The 2023 Milly Awards (#531)

Shaan Puri

This is the most popular episode we do every year. It takes weeks of planning. I'm out $50 because I got this new jacket on. We're all dressed up, and why? Because it is the Millie Awards! It is our end-of-year episode where we go through about 15 categories. Right? Actors have the Oscars, and musicians have the Grammys. Well, what do business people have? They have the Millie Awards! This is where we share a bunch of different categories, like our best and worst investments of the year. You know, where did we take a big loss on an investment? What did we win on? Or we'll do a category like "Person We Would Most Bet It All On." If we had to invest our whole net worth in somebody, who would we bet it on? We've got me, Sam, and Andrew Wilkinson. We're all here, and we've been doing this for three years now. These episodes are always the favorites. This one went long, so we're going to do it as a two-parter. In Part 1, we have categories like "Billionaire of the Year," "Best Business That We Think Somebody Else Should Go Do," "Our Favorite Moment from the Podcast This Year," and "The Biggest Change That We Are Making Personally in Our Game in 2024." In Part 2, we have a whole bunch of categories like "Our Favorite Unsexy Business" and "Wild Predictions for Next Year." So enjoy the Millie Awards 2023! Okay, what's up, guys? It's my favorite episode of the year! Andrew Wilkinson is here, Sam is here. Sam, you're looking dapper! Andrew, you're looking dapper! Sam, I gotta say, the whole dressing well thing—I'm bought in now. I see it! You don't look like a science teacher. You don't look like you're from a different era. You just look sharp, my friend.

Sam Parr

Yeah, I couldn't find my cufflinks. I thought I was going to look like a farmer on this thing. Thank God I found them right before we started. Do you guys remember how Trump had the Clemson football team into the White House and they used the Lincoln gravy bowls for barbecue sauce? That's how I feel right now with this person who bought me Tiffany crystal for my wedding. This is the first time they're being used, and they're being used for Whole Foods brand LaCroix. So, shout out to that person! Andrew, you feeling good? You ready to do this thing?

Andrew Wilkinson

feeling great yeah I'm this is the best I've dressed in years

Sam Parr

Well, we're happy that you did it here. Alright, so this is the Milley Awards. We've done this... this is now Sean's 4th year running. We've done this, or is it 3? I think it's 4.

Shaan Puri

maybe 3 I think it's 3

Sam Parr

And we've got 11, 12, or 13 categories. We're going to do **Favorite MFM Guests**, **Billy of the Year**, and **Biggest Change** we're making for 2024. We're also going to discuss the person we bet it all on. We're going to cover a bunch of different stuff and try to go somewhat fast for each category, but I'm sure we're going to have interesting stories for each one. Sean, do you want to kick it off? Where do you want to go?

Shaan Puri

Yeah, category 1. This is the Milley Award for our favorite MFM episode or guest of the year. Sam, start us off. Who you got?

Sam Parr

Alright, this was a tie. No, it's not a tie; we're not going to have ties. But I'm going to say the top two that I had were Scott Galloway. By the way, we have a clip that's gone viral on YouTube where it's a clip from the Scott Galloway pod. He's talking about how much he made, and I'm talking about how much I made. People are just ragging on us both so hard because they say that we sound so depressed. But I'm going to give it number one to Kevin Ryan. Kevin Ryan is the founder of Gilt, Business Insider, and MongoDB. I think Kevin Ryan was the best episode. I think he was the most wise and well-balanced person we've had who's had crazy success.

Shaan Puri

You know what else he did that I liked? At the end of the episode, he was like, "Here's how I set up my company to maximize the gain I get out of these companies and pay the least taxes." I'll tell you what, no rich guy ever says that. No rich guy ever tells you, "This is the structure I use," and he said it on air. He explained, "Here's what it does: it lets me live in a high-cost state, and I'm effectively only paying 14%. My kids are only paying 0% on what they're getting out of our capital gains due to Qualified Small Business Stock (QSBS)." So, he owns the shares. He said, "I only work on projects that are QSBS eligible in long-term capital gains. I'm not looking for cash flow or income because, yeah, I got to a point where I have my day-to-day needs settled." He mentioned that you have to get to that point. But once you're there, he said, "You take your QSBS, you live in a high-cost state, and then you gift your stock to your kids' trust." So, you set up kids' trusts and gift your stock to them before you raise a financing round. You're taking only, let's say, $100,000 out of your lifetime gift tax, and your kids now own QSBS eligible stock. When you sell, you're going to end up paying only the state tax. So, you'll pay 14% in California or New York, you'll pay no federal tax, and then your kids will pay 0% whenever they get it out of the trust at their given time.

Shaan Puri

In time, you're getting QSBS, you know, the $10,000,000 tax-free for you times each of your kids. I can get to $50,000,000 tax-free if I have, you know, 3 or 4 kids or whatever. And I was like...

Sam Parr

I don't think they've got I don't think they have qsbs in canada land do they

Andrew Wilkinson

No, we don't have... There's all sorts of other stuff and benefits and stuff, but there's a great saying on this: > "Whales only get harpooned when they surface." He just surfaced in a really obvious way. You know, there's just some anal-retentive IRS guy listening to this, stroking his beard right now...

Shaan Puri

strike that all from the record

Sam Parr

what what's yours andrew

Andrew Wilkinson

My favorite was Sarah Moore. So, Sarah Moore has a crazy story. She had a really troubled childhood and was eventually adopted by a wealthy family. They ended up putting her through Harvard Business School. After that, she went out and bought a business called EggCartons.com. This story is just incredible. I feel like so many people hear these wild stories about tech bro billionaires, you know, raising a bunch of money and hitting it big, making billions of dollars. I think her story is much more realistic for a normal person. She really is a testament to the fact that anybody can teach themselves business and can go buy a business. It's really not rocket science. I loved how simple and tactical all of her stuff was. She's so...

