Billionaires Discuss Experiences

A story about how conversations at high-net-worth dinners focus on experiences rather than money, as observed by Shaan Puri.

"If you want to stop making money the priority, hang out with people with a lot of money. The conversation was not about business and money making and markets or investing or hot deals because these guys are post-economic, they're past that.

If somebody brought their to-do list to dinner, it's like 'Come on man, we're here to have a good time.' All the conversation was about non-financial things. You got your status by having non-financially related things to say.

If you had a really unique experience or you're like 'I take this drug where you lick the back of a horned toad and you trip out for 4 hours' - everyone's like 'tell me more.' There was a neuroscientist there talking about his lab where he studies the brain, and everybody was fascinated. If Huberman was at the dinner, everybody wanted to hear Huberman, they didn't want to hear about some great private equity deal.

The contrast between our peer group in early thirties versus these guys who were closer to 50 is stark. In our group, how many times is the conversation about content and followers or investments or deals? But at that table, if you're talking about how your content went viral and got followers, you're literally a loser. At each table, what's discussed is completely different."