Brainstorming +$1M Business Ideas With Soylent's Co-Founder | ft. John Coogan (#496)

Shaan Puri

It's useful for crypto users to use a VPN. That was one of my ideas, but we sold before we got around to doing that.

Sam Parr

That would have been cool if you would have done that. That's a pretty cool move. Too bad.

Shaan Puri

Alright, what's up? We got John Coogan here. John is somebody who I only know through a lunch at a Mexican restaurant in LA, and that's the best way to meet anybody who's going to be a podcast guest. So, you've got a crazy background. I'll give people the rundown if they don't know who you are. You've been an entrepreneur your whole life and have never had a job. You started two companies that were both really interesting: Soylent, which was basically making a meal replacement drink—it's the easiest way to explain it. It tastes like the milk of Honey Nut Cheerios, which I always appreciated. Then there's Lucy Gum, which is like a nicotine gum. Both of them went through Y Combinator together and have raised over $130 million. There are a bunch of good lessons there. You're also an Entrepreneur in Residence (EIR) at Founders Fund, which is one of the more interesting places to hang out or be a part of. And like us, you've made the mistake of leaving entrepreneurship to just be a YouTuber. This is great! So, you know how to make content too, which is amazing. You make really awesome videos. Sam was sending me one this morning. Sam, you like his stuff?

Sam Parr

I love it! Yeah, I like your stuff, John. By the way, Sean, I'm an investor in Lucy, so I gotta get that out of the way.

Shaan Puri

and probably a user too at one. For sure

John Coogan

But I mean, I think you did invest like four years ago. So, you know, the fact that I haven't been on yet, I think I earned my stripes by posting on YouTube and playing in the content world, you know?

Sam Parr

What is your guy? I don't even know. Can you say what the valuation is? I think I invested $25,000 at a $10,000,000 valuation.

John Coogan

and 10 yeah you were probably in like the seed round and now the company's worth like 60 70 mil

Sam Parr

alright I've on paper I've made a little bit of money

John Coogan

yeah not bad

Shaan Puri

We had, I think we could tell the story. We had one of the other co-founders of Luci come on the pod once. This guy, we had met him at some event. I thought maybe a hustle event, some nighttime event, and this guy was holding court.

Sam Parr

that was dave

Shaan Puri

Dave, yeah, he was telling stories. There were five people around him, and he had ideas. He was like, "Oh, there needs to be something called Pleasure Island, and it's a place where you could just go sin." I was like, "Wow, who is this guy? What is he talking about?" He's telling stories; he's amazing. Everybody's just captivated by this guy. I'm like, "We gotta have this guy on the pod." He comes on the pod and tells none of the stories and none of the ideas. He's like, "Nah, I don't want to sell all those on the pod." We were like, "Dude!" I don't even think we ever ran the episode because he refused to share the good stuff. So, John, will you make the same mistake as your pal?

John Coogan

Absolutely not. I mean, I do think a lot of founders have a ton of scar tissue built up from the last 10 years. The media has been going after tech founders and "tech bros" or "brogrammers." It was really aggressive for a while there. Anything you said would be taken out of context and put into some clickbait. But now that Elon bought Twitter and kind of just caused enough chaos, you can just say whatever you want and there's no... I've been telling every founder I know: cancel culture is over. Don't worry about things; just say whatever you believe.

Shaan Puri

So, we're going to discuss some of your philosophies, such as "cancel culture is over." But first, let's run through the background here. Both of these startups are so interesting that we normally try not to spend too much time on the guests' backgrounds. Can you just tell us the origin story for Soylent? When this came out, it was a very different idea than anything I was seeing anyone do in Silicon Valley. At that time, this was maybe 2012. I had just moved to San Francisco, and you had kind of like Uber and Airbnb, but very few people in the San Francisco venture community were doing a drink or a product that you could eat or drink that wasn't software-based but still innovative. It was like kind of in this mix, and I remember Andreessen Horowitz got behind it and some others. It was a very interesting thing, and I think it started out of a hacker house, right? You guys had a crazy house, is that right?

John Coogan

Yeah, I mean, a bunch of funny stories from that. This was the... yeah, Warby Parker was like the first e-commerce company to kind of think about it from a tech-first angle. We were a couple of years after them, right around the same era as Dollar Shave Club, if you remember that company. But yeah, we met in a hacker house. My co-founder and I went to preschool, middle school, and high school together. We went to college in the same city, and so we moved out to Silicon Valley. We were looking for a place and found something on Craigslist. It was like an Airbnb listing, and they said, "This place is incredible! It's got a pool, it's got 5 bedrooms, it's exactly like The Social Network. You're gonna love it!" We show up, and the pool is filled with algae, the bathrooms don't work—it's just absolute squalor. So we grind for like 6 months there. Eventually, we moved to the Tenderloin, which is an even nicer community. We were living in technically a 1-bedroom with 3 guys. I was living in the living room, and another guy, Rob, the guy who actually came up with the idea for Soylent, was living in what was technically a closet because it didn't have a window. We were just... we were just hacking.

Shaan Puri

just not a lot of dating going on

John Coogan

Yeah, not a lot of dating, not a lot of anything. Just wake up, program, go to sleep. Wake up, program, go to sleep. We just had sticky notes on the wall being like, "Okay, after this idea fails, we'll build this next idea." All the worst ideas you've ever heard on here, when people come on and they give you their bad ideas... like, we were building them all and they were all failing. Give us a couple [examples of bad ideas].

Shaan Puri

what were they

John Coogan

Like, take a picture, and it puts it through a filter. Then, it puts it on a shirt and mails you the shirt. It's just weird stuff like that. There were some ideas that were good; they were just way before their time. Do you know Google Stadia? It allows you to play video games in the cloud and streams it to you. We basically built that, but it was just like 5 years too early. Also, we didn't have a trillion dollars' worth of data centers for free like Google does. Even Stadia, I think, failed. So, if Google couldn't pull it off, of course, we weren't going to be able to get it done. There are just a lot of those ideas where it was too early, wrong team, bad execution, or just terrible go-to-market strategies. There were some things that we built that were pretty good, but it just didn't work.

Sam Parr

Living with Rob would be odd because I know Rob. He's so unique, eccentric, and weird in such an interesting way.

John Coogan

Yeah, so he had been writing on his blog and posting on Hacker News. He wrote a bunch of basically viral clickbait targeted at programmers. Speaking of dating, he wrote a blog post saying how he hacked Tinder. He claimed this was before bots and stuff. He didn't really do this; it was more just for satire and for fun. He said he wrote a script that would automatically swipe right on everything. Then, generative AI would talk to the person. This was like 10 years ago too. It would use the Uber API to call them a car and then order DoorDash to deliver the food. The punchline at the end of the story was basically that he wasn't involved at all. You can imagine where that goes. He had built a little bit of a following on Hacker News. So when the question was raised, "We like building these software companies. We like coding and building stuff, launching businesses, but we are going to run out of money and we're going to have to get jobs. We need to look at our expenses and understand where we are burning money." We paid our rent a year in advance. I think we were paying $1,500 for three dudes to live in the heart of San Francisco, which is crazy low money. We owned our laptops and paid our internet bill. There was really no cost other than food. So figuring out how to get food as cheap as possible was a very logical conclusion from that. Rob starts whipping up the powders and figures out this meal replacement. He's like, "Instead of buying a cheeseburger over here or some groceries over there, let me buy a 200-pound sack of protein powder."

Shaan Puri

Do you remember that first conversation when he's like, "Guys, I got it! We'll just get a bunch of powders and then that'll be the food"? Like, was that... yes? Is that literally how it works?

