stuff too. Yeah, but it is silly to talk about, and it could be embarrassing, particularly if you're still working through stuff.

Shaan Puri

Right, it's cool to talk about that. I found that when you're in a small group of people or in person with some individuals, you can get a sense for whether they care about this or not. It's also kind of personal on a podcast. You might record that thing for an hour, and you're like, "I have no idea if even one person is going to want to hear that," or maybe they'll just all turn it off.

Sam Parr

What's up, you guys are awesome at coming up with incredible ideas and knowing how to execute them. What would it take for one of you to pull out of Twitch, or I guess they meant in my case, HubSpot, and pursue it full force? That's actually a great question, and I think I have a good answer.

Shaan Puri

go for it

Sam Parr

Starting a company is really hard. I've joked about it, but I'm kind of serious. I don't know if I'm ever going to do it again... maybe, maybe not.

Shaan Puri

right

Sam Parr

Or at least, who knows what I'm going to do? You know, I've thought it would be cool just to retire and not work. We'll see if that's cool or not; I don't know. But I think that the answer should be, "This is cool." So, why are you doing this? Because it's **fucking cool**. I think that when I find something where it's like, "Oh, this is badass, this is cool," there's often not a mission where it's like, "Let's save the world." It's just kind of badass; it's just awesome. There is no logic other than, "This is cool to me." When I find a few things that fit that, I'm still on a mission with HubSpot, and I want to make it great. After that, then I'll pursue the next one. I don't like doing what I think Sean does a little bit, and a lot of people do it. I don't like starting lots of little stuff. I prefer to dedicate my life to something, and I'm very cautious about what I'm willing to do that with because you probably can only do that 3 to 4 times in your life. So, there are a few things, but I'm not finished with this chapter yet, and that's why I...

Shaan Puri

Haven't done it? Yeah, that's a great answer. I similarly was like, "Alright, well, what's this chapter of my life about?" When we got acquired, I thought, "I want them to feel glad that they did this acquisition." You know what I mean? I want them to be like, "Yeah, that was worth it." For myself, I was like, "Well, cool, this is a transition. Let me try this new thing. Let me work at a big company; I've never done that before. Let me have this big, cushy salary type of thing; I've never had that before." I was kind of just eating shit, you know, doing my own startup, sleeping on an air mattress before. So basically, I was like, "Alright, if my twenties were about starting my own company and just trying to figure out how to be an entrepreneur, what are my thirties going to be about?" I've decided it will be two things. First, I want to live a great life with my family. You know, I popped out two kids in the last 18 months, and that's actually my project: being a dad, having kids, spending time, and just being there for that. I'm not trying to be like, "Oh, I must..." Because just like you said, now I know what it takes to start a company. I know how all-consuming it is, so you've got to choose wisely. The second thing, with choosing wisely, is that my thirties are about building a family and then building a project I don't want to sell, which is basically like...

Sam Parr

I totally agree

Shaan Puri

How do I build my next thing? This is something I want to do. I'm not doing it because it's the best business idea or it's a hot opportunity or whatever. The thing that I just want to keep doing, that I don't want to get rid of, and I don't want to sell, is something I just want to build and let it compound for 30 or 40 years. I love doing it, and it's the thing I'm uniquely good at doing. I thought, okay, maybe I'll dabble in some different things to figure out what that is. I feel like I found it, which is ironic because I found it where I wasn't looking. I started this podcast for a different reason, but what I realized was, oh, I really like this thing where I can be kind of like perpetually curious. I can just be curious about the world, learn a bunch of things, and then share what I'm learning. I'm kind of like a teacher. Through the podcast, the email newsletter, and experiments like All Access Pass, or I'm going to launch some courses in the future, like my launch school, I basically want to do things that let me be really, really curious. I want to learn a bunch of things, try a bunch of things, and then share as I go. Because that's what I would do if, let's just say, work couldn't pay you money. How would you spend your time? That's how I would spend it. So, I might as well just do that as my work. That's what I think I'll do next, which won't look like a traditional startup or company.

Sam Parr

And I agree with that. I want to do something that I never want to sell, so I'm in the same boat. The question is directed towards you, but I'll give you my answer really quick. **Sean**, how do you balance side hustles while performing on Twitch? My answer to that, and I've said it before, is I don't balance. I don't do anything on the side. Frankly, I have no idea how you do it. Our good friend Ramon is able to do it really well. I get that some people can do it; I personally can't, and I don't even try. I'm not ashamed about that.

