Buffett’s Money Wisdom, Galloway’s $100M Advice & Why Newsletters Suck (#493)

Sam Parr

That's how we grew. That's why I tell people, I say to blog. I don't actually mean blog, but I mean create **bangers**—text-based **bangers**—on a consistent basis. Get people to love your free content enough to subscribe.

Shaan Puri

**TBB**: Text-Based Bangers. That's been our strategy, right? Like, how'd you...

Sam Parr

Alright, we're live! Can I tell you about a few interesting pieces of content I've consumed lately? I want to hear what you've consumed as well.

Shaan Puri

yeah let's do it the info diet section

Sam Parr

The info diet section... Yeah, let me tell you the first one. I have been on a Scott Galloway kick. Scott Galloway has a podcast, and I think that's what he's more famous for than anything. He started a few companies, but one of his companies, L2, I think it sold for like $200 million. It was like 9 figures. This dude did a podcast called "Scott's Personal Finance." I found it on YouTube, where he talks about money and how much money he has and what he spends it on. He says, "This is all gonna sound douchey, but I'll tell you." He basically states, "I'm worth at least $100 million." He mentions, "I made it into the 9 figures recently, but I'm still incredibly anxious about money. It stems from childhood. We were just poor, and I'm super anxious about it." Then he goes on to say something cool. He mentions two interesting things. First, he says, "I'm spending between $200,000 and $400,000 a month." Then, when asked why he moved to Europe, he responds, "Well, America is the best place to make money, and Europe is the best place to spend it."

Shaan Puri

love that that's great

Sam Parr

Yeah, it was awesome. He goes, "What I've realized is that I'm getting older. I don't have a lot of time to live. Maybe I have 40 more years or something like that to live. I'm gonna spend it, and I'm gonna enjoy the hell out of it." He goes, "It feels incredibly masculine for me to be able to provide these experiences for my family, and I'm doing it." He says, "I spend around $100,000 to $200,000 a month now on travel. We fly private. We went to the World Cup. I brought another couple and their family just because I wanted to. We paid for the whole thing." He goes through this really detailed thing about spending his money. Another interesting thing he said, and I want to ask this about you, is that he has had, I think, three companies, one of which was a very big success that probably made him $50 million. But he said, "I've made more money being on the boards of companies and the equity that they've given me than actually building companies." What I'm surprised about is what he said: "I've made more money doing not my main thing, or at least what I thought was going to be my main thing, doing these ancillary things." Has that proven to be true in your career yet?

Shaan Puri

100%. I wouldn't say more yet, but I've definitely seen examples of that. I'll give you a very simple example from my life, and I'll tell you one that was from a recent episode. In my life, I started an e-commerce company, maybe an e-commerce brand, about three years ago. I can't tell you how many hours I've spent on this e-commerce thing. It takes a lot of time to build a real company that actually has, you know, real revenues and real profits that are significant. There's a physical product, and tons of energy goes into it. I have pulled out $0 from this business. Now, the business makes a lot of money; we're talking tens of millions of dollars in revenue, but I pull out $0. All of it gets reinvested, and all my time gets invested into this thing. It is very labor-intensive, so I haven't made much money from this. One thing that did happen along the way was that I was like, "Ah, this is such a pain! I'm always on my phone." You know, often if you message me, I'll be like, "Oh yeah, I'll send it to you when I'm back on my computer." The thing is, I'm not just at my computer a lot. I wanted to be able to check on my store from my phone. The Shopify app doesn't really make that very easy. You can get in, you can maybe see your revenue, but you don't know how your ads are doing. You don't know how your Amazon store is doing, you don't know how your Google account's doing, and you don't know how your Klaviyo emails are working. So, I meet these two 22-year-old Jewish guys who are like, "Hey, we made this thing that's like a mobile way to manage your storefront for any e-commerce brand." They said, "Oh, we have an e-commerce brand; we built this thing for us." I use it, and I'm like, "Oh, this is great!" I'm okay with investing, and they're like, "Oh cool! I think I would maybe be the first investor, maybe second, something like that." It was very cheap, like a $5,000 valuation or something like that. Do you...?

Sam Parr

remember what you put in

Shaan Puri

$75,000 to a company called triple whale

Sam Parr

was that all your money

Shaan Puri

no this I all my investments have to go through the fund unless it's like something that like wouldn't be eligible for the fund but this would because otherwise it's like a biased thing so put it in from the fund so put this money in and I'm like great I hope this does well but I'm not sure it seems like you know maybe just the analytics widget I don't know it might not be the biggest thing in the world but I I think it's really useful for me I think other store owners will find it useful start telling other owners about it blah blah blah this company is now worth 100 of 1,000,000 of dollars so you know on a $5,000,000 valuation entry? You know we're up 40 x or something like that you know 30 40 50 x somewhere in that range so you know set take $75,000 and multiply by by let's just take 40 x for a second it's 3,000,000 3,000,000 bucks now of course it's the fund so you know my carry on that's 20% you know but it's also not done this is just like you know a couple years in if this becomes a $2,000,000,000 company you know I I there's it's easy to see that I will have made more and and by the way I invested in 6 other ecommerce saas tools it's like oh sales tax is a pain in the ass cool let me use numeral for that this is like a new startup that's doing making it easy for ecommerce or sales tax oh I need bookkeeping and accounting let's use final loop instead of quickbooks it's like I started investing in a bunch of these whatever I thought was the best tool after I did the research I was like well I'm not just gonna be a user I'm also gonna be an investor and I just did that across the board and a lot of these are are huge now postscript for for text message meant like what ron desantis is using for his text messaging I don't know what he's using but he probably should be using postscript because it's the like the best way to send sms marketing and you just invest in these because you're a user but like I have made more money investing in ecommerce saas tools than I've made from my store and the store took all of my time and these other ones took one hour of emails to back and forth to just do the investment and that's like you know not what I would have expected going in however had I not done the ecommerce thing I would have never understood the value of these tools or been able to see them early or been able to be like hey let me in and I'll introduce you to a hundred other people that have stores because I'm in that network now and so you made money in this like not what you planned to make money you made money in this other weird way same way Scott galloway didn't make you know he makes the money in his company but then his reputation is where he gets paid to be on boards way easier and more money especially when you count dollars per hour I'll give you another example we just did a podcast with samir from colin and samir and in that he talks about like they got their start doing something that like nobody would look at it and be like this is a good business plan he was like we're gonna basically I think they were fans of lacrosse or lacrosse they were lacrosse players or something and they created like a lacrosse sports commentary network on youtube it's like niche of a niche of a niche and they did this pretty early on youtube and honestly it didn't work that well but it did two things it taught them about youtube and making videos and now their youtube channel is like 1,000,000 subscribers it's a you know it's a multimillion dollar brand easily so that taught them that but also when they were doing that when they were following the lacrosse scene they saw this one guy he was the best lacrosse player in the country and he's like wanted to go pro but there's like no pro scene for lacrosse you get paid nothing and so he's like dude if I go pro I make $35,000 a year this sucks he's like screw it I'm gonna make my own lacrosse league and this guy created his own lacrosse league well guess who became the first investor in the lacrosse league sameer because anyway he's like I didn't have a lot of money I put in whatever I don't know what it was let's pretend it's $10 but like that lacrosse league is now worth 100 of 1,000,000 of dollars that he got in the very beginning so like in this weird way he's gonna he'll probably make have made more from that one investment than all of the youtube action he was trying to do along the way but it only would have happened by being in the game and getting giving yourself that opportunity to get left

Sam Parr

I think it's called the arena it's being in the arena sean

Sam Parr

but that's the word

Shaan Puri

for brown guys like me to say the arena I don't wanna get get caught in that fire

Sam Parr

you could say that

Sam Parr

He's in the arena. That's good. And by the way, that podcast was great. The second thing that I've consumed lately is that I've been reading like crazy. You and Andrew kind of got me turned on to this. I hate... I don't really love investing, but I wanted to learn more about it. So, I read Warren Buffett's biography. Not the one "Snowball" because that's too long—it's like 1,000 pages. This one's called "The Making of an American Capitalist." Have you ever read anything about Buffett?

Shaan Puri

back in the day like 10 years ago I read a buffett book but I don't really remember it to be honest

Sam Parr

Man, I didn't know anything about him. But there are a few traits about him that are crazy. The one, like, he's got this "aw shucks" demeanor, like, "I'm from the Midwest, what do I know?" You know? He's just super charismatic.