Sam Parr

Honestly, I love that story. I'm trying to stay low-key and under the radar, and I think it's been one of our most downloaded and viewed episodes with like 5 [thousand views].

Shaan Puri

or 9 1,000 listens to that episode

Andrew Wilkinson

Well, so the smartest thing she did is... she did the Michael Jordan-like "I'm retiring, this is the last thing." You know, "I'm never going out again." And now she... it immediately, as soon as you said that in the intro, I was like, "I have to listen." Right? There's definitely episodes I kind of check out of or don't do, yeah, it was...

Sam Parr

a great one

Andrew Wilkinson

that made me lean in

Sam Parr

I I I think that's a great one

Shaan Puri

The, by the way, there's a quick follow-up to that. Because that story, the Saramore story, falls in the category of kind of like "too good to be true." So, you know, look at all the elements. It's basically like, here's this super hot woman who grew up super poor, couldn't even get into college, and somehow ends up at Harvard Business School. There must have been something happening there; a family had adopted her along the way. That's like the plot of the movie *The Blind Side*. Then, she buys a business but has no money. Remember, she grew up super poor, so she bought the business with $0 cash down. How she found the business was she hired 50 interns off of Craigslist and snuck them into the Harvard Business School library to work with her on this. And she applies this business, EggCartons.com, for a million... you know, it's a multimillion-dollar business, super successful. There's no pictures of her on the internet, there's no interviews of her on the internet, right? We're like the only guys who have done this. So, there was a lot there that I came out big thinking, "Did I just get Elizabeth Holmes'd?" I might have... oh god, I might be part of the documentary here. Alright, let me at least make sure I look good if this is gonna end up on Netflix one day. She flew out after the episode and said, "I gotta meet you." So, I asked, "Okay, why?" And she said, "I just need to know who I'm dealing with here." So, she flies out, we go get lunch here in the suburbs of California. She flew all the way from Boston, and everything checked out. If she is Elizabeth Holmes, she's the greatest Elizabeth Holmes you've ever seen. You know, she looks like what she said, shows like she told the story, she showed me the old photos... you know, everything. And she's like, "I'm so glad, you know, people have been pretty respectful." Because I said on the episode, "Please don't bother me." We did a form instead of her email address, like, "Here, type your questions in this form and then we'll answer the form."

Sam Parr

how many how many messages did she get

Shaan Puri

A lot. She had said after the first appearance on it, she got like the Netflix, Bravo, and other people had reached out to be like, "Can I do a show on you or a movie on you?"

Sam Parr

wow alright well kudos to sarah moore what what's your sean

Shaan Puri

alright my mfm guest here that's gonna surprise you guys is connor price and conner price is a was a guy who was working in a warehouse he was stacking boxes in our friend's warehouse in ramon's warehouse and he was like a wannabe rapper white guy and you know like that's kinda cliche but he actually made it and he made it in a very interesting way he figured out how to go viral on tiktok and he was not a social media guy he refused to even post on social media he was too shy his wife was like you gotta do this it's a great way to get the word out and let's just have some fun with it and she kind of became his like his manager and they now have racked up on it all like a 1000000000 views on tiktok going viral and the reason I say counter price is not just because that's an inspiring story but I took away one big lesson of like the it's like I realized that the puck has moved and I'll give you guys the short version of it I think era 1 of marketing was sort of like let me interrupt your programming in order to tell you about my product right that's commercials that's like radio ads that's how things used to work era 2 became hey let me send this to an influencer they'll kind of hold up the product and make a post about the product so now I'm not interrupting your programming I'm kind of using this trusted influencer but it's clearly you know still an ad the the content is buy this product it's great and what conor price is doing is a little bit different he he creates a little skit and in the middle of the the payoff of the skit the hero of the skit the one that saves the day is this dope song and the 15 seconds of the dope song and that gets people to go and actually want to go find the product and now I see this everywhere this is how mister beast sells chocolate too doesn't hold up his candy bar and say this is a delicious candy bar you should go buy it he says I recreated willy wonka's chocolate factory and inside this factory is he makes like the product is baked into the content the content is entertainment around the product and now that I see that I can't unsee it I see it everywhere and it's part of my kinda core business strategy now yeah even your own ads we changed like that instead of saying we're gonna stop and we're gonna tell you about this thing we created a segment called the thrill of the shill we we teach a lesson or an entertaining story and then we tell you about the product in that story and that's how I think marketing goes down connor price yeah

Sam Parr

I give a shout out to his wife too. Just a total shark in the best possible way. Yeah, she was hardcore.

Hubspot

this data is wrong every freaking time

Hubspot

Have you heard of HubSpot? HubSpot is a CRM platform where everything is fully integrated.

Hubspot

Woah! I can see the client's whole history: calls, support tickets, emails. And here's a task from three days ago that I totally missed.

Andrew Wilkinson

hubspot grow better

Sam Parr

Alright, you want to move to the next one? "Billionaire of the Year." How do we describe this one? Just a billionaire who's fascinating.

Shaan Puri

It's just someone who's balling out of control. You don't even have to be a billionaire; you just have to have that *billionaire strut*. The ability to walk with swagger and play the game a little differently. So it's somebody who is uber successful, but in a way that we really respect. Let's go with Andrew first. Who you got?

Andrew Wilkinson

so mine is very obvious it's sorry sorry the landline over there

Sam Parr

you still have a landline

Shaan Puri

dude you go public and you have to install

Andrew Wilkinson

The landline, the gate... the gate of my house is like this super old-school system. So, I have a landline just for that.