Shaan Puri

Yeah, there are different ways to organize your time. You see this from Elon Musk or Jack Dorsey running two multibillion-dollar public companies at once as CEOs. It's kind of a crazy thing that seemed impossible before. I would say I do it in two ways. **First**, I throw more hours at it. I don't take weekends off; I work seven days a week. I don't work all day every day, but my weekends are structured the same as my weekdays. All of a sudden, I have an extra 16 hours on the weekend where I can do things. The same thing goes for at night. I don't watch a lot of TV. I stopped watching NBA games and stuff like that. I basically decided, "Look, I can cut that out," and that's two hours a night that I can use to create content. For example, when I do the podcast, everyone else would go down to the cafeteria at Twitch for lunch. I would walk across the street; the studio was literally like 50 steps away from Twitch. I would walk those 50 steps to the Hustle office, and we would record from 12 to 1. Everyone else is eating lunch while I'm recording a podcast. Cool, I'll eat lunch at my desk later; it doesn't matter. So, there are these little pockets of time you can unlock. **Second**, I focus on hiring. When I say I'm doing something, it's rarely just me doing it. It's like Ben, Zach, Romine, or Chris. I have a whole bunch of people I say, "Hey, I'm doing this interesting project. Who wants to do it with me?" I find great people who want to do interesting things together. I ask them, "What's in it for you? Do you want money? Do you want to learn? Do you want to build your network? What do you want out of this?" I'll make sure you get it. This way, I can be in two places at once because I could be doing this while they could be doing that.

Sam Parr

What's your burn on all the... like, because whenever I hear you say you got all these people, I'm like, "Damn, yeah, that must be a lot monthly."

Shaan Puri

Yes, my burn is expensive, but the things now bring in money, so it's okay. It offsets it, but like...

Sam Parr

but the angel investing doesn't bring in money and that's

Shaan Puri

something and the angel investing I don't pay salaries it's only carry so it's splitting the upside so they have they they get they I took some of my my 20% carry and I took it down and let them have more carry so which you know for them is fine because they make money doing other things so they're like cool this will pay off in 5 years that's great and I get to like learn a bunch about investing I get to put together a portfolio so if I want to go get a job doing this or I want to start my own fund I'll have a track record to. At and say no I I did these investments before I've been doing this for years so that's kind of like what's in it for them so I do have a significant burn I would say it's like $200,000 to $300,000 a year of like people cost to do these things my goal is for them to break even but if not like that's what money is for money is to be invested in things that will grow and so I kind of like just look at it like an investment and it's worked out so far where the side hustles more than pay for the money I put in now the last thing is basically an acknowledgment and I talked I was pretty transparent with the people at twitch which was like look I operate not on a 9 to 5 like strict schedule like cool I'm just gonna punch the clock for 40 hours a week no no no I'm here to do this mission you want this job done great I'm gonna get that job done here's the trade I I can make sure this job gets done you don't ask me how and when and where and why and how you know like all the technical than that like not in such a like confrontational way but like it's an understood agreement like they know what I do I'm not I'm very open about like hey I have a podcast I have a newsletter like the ceo of twitch subscribes to the newsletter and like will dm me about it like sometimes right like I'm not hiding any of these things they know I do these things they know they take some time but they're okay with that trade because I deliver the goods in my projects and so my trainer told me this one day because I told him I said I'm feeling a little bit guilty like you know I wonder I really like these people I don't want them to feel like I'm shortchanging them he goes well do you deliver the goods I was like well yeah like I I perform like they they get the results they want I said okay well you're that dude and I was like what do you mean he's like he's like they don't pay you to sit in your chair for certain hours they pay you to deliver the results and so just make sure you deliver the results and if you're delivering the results in less time that's because you're that dude maybe not everybody could do that but you could do that and I was like oh man what a pep talk that was you know made me feel good about something that I was feeling you know uncertain about or uneasy about before

Sam Parr

and you're on paternity leave now right

Shaan Puri

yeah

Sam Parr

so that helps too

Shaan Puri

Yeah, exactly. Big companies understand that if you have a kid... My first child, I only took 10 days off, which I really regret. I should have taken the whole leave. This time, I decided I'm going to make sure I take some time off. My family actually really needs me there. Whereas the first time, I was like, "I don't know what the hell I'm going to do here. My wife's kind of got it under control. Let me go back to work." This time, I realized that the idea of, "Oh, this project is so important," and thinking, "If I take this time off, then... blah blah blah. Let me do it. I'll take time off later," and later never came. That was a big lesson for me: don't put important things off until later. Do them now.