John Coogan

There were two phases. The first phase was when he told me, "Oh, I'm doing this diet experiment. I think it's gonna make me healthier. I'm gonna monitor all my macros and micros, start working out, and get in shape." I was just like, "Who cares what we look like? The only thing that matters is our code and our business ideas." That was a very stupid take by me because obviously, you do need to be healthy to be productive. I kind of wrote it off, and then he kept doing it for a few weeks. Then we were at a dinner with a friend who had made homemade sushi. I mean, that's like a treat when you're broke. He was like, "No, I'm not gonna eat. I'm on this Soylent thing." I was like, "This is crazy."

Sam Parr

it's so I mean it's sort of like the brian johnson before brian johnson you know

John Coogan

Yeah, it's the stress test. So basically, he told me that... I was like, "Do you have a name for this?" and he was like, "I'm calling it Soylent." I knew the reference and I was like, "This is genius! We need to sell this today!" This is going to be the market entry strategy. This is gonna be so viral. But yeah, I mean, he basically did a stress test. He lived on it for 30 days, and then people would just be like, "Yeah, I think this ingredient's stupid" or "I think this is bad." But hey, if you survived 30 days only on this, [you] can probably take a sip and see how it tastes. And so it created this curiosity.

Sam Parr

When we launched my content company, **The Hustle**, one of the first early viral articles was about an experiment I conducted. I paid a guy $2,000 to live on a diet of only [fast food chain] for 30 days while he was running 70 miles a week as an amateur runner.

Shaan Puri

yeah may he rest in peace

John Coogan

Yeah, that was great. May he rest in peace. It's like he dropped dead on day 15, and that's what made the story go viral.

Sam Parr

The Soylent thing was the gift that kept on giving, particularly for me as well. You know, I got traffic from it too.

John Coogan

Yeah, and it was like a left-right issue. Everybody hated it. Then you'd post it, and this was back in the day when the Facebook algorithm was entirely comment-driven. People would correct us, saying, "Oh, you made a mistake! You accidentally named your company after a movie with Charlton Heston in it. That's a sci-fi movie!" And it's like, "No, obviously we did that on purpose! What are you talking about?" But the fact that there would be that comment, and then another person would come in and say, "Oh, well, there's actually this book," and somebody else would be like, "Oh, you need to fire your marketing people." Then someone would say, "Oh, I actually got the reference!" They'd be talking every single time we posted anything, in addition to all the comments about, "Is this good? Is this bad? What does it mean for society?" So, just massive viral fuel. Any article went viral, and we were able to kind of trade up the chain, going from Vice News to, you know, The Hustle, to BBC, to The New York Times, to The New Yorker. Then eventually, Rob was on The Colbert Report, sitting next to Stephen Colbert. It's crazy!

Shaan Puri

Well, it definitely shows the power of a viral product, but also it was my first time learning about signal. I had never bought a fancy watch or a car or jacket or anything, but the first time I was seeing you holding a Soylent, it was like this crazy signal was going out to the world. I was like, "I'm in tech first."

John Coogan

of all

Shaan Puri

You know, that just by this drink, you don't have to ask anything else. Alright, maybe if we look to the brown guy in San Francisco, you probably would have guessed that one. Okay, what else does it tell you? It tells you that I value productivity.

Sam Parr

but yeah brown guy id soma

Shaan Puri

You know, yeah, like backpacks sagging to the back of my knees with so many accessories in it.

Sam Parr

so then it's like number 2 is like you value productivity over

Shaan Puri

yep things like taste maybe even things like health right

John Coogan

like you know everything yeah yeah

Shaan Puri

yeah so it's it's a value signal then it was like a contrarian signal

Sam Parr

and it was like a I don't give a fuck what

Shaan Puri

you think about me signal it was so powerful as a signaling tool yep for like this 1 year.

John Coogan

Yeah, but that actually cuts both ways because food is such a signal and there's so much badge value. It's very hard to accrue monopoly power. How do you actually go about disrupting Nestle if every food is like an extension of personal expression? It gets very hard because as soon as everyone is doing one thing, I'm gonna want to do something different. So there's this constant ping-ponging in these products. It's very, very hard to create like *one brand to rule them all*.

Shaan Puri

you said something about peter thiel talked

John Coogan

to me

Shaan Puri

And for one hour, he diagnosed everything that would go wrong in my business. Was that about Soylent? Yeah, what did Peter tell you?

John Coogan

Yeah, I mean, we went in for the pitch and sat down to do a kind of working session. Now, everyone knows the framework because he's written the book *Zero to One*. It's incredibly popular. Everyone kind of knows that the way venture-backed companies accrue value is through moats—the development of moats. Hamilton Helmer has the Powers framework, and Peter has different theses around this. We know the basics: brand, intellectual property, complex coordination, scale economies, and network economies—right, network effects. But at this time in 2013, everyone thought that there would just be a magical network effect that would show up, and that's just not true. There was this weird dynamic where a lot of investors we talked to were like, "Oh yeah, you don't need to advertise. You can just... like, the people like it so much that they'll sell it to each other." That's true in a multilevel marketing scheme, but it's not true if you don't build that infrastructure to make that happen. So, we never achieved escape velocity there. He was just kind of like, "Yeah, this is just a widgets business. Run this like any other business. You need to sell. You have product-market fit, which we did. You just need to maximize... you know, run the playbook of bringing the customer in and make sure you're bringing them in cheaper." He was basically like, "This is a great lifestyle business, guys. Congrats." And then we raised a bunch of venture, and it was a disaster.

Sam Parr

what was your peak what was your peak revenue

John Coogan

like almost a 100 mil almost a 100 mil

Sam Parr

and I was reading you guys sold it recently and yeah

John Coogan

not a good outcome alright

Sam Parr

I was gonna say, no disrespect, but the outcome sucked. Yeah, like for how it compared to the hype and your peak revenue. I think it was sold by a publicly traded company. Did I read it was sold for $60,000,000?

John Coogan

Something... I mean, not a lot. I actually don't even know the exact dynamics because there are a bunch of other assets that were rolled up, and it's part of this combined thing.

Sam Parr

but it was sold for like maybe as much or less than you raised you raised a $100,000,000 I

John Coogan

think exactly which basically means like the common doesn't get anything

Sam Parr

Got it. So, you didn't get much... you didn't get that wealthy from it.

John Coogan

Yeah, we got a decent amount, but not like what we should have. You know, if we'd maximized the value of that company.

Sam Parr

But then you started Lucy. So, Lucy is cool. Are you there full time right now?

John Coogan

No, I'm like one day a week at Lucy, mostly helping out with stuff like this, doing content, and then ideally brokering deals with other content creators. Like, we want to do more. We being the founders fund—no, no, me being the... the "we" being the Lucy team. So to give some background, you know, Soylent is this nutrition product. We ran that for 4 or 5 years, and then Lucy is a nicotine gum brand and nicotine pouch brand. So if your viewers are familiar with Zyn, you know we're a direct competitor to Zyn, but we differentiate on flavor, strength, and a couple of other things.

Sam Parr

dude I'm a I'm a doctors all day every day type of zyn guy

John Coogan

yeah yeah I mean I imagine most people in the audience are it's extremely frustrating

Sam Parr

I wish that Lucy sold it at 7-Eleven because going to the gas station is like part of my routine. You know, I gotta go see my boys there and hang out.

John Coogan

I mean, 100%. That is the name of the game, and that is what will actually unlock massive value in the Lucy business. 100%.

Shaan Puri

People should know that, by the way, when you email Sam, you're like, "Hey, I know you're a super busy guy, and so I'm gonna keep this brief." [In reality,] Sam's busy at 7-Eleven shooting the shit with his boys on the curb.

