The 5 Levels Of Building Wealth | How To Climb The Ladder (#389)

Shaan Puri

There are five ways to make money in any system. There are five roles, and you can decide which one you're going to be in. One role is logistics and labor. For example, let's take building a house. The person who is literally laying the bricks, sweating in the heat, and constructing the actual home often gets paid the least, despite doing the hardest work. He is the one moving the bricks around. You could choose to be that worker bee, but you'll work the hardest and capture the least. Life feels kind of unfair; it's unfair that the real estate developer sitting in his second vacation home is going to make more off that house than the guy sweating outside every day. But that's the reality. So, logistics and labor is the lowest level of the pyramid. The next level is optimization. Happy Thanksgiving, everybody! We have an episode for you. A little break from the family never hurts. This is a dope episode; I really like this one. We talked about a bunch of things, including the lurking giant of an industry that is fan fiction. That's right, fan fiction! We also discussed vice businesses and a billion-dollar company serving marijuana businesses, as well as an arbitrage around the new Kia car logo, which is pretty funny. Sam, what else do you have?

Sam Parr

We talked about a very famous billionaire who recently said that **$50,000,000** is about the cutoff where any more money won't make you happy. We discussed our opinions on that and referenced a few other people who shared their thoughts on what their number is. We also talked about a billionaire who's only **39 years old**, who you've probably not heard of. He's built a payments company, which is kind of interesting. But even more interesting, he's built the world's largest training company to train pilots. Incredibly fascinating guy! It's a good episode, and I think you're going to dig it. Check it out!

Shaan Puri

let's jump in we have some topics sam you have a topic and then I got a I got a bunch

Sam Parr

I've got a bunch too. If you sort on, you'll see the rest. Okay, cool. But first, a lighthearted topic. I tweeted this thing the other day. Chamath was on Lex Fridman's podcast, and there was one three-minute topic that didn't really get enough justice. It was very interesting. Lex goes, "Hey, so you're this billionaire now. Can you explain how life has changed being rich?" He said basically, "If it's 0 to 100 of different levels, I've tried it all. I've gone from 0 to 100 and back. I've done all the stuff, and money doesn't change stuff after a certain point." And I think that point is **$50,000,000**. I thought that was interesting. He referenced a study; I actually can't find the study he referenced, but he said, "You know, I read this Ivy League thing, and I don't know if it's true, but they said that after $50,000,000, nothing changes because that's plenty of money to have homes, and all your loved ones are handled. You don't have to work; you could think about what's really important." I actually thought that was a really interesting answer because, without having any evidence other than just friends and family, I think that number is about right. But no one ever discusses this. They always say that stupid $70,000-a-year study, which is just absolutely nonsense. I don't believe that to be true at all. But I thought it was a really interesting thing, and I tweeted it. Jason Calacanis, who's Chamath's buddy and also, I imagine, quite wealthy, said, "I don't think he's totally off, but I think a couple million in America in 2022, and you're good. $10,000,000, that's 'F you.' $25,000,000 plus, you're dangerous. Anything above that, who cares?" So I want to know, what do you think? Do you have levels like that?

Shaan Puri

My biggest takeaway is that I should just be referencing studies that don't exist all the time. Dude, like the thing you just said, that is... you know, "There was a Harvard study, I can't remember what year, but [it] totally backs up the..." I wanna make... so I'm gonna make this up now.

Sam Parr

Dude, I could not find the study, and none of my Twitter followers could either. I tweeted this out to almost 200,000 people, and not one person said they could find it.

Shaan Puri

That's why he's a black belt in bullshit, and I'm trying to get my black belt in bullshitting. Now, I learned a move that I didn't have in my bag: the fake study reference. You know, there are these two scientists out of Penn who did something really interesting. So, okay, that was my first takeaway. My second takeaway is, I don't know if the number's 50, but I think it's completely context dependent. Somebody tweeted this out in the crypto world: "Would you rather have just had $100,000 and still have $100,000, or have gotten really lucky during the crypto bull run, turned $100,000 into $100,000,000, and now it's all come crashing back down with FTX and all this other stuff, and you're back at $100,000?" Would you rather have the emotional stability of one year of just staying where you're at, or would you rather have tasted the highest highs and now crashed back down to earth?

Sam Parr

Of course not. The second one? No, that second one was horrible. You know, I care more about losing than I do about gaining.

Shaan Puri

that's crazy so you would rather just stay at the 100 k

Sam Parr

well so like objectively you're at the same level

Shaan Puri

in this scenario have never never flown so high and then crashed

Sam Parr

I think it would it would I would I would have a life of regret

Shaan Puri

that's insane ben what about you what do you what do you think

Ben Wilson

I think there's some street cred that comes with having been rich that makes it easier to make the money back. So, I would rather have been rich and now not.

Shaan Puri

I used to play online poker pretty aggressively back in the day.

Sam Parr

and degenerately

Shaan Puri

Yeah, pretty degenerately. Like, you know, why pay for college when you can go lose money in online poker instead of going to class? Those seemed to be my strategy. But I did have some runs. Sometimes I would go from the $0.10/$0.25 table, which is like, you know, the very low blinds, up to $1/$2, then up to $2/$4, $3/$6, $5/$10, and finally $10/$20. If you're at the $10/$20 table, basically, on any given hand, you know, $20,000 to $30,000 could be swinging left and right. So, you were going on these massive swings for a 19-year-old at the time. But then, inevitably, because I would not manage my bankroll properly, I would go crashing right back down. I'd be like, "Well, I can't afford those tables anymore. I have to go back and play the $0.10/$0.25 or the $2/$4 or whatever, like the lowest stakes that were offered on Full Tilt or PokerStars at the time." It was the worst feeling when you had to go back. It wasn't just the regret—obviously, that's a part of it—but the worst feeling was that it was really hard to get excited about winning $20 when that same thing could have been $20,000. And you've tasted $20,000 at that.

Shaan Puri

And so, just rewiring your brain to go back and be humble enough to play low stakes again was really tough but really important. I did learn one thing: once you taste higher stakes, it does break your frame. The only reason I would say I would rather have gone up and down, even though emotionally and mentally it's harder, is the value in having your frame broken. Thinking bigger, thinking differently, and not limiting yourself in some way that you previously thought was a limit for you is actually incredibly valuable. So, even though yes, you're back at $100,000, you have one new valuable asset: you think of yourself differently, you think of the world differently, and you think of what's possible differently than you did had that never happened.

Sam Parr

I don't know man I think that that is just a short story closer

Shaan Puri

that's pretty convincing

Sam Parr

I think that the argument of "frame breaking" is good. What you're saying is that there is a lesson to be learned and that you're going to be left better off than when you arrived.

Shaan Puri

it's not just the money yeah you'll learn

Sam Parr

the money better than

Ben Wilson

you are

Sam Parr

That is almost a fair argument, but I would say that you're going to be broken from the journey down more than you are.

Shaan Puri

**Therapy, baby!** We got therapy on one side, and then we got the experiences and memories on the other. I'll repeat the same thing I've said all the time.

Sam Parr

I don't think that your opinion is relevant here because you are this rare thing called being emotionally healthy. For most individuals, I do not think that this would help them. I think it would hurt them more than it would help them.