Sam Parr

Who's the worst person? This is such an interesting question, Klaybert. I bet you I know who that is. Who's the worst person you admire?

Shaan Puri

do you have one for this that's a great question

Sam Parr

Well, it's a great question, and you can get in trouble answering this one. I'm going to tiptoe a little bit around it because it's just weird, but I actually love learning about dictators. I read a ton about dictators. There's actually a podcast called "Dictators." So, I like learning about: - Benito Mussolini - Hitler - Fidel Castro I've read a lot about these figures and others...

Shaan Puri

I got in trouble with this before because I remember I was in school and I took a history class. The question I asked the teacher was, "Look, this sounds so messed up. What was going on back then? This sounds totally screwed up. How did this guy come to power?" He explained, "Well, here first you have to understand the state of Germany at the time..." The other thing was that, honestly, I forgot who Hitler's second in command is, but he's like kind of a famous guy for his almost like his persuasion prowess, like his marketing prowess.

Sam Parr

Yeah, Joseph. Give... yes. He's like the head of propaganda. He made movies. What's...?

Shaan Puri

his name

Sam Parr

I forget his name

Shaan Puri

he's he's one of the famous guys

Sam Parr

he's like his number 2 guy he's the head of propaganda

Shaan Puri

Exactly. They did very simple things. Like, everybody else was putting out their flyers when they were running for whatever president, or whatever their equivalent of president was, all in color. So, he did everything in black and white to stand out. Or if everyone was using black and white, he did color. He just did a whole bunch of things. I found it really interesting. Like, oh, oh yeah, Goebbels. Doctor Goebbels. Joseph.

Sam Parr

yeah yeah joseph goebel yeah yeah yeah yeah

Shaan Puri

So, they had movies made, and they used entertainment to kind of get their message across, to get their story across. They distilled down their philosophy into these really catchy nuggets. There are all these things that I thought, "Wow, that's like... if you just abstract the good and evil away, the skill of accomplishing a very hard thing, which is getting millions of people to follow you, there's a lot to be learned from that." I kind of was like, "Oh, that's really cool." And people were like, "Dude, you said Hitler's cool! You're off."

Sam Parr

Yeah, and that's the point I'm getting at, which is that it's so fascinating how someone can convince others. In my opinion, a lot of dictators could have changed their trajectory if they had just moved a few notches to the left early on. That would have put them in a totally different atmosphere. It's fascinating how someone can come from nothing and create something, whether it's an idea, a business, or a piece of art. I love that idea of manifesting. Even though it's horrible and the worst thing on earth, I have always been fascinated by figures like Che Guevara or Benito Mussolini, who I just read about. These individuals weren't supposed to be poor kids, yet they convinced so many people to do horrible things. To me, it's fascinating how they bent the world around them. It's crazy that people buy into that stuff, and it's also crazy that they had the courage to do it. This might sound like I'm glamorizing these people, but I'm not at all. Hopefully, you guys understand the nuance here and why it's kind of intriguing.

Shaan Puri

Yeah, so, two things. 1. When I met my friend Vishal, the guy who's kind of like a young guy who I think is definitely going to be a billionaire, I noticed he's totally hell-bent on becoming one. He lets every part of his other life go. Like, what we were talking about earlier, where I said, "Well, on the podcast, I talk a lot about business and money, but in my real life, I'm really actually more passionate about these other things that I spend more time on." He's the opposite. Whatever he talks about here, he's ten times more obsessed with it outside of this, and I love him for that. I remember when I met him, he sent me this documentary about a warlord in Africa who did some absolute gangster stuff. He was like, "Oh, I love this movie! I love this guy!" I was like, "Oh, it's kind of like heinous crimes," you know? And he said, "Oh no, it's crazy!" He told me this story about a guy who became the Emperor of China. He started off as an orphan servant and ended up, by the end of his lifetime, as the Emperor of China. I forgot his name, but one of the ancient emperors of China started off as an orphan boy with not a dollar to his name and then ruled.