Shaan Puri

dude you you better only be talking to presidents on that thing yeah

Andrew Wilkinson

It's red. It's red like the Bat Phone. So mine is pretty obvious: it's Charlie Munger. I think we all know who he is. For those of you that don't, he's Warren Buffett's longtime business partner. He just died last week; I think he was 15 days or something short of his 100th birthday. He was 99, and the guy was completely sharp to the end. I think a week before, he did an interview with Jesse... or what's her name? Becky Quick from CNBC. I just want to tell you a story about this guy. This is how sharp he was. So Chris and I were having dinner with him one night, and all of a sudden, this guy bursts into the room. He's like, "Charlie, I gotta... I'm doing a deal right now. I need to know an answer to something." This guy walks in; he's like 30 years old, and he just starts rattling off a bunch of questions. He's like, "Okay, we need to do it at 5.6% interest for this many doors." Charlie just asks a couple of questions and says, "Okay, good, cool." Then the guy just says bye to us and leaves. Charlie explains that it's this neighborhood kid who is a Hasidic Jew. He tried to convert Charlie to Judaism 20 years ago, going door to door with Bibles. They ended up becoming friends. Charlie mentored him, and he started buying apartments. Charlie backed him on this, and now they own a $1,000,000,000 real estate portfolio of Los Angeles apartments. He's just this neighborhood kid; his name is Avi. They built this huge business together, and Charlie started doing this when he was like 90 years old.

Shaan Puri

his 90 year old side hustle is a $1,000,000,000 real estate portfolio goddamn it

Sam Parr

Is Andrew going to be like a couple that's been married for 80 years, and they both die at the same time? Is Warren going to be distraught, you think, in the same way a marriage would be?

Andrew Wilkinson

I don't know. I mean, yeah, Buffett's really old too. If you think about the actuarial tables, they really don't have much time left, or Buffett wouldn't have much time left. But hopefully, he keeps going for a while.

Sam Parr

A few more years. He named it, or he said he has a successor and has everything lined up. I wasn't sure if it's going to be like a marriage, where he's going to go like next week, but I guess we'll see.

Andrew Wilkinson

What's funny is they've had successors since they were like 60. Everyone's been saying they'll die at any time, so they've gone a lot longer than I ever thought.

Sam Parr

Alright, mine's Palmer Luckey, the CEO of Anduril. We had Palmer Luckey on, I think, two years ago now. It was an amazing episode. Here's why I like Palmer Luckey: he says what you want to say if you were a billionaire, but you'd be too afraid to say it. He has a lot of really good quotes. He's kind of a loose cannon in a few ways; like him and Jason Calacanis have gotten into it, but frankly, I love it. He spoke at a conference recently and said, "Do you guys know what the number one profession that children want to be? It's social media influencer. The next is professional gamer, and the next is a YouTuber." The problem is that you can't tell kids to follow their dreams when their dreams suck, which is a great lie. Then he goes on to say, "Do you know what the number one dream for kids in 1971 was? It was an astronaut. We had just gone to the moon. These guys were fighter pilots, PhD mathematicians, supermen who were also really good-looking and well-spoken. It was the ultimate American hero ideal for a kid to see that and say, 'That's what I want to be.'" Okay, then I say yes, we should tell kids to follow their dreams, but when it comes to social media influencers, we should tell them their dreams suck and not to follow them. So he's got these really articulated, wonderful points that I appreciate. He dresses silly, he's got a mullet, and I'm a big Palmer Luckey fan.

Shaan Puri

Yeah, I like that one. That's now two years in a row. Andrew gave him the nod last year for "Billy of the Year," and now Sam comes in again with Calmer. I love it! We gotta get him back on, man. He was really good on the pod. He had super interesting ideas and, also like you said, speaks his mind.

Sam Parr

He says that he flies commercial and that he prefers to sit by the bathroom. He goes on to say, "My grandpa was a pilot, and I just love being around everyone." I don't truly believe that, but he continually claims it's true. What's yours, Sean?

Shaan Puri

Alright, my "Billionaire of the Year" is going to be an entrepreneur who I think is... I don't know how close they are to the billion-dollar number, but I think they're probably close when you include their wife. That's a little hint for you. I wrote down a couple of bullet points on why this person is a badass. You know you're a badass when your couple of bullet points goes to Roman numeral XIII. Let me just read these off in rapid succession. Okay, this person has been a rapper, an entrepreneur, an investor, an author, and a motivational speaker. They have a badass wife who's even more successful than them. They somehow married up, even though they're super successful themselves. They have four kids, and when I called this person to prep for the podcast, they were on their way, you know, taking care of the kids, taking them to their soccer game, yelling, "How do you let them? Where's your shoes? Where did you put your shoes yesterday?" That just told me they're plugged in as a dad, versus, you know, four other people raising their kids. They own an NBA team; they're a part owner of an NBA team. They built a coconut water brand, a private jet company, and they discovered David Goggins before he was David Goggins. They actually invited David Goggins to live in their house and train them every single day for 30 days. They like running, so they created a running festival. They like pickles, so they're creating a pickle brand. They created a fake Mount Everest because they're like, "I can't go climb Everest, but I'll take this mountain, I'll climb it 14 times, and it's the same height as Everest." He came on the pod and had one of the all-time classic lines about some other competitor of his. Here he goes: "Keep the money warm. Thank you for keeping the money warm for me. I'm coming." "Keep the money warm" just warms my soul. He is just having fun out here. He's got great life philosophies about having adventures multiple times a year to have a life well-lived.

Sam Parr

he is got angry at me for asking him what his monthly burn was

Shaan Puri

Yeah, he called Sam out for badgering him. We had to cut it out of the episode because it got so bad.

Sam Parr

I didn't badger him. I said, "I'll ask whatever I want," and I respect your... I will ask you the same question.