Shaan Puri

Maybe... I don't know, maybe. So, you did ask a question about the number. You said 50, and I think 50 probably sounds appealing to you. It sounds appealing to anybody who's got less than 50. But then there's a whole bunch of people who are there, and they continue on. I don't know what they would say. You know, I'm not at $50 million in net worth, so I don't know if that's the right number or not. What my experience tells me is that it's about triple what you got. Whatever you got, triple what you got feels like the number where, "Oh, I could finally... it'll finally be good." And then when you get there...

Sam Parr

it's always double actually yeah it's you know this is actually

Shaan Puri

2 and 3 x

Sam Parr

This actually is a real thing. I don't know if the study is legitimate, but I did read about a study where they sampled like 10,000 people. Consistently, the number was actually double. People said, "I want double what I have." You know, if you're worth a million, they're like, "If I had like 2 million, I would feel better." It was almost always double. So, you're onto something.

Shaan Puri

I'm thinking about what project I'm going to do next year. So, 2023, I'm plotting, I'm scheming. It's like *Pinky and the Brain*, but I'm both Pinky and the Brain. Every night, I think to myself, "What am I going to do next year?" I actually don't say the same thing we do every year: "Try to take over the world." That's not what I'm trying to do this year. It has a different frame, and it comes from a quote I heard. I think maybe Naval said it somewhere. He said, "You are retired when you stop sacrificing today for some future tomorrow." Basically, when the day in and of itself is complete, then you have retired. To me, it's not about retirement, but you can also replace the word *retirement* with *winning*. The ultimate form of winning, to me, is when the thing you do in and of itself is the reward. You're not doing it for some maybe future speculative, hopefully reward that will come. What most people do is they take some action, they do something that's a sacrifice in order to have the thing they want later. They think the sacrifice leads to the thing they want, and then there's...

Sam Parr

But what are like the pillars for you? You know, I... or the columns, you know, if you're in Excel. Like you... maybe content creation, you maybe like investing. Like, where... what are your columns labeled?

Shaan Puri

well I'll I'll I'll at first when I heard this quote I was like was that even possible or is everything just feel like you know hard work and sacrifice until it pays off I was like no actually the podcast is the only thing in my life that feels this way the podcast is the only you know it's not even business but I I guess it is technically a business now but it's the only project I've ever worked on where the act of doing it is the reward like I am you know like when it's a normal startup I'm like what are the growth numbers what are the what what are we trending week over week what's the revenue how can we grow this growth this growth this growth all I would think about with a normal business and with this I don't and it's not because I don't want this to grow no of course I want it to grow it's because like the reward for me isn't if this grows then a good thing will happen the reward is I love sitting down here shooting the shit with you having a bunch of topics and then like you know the the sort of reaction to the pod that comes like immediately after it gets dropped and other people get to listen to it and so like doing the pod is the reward not if the pod gets big then there's all these rewards to be had and that's why when I look back I say man it's always been really hard for me to stick with projects you know this you've told me this like a 1000 times like stop pivoting do whatever you know like the average lifespan of my projects is like 1 year or less or I have to hire somebody to take my role and I basically check out the podcast is I've been doing this what 3 years now and like I feel like we just got started I could do this another 30 years I feel zero fatigue in this whereas anything else 3 years in I'd be looking for the the exit path and so that to me was a really strong signal that hey projects like that do exist and then it's a frame breaker right oh if that exists then I want that out of my next project now to answer your question about the pillars I think the most important one for me is I like high creativity things I like creativity not optimization meaning I'm not a good operator who likes to optimize the engine every day come tweak it make it 1% better every single day I love when people do that but I personally don't get a lot of joy doing that I love creativity like basically making stuff whether it's content or it's a product or it's a business idea whatever it is so I'm like how do I make it where it's creativity based and I kind of had this like big epiphany during that process that like I haven't really fleshed out but I'm gonna I'll share it with you I wanna hear what you think about this so I realized there's like there's 5 ways to like make money in a system in any system there's like 5 roles and you can decide which one you're gonna be in so like one is the logistics and labor so like let's take a house you're building a house the guy who's actually literally laying the bricks and out there sweating in the heat and building the actual home sort of gets paid the least but does the worst does the most work right does the hardest work and does the most work in the process right he's the logistics and labor he's actually moving the bricks around and you could choose to do that you could choose to be kind of a worker bee who's moving the bricks but you're gonna work the hardest and you're gonna capture the least and life feels kind of unfair it's unfair that you know the real estate developer sitting in his second vacation home is gonna make more off that house than the guy sweating outside every day but that's the reality that's how it goes yeah so there's logistics and labor that's the lowest level of the pyramid next level optimization that's the person that goes into any business and is trying to make it incrementally better increase sales decrease costs this is usually a manager of some kind and so optimization make things more efficient make things grow a little more you can choose to be a great manager you'll capture more value than the laborer but not by much then comes performance that's kind of what this podcast is we get on we push record and we perform and we get paid more than you know whoever does our podcast editing gets paid because we have to perform and it's like the result of our performance is gonna be it'll be a complete flop or a complete hit based on how well we perform you are a performer okay so that's like the 3rd level then there's creativity that's coming up with the concept you know creating original things creating whether it's content whether it's code whether it's the original idea creativity is like that next layer and then the highest layer is the one who makes the most and does the least amount of laborious work is warren buffett who sits in a room plays bridge for you know 4 hours a day reads and will go sometimes years without making an investment but when he does make an investment he's getting paid paid only on his judgment and so he doesn't get paid on creativity performance optimization or labor and logistics he gets paid purely on judgment did he make the right call or not and that that person you know captures the most value in any value chain and so I think that's the way that that like kind of like any enterprise works or any ecosystem works for money and I'm trying to decide which layer I wanna play at do I wanna try to play a judgment because I think logistic is the best but it's not the most fun to me I think creativity is the one that's the most fun for me or performance one of those 2

Sam Parr

Do you think that you'll build a company, or do you think that you'll just get more famous and make money off that somehow?

Shaan Puri

Probably not either of them right now. Neither feels appealing, so I don't think I'll create a company. I've done that for the last, I don't know, feels like almost 15 years. I'm like, okay, what if my brainstorm was limited? A brainstorm is pretty helpful when you have a creative constraint. So my creative constraint is: what if I can't operate a company? I gotta do something, and I want it to be awesome, but I'm not going to be an operator of a company. That could mean, for example, you could buy a business and place an operator. You could be an investor. You can do other things, but I'm not going to create a company that needs an operator. That's where I'm trying to...

Sam Parr

do you like investing what's that do you like investing

Shaan Puri

I do like investing. Yeah, I don't know if I love investing, but I do like it. So, that's one. Then the second one you mentioned, which is getting more famous, also feels really lame to me. Even though I kind of know it's a good thing—like, it's clearly worked and paid off for me. Getting big on Twitter or getting big on the podcast, or whatever, has clearly helped my life in a bunch of different ways. But it feels kind of lame now. I was kind of saying this during the Sahil thing. I was saying to him, but I was really just projecting, I guess. It's like, "Is that it? I'm just going to be a guy who tweets and a guy who goes on YouTube?" It's like, "Here are three hacks that you gotta know if you want to get big in 2022." It's like, oh man, I can't bring myself to do that. So, I'm like, maybe I just also say no to that path because it feels like a lot of people play that game. It's not one I would have a ton of self-respect for if I won. So, that would be a big loss if I achieved it and didn't even feel great about it.