Shaan Puri

he could be president

Sam Parr

yeah yeah well it's mostly kind of bullshit in a sense like the guy's a genius like he's like the 1% of the 1% in terms of iq in terms of horsepower and there's this crazy d this crazy story where he's like helping to buy I think it's salomon brothers or no sorry it's abc so he's buying abc for multibillion000,000 of dollars and he's sitting at his desk and they're like alright let's work out the deal he goes oh no let's just work it out right now like and he's like well what about your analysts like where are they he goes I'm the computer it's all here and he doesn't have a calculator he doesn't have anything like that he's like let's just we're gonna do the deal right now and I could just do it in my head and he just memorizes all these their annual reports and all their numbers and then he like does the math in their head he's like warren goes if I can't do the math in my head then I I don't understand this deal and I probably shouldn't do it so because iq is crazy the second thing is that his discipline is super strong so before he had berkshire hathaway he had a fund with like I think it started with like a $100 or something not substantial but it was growing 30% a year and he did that for like 10 years in in the sixties he just shut it down and they're like why are you shutting this down he's like well I just don't see any good opportunities right now you know like I said I'm I'm looking for good opportunities I don't see any right now so I'm just gonna shut this down and so he just doesn't he quit investing and had a little mini retirement he's incredibly disciplined and then the last thing is that he has super high integrity so like he's only sued someone one time and that time was when he gave a guy a a a charity $25,000 and the guy robbed him of the and he didn't actually provide the charitable work that's the only time he sued someone and there was another time where he was being investigated by the senate they thought that he was insider trading because he did a few things that were like smart and he just made the right calls and after investigating him for 2 or 3 years they're like hey do you wanna like join this committee on like fraud because you're really smart and you're like the most honest guy we've met and he joined the committee there's another time where he wants to he's like in this country club and he's like hey why don't we let jewish people in this country club this is pretty ridiculous and he's like and the guys were like look the jews have their own thing they have their own country club it's 100% jewish let the jews go there so instead of putting up a fuss about it he goes and joins the jewish country club he goes hey they integrate and they let non jews into their thing I think we should do that to our thing and that's like how he goes about doing stuff he's like not confrontational but he's like pretty slick and then the last thing I guess is he basically for the first like 40 years of his career he only read annual reports and that's how he got his information so people are like how are you so good and he's like dude I just read like 5 annual reports a day and all the information that I'm using he was like I don't even have a computer I don't have a terminal all the information that I use any one of you out there can go to a library and get that same information so super unique guy so I've been very fascinated with him but he's got one downside do you know what is you know he's like a a a shit family man right

Shaan Puri

right yeah he he's a very weird a strange family dynamic so yeah so he got divorced

Sam Parr

yeah

Shaan Puri

but then she didn't

Sam Parr

Get divorced? So, his wife, Susie, she was like a hippie. For some reason, he was into that. They were married, and he loved her and everything. But one day, she goes, "You know, Warren, I just want to go off to San Francisco and do my own thing, but we're not going to get a divorce." And he's like, "Alright, cool." Then she says, "Also, I have my friend named Astrid. She's going to come over and take care of you."

Shaan Puri

I thought it was her sister it's not her sister it's just

Sam Parr

a friend it was it was like someone she was friendly with

Shaan Puri

okay

Sam Parr

And so, within a week of Astrid taking care of Warren Buffett, they are like lovers. She moves in, and they date. However, they're all friends with each other. Susie's like, "Hey, Astrid, I think you should redecorate the house from when I did it. It's getting a little old." She gives her tips on taking care of him. Then, when Buffett has to go to these big presidential public meetings where he's meeting with the Senate or whatever, Susie comes when he wants to do some local stuff or things that don't require a lot of press. Astrid comes too, and they take turns. Every once in a while, if it's a really big event, they'll both go and team up to support him. It's very interesting and very strange, but he's not a very present father, and he's super cheap with his kids. There was a time when his daughter was living in a really crappy apartment, and she had just had a baby. One of Buffett's friends goes to check on her, and the daughter can barely see the TV because it's a little small black-and-white TV. The friend says, "Warren, you should buy her a big-screen TV, man. She just had a baby and is sitting in this crappy apartment. Just buy her a TV!" But he wouldn't do it. He didn't want to buy her a TV, and it took convincing. He said, "I don't want to spoil them." So, he's really cheap, and it didn't seem like he was the best father.

Shaan Puri

I like that there's one thing I always remember about Buffett. There are like two things that I really like about him. I have a whole document that I keep called "Buffettisms" because he has the skill of telling these tiny stories, these little parables that are both funny and interesting. I just feel like he's got an arsenal of these. I don't read a lot of his books, but I watch a lot of his talks and I watch a lot of their annual shareholder meetings to try to find these little phrases he uses. I am like, "Oh, this guy is so charming!" But also, he does a great job of making his points clear. Another thing I like about Buffett is something he said once that really stuck with me. He goes, "The stock market... people ask, 'Why don't more people get rich?' He says, 'Because they don't really understand how the game works.' The best rule of this entire game, in this case, with the stock market, is that you don't have to play." He's like, "Most people's problem is that they just do too many things. They make too many investments, they buy and sell too many things, and they feel constantly compelled to come to an answer on whether they should or shouldn't do X." And he's like, "You really just have to sit and wait for the fat pitch. You don't have to swing."

Sam Parr

that's where you got your fat pitch thing

Shaan Puri

Yeah, exactly. There are no called strikes in investing. You could sit there all day and just watch pitches go by, waiting for the fat pitch. The problem is, people suck at waiting. That really stood out to me because I'm somebody who historically is very bad at waiting. I'm a very impulsive, impatient person. It serves you well as an entrepreneur to be very impatient; you take a bunch of action. However, as an investor, impatience and impulsiveness are terrible traits. So, as I've shifted my career from entrepreneur to investor, I had to ask myself: "What do I need to relearn? What do I need to unlearn? What served me as an entrepreneur that's not going to serve me as an investor?" Let me make that conscious switch. That was one of the key switches that I realized I had to make.

Sam Parr

And I just... I agree. That's a really good lesson. I think he stole that from Ted Williams, like a famous baseball player who hit lots of home runs. Ted Williams made this graph.

Shaan Puri

He just hit... he's in a strike zone. So it was just a strike zone, and he's like, "Look, my batting average, if I hit a pitch in this bottom corner, is pretty low. I might make contact with the pitch; it might be a strike, but my batting average is low. I really shouldn't even swing at that pitch, even though it's a strike." He's like, "I'm looking for stuff in the sweet spot because here I'm over .400." Ted Williams has the greatest batting average ever, and one of the reasons why was he was more disciplined than others in what pitches he would swing at. He would really wait for those fat pitches, whereas most batters get quite impatient and start just hacking at everything.

Sam Parr

But my issue with Warren's advice on that stuff was, "Alright, well, what's a good pitch look like?" So, I ordered this book. It's like they didn't make a lot of copies of it, but I had to find it on Amazon, and it's going to take like 2 or 3 weeks to come. But it's...

Shaan Puri

like how you just said amazon like it's like some niche bookstore you went to like oh I

Sam Parr

it's hard to find I have

Shaan Puri

to go to amazon dotcom to find it

Sam Parr

It's his little book. It's his little mom-and-pop boutique. They analyze all of his deals and write out what he saw in them. I'm trying to figure out, okay, you're telling me what a bad one looks like. What's a good one look like? So that's some of the content that I've been consuming. It's been good. I've been reading like a book or two a week. It's because of Kindle. Do you read on Kindle ever?

Shaan Puri

Yeah, that's all I read pretty much. I start on Kindle, and then if I like the book, I'll order the hardcover so that I have it around the house to just remember it and pick it up whenever I want. But I start on Kindle.

Sam Parr

Well, they have this percentage bar at the bottom that shows what percentage of the book you've read. I'm like, "I'm going to get through 20% every night," and it's been awesome. So, shout out to Kindle!

Sam Parr

you got yeah you nailed it

Shaan Puri

gamified your ass okay so let me let me tell you 2 things that are interesting 1 the content I consumed so I listened to this podcast by our friend david senrah I don't know that that well I hung out with him one time and he's he's a total nut in the best way like he's a 1000 miles a minute but I wanna share with you he did a pod the other day that I thought was really good called I think it was called the greatest interview I've ever done and it was a basically some it was patrick o'shaughnessy interviewing him they're like what did you notice about a lot of you've studied all these great men in history right you you read these biographies and what are some common things that you see he goes the story of the son the story of the son is begins at the end of the story of the father so basically like embedded in the story of the son is the story of the father and he's like this is very very common whether the father was great in all these ways often you'll see the son take a totally different approach or if the father was limiting or hard ass or really brutal in one way the sun takes that trauma and basically uses it in in what they do and I thought that was pretty cool second thing he said about reading that I really liked he goes they go do you reread books and he goes yeah of course I love rereading books I reread books all the time and you know I think a common thing would be like oh isn't that kind of a waste to like read what you've already read it's like you know you've already read that book it's the same thing why not read something new and he said it really well he goes I read books like several years apart often and he goes the words are the same but I've changed he's like you know I'm a different guy than I was when I first read that book so the second time I read it I've had years of life experience I've read a 100 other books I've had all these these things that I've done in my life and now the same words mean something totally different to me or I have an elevated understanding or memory or different things stands out to me I thought that was a really great insight on rereading because I'm a big fan of rereading like I'd rather find a great thing and soak in it versus trying to just move on to the next and count the number of books I can read in a year and I thought the re that that.