Shaan Puri

7 different ways until he finally wilt he didn't wilt

Andrew Wilkinson

he he

Shaan Puri

That's personal shit, Sam. You're pissing me off. And he... he is Jesse Itzler. That is my "Billionaire of the Year."

Sam Parr

That's a good one! Yeah, I had him on my list. I thought you were going to pick him, so I backed off. I think Jesse's an amazing person. He also has this calendar; I keep getting Facebook ads for it, and I'm going to buy one. He said, "I'm 50 years old. I only have 30 summers left. I'm planning exactly how I'm going to spend them." It is going to happen.

Andrew Wilkinson

I think

Shaan Puri

It was called "Big Ass Calendar." Alright, category number 3: What is the biggest change you're making for 2024? But before we do that, we have to say what we said last year. Andrew, you said, "Being better at responding to iMessage." You were like, "I've gotten my email system under wraps, but I have so many text messages. I'm bad at replying, and it makes me feel like a bad person and a bad friend." Sam, you said, "I'm going to be less of a dictator." You said, "I'm going to lead this company without being a dictator and being less metrics-obsessed. I'm going to be more vibe-driven and more calm."

Sam Parr

I nailed it by the way just for the record yeah

Shaan Puri

I was going to say... and I said, "I know I'm..." I don't know what I... I think I said something else, but I think I said, "Knowing when to use my impulsiveness and when to ignore it." That's... so those were our three. Sam, you want to go first? So you said you nailed it.

Sam Parr

I nailed it! I've been way less metric-focused. I try not to talk about sales or anything like that.

Shaan Puri

you're a vybe ceo

Sam Parr

I'm a Vybe CEO. You know, I'm not the CEO, but my CEO is metrics-driven, while I'm not as much. So, I calm down and I think I'm very easy to be around at this moment. But next year, I'm making a few changes. 1. I'm going to move. Eventually, I think I'm going to do the most tuxedo guy thing ever. I think I'm moving to Greenwich, Connecticut. That's not a joke; that's serious. So, that's going to be a big change. But you know what I'm going to do in 2024? I'm going to get *grayscale*. You know, you guys know what grayscale is? It's when you... if you go to Google, you'll see the directions on how to do it. If you type in on your phone "color," you should see it where you can switch your iPhone to only be black or white. So, I'm doing that right now because I've been using my phone to read books to my daughter, and I hate having that bright... all those colors because she stares at them. But the bigger switch I'm going to make is I'm going to get a *dumb phone*. Have you guys seen dumb phones? It's like a Nokia or a Light Phone. I cannot stand phone addiction; it's really bothering me. I'm totally addicted, and I'm afraid to set a bad example for my children. So, this year, I'm going to move to a dumb phone, which is similar, I guess, to what you're saying, Andrew—you're breaking up with email.

Andrew Wilkinson

So, two thoughts on that before you jump to it. One, the bright light you get at night. You actually want to... Peter Attia recommends switching your phone to a red screen instead of grayscale. I can teach you how to do that. You tap your power button twice, and you can make it a shortcut to make your screen red. Red light doesn't affect your night vision, so that's what I do. That said, there have been studies on color. If you decolorize your phone and make it grayscale, it's less stimulating. You're less likely to click into stuff. What I've done is actually installed something called Freedom, and Freedom + Screen Time basically blocks everything.

Sam Parr

I've been doing that but with opal you know opal I think it's the same thing

Andrew Wilkinson

Yeah, similar. It's like I basically have no ability to get through it. There's... I have not been able to figure it out. So I have no email on my phone, I've blocked a lot of texting, I've blocked every... basically every fun app. I feel like an addict. I feel really irritable, I'm going through withdrawal right now. But the change I'm trying to make... So, I nailed texting last year. I got this amazing app called **Text.com**, which is basically like Superhuman for texts.

Sam Parr

Dude, you've been tweeting out links. You're like, "Get 5 people to refer and you get a T-shirt or something."

Andrew Wilkinson

I love it! I absolutely love it. But the problem with that is that I've now gotten so responsive with text. I'm so good with text that I'm getting more texts. You know, you send more emails, you get more emails. I'm now getting too many texts. Because I built my email system last year, I don't respond to email as fast, and so I'm getting more and more texts. I have that problem. The big thing I'm trying to do this year is break up with email fully. What I've been doing for the last two weeks is I can't access my email. My assistant sends me screenshots, literally, of any important email that she thinks I need to respond to. I just tell her what to do with it. What's interesting about that is when you're in a flow state—when you're working, writing, or doing something—you'll often have the thought, "Oh shit, I have to remember to send that email." So you jump over to Superhuman, you send the email, and then you might see ten other subject lines. Before I know it, I'm down a rabbit trail reading a Packy McCormick newsletter or responding to a problem or something like that. What I'm hoping is that this new system will only include the things that I absolutely need to respond to, and there will be no additional distractions. So, we'll see how it works.

Shaan Puri

Let me just tell you two wonderful rich guy things that Andrew just did. These are *true* rich guy things, not these fake wannabe rich guy things: 1. He said, "You know what Peter Attia recommends..." 2. Which is great because he didn't say, "You know what **my doctor** Peter Attia recommends..."

Sam Parr

he recommended it to me

Shaan Puri

that yeah recommends to me when I see him because again he's my doctor so that was the first great

Sam Parr

thing you did

Shaan Puri

You didn't brag when you could have bragged. It's the words not said; it's the dogs that didn't bark, right? You really gave yourself away as being truly comfortable with yourself, a secure person, and I appreciate that. The second thing is, you're basically at the stage of Trump and others who are just like, "I just get my email printed out and put on my desk." I just quickly mark it with a pen, and then somebody goes, "I don't... what is email, actually? I actually don't understand how the system works. It just shows up on my desk." You're basically at printed email. Printed email is like you got Louis Vuitton, you got Birkin bags. At the very top of the luxury pyramid is printed email, and you're basically there.