Sam Parr

those lot of tickets don't scratch themselves my friend

Shaan Puri

exactly he's busy just in a different way than you expect

John Coogan

Yeah, I gotta drop off a pallet of Lucy at that exact 7-Eleven. Just be like, "Here, it's free." Now Sam can get us to see.

Sam Parr

The Lucy things are cool because basically a Zen is just a pouch, but Lucy has what's called a "breaker." So you bite into this and you get like a little menthol or something... like a flavor. I love it. I like the citrus flavor.

John Coogan

It's like a liquid flavoring. So, yeah, I mean, a lot of people complain that the pouches, although they're much better than the pouches of previous years, they dry your mouth out. That's the number one complaint. So we figured it out, you know? How do we address that? Well, let's just actually take liquid flavoring and put it inside a capsule. Then, when you break it, it moistens the pouch and doesn't dry your mouth out.

Shaan Puri

Gotcha! Alright, let's talk about ideas. So those two ideas you did, I would say, are the top 1% of weirdo ideas, which means I love it and I love you. What are your other weirdo ideas that you're not doing? You sent us a couple of bullet points, but explain them. So let's run through some of your ideas.

John Coogan

Yeah, I mean, I think the first one that would be interesting to talk about, just because you guys are obviously creators as well, is this idea of a creator-owned VPN. We've seen that VPNs might be the number one advertiser on YouTube. I don't have the exact stats, but anyone who's listened to a podcast or watched a YouTube video can probably name five different VPNs. Yet, none of them are venture-backed. There’s not one, or they’re not like majorly venture-backed. They’re not big venture winners. There’s not like one that’s running away with it.

Sam Parr

have you researched these guys

John Coogan

yeah yeah a little bit

Sam Parr

They're like all in Panama or Moldova... or what's it called? Maldives? I've tried looking them up on LinkedIn because I did a ton of research on this specifically. I did a lot of research on the VPN review website. There was one called CompareTech that was doing $14,000,000 in revenue and $13,000,000 in profit. I saw their financials and they sold.

John Coogan

yeah

Sam Parr

To a VPN company, I was like, "These VPN companies are crazy." But I looked up the employees on LinkedIn, and you can't find their employees on LinkedIn, even though they're companies that are doing $300 million to $400 million a year in revenue.

John Coogan

Yep, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's a very, very odd space. Basically, there's no big venture winner. There's no like, "Oh, Airbnb! We all know the CEO; he's taking the company public." You know, there's no front-facing company that's like, "Oh, this one's winning and gonna run away with it." It's more like there are a bunch of them; they all print cash. There's not really going to be one winner because there's no network effect. Again, it doesn't have a big moat. The moat is marketing, and that's why they all spend on marketing. That's how they differentiate; it's just you check all the boxes.

Sam Parr

how big are they

John Coogan

easily easily in the billions

Sam Parr

for for

John Coogan

For the aggregate industry, and like you said, there are certain VPNs that are doing hundreds of millions of dollars in sales. So the name of the game is just to check all the boxes so that no independent VPN reviewer can take you down and say, "There's a fatal flaw. Do not use this VPN because I know for a fact that it doesn't do the right thing." But once you've actually implemented all the features where you can say, "Yes, we do check all these boxes," then it's just a marketing game. And that's why you see their ads...

Sam Parr

It’s just a commodity. I don’t know much about the VPN tech. Is it terribly complicated?

John Coogan

It is complicated programming-wise. It's somewhat complicated to write the code, I guess, but it's not complicated from the perspective of understanding the features that the customer wants. You're not trying to create some sort of...

Shaan Puri

And you called it **Beast VPN**. So what's your business idea here?

John Coogan

Yeah, I called it **Beast VPN** because obviously Mr. Beast is the biggest creator. He has an interesting place where he has an international audience. His audience is just... it's everyone. So, what's a product that you can sell everywhere across the world that's very high margin and has low churn? A VPN. That's why VPNs are advertising all over YouTube. It doesn't matter if the ad is served to someone in Japan, India, or Europe; the VPN is available there.

Shaan Puri

so I'll give this idea a 9 out of 10

John Coogan

nice

Shaan Puri

What I like about this idea is exactly what you said. It takes the weakness of creator businesses, which is that you get a bunch of low-value subscribers. For example, the value of a random subscriber in India or a random subscriber in Croatia is hard to monetize for ad revenue. However, this product is actually even better for international audiences than it is for those in the U.S. So, I think that's one big strength. Additionally, recurring revenue from digital goods or recurring revenue software is obviously amazing. I only give it a 9 instead of a 10 just because it's the first idea, and I'm not that easy to please. So, I have to dock one point just on that alone.

John Coogan

Also, to be fair, it might make more sense for like **Linus Tech Tips** and **MKBHD** to do this because they're more of like tech people.

Shaan Puri

we were gonna do this at milk road actually

John Coogan

when we built milk road we were

Shaan Puri

I was like, "Okay, cool. We're making money. We're profitable on just newsletter ads." But I was thinking, "What's the best product we could do?" I considered, "What if we did a VPN for the crypto economy?" Because at that time, we were one of the more trusted brands. It's kind of a commodity software, but it's useful for crypto users to use a VPN. So that was one of my ideas. But we sold [the company] before we got around to doing that.

Sam Parr

That's a good idea. You should have done that. That would have been cool. That would have been a pretty cool move. Too bad.

Shaan Puri

Well, they still own Milk Bread. So, we still own a part of it. I'm going to tell them after this and be like, "Hey guys, let's revive this online."

John Coogan

the main thing is that you just have to have the the distribution

Sam Parr

you've listed linus tech tips on your you said do

John Coogan

you know this guy

Sam Parr

well no I just saw him so you said that oh okay what's the guy's name marquise what's the guy's what's his channel

John Coogan

mkbhd marcus brownlee

Sam Parr

Mark, yeah, I like him. Everyone knows him; he's cool. This guy, Linus Tech Tips, has 15,000,000 subscribers. Yeah, oh my god, what? And like...

John Coogan

He has a team that's, you know, I think over 100 people. Wow! Multiple channels, podcasts, like everything. He actually built his own media platform where you can go in, watch videos, and talk to each other. It's like a forum site.

Shaan Puri

did he just release like a screwdriver and sold like $5,000,000 of a screwdriver or something like that

John Coogan

Yeah, I'm sure he did great on that. The question is: would he have done better if, instead of buying a screwdriver (which needed to be bought locally or was really expensive to ship internationally), he sold something that was recurring software with a 99% margin?

Shaan Puri

a vpn the only thing is

John Coogan

That... honestly, the screwdriver's cooler than a VPN. So, you know, I can't fault them because the screwdriver is like, you get to build, you're a hacker, you get to put your PC together. Like that's fun! VPN, it's a little boring. I use a VPN though. I like VPNs.

Shaan Puri

alright what you got 2nd idea

John Coogan

Yeah, so obviously Americans love guns. You're an American; you own some guns. That's not changing. We've seen through the past few decades that real restrictions on guns are not coming. So, the business is probably pretty durable. We've seen that the stocks of ammunition companies are doing fine over the last decades, but the price is increasing. A lot of that's just due to supply chains, but there might be some more structural issues as well. More people are hunting, more people are buying guns, and buying ammunition. Obviously, shooting is just a fun hobby. Over the last three years, the price of shotgun shells went from $10 to $16. That's a pretty big increase, and there's this massive shortage. So, the idea here is basically that maybe we need to bring some efficiency to the ammunition supply chain. I think it's an interesting idea. I don't actually know enough about how to run an ammunition depot or ammunition factory, but what I do know is that the hottest trend right now in business is roll-ups or search funds. Every guy who graduates from HBS is like, "I'm gonna go roll up laundromats," or "I'm gonna go roll up..."