Shaan Puri

He brought up something that I really had never heard before. I also thought that he did an amazing job of almost building his personal story. He expressed it really well: "Why did you start doing this? Why did you start this whole thing where you're reading all these books and doing this podcast? How did you even have the inspiration for that?" He said, "Look man, my childhood was not the best. My parents did their best, but they weren't necessarily the best. I'm the only person in my family to ever graduate from high school. I wanted to be successful, but everywhere I looked around me, all I saw was the wrong answer. All I saw was what not to do. I didn't read just as a hobby for fun; I read because I was looking for the answers. I wanted to know what to do because all I saw in my life was what not to do." That's what led me to reading the biographies of great people. He said, "I have spent the last, you know, whatever, 10 years of my life having one-way conversations with the greatest people ever to live on this earth. I think about reading as having a one-way conversation with the greatest people on earth." He continued, "As for the podcast, people ask, 'Why did you start a podcast?' I don't know, man. I didn't even start it. This is just an obsession. I'm just studying these people. I needed a way to put my thoughts down. This is an obsession disguised as a podcast." I loved it. I was like, "Wow."

Sam Parr

dude he's good

Shaan Puri

These are very little, one-line... He's very lyrical with it, and so I'm very impressed by David Sedaris. I think he is doing a great job. And yeah, this... there was... it was a fun thing to consume.

Sam Parr

I joked with them, I was like, "You know, like David there, I got turned off on reading a lot of these books for a while because I would listen to them on Audible. I had my favorite narrators, and I would go like, 'Oh, I love this guy's voice. What else did he narrate?' This guy has narrated like a thousand books, and I'm like, how the heck is this guy still a narrator?"

Sam Parr

what do you think if you like

Sam Parr

read all these business books he would be way more successful

Shaan Puri

That's kind of what I'm bringing up here. I love the way he phrases things; I think it's really compelling. I actually don't agree with him that you're not having one-way conversations with the greatest people on earth. It's not like you needed to do all of that to be successful. Actually, you should probably just get out there and do some things, right? I could argue a bunch of the other sides, but the fact that he believes that is going to lead him to a really great and successful place. I don't subscribe to all his thoughts, but I am a fan of his level of intensity and conviction in himself and what he's doing.

Sam Parr

In California, like I think in the nineties, they banned weightlifting in the prisons because they were like, "Holy shit, we're building super criminals!" These guys are getting yoked. They're like too big, and they're surrounded by other criminals. They can talk about the best way to do stuff, and now they're bench pressing 500 pounds. These are super criminals! David is becoming a super criminal a little bit. He's like one of the guys who's reading it and plotting this stuff, just cranking away. He's plotting! David's plotting, dude.

Shaan Puri

There's a scenario I feel like I could present to David. He's sitting there reading a book, and I say, "David, do you like that book?" He responds, "I love this book! What, are you joking me?" And I'm like, "David, in this room right over here, Heidi Klum is standing there naked. She's surrounded by all the best desserts you could ever eat—Michelin star desserts. The music? It's the greatest music you've ever heard. All of the unreleased Drake albums are in here. It's the best music, it's the best party. There are no other guys in here, just all naked supermodels. And David, the best part is, when you walk in, you become a billionaire!" I think he'd be like... he wouldn't have even heard anything. He'd just be turning the page to the next page, like this guy didn't want to do anything else.

Sam Parr

they would have licked his fingers it just looked back down it's like

Sam Parr

I just heard the page

Shaan Puri

The silence, chump. I'm reading, and that's the best compliment and the best insult I can give him at the same time. I think it is amazing that he is that way. He really feels like this is the best thing that anyone could possibly do. He can't believe nobody else is doing this. He does it. It's like this is the peak of the peak of life experience.

Sam Parr

I'm inspired by him anything else that you've consumed that you like

Shaan Puri

Not a consume, but I have a different perspective. So, in the way that I'm like... By the way, I hope he doesn't take offense. I'm joking about some of these things, but like...

Sam Parr

but yeah I'm a huge fan of dave

Shaan Puri

Of his stuff, I think he does an amazing job. I have no vested interest in his success, except for the fact that I think he's really cool and does a great job. I appreciate his craft.

Sam Parr

and he's one of the few pods that I like listen to on a regular basis it's quite good

Shaan Puri

yeah that was like a genuine endorsement

Sam Parr

it's called founders by the way the pod is called founders so we'll give them a we'll give them a some love

Shaan Puri

the other thing that so I'm so the other interesting experience I had was I recognize I'm drawn to people like him people who are slightly extreme who are obsessed who have a a independent mindedness they're deciding how they wanna live life and they their rubric of success is different than others right that's what I just described about him that I like ben had a meeting with somebody and he comes back he called me oh dude I've met this guy he's great he's doing this thing and then he just kept saying he like said 2 or 3 times like really great guy and I was like I was I was like man why is he such a great guy like you've only been there for 45 minutes like you know what what do you mean by that why did you he kept saying I really liked him I really liked him I I really like what he's doing I go do you really like what he's doing or you really like him he goes I think I really like him I go let me guess was he high energy when he talked a nice guy like simple that didn't intimidate you by kinda being a hard ass about anything and did he teach you 1 or 2 interesting things during the conversation he goes bingo I know ben because that's your archetype of what you really like that's why you really like me I'm a high energy guy I'm I'm a nice guy I don't like you know I don't like kind of push people into a place that they feel uncomfortable and I'll usually if we talk to you for an hour you're gonna learn 1 or 2 things that's why we get along and I said you know one thing we should do as again how do you become a how do you shift from operator to maybe spending spending more time investing is I think we gotta investigate what are our bias and our blind spots so basically we made a little list of what's the personality archetype I am irrationally drawn towards for me it's the david sedra types it's the slightly extreme uncomfortable ambition around their thing independent mindedness obsession with their craft I am drawn to that I will make mistakes you know it's like a girl who's like you know he's a 6 but he's wearing a leather jacket it's like it just does something to me I gotta go for him like that's what I'm drawn to and I was like on the other side what what can't I stand somebody who's just dry if you have no sense of humor if you're dry like you can be the smartest guy in the world sitting on a gold mine of a business if you're boring like within 5 minutes I'm like this guy sucks I'm out and

Sam Parr

you know I'm just like who's an example of that like a famous person

Shaan Puri

well dude I'm not trying to make a you know I'm trying to make a

Sam Parr

well famous like a like a or like a a a someone who you've read about

Shaan Puri

let's see

Sam Parr

a public person

Shaan Puri

I don't know off the top of my head do you have one

Sam Parr

Who's just dry? I mean, there's like a bunch of famous investors and stuff who I've read about, and I'm like, "This is a snooze fest." Like, yeah.

Shaan Puri

There are some, I don't know, enterprise SaaS or PaaS companies. These people are like, "Yeah, we just make the best," or "We just provide solid procurement services to others," right? It's like, I don't know.

Sam Parr

they don't have a lot of hobbies

Shaan Puri

Yeah, like, do you love that? Like, no, but we service a need and it's cool. So, what are some of the cool growth hacks you've been doing? They're like, "Oh, we don't really need growth hacks. We grow 70% year over year. We just really need to do solid operations." It's like, "Oh, okay." I just need to get out of this conversation right now. I feel itchy; I gotta get out of here.

Sam Parr

Whenever I read about hedge fund guys, I'm like, "This is a snooze fest." Dude, you're just like... when they do a lot of fast trading, unless...

Shaan Puri

they're kinda like a criminal and kinda doing drugs then I'm in yeah

Sam Parr

I'm always down with like I love a good crime story

Shaan Puri

unless you're driving your your successful life off a cliff I'm out yeah

Sam Parr

Yeah, I need some drama. But whenever I read about hedge fund guys, I'm like, "Dude, you're just playing Excel all day." I don't find that enjoyable to hear about.