Andrew Wilkinson

You know what's crazy though? It's really not an inaccessible thing. Like, I have an assistant in the Philippines and it's like $1,000 a month, and she does it right. So it's something that a lot of people could do.

Shaan Puri

It's not expensive. It takes a certain level of confidence in your lifestyle that you're not missing stuff, right? You are not lacking something, and so you're able to do this type of system.

Andrew Wilkinson

So, what's interesting though is I've been in this cycle for 15 years, right? I get overwhelmed usually once a year. Then I dial everything back. Sam, I've actually had a flip phone. I've tried the dumb phone, but at the end of the day, you need to order DoorDash and Uber and do basic things, so it didn't work for me. I had this moment where I was going through one of these cycles, and this was in 2010. My friend asked me out for sushi. I live in Victoria, Canada, and Vancouver is about, I don't know, a 35-minute flight away or a 2-hour ferry ride. So, I go for sushi with my buddy, and I'm in this mode where I put my phone in my car and I don't look at it. We have a great time catching up. At the end of the sushi, I get in my car and I look at my phone. I've received an email from Mark Zuckerberg. At the time, Mark Zuckerberg was famous, but not "famous famous," not like he is today. I'd emailed him because I heard he was coming to Vancouver, and he didn't respond for 2 days. Then, at 8 o'clock at night, or 7 o'clock at night, I got this email that said, "Hey, do you want to go for a drink?" from him, from Zuck. I checked this email at 8:30 or 9, and there's literally no way to get to Vancouver after 9 PM. The ferry leaves at 9 PM, there are no flights, etc. So, I missed my opportunity to go out for a drink with Mark Zuckerberg one-on-one while he's out of his element in my hometown. I always think about that story whenever I block my email and do all these things. I still always think about that.

Sam Parr

that's insane

Shaan Puri

That's so funny. Imagine somebody who's like, "Yeah, I really wanna make this lifestyle shift. It'll be good. I'm gonna get off my phone." But you know what if Mark Zuckerberg just emails me and I happen to be at sushi and I missed the one time he's in my hometown, in my neighborhood? You know, and then like Jessica Biel was there afterwards and she wanted to hang out but then I just didn't have my phone on me. But it actually happened to you? That's incredible!

Andrew Wilkinson

it's a very sad story it's a very difficult life

Shaan Puri

Have you tried to catch up with him and be like, "Mark, hey, you know I was doing a dumb phone thing. You know how it is. I'm walking around Menlo Park until I see you"?

Sam Parr

You have to do the Andrew. What I want you to give up next year, at least when you're around me, maybe Sean as well, is that stupid thing you and Chris always do where you make everyone put their credit cards in at the end of a dinner. You did that with me, Sean, and I'll... I won't name the other person, but the dinner that one time was probably $600. I don't know this person's finances, but I know they aren't where you are. This guy had to pay for like a $600 meal, and I don't want to be a bitch and be like, "Call everyone out."

Shaan Puri

The funny thing is, we were at sushi, and this person doesn't eat fish. So, they paid for the meal with it, but they don't even eat seafood.

Andrew Wilkinson

I think it's *so* awkward. It's born. So, what basically the story is: We were all out for dinner, and Chris and I said, "Hey, you know, instead of fighting over the bill, let's just all put our credit cards in. We'll let the waiter choose the card."

Sam Parr

I wouldn't have fought you we didn't have

Andrew Wilkinson

To fight... but what I noticed, one of the weird things about making money is that there's this strange dynamic that happens when the bill comes: - If you pay the bill, you're showing off or you're implying they can't afford it - If you don't pay the bill, you're an asshole because you can afford to And so that's why we do that [split the bill or take turns paying].

Shaan Puri

well so canadian of you

Sam Parr

yeah but well alright sean what's yours

Shaan Puri

What do I add? Oh, **biggest change**. Okay, the biggest change I'm making—this is something I started to do, but I'm doubling down on it. So this year, I turned off two profit streams that I think combined were making like $1,200,000 to $1,500,000 a year in profit. I just turned them off. Nothing was wrong with them. I lied, actually; there was something wrong with them. They were just okay. They were just okay, meaning it wasn't something I really loved to do. It wasn't something I hated to do. It was making good money, but it wasn't making amazing money.

Sam Parr

can you say what those are

Shaan Puri

yeah one of them was my course so I I was teaching this like power writing course and you know I was only teaching it basically 2 to 3 weeks out of the years you know roughly 10 days on average a year but it would generate you know whatever $1,000,000 a year of profit and but I didn't like being a course sales guy like I like teaching but I'd rather just kinda like maybe just do it for free on the pod or something like that do it do like a master class episode instead so I I just decided I'm not doing it and I was like okay that's just like less coming in this year alright then that matters to me so I'm like well but I'm willing to do that and I also just announced that I'm shutting down my rolling fund so I'll only be investing personally now I'm not taking any more outside money just because it was like kind of another thing to manage like here's a group of investors I gotta write these updates I gotta keep it like you know I gotta keep it organized oh should I do this deal should I not do this deal I just decided I'm just gonna invest my own money I don't I don't need to do this anymore and with that comes like a steady stream of fees and carry that would come with a fund if I turned it off again didn't have to turn off just chose it to turn off and I the reason why was I realized I was talking to somebody that was I had one day like you know what's that like a christmas carol movie where like he gets visited by the ghosts and they're like they kind of tell him the story like I talked to one friend who's in a bad relationship and they're not getting out and I'm like dude this is not what you want they're like yeah but it's not terrible I'm like but not terrible isn't your goal and they're like yeah but like you know I don't know who else is out there when if I meet somebody else then maybe you know I'll I'll feel and I'm like you're just not gonna meet somebody else because you're dating this person and then I met another person who was in a job they did like same thing it wasn't a terrible job so they didn't quit and they would they'd be open to a better job but they weren't seeing a better job because they were so occupied with the one that they had and so I just kind of realized if you want something great you gotta make space for great you can't just wait till your current thing gets so bad that you have to end it or that there's new amazing thing shows up at your doorstep and it'll be obvious to switch and you gotta just say no to some some things that are just okay in order to literally create space so that a better thing can come and land in your lap and and be there you have the time you have the mind share you have the availability to take the meeting and something better lands and that's exactly what's happened this year better things have landed because I've done that and so now I'm like next year what else is there that's like kind of in that middle tier it's good not great bucket that I should just I should just get out