Sam Parr

we should do an entire episode next week or the week after on like the decisions that you're gonna make

Shaan Puri

yeah yeah I'm starting the process now we'll see how it goes in in

Sam Parr

do you no

Shaan Puri

I'm in no rush

Sam Parr

do you alright let you do one of your topics and then I'll do another one after that

Shaan Puri

Alright, so check this out. Have you ever read fan fiction? Do you read any fan fiction? Is that like a thing you do?

Sam Parr

what what is that

Shaan Puri

okay answer that answers my question

Sam Parr

I I I maybe maybe I do it but I don't know what it is

Shaan Puri

Fan fiction is basically like... imagine, okay, you read - for me, I read Harry Potter. Harry Potter's great. I'm done with the books, but I want more Harry Potter. I love that world, I love the characters, all that stuff. So then there's people who are super fans who will just go write their own as if they're J.K. Rowling. They'll go write it, they'll post on a website, and then you [can read it].

Sam Parr

can go write it I I I don't I play sports yeah

Shaan Puri

Exactly. My tendons and ligaments work, so no, I don't do that. Ben, I'm curious... just quick yes or no: do you know anything about this world or not?

Ben Wilson

very very little amount

Shaan Puri

Okay, so that's kind of what I expected and in my mind I'm like, "Well, that's the case for everybody." You know, it seems like a really, really niche thing, but Sam, I know you know about this business Wattpad, and I just want to tell you some things about fan fiction. It's insane. So there's...

Sam Parr

probably all women though right

Shaan Puri

what's that

Sam Parr

it's probably almost all women I would imagine it's 80% women

Shaan Puri

I don't know... it's a majority. I don't know if it's 80; it might be 70 or 60, something like that. But it's somewhere in that range. I think 70 or 80 is about right on the writer's side for sure. I don't know on the reader's side, but I think it's also there. So, okay, let me just tell you some interesting things. Two of the biggest books in the last 25 years started as fan fiction. **Twilight** started as fan fiction, and then the whole vampire series followed. Then, **Fifty Shades of Grey** started as fan fiction of *Twilight*. *Fifty Shades of Grey* became that, right? So, like, these were best-selling books that became $1,000,000,000 box office movies on top of that for the *Twilight* series, and that's insane. Okay, so then now you go to **Wattpad**, and you look up the traffic for Wattpad. You're going to see that Wattpad gets almost 200,000,000 visitors a month and has almost 100,000,000 registered users.

Sam Parr

you should explain what wattpad is

Shaan Puri

Wattpad is basically a website where you can go and you can write fan fiction and upload it, or you can read it. It's the same way like YouTube - you can go and upload a video or you can watch videos. Wattpad is that for people writing, kind of like fiction basically.

Sam Parr

and they sold about a year ago for about $600,000,000 in cash

Shaan Puri

Yeah, they sold it to a Korean company called Naver for $600,000,000. I remember you told me something about them way back. I think you knew the founders or were friends with them. I remember you and our buddy... we were talking, you guys both had met these founders. You had something interesting to say. I don't know if you feel free to say whatever your impressions were then. "No, I don't know what you're talking about." Okay, maybe it was... maybe it...

Sam Parr

was our friend but they were like yeah

Shaan Puri

I've met the founders, and this business is actually crazy. It gets a crazy amount of traffic and is super under-monetized right now. I met them, and they're super cool; they love their community. However, they're never going to make it in terms of building it into a business. It could be a juggernaut given the amount of traffic it has. I found this to be true for them. As I was looking at the traffic, I saw they were ranked number 2 in the books and literature categories. I was like, "What's number 1? What could be bigger?" 200 million visits a month! That's more than the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times. This is more than... yeah.

Sam Parr

for sure

Shaan Puri

Huge websites. So I'm like, "What's number one?" And it's this website called **Archive of Our Own**. You ever even heard of this?

Sam Parr

no keep going I love I'm looking all this up as you talk

Shaan Puri

300 to 400 million visitors a month visit Archive of Our Own. It looks like a Craigslist-type of website. It's basically like a wiki; it's a website with no images. You know what I mean? It's like if a library were a website, it would look like this. That was the intention. So basically...

Sam Parr

I was like this is

Shaan Puri

Really big, and it got me thinking about fan fiction. It still got me thinking about this whole... all these genres, right? Like, and I started connecting all these dots. It's like, I remember when I moved to San Francisco, there's a street in San Francisco that they call **Billionaires Row**. And on Billionaires Row, you've got, you know, a bunch of tech tycoons who are billionaires. The biggest and baddest house of them all belongs to...

Sam Parr

danielle steele

Shaan Puri

danielle steele and then I was like

Sam Parr

I wrote like 100... and 100 of basically, is it erotic or is it romance-related?

Shaan Puri

no just romance novels

Sam Parr

Novels... Yeah, one of the best-selling authors of all time has a bigger house than, you know, the founders of... What's his name? David Sachs? Yeah, like all these huge companies.

Shaan Puri

And so then you... I'm like, "Daniel Steel? That sounds really familiar." I remember when I was growing up, my mom probably read like 50 of these books. My mom loved Daniel Steel; she used to read all these books. I thought, maybe this little niche is bigger than I thought. So I was thinking a little more about it, and there's some crazy stuff. So, one of the backstories of this "Archive of Our Own" is, where the hell did this come from? Basically, what happened was, in 2007, a website called Fanlib was started. They thought, "Fan fiction's a great niche. We're going to build an awesome website, make a bunch of money; it's going to be great." However, there were a bunch of guys building this company, and all the users were women. At some point, the women were like, "It's kind of annoying the way this business is running, and that all these men are trying to monetize our work—our hard work on the reader side and our writing on the writer side." So in 2009, one of the writers, a woman named Naomi, wrote a blog post that said, "We need an Archive of Our Own." That was playing off the idea of "A Room of One's Own" by Virginia Woolf. It's basically the idea that writers need space, time, and resources to create. She said, "We just need our own, not this Fanlib." So a bunch of volunteers created Archive of Our Own, and now it gets 300 to 400 million visits a month. It's a nonprofit, and they run entirely off donations, like Wikipedia. They raised basically $350,000 in donations, and there are 700 volunteers that run this thing. It just covers the burn rate of the actual bandwidth to run the site, basically.

Sam Parr

And yeah, you can look up the nonprofit. It's called the Organization for Transformative Works. You can look up all nonprofit sales; it's only about $800,000 a year. What's interesting is their logo says "Archive of Our Own," launched in 2007, but it also says "Archive of Our Own Beta." It's still in beta.