Shaan Puri

But I think it is useful. It was a useful exercise for us to do, which was to consider: what are you drawn towards that you should probably dial down? You should be able to apply a discount after the fact when you're out of heat. Then, what do you have an irrational distaste for, where you're going to underprice or underestimate somebody? Actually, you shouldn't be. People have been talking about bias and related topics, but they always come at it from a diversity and inclusion point of view. For me, sure, that's fine, but I've never been drawn to spending a bunch of time thinking about that. However, for this, I immediately saw for myself, "Oh yeah, I could see myself making mistakes by being overly generous towards a certain personality type." You say certain key phrases, and I'm all in. Yet, I'm kind of repelled from these things, even though I really shouldn't be. It's actually like I don't need to be your friend. If I'm investing in you, I don't need to think you're cool and want to hang out with you. I just need to be able to understand what you're doing and invest in it. Do you feel like you have the same thing? Do you have a thing you're drawn to? I feel like one of yours—I'll just say it out loud—is that you're drawn to people who are very meticulous and orderly in the way they operate. If somebody has a system and is a stickler for the details, I feel like they go up 100 points in your book. Whereas for me, that doesn't really do it.

Sam Parr

That does it for me because I envy that. That's not my natural state, you know? My wife is like that. I'm drawn to people who are orderly, systematic, and disciplined—like people who wake up at 5 AM every morning. That's not me. I'm really fascinated by people who grind really hard and are systematic and operational. I get a lot of joy being around those people because I'm not like that.

Shaan Puri

Can I tell you real quick about a cool thing? Because I feel like we did a bunch of fluffy stuff today. Okay, yeah, I gotta get a rant off my chest. People are really drawn to things that are highly tactical or highly specific versus complex, as opposed to things that are simple but might be a little bit airy. Let me give you an example. When I was in LA, we did a bunch of those dinners with founders. I think I said this in my debrief, but I'll say it again. The conversation would inevitably go like this: you have a bunch of people who've all sold their companies. Everybody in the group is, you know, successful by traditional measures. The conversation would always gravitate towards two subjects: kind of health and longevity, or just like being happy—being a happier person. Some sort of life quality improvement.

Sam Parr

rich guy problems

Shaan Puri

rich guy shit because like oh I've already made it but yeah this I feel like I'm not as happy as I thought I would be so within what you know like and the longevity health things gives them a new like the carrot to chase and they kinda feel like they neglected it while running their company and the life quality every athlete just wants a high quality of life they just don't know how to ask the questions around it and what you would see was 2 things somebody would say something like that was just like simple and useful they'd be like yeah you know I just like I'm you know before bed I don't really use my phone I just actually kind of review the day and think about like you know how I did and what you know just in general like my interactions of the day what I might have done differently and like you know and I'm like oh I do that too it's I have this thing called revision and it's like I just kinda see the day events of my day and I just go back and just play them out a little differently in my head it's really useful and people are like the reaction to something like that if you just kinda tell people like hey you know here's a simple thing you could do imagine what you want and what it would feel like to have it or think about how your day went to just be kind of mindful and thoughtful about like you know versus just always on to the next thing and the reaction I would get would be like cool and the cool is kinda like cool good for you like I ain't doing that shit like you know don't tell me to be alone with my thoughts and then somebody would be like yeah you know I really I was feeling kinda you know I've just been feeling like I'm in a funk and so I started taking you know 6 milligrams of low dose naltrexone and then people were like what what what what is it what is it called and they're like getting their every literally everyone gets their phone out they start what is it called how do you spell that I'm like are you just gonna take this random drug this person you've never met and they'd be like how many milligrams is that 5 is 5 what they say were you kidding can I order right now before I leave this dinner and I'm like y'all motherfuckers are crazy why are people so attracted to the pill the the the complex thing you can't even pronounce that just might do it for you verse or you know they'd be like yeah I I hired this you know this functional cognitive coach and they'd be like what's his name does he take more clients oh here's the money you're like and I'm like bro have you tried like fucking writing down like you know your thoughts for a second like nobody wants the simple thing like nobody wants the simple oddest thing

Sam Parr

I just funk it up I just I just I just flunk in my bed and it worked

Shaan Puri

And I was like, "Hey, here's what I do." You know, when I go into a situation, instead of just reacting like, "Oh, it's kind of cold out here, so I'm uncomfortable now," I feel bad. I'm a little bit bothered by that. I just decide before I go in, like, "You know what? I want to have a playful experience. I want to have a laughing experience right now." Then I just decide that, and I go in. I look for those moments and create that experience for myself. It's pretty amazing. You could just do this. You could just decide what experience you want and then go have it. And they're like, "Is it okay? Can the next person say like a pill that I could take, like some new nootropic that's going to help me?"

Sam Parr

like they're like oh yeah alright sean but can I put that in my body intravenously like does

Shaan Puri

it come with needles or

Sam Parr

do I buy them

Shaan Puri

I'm just like, "Y'all are insane! You're insane!" This guy is like, "You know, I really wanna... what's that? You know, this equipment. Oh, I bought all this exercise equipment." I'm like, "Bitch, do you walk? Do you even have like 30 minutes a day?" He's like, "No, no, I don't exercise. I don't have time, but I'm building out this home gym." And I'm thinking, "You could just do push-ups on the floor, right? You don't have to first buy $10,000 of equipment before you can work out. There's no gate to pass. You could literally just do 10 push-ups right now. In fact, let's do that right now!" People are not ready for simple action that doesn't require a magic bullet solution, and it annoys the hell out of me. I'm like, "Are you guys insane? Is everybody around me insane?" That's how I feel.

Sam Parr

Well, like when people say "magic pill," I definitely automatically get interested because I would like that. Why don't they say shortcuts like it's a bad thing? But it's like, yeah, I mean, if I can get to my destination shorter and faster, I'm in. That's pretty great.

Shaan Puri

Funny, not even shortcuts. Literally, this shit that I was talking about, this low dose... whatever it's called, naltrexone. I don't know what it was because guess what? I don't care. I don't mean it, but I was like, "So does this work? Like, if you felt an amazing difference?" The person was like, "No, you have to take it for 6 months first for your body to acclimate." I'm like, "You're getting hosed." Honestly, I don't know what this drug does. Maybe it's useful; maybe it's for a specific thing. I'm kind of joking aside, but for that person who got it prescribed, maybe they needed it. For the other 8 people at the dinner who were immediately trying to order it, I was like, "Y'all don't need this. You don't need that right now. That is not the answer to whatever hole you're trying to fill right now. There is no chance that that is the correct first step you should be taking."

Sam Parr

Well, I think we talked about the different types of procrastination. There are actually good types of procrastination, like the forgetful scientist who forgets to shower or put on the right pair of socks. It's like, "Ah, that's alright. He's doing the big things right. That's okay." Then there's the bad type, which is making plans that don't need to be planned or buying domain names or...

Shaan Puri

going back and color coding it afterwards like dude it's okay like

Sam Parr

Yeah, or like in this case, it's like buying pills when just 10,000 steps a day will do the trick as well. But that's really funny. That's a good story. I would have liked to have seen you in that room.

Shaan Puri

yeah I was I was just like you guys are nuts but okay now to satisfy

Sam Parr

I like this stuff, though. I like this stuff because I love it. Tactics change, but strategies don't. You know what I'm saying? I like talking about strategies sometimes.

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. Dude, have you been following the presidential debates and campaign stuff that's going on? Did you watch the Republican debate?

Sam Parr

I watched the clips. So, everyone seems to think that Vivek is... wow.

Shaan Puri

There are two ways to say his name. One is the right one, and one is the wrong one. You just came up with a third: Vivek. Holy golly!

Sam Parr

v I v e k right

Shaan Puri

Vivek is the way you say it. Some people say "Vivek," and you went... I don't even know where you just... dude.

Sam Parr

that's like correcting me if I say it like lady gaga

Sam Parr

so are you a

Sam Parr

big lady gaga fan I mean come on

Shaan Puri

He was like the star of the debate because, just look at him! The guy is like a debate champion. I was like, "What? This guy is trained to do this!" But he's still polling like, you know, I don't know, 10% or something like that. So, I think this all... I mean, I think Donald Trump’s gonna win. But I did want to tell you a funny thing that I remembered when I watched that debate.

Sam Parr

you watched it

Shaan Puri

oh I love watching I don't care about politics but I love watching fights

Sam Parr

I would not have thought that

Shaan Puri

I love the debates. I love the strategy of the debates. I love watching... it's content creation. I just love watching the strategy that these guys take into it. I couldn't care less about who gets picked or their policies because they don't care about the policies too, as far as I'm concerned. To me, it's a popularity contest, and I like to see who markets themselves better. I think there's a lot to learn from that. One of the things I remembered was back in the day when I was working at Monkey Inferno. I used to work for a guy named Michael Birch. Michael Birch is a very interesting guy. He has built and sold multiple companies. He famously sold Bebo for $850 million.

