My First Million: David Senra: Podcasts With Billion-Dollar Potential, What Separates Good From Great, and More

I am probably the most optimistic person in terms of how good of a business podcasting

can be.

And I start talking crazy, and then I have some friends that had built giant businesses

on the back of podcasts.

I was at dinner with them last week, and they literally pulled me to the side, and they're

like, shut the f*** up.

Stop telling people, oh, the shit.

All right, everyone.

Today's podcast is special.

The guy's name is David Senra.

He's got a podcast called Founders.

I've listened to dozens and dozens and dozens of episodes.

He basically breaks down different biographies that he read about business people, artists,

whatever, anyone who's the 1% of their field.

And on the pod today, we talked about the difference between people who are somewhat successful

and the people who are absolute killers and what traits they have and what the commonalities.

So it's super fascinating to hear from someone who's read literally 300 or 400 biographies

and studies this for a living.

He talks about the commonalities of these killers, whether that's UFC fighters or billionaires.

It's really fascinating.

I think you're going to dig it.

My favorite part is when we talk about, he has this really cool quote from Joe Rogan describing

John Jones, who's this amazing UFC fighter, and the difference between John and the rest

of the people.

And then somehow David weaves that in with business people, and he lists out all the

business people who he says are the 1%, the 1%, the killers of the killers, and he talks

about what traits they have and what you can learn.

I think you'll dig it.

Check it out.

Talk soon.

Yeah, you know it's up.

I understand why you'd live in Miami if your family's there.

I don't love New York, but I'm eventually going to move there for family.

So the family supersedes all the other stuff.

That's the only reason we stay here.

My wife is Colombian.

So 70% of Miami-Dade County is Hispanic.

All her family's here.

I've been traveling a lot more for work, and the day I leave, my kids wake up.

Her mom is here.

Her grandmother's here.

So from my kids' perspective, Colombians, South Americans in general, what they do is

they're very, I like their multi-generational housing.

My wife grew up in a house connected to her grandparents' house.

Yeah, I dig that too.

Oh, that's incredible.

I didn't have nothing like that when I was a kid.

And so I was like, man, I really want to live in California, but I'm just going to stay

here for family and then spend my summers in California.

What did you do before Founder's Pod?

I've done a shit ton of businesses since I was 18 years old.

I think me and you were around the same age.

I might be a few years older than you.

The business I was working on right before actually started Founders while I was doing

it was this thing called RoboDB, which is a way to track the true origination points

of Robocalls through the payment network.

It was just like a business that was kind of like a clever hack, but I wasn't interested

in it the way I was podcasting.

So I was obsessed with podcasting for years.

I remember my friend Eric, he invited me over to his house one time.

It was like 2010.

He's like, dude, you got to come over and watch this new podcast.

Do you remember the guy from Fear Factor?

And I'm like, yeah, I watched Fear Factor when I was in high school.

And we went to his house and it's like when Joe Rogan was on the white couch and he was

on like Ustream and then he'd have like, there'd be like things falling down.

He'd have like, you know, the cheesy kind of like there'd be stars or sparkles and stuff

like that.

I'm like, what is this?

He's like, oh, you can also listen to it on your phone anytime you want.

And that just blew my fucking mind.

I could not believe that.

Yeah.

But were you successful or were you kind of like a struggling entrepreneur and then this

is like, is this your first like breakout?

This is the first thing that's going to make like I'll make a lot more money.

I was like making like dentist or doctor money for like a long time, you know, like not struggling

but not nearly like, you know, what a podcast could could do like a successful podcast could

do.

How big is the pod now in terms of listenership?

It fucking crazy right now.

We a few weeks ago, I just cracked over a hundred thousand individual listeners per

episode.

No, no.

Overall.

And I signed into like my podcast host and says like unique listeners last seven days.

That's the only, I don't, I'm not big on metrics.

Like I don't pay attention at all.

I just try to make what I want and then put it out into the world.

But the one number I want to see grow is that number because founders is also weird good.

Like you could discover it now.

And because the back catalogs evergreen, evergreen, like I'll talk to people to listen to like

the first latest episodes and then they'll go back and listen to shit that I did like

six years ago, five years ago.

It's just you, right?