Sam Parr

mean sounds like genghis khan or something

Shaan Puri

Yeah, and he was like... not just like a hero story. He also, you know, slayed his enemies and enslaved people, or I don't know what he did, but it wasn't all just an underdog story. It wasn't just David and Goliath. He told me that story, and I was like, "You're a maniac." But, you know, I actually would love to invest in you because that's the kind of maniac you want being a founder of these companies. It's like somebody who is wired a little bit differently. I remember hearing that. But anyway, the phrase you say, "Every great man is also a bad man," yeah, that's kind of true. Everybody... I like my favorite comedian, Louis CK, who I believe is currently canceled for, you know, doing something gross in front of a bunch of women or whatever. I don't think that's cool, but I love Louis CK, and I still love Louis CK. I think he's awesome as a comedian. I didn't say he's an awesome character or an awesome human being, and I don't want to be like him. No, I think he's an amazing comedian, and I love his comedy. Conor McGregor, you know, I had a poster behind me of him—a painting that I had made of him behind me for half these podcasts. He's been accused of sexual assault, people say he's on drugs, and he's kind of an asshole, among other things. But he's an amazing fighter, and I love his drive of how he went from being a plumber on welfare to the wealthiest fighter of all time. He said the whole time, from the very beginning, "That's what it's gonna be." He called it, and there are videos of him when he's alone in his bedroom—not even a professional yet—and he says, "I'm gonna be the greatest, and here's what I'm gonna do: I'm gonna do X, Y, Z." And he did it all. I admire that, but I also think he does a bunch of scumbag shit, and I'm okay with that trade, you know? So there are a bunch of people that are like that.

Sam Parr

I was driving, and Sarah and I were passing by Chick-fil-A. We were like, "I want to get that. Do you want that?" She was like, "Yeah, I want that so bad." But then she asked, "Do we want to support them?" This was right when they had done some anti-gay stuff.

Shaan Puri

marriage yeah

Sam Parr

And we were like, "Well, my taste buds don't really know if you're homophobic." So, right, I think it's okay. I think we could like the chicken. But also, it was something—maybe we were at some place and they had the chicken there. I was like, "I don't think my taste buds could tell if you're homophobic or not, so we could probably eat it." Alright, let's answer a video question.

Mark Hendrickson

Lately, I've been thinking about trying to hire my friends as operators of Source. I'm just worried about damaging that relationship. I think it's an awesome idea to be able to choose who I work with. I'm just concerned that all that friendship could go away when there's something as important as business and money involved.

Sam Parr

I have a pretty strong opinion on that, which is: no, I think you actually shouldn't. In most cases, don't do it. In some cases, it makes sense, but in most cases, I actually think it's a bad idea. I also have failed at doing this a little bit, but I don't think you should be friends with your coworkers or your employees. If you're a manager, you shouldn't be friends with your employees. If you're a business owner or a CEO, I don't think you should either. You should be friendly, but you need to be really careful about being friends with your employees. So, my opinion is no. I also think that, like, you probably disagree, Sean, or maybe you do, but even if you're with your coworkers and anytime in the evening alcohol shows up, I think you should leave. I don't even think you should be in the same room. So, I'm pretty strict about that, although I am friends with a lot of my coworkers, so I don't exactly follow all this. But I think that I might regret some of that.

Shaan Puri

We're opposites on this. So, you know what's funny? I always try to be friends with my boys, and I feel like they don't want to be friends with me. I'm like, "Yeah, I'm trying to be friends with them," and then I'm like, "Oh, that's weird. You guys all got together this Saturday," and I'm like, "Oh yeah, I was just at home. Could've come."

Sam Parr

Yeah, well, what's funny is that when you start a business and work a lot, you don't really have that many friends. I have friends like you, Jack, and Ramon, and I've got like four friends. But my coworkers are like, "Will you guys be my friends?" I'm with you all the time, and then I don't get invited to anything either.

Shaan Puri

Yeah, so I realized pretty quickly they don't want me around. I was like, "But it's weird, I'm such a good guy." So anyway, that part didn't work, not because I didn't intentionally try.