Sam Parr

of which him and his wife owned it so they got they owned

Shaan Puri

The fault... the thing. Yeah, so it was a huge exit for a husband and wife couple. Before that, he had built another social network and sold it for a few, you know, single-digit millions of dollars. So he kind of made one, sold it for a few million dollars, and then as soon as the non-compete ended, he created it again. He was like, "Oh, now I know what I should have done the first time," and that became the $850 million exit. But he also created Birthday Alarm, which is a company that had $1 million in cash flow every year. So he had multiple wins. Very interesting guy. But ever since the big Bebo acquisition, he created this Idealab, but he kind of transitioned to a different phase of life almost. He was like, "You know, I'm not... like, what do I care?" It's sort of like, "Yeah, I angel invest," but like...

Sam Parr

you

Shaan Puri

Does it really matter? I could kind of say I've already won the money game in a way, right? He wouldn't say that, but you could just tell it's not like his heart was in that.

Sam Parr

is he a billionaire

Shaan Puri

At this? You think even that he's like, "I'm not really a billionaire, but who cares?" You know, like, I got you know, like he's at that 5'10" or 5'11" range and, you know, those guys want to be 6 feet. He was just like, "That's pretty much 6," right?

Sam Parr

yeah what shoes so he's like you know

Shaan Puri

He's at $800,000,000 or $900,000,000 or something like that. He's like, "I don't know, I don't really keep track of it. That doesn't really matter." It seems like overkill to care about something like that.

Sam Parr

that's a nice billionaire response

Shaan Puri

He did two interesting things. First, he built a private members' club in San Francisco. He bought an old candy factory that was 60,000 square feet and abandoned because it needed tons of seismic retrofitting. Nobody wanted to put in the $1,000,000 it would take to retrofit this place, but he did it. He built a members' club, so if you go to San Francisco, you can visit this place called The Battery. It's like Soho House but for San Francisco. He turned that idea into a real juggernaut. It actually came to fruition, this idea that seemed kind of crazy, and he had no experience in hospitality; he had never done any of that stuff.

Sam Parr

One time, I went there and I saw a booth with three people. It was a ball! Imagine a monk wearing the Dalai Lama's orange outfit—bald-headed and in sandals—alongside a black guy who looked like a rapper, complete with gold chains and six shoes. Then there was this blonde-haired lady. They were all leaning in, having a conversation, and I thought, "This is just the funniest place I've ever been to!"

Shaan Puri

Yeah, that's like the start of a joke: a monk, a rapper, and Sheryl Sandberg walk into a bar. You know, but that's what I mean. I saw Leonardo DiCaprio there, you know, tons of famous people like Elon Musk. A bunch of famous people go there. Anyways, that was one thing he did, but he always had these random ideas. Once in a while, he would just be like, "Sean, I'd like to pitch you an idea." One of the ideas he had was around the presidential debate. He goes, "You know, Trump got elected in, I think, what, 2016? He was thinking about it for 2020. He was like, 'You know, I think there's a good chance that Trump gets reelected again.'" He's like, "If you think about why a lot of people in Silicon Valley don't really fully... you know, they take these strong stances on what it means... is it because part of America feels repressed and they're reacting to the liberal neo...?" They start making up all these words. He's like, "I don't know if it's that as much as it is that Donald Trump was the more charismatic candidate." And he's like, "If you go back and you look throughout time, in every debate, or sorry, every race, if you go back to the last like 12 elections, which is like, you know, 50 years or something like that, the more charismatic candidate tends to win. Not always, but tends to win."

Sam Parr

and they're usually like tall not ugly people

Shaan Puri

yeah he was just like the more charismatic candidate wins so it's as simple as that right like maybe you're charismatic because you're really good looking and you're you know maybe it's that maybe it's that you got the gift of gab and you're like you know maybe an obama or reagan or something like that you know clinton you know somebody who is is just seen as very very charming people people always felt that about bill clinton so he's like you know the more charismatic candidate tends to win even though you know there are other reasons why you might pick you know why pick john kerry over george bush actually george bush is the more charismatic candidate versus john kerry or al gore or whatever it is and so he's like you know I think that given that that's the case he's like I don't think that should be the case but I think it is I don't think you could be able to change that he goes I feel like what the democrats should do is they need to put forward the most charismatic candidate they can and I would say he turned out to be wrong in that they put joe biden who's one of the least charismatic candidates and he won almost because the vote was basically donald trump or not donald trump so I actually think it was a bit of anomaly I actually think he was correct and you're seeing this right now desantis has more experience had the machine behind him had the track record but he's just not charismatic he doesn't have that that jus he doesn't have that sauce and so a guy like vivek can come out and he's a better talker he's more he's got more energy he's got better one liners zingers he's willing to take stands that will draw attention to him and he's the more charismatic candidate he's he's driving up so michael's idea was let's create a tv show he's like you know just like the way we did american idol and we did you know the apprentice why don't why isn't there a show called the president and we literally just cast people who want to be the president but we give them an avenue he's like because right now the candidates all come from the machine it's like you know the party is gonna kinda push their favorite candidates forward and this is based on you know how controllable they are how likable they are how much time they put in into the party he's like I don't think that's necessarily putting the strongest candidate forward especially if you looked at this most charismatic candidate so he's like why don't you create a he's like why don't we create a show that's going to take 12 hopefuls and it tells their story the show works almost like a survivor or apprentice every week they go to a new city maybe they go to some coal mining place in wherever west virginia and they're gonna talk to the coal miners and there's sort of a challenge like they have to prepare a speech or or talking points for what they would do for to help those people and then those people kind of vote off the weakest candidate and at the end you're left with the most charismatic candidate and he's like that would be a a challenger to whoever the democratic party is naturally gonna put up I loved this idea I was like this is a crazy idea this and he's like yeah my friend mark burnett who created survivor like he could be the producer of this and and you know we could put this together this way and you know even if it doesn't work like you know I think it would just be like a worthwhile attempt in a in a entertaining way to do this versus like if I really wanna get involved in politics the reason I don't is that's a sort of a very like it's not a you know it it's a laborious and sort of painful endeavor this would be almost a fun version of like a way to to try to just you know bring some influence to it what do you think of this idea that that I just remembered

Sam Parr

go anywhere or is he just goofing around

Shaan Puri

he all took so he wrote a memo it was a very well written memo

Sam Parr

is that the rich guy version of buying the domain name

Shaan Puri

Yeah, he wrote a memo and showed it to me. I was like, "Yeah, this is great." I think he was like, "Okay, if I'm going to do this, this is going to take some real kind of social capital to do." He kind of thought, "Maybe not. Maybe my life is amazing as is."

Sam Parr

that's his version of like when the remote is just a little bit too far when you're laid out and you're like

Shaan Puri

I will sleep with the TV on. Yeah, but I love this idea, and I'm saying it because, A, I think that more business people should apply their kind of creative and entrepreneurial talents outside of just creating yet another business. So, I like that he was taking his creative and entrepreneurial spirit to be like, "Oh, how could I... what if I did a TV show that would influence politics?" I thought that was cool, and I think more people should do that. The second reason is I kind of wish this idea existed, and I totally think this would work if somebody created it.

Sam Parr

So what's funny is, like, because you and I... I've complimented you with this, but this is actually a criticism at this point. For this particular... this is a compliment.

Shaan Puri

sam park special I don't even know what that meant so I prefer for a compliment or insult just tell me that

Sam Parr

The compliment was that you're worry-free and pretty optimistic. You always like people to think, "Oh, that person, they're not trying to do anything bad." Here comes the bitch slap. But in this case, when I hear this, I'm like, "But I want my president to know what they're doing and not just be able to be a good speech giver."

Shaan Puri

dude that's what we have now you think you think joe biden knows what he's doing the guy's not even alive

Sam Parr

Well, I'm not saying what I know works and what I know doesn't work. I'm just saying that, like, my romantic view is that it would be nice if they knew what they were talking about rather than just being good at talking. Yeah, your take on this is like, wouldn't it be cool if we just let the most charismatic person run away with it?

Shaan Puri

Well, you know, I think you could design the challenges to actually get them to think on the spot or perform in terms of figuring out solutions to real problems. Or, like, putting forth what their solutions would be in a way that's not just prepared by handlers who have talking points and are going to avoid the issue or make false promises or whatever. These people that would be in this, you could design the weekly challenge to bring out whatever it is that you want. Obviously, people fall in love with the characters; that's how all reality TV works. You fall in love with the characters. However, you could fall in love with them as they're trying to do certain things in the same way that "The Apprentice" would test you for: can you figure out how to sell? Can you figure out how to organize a project or manage a plan? I think you could put people through a battery of weekly challenges that are not just, "Are you good at kissing babies and shaking hands?" That's part of it, but there could be other parts of it that the show decides are important. What are the attributes that a president needs? What are the qualities? What do we wish we could see them doing to be able to assess their abilities? I think the cynical person would say, "Well, we should look at their track record serving in government." Yeah, cool, but that doesn't happen. That's not really what works. If that worked, you know, Trump would never have beaten Hillary. She had spent her whole life in politics. She was, by far, on paper, the more qualified candidate. But America didn't get to see that. They didn't get to appreciate that. All they saw was what gets put forward today, which is debates and campaigning on social media or on TV.