Shaan Puri

dentists

John Coogan

Dentists... it's like everyone has an idea for these things, and they're all very commodity. They're not very contrarian, so there's probably not a lot of alpha there. But it's like the people that are coming out of Harvard Business School (HBS) are probably not saying, "I'm gonna go roll up weapons manufacturers." Obviously, Anduril is crushing it on the venture side, but they're doing insane software and hardware—building drones and these really advanced AI-powered weapon systems. This is not that. You do this company, you buy a bunch of... you know, all we do is make shotgun shells. You buy three of them, you move the employees around, you kind of optimize things a little bit. It's just like a very boring, private equity-style roll-up. Then maybe it accrues power over time because, obviously, it is a massive industry. But you're not coming in and trying to reinvent the wheel. You're not being like, "We're gonna actually 3D print the shell" or something. No, it's just like good operations.

Sam Parr

there's a lot of gun youtubers you know we could we could mix that

John Coogan

oh yeah yeah we could get them in

Sam Parr

do you live in california

John Coogan

I do I do are

Sam Parr

You guys, even so, I used to live in California. I live in Texas now. I own guns because I have a ranch, and it's fun for shooting. Are you guys even allowed to own guns in California?

John Coogan

yes we're allowed to own guns

Sam Parr

what no like what's the rule

John Coogan

No, no, I mean you can... There's a whole bunch of restrictions on rifles, like certain capacity magazines, but I think most recently, it's pretty easy to get a concealed carry permit in San Francisco. It's kind of a narrative violation.

Sam Parr

wait what I I thought for years that wasn't impossible

John Coogan

Yeah, most people think it's like unthinkable, but in fact, it is becoming easier, which is kind of crazy. But yeah, I mean, obviously California is not like a dream state for, you know, if you're a gun fan, but...

Sam Parr

sean sean you've been talking about getting your concealed carry for years now right

John Coogan

no not not at

Shaan Puri

All guns scare me, but I did look at investing in an ammunition roll-up. I'm trying to find the deck.

John Coogan

you did that's hilarious

Shaan Puri

Yeah, we got introduced to somebody who was doing it and I was like, "Oh God, I love this idea!" But it was so far afield out of what I'm just investing in that I was... and I didn't know the answer.

John Coogan

how do you know yeah how do you know that they can actually do the due diligence like if you can't do the due diligence exactly

Sam Parr

I don't think I would touch this. I wouldn't touch this either. Why? I wouldn't want this in my obituary, that I... you know, even though... and I understand how that's hypocritical. You know, I criticize Sean because Sean wants to like invest in OnlyFans companies, and I'm like, "I am not touching that."

John Coogan

for sure

Sam Parr

But at the same time, I consume porn. So, like, there's definitely a little bit of... I acknowledge the hypocrisy. It's like...

John Coogan

cognitive dissonance

Sam Parr

Yeah, but like, you know, I guess it doesn't have to be black and white. It's shades of gray. I prefer to stay on the whiter side of that spectrum.

John Coogan

yeah yeah I mean that's totally fair and I think that's why there might be alpha in this area because I think

Shaan Puri

That dummies like you, Sam. That's where, why this opportunity exists, because that made no sense.

Sam Parr

it made tons of sense dude what are you talking about

Shaan Puri

You're like, "I love guns. I enjoy them. I buy them. I'm buying the ammunition." But you know, I don't want to support it. I don't want to invest in it because only bad people would buy it. What does that mean?

Sam Parr

No, no, I didn't say "only bad people." I said I don't want to own it. I didn't say that... I buy the stuff, I use it. I think it's very enjoyable. I love shooting for fun, but that doesn't mean I want to make it my career.

John Coogan

I mean, Sam, would your opinion change if we were actively in a hot war? Like, it's your duty to America to optimize the ammunition supply chain because there are troops from, you know, some country landing on the beaches of California?

Sam Parr

would my opinion change yeah of course

John Coogan

and that's totally fair and I think that's fair

Sam Parr

And my opinion could change about the whole thing. I'm very open to new data points and changing my opinion. I'm just saying... yeah, like Anduril. I love Anduril. I think that's a very patriotic mission, but...

John Coogan

oh no 100%

Sam Parr

Owning Remington, like right now, I'm like, I don't know, man. Like, yeah, I could probably make money in other ways. And sure, my conscience would be a little less... like, it would be a... it's just an easier decision.

Shaan Puri

Sam, I got a question for you. There's a thing going viral on TikTok right now. It's girlfriends asking their boyfriends, or you know, wives asking their husbands something. I'll be the wife here. I'm gonna ask you a question that they're asking: "Hey, when's the last time... or no, how often do you think about the Roman Empire? Anything to do with the Roman Empire?"

Sam Parr

oh all the time a lot

Shaan Puri

like why under what circumstances would you need to think about that

Sam Parr

Just like gladiators and shit, just like battling to the death in front of everyone.

Shaan Puri

when's the last time you thought about something like that like this week

Sam Parr

last night

John Coogan

I mean, the funny thing here is that the meme immediately before that was like the "in the arena" meme, and everyone in tech was posting literal Roman Empire GIFs.

Shaan Puri

because that's true

John Coogan

Everyone in tech is like obsessed with the arena. I know that there are two separate communities. That's not why the meme popped up, but it's like, yeah.

Shaan Puri

It's so funny to see all these women. They see somebody ask the question, and the guy answers almost verbatim what Sam just said.

John Coogan

always always it's like I'm thinking about it right now

Shaan Puri

all the time yeah like what do you mean of course

John Coogan

My wife has a video of that. Wait, I didn't know about the meme. She takes out her phone, videos me, and is like, "How often do you think about the Roman Empire?" Yeah, and I was like, "I'm thinking about it right now." Why? I don't know.

Shaan Puri

And then all the comments are like, "You know, that's crazy." Then they come back and reply, "I just asked." He said last week he thinks about it twice a week. Like, yeah, yeah.

John Coogan

and don't

Shaan Puri

Be like, lines are being blown. They're like, "I can't fathom why this man, who doesn't take out the trash on time and who forgot to pick up our daughter from preschool, is thinking about the Roman Empire twice a week."

Sam Parr

Dude, I think about 9/11 and World War II like 90% of my day. Do you guys not think about what you would do if you were on that plane?

John Coogan

oh all the time you know

Sam Parr

What I mean is, I think about that constantly... all the time.

John Coogan

it's just a very normal masculine urge

Sam Parr

Like, there's this joke by Shane Gillis. He's like, "Just so you know, being obsessed with history, particularly World War II, is a precursor to becoming a Republican." Like, it's good. It's not gonna happen today, but you know, it's early onset.

John Coogan

early onset oh my god for sure

Sam Parr

wait sean you don't think about like world war 2 like on a regular basis

Shaan Puri

No, but I have my own version of it. I'm constantly assessing how, if I had to, I would rob this place. Or, if some shit went down, I think, "What's the move? Alright, what's the move?"

John Coogan

There's some sort of masculine daydreaming that happens. Like my buddy David, he imagines ninjas coming through every door and window and how he would tactically take them out. That's his [daydream].

Shaan Puri

like. Time I'm in a baggage claim I'm like

Sam Parr

I could take any of these bags

Shaan Puri

Right now, I could just walk out. There is no security in this place! Are you kidding me? The baggage claim... I will never get over that. Why is it so easy to just take anyone's bag?

Sam Parr

My wife and I go out to dinner, we have like a rule: Sam's back does not sit to the front door. I have to see the front door... I can't have people coming in without me knowing. I've gotta see the front door. Yeah, I do think it is a man thing, you know? John, there's this funny quote Scott Galloway said. He goes: > "You should exercise so you can kill and eat most everyone in a room or be able to outrun them." And that's like, at its root, that's kinda what we're talking about right now.