Sam Parr

to be friends with them

Shaan Puri

they just didn't be friends with me back that's okay the main thing for for me on the hiring side is I would say hire your competent friends so my very first business I started I started with 2 of my best buddies from college and we were just like yeah we're gonna do this you know well there's no ceo there's no hierarchy here we'll all just make decisions together we'll all split the equity perfectly equally we didn't really like put too much thought into it because we were just like 21 year old kids didn't really know much about anything and like fast forward a year later we had to have like a very uncomfortable conversation with one of the guys which was like hey dude like I feel like you're not pulling your weight and he was trying but like we were just like you're kind of just doing this part and like we're we feel like we're doing these other 8 parts and in retrospect I don't even know if that was really true but it definitely was an uncomfortable conversation and I could see the downside of it but what I would say is like the the saving grace for me has always been I only have hired my competent friends and competent friends do 2 things one is they perform so you don't have this you're not just hiring a buddy because you're your buddy you're hiring this person because they're good but you only know them because they're your buddy the second thing is they are reasonable and they will understand if you're really clear up front about like look here's the dynamic like we're buddies but sometimes I'm gonna have to tell you if I feel like the job's not getting done and I actually I want you to tell me too if you think that's true like are we okay if it's gonna be kind of uncomfortable like we're not just gonna be able to just shoot the shit like we gotta also have these 2 modes that we can operate in and I wanna make sure like you're on board with that so I'm I think with it with a little bit of good communication upfront you can get the big benefit which is it's way more fun to do stuff with friends like companies are hard they take a long time it's like a really long road trip and you want to be in the car with people you really like and so whether those were new people who you just happen to enjoy great or they're people you already enjoyed who you invite into the car because they're your buddy and you want to do this company with them I think when it works when you do it with your friends it's the best and when it doesn't work it's even worse than if they were they were not your friends so you got to take the good with the bad but we had a podcast with this guy on the speed called mike brown you introduced me to him I met him at your office

Sam Parr

yeah he's a cool ass pet

Shaan Puri

He had a successful business, then he brought both of his brothers on board. I was like, "Why did you do that? Most people say, you know, don't do business with family; it gets messy." He's like, "These are my brothers. I love these guys. I want to see them every day. I want to hang out with them. I want us all to win." He's like, "I feel blessed that I got to set this up where I get to do business with my best friends." I was like, "Well, when you say it like that, what the hell am I thinking about? That's obvious; that sounds great." So, I think there are downsides, but I'm of the mindset that if you pick competent people, you won't regret it.

Sam Parr

Alright, we'll do a couple more fast questions. Someone asked, "Who could squat more weight?" I think... I think it's me, Sean.

Shaan Puri

That's definitely you. I have Oskar Schlosser in my knees. If you have it, you know; if you don't have it, you don't know. But because of that, I don't squat. I can't squat. I have never squatted my whole life because of that issue.

Sam Parr

Okay, this is a deep one. It's cool, we'll answer it. What are your biggest insecurities? Both of you struggle with this. I'll say I'll go first. Sometimes, I get incredibly insecure that anything I make won't be good enough because I move too fast. I just do surface-level stuff and I don't treat it like a craft—like a craftsman enough. I don't think things through. I get pretty self-conscious when I meet really smart people. I meet a ton of them through this job, and I'm like, "Oh my god, this person's IQ is just... they are so much smarter than me. I just cannot keep up." So, I'm insecure about that. I'm insecure that I didn't go to Stanford or like a fancy school. When I meet people in the "in crowd," like when we meet guys like Andrew Chen who works at Andreessen Horowitz, I'm like, "Dude, I kinda wanna be in the in crowd, but I don't wanna work that hard to do it." I just don't care that much, but I wish I did. I feel a little insecure about that, and I get insecure because I'm pretty loud. That sometimes makes people not take me as seriously as I think they should. So those are mine.

Shaan Puri

Those are really good ones, and I think they are very relatable for most people. Mine, I would say, I don't even know if it's insecurity as much as... because when people say "insecurity," it's usually like, "What's something you worry about?" But it's not really true; you kind of worry too much about it. I think mine is true. It's just more like, "Here's your weakness, here's your flaw." I would say something I kind of worry about is that I don't really filter myself. I just talk a lot, and I don't really think about it before I do it. I don't even filter myself with actions. Like I said with the rolling dice, I think, "Oh, that's cool! Let's do it. Can we do it today? Let's just do it now!" I don't want to think things through. So, I would say the fear I have, and the insecurity I have, is around actually hurting people's feelings. Sometimes I could say stuff that's inconsiderate or hurtful in some way, or like, you know, too opinionated. It's like, "No, they didn't ask for your opinion," type of thing. So, I'm kind of conscious of that. I would say I'm pretty self-conscious about that. That's the word—not insecure, I'm self-conscious that, wow, I do that, and I don't really like that part of me. I will say things and do things without really thinking about how others will feel about it. Also, when I meet people, like our friend Ramon, who's so considerate, I just feel so inconsiderate in comparison. I'm like, "Oh, I want to be that way," but man, I'm like the opposite.

Sam Parr

I'm like a knuckle dragger. I'm just like a Neanderthal.