Sam Parr

There's this funny story about JFK. Do you remember what the Cold War was? You know, it was in the sixties when we thought that the Soviet Union and America were going to bomb each other. There's a story where JFK, John Kennedy, goes to the Soviet Union and meets with the president or the leader of the Soviet Union. At the end of the meeting, the leader said, "You know, you're a really nice person. You kind of remind me of my son. I guess we could be cool. You seem kind." I read that story and I thought, "Oh, I guess charisma really does matter a whole lot when it comes to diplomatic stuff." Just being likable and saying, "Hey, let's just calm down and be friends." It definitely is. Tony Robbins tells the story.

Shaan Puri

I don't know if this is real or not, but do you know who was the president during the Cold War? Is that...?

Sam Parr

Makes sense. Should that rank well? Kennedy... Kennedy for the Cold War was a long time. But Kennedy was like when we thought that we were literally going to bomb each other.

Shaan Puri

Okay, there was... I don't feel like it was Kennedy he was talking about, but Tony Robbins tells the story. He goes, "I had a chance to talk to former President [whoever]." Let's just pretend I know or care about presidential history.

Sam Parr

sure

Shaan Puri

And he's like, "The Cold War was happening," and he went to go see... I think it was Cold War people. For those who don't actually know about this, you have full permission to beat me up in the comments. So, he goes to see Gorbachev, and they have a meeting. The meeting is not going well. The hope was that we could deescalate, but actually, the meeting was sort of tense. Neither side wanted to give, and they were getting more dug in and more stubborn in their stance.

Sam Parr

and this is this would be reagan ronald reagan

Shaan Puri

Reagan, all my married men out there know when this happens. You think you're going in to deescalate, but actually both sides are what Sam Park calls "dug in," and the tension is escalating. He doesn't know really what to do, and he goes, "How did you do it? How did...?" He's like, "Something happened in that meeting that worked. What was it?" He goes, "Well, we hit that. I said, 'This is not gonna work,' and I got up and I walked out of the room fast. I stormed out of the room, and right before I got to the door, I hit him with a little 360, turned back, big smile on my face, and said, 'Let's start over.'" With a smile on his face, he shook his hand and said, "I'm... you know, I'm Ronald, and I really appreciate these things about you." He just basically broke the frame for a second and used a little bit of charisma, a little bit of playfulness in order to reduce tension. Then they had a conversation. Now, I have no idea if this story is true. Tony Robbins told me this, and I believed it in the moment because it's a great story. And why let the truth get in the way of a good story? If it is true, that's unbelievable. If it's partially true, that's really cool. If it's totally made up, whatever, you know, it's okay. Still, the story serves its purpose. It is a very useful technique to be able to use a little bit of charisma and playfulness in order to diffuse a situation or to break through any deadlocks that exist, whether it's in business or in personal life.

Sam Parr

So, either Vivek is just not charismatic, or I'm an idiot. But let me tell you a really quick story. I have turned down two presidential candidates to either come on this podcast or speak at my events. The first one was Andrew... what's his name? Yang! The guy, the math guy. He emailed me, I think in 2015, saying, "Hey, I want to come speak at your event." I don't know if the podcast existed then, but he said, "Or if you guys want to write about me in the newsletter, let me do an interview. You know, I run this study test prep company. It did okay, and now I'm running for president." I was like, "Oh, you're insane! You're going to make me look like a fool—just this nobody guy who ran a mediocre business running for president? I can't interview you like that! That would hurt my credibility." Well, it turns out he was a serious candidate; at least he made it in the top ten or whatever. The second time this happened was with Vivek. Vivek... Vivek... Lady Gaga! It's not... is it not called fajida? It's fajitas! So, Vivek DM'd me on Twitter like a year ago, and he was like, "Hey, would you guys want me to come on the pod?" I stiffed on him hard. I thought this was because he had a really nice Twitter picture of him in a suit with a nice smile.

Shaan Puri

self it nerd you're not coming on the podcast

Sam Parr

Well, I think I was researching Martin Shkreli, and I was like, "Oh, this..." His bio said he was in the pharmaceutical industry or something like that. I thought, "Oh, this guy's a charlatan." He's so good-looking, he's got a nice smile. This is like a crypto guy with abs in a Ferrari; I can't take this guy seriously. I just said, "What do you want to talk about?" and I tried to stiff-arm him to make him prove himself. He replied, and I ignored him. Turns out, you know, a year and a half, two years later, he's actually a threat. So this is the second presidential candidate that I've had bad judgment on regarding whether they're going to be serious or not, asking them to come on the podcast.

Shaan Puri

Yeah, yeah, totally. Totally with you. By the way, for high entertainment, do you subscribe to Ron DeSantis' SMS program?

Sam Parr

no no

Shaan Puri

So, if you want to learn about marketing or how the presidential race really works, go subscribe to all the candidates' marketing emails and text messages. Warning: it's **really** annoying. Okay, so that's the first problem. If I wanted somebody to text me every day, I'd have a girlfriend. This guy texts you all the time, and they send the dumbest stuff. So, like, here, I'm just going to read you the last five texts. If you think this guy is some super serious politician who's really making it a substantive race about the issues, here's what he's saying.

Sam Parr

and was it like 5 in one day

Shaan Puri

**Text:** Yesterday, at 4:21 PM, I posted about new shirts, [shirt emoji], new koozies, new cups, new buttons, new stickers, and new hats. If you haven't seen our storefront, go get the hottest limited edition campaign merch here! Okay, let's see... Yesterday, okay cool, let's go back. **Friend:** It's Ron DeSantis. This is now the day before, at 2:08 PM. **Friend:** It's Ron DeSantis. I want you to know that as president, I will not let the government weaponize federal agencies against Americans who dare to disagree. I'm disgusted by the FBI's disgraceful act of labeling Catholics as extremists. It's time to fire the FBI director and defend liberty—religious liberty for all. Can I have a donation to have your support? Okay, so that's the next one. Here we go again.

Sam Parr

let me find a a particular he

Shaan Puri

Just texted me at 7:19 AM. It's too early for a text, Ron! Enough with the talk. Americans need action, and that's what Ron DeSantis is all about. "I'm the leader you need this time. The time to act is now. This can't wait. Rush your support linked to his donation campaign." Then another one: "Hey, like this!" He puts a picture of a credit card that just says "DeSantis" on it. He goes, "You can have your own ALL CAPS donation with $47 or more to join my investor team. If you're an investor in this campaign, you'll have everything you need to show it off. Grab your membership card today!" And it just continues every single day. "Hey, enter this giveaway to come to the next debate! You just have to donate, and you can win a VIP experience." It just keeps going. Like, "Hey friend, I'm out here draining the swamp right now." And it's like, "Dude, just stop! What are you talking about?"

Sam Parr

Well, they're building like a $1,000,000,000 company in like 18 months. They're like a moving company. You ever notice how moving companies don't give a damn about the service? Because you're only going to use it once. They're like, "Let me just get you a box."

Sam Parr

gotcha bitch and then there's like throw your shit there they're like

Sam Parr

dude we don't give it like renewals aren't a thing here I don't care you know what I mean

Shaan Puri

I hired this service that was called something like "Muscle Head Movers." All of the imagery was just huge, buff guys. It was like, "Hey, we make it easy! We'll move that couch, we'll move that fridge, no problem. Just another day at the gym for us." So I'm like, "Oh, hell yeah!"

Sam Parr

tire musclehead movers

Shaan Puri

Three tiny Vietnamese guys showed up, and I was like... the truck said "Muscle Head Movers." I was like...

Sam Parr

I got them

Shaan Puri

I'm looking at them and I'm just thinking, "Are you gonna say anything? Are you gonna address this, friend?" They didn't, and I didn't either because I was like, "What am I supposed to say here?" I thought, "What a bunch of greaseless punks." They did the job; they could move everything because they just used dollies. I was like, "Oh, if I wanted dolly movers, I would have..." You know, it's a different experience than I signed up for. Catfish! So stupid. There's one cool thing I wanted to tell you about. Alright, what is it? There's a guy named Seth Bannon who tweeted this out. He said, "2,000,000 scientific papers are published each year. That's over 5,000 a day! Even if you're working 10 hours a day with no breaks, you'd have to read one paper every 7 seconds just to keep up." So, we built Paper Scraper. It basically programmatically reads every paper that comes out, but not just every single paper. We prioritize and weight any paper that's being shared by top scientists on social media. So, we basically built a thing that makes it easier to keep up with science. He's the second person I've seen do this, and I'm actually pretty convinced it's a good product idea.