John Coogan

yeah yeah yeah 100% he's very natural there john I wanna

Shaan Puri

Ask you... so, Sam is basically like clearly just surging on testosterone. You are at Founders Fund, which I remember at one point when they were talking about PayPal. They said, "Oh, you know, Max left to interview some engineer back in the early days of PayPal." Then he was like, "No, no, can't hire this guy." It's like, "What? He passed everyone else's test!" He's like, "He plays basketball. I don't know any great programmer who goes and plays basketball three times a week. That's not a thing." So they were like very anti-jock. Do you get to hang out with the Founders Fund people a lot? Do you hang out in person at all? What's that like? Because it seems like a room full of very interesting, very different people.

John Coogan

Yeah, it is. It's oddly... they've done a great job of not creating a monoculture in a very small organization. So yeah, there are definitely like complete jocks. I mean, obviously we know Keith Rabois at Berries like 5 times a day.

Sam Parr

yeah I don't know if I would call keith rabois a jock but like why don't

John Coogan

workout nut he's a fitness nut for sure yeah

Shaan Puri

but berries

Sam Parr

Yeah, he said he's trying to be the best at sports, you know? He's trying to be the best at exercising. Why is that guy... No, I'm just joking. But why is Keith Rabois such a dickhead on Twitter? Like, why does he behave that way? He's needlessly rude.

Shaan Puri

I think a lot of

John Coogan

It is just like holding the line. When he sees something that's not true, he doesn't want it to spread. So, he just shuts it down really aggressively.

Sam Parr

Yeah, he's like, "He's put his flag in some silly things like Miami." So it's like, if Miami doesn't work, it's going to hurt him. And it's like, you know, it doesn't have to. You could love it, and also, it's not the best.

John Coogan

A lot of these things are, you know, I think learned behaviors. I think everyone in tech is somewhat injured from the past.

Sam Parr

for sure it's very obvious

John Coogan

Of just getting beat down for every little thing. A lot of people have put up walls, and I think that it's time—I agree with you. I think it's time to kind of take down the walls and be a little bit less defensive generally. But I understand where all these behaviors are coming from.

Sam Parr

what's sean parker up to we haven't heard about that guy in years

John Coogan

Yeah, we gotta get him back on Twitter... or X. Because if you talk to anyone who knows him, they will just say that he was the greatest poster of all time.

Shaan Puri

who's the best on twitter now

John Coogan

I mean, probably like Rahul Ligma, Daniel Johnson... those type of guys, right? Do you guys remember that publicity stunt or stuff that they did? They fooled CNBC into reporting that they were Twitter employees that were fired. It was very... you know...

Shaan Puri

those guys they're like doing a normal startup they're like building some dev tool

John Coogan

yeah no they're not like comedians

Shaan Puri

They should have just gone all in on, like, "Oh shit, we need to just create some version of *Punk'd* or, you know, something for the tech industry." They should've just gone all in as a personality. I would've dropped the startup for like a 6-month sabbatical. I'm just going to see what happens if I fully troll, and maybe I could be the thing that the community needs.

Sam Parr

dude rahul ligma still makes me like spit water out my nose when I hear that

John Coogan

It's so funny! I don't know, I mean, how would you monetize that? Would you just be doing stand-up sessions?

Shaan Puri

I think he's like get silent donations from billionaires I've seen that guy

John Coogan

oh yeah maybe

Shaan Puri

And he only hangs out with successful billionaires. When I've seen him in person, like... everybody who was big in tech loved that troll. Elon loved it, you know? Like the old in...

Sam Parr

Guys are like, "Oh my God, it's the best! It's the best!" I feel like they could have a Patreon of billionaires only that just fund them to do statement art.

Shaan Puri

You know, like a comedic statement—art against the media, against the local politicians, against whatever. That's what I would have done if I were them. Maybe that's not a...

John Coogan

Bad idea, but I don't know. I like it. It seems like they're pretty legit at what they're doing. They're actually good programmers.

Shaan Puri

I can't find this client info

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Sam Parr

you have a thing on this document that I wanna fight you about

John Coogan

yeah yeah yeah I knew this I was you're good

Sam Parr

Here's the document John sent us. He says, "Unique philosophies and lifestyle businesses are worthless." What do you think?

John Coogan

make your case we have

Shaan Puri

before we make you walk the plank yeah exactly

John Coogan

No, no. I... This is mostly just like, "Let's have a fun debate." Because I'm, you know, working at a venture capital firm and I can kind of represent the VC crew. And you guys are like the kings of the lifestyle business, so...

Sam Parr

we aren't the kings of that by the way

Shaan Puri

I wanna be the king of it actually I I actually will accept that compliment

Sam Parr

I don't mind being the king of it. What I'm saying is, I think that we are one of the very few kinds of content creators.

John Coogan

you pay proper respect to it

Sam Parr

Yeah, what I'm saying is we do both. We think both are cool. There are very few people I think that are in the middle, and I think we are in the middle.

John Coogan

Yeah, that's fair. So, basically, I think that lifestyle businesses are great.

Sam Parr

define that

John Coogan

So, I would say... non-venture backed, non-blitzscaling, non-hyperscaling, non-monopoly. Something without a crazy moat where it's just like you go and work at it. Maybe it gets really big and maybe you wind up being a billionaire, but you didn't do this "growth at all cost" insane thing. And what's hypergrowth?

Sam Parr

2 or 3 times a year

John Coogan

I mean, sometimes 10 times a year, right? It depends on the scale. At the early stages, it goes really, really fast. But I'm specifically thinking of Facebook. I'm specifically thinking of the power law outcomes in venture. My point is that basically only about 1% of companies that get started raise venture capital, but about 99% of the market cap in the public markets comes from those that took venture. So, venture has this very disproportional outcome. I believe that the bigger the company, the bigger the impact on the world. If you want to have a really, really big impact, you should actually be trying to raise money and grow very quickly. You're not going to build a $100 billion company compounding at 2% a year or 5% a year over your lifetime. It just won't happen.

Sam Parr

Let me play the other side of that, please. Your analogy of, "Well, okay, so you're saying 1% or 99% of the value is created by the 1% of companies that raise money," to me is also saying that, like, look, 100% of the soldiers on D-Day who ended up killing the Nazis that ended that battle had to land on that beach anyway, right? So you might as well lay on that beach. And I'm like, "Yeah, but the other ones got like fucking killed and destroyed. How about I just not worry about killing Nazis and I can just start this little thing on the side?" You know what I mean? It's like, dude, this whole thing with VC... it's like you're funding all these companies, and you're like, "Dude, I don't give a fuck which one of you dies out here because I know one of you is gonna make me my money." So from my perspective, I'm like, "Yeah, so if I can get rich with a higher likelihood, which is maybe in most cases the number one reason for starting a business, and in other cases it's like the number three reason, let's say your number one reason is, 'I want to create change.' Getting rich is still up there." So like, if you can get rich, create value, have fun, and work for yourself with a higher likelihood of doing that, why wouldn't you go that route?

John Coogan

So, the reason I think you shouldn't go with that route is because I think your overall impact on humanity and society...

Sam Parr

the world will be lower if if it survives

John Coogan

Yeah, the whole question of: "Would you rather own 100% of a $100,000,000 company or 1% of a $10,000,000,000 company?" I don't even think it's a question. Obviously, it's the $10,000,000,000 company because that company is having a much larger impact on the world.

