How To Make $10 Million in 12 Months By Building Apps (#349)

Sam Parr

And his verification is for $100,000,000+ liquid. So the guy has over $100 million, and he did it all through 2 or 3 of these apps. I believe he did it with close to no employees, and he accomplished this over around 8 or 10 years. What's up?

Shaan Puri

What's up! They told us to do intros now for the podcast, so here it is: This is "My First Million" podcast, where we tell you 100 good ideas. Half are good, half are bad, but it's on you to figure out which ones. This is "My First Million," where I make fun of Sam about how he talks, he makes fun of me about how I look, and in between, we squeeze in a few business ideas. Let's see, what else... what else we got for you?

Sam Parr

And supposedly we're supposed to be successful people, so it's like... The reviews people say, they say it's kind of like we're just sitting at a bar with a bunch of our successful friends—dare I say, I hate this word—*multimillionaire* friends, and just hear what they talk about. But that...

Shaan Puri

Just a couple of decamillionaires hanging out on the pod, dude. Yeah, how are we supposed to brag about that? You know what I learned from my last successful venture? I now take those learnings to the podcast.

Sam Parr

Can I just say that regardless of the decamillionaire nonsense, I did something a few weeks ago that I think was amazing? I bought a $60 tattoo gun on Amazon and I let my wife give me a hand tattoo instead of wearing a wedding ring.

Shaan Puri

oh wow

Sam Parr

totally worth it

Shaan Puri

uh-uh let let me be the judge can you bring that a little closer here what what is it

Sam Parr

it's just an x can you see it is it

Shaan Puri

right like an that's not focusing okay it's an x like you know

Sam Parr

it's an infected x but it's an x

Shaan Puri

You know, like where something was there, then it's like dead, and now you've put an "X" there? That's kind of the vibe you're going for, or what?

Sam Parr

Yeah, or like, you know, "XXX" on a moonshine whiskey jug. Yeah, something like that.

Shaan Puri

and she wanted to do this or you wanna do this she seems more sensible than you so I don't know yeah

Sam Parr

Of course, she didn't want to do this. I just said, "Sarah, I bought this tattoo. Go ahead, sit down right now, or otherwise I'm just going to do it myself."

Shaan Puri

okay threats

Sam Parr

and I handed her an orange

Shaan Puri

rage and threats

Sam Parr

Yeah, like literally, I set it up and within 2 minutes it was done. I handed her an orange and said, "Right, next on that orange." Great! I'll do that on my fist.

Shaan Puri

People always ask us, "What's the secret to being a decamillionaire?" We tell them it's **threats**. You gotta threaten your business partners, your marital partners; you've gotta threaten all your partners. Actually, Sam, you kind of do use this sort of... I wouldn't call it a threat, but as they say in *It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia*, it's the **implication of danger**. I feel like you do use this—the implication of things going wrong. Am I right about that?

Sam Parr

what's an example

Shaan Puri

In your management style, like, you know, you're trying to get the team motivated. You have two paths you could go down. You could start with "why" and tell them why you're so excited about this and why this is good for them. Or, you could just hit them with a solid threat, with the implication of things not going so well if we don't do X. Which way do you go?

Sam Parr

I like the second one. I'm more of a guy who would do, like, if I can... Alright, tell me, how are you? If you can make $1,000,000 or not lose $1,000,000, which one are you more motivated to do?

Shaan Puri

for me not lose a $1,000,000 and I think for you the same

Sam Parr

Same. Absolutely the same. It's not just to do something. I love setting my life up, and I do this all the time with my wife and stuff. I'd be like, "Oh shit, I already booked it! We gotta do this thing." I always set stuff up that if I don't do it, there are consequences. That's the way to live, man. I used to do it with my employees all the time, and you know what? They always said they hated it. Then, whenever they leave and quit, eventually they'll say something like, "Yeah, but I did so much cool shit, and we actually got a lot of stuff done." So, I think people actually like it.

Shaan Puri

right yeah they tell their therapist as they just spend years recovering from you

Sam Parr

yeah I guess so dude can we do you have a bunch of topics

Shaan Puri

I got a few yeah

Sam Parr

I got a couple too. Can I start on one that, like, I think it's blowing my mind? So, yeah, basically, yesterday I went on a long walk. I did. I went on like a 10-mile walk. Have you ever gone on a long walk?

Shaan Puri

I go on a walk I got a dog yep

Sam Parr

Yeah, I just went on a really long walk. I walked around all these fancy neighborhoods in Brooklyn. As I was walking, I started doing what people do: I pulled up Zillow and thought, "I wonder what it's like to live here." When I see a house I like, I usually think, "Oh, I would like to live there," and then I pull it up. It's $8,000,000. That's one number, but then you actually look at how much money you need to come up with at closing. You also need to consider how much money you need to spend each month on the mortgage, interest, maintenance, and things like that. I started thinking, "I think I'm going to live over here in Brooklyn." I wanted to map out how much money I would expect to spend to live the lifestyle I want, and it is astronomical. I wanted to talk about some of those expenses. Do you want to talk about some of that?

Shaan Puri

much walk me through it

Sam Parr

Okay, so listen to this. First of all, I'm going to talk about the life that I'm going to live when I move to Brooklyn. And all the listeners, there's going to be a bunch of them that say, "Oh Sam, no one needs an $8,000,000 house." Yeah, I get it. You know, all I need is like a bucket of water, some apples, and a pair of Crocs, and I'm happy. But this is the life that I choose to live. So, like, I get it, no one needs this, but I'm picking this, so get off my back on this hypothetical case that might be a reality in two years. I just gotta get that out of the way. But in terms of hypotheticals, it's not entirely hypothetical because I went and talked to a couple of friends who do this. But listen to this: I found a home that I wanted to buy, and I actually linked to it on the MBD master doc. Okay, so it's on StreetEasy. It's a nice house. It's only 3,000 square feet, though, but it's a brownstone in my favorite neighborhood of Cobble Hill. It's $5,000,000. I actually think the range of things I want is between $5,000,000 and $8,000,000, but this one I just found was available. It's $5,000,000, which basically means I gotta come up with $1,100,000 as my down payment. Then I'm going to spend around $20,000 a month in mortgage and interest and things like that, not including maintenance, which is going to be more expensive. It's probably going to be another $2,000 or $3,000 a month. Then I think it would probably cost, on the low end, $50,000, and on the middle end, around $150,000 to furnish it the way I'd like to furnish it. Right? Have you ever furnished a house?

Shaan Puri

Yeah, yeah. It depends. If you go like... like my wife, she's like, "Oh yeah." I'm like, "What do you like?" She's like, "Restoration Hardware." I'm like, *jeez*. You know, every item in the store is like $4,000 to $10,000. And so, you know, you just add that up per room. You're putting in like $20,000 to $25,000 worth of stuff per room in the house, which is pretty nuts.