Sam Parr

what's it gonna be

Shaan Puri

I'm thinking about what that might look like. I don't want to say just yet, but yeah, there are maybe some other things I could do to free up more time or create some space.

Sam Parr

what do you think about that andrew

Andrew Wilkinson

Well, I... yeah, it's funny you mentioned that. One of the problems with having a fund or raising money is that you owe people things. Right? There are people that are giving you $1,000,000, and I actually had a moment yesterday where I had a really busy day. I woke up and I felt really excited and creative. I made this big list of all these things I wanted to dig into that I was excited to learn about and work on. Then, there's a really wonderful guy who invested in a fund that we raised. He gave us, I think, $5,000,000 or something, and he wanted to get on the phone to understand what was going on with an investment that we made. So, Chris and I had to stop everything we were doing and talk to him. We had a really nice chat, but it interrupted my flow state. It interrupted what I really wanted to be doing in my day. The problem with raising money is that, at the end of the day, there are people who can call you, and you owe it to them to answer the phone. They can interrupt you at any given time. Especially in a rolling fund, there are like 50 of those people. I feel the same way; I really think that when you give your time to something like that, you're taking away from something else.

Sam Parr

But that's where we're going to get to the best investment. Or maybe we can go right there. Some of the things that you're doing contradict that, and the same goes for me.

Andrew Wilkinson

Totally! Yeah, like I'm doing the Twitter subscribers, for example. But the thing about it is that I actually enjoy it. I don't have anyone emailing me saying, "I'm a Twitter subscriber; I demand your time." I've made it very clear that I'm only doing an AMA once a month. I don't respond to tweets necessarily, and I don't guarantee any response. So, most months, I spend an hour doing an AMA that I find really fun. Anyway, for now, I'm going to continue doing that, but I've certainly considered that.

Shaan Puri

Oh, by the way, I have an update on my biggest change from last year that I mentioned. I said I was going to learn when to use my impulsiveness and when not to. I totally failed at that. There was a business idea that we had, and we were like, "Oh, maybe we should do this business." I was excited about it and shared my reasons why. But I thought, you know what? Old Sean would have just started it right away. Now, new Sean decided that this business isn't going anywhere. I’m going to give myself a **two-week cool down**. I've done all the meetings, and I kind of know what's there. I have the information I need, but I still have to decide if this is a viable business. You know, you don't just date a business; you kind of marry a business for at least a couple of years. So, I said, "Let me give myself a two-week cool down to get off the impulsiveness." But I made it **two days** into the cool down before I had my first customer. I was running with it, and it was so good! I realized I definitely didn't do the thing I would have advised myself to do, which is to say, "If you still want to do this in two weeks, then this is a great business for you." I kind of failed at that, I gotta admit. So, I'm still working on that one, and I'm going to keep that on the list for this year.

Sam Parr

It didn't possibly shut down your rolling fun. Let's do a person you'd bet it all on. So mine was between two of our guests, actually: Jason Janowitz and Austin Reif. Jason Janowitz started Blockworks, which is a crypto media company. I don't even like crypto, but I love Jason and I love his media company. He scaled it to, I don't know, tens of millions in revenue. Then Austin Reif started Morning Brew, who was my competitor. Now I've gotten really close to him because he's in my core group at Hampton. But I'm going to give it to Austin because he's already sold most of his business, Morning Brew. I think he was 26 when he sold it at a $75 million valuation. The company now is doing high eight figures in revenue. I think whatever Austin Reif does, I would blindly put money in. I would invest in him blindly.

Shaan Puri

Wow, that's not who I thought you'd pick! Austin's amazing, but that's it... you've come full circle. Your former competitor now turned, dare I say, hero.

Sam Parr

Well, look, I love these people that have the perfect balance of optimism and pessimism. You know, like they're *optimistically pessimistic*, where they think something amazing is going to happen, but they're fairly conservative and they plan for the downside. So he's interesting to me.

Shaan Puri

cool who you got andrew who would you bet it all on

Andrew Wilkinson

So, mine's not really a business person necessarily. I've been thinking a lot about AI disruption, and I think that if I had to bet it all on one business, that would be incredibly hard. I believe in AI, there are so many second-order and third-order consequences and levels of disruption. My thought was actually, if I could just be an investor in a podcaster—someone with a personal monopoly—my idea was Andrew Huberman. I think he's got an incredible brand and he's doing the thing that he loves and is kind of made for. He's insanely likable. He loves talking to all these interesting people about all these interesting things. People have this incredible affinity for him, and they will basically do anything that he says. If people advertise with him or he talks about a product, everyone will buy it. This means that his ads are very effective. We tried to buy an ad for Aeropress a year ago, and we just got an ad for Aeropress literally yesterday. I think we paid some, you know, very high number because his audience is huge.