Sam Parr

that that's that's an obvious answer

John Coogan

But no, no, no, it's not... It's not for a lot of people. They say, "I would rather have 100% and be able to go on vacation, chill, and just have these cash flows come directly to me," and not have to deal with all this other stuff. I get that, but my belief is that humans have a duty to each other to go and have the largest impact possible. That is often done with the backing of venture capitalists.

Sam Parr

I don't think you believe that

John Coogan

yeah I do would you

Shaan Puri

not be like curing cancer instead of selling nicotine gum like liza let's be honest here

John Coogan

Yes, oh, I mean that's hilarious that you use that as an example because that's actually the best way to stop lung cancer: to get people to switch, right?

Sam Parr

yeah but don't let facts get in the way of a good argument but

John Coogan

But, I will actually synthesize this for you, and I think we will agree on this. What you should actually do with your life is pick the hardest, most interesting, and most valuable creative problem that you are equipped to solve. So, can I create a cancer-curing drug? No, I don't have that background; it's not an option for me. I would fail if I went into that industry. But I should pick the most ambitious thing and the best idea that I have. Then, I should be very rigorous about whether or not that idea is appropriate for venture capital. I think that if Mark Zuckerberg didn't raise venture capital, his company would be dead. There are a lot of companies I've been a part of, some of them where we raised VC for a company that didn't need VC, and it also killed the company. So basically, you have to pick the best idea that you're equipped to solve and then decide the financing strategy that aligns with that. There's no one-size-fits-all solution.

Sam Parr

Do you wish you would have done a different idea instead of Soylent? Or do you wish that you just hadn't taken venture capital and you got wealthy?

John Coogan

Oh, I don't know. That's interesting. I mean, right before Soylent, I was working on natural language generation in 2013, which is like the hottest trend now. If I'd probably just stuck with that for a decade, I'd probably be doing something cool right now... maybe.

Sam Parr

I think that you would have been more impactful if Soylent hadn't raised funds and you had gotten rich. Then you would have been able to say...

John Coogan

something else

Sam Parr

Well, you would have been like, "I don't care about money as much, so I'll just do this other crazy thing that is a moonshot." I think it's... I took a similar argument as you. Then someone corrected me and they were like, "Yeah, but it's a lot easier to go after moonshot ideas when you don't have to worry about a mortgage." As someone who had a bootstrap exit, I agree. I'm like, it's pretty... I understand why founders want to take secondary because you are more dangerous when you have $10,000,000, $20,000,000, or $30,000,000. You are more dangerous when you don't worry, when you're like, "I'm rich enough that I don't have to worry, but I'm not rich enough that I want to stop."

John Coogan

yeah I would a 100% feel like I'm in that category

Sam Parr

like that that puts you in a dangerous category I think

John Coogan

yeah I I would 100% feel that I'm in that category

Sam Parr

and and and thus because that's true I think lifestyle businesses are awesome

John Coogan

oh because they can get you there faster

Sam Parr

yeah yeah for sure I'd

John Coogan

Yeah, yeah. Get like the base hit before you do the big thing. That's not unreasonable. I think that's also kind of a synthesis of what we're saying. We kind of agree that moonshots are good, but the path might be circuitous to them, right?

Sam Parr

And there are freaks out there, like Elon [Musk], who's willing to risk it all. I don't know about Zuck [Mark Zuckerberg], but...

John Coogan

Yeah, even Elon Musk. PayPal could be framed as less ambitious than SpaceX and Tesla, right? It's like the mission might not be as big. Who knows?

Shaan Puri

Well, he tweeted this out the other day. Andrew Wilkinson had tweeted something out like this that was, you know, he learned to crawl or learned to walk before he runs. Yeah.

Sam Parr

yeah and he's like most most people who

Shaan Puri

Wanna do a big, crazy, ambitious thing? You should start by doing a smaller thing so you learn how to do business, and then make things happen. After that, you can graduate up. A bunch of people were agreeing with him, but I totally disagreed. I was like, "If you know the thing you want to do, you should just go do the thing." You know, the way that doing something before you do your bigger thing works well is that, at first, that was the biggest thing you knew.

John Coogan

yep

Shaan Puri

And then, as you did it, your worldview expanded, your ambition expanded, and your exact set of possibilities you were aware of expanded. Then you went and did that thing. However, Elon did reply, almost confirming what Andrew had said. In his case, he was like, "Yeah, you know, I couldn't have created SpaceX if I didn't have the money, the skills, and the reputation I had during Zip2." Specifically, somebody had said that they had talked to Elon, and he... you know, I don't believe this for the record. I don't believe a word of this, but they were...

Sam Parr

like yeah I talked to elon early on or I

Shaan Puri

I talked to Elon, and he said that early on he decided, "Oh, I want to die on Mars, just not on impact." You know, that's like his joke. Then he said, "I decided the way to do that was I needed a lot of money." So, I went to the internet just to get the money quickly, you know, as quickly as I could. I don't believe that to be true because, first of all, not everybody is like that much of a mastermind. When he was sleeping under his desk as a college kid, I don't think he was thinking, "I'm only doing this so that I can amass a fortune to launch three spaceships," you know, to be able to fund three of...

Sam Parr

my own ships like I don't believe that

Shaan Puri

Yeah, also he went and did X after Zip 2. So it's like, "Oh, if you already had, you know, whatever the... I know what he netted. I think it was something like $60 or $80 million out of Zip 2." Like, it would be surprising to me if he was like, "You know what? It's not gonna be enough. I need to go get to $250 million. That's the magic number."

John Coogan

Yeah, there's a big question about whether you should ever sell a company. If your real goal in life is to have an impact on the world, maybe the company is the best way to do that. So, you should just continue to run your company endlessly. I mean, you guys, we—everyone on this call—has sold companies.

Shaan Puri

well my goal is very simple

John Coogan

yeah wait wait yeah what's your goal

Shaan Puri

You said, "If you want to have maximum impact on the world, that is not my goal." So, it's very easy for me to just be like, "Oh cool, I can rule that out." I am trying to have the best lifestyle that I could have. That is my selfish and very transparent goal. I am trying to improve my quality of life, and with that comes my family's quality of life.

Sam Parr

with that might come living

Shaan Puri

In a good place and being a happy, content person walking around the world is my contribution to society. I don't feel the obligation to go save the world personally.

John Coogan

I mean, the beauty of that is that you will naturally have a positive impact on the world by doing what you do to achieve those ends. It might not be as big as, "Oh, you cured cancer" or "You got us to Mars," but there's going to be economic activity that provides value and utility to various people as you go about your business. As long as you have a moral compass that doesn't result in you doing something really unethical, you'll probably have a net positive view on society.

Shaan Puri

My trainer has a great way of saying this. He goes, "You know, I was like, yeah, my goal is to have an amazing lifestyle and quality of life." That's my number one reason for doing things. I always ask myself, "Does this improve my quality of life?" For example, if I go do something that stresses me out all the time, and I have meetings constantly, and I don't see my kids, then no, it has not improved my quality of life. But he said the other thing is that it should be **mutually beneficial**. All the things I do need to be mutually beneficial to the people that interact with us. If I make a product, it needs to be mutually beneficial to them. If I have a partner or I interact with somebody, it also needs to be mutually beneficial. So that's the only caveat we added to make it work.

John Coogan

is your personal trainer like your life coach too

Sam Parr

Yes, oh yeah, that's like a recurring theme. Sean's personal trainer, John, you're cool because I think you're like us, but maybe even more extreme in the tech world. You have your foot in the startup world and hang out with these bigwigs, but you can also just joke around and shoot the shit. You're pretty self-aware. Who do you align with politically?