Shaan Puri

So, I feel really bad about that. Then, I would say like the other minor insecurity is: Am I just wasting my talents? When I meet people who are doing really amazing things, like Scott Harrison... you know, he's been on a 15-year mission to bring clean drinking water to the world. I went with him to Africa, and we went to a town where they had installed one of the water wells. Literally, the town was like a parade that Scott was here. They thought this guy was Jesus! He kind of looked like Jesus in that moment. I thought he was Jesus in that moment. He's totally humble; he hated that they were celebrating him. He was there not for that reason, but that's the reality of the impact of his work. He literally changes the lives of entire towns in Africa. So then, when I see that, I'm like, "What am I wasting? Do I need to do this silly e-commerce thing? Do I need to do this newsletter? Who gives a shit?" You know? Sometimes, I feel really small about the way I decided to use my time and my talents.

Sam Parr

completely agree with that

Shaan Puri

compared to other people

Sam Parr

Last question: when are you guys going to do a meetup? Since COVID is pretty much in the past, when is the next one going to happen? I'm actually doing a meet-up. I'm driving to Saint Louis to spend a week with my family there, and I'm stopping in Oklahoma City because that was just like the middle ground. I tweeted out, so I've got like 30, 40, or 50 people—I forget how many—who RSVP'd for a breakfast in Oklahoma City. If you're down, Sean, although you just had a baby, so I imagine we're going to have to wait a little while. I would totally be down for doing like a two-week tour or something where we go from place to place. I don't know if we could drive; I don't know what you'd want to do, but I'm totally down for like a two-week thing.

Shaan Puri

Yes, I totally agree. I think if we just said, "Alright, this fall we're going on tour. We're going to go to these 7 cities in 7 days or 7 cities in 10 days," or something like that, and we just set up the events, I would love to do that. I think that would be amazing.

Sam Parr

Well, we just hired a community manager. Her name's April, and she set this event up for me. I just said, "Hey, I'm going to show up in Oklahoma City. Can you book me a hotel and set up an Eventbrite?" I'll tweet it out, and we can have her do that and help us with it.

Shaan Puri

You do something really great that I think you should tell people about. When you host events, you make the themes fantastic. For example, you used to do this thing called "Pizza in Forties." Can you give me... I don't even know what other ones you've done, but tell the people about some of the different events you've organized. I think it's really smart how you set those events up. People want to come, and they behave differently because of the theme you've created. I've been to a lot of Silicon Valley networking events, and they're boring as hell. You don't want to go. When people attend, they're all surface-level; they don't let their guard down. Your events are very different. So, what are some of the different themes you've come up with? Do you have a theory on why that is?

Sam Parr

No, I don't have a theory. I just think it's fun. I do it for the reasons I mentioned earlier in the episode; it’s just because it's cool. That's the only reason why. So, I do the Anti-MBA, which is a book club where we get an expert to come in and discuss the book's topic. I've done this—sounds douchey to say—but I don't even drink, so that's why it's funny. We have this thing called "Pizza and Forties." The speaker gets a 40-ounce beer because a 40-ounce beer takes like an hour to drink. We only have pizza because we are poor, and that's all we could afford. We would give the speaker a 40-ounce beer; they've got to drink the beer, and when the beer is done, the talk's done. The answers get a little bit wilder as they get deeper into the beer. We did 2X, which was focused on women telling their stories. It stands for 2X chromosomes. Did you go to the one that we had in the Marina?

Shaan Puri

no what's that

Sam Parr

We used to do 2X at this thing called Palace of Fine Arts, and we had literally 2,000 women there in San Francisco. It probably was like the largest contingency of tech women probably in the world or in the country. It was kind of interesting. So we did that. What else do we do? Hustle Con... Con Con, which is... Con Con is the startup... that's the content conference. I thought Con Con was a funny name. What else? Anything else?

Shaan Puri

have you I feel like you've done some breakfast thing before have you done a breakfast thing or is that something else

Sam Parr

Grind. Yeah, we did "Rise and Grind," which was when we would talk about different stuff in the morning over coffee. It was like a grind—like coffee—but also about working hard.

Shaan Puri

You're good at this. You're good at coming up with a catchy name and a catchy theme for people to get behind. The vibe is very different. I think that's important. If somebody's doing it like that, it doesn't take any extra money; it just takes a little creativity. You've made your thing better and cooler, more fun for you to do, more fun for people to come to, and more fun for speakers to attend because it's different than the average event.

Sam Parr

so long story short maybe late summer if you're down

Shaan Puri

yeah I'm definitely down

Sam Parr

alright great that's it we'll do it uh-huh

Shaan Puri

yeah