Sam Parr

so what's the what's the url do you know because it's so new it doesn't show up in Google

Shaan Puri

Not a website for you yet. He's like, "Oh, we built this for ourselves, but I'll let some people in beta if you fill out this type form." You know, like that sort of thing—like a soft launch.

Sam Parr

I would love to see that but my

Shaan Puri

Our buddy Lior, who does Alpha Signals, built an AI newsletter. However, his AI newsletter has one key difference. Instead of just telling people what the new ChatGPT feature is, it's basically an AI newsletter that's for technical people. So, if you're a researcher, a machine learning engineer, or a PhD-type person, Alpha Signals is a newsletter for you. I actually think this is a very smart way to approach this business because that's a very high-value reader and customer. For them, he provides a very simple service. He also built a tool like this internally. What he did was look at every paper, which has a list of scientists involved in the research. There's a naming convention, just like in movies. The stars go first, and the people at the back are like the end credits in research papers. It's kind of the same thing: the people at the top did all the work, while the last person is usually the one who reviewed or edited it, putting their seal of approval on it or the lab they're associated with. So, he first created a page rank of researchers and scientists. This is awesome! Then he thought, "Cool, now when a paper comes out that has one of them in the name, or if those people on social media share a paper, I immediately know this is probably an interesting paper." So that first creates a hit list. Uh-oh! He gets alerted: "Alert! Top scientist has shared a paper."

Sam Parr

PageRank is what Google invented. It's how they know what to show up on the top of Google. PageRank is categorized with a bunch of different measurements. The biggest measurement, or at least it's theorized, is how many people link back to your site. They don't even tell people this, but maybe they have said it.

Shaan Puri

Yeah, how many other reputable websites link to yours? Every website has authority. For example, The New York Times has a high authority compared to seanpuri.com. If The New York Times links to another website, that tells Google that the other website might also be a high authority site. This increases its authority. If Sean links to it, it increases it a teeny, tiny amount. That's how Google basically figured out what's the right web page to show when you search a question. Who has the most authority to give you the answer? This guide for Alpha Signal, Liore did this for scientific papers. He analyzed who the top scientists are, what they are sharing, and what they are linking to. If they link to something that's an important or interesting paper, they take the industry paper, feed it through his LLM, and it gets summarized down into four bullet points: 1. What was the finding? 2. What was the methodology? 3. Who are the scientists? 4. What are the key takeaways from this?

Sam Parr

an alpha signal is only for like ai topics

Shaan Puri

Correct, but I'm like, "Got it." This is a generalized product that's actually just really interesting. Your method to create this newsletter is more interesting to me than the newsletter itself.

Sam Parr

yeah yeah yeah

Shaan Puri

And paper scraper is the same idea, just from a different guide. Approaching it from a slightly different angle, which was the same thing: basically trying to figure out what are the important papers that are coming out. So, of the 2,000,000 papers, or of the 5,000 that are published every day, which 3 should I care about? Which 5 should I care about? And then, of the 5 that I care about, what do they actually mean and what do they say?

Sam Parr

they're really hard to read

Shaan Puri

they're really hard

Sam Parr

to read

Shaan Puri

So, I think this is a really, really cool product idea. He also built something called Spinout GPT, which is basically like ChatGPT. You can ask it questions about things like, "Could we commercialize this?" or "Would this work in cell culture or tissue?" Then, it will look in the papers and find out if they did it in cell culture or tissue, and it will answer you that way. It's almost like being able to talk to research papers or talk to a very smart person who has read all of the research papers. It's like, "Oh, I see where this is going." You know, the hustle, Milk Road—these were like the horse carriages, right? We have random humans trying to keep up with what's going on. Maybe they set up some Google alerts, check Reddit and Twitter, and every day they make a list. We talk about it, and then they read and summarize it as best as they can. The pitch was like, "It's like your smart friend explaining what happened in crypto that day," or "It's like your smart friend explaining what happened in business news that day." This is like your genius friend who has read every scientific paper ever, and you can ask it any question in any variation, and it will answer you. You're like, "Oh, that seems pretty powerful." It's like, you know, we're on our horseback and just boom.

Sam Parr

look at the car

Shaan Puri

just flew by woah what the hell is that

Sam Parr

but what about my friend greg

Sam Parr

he

Sam Parr

no I by the way I'm happy we I I

Sam Parr

would not wanna be in

Sam Parr

the newsletter business right now

Shaan Puri

It's so funny because everybody's following us into the newsletter business now. It's like peak hype on newsletters.

Sam Parr

And also, the way that people are acquiring users... I just subscribed to Seth Bannon's Substack, and right after I subscribed, it said, "Do you want to subscribe to these 18 other newsletters?" It was auto-checked, and I almost accidentally clicked "yes." It's like...

Shaan Puri

And they're all like, "Whoa, look at my newsletter growth! It's insane." I was like, "Dude, anyone on Substack that's talking about your newsletter growth, you're full of shit." That's my answer to you. You are absolutely full of shit. It's like people think they're filling out a captcha, and they're just actually subscribing to 19 newsletters at a time. It's insane. That's why, you know, Beehive has a good feature. They did a feature like that that's actually legit. Their thing was, you have to manually be like, "Who do I want to endorse?" But also, they have this thing pretty much called "sparks" or some shit like that. But it's like you can pay to acquire newsletter subscribers. Like, all of us know the best newsletter subscriber you can get is somebody who already subscribes to other newsletters that are similar.

Sam Parr

But that's really hard to get historically because you have to advertise in like a hundred different newsletters.

Shaan Puri

So, they created a little mini ad network inside the beehive of all the Beehive newsletters. What's cool about it is that you only pay for someone who is a retained reader. I was like, "Oh, okay, that's actually legit." Instead of just having this auto-check vanity metric where it's like, "Hey, I got more subscribers," but you have no idea if they are actually engaged readers, you know? You're excited about that anyway. What I like that Beehive did was that you only pay based on performance. It's like CPA versus CPM or CPC. CPA means you only pay for a reader you actually acquired who is still reading from you. This approach enforces quality because that's the only way you get rewarded in that network. I thought that was smart.

Sam Parr

First of all, this Seth Bannon thing is awesome. The tweet that Sean is referring to is from June 12th. So, if you Google "Seth Bannon" and go to his thing, it was on June 12th. That's awesome! He filmed the video in an amazing place; it looks like a TED Talk almost, but with an IMAX-style screen explaining his concept. I don't know if that would be a good business. I'm nervous about people building businesses right now on top of OpenAI because I'm like, they're just going to crush everyone and do it themselves. But this is awesome. And second, to reiterate, I'm happy I'm not doing a newsletter as my main thing right now. It seems really, really hard. I remember at The Hustle, we had one daily newsletter, and then Morning Brew's strategy was to launch more. But my thing was like, "Fuck! If we have more, our main thing was going to go down." They're not going to open two; they're not going to open three. Now, people, if the numbers are true, are subscribing to dozens. I want to know, is the engagement even remotely the same? It seems really, really, really hard. It seems way harder.

Shaan Puri

Yeah, I think it's a lot like podcasts. How many podcasts do you actually have in a regular rotation at any given time?

Sam Parr

Yeah, it seems hard. I mean, with newsletters, it's easier because it only takes three minutes to skim them. But it seems really hard to get people's attention with newsletters right now. It's just so funny when we... So, I got the idea for a newsletter because I had my friend Noah Madora and then my other friend Noah Kagan. They were like, they had one foot in the startup world and one foot in the internet marketing world. I was like, "Oh, this internet marketing world, they love email and they use it in sometimes shady ways." But let's just see if we can do it a legit way. People are laughing at that now. It's so cool that people take it seriously, but I'm so happy I'm not doing it. It seems way more challenging at the moment. It seems really hard.

Shaan Puri

Yeah, I think the best will still win because, you know, the best tends to win in everything. So, it's not that the door is actually closed, but it's definitely much harder than when you started. When did you start? 2015 or 2016?

Sam Parr

Yeah, so I got the idea of doing a newsletter and I started it in 2014. However, it became what it is on May 19, 2016.