Sam Parr

Yeah, totally. So, like, $150,000 is just kind of what it would cost if you want to go that route. If you want to go West Elm, then yeah, you can maybe get it done for $175,000, but it's quite expensive. Then, if I'm going to get this big house, I'm getting it because I have two kids or a couple of kids. So, I need my $40,000 to $50,000 a year nanny. I imagine I would spend around $30,000 a year on food. So, basically, it comes up to where I think I'm spending $600,000 to $700,000 a year to live the life I want to live in Brooklyn. But here's the kicker: if you're making over $1,000,000 a year in Brooklyn, or for sure in Manhattan, it's even more than this. Half your money goes away to taxes. So, basically, if I'm spending around $600,000 a year, I need to make $1,200,000 just to cover my monthly net.

Shaan Puri

breakeven

Sam Parr

Just to break even... I talked to two friends. One friend who lives in Brooklyn told me that he spends around $500,000 a year. Then, another friend who also lives nearby said he spends $800,000 a year. He sent me his list, but he mentioned that he has an additional house in North Rhode Island. If you take that vacation home into account, we are spending around $650,000 a year. To live like this, it's crazy. When you walk on these streets, you know there's a house every block. If you go to Manhattan, there's a fancy apartment every block. How on earth do you think so many people afford this? It's crazy when you actually think about the logistics, right?

Shaan Puri

Well, a lot of the people who own these homes owned them before they were worth $5,000,000. So, go look at the Zillow history of this thing. Ten years ago, what was this home worth? I'm guessing it's less than half this, maybe 35% of this price ten years ago—30%. What you're talking about here is a home that they bought with a basis of $1,000,000 or $1,500,000, something like that, instead of $5,000,000. So now the monthly payment is less, and now the property taxes are less. You cut out your biggest expense; in this case, you trim that down. I think that's the answer for how a lot of people have this: it's inheritance or buying in, you know, 20 years ago or 15 years ago when these were worth a fraction of what they're worth today. That's why they can afford to kind of live above their weight.

Sam Parr

Well, so I had four takeaways when I started thinking about this. The first was that there's a story behind everything. All these people, like a simpleton like me, think, "Oh, you just gotta earn this much money," and they did it by starting a business. It's like, no, that's not the reality. Zac Crockett, who works at The Hustle, and I were talking about this. He was going to write a story on it, and he said that he researched a bunch of these homes. For all the $5,000,000 brownstones in NYC, he used a tool called Melissa to look up the property records. Then, he googled the names of each person who "owned" it and looked at their family records. He did all this through sleuthing and found out that a bunch of them—like seven out of ten—were teachers, artists, or professors. These are jobs where you could earn a decent amount of money, but you're not earning enough to buy this home. What he surmised and concluded was that they just get a lot of help. So, it's hard to own a $5,000,000 brownstone when you're a reporter at The New York Post or something, you know? That's a $120,000 a year job. So, I think there's a story behind everything. The second thing is, I think you just have to earn a lot of money. Dude, listen to this: if you earn...

Shaan Puri

hang on that was a killer insight

Sam Parr

what

Shaan Puri

the you gotta earn a lot of money

Sam Parr

yeah where'd you come

Shaan Puri

up with that

Sam Parr

You gotta earn a lot of money, but listen, let's put the math on this. How many years do you think you need? How long will it take you to save $10,000,000 if you lived in New York?

Shaan Puri

to save $10,000,000

Sam Parr

yeah to get a portfolio of $10,000,000

Shaan Puri

I have no idea I don't know let's say 20 years

Sam Parr

Okay, so if you make $1,500,000 and you're spending around $25,000 a month in living expenses, it's going to take you around 15 years to be able to save $10,000,000, which is pretty crazy. Now, you've got to figure out how to earn at least $1,500,000 for 10 years or for 13 years, which is, in itself, very, very, very challenging.

Shaan Puri

Hold on. Your first point was that these people are teachers and artists. You said they need to have some help. You're talking about family help, right? You're not saying there's nothing else, right? You're saying you have a rich family? Okay, alright. Sorry.

Sam Parr

Carry on. I think that just having a... like, I underestimated that. When I think about this, I'm like, whose parents would give them $2,000,000 for a down payment on a home? I think the answer to that is actually a lot. I can't... I can't imagine that. But that was hard for me because, you know, I don't know. My mom and dad, like, the best gift they ever gave me was when I turned 21. They gave me $1,000, and that was like the last birthday present I ever got.

Shaan Puri

I don't even think it's a down payment. It's okay, you're a teacher, great! Your down payment is covered. Were you coming up with $25,000 a month for your monthly payment just for your home? Like, I...

Sam Parr

think allows you I think

Shaan Puri

They're... this is an all cash offer. Here's your house, free and clear. You get to live here and you cover your life expenses. If you're paying for a latte, that's on you, but I'll buy you this brownstone. I think that's gotta be what it is.

Sam Parr

I think that's it. That has to be what it is. Or the second thing is, you gotta earn a lot. The third thing is, I wonder how many of them do you think sell a business? I think earning a lot, like a big nut of $10 to $20 million, seems impossible to do without selling an asset.

Shaan Puri

You gotta be in finance, law, maybe medicine, or consulting to be pulling in a $1,000,000 a year income. I don't think there are many other jobs that do that. We're not talking about athletes or entertainers because that's just a small portion of the population. But for jobs that a normal person can get that will make you $1,000,000 to $2,000,000 a year, I'm pretty sure you gotta be either a banker or a consultant if you're employed. Alternatively, you gotta be self-employed as a doctor or a lawyer or something like that to be able to pull that in. So, that's like... am I missing one? That's like...

Sam Parr

those are non

Shaan Puri

better those

Sam Parr

Are those non-entrepreneurial jobs? The other way is to just start a small business.

Shaan Puri

Yeah, exactly. You own a small business, you own a big business, you know, you own a contracting firm, you do construction around the city, whatever it is. Those are the other ways where you can do this. And usually, you're not earning a steady $1,500,000 per year. You're earning like nothing, nothing, nothing, a lot, a lot, a lot, huge, and then back to nothing. You know, like that sort of thing. It's this lumpy curve that an entrepreneur has where you're basically broke until you're very unbroke. So, yeah, but okay, what else you got to say about this?

Sam Parr

And my third and final takeaway here is basically that there is so much out there. There is so much money out there. There is so much opportunity. You walk by all these places, and again, Ben's laughing at me—this is obvious—but when you see it in real life, I walked down the street and I'm like, "Oh, that apartment that costs $12,000 a month to rent in that top floor of that brownstone." And there are three of those in there, so like, there are three people each paying $12,000, and they're just like, "Home, home, home, home, home, home, home." It's astronomical! There’s just so much money out there to be made. It's just so much opportunity. So anyway, I did this three-hour walk yesterday, and I just felt enlightened. I just wanted to come to the table and fill you in on that. Nothing, nothing, nothing spectacular.