Shaan Puri

and so and so this and like the top fandoms like so what what what is it what do you do so it's like you're a fandom of some world or characters or whatever and then people will write their own remix of that story they'll take the liberty to like write their own and so you have the top ones are marvel sherlock harry potter supernatural those are the top ones and it's just kind of crazy and so like for example the original lord of the rings like the trilogy + the next two books was like a total of 750,000 words 750 ks a fan has written like a fan fiction version of lord of the rings like the the extension and it's over 5,000,000 words it's like 7 times longer than somebody who's just written for free right there's like extreme passion and you know better than anyone like these are like red hot signals for where you're like oh my god like you can make so much money where if you're a greedy pig like us you're like oh there's a bunch of energy and passion and enthusiasm but probably some broken tools or like under invested in infrastructure can I go in and build something right that's like a general question and I just got fascinated by this space and it's pretty cool what they're doing so like wattpad basically after twilight 50 shades of grey became a big hit they 2 things started happening 1 the publisher started scouting wattpad like crazy so like you know anna todd was on wattpad she's like a a scout for for simon and schuster or whatever and offered like a 6 figure deal to you know a writer on there to basically like option their their like blog post basically into a book and a potential movie and they created their own studios division and they're making 1,000,000 of dollars adapting these fan fiction works into into you know actual movies from here and they say oh we got this data like the guy from naver he's like we have this data like not only can we see what's popular let's turn that into a movie but we can say we know exactly where they're reading and where they're skipping and where they're dropping off we can say chapter 1 and 2 are great chapter 3 after paragraph 2 they you know people are falling off and 5 6 and 7 you know are good but you know need to trim them and you know they have like hundreds of thousands of comments and they could basically take all that data and try do a good job with it that's the that's the pitch at at least I found this fascinating what do you think I'll give you

Sam Parr

**Two data points that I think show you're onto something. The first one, which I brought up, is the website Lit Erotica. Have I told you about that?**

Shaan Puri

this was your home page right what is what is this

Sam Parr

Yeah, right. "Lit." How do you spell it? It's like literature and erotic. Yeah, so **lit erotica**.

Shaan Puri

dot com okay I'm there

Sam Parr

Okay, so it's the same thing. It's this ugly-looking website that looks like it's, you know, built in the nineties. Basically, what's the traffic for a similar website that it has?

Shaan Puri

So, this tells me **60,000,000 visits a month** to this crazy, right? Plain text, you know, website.

Sam Parr

It's a plain text website. So, it's another example of just these, like, basically *lit erotica*. I think that's how you say it: *literotica.com*. It's not...

Shaan Puri

like gen z's oh this is some lit erotica man

Sam Parr

Yeah, it's similar, but it's basically like user-submitted stories. Most of them are sex-based, and it gets crazy amounts of traffic. I think it's only run by one or two people. But now, that's another example of one of these low-key websites that crushes it, which is like a nice proof of concept. The second proof of concept that actually is a wonderful company is, have you heard of Fandom?

Shaan Puri

Yeah, fandom's like a Wikipedia, basically, for all the different stories, right?

Sam Parr

Yes, so basically, any TV show that you care about, particularly if it's animated or a cartoon, or something, but even if it's not, you go there and it will give you a list of episodes, a list of characters, and things like that. I think they have a fan fiction section. But what I didn't realize was it was started by Jimmy Wales, the founder of Wikipedia. Right? And he's actually, I think as of recently, was still the president of the company. He sold it. The company was sold and it now does over $200,000,000 a year in revenue and is incredibly profitable. It's owned by the Churning Group, I believe. Is that TPG?

Shaan Puri

no it's tpg so this is a different one so t that's

Sam Parr

just a p pe firm

Shaan Puri

yeah one of the biggest yeah

Sam Parr

So it's owned by one of the biggest PE [Private Equity] firms in the world, and they kill it. I believe that you are absolutely onto something, spotting an interesting trend.

Shaan Puri

Yeah, and so I don't know where the opportunity is yet. I haven't done the full exercise of like, "Okay, what's the play here?" Are you taking it to mobile? Are you doing some sort of subscription thing? We've talked to you in the past about the idea you had prototyped. I don't know if you want to... should we tell that again, or do you think that's covered enough?

Sam Parr

Wait, wait... I'll... I'll... I'll say it in 30 seconds. Basically, my friend and I had this idea where we could create something like Audible, but for erotic stories. We created this really simple website. What was it called? It was called "Short but Romantic." We drove about $500 worth of Facebook traffic to it. We got someone to write a story on Fiverr, and we got someone to narrate it on Fiverr. We ended up making around $500 in subscription revenue overnight, or over a weekend. I don't think... what happened? Did we... we talked about it in the podcast, and then a person went and started a newsletter that was similar, but specifically for Black women. He ended up selling that business after 6 or 7 months for like six figures, right?

Shaan Puri

Yeah, I think that's what he said. I don't know... we don't know too much about it, so I can't say if it's for real or not. But yeah, definitely a super interesting niche that's like underserved, I think. Not most [people are aware of it].

Sam Parr

I think it's underserved

Shaan Puri

Most entrepreneurs and programmers are not really thinking about this stuff, but there's a lot of attention. I mean, Fandom gets 700 million visits a month. It's kind of insane, right?

Sam Parr

it's insane

Shaan Puri

These are kind of mind-boggling numbers. So yeah, I think that's kind of crazy. Can I tell you about another slightly... like, kind of niche, almost like... yeah, like vice-type business? Have you ever heard of a company called Dutchie?

Sam Parr

no

Shaan Puri

so if you just Google dutchie's try dutchie.com

Sam Parr

does that is that like a weed thing

Shaan Puri

Yeah, it's a weed thing. So, basically, what they did was create a point of sale system for dispensaries. What Dutchey does is they took the same model as Square or, you know, Stripe in a way, but mostly I think Square because they have sort of the in-person card reader type thing. They're like, "Look, these dispensaries are underserved. It's getting legalized in more places, and the big companies are never really going to go here because there's too much, you know, risk for them. They have too much to lose." Oh, wow.

Sam Parr

these guys are huge though

Shaan Puri

They're huge. They're basically a multibillion-dollar company. I think they were valued at $1 or $2 billion.

Sam Parr

think 3

Shaan Puri

$3,000,000,000. They say they have like 30 or 40% market share, which is kind of crazy saturation. I've seen some things that just... 8800, but...

Sam Parr

or $600,000,000

Shaan Puri

Yeah, so really, really impressive in a fairly short amount of time. I don't know when it was launched exactly, but it's not like... yeah, 2017. So, like, you know, 5 years and $3,000,000,000 later. We talked about this before. One of the early ideas that got a lot of traction on the pod was "Stripe for vice," which is basically about how taking payments is a pain in the ass if you're doing anything that gets blocked by banks, Visa, Mastercard, or whatever. The companies that end up serving industries like marijuana and porn, these different sectors, they end up picking up a lot of adoption very, very quickly and can become very, very valuable in a short amount of time.

Sam Parr

dude this is yeah this is fascinating I hadn't heard of this company they're quite big

Shaan Puri

I can't find this client info

Hubspot

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Sam Parr

Here, I'll tell you about another one that is kind of niche but incredibly fascinating. I actually have a payment story for you as well. So, Google Group Black. Have you heard of Group Black? No? Alright, so their URL is groupblack.co. This company, what these guys are doing, is incredibly fascinating in how they've inserted themselves. I believe they call themselves a media collective and accelerator. But here's the opportunity: in 2020 and 2021, I...