Sam Parr

did you see some results from it yet

Andrew Wilkinson

I don't know yet. I can report back, but anyway, his business... I'm like, that is a completely undisruptible business unless he gets hit by a bus or something.

Sam Parr

The best line was from Rob Dyrdek. We asked him how much it cost to advertise Momentous on Huberman's podcast, and he goes, "I don't remember how much it was, but I could tell you whatever it was, it probably wasn't enough because he moved the needle for us that much."

Shaan Puri

Yeah, that's amazing! Alright, my person, I had bet it all. Sam, are you sitting down?

Sam Parr

yeah

Shaan Puri

it's you bro it'd be you it'd be you and let me tell you why

Andrew Wilkinson

let me

Shaan Puri

tell you why not just for the reasons that you think you're talented but there's a lot of talented people you're smart but there's a lot of smart people out there I this year have really come to appreciate more than ever and I think it's because I've moved out of the I'm gonna be ceo and operator role to more like I'm gonna be investor and other trust other people to operate you know these businesses that we own you the underrated trait that I had been severely underweighting in my little mental model was like are is this person gonna be focused are they gonna get distracted is this person gonna be loyal and are they gonna take this seriously and when it comes to that like we have a lot of friends that are you know they're talented and they're successful but they have shiny object syndrome I'm one of them we have a lot of people that will if they if they do something they kinda know they got 10 more shots on goal and they're just gonna keep trying different stuff until they figure out the little thing that works every time you talk to them if you catch up with them every quarter they're gonna have a new narrative you're not like that and I've now learned that people like that they just win and the peep the people the people who are steady and solid and I and I feel like to have a certain level of seriousness about them when it comes to doing something like I don't really care what it is like when you were writing your blog posts for the hustle early on even before the newsletter just like yeah we're gonna write a blog post that needs to get a bunch of people to subscribe and follow us and you took it incredibly seriously and when you're hosting events you took it incredibly seriously and when you're doing hampton you take it incredibly seriously you you do one thing and you take it very very seriously and if I'm gonna bet it all on somebody that's really what I want is a certain level of seriousness it's something I it's a trait I've come to admire like we hired a cmo into our ecommerce business and this guy chris and he's amazing not because he's the most talented marketer and like if you go on twitter every day there's these like e comm guys I don't know if you guys see this or just my feed of guys just bragging about this like campaign they did and this new ad technique they did and he's not like that he's just blocking and tackling every day with a certain level of seriousness and the beautiful thing is I know this guy is gonna stay focused and only work on this he doesn't have 3 side hustles he doesn't have his own podcast and rolling fun he's just gonna stay focused on this for the next 4 years and when he does that and he takes it seriously and he's gonna like do all the obvious things he's gonna win bigger than the kind of like talented person who's all over the place and I know that's a big contrast to me because I'm more of the talented person who's all over the place but I've seen the value in the other side now and I'm like that's who I need to surround myself with because those people win

Sam Parr

Well, I appreciate you. I love the love, and I love you for saying that. That's very kind. We had a meetup recently, and I called in one-to-one last night, Sean. Apparently, the thing is, they put on their badge who they like more: you or me.

Shaan Puri

they'll never tear us apart bro I don't even wanna know the results they'll never tear us apart

Sam Parr

Obviously, every brown person, every Indian person had a shot. But I was shocked. Maybe I shouldn't have been shocked. You were a fan favorite, so by you liking me and them liking you, they are now my fans too. Maybe... I hope. But I appreciate that. Thank you very much. I think that focus will change your game, Sean. And if you want, you know, like this is a little crude, but you know how you're supposed to like rub one out before you do something bad with someone that you're not supposed to? If you want, I love you, you could do that to me. I will help you. I'll be your hand. I'll keep you focused.

Shaan Puri

I don't know what that offer was that

Sam Parr

Was kind. I think I just offered my hand to you. Yeah, I got you. Alright, what's the next one? Best business for someone else to go into?

Shaan Puri

yeah what you know what's a great business idea that someone else should go do

Sam Parr

Do you know what we said last year? I think mine was a washer and dryer that's 2-in-1. Yeah, Andrew said empty leg flights, and then Sean said school for starving artists - like turn art into commercial things, for example, photographers.

Shaan Puri

Yeah, alright. So, I don't think anybody did any of those three. So, what do we have this year, boys? We have to step it up, alright?

Andrew Wilkinson

I think

Shaan Puri

that's yours

Sam Parr

I've got a pretty practical perspective on this. Since the beginning of this podcast, Sean, I've said that I think privacy is going to be more important. This is a megatrend. I mentioned that things like DuckDuckGo are going to get a lot bigger. I think they have gotten huge, but not as big as I thought. It hasn't been easier; it's been more like a vitamin, not necessarily a painkiller. I still believe that the privacy space is going to grow significantly. In particular, what you're going to see is companies tailored for privacy. It's going to start with executives and people like us who have audiences. These companies will focus on protecting your information online. I've signed up for a few of these services, and I'm alerted if one of my passwords gets hacked. They might say, "Hey, we know where you live because we saw you post a picture of your car. Then we did a Google Maps search and saw your car in front of your house, so we predicted where you live." I'm using a bunch of these services and testing a lot of them out. I think they are going to be really popular. For example, CyberHealth.co—I haven't used these guys yet, but I like the premise they provide. I think what's going to happen is that it will start with services costing around $5,000 to $10,000 a year, aimed more at executives, and then it will trail down. I believe Gen Z is going to be all about privacy in the next 10 years. That's what I'm interested in.

Shaan Puri

That's a great one! I like that one a lot. I totally agree with you. This feels a little... serendipitous, like... Anyway, to say "I'm onto something here." I think you might be onto something, Andrew. What you got? What's the best business for someone else to go do?