Shaan Puri

well that's why I'm glad you started the show with something unspectacular that that's why you know these tiktoks that are like they stop somebody at a fancy car or a fancy house and they go hey I just wanna know what what do you do for a living and the guy's like and they're like you know first of all like is this like a trap are you like an irs agent what is this and they're like I'm paying houses or they'll be like you know I I work in real estate you know I work in the financial services industry it's like oh okay what what's going on here but I think the reason those are popular is because wealth for most people is a complete mystery it's a complete black box unless you come from wealth if you come from wealth and you grow up and at your you know you're going to 15th birthday parties where like serena williams is there to play tennis with the other kids you're you're like what the hell like you know like this is everything is just nice everybody goes we summer in the hamptons you have a place where you summer like summering is a verb and and then you you know you you you know that you're oh my godfather you know he's he owns like 44 dental practices and so you if you grow up with wealth you you wealth doesn't seem like this mysterious unattainable thing you in fact you realize there's like a 1,000 paths and it's up to you to decide which one you want but for most people wealth is like kind of just this mysterious thing you don't even see how wealthy people live you don't hear like the numbers you talked about I think for a lot of people listening they're gonna be like what in the hell is sam talking about somebody pays 500,000 $800,000 a year of just their living expenses like that sounds like the most money you could make let alone spend per year and so when you're talking about spending more than a person's life savings in a year that's a thing very foreign to people then you say okay well how do you achieve that and now you have maybe one example two examples you don't have like 25 35 45 examples to choose from and so I think that's why those tiktok channels are popular I think that's why this podcast is popular because you either react to this type of information with 1 of 2 reactions bitterness or inspiration for most people it's bitterness you hear about other people's success or their extravagant spending and you get bitter you see the difference between what they do and what you do and you don't focus on the fact that maybe you wanna do it instead you focus on the fact that they're wrong evil unnecessary blah blah blah whatever it is and how you know they only could've got it by by sort of cheating the system or some unfair advantages and you get bitter and that's why I would say 90% of people fall into the bitter camp but some people they hear those stories and they take inspiration and if you take inspiration you start to collect each of these anecdotes you start to collect each of these data points and you say oh I'm taking this foggy map that I have this cloudy map where I couldn't really see and I'm just pushing away the fog I'm getting clarity on wow there's a 1,000 ways to win and wow winning it can be a lot bigger than I even imagined and once you sorta have that in your head that's when things become a lot easier because you start to notice all around you examples of people building wealth in unique ways and ways that are not always long and hard ways that are not always painful or require genius you'll start to see examples of somebody who does it by you know simply like you know starting a mushroom farm in california and it's like yeah that's what they do or somebody I remember I I met a guy who created the tread that goes on treadmills he's like yeah we're we're tread manufacturer I was like what and he's like and these these guys would do like 15,000,000 a year in sales and they was he a marketing genius no was he a sales genius no he just simply was like oh there's demand for tread that goes on conveyor belts treadmills tsa you think I mean I don't know I was like I was like in 5th grade at the time I remember it was my friend's dad and I was like what why is why is jordan so rich and it was like oh jordan's rich because jordan's dad sells treads on treadmill and we met these other people that are rich and they I was like you know again I wasn't even asking the question but I remember my sister saying something like yeah they have like mushroom farms and I remember being like in my head farmers don't make like tons of money and then I realized pretty quickly oh farmers can make a ton of money and so you know but I was just slowly collecting these anecdotes only when I was in my twenties and I was like if I wanna know how to get rich then I need to know like a lot more examples of richness and if I wanna get rich fast then I need to get examples of people getting rich fast and and this is actually a good transition we have a friend who is we were just in the group chat we have a friend who it seems like might get rich very quickly here and richer let me explain richer they created a product or a service or an app and they every day they're posting a chart of like the growth of this thing and it's like a early version of a hockey stick it's like yep we went from doing $100 a day $500 a day $1,000 a day today $3,000 a day today is gonna be $9,000 a day pretty quickly like you know fast forward 2 weeks this person's gonna put a chart in there that's gonna show them doing $200,000 in revenue just today and it's gonna be nothing has changed it's just they just let the growth carry on and you see that and you're like wow that's that's winning it like that's the hov lane that's the fast lane where you could just go in and you could win faster like jeez I didn't realize that I thought I gotta bust my ass for 10 years and the reality is this person has been busting their ass for 10 years building up the skills so that they can launch a new product and they can do let's call it 5 to 10,000,000 this year in in potential profits now this person if you remember many months ago

Sam Parr

and they told us

Shaan Puri

They told us this exact thing. They said, "Yeah, I'm just thinking about ideas that can make... I forgot what they said, $10 million or $50 million." I want to make $10 million in a year or $50 million in a year. And I was like, "Okay, like, you know, yeah sure." You know, I want Jessica Alba to add me on Snapchat right now. But yeah, it's not necessarily going to happen. You could just say it. But he was like, "No, I've been studying. There are apps that do that in the App Store."

Sam Parr

and and he's like showing us screenshots and examples yeah

Shaan Puri

Yeah, just showing us screenshots and examples. It's like, "Does that?" "Yeah, this does that." Now you see 10 of them, and all of a sudden, first of all, I never knew somebody who even stated a goal like that. So just hearing it for the first time was like, "That's interesting." I knew people that would say, "I want to build a huge company, a $1,000,000,000 company." That was normal. I'd heard that before. I'd heard, "I want to get a high-paying job. You know, I want to make $500,000 a year at this company." I've heard that before. I had never really heard somebody say, "I'm looking for a way that I can make $10,000,000 in 3 months." That was actually the exact thing. It was, "How do I make $10,000,000 in 3 months?" So I was like, "Alright, well, never heard that. That was new." Then I thought, "Well, my brain doesn't come up with any examples of how to do that." That's like, you know, doesn't involve putting a ski mask on and walking into a Wells Fargo. Then he gave me 10 examples, and I was like, "Okay, well now I got 10 examples. Number 11 doesn't seem so far-fetched at that."

Shaan Puri

And I remember coming to talk to you and being like, "Dude, have you heard anybody think like this, talk like this, or come up with ideas like this?" Because I believe that there's great power in questions. I'd never really heard somebody ask the question, "How do I make $10,000,000 in the next 3 months?" Once that question was asked, my brain had to start coming up with answers. At first, my brain was struggling, but then, as he gave me examples, it started to get better and better. I began to come up with examples about how you might do that, and now it's literally happening like that right in front of me.

Sam Parr

front of us

Shaan Puri

scenario is actually playing out right in front of us what do you think of this

Sam Parr

I think it's awesome. I think it's still too early. Anything that comes fast will go away fast, or can go away fast. But right, he called his shot, and we are seeing on a daily basis whether it's coming. It is, in fact, now coming into reality, and I think it's awesome. I think that there are ways... I think Peter Thiel said it best when he asked, "What's your 5-year goal?" Then, when someone shares their goal, he responds, "Cool, how can you do that in 6 months?" I usually believe in that. This guy took it even further, asking, "What's your 5-year goal? Do it in 3 months." And it's awesome. There's another guy I know who has done this publicly; his name is Alan Wong. Do you have the app on your iPhone that lets you listen to police scanners? It's like the police scanner app.

Shaan Puri

no but I know I know of these apps these are it's actually weird

Sam Parr

Yeah, it's like the 5-0 Radio app. I think it's called the 5-0 Radio app. This guy, Alan Wong, posted on Reddit in 2013. He basically said, "Hey, I'm Alan Wong. I was told to create an..."