Shaan Puri

I feel you hate these sorts of things, like media accelerators and collectives. I feel like if I just told you, "Hey man, I got a media collective and an accelerator I want to tell you about," you'd be like, "Oh God."

Sam Parr

yeah I I don't like the language because it does sound fluffy but what these guys are doing is way more fascinating than that so basically 2020 2021 black lives matters becomes a thing and a lot of companies advertising companies they publicly state basically it happened with byron allen is one of the guys he's one of the most powerful men in hollywood he's a black guy who owns a really successful production company and he's like look it's just crazy that we black owned media companies aren't getting ad dollars we think it's wrong that mcdonald's isn't advertising with black owned companies and so that + the blm thing a lot of the largest ad agencies in the world like wpp and all these other companies they collectively said alright look we now commit and I actually don't know the exact percentage that wpp said but they basically said we're gonna give around 4 5 6% of our budget to black owned media companies but there's a huge problem with that which is there's actually not a lot of black owned media companies or at least there's not a lot of black owned media companies at scale and when I say like you know they they actually groupm one of the world's largest ad firms they call them their clients that they said we're gonna spend at least 2% of our ad budgets on diverse owned media and you're like 2% what's that you know who cares 2% that's nothing well it comes out to be like across all the other media companies something like $600,000,000 a year and then mcdonald's is like hey we're gonna increase our ad spend from 2% to black owned media companies to 5% it's like well you know who cares that's just a few points that's again another like $75,000,000 a year it's like quite substantial but again there's this problem of there's not a lot of group a lot of black owned media companies so this company called group black they went and talked to procter and gamble wpp interpublic all these huge media companies and they go hey commit to spending money with us and we're gonna help you deploy it and they say yeah okay you know that's like a crazy conversation I don't know how they got that conversation now they have $500,000,000 a year in ad commitments from these companies but they have a problem they don't own any media assets and so at this.

Sam Parr

They're out there trying to buy Bustle. You know, Bustle is a women's-focused media company that I think does about $200,000,000 a year in sales. It's one of the bigger new-age digital companies out there. I think they're the size of Vice. We're finding 29 things like that. Group M is now making a bid to buy Bustle, and I've also heard rumors that they're in talks to buy Vice. These guys have just totally pulled off this amazing... it's basically a caper, if you ask me. They're like, "Well, we spot an opportunity." It's a bold plan to say, "Oh, we see this opportunity." Of course, I'm making it sound like they're just these evil scheming guys, but I don't think that's actually the truth. It feels like an interesting coup where it's like, "Oh, we see this opportunity, we're going super big, and we're gonna pounce on it." Now they're out trying to buy media companies that could support them spending $500,000,000 on an ad budget a year, which is huge. That's substantial. I don't know how much money BuzzFeed makes, but I bet you it's probably in that ballpark.

Shaan Puri

them make sure

Sam Parr

what you're

Shaan Puri

Saying what you're saying is they saw the demand to advertise on Black-owned media companies. There's like... there's not enough inventory, there's not enough supply. So let's just go buy media companies and then turn them Black by buying them. Well, right?

Sam Parr

I I don't know I don't

Shaan Puri

know what company now right is that what you're saying

Sam Parr

Now, yeah, they're black-owned now. And so it's like, well, that's what I mean. That's what's fascinating about it, you know? There's nuance to this, and I don't entirely understand everything they're doing, obviously. But that's exactly what it sounds like they did. So they're saying, "Well, let's go get some black-owned companies." But before we do, let's go talk to WPP and all these other companies and make sure that they're really in. So, oh hey, look! They go to Blackstone or some other private equity firm and say, "Hey, look, we have $500,000,000 of commitments. Partner with us to go and buy these 5 media companies." It's like a guarantee that we're going to have increased revenue.

Shaan Puri

from them okay okay now I understand why you love this so much

Sam Parr

How fascinating is that? If they could pull this off... So, they're in deep talks—this is according to Axios—to buy Bustle, which was going to go public. They're also in talks to buy a few other media companies, and it's just like crazy.

Shaan Puri

my 3rd million is up for grabs

Sam Parr

yeah fellas

Shaan Puri

I'm already proud I'm halfway there

Sam Parr

How fascinating is this? Like, is this... this is a caper. That's why now you understand why I called it that. They're seeing opportunity, and I applaud... they're pouncing on it. I think it's incredibly fascinating.

Shaan Puri

I don't know a whole lot about this, but I have heard that there's a version of this which is like a certain percentage of government contracts and consulting gigs have to go to minority-owned businesses. So there's a whole industry of basically middlemen. They go and win the bid, and then they just subcontract it out to a company. They themselves don't have the company that goes and does the thing; they just go win the bids and they're like, "Yep."

Sam Parr

because they fit like a demographic yeah

Shaan Puri

They're like, "Oh," and I think Magic Johnson, the basketball player, does this. I think I had heard this; this is part of one of his business strategies or something that's helped his business do well. He wins all these bids because they're one of the few minority-led businesses. Then he doesn't actually do the construction himself. It's like, "Wow, I didn't know he has a construction company." He's like, "No, he doesn't." He just farms out the construction to a subcontractor who does the construction, and they keep their VIN. I was like, "Oh, that's also really smart." But, you know, a cynical person would look at it differently.

Sam Parr

Dude, it's fascinating. I read about this, and a friend who had talked to them told me about it. At first, I was like, "Oh, that sounds pretty skeezy." Then I started thinking about it, and I'm like, "No, that's not skeezy at all." They're just trying to get theirs, and they are playing by the rules of the game. If you do believe there are injustices, they're out there making it right. You know, they're getting theirs, so I applaud them. I think it's really interesting. If they're able to pull this off, it will be very fascinating to me.

Shaan Puri

Alright, I gave you a duchy. Now let me give you a quickie. So here's a quick one: Have you seen the Kia car rebrand?

Sam Parr

The lower... yeah dude, it looks like "KW." It's supposed to be "KN," but it looks like "KW" or something like that. It's like really supposed to...

Shaan Puri

to be kia k I a but it looks like k n

Sam Parr

oh it's it's supposed it's not supposed to be k n

Shaan Puri

No, that's the problem. It looks like "K N," and it's supposed to just be "K I A." But the "I" and the "A" are joined and kind of slanted, whatever.