John Coogan

Oh yeah, I really like this guy, Mark Hurd, who's a Republican from Texas. He’s a smaller candidate, so he's not polling super well, but he worked for the CIA and he was also on the board of Palantir. He would be the first computer scientist president, and I think that would just be very, very interesting to see someone with a computer science background. Obviously, I love programmers, and I think that they think about the world in very interesting ways. We've had this very long arc of, you know, lawyer, lawyer, businessman, lawyer, lawyer, lawyer, right? Like that's the story. And he's a younger guy, so I'm proud to endorse him.

Sam Parr

are you more republican than democrat or do you vote both

John Coogan

Yeah, I vote both. It just kind of depends on who can have the highest impact on mostly technology and the business community. I think those are kind of the things that we need to be thinking about. I do think there's something interesting as I look back on Trump. I didn't vote for him, didn't support him, and voted against him twice. But I think there's this weird situation where the problems that Trump brought were obviously really bad. I think he really divided the country and created a lot of chaos. That was probably a net negative for the United States. However, he did kind of get China right. He started this awareness that we are in a great power competition again. You could see a world where the China situation dissipates and things get better, and that would be phenomenal for the world. That's what I hope happens. In that case, Trump will be remembered as like an idiot, basically. But the opposite could also happen, where the China situation gets hotter. Then people might look back at Trump as a genius who foresaw this all and took the first steps to make things safe. What's interesting is that the way we remember presidents is often not by what they actually did, but by how their decisions look in hindsight. It comes back to the idea that you shouldn't judge a venture investment until 20 years later, or 10 years later. It's the same thing; maybe we shouldn't judge our presidents until we have the full history of time.

Shaan Puri

You had said something earlier about how you were working on natural language generation in 2013. Now these large language models (LLMs) are all the rage, and you had an idea around this that I liked because it was very different than how most people, most investors talk about this. You had said something like, "Everybody is knocking certain AI startups because they're 'oh, it's just a wrapper on top of GPT, it's just a wrapper on top of what OpenAI is doing, it's a flimsy little thing.'" You had a different take. What's your take?

John Coogan

Yeah, my take is that this might be a reasonable critique for a growth-stage venture capitalist to debate with their partners at an investment committee meeting. That is not necessarily what we should be putting out on Twitter to the next generation of young builders. If you are, you know, I know a lot of these kids who are 17, 18, and 19. They're hacking and building ChatGPT wrappers, and some of them are making a ton of money. And that's fine.

Sam Parr

what's an example

John Coogan

Yeah, like, I mean, an example would be just narrowing down to something very specific. There are few people that have done almost like dating coaching to help with if you're bad at texting. There was a whole South Park episode about this.

Sam Parr

that's pretty funny

John Coogan

Yeah, yeah. Like, if you don't know what to text someone on a dating app, you can go to ChatGPT and say, "Hi, I'm on Tinder and I need to send a response to this girl. I'm feeling awkward; what should I say?" It will give you a recommendation. But these apps have kind of fine-tuned it to be a little bit more *spicy* or, you know, engaging, whatever.

Shaan Puri

homework help they'll do rap lyrics they'll do whatever right

John Coogan

Yeah, and I don't know the details about those, but a lot of people will be like, "Oh, those aren't appropriate for venture capital; therefore, they should not be built." This is kind of where I'm flip-flopping to my, you know, lifestyles are bad. It's like, no, actually, these are phenomenal because we need these people to get experience building. I think about it even less from the economic side and more from just the experiential side. If you ever talk to somebody who was able to run some small business when they were in high school, that's always a bull signal for entrepreneurship. It's always like, "Oh, you're doing the venture-backed thing; that's going to make a lot of money."

Shaan Puri

it doesn't matter what the thing was

John Coogan

Right, it's like, "Oh, I was hustling sneakers," or "Oh, I was reselling concert tickets." My thing was I bought DJ equipment in the United States and then I would export it to Australia. I was just hustling that stuff in high school. Everyone has one of these stories; I'm sure you guys have tons that you've told on the pod. So, basically, we need... I want the Lensa for ChatGPT moment. So, Lensa, for those of you who might not remember, was...

Sam Parr

don't know what that is

John Coogan

So, it's this app that you would download, and you'd upload, you know, 10 selfies of yourself from your camera roll.

Sam Parr

yeah

John Coogan

And then it would generate AI images that looked like you. So it would be like, "That looks like Sam's face," but it's on Superman or it was like...

Sam Parr

but it was really like a russian company that was that was the rumors that it was a russian company

John Coogan

I think that one was... but yeah, I mean, there are some weird apps that come from all over. I'm not sure about Lenza. I just haven't looked into the company.

Shaan Puri

but and it made a bunch of money it was like number 1 in the app store for a bit yeah

John Coogan

Yeah, it was based on... it was based on Stable Diffusion, which is this open-source software package, and DreamBooth, which was this paper that Google put out. Then people went and implemented it. Like, no one knew what those things meant. Your aunt doesn't know what Stable Diffusion or Lens or DreamBooth is, but she probably downloaded and paid for Lens Magic Avatars and had that as a profile picture for a little bit. So, it's just like this fun viral moment that was really successful. I think that there are a lot of people who I would hate if they're toying around with ChatGPT and they don't build something that's really fun and cool. Because they're like, "Oh, well, this won't be like a hyperscaler combining like a generational company." It's like, maybe you just need to go build the fun thing, put it out there, and see how it goes.

Shaan Puri

what what would be something you build

John Coogan

So, I have an idea about this. There are a few things that these systems are really good at. You know, obviously, there's been huge progress in helping software developers program with GitHub Copilot, which is built by OpenAI under the hood. There's also the Google use case. I go to ChatGPT all the time just to ask questions that I would normally ask Google. People are doing a lot of AI girlfriend stuff. Like, you know, Sean, I'm sure your next big OnlyFans investment will have an AI component, probably. But I think that one of the interesting things that these language models are particularly good at is something called the **Barnum Effect**. Have you guys heard about this? No? So, the Barnum Effect is this psychological phenomenon where I can say something that sounds like it's very specifically tailored to you, but it's actually vague and applies to everyone. An example of this would be: "Sam, you have a great need for other people to like and admire you. You have a tendency to be critical of yourself. You have a great deal of unused capacity which you have not turned into your advantage." These things resonate with everyone. They certainly resonate with me. I feel like, "Yep, yep, yep," but they feel personalized.

Sam Parr

it's like astrology

John Coogan

Yeah, they use this in astrology. So, what I'm thinking is that someone should take the, you know, ChatGPT LLMs and make some sort of viral personality quiz or viral astrology app—something along those lines that Miss Cleo... that exploits this effect that LLMs are really, really good at. Then, it’s just like, "Yeah, oh yeah, did you get your personality test?" It's like, "Did you get your lens of magic avatars?" Like, "Yeah, I got them. I had to do the in-app payment; it was $5.99." It's like, "Oh, did you get your custom personality test through this chatbot that's new and going viral?" Like, "Yeah, sure, I did that."

Shaan Puri

I think that's a great prediction. I believe it's going to happen very soon. We'll look back at this clip and be like, "Dude, he called it! John called it that that was going to happen."

John Coogan

love it

Shaan Puri

It has to happen. Somebody said this the other day. They showed me a Steve Jobs clip, and Steve Jobs said, "Once this technology happened, then there was a set of 20 things that were going to happen no matter what. It didn't matter who was going to do them; they were going to happen. A series of events were going to unfold once that breakthrough, that first breakthrough, happened. You just didn't know when and you didn't know who, but you definitely knew that they were going to happen." That's how I feel about this idea.