Shaan Puri

ame here I have it up here

Sam Parr

yeah you wanna you wanna read it or you read I have

Shaan Puri

He goes, "I'm a person in his twenties who went from rags to riches during the recession. How did I do it? I developed apps. My most popular app is called the 5-0 Radio Police Scanner. It lets you listen to police chatter around the world. You've probably seen this used in the latest Spider-Man movie, although they rebranded it. As of 2012, my apps have been downloaded by 20 million people." By the way, this was written 10 years ago, so he did this in 2008.

Sam Parr

well I have an update on it that I can give you in a in a second

Shaan Puri

So, he goes, "My parents were raised in the slums of China. They fled here with my brother to New York. My mother worked in a sweatshop in Chinatown before she quit and became a homemaker. My father was an herbalist before he passed away unnaturally, three months after I graduated from college. After his passing, no one in my family had a job." So he says, "I found a full-time job at Columbia University. I was the only one with income. I taught myself how to create apps in my free time and I created apps on the weekends with hopes of making some side income. I didn't expect this to make me millions." And then he says, "Where does he say his money?" I don't think he says his money is somewhere here, but yeah, go ahead, fill in the gaps, Winston.

Sam Parr

So, he doesn't say it there, but I found it. There's this other subreddit that I talk about all the time called **Fat FIRE**. They have this particular type of flair called **Verified by the Mods**, where the moderators look at your income or balance sheet. They review something and say, "Yeah, we believe what you are saying is true." His verification is for **$100,000,000 liquid** or more. The guy has over **$100,000,000**, and he did it all through 2 or 3 of these apps, with close to no employees. He accomplished this over a period of around 8 to 10 years.

Shaan Puri

It's a he, by the way. He says he has three apps: he has "5-0 Radio," then he has "Police Scanner +," and then he has one more called... what is it called? Hang on. He's got three apps that were in the top, like, the top 100. So, he goes, "This means I'm the only person ever in App Store history." This is what he wrote at the time; this was back in, I don't know, 2012 or 2013, something like that. He said, "I'm the only person in history to have three apps in the App Store that were top 10 overall in the paid and free categories at the same time."

Sam Parr

Yeah, man, this guy's cool. If you Google his username, it's **rago apps** (reg0apps) and then **fatfire**. You'll see his post from Fatfire where he talks about what it's like to be at different tiers of wealth. He shares all types of insights, like, "When I was at this event, this is how I felt. When I was at this other event, this is how I felt." Now, according to his flair, it's over **$100,000,000**. So, you're asking who else I know that's done this? I don't know this guy, and I can't verify that any of this is true, but it's pretty interesting, and it might be true.

Shaan Puri

Well, yeah. I don't know the speed that this guy did it, but it's still amazing. By the way, we should get verified in FatFIRE. Why aren't we posting in FatFIRE? That seems like a... that's our people. We should hang out.

Sam Parr

I do post there. I post under a name that no one knows me as. But I would post there more. Would you post? Do you use this?

Shaan Puri

Yeah, I'll go browse. I never post or comment, but I'll make an account. Let's do it! Let's get verified and do an AMA there.

Sam Parr

Yeah, so look, this guy's thing says, "I fat fired at age 25. I make $10,000,000 a year in my thirties." 10... yeah, $10,000,000+ a year in my thirties, and I have over $100,000,000, according to which has been verified for the mods. Here, this is what he says: Someone asks, "What's the difference in millionaires or in money level?" So he goes, "At $100,000 to $1,000,000, you can tip very generously and be okay with that. At $1,000,000 to $5,000,000, you can fund some medical expenses and maybe a college tuition or two for an extended family member or friend. At $5,000,000 to $20,000,000, you could pay off a handful of college tuitions and some expensive surgeries." Then he jumps to $50,000,000. He says, "You can create several nonprofits overseas and help people at a community level, like building a school or a local community or something." So he talks about this constantly throughout this subreddit, and it's very, very interesting.

Shaan Puri

Yeah, that's cool. I like that. That's a good story. I'm gonna have another story to share on this in... let's call it 30 days. Let's say I'm gonna... I'm gonna leave that little seed here. 30 days, I'll have another interesting story to share on this topic. But let's switch to something else.

Sam Parr

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

Shaan Puri

Let's talk about this guy, **Scott Painter**. Do you know who Scott Painter is? This is my **"Billy of the Week."** I don't know if he's a Billy, but he's got that big Billy energy for sure. I'm going to tell you this guy's story, and you're going to be amazed by it.

Sam Parr

alright go for it

Shaan Puri

do you know who I'm talking about do you know who have you ever heard this name before

Sam Parr

no I'm just looking it up now

Shaan Puri

so Scott painter is known because he was the ceo of something called truecar and so truecar is like a super successful it was like one of the super successful early car companies on the internet so what they were doing was they were publishing price information so that you could go and figure out you know the the what the true price of this car is so that you know if before you would go to a dealership and depending on which dealer you went to and which salesperson you talked to and what how they sort of sized you up as a sucker you would get like a 30% price differential on the price of the same car so you could go to one place in the same exact car they'll they'll charge you you know 30% more or less depending on which place you went so it's a huge spread after truecar people could just go figure out well this is the price of this car a 1997 you know mazda miata is supposed with this many miles it's supposed to be this price and in every market they would go into the price gaps that that dealers were charging would spread would change from 30% down to like 3% and so they were like helping bring in price transparency but this dude is a crazy story he has built he has basically spent like 20 years just constantly trying to reinvent the auto industry online so this guy did I'm just gonna read you like his his linkedin so he's he's the he starts off well he goes to the army first of all and he's a spanish interrogator which is just like a kind of a crazy little path that he took and he talks about like you know why he went there it's like you know my you know dad wasn't so cool I needed freedom army was freedom for me so I went to the army and so anyways he get he goes and he becomes vp of marketing at 1 800 carsearch this is early internet we're talking like 1999 basically and so there's 1 800 carsearch 1 800 dentists he's like the vp of marketing for each then he creates like a consult so he's just hopping 1 year 1 year after that he creates dental advantage it's like consulting for dentists about how to use the internet then he starts another one called vision incorporated it's again 1999 ish and he's like helping companies transform like for ecommerce like hey companies are gonna need to do ecommerce I'm gonna help them do this like he was right he was just way early on on this trend of e commerce and then he just starts this like crazy run-in the car industry so he goes he's the founder of cars direct they go from 0 to 650,000,000 in sales in year 1 then he goes

Sam Parr

he started that

Shaan Puri

Starts with Advertising.com. Then he became the CEO and founder of TrueCar. After that, he was the CEO and founder of PriceLock, which was like locking in your gas prices. So, he does TrueCar, takes it public, and gets into this crazy scenario where he is, I think, the largest individual shareholder. Not only is he the largest individual shareholder, but he's also buying up a ton of stock. He believes in the stock like crazy. Then they have an earnings miss. The economy sort of turns, car owners start to slow down with their car buying, and they have a big quarter miss. The stock drops like crazy. He gets margin called because he was buying so much of his own stock, and he's basically forced to borrow money from friends to pay off his margin call. He resigns from the company that same month. He basically has to step down as CEO. He lost a ton of money on his own stock, he gets a divorce, and his literal house burns down.