Sam Parr

you can put the picture

Shaan Puri

on screen so this guy ashwin we've talked about it before schwinnabago his his his his handle on twitter he tweeted this out he goes the kia logo is so unreadable that at least 30,000 people a month are now searching for kn carr ever since it debuted and you could go see a search volume go from like flat for kn carr to like pretty significant now and and so I have a friend who I met recently that is a I'm gonna gonna get him on the podcast we're gonna do an episode with him but he is a master of these like internet arbitrages and he previously had done one like this and somebody we were slacking about it and they they go oh my god this is exactly the type of arbitrage you would do he goes that's right up my alley and he go and I go so what would you actually do with this information because most people are just gonna make fun of oh the logo sucks move on and he's like so he's done this before so he when I when I was talking to him I was like oh you're you're super successful now how did you get like wealthy for the first time in in the first place like what is the first successful thing you did he goes it's kind of embarrassing but like you know back in the day I tried a bunch of stuff that wasn't working and then I just like I went to paradisepoker.com I wanted to play poker and I misspelled paradise I didn't know how it was supposed to is it a pair of dice is it paradise with a s like what what is it he's like I realized that I went to the wrong one I just went to like a dead page and he's like that's crazy I've probably I bet a lot of people misspelled this so he's like I just bought paradise poker instead of paradise poker and he's like yeah that's all I did and he's like so then I had this website I was getting a bunch of free traffic from Google this was the traffic Google would before Google would autocorrect and he's like so I got a bunch of and so he's like I became one of the number one affiliates for paradise poker because oh my god and so he's like so that's how I made my fresh start I was like a kid and I was making you know like tens of 1,000 of dollars a month just off this like typo basically and then he's did this many many times I'm gonna have him come on and tell the full story but he did one where tesla was doing a referral program where like if like 5 people bought a a tesla you from your code you would get a free tesla roadster which is like their 100,000 $120,000 car and he's like challenge accepted and he like built a site that would immediately became like the top ranking like tesla like whatever like blog or I don't even know what he did I think what he did yeah I think he did one with like that he ended up getting he's like I got a tesla roadster then I you know every day I would like earn a new tesla roadster it's like hey dad you want a tesla roadster okay you get the next one I got my brother 1 and I got another one then my friend got one he's like tesla shut down the whole program they had to stop the entire marketing program that they've been pushing because like within a month I had like pillaged it it was like winning too many free tesla roadsters he goes no way he's like I was like what else give me more he just has like this endless supply he's like yeah I've like haven't paid for uber in like years I was like what and he goes yeah like back when uber had their like you know referral program I I just built a website that was like comparing lyft versus uber like like fair estimator he's like I built a fair estimator that would estimate what does it cost to take an uber versus lyft right now and from your destination he's like so then and then I would just get lyft credits or uber credits he's like so you know I have like 1,000,000 uber credits from this site

Sam Parr

we have to get this guy on just to talk about all these stories

Shaan Puri

He's amazing! So then I asked him, "What would you actually do with this 'kn' thing?" because I don't really understand how these work. I only understand the high level. He goes, "Well, I would go to someone in fleet sales at a Kia dealership and I would make them a deal that if I send them leads, I want a cut of the sales." It's like, then I would just start ranking for all their newest cars, like "kn Telluride." Instead of "Kia Telluride," it would be "kn Telluride 2023," "kn this," "kn that." I would just rank for each of the cars individually. Then I would basically be capturing their intent. This person wants to buy a car, and I would sell that lead to one of the fleet salespeople. He goes, "The only problem is that Google's autocorrect now is much better, so you would need to find the terms where it's not being autocorrected," which, you know, whittles down the opportunity here. But I was like, "Man, do you know whose brains are wired like this?" It's kind of incredible to me. It's not a skill set I've ever had.

Sam Parr

Am I friends with this guy? No, damn. Yeah, we gotta have him on. I'm interested to hear all these things, all these schemes.

Shaan Puri

Yeah, it's one of those things though that I... You know, we've had these situations where we have a dinner with somebody and the conversation is amazing. You're like, "God, I wish I could have just pushed record. This would have been a top 5 podcast episode ever."

Sam Parr

where'd you meet them

Shaan Puri

And then we invite them on, and... they like forget all their stories. They're like, you know, very bland, and you're like, "Dude, come on! Say the good things that you told me before." That's my only fear. It was so good that I want the podcast to be equal to that. I don't want any slippage from that conversation.

Sam Parr

how'd you how'd you meet him

Shaan Puri

Well, that's part of the story that I'll tell when he comes on. I can't tell that part right now. Alright, so that's part of the story.

Sam Parr

Alright, you already have... yeah, I've got one for you. Have you heard of this guy named Jared Isaacman? Does that ring a bell?

Shaan Puri

never

Sam Parr

alright it's my billy of the week

Shaan Puri

a $1,000,000 isn't cool you know what's cool

Sam Parr

A $1,000,000,000. Alright, so he's 39 years old. Have you heard of Shift4 Payments? No? Alright, so Shift4 Payments is basically like Square but less known. This guy started it when he was 16. He dropped out of high school and worked at a payment processing company. He said it took like a month for someone to get a new credit card. Getting a new credit card back then was like getting a mortgage; you had to apply through all this paperwork. He thought that was kind of nonsense. So, at 16 years old, he convinced his grandpa to give him $10,000. He goes and starts a credit card processing company.

Shaan Puri

to to get the reader or to get a card

Sam Parr

to sorry if you if you own a restaurant right or if you own a sandwich shop and you say oh I wanna be able to like collect credit card payments it it was like getting a mortgage it was it was it was very challenging and they didn't really help you set it up and it just was cumbersome but he said oh I can make this way better so at 16 he got a $10,000 loan and he starts building this business where he gives people their credit card processing with just 1 or 2 pages of an application and 1 or 2 days wait and then he gives you the the hardware for free and so it just he just takes a small cut of all the dollars that go through it and he builds this company doing that bootstraps it up to like the. Where he they're creating they're processing like $1,000,000,000 + of revenue and so he builds this big thing it's called shift4 payments originally it was called united bank card he started it in pennsylvania he he was pretty low key but he bootstrapped it for 15 years and sold 53% of the company where he was able to make like $250,000,000 at a very young age and eventually he takes the company public it's public now and now he's worth like $1,500,000,000 at the age of 39 very few people talk about him so that in itself is amazing but here's where things get really interesting when he was around 26 the company is like 10 years old he's making some money he's trying to blow off steam so he gets really into taking flying lessons and so he takes flying lessons for like 2 years and after 2 years he gets so into it that he says I wanna try and set the world record for the fastest around the world flight in a light jet so basically from new jersey to alaska in 61 hours he does it and that's like a really big deal and he raises a $100,000 in charity for it and it's like this really big amazing thing and so clearly this guy isaac he's got this like personality of like I go all in on stuff so he gets into a hobby and he like makes it into like a real thing but at the age of 28 he starts or sorry at the age of 26 he sets it up a notch and so he actually forms a crew of people who start doing like shows so you know like 4th july you see like an aircraft or like a like a like a flying I don't know what they call it what what do they call those things

Shaan Puri

yeah like an air show

Sam Parr

He forms a group of people that are doing acrobatic stuff, like an air show, for events such as the Indy 500 and NFL games. He turns it into a small company and calls it the Black Diamond Jet Team. It has a few other retired pilots. So he starts getting embedded in this world, and at the age of 28, he starts this thing called... Wait, what's it called? It's called Draken. So it's called Draken International. He's only 28 years old when he starts this.

Shaan Puri

great name and he starts this so strong the name

Sam Parr

Draken International is the name, and basically, the premise is that he starts hanging out with these retired pilots who are part of his little flight show side business. He realizes that the military, you know, post-2008, is hurting for money due to the financial crash. They have a way of training pilots that involves pulling people who should be out in the field—doing whatever the Air Force does—to train other pilots. This is incredibly inefficient, and they lose money on it. They say, "This isn't sustainable." He sees an opportunity and starts Draken International, which is a flight instructor school for the Air Force. The Air Force approaches Draken and says, "Hey, help us train our pilots." He goes out and hires tons of retired pilots and retired Air Force personnel, giving them jobs. They now start getting contracts, but it takes about 4 or 5 years to secure their first contract. Eventually, they land their first-ever contract, which is worth $280 million over 5 years. That's the Air Force paying Draken to train all these pilots.