Like, because you're part of what Colossal is at it, Colossus Colossus, sorry.

And so they like sell your ads and they take a cut.

And so is it just you and a producer or what?

Nothing, just me.

So Pat, I love we were talking a little bit about this yesterday.

Like the one thing I love about podcasting industry is how positive some everybody is.

So I listen to Pat podcast podcast for years.

Like I was taking notes on this podcast.

I went back and look since like 2019.

And last year in May, my podcast is a subscription podcast.

Right. You could listen to the first 30 minutes.

You want to listen to all of it for the first six years of its existence.

You had to pay to upgrade, right?

I had no worse.

Yeah, yeah.

Wait, oh, I didn't know you.

So you've been doing this for six years.

Yeah.

So in 2016.

Oh, wow, that's crazy.

To me, like you just got on my radar like a year ago, maybe.

Everybody was like that.

So Patrick played played a big role in that.

The David and Ben from Require, they played a big role that was just under your podcast.

But what happened was Patrick just randomly treated it out.

You know, he's got, you know, this massive, very valuable audience, like in size,

in terms of size and then average net worth.

Like he's got one of the most I would argue he's got the most valuable business

podcast audience in the world, right?

If you find if you keep if you like the fact the the average net worth of his

audience is extreme and he just randomly treated out like last May.

Hey, I never find new podcasts to listen to.

I think David Center's founders podcast is excellent.

You should listen.

And I was like, what the I know you do.

Like I watch this your podcast.

This is crazy.

And so I become friends with this guy named Sam Hinky.

Sam Hinky is the former general manager that's filled up the 76ers.

Now he's an investor in Silicon Valley.

And I knew he knew Patrick.

And so I screen shot of that.

I was like, oh, shit, look what your friend Patrick said.

And then Sam immediately put me in a group chat with Patrick.

He's like, you two should know each other.

And so Patrick, the first time we talked, we talked for like an hour and a half.

We had like the same interest for a dictated podcast, a dictated history,

a dictated entrepreneurship, all sort of stuff.

And so we were just friends for a long time.

And then I had several people, Rob Moore being one of them.

We should probably talk about.

Yeah, Rob has been hooking me up constantly.

Like I'll talk to him and we'll email back and forth.

He's always helping me.

OK, so this is the positive some nature of podcasting.

I'm sorry. And for those who don't know, Rob Moore, Rob Moore and

Andrew Heberman are part of our partners on the pod.

Rob is the co-founder of the human life package.

So OK, there is this is the interesting thing.

One of my favorite quotes I've read every single thing I could find on Steve Jobs.

Right. And one of my favorite quotes that really describe

Steve's one of his superpowers was that Steve was gifted at finding markets

full of secondary products.

And what you what you guys realize, I think, as well as like people,

people have essentially like when you're inside podcasting,

the perception inside of it is completely different than what it's outside of it.

It's like everybody's like there's too many of them.

It's too late to get in and like you need to start a long time ago.

And what happens is like everybody starts podcast quits, right?

And when you get in there, podcasts in general are full of secondary products.

Rob Moore and Andrew Heberman and I put David and Ben up here as well as like

their first their first class products and a first class approach to building their business.

So Rob, I've never talked to Rob less than two hours.

Every single time we talk, he look, dude, look what I have on my desk.

Like what's that? Oh, is that a Heberman tweet?

Yeah, it's Rob and Andrew have been so relentless with supporting me for no

like they have no benefit, right?

They just they keep like every time Andrew treats about me,

the fact that he was one of his favorite podcasts, his founders,

he sends me up to church just from his tweets.

And so Rob's like, hey, we have this new studio next time

you're in California, come out and like I'd love to give you a tour.

And our mutual friend, Andrew Wilkinson, had invited me to Victoria.

So I was like, oh, I'm actually flying to Victoria like next week.

That's a pain in the ass to get to from Miami.

I'll just stop in California for a few days to see you.

We I meet up with Rob.

We talked Rob and L.A. is Robin L.A.

Yeah, Rob's Malibu.

I met up with Rob.

We talked podcasting for seven straight hours.

That's crazy.

Literally, we meet up to have lunch.

We stayed the same spot.

They're like, it's dinner now, but let's have dinner.

And then we