Sam Parr

and oh

Shaan Puri

my god what does he do the following week the following week he incorporates fare.com to a new way to buy cars and this was like basically the idea that like hey car buying is super super complicated you go you buy a car I don't know if you've ever done it but like the process of you have to buy a car you have to qualify for financing like you know 80% of cars are financed in the united states no nobody buys cars to all cash here and and then you have like this complicated like credit check payment thing then you have your your insurance on top you have your title insurance you have to do the right registration you have to do all this different stuff and he's like what if instead it was like you know what if buying a car was as simple as like buying a coffee or netflix like subscription so what he would do is you would just put in your phone number it would like find out all what he would do is you would just put in your phone number it would like find out all your information it would and it would say what car do you want you pick a car it would be like cool that car is $500 a month and you own that car and you could turn it in at any time if you don't want that car so it's like a long term rentals basically was what faire was doing faire grows like crazy they raise 100 of 1,000,000 of dollars because a this guy has got this crazy track record b he's very like kinda charismatic and formidable like you see this guy as a founder you're like god I would hate to be competing against this guy in the same market and he thinks very big he's like you know we're gonna change the way that car ownership is done we're gonna make this faster cheaper whatever softbank piles in $300,000,000 into a series b round and and they're on their way and fair ends up going up really fast and then crashing really fast because the few years ago I don't know if you know about it basically like the yeah as the tech markets like valuations turned softbank was was was the big whale in the space started losing money they lost money on wework then they lost money on what was the other big one softbank had like I don't know 3 or 4 like huge things like uber like they had a bunch of huge things going like the prices crashed from where they had invested and so he couldn't raise any more money and he had built this like very complicated thing they would lay off 40% of people fair doesn't really work out and now he's back again because I see this thing that says this new startup autonomy has placed $400,000,000 worth of purchase orders to buy 8,000 something teslas this year I was like what who's buying 8,000 teslas who's paying $400,000,000 to buy teslas and it's a startup called autonomy that is trying to make it where you can just rent electric cars simply like you you you there's a lot of people that wanna own a electric car like a tesla and they can't afford it it's too expensive all in so here pay this monthly fee and you get to rent a tesla you get to own but you basically get to like have have a tesla you're not renting it and this

Sam Parr

is sam

Shaan Puri

It's a long-term rental. He's back, and so they placed $1,000,000,000 in purchase orders across different electric vehicle manufacturers to do this. He must have raised a ton of money again, plus raised a bunch of debt. He's back with his new startup, Drive Autonomy, and this guy is fascinating. I went down a rabbit hole listening to interviews with him.

Sam Parr

how how

Shaan Puri

do you come on

Sam Parr

your radar

Shaan Puri

Interesting, dude. Because of this autonomy thing, I worked backwards from the last thing I told you where I was like...

Sam Parr

but why were you just looking up purchase orders of electric cars 100,000,000

Shaan Puri

I saw a tweet. You know, I follow on Twitter like Elon and a bunch of these Tesla fanboy and Tesla hater accounts. I follow both sides. There's basically a huge group of people—well, I should actually say it's a small group of people—that believe Tesla is a giant fraud and is going to zero. They're called Tesla Q. Then there are other people who believe that Elon Musk is, you know, the second coming of Jesus. I follow both. In the "second coming of Jesus" camp, they were like, "Tesla, you know, here's more good news for Tesla. These guys drive autonomy. They've placed $400,000,000 worth of orders for Teslas because there's so much demand." Elon replied, saying, "Demand has never been the problem; it's supply. The manufacturing and production of cars is our problem." Like, yeah, this is good news, but we don't have a demand problem. We have so much demand; we have a supply problem. But I was curious, where is this, you know, half a billion dollars of demand coming from? I've never heard of this startup before. What do they do? And that's what they do.

Sam Parr

What was he like? When you hear him talk, is he charismatic? He just looks like a normal white dude. Very...

Shaan Puri

matter of fact so he's basically like he's a good storyteller he's quick and to the. He he reminds me a lot of like you know that other guy we like frank slootman the guy who runs snowflake who wrote that amazing blog post amp it up which basically describes like you know don't be such a wuss like you know run your company to win we're here to win and like this is the plan to win and that guy's just been like a serial ceo of companies that just grow really fast this guy's like that so let let me tell you some of the kinda like interesting little nuggets that came out of this so I'm just gonna keep rambling on this guy so he's basically he's like he's like I'm a multi time college dropout like I have dropped out of college multiple times I dropped out of like my kind of prep college I dropped out of undergrad and I dropped out of grad school and he's like I basically had a ton of failure do you guys know me because I've tried like 25 things and 3 have worked and he's like you know but that's entrepreneurship like you know you need 3 to work out of 25 in a 20 year career and like that's that's like what winning looks like he's like you know I always loved cars he goes cars are a where am I at in life purchase he goes I can just look at a look at a car that I own and it would tell me a story about where I was in life you know like you know when I'm graduating from when I'm graduating right I'm coming of age or when I like you know when I moved or when I got a got a my first good job or like whatever he's like a car basically marked you know each chapter he's like that's how it is for most people I kind of had that insight which is like a car is like your avatar that you use when you go around the world a car says something about you and yeah when you when you go upgrade to the minivan it's because you're going into family mode and like that's what I kind of realized he goes people spend a crazy amount of money on cars because in the interview the guy's like how have you been able to raise so much money he goes well I play in like the biggest market he goes 15% of all people's gross income goes to mobility half in buying their car and half into fuel taxes repairs insurance etcetera he's like so when you have this thing that makes up 15% of what everybody makes or just put differently like I think it's like a third of your net worth you know if people are spending on new when they buy a new car he's like the tam is just enormous like you know it's like 5,000,000,000 5,000,000,000,000 a year goes into cars or something insane like that so he's like you know that's the easy answer to how have I raised so much money I went and played in this big space and then I tried to reinvent it at every every time I would do one I would try to reinvent it he's like you know we were the first ones to be like we put the upfront price of a car on the internet nobody was doing that at their in the early days I think that's the cars direct

Sam Parr

is he successful yeah you said that he got marching called does that mean he was broke

Shaan Puri

Doesn't necessarily mean he was broke. It means he didn't have enough collateral for what he borrowed for his stock. Now, if the stock recovered, which I don't know, I haven't looked at TrueCar's stock.

Sam Parr

truecar their their market cap is 230

Shaan Puri

1,000,000... Yeah, that does not look like it has done very well since then. So, it's basically a third of where it was back in 2014. That's not doing so well. He says that in his thing, he's like, "I've made a bunch and I've lost it all many times over." So, you know, I'm sure this guy's done well. I don't think he can build multiple companies that get valued at $1,000,000,000, take a company public... I don't think you can do that. You gotta realize, you gotta be kind of really reckless to walk away with less than $20,000,000 at the end of all that.