John Coogan

I love it I'm glad I I'm glad I got the thumbs up on all my all my yeah

Shaan Puri

your ideas were were actually very very very solid

John Coogan

you you

Shaan Puri

said you did your high school flipping thing you also were a what was

John Coogan

it called like a a phone a telemarketer marketing scam artist

Sam Parr

telemarketing scam artist

Shaan Puri

tell that story we'll wrap on that so

John Coogan

this is a phenomenal story

Sam Parr

what are you like workaholics

John Coogan

yeah yeah a little bit I I use the office as a reference? Because that is the the default like small business in america you know they make a thing and then they ship it out and so the scam worked like this I found the job on craigslist I show up and I'm wearing a suit I'm probably 17 years old or something and I'm like I brought a resume I want this job and they're like it's not that type of job like you do not need to be wearing a suit just sit over there you're gonna call these numbers call down the list and when they pick up read this script and the script goes like something like this I probably still remember it by heart but it was like when they pick up you do not ask how they're doing you do not talk to them you just say shipping department please and you wanna make it sound like you've been disconnected like I was already talking to the other shipping department half the time people are like what are you talking about this is a law firm we don't have a shipping department but the other half of the time people are like yeah we got a shipping department I'll transfer you down there like you must have just gotten disconnected then you're down in the shipping department so imagine dunder mifflin from the office you know you just talked to pam pam transferred you down to I think daryl is down in the shipping department right and now you're talking to the guys down in the shipping department and the the scam was selling 2 inch clear tape so the guy picks up from the shipping department says shipping department you know john here or daryl and and then you say hey you're you guys are still using the 2 inch clear tape right that was the line so this is the secret it's like it's like asking an office if they use 8 and a half by 11 inch paper or like asking you know a podcaster like do you still use microphones you know it's like yes everyone uses 2 inch clear tape in a shipping department because it's what you use to just tape boxes it's a clear tape that you use to pack things it's packing tape and so they're obviously gonna say yes but it sounds like you've already sold to them you know you're still using the 2 inch clear tape right we didn't say that we sold you but then then if they say yes then you say you know hey I I just wanna you know like thank you not for being a customer just thank you I wanna thank you and we're gonna send out I wanna send out another box of that 2 inch clear tape for you guys and I'm gonna throw in a starbucks gift card for you personally your name's gonna be on it this one's for you and I and and they're running me through this I'm like how much is the starbucks gift card for I'm like I I need information I'm like I'm obsessive about information and so he's like don't don't worry about it and I'm like no but like I need to know because like what if they ask me they'll never ask you and I was like no but I I have to know like I just I cannot do this job unless you tell me and he was finally like it's $5 it's like wow so so they so they you know they do the the starbucks gift card thing they get the guy to say you know yes I'd like you know I'm still using it send it out and then they send it out with an invoice so you don't need to collect the credit card details over the phone they send it out with the invoice and they've priced this clear tape at exactly the level that they think most accounting.

John Coogan

Accounting departments will just stamp it. So, it was **$500** for a box of clear tape, and it cost them **$5** to produce this tape.

Sam Parr

how much money did the company make

John Coogan

$1,000,000. I mean, the guys were driving around in sports cars... and I ran the numbers. It was like, you know, while I was there - I only worked there for one day and then I quit because I was like, "This is a scam." I figured it out almost immediately, but a lot of people stuck around. You know, but even then, I think I sold $1,000 worth of clear tape.

Shaan Puri

and they're just trying to get the one sale

John Coogan

And the conversion rate is insane! Yeah, so they send out... I talked to the guys in our shipping department about the scam. First off, it's hilarious. The guys don't use their own clear tape because it just falls apart. It disintegrates; it's like the worst product. They buy the stuff that gets thrown away in China, basically. Like, if they have manufacturing defects, that's what they buy for like 10 cents and then they sell that for $500, which is already an order of magnitude more than you could just get from Staples.

Sam Parr

are they are they still doing this scam

John Coogan

I don't know. I don't think so. They have like an F from the Better Business Bureau, and then I imagine that it dissolved. They probably got all their phone numbers blocked or something.

Sam Parr

what did these guys look like did they look like what I think they would look like

John Coogan

I imagine they actually looked exactly like the 3 of us

Sam Parr

which is what I thought

Shaan Puri

yeah yeah exactly I think I think the

John Coogan

I think the ceo had your jacket sam he he was wearing a black t shirt like you did he

Shaan Puri

drive a black escalade

John Coogan

yeah yeah probably

Shaan Puri

no I I think I think they were

John Coogan

doing like audi r eights I think that was like the big move

Shaan Puri

There's some guy listening to this that's in the shipping department who just had a "holy fuck" moment. He's like, "Goddamn, that tape guy who keeps calling me about those gift cards!"

Sam Parr

And then there's like a thousand other people who are asking, "So how do I get the leads to the shipping company?" Yeah, I'm in the tape business now, boys.

John Coogan

Alright, the tape business. The gang sells tape. This is like one of the funniest things. I ran into a guy who'd worked there a year later. He came up to me when I was at a concert and he was like, "Oh John, I remember you! You're the tall guy. How's it going?" I was like, "Remind me where we know each other from?" He's like, "Delta shipping."

Shaan Puri

and I

John Coogan

Was like, "Oh yeah, I worked there for like a day. What's up? Are you still there?" He's like, "No, they fired me. They fire everyone like every three months because they need to turn people over. As soon as one person finds out it's a scam, they will tell everyone else." It's the same thing with a pyramid scheme or a Ponzi scheme. You gotta like, you know, get out anyone who knows the truth and keep the blinders on everyone who's there. Because as soon as one person figures it out, they're gonna tell other people and be like, "Don't you think it's kind of unethical what we're doing? Or don't you think this is like... what if the police come? Would we be in trouble?" You know? And then that scares everyone, and then the whole well is poisoned. So I'm like, "Oh, you got fired? I'm sorry, man, that's tough. What are you doing now? Hopefully, you got a better job." He's like, "Yeah, I'm selling drugs at this concert." I was like, "What?" And he's just like, "I've never heard anyone so proudly tell me that they're a drug dealer." But I was like, "Okay, like, step up. I'm not into that, but I have some friends that are. Who made the deal?"

Shaan Puri

That's amazing! You tell people what your YouTube channel is and also tell us why you are doing YouTube. You could be out there building another business, but you're like us; you're creating content. So, tell people what the channel is and why you do it.

John Coogan

Yeah, I mean, basically I was just bored during the pandemic. I had always been... I mean, our first viral success at Soylent was, you know, content. Content's super important for launching companies, and I'm an entrepreneur, so having a voice is very important in that equation. My YouTube channel, you can find it by just searching "John Coogan." I also have a podcast now called PowerLaw.fm. It's hosted by John Coogan. It's not an interview show; it's just kind of deep dives on these power law people and companies. These really... that's it.

Sam Parr

a good name

John Coogan

and that's good titles

Sam Parr

that's a good idea

John Coogan

Yeah, that's good. It's interesting; it's a lot of fun. I really like it. Check it out! The biggest problem with it is that I don't have a lot of focus. I'll talk about geopolitics. My last video was on Doug Jamuro, breaking down his business. I'm just all over the place, but it's so much fun. There's clearly value in what we do. People enjoy it; it makes them happy. Plus, you meet interesting people. We got to have a great conversation because of it, you know?

Sam Parr

We appreciate you coming on. This has been really fun. You're a cool man. This has been awesome, and we appreciate it. Hey, we don't have a lot of focus either. Look, we went from scams to "Who are you going to vote for?" to guns.

John Coogan

So, it's a dream. You know, this is like your audience. You won't be perfectly optimized, like, "Oh, we're the best ever." But in terms of the lifestyle, we all agree this is the way to run the content machine. Don't go too crazy with it.

Sam Parr

well thank you we appreciate it and thanks for coming on and that's a pod