Shaan Puri

a great day in history

Sam Parr

well I always remember that because it's the day before 4/20

Shaan Puri

mhmm

Sam Parr

So, it was always easy to remember. I originally started as a conference. If I had 2,000 subscribers to my conference newsletter, I think I made $50,000 in conference ticket sales. Then, when I had 10,000 subscribers, I think we did $150,000 in ticket sales—something like that. The engagement was quite high. I remember people back then saying, I think Gary Vaynerchuk, I talked to him one time, he was like, "Dude, my newsletter had a 99% open rate because no one else was doing newsletters. Yours is only 40%. It's so much harder." I was like, "Oh man, I wish it was easier." Now, I don't know what those numbers would be like, but I think it would be hard to make that amount of money with as few subscribers today as it was. It was easier then.

Shaan Puri

You know, the other thing that's funny is, or I guess the other thing that kind of verifies this, is I wish people would see your early blog posts. We should do kind of like a trip down memory lane of some of our projects because you're incredibly good at creating content and writing. When I see what you did versus what I see a lot of people doing now, I'm like, "Oh, there are like many rungs on the ladder above where you were with creating content back then." I remember your early blog posts that were just regularly going viral, getting millions of hits to the site because they were that good.

Sam Parr

like which ones like when

Shaan Puri

You were doing the... you had the right concept. You were kind of like a YouTuber before YouTube actually existed. You really should have been a YouTuber; that would have been your calling, I believe.

Sam Parr

we got we got asked to do like we were thinking about doing

Shaan Puri

it but

Sam Parr

I was like hustle I was

Shaan Puri

Like saying "Sampar" as a YouTuber would have been, I believe you would have been one of the most successful YouTubers on the platform. Let me give you an example. That's awesome! For example, I remember some of your early hustle blog posts, like "Surviving 30 Days on Soylent." Guess what? That sounds like every Ryan Trahan video and every MrBeast video. This is the current meta of YouTube, and you were doing this 8 years ago. You know, like, it was... you did microdosing LSD, and you did an interview with an anonymous entrepreneur who has...

Sam Parr

his books

Shaan Puri

Yeah, yeah, you did the thing where you were like, "Amazon bestsellers are bullshit." I'm going to prove it by making an Amazon bestseller spending only $1,000. Guess what? That's a YouTube video. These are YouTube videos. They would still work, but the thing is, you have to do them with style. You actually did the thing with style. Now, your problem was you were locked into this blog world because those are the people you admired at the time.

Sam Parr

But the reality was, I knew how to write. You know, like writing was my thing. I don't know if I could've maybe...

Shaan Puri

I could have had the video aesthetic too. Like, you're good on camera. You lived in a freaking... you lived on a motorcycle or something. I don't know, you're sleeping on a motorcycle, you're doing some crazy stuff. It's like you had the dog, you had the look, and you had the humor on camera. You were willing... you liked "Jackass" and those sorts of things. I feel like you would have kind of tortured yourself for people's entertainment. As soon as you got that hit of feedback, you would have gone all the way in. Yeah, for sure. I just wish you had kind of gone down that route. In fact, I still think you should go down that route. For example, I think I could be successful. In fact, I'm going to be successful on short-form video, but it's not going to be the way you could have been. You're kind of like those... you know, whoever, Danny Duncan, Ryan Trahan, and Mr. Beast. You're a lot like them in the way that you are as a character and what you're willing to do. You were willing to do anything, and how long you were kind of like, "I'm single and don't give a... I don't need comfort." Like, "Oh, this firecracker is going to go in my ass? Alright, let's roll!" You know, like lights, action, right? I think that you had all of that. So, anyways, I don't know what my...

Shaan Puri

Is

Sam Parr

I wish I would have taken that route. By the way, I don't... I think I probably could have done it. I think that's a hard life. I like Danny Duncan a lot, but I'm like, can you do that at 40? I guess it just has to change; it has to evolve. Or like Mr. Beast, what's he going to do at 40? He's going to be so wealthy it doesn't really matter. Yeah, I...

Shaan Puri

think you would have done the same

Sam Parr

Yeah, but our early blog posts were good. There was a time when I was writing like five a day. I would write so many of them. Not all of them were bangers, but we would write a ton, and that's how we grew. That's why I tell people to blog. I don't actually mean just blog; I mean create **bangers**—text-based bangers—on a consistent basis. Get people to love your free content enough to subscribe.

Shaan Puri

**TBB: Text-Based Bangers** That's been our strategy, right? Like, for me, when we wanted to grow on Twitter, all the advice was, "You gotta be consistent." Well, guess what? I'm like the least consistent human being on Earth. If you weren't super consistent and a real hard ass about, "We're gonna record this every Monday and every Wednesday at 9 AM, every single week without fail, no matter what," there's no way I would keep up the schedule. I only do that because you're my friend; I don't want to let you down. When I'm on my own, I'm inconsistent. When I wanted to grow on Twitter, I was like, "Look, all the conventional wisdom says you gotta tweet every day, multiple times a day, find the right time of the day, be consistent, be on brand, have a single message, and do a call to action." I'm like, "Dude, I ain't trying to do all that. That sounds hard. It sounds like the lame version of success." I agree it's probably right, but I didn't want to do it that way. My way was text-based bangers. It's like I basically had six viral tweets that grew me to almost 400,000 followers. So, it was literally just six tweets, basically, that...

Sam Parr

crazy

Shaan Puri

The bulk of the growth, like the Clubhouse one, the Metaverse one, this one about Elon Musk, and this other one, it is just like... that's all it was. That got me like kind of all the growth. Then I've just had several weeks in between posts. I'm completely inconsistent.

Sam Parr

Well, what I told people, like my team and myself when I was starting the hustle, was, "You know, everyone says it's a marathon, not a sprint." But you're kind of just telling me that you just don't want to work that hard. If you look at the world-class marathoners, that's going to feel like a sprint to most people. So that's just kind of how we're going to live our life, which is like it is a marathon, and it's run so fast it's going to feel like a sprint to most people. So, Mary, I'm not a sprint.

Shaan Puri

but we're kenyan and

Sam Parr

so we're going at a 5 mile yeah

Shaan Puri

5 mile my last name a minute mile

Sam Parr

pretend you're the yeah your last name is kipchoge you know

Sam Parr

you're gonna be a kenyan yeah you could be bekele you're the ethiopian

Sam Parr

But you know, like, we're East Africans here, baby. We're gonna run fast. Yeah, I think I actually prefer writing. I think that it's more fun to be in a quiet zone late at night and just bang it out. It feels a little bit more artful. It felt like I was in my zone of genius a little bit. Whereas with video, it feels like sometimes you have to perform. I felt that writing was a different type of performance that is more enjoyable to create for me.

Shaan Puri

yeah

Sam Parr

sure

Shaan Puri

dude surprise surprise man likes his choices and defends them

Sam Parr

by the way look at my person

Shaan Puri

thinks that what they did was the correct thing shocker

Sam Parr

I did live life. Look at me when I was fat and selling hot dogs, man. I was about... I was about YouTube life, just without the camera. I was telling Sarah, "I'm nervous about going to Westport or like Connecticut, or if we're going to move to the suburbs." And she's like, "Why?" I was like, "Well, one of my favorite things to do is, every day, I like to go to this gas station near my house and get a Diet Dr. Pepper and loiter." I just like...

Sam Parr

this yeah

Sam Parr

I get a Slurpee and a Diet Dr. Pepper. I'll like, dab it up with the clerk, and then I'll just sit and see the regulars. "What's up, man? Right now, what's good? How are you?" I just like to loiter.

Sam Parr

you just like

Sam Parr

To do hoodrat shit, man. Yeah, and I was like, Connecticut doesn't have like hoodrats or gas stations.

Sam Parr

yeah like what am I gonna do

Sam Parr

I want to watch people buy lottery tickets and scratch-offs. It's like, where am I?

Shaan Puri

I gonna hang out with

Sam Parr

I need the smell of the woods, you know? Like the blunts. Where am I gonna do that? That's how you get good ideas and see interesting people. So yeah, dude, think about it.

Shaan Puri

How many incredible podcasters are there that just don't podcast? They just chop it up, sitting on steps like all day.

Sam Parr

yeah or a milk tray people that come by

Shaan Puri

Can you imagine how good those people would be if we just put a bike in front of them? They just don't know. It's like there are kids who are incredible basketball players somewhere in Africa that we just don't know about; we haven't found them yet. Just imagine the guys that just stood on the steps all day, just shooting the breeze. Joe Rogan is lucky those guys don't have a microphone.

Sam Parr

And they just sit outside of a gas station, like reading newspapers. That would be funny. I always thought it would be funny if you walked up and overheard the conversation, and they're like, "Dog, you better diversify your bonds, man! Like the Dow."

Sam Parr

is down like I mean just having like

Sam Parr

the most academic conversations ever because they read newspapers all day

Sam Parr

alright I think

Shaan Puri

we've I think we've crossed crossed the threshold

Sam Parr

The slab happy face is initiated. Alright, that's the pod.