Sam Parr

dude I love people who too

Shaan Puri

but anyway

Hubspot

Swings, even if they miss, like consistently... or, you know, in this guy's case, he didn't entirely miss. He did actually build some amazing things, but maybe it was just shy of what it could have been. Another guy who's doing that right now is Adam Neumann, the founder of WeWork. He just raised $250,000,000 in seed funding for a $1,000,000,000 apartment business. I don't exactly know what the business does, but it sounds like WeLive—the thing that we talked about where, you know, it's like fancy apartment buildings that are all mostly the same. You pay a premium because it's all pre-designed and looks really nice, and it has a community on it, which honestly I think is awesome. I also think WeWork is awesome. What do you think about a guy like Adam Neumann taking another swing? 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.

Shaan Puri

I think I

Sam Parr

love our new crm our software is the best hubspot grow better

Shaan Puri

I think it's great. I think it's so easy for people to criticize him. People shit on him for two reasons. One is... well, I forget the reason. I'll give the explanation. The reason is just simply that, you know, it's fun to hate on somebody you don't know. Like, why?

Sam Parr

and he's full

Shaan Puri

He's like, "Bullshit, too hot. They got too big-headed and then they crashed." People like that. But I think the criticism is what the criticism is. WeWork failed. Well, WeWork didn't really fail; it just didn't achieve the... like, you know, what's WeWork worth today? WeWork is still like, you know...

Sam Parr

like 5 or 6,000,000,000

Shaan Puri

Company more valuable than anything that we've ever built. You know, so it's like, yeah, WeWork is valued at $3,960,000,000 right now, publicly traded. So it's not like WeWork actually failed. It's just, you know, he raised too much money at too high a valuation and didn't live up to that dream and that promise. A bunch of people got burned. If you bought the stock or you joined the company at that really high price, yeah, you're underwater for that. So that's the first criticism. The second is he lied, cheated, and stole. You know, he licensed the trademark and was paying himself out of the company for it. He did stupid things, like that summer camp where everybody got drunk or whatever. Those things, to me, are somewhere between a little whack, a little messed up, to actually understandable and more common than you think when it comes to these hyper-growth companies.

Sam Parr

he's a liar I think

Shaan Puri

He's crazy... kind of ego-driven people. But there's crazy good and there's crazy bad. Is he crazy good or crazy bad? What do you think?

Sam Parr

Mostly good, but in some cases, it was bad. When I read about him—and I don't know the guy—I’ve hung out with Miguel, the co-founder. My read on these guys is that I don't think they're lying. I just think that they got some things wrong. I think that they're just incredibly enthusiastic. I don't know, like, when you paint the picture of the future and you end up being way wrong, you're not a liar; you're just wrong. You know, you're optimistic, but you still called it wrong. But you're not a liar, or at least you're not a liar if you believe that.

Shaan Puri

it's gonna be true different right right delusional or irrational is very different than like lying or fraud and I think there's a line who knows if you crossed it I don't know all the details I'm not involved in all that but from from the outside it looks to me like he was one of these guys who is huge dreamer irrational self confidence so unbelievable self confidence that they are gonna pull it off that they're gonna pull off this crazy crazy dream I do think they get you know high on their own supply where they start to think that like you know the stuff that got them to the to the. Where you know you're on the cover of time magazine and everybody's throwing money at you to fund you then all of a sudden you think you know I can't be touched and I've seen this play out many many times I've gotten burned on some of these so I've you know like I you know I invested in in terra which was like you know the luna like crypto coin right and the the founder of that was the same way this guy do kwon super smart charismatic unbelievable confidence that his thing was gonna work and some some people all along the way were saying he's crazy and then slowly but surely a bunch of smart people gave him money you know because it was like this guy's crazy but he's kinda pulling it off and maybe he is just crazy enough to pull it off and we have many examples in history of people who are crazy enough to pull it off let's see if this happens and and and then over time his ego ballooned and it ballooned and it ballooned and he kept basically taking larger risks and tempting people to to you know sort of call him on his bluff and then and then somebody did and the market like a series of events happened and it crashed and all went to 0 and everybody looks dumb and you know I lost a $1,000,000 of like you know what I had in worth of luna in like 2 days because I believed that this guy was gonna be one of the crazy ones to pull it off I didn't think he was not crazy I thought he was crazy and like might be the good crazy and was worth the bet and so and and other times I've bailed because I thought you know what I'm not falling for this sort of the hero entrepreneur the charisma the the visionary entrepreneur thing I owned tesla stock when it was really really low I remember I remember at the time tesla was valued at maybe like 2,000,000,000 and 2 3,000,000,000 something like that and I remember investing in it my dad was like tesla they don't make any money and I was like yeah but I think that like you know here's my reason why I think they're gonna be big but a b c and then I I said he's like yeah but like you know it's already valued at 3,000,000,000 I was like well you know at the time I think gm was like 25,000,000,000 or something like that one of the big companies

Sam Parr

what's tesla now like 500,000,000,000

Shaan Puri

yeah but it hit a trillion so like you know I would have rode 2,000,000,000 to a trillion

Sam Parr

I can't do that math so basically like that's like

Shaan Puri

This was my... it was the first stock that I bought. I think I put in like $25,000 or something crazy like that.

Sam Parr

the 25 k would have been like 1,000,000 right

Shaan Puri

Yeah, at one point, I calculated it was $5,000,000. I would have had $5,000,000. What I did was I turned the $25,000 into about $125,000 and I sold because I started to get suspicious. Like, damn, this guy really over-promises. He does over-promise on things like when something will be built and how good it'll be. He's pretty much wrong on the timing always. For example, he's been saying that the Cybertruck is coming out, and he has also claimed that the Model 3 would be more affordable than it is. He'll say that Autopilot is ready, but he's been charging people for Autopilot, like the Full Self-Driving (FSD). You buy FSD, and it's not actually full self-driving. You've been paying thousands of dollars for multiple years now, and he always says it's right around the corner. I remember when I was reading the Twitter stuff about people who were basically saying this guy's a fraud and Tesla's a scam. It was very convincing; there was a lot of convincing evidence. I remember they went through 20 CFOs in like a 4-year time span, and the new CFO was some guy who had never been a CFO before. Somebody really smart once told me, "Just follow the CFOs. The CFOs know what's going on with the company. They know the company's health better than anybody." That made a lot of sense to me, and I actually still believe that principle. It just turned out to...

Sam Parr

It was on the brink of collapse consistently, and he kept pushing it.

Shaan Puri

He threaded the needle. He pulled it off. Yeah, he pulled it off. He threaded the needle, and he pulled it off. There's still a mountain of evidence suggesting that it was very close to failing. He basically over-promised—over-promised would be the generous term. You know, he sort of lied and manipulated to keep the stock up, to prevent it from crashing and going out of business. There's a bunch of evidence that supports that. But the bottom line is, he pulled it off. I was $5 billion wrong for selling early. I've been on both sides of this, and I think where I netted out is that some people are literally just con artists. They are going to scam you, and their charisma will manipulate and dupe you into believing in them. However, some of the best entrepreneurs have a similar profile. They can be irrational, delusional, and willing to run into a fire pit, even when there's no way they'll make it out. Nine out of ten don't, but the one out of ten who do change the game. So, I've sort of landed on this: I'm going to lean towards optimism. Even though I would be right if I was pessimistic about it nine times out of ten, I'd miss the one that actually works out. That one will pay for all the losers in investing terms. Plus, it's just more fun to follow these entrepreneurs, to understand what they're doing and why they believe they can succeed. I prefer to be more optimistic than a hater towards them. That's kind of why I landed on this.