Sam Parr

This guy, he owns this company called Draken. Isaac does, and they have the world's largest privately...

Shaan Puri

is it jared isaacman

Sam Parr

Sorry, Jared. Whatever, tomato, tomato. Jared, you're awesome regardless of your name at this. Now, they own the world's largest privately owned military tactical jet aircraft. So they have the largest collection in the world, and this guy... he's only 39 years old. People never talk about him, and now he's doing all this other crazy stuff like going to space and things like this. Just one of these guys who goes all in on things in totally separate industries. Totally unknown, incredibly fascinating guy.

Shaan Puri

wow that is amazing how did you find out about this guy

Sam Parr

Well, Michael, the guy who does our TikTok, told me about him, and I thought it was crazy fascinating. I just read a Forbes article about him, and I thought he was incredibly interesting. I think he's based out of Pennsylvania. So, they basically do the credit card processing for places like Little Caesars and Arby's. It's not the sexiest thing, but they kind of kill it. It was bootstrapped, and he's just an incredibly fascinating guy. So when I read about this person, I was like, "How is this guy not more well-known?"

Shaan Puri

Yeah, that's amazing. There's a lot of people that are like this. For every Elon, there's... you know, we had Brian Johnson on that episode (I think it will have come out by the time this comes out). Brian Johnson is very Elon Musk-y, very... a lot of Musk in him. Right? Like, that guy... that guy's got...

Sam Parr

a lot

Shaan Puri

... of Musk in him. And you find this where like the number one person is, you know, super well known, but then there are like 10 other people that are very, very similar that are completely under the radar. My favorite move is I go buddy up to those guys because I'm like, "Oh wow, you're amazing, but also you're not inundated with people trying to get your time and attention."

Sam Parr

and I find you fascinating

Shaan Puri

So, you know, I want to hang with you. Oh, and it's way easier to network with that person than continuing to just email Mark Cuban on loop or email Elon Musk or whoever, trying to get their attention and tweet at them. You know, be like: > "Notice me... notice me please!" It's much more effective to focus on building relationships with accessible people rather than constantly pursuing high-profile individuals who are unlikely to respond.

Sam Parr

Dude, I've met a few of these people. There's this other guy, Greg Mercer, who I'm friends with in Austin. He started Jungle Scout. There are a few of these guys that I've met, and they have this energy. Another one is Brett Adcock, who started Archer, the flying car company. Before that, he started Vettery, which is basically a job board that he sold for $100 million. His next company is making robots. I've met some of these people, and there are a few commonalities that they have. 1. They're incredibly logical. 2. They're very emotional in the sense of, "Why are you doing this?" They'll say, "Because it's awesome! Because this is so cool!" Although they're logical, like, "Well, I'm just gonna call this person. They're gonna tell me X, Y, and Z. Then I'm gonna go and deploy this much money, and maybe by year four, I think we'll figure it out. But if it doesn't work, that's okay because then we'll do this, this, and this." So, they're pretty logical, but they also balance this incredible amount of contagious enthusiasm. Whenever I'm around them, I just feel good about myself. I'm like, "Oh, you just make this sound so easy!" And they're like, "Well, it is pretty straightforward. You just do this, this, and this." I'm gonna take a lot of risks, but these people are incredibly inspiring. You leave them feeling hyped. I don't think if I hung out with Elon Musk, I would feel hyped when I left him. But there are these other guys who are arguably as smart, maybe slightly less successful, but still uber successful. I leave them feeling like, "Oh, you're quite relatable," and I've caught your enthusiasm. So, I love these types of people.

Shaan Puri

Yeah, that's a good description of it. You know, they call it the "midwit meme." "What's that?" It's that meme where there's a curve... it's hard to describe a visual meme, but okay, it's like a bell curve. On one side is like the ogre, and on the other side is like the Jedi genius. In the middle is the stressed-out, anxious guy with like a vein bursting through his forehead.

Sam Parr

oh yeah

Shaan Puri

and basically it's like you know there's a few you know and and then it's almost like what's what is the thought process and so like you know for in this case it would be like the idiot's like rockets are cool or like you know jets are awesome and then the guy the the jet guy is like jets are awesome and then the middle guy is like you know but giving getting government contracts is really hard and this isn't like you know like a thousand word spiel about why it's a good idea and a bad idea and it's like all the pros and cons jumbled up together it's over analysis right and I've actually come to believe I was gonna make this kind of a bigger video but I'll say it here and I'll I'll flesh it out later I think most like most of life comes down to that midwit meme that midwit meme might be the most insightful meme I've ever seen in my life so much you know that's like for example let's say let's just break it down into something non business let's pretend you're in a fight with your wife in a fight with your wife you could you know the the middle guy the stressor vein busting out the forehead type of dude is basically like you know but she said this and she always does this and then yeah I I did say that but what I really meant was right it's like this whole thing trying to be right about a situation and then the jedi and the 88 would both just be like yeah but you know I love her it's okay right like and they they move on and they don't they don't fuss with any of the bs that the guy in the mid the midwitt in the middle does and and I think that everything is like that everywhere I walk in life I'm just seeing the midwitt meme I'm like you know you know I just see it in business I see it in relationships I see it in like parenting I see it in my kids like my kids are like this I'm like oh yeah they figured it out like dogs and kids have it figured out they understand they're like more like the jedi and and the or the ogre in either case like yeah they're they don't have it fully formed but they understand like this is fun I'm gonna do this and have I'm gonna be playful and smile and laugh and it's not that serious right like and that's how I think most adults end up converging on that middle of the bell the bell curve where they're over analyzing everything and thinking through all this shit and you really just want to be the jedi you just want to be the jedi who's like this is awesome or you know we need to like we need to do this right or you know like I'll figure it out right like there are certain like 3 word kill shots you have when you're when you're operating like the jedi and and that's what that's more how you wanna be

Sam Parr

Do you remember Boosted Skateboards? Did I ever tell you about when I hung out with them? So, years ago, do you remember Boosted Skateboards? It's like a skateboard that was motorized. It was before all the scooters and stuff, so it was a pretty big deal. I remember I met the guy who founded it one time. Boosted Skateboards can go like 30 miles an hour. I met the guy who started it, and I was asking him about his background. I believe he worked at NASA and tackled some really big, hard problems. He was telling me all about his background, then he started explaining the Boosted Skateboards, the science behind it, and the mechanics involved. It was so interesting and actually way more technical than I expected. I remember saying, "Yeah, but do you skateboard?" He replied, "No, I didn't until I got into this." I asked him, "So, why'd you leave NASA to do this?" He said, "Because a fast skateboard's fucking awesome." He just said something like, "Because it's badass." I was like...

Shaan Puri

oh yeah

Sam Parr

Yeah, you got a good point. You're correct; it is, in fact, awesome. I remember he said that to me, and I was like, "That is just the best answer."