Andrew Wilkinson

So, I love this one. I think I would do this if I was gonna start a business. My idea is AI Tinder. Imagine you go on Tinder, and... What got me thinking about this is DALL-E and all these image generation tools can now create photorealistic images. I don't know if you guys have seen them, but there are now Instagram influencers who are beautiful men and women who make $10,000 a month on Instagram.

Sam Parr

Dude, I just kept getting this lady come up on my Twitter. I'm like, "This lady is very attractive. What's her story?" Why do I keep getting the same person showing up in my feed? They don't say she was fake, but I'm like, "This is definitely fake. This person's not real." Then I had to Google it, and she was fake.

Andrew Wilkinson

Yeah, I mean, they can... I mean, it basically you can look at the image and almost not know. So here's my idea: you generate like thousands and thousands of fake digital men and women. Then you have Tinder, and you basically make it like a casino, right? So you're swiping, and let's say you match with a really hot digital girl. Then you have to text with her, and there's some sort of algorithm where you have to win her over to exchange photos and start talking or whatever. I just think if you gamify dating, right? I mean, it's something that people in relationships can even do. It's just kind of like scratching an itch. I think that's something that would just absolutely blow up.

Shaan Puri

but you're saying they know it's fake

Andrew Wilkinson

right

Shaan Puri

you're saying you know

Andrew Wilkinson

it's fake

Shaan Puri

the game is to it's almost like you know flirting as a you're getting better

Andrew Wilkinson

And like, people might see this as creepy, and it's like, no, these bots can train people how to not be creepy, right? Because you're never gonna get another photo if you're creepy.

Sam Parr

we've talked about replica do you remember replica it was like oh

Shaan Puri

very good

Sam Parr

Digital girlfriend or boyfriend. They changed part of their algorithm or something about what they allowed people to talk about. One of the customers killed himself. These people fell in love with these women, these fake women. So, it's pretty wild.

Shaan Puri

Yeah, that's crazy. Alright, best business for someone else to go do... Okay, I had a couple ideas: 1. I think anything in the guns and ammo space is a great one, but I didn't want to pick that one. 2. Distressed venture capital. Andrew, I think you guys are on top of this, which is a bunch of companies that are good products, have revenues, but they're not gonna be able to raise their next round and they're gonna go die. You know, creating a business around that is good. 3. But the one I picked is **TikTok Shops**. I don't know if you guys are paying attention to...

Sam Parr

this but

Shaan Puri

The number one book in the world right now, do you know what it is? It's *The Shadow Work Journal*. What is *The Shadow Work Journal*, you ask? Well, it's this goddamn book that is going crazy on TikTok. Basically, TikTok just launched the ability to shop. They also launched the ability for anyone to be an affiliate of any product without having a relationship with the company. This has created a giant network sales thing; it's almost like an MLM. TikTok has turned into a giant MLM. So, as a creator, you can just find a product in the shop that's eligible for commission, make a video about it, and you get a commission every time someone buys it. That's why this journal is the number one product in the world. They have sold over half a million copies of this journal.

Sam Parr

yeah it's sold tiktok tells you how many it's sold half a 1000000 this is crazy

Shaan Puri

And that's through the TikTok Shop. Then you have Amazon; it's the number one book on Amazon too. So you add another half a million on that, right? That's easily a million copies that have sold of this one journal, and this is like in a two and a half to three month span. This is not very long. You know, I'm the type of person where I meet people. I meet Moiz, and he's like, "Yeah, I did Facebook ads for Native Deodorant." I was like, "Okay, well, what worked?" It's like, "Yeah, back then, you know, the clicks were just super cheap. There weren't very many people advertising on Facebook, especially a product like this. It was just mobile games or something." And you're like, "Damn, man, that was the glory era of Facebook ads." Now it's all so expensive; now it's so competitive. But you know, if I was doing this in 2012, that was the time. And you know, oh, I wish I bought Bitcoin back in 2011 or 2012 when my friend first mentioned it to us, you know, at $130. That was the time. I always wish I was there back in time. Well, guess what? There's a golden era that's happening right now, and it's TikTok Shops. TikTok Shops is currently in that phase; it's very cheap, it's not that saturated, and TikTok is very motivated to promote these things. TikTok customers are not fully acclimated to the fact that now a bunch of the TikToks they see are selling products. The conversion rate's going to be higher. These windows don't last for very long, but they do last. You can go make hay during these periods. So I think if I was 23 years old, there's nothing else I would rather be doing than trying to create something that's going to sell through the TikTok Shop platform. TikTok is even paying for it; they'll subsidize your product. So if you have a $60 product, it'll be for sale for $30, but you're still getting $60 because TikTok is subsidizing products that they want to promote and giving you the full value of them. So you're getting TikTok to pay for half the product sometimes or 30% of the product sometimes. It's pretty insane.

Sam Parr

Yeah, this is wild! I see that guy Isaac from Mini Katana or whatever it's called... Katana, yeah. Mini Katana is sharing all of his TikTok shop details, and it's wild. It's pretty crazy!

Shaan Puri

Kinda like when the iPhone came out, people started making apps for the App Store. You could see the charts; you could see what's getting downloaded. The same thing applies to shops. You can go see what's selling well and how many units it's sold. You can either use that information to create a competitor or just sort of abstract away and be like, "Oh, it's this type of product that's doing well at this price." That's doing well on TikTok. Let me go after that. Alright, that is part 1. I gotta go take a pee break, get some water, and take a rest. But we have so many trophies still on the table that have to be given out for the Millie Awards. We have 6 or 7 of my favorite categories. We saved the best stuff for last, so after this, go listen to part 2 of the 2023 Millie Awards.