Sam Parr

That's a good one. Alright, let me tell you, I'm going to end with two things. One is the lamest thing I've seen on the internet in the past few weeks, and number two is a company that is making way more money than I thought. I'm absolutely going to clone it eventually. I'm going to start with the second one. The go-to? Perfect! Yeah, go to **bitpipe.com**. So, **bitpipe.com**. Tell me what you see.

Shaan Puri

Okay, oh my god! Alright, I see a Craigslist-looking website. It says: > "BitPipes is the enterprise IT professional's guide to IT resources, browsers, feed, online library with the latest technical white papers, webcasts, product information." Alright, I don't know what this is, but basically it...

Sam Parr

looks like a

Shaan Puri

set of blogs maybe

Sam Parr

Content about click. One of them, click one of them. Click content management. Okay.

Shaan Puri

I'm done

Sam Parr

then click view now okay

Shaan Puri

it looks like it's a set of reports

Sam Parr

So, click "View Now." I did it for you. It says "View Now." This is an article from *Computer Weekly*. It was released on August 22, 2022, and it's called... it's so technical I don't even know what it actually is. What are the... what's the one that you're looking at?

Shaan Puri

I'm looking at Eurotunnel's digital journey for the realities of post-COVID travel. It tells me I could download this e-zine. E-zine? What the hell is it?

Sam Parr

And I'm going to let... let me tell you an even worse one. This one's called "How to Choose an HR Software System."

Shaan Puri

like what people call a a a magazine on the internet ezine yeah is that what it's called

Sam Parr

It's old, so this one's called "How to Choose an HR Software System." An HR system is one of the most important purchases an organization makes nowadays. The stakes couldn't be higher. Download this guide and learn all the key steps in setting up an effective buying process and how to identify HR software features. Then it says, "Give us your corporate email address, your first name, last name, company name, job title, seniority, job function, number of employees, industry, address, country, state, zip, phone," and just click "Download Now" and we'll send it to you. Alright, so this website is owned by a company that owns about 20 or 30 of these websites. It only has around 3,000 customers, but it makes around $400 to $500 million a year in revenue. And that's how it works.

Shaan Puri

"No! Yes, Sam, no, no, no! I refuse to accept this reality. No, no way! Cut this out! I don't like this... I don't like this!"

Sam Parr

It's a publicly traded company with a market cap of about $2.5 billion or $3 billion. So, it's owned by a company called...

Shaan Puri

this exact thing bitpipes makes that much or the whole company makes that much

Sam Parr

the the whole company which is roughly like 10 or 20 of websites like this

Shaan Puri

what's the company called

Sam Parr

At TechTarget, every company on this website has a label indicating its source. For example, you might see "this is from ComputerWeekly.com" or "this article is from Networking." It's like Flowroute, SocialNetworking.com, and other sites that discuss global knowledge, which serves as a guide on information systems. They own around 10 to 20 publications that focus on buying software for large companies. However, they receive very few visitors to these websites each month. Despite this, because of articles like "How to Buy an HR System for 1,000+ Employees," there are approximately 2,500 companies in America willing to pay for certain services. The first thing they want is to contact the person—let's say a lady—who provides her email and information in an article about selecting an HR system. Around 30 different HR customers might say, "Hey, I'll give you $500 if you can provide me with that lady's information so I can call her." The second thing they do is track that lady. For instance, if she, named Linda, visits ComputerWeekly.com to look at HR software, then goes to Information Systems to check out cloud software, TechTarget will approach their clients and say, "Hey, I have a lady who's about to buy this, that, and the other thing. Do you want to talk to her?" That's how they make their money. They generate millions of dollars a year by saying, "Hey, this person is about to buy some cloud software. Are you interested?" They even own a website called "What Is," which caters to people searching for information. Their catchphrase might be something like, "Hey, what is it, bro?" Yeah, they have this Chief Information Officer at Gartner, and they want to score, bro.

Shaan Puri

yeah she's texting me yeah

Sam Parr

yeah yeah you up

Shaan Puri

This is insane! Sorry, but why do people... why is that person who's the head of HR landing on this website that looks like it's from 1979? Why does this look like, you know, back when the internet was called the intranet and it was like six computers? This looks like an intranet website. This is not even an internet site! And because... what the heck?

Sam Parr

are they gonna Google to figure out versus

Shaan Puri

what just googling

Sam Parr

Because, dude, if you Google "what is a good software," if I'm the Chief Information Officer of a 5,000 or 10,000 person company, I'm going to get my information from a few different ways. I'm going to watch loads of very specific webinars that are on like a trade show. I'm going to read trade magazines, and by trade magazines, I'm going to learn about them because they're hosting a 100% trade show that talks about how to pick HR software in Vegas. It's really just a fun way for me to go and watch the Chippendales do their thing. But then I'm going to go to a vendor that day, and we're going to hang out. So they're going to go to that website and learn all about it because that's how they know them. Occasionally, that company is going to do a webinar. In order to access the webinar, I'm going to give them a bunch of information, and they're going to sell that information to the eight companies that could possibly service me. That's how TechTarget makes money. So this lady, Linda, she's going to go to all these websites and meet all these people because it's such a small industry. There are maybe tens or at most hundreds of thousands of people who would do this. This is what I've been thinking about in the B2B media world. It is awful. Say it with me: it is awful. It is a horrible, horrible industry. Yes, with a barrier or a low threshold of what's good and what's not good. The content is horrible, and people love it. And these businesses work.

Shaan Puri

Why aren't we starting a company that just beats these guys? Why aren't we starting the most boring B2B media company, but we put our spin on it? Just like Mugshoties did with just mugshots, we are going to do the same to the B2B media industry. The B2B bitches!

Sam Parr

that's what we're gonna call it the b to b bitches

Shaan Puri

hey we're the b to b bitches

Sam Parr

What's up? Yeah, it's going to be like a radio show where it's going to be like, "Hey, it's the B to B bitches! Today, we're going to talk about information systems."

Shaan Puri

You know, like... yeah, exactly. We're gonna have a podcast that's a radio station. Actually, we're just gonna have an AM radio station. Yeah, and we're gonna have, you know, we're gonna give pagers to every CIO in America.

Sam Parr

and we're gonna give a little sound plug

Shaan Puri

press up

Sam Parr

it's gonna be like b to b bitches in the morning yeah this is gonna work

Shaan Puri

Exactly! Yeah, you know my favorite thing? By the way, those radio stations that do the "cheaters" segment. You see this? They love that call. It's like, "Hey, will you call my boyfriend and just see if he would cheat on me?" Then they just call the boyfriend, and she's on the other line. They basically trick him into being like, "Yeah, alright, I'll meet you at Home Depot. What time?" And then they're like, "Actually, Rebecca's on the other line," and Rebecca's like, "You son of a bitch!" What we're going to do is get one vendor for your existing HR solution.