Shaan Puri

that is

Sam Parr

The best answer was like having a guy telling me all the technical aspects of something, and how it actually means this, this, and this. But then, his reason for why he even started in the first place wasn't passion, it wasn't anything else, it wasn't to make money... it was just because **it's dope**. And I remember thinking, "You're my hero."

Shaan Puri

Yeah, if you look at what Elon does, I think it's very similar. Right? It's like, you know, whether it's the need-based one where it's like, "Yeah, we're gonna need another planet." Right? Like, we'll use this one, this one will be done, and we're gonna need another one. Right? That's like the impetus for, you know, a SpaceX-type of company. Or it's like, you know, because it'd be awesome to go to Mars, so I'm gonna try to do that.

Ben Wilson

It's just the best it's just

Shaan Puri

End of reasoning, end of justification, end of analysis. Right? You could just start with that. It's the same thing with electric cars. It's like, "Yeah, cars should be electric; it's better for the environment." Not like, "Oh, do you know no car company has been started in a hundred years?" Manufacturing is totally different than software. It's a completely different ballgame. Financing is going to be tough, and then, you know, batteries... It's like, yeah, you could analyze everything, but at the end of the day, it's the same thing with, you know, as much as I find Elon obnoxious. I think he truly does the midwit meme where he's like, "You know, Twitter should be awesome, and it's not." That's basically his thing. It's like, Twitter's awesome in spite of everything being bad about it. Right? They're doing dumb things, but like, Twitter's kind of awesome even still. Twitter should be really awesome.

Sam Parr

Dude, the best example of this is when he was talking about... I don't remember exactly, but it was about his SpaceX and the rockets. And he was like, "Wait a minute, so you're telling me that it's not gonna fall from a parachute? It's literally gonna go up and just right back down?" He's like, you know, it's almost like... why? He was like, "It's cheaper." Yeah, yeah, we need to...

Shaan Puri

be able to reuse them

Sam Parr

Yeah, he's like, "We can't just have this land in the ocean. We gotta go and reuse it." So we're just going to have it go up and then come right back down to where it is. Then we'll figure out how to do that, and that's like...

Shaan Puri

It can be done, right? Okay, yeah. If it can be done, then we'll do it. Yeah, alright. Like I...

Sam Parr

I remember

Shaan Puri

He says that if it's not against the laws of physics, then we go for it. If it's against the laws of physics, we don't do it.

Sam Parr

I thought that was great. But anyway, this guy, the busy guy, was interesting. But yeah, what's his name? Jared Isaacman.

Shaan Puri

we call him isaac I'm the hero of the

Sam Parr

Isaac, my boy Isaac! This guy is awesome. I love Jared Isaac, man. Not Isaac's son, though. So, dude, Jared, if this gets to you, I hope it does. I'm sorry. "A rose by any other name," is that like the phrase? It doesn't matter what I'll call you, sir. Whatever you want to be called, you're great in my book. We gotta get this guy on the pod, right? He's awesome! But Ben's back. Ben, can you say why you were gone?

Ben Wilson

I had twin or I did not my wife had twins

Shaan Puri

"We are pregnant!" You... I remember the day after we finished recording. You could just see it on your face, like, "What happened?" You're like, "We just had the ultrasound. Found out it's twins!" The implications of it being two, not one... I mean, that's a pretty big fun but also crazy blindside. I remember you were wearing it on your face that day. How does it feel now?

Ben Wilson

Good, yeah. I felt like I just seen a ghost that day. But, you know, it's funny. I was at a conference that Sam was also at, and Steph Smith comes up to me and is like, "Hey, I just heard that you're having twins. I just met this other guy at this conference who's having twins, and you should go talk to him." So, I went and talked to him, and I was like, "Yeah man, so what's it like having twins?" When I had my first kid, anytime you'd ask someone what it was like having a kid, they'd be like, "Oh, it's a lot of work, but it's great." So, Steph introduces me to this guy, and I'm like, "Hey man, what's it like having twins?" He goes, "It's horrible! You're gonna die! It's so much work! I don't know how you're gonna make it through." I was like, "Oh, this guy's kind of crazy." I found this to be a theme. I've talked to multiple people, and they've all been like, "Buckle up! It's not good. You should dread it. It's gonna be awful." And my review after like a week and a half of having twins is, it's not that bad.

Shaan Puri

Alright, for anyone out there who's gonna have twins, there you go. At least the first few weeks [are] not that bad. Sam, what does your thing say? "Only money"? What does that say? Oh, it's "Only money." Alright, what's that? Tell me the story.

Sam Parr

I... nothing. I bought it, you know? That's just... I think that's a good life motto: when you lose a bunch of money, it's only money. And also, when we think about it all the time, it's not that important. But let me ask you guys a quick question: would you ever consider not naming your child right away? Like, getting to know the baby over 6 or 12 months and then naming them?

Shaan Puri

You know, it's like if I was the California government and then somebody commits a crime here but then they leave and go to, you know, China. It's like, would you consider going and getting them? It's not my jurisdiction. That's what it's like with important kids' decisions. It's not my jurisdiction. If I went to my wife and I was like, "Yo, we're gonna do something crazy," she's like, "No, thank you." Next... noted. We will be moving on now.

Sam Parr

Dude, I had a friend who didn't name his... He named his child legally "Baby" and on the child's 1-year birthday, they named her. At first, I was like, "Man, I think that's crazy. Just be normal, you know?"

Shaan Puri

just do the gal how did they how did they eventually name her

Sam Parr

So, they basically had three envelopes with names that they liked. They laid them out and let her crawl to one, and that's what they named her—the one that she crawled to. When they explained to me what they were going to do, I thought, "That's just crazy! Why would you ever do that?" After a while, I realized that's actually fantastic. That's the way to go. You know, it's kind of weird to name something. I've met another parent who renamed their child after six months. They said, "He just didn't feel like a George. We're going to call him Bill," or something like that. I actually think that's 100% the right way to do things.

Shaan Puri

Yeah, I think it's pretty common. I think my mom was named something else and then changed it after... really, whatever. They changed after a little bit of time. My wife's sister, same thing. After 6 months, they changed her name. She was like having dreams and being like, "That's not her name. That's not what it's supposed to be." She went and changed her name. Yeah, it's kinda crazy.

Sam Parr

I think it's cool

Ben Wilson

My naming philosophy has evolved into a new approach. It's a hack for my family. We had a boy and a girl. For the girl, we gave her my mom's middle name. When we told my mom, within like 5 minutes, her reaction was, "Well, I'm flying out next week. If you need me to stay up past midnight multiple days, I'm willing to do it." You could tell there was a little extra investment. Of course, she's already invested in her grandkids, but when it was named after her, there was a little extra connection that clung on in her brain. When you name your children after your parents or grandparents, you're not just honoring them; you're also securing that extra help. It's hilarious—just name them after parents and grandparents and get that extra support.

Shaan Puri

that's like

Sam Parr

I think that's

Shaan Puri

That's what happened. I read *How to Win Friends and Influence People* while I was at the hospital before the baby came out.

Sam Parr

baller

Shaan Puri

alright that's the episode see you