Sam Parr

on the line and then we're

Shaan Puri

Gonna call, being like, "Hey, are you interested in a new HR solution?" And when they say yes, we're gonna be like, "We got Workday on the line. Workday, what's up?" He's gonna... and we just catch him in the act.

Sam Parr

No one has ever laughed at this style of content until right now. We are the first people to ever make tech target.

Shaan Puri

fine

Sam Parr

A fun topic to discuss! Yeah, but dude, this is interesting, right? This business model is crazy fascinating to me. They make money through webinars and they make money through these e-papers, or they fucking call them a zine. I mean, that's just like, who's working here? So, my next business—I already have started a company. It's like this community thing. I'm going to add this style of company to it. This is going to be in our portfolio of products. Now, let me show you the last thing, dude. Last week, I sent...

Shaan Puri

Before you do that, can I just... yeah, before you do that, this is yet again a number 7. We got a number 7, a Sandpar special. This is a Sandpar special. It's like no one's even heard of this website. Somehow, it does 100 of 1,000,000 years a year. It looks like it's from 1982. And, you know, how do you even know these? I don't know, but this is a Sandpar special. This is why I like to talk to you because you bring these things up. Nobody, nobody I know in my entire life... I could hit every single person and say, "Hey, you ever heard of Bitpipes?" I will get the answer "no" across the board. You're the only person that I know who knows about this stuff.

Sam Parr

Well, look up TechTarget's market cap. What is it? Is it like $2 billion? It's like a multibillion-dollar company, one of those that's just in plain sight, but no one pays attention to it.

Shaan Puri

yeah

Sam Parr

so it's there

Shaan Puri

It is... let's see the current price. So, it's trading at **$72** a share with a market cap of **$2.1 billion**.

Sam Parr

And like, what was its peak? Its peak was probably 5, 6, or 7. I mean, it's not like a little thing.

Shaan Puri

yeah double yeah basically double where it's at now

Sam Parr

Alright, last thing. The lamest thing that I saw last week was this guy who posted on LinkedIn a picture of him crying. The post starts off, "This will be the most vulnerable thing I'll ever share." He goes on to say that he had to lay off a few of his employees and talks about how it's his fault and how he made all these decisions. I'm going to have to file this under things that I'm going to take to the *fucking* grave. I cannot believe this post! What happened to a man being stoic? Just take these feelings and push them down, you know what I mean? Just accept it and push them down.

Shaan Puri

hey it's great hey on that shelf that just has daddy issues make room

Sam Parr

yeah

Shaan Puri

we got something new I need to put on this shelf that I'm bearing deep down in my gut

Sam Parr

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I want that problem to walk over and be like, "Excuse me, you mind if I scooch in right here?" That's what needs to happen with this. I cannot believe this person shared this. Is that ridiculous?

Shaan Puri

I mean, I don't even understand it. By the way, he goes, "I've seen a lot of layoffs over the last few weeks on LinkedIn. Most of these are due to the economy or whatever other reason. Hours? My fault. I made a decision in February that I stuck with for too long. Now I know my team will say, 'We made this decision together.' By the way, they won't. They'll say, 'You made this decision.' They're not going to be like, 'We all made this mistake, boss.' Yeah, so then he basically writes this long thing, and he writes it in the marketer style where it's every line, like single line enter, one line enter. Then he posts this picture of himself looking into the camera, crying. This has, I think, 50,000 likes and 10,000 comments, but most of the comments are just shitting on him, which is hilarious.

Sam Parr

oh sorry you said what it has 50,000

Shaan Puri

It has 50,000 likes and 10,000 comments, and most of them are just making fun of this guy. As is deserved, to be honest. You know, at my first million, we don't condone bullying, but we definitely don't condone absolutely faking the funk like this guy's doing. The top comment that I liked was from some guy who said, "Hang on, did you turn your ring light on before you took this selfie? Because I can kind of see the reflection. It looks like you turned a ring light on to take this selfie of you crying to post on LinkedIn." That just calls it out so perfectly—the inauthenticity of the fake authenticity that this guy tried to portray.

Sam Parr

I condone some type of bullying. I condone bullying this guy because if the bullies had done their job, nerds like this wouldn't be going around existing. This is the most ridiculous thing I've ever seen. I saw this and I was like, "Bullies, you failed us! How on earth did this guy get away with doing this?"

Shaan Puri

Bullies... you need them, like, you know, in every ecosystem. It's like, "Yeah, well, these plankton have to be there because they're absorbing this." And like, you know, these parasites... actually, you need them because of that. That's why we need bullies. Otherwise, shit like this is gonna run rampant if there's no bullying.

Sam Parr

Yes, this guy needed a big brother or a big sister. Someone to be like, "Look, this isn't how you act. This is not the right way to behave when something like this happens, you dork. I cannot believe this post."

Shaan Puri

we're pro bully here at the my first million podcast

Sam Parr

Dude, there's just going to be a generation of cool kids missing because of this. No, I saw this post, man, and I thought it was pretty influential.

Shaan Puri

this is the definition of small boy stuff like when we say those it's

Sam Parr

the definition of this is what

Shaan Puri

we're talking about

Sam Parr

Yeah, this is small boy stuff. This is as small as it gets. I saw this and I was just like, "Oh man, I've seen a bunch of these." Like, Henry Ward from Carta wrote this letter saying how he screwed up, and I was like, "Alright, that's cool, whatever." But this is the worst example I've ever seen of this. I think, what do you think is going to happen to this guy's career? Like, if you're a customer of his, I'd be like, "Oh, we like your code; it must suck." You know, if your product is even 50% as weak as you, it's not going to work. Do you know what I mean? You know what I mean?

Shaan Puri

Dude, some of these comments are hilarious. They're like: > "Brandon, I understand these things happen. It happens for a reason. Focus on the positive. Let it go." Then it starts off with a serious comment: > "Rest easy, my sweet child. Rest easy." ...that sounds like "Sleep sweetly, my sweet child."

Sam Parr

is that a man or woman

Shaan Puri

This is actually the best content ever on LinkedIn. This is the best content on LinkedIn... like the comments, the combination of the post and the comments. All of a sudden, LinkedIn was the most entertaining, you know, social media of the day from this one post.

Sam Parr

Dude, I was gagging reading it. Man, it was crazy! I... I... I felt embarrassed for... I just felt so embarrassed for him. You know how we talk about cringe stuff? I legitimately cringed. I remember my face being like... like I just had that... my face was changing shapes reading this.

Shaan Puri

Yeah, like I have this tooth that's a little sensitive, and it just started ringing. When I read this, I was like, "I ate too cold of ice cream." That's how it felt when I read this. It's just this uncomfortable feeling that I just needed to pass. Alright, so that's the episode. Go tell your friends, tell your mom, you know, go add us on LinkedIn, go do what you gotta do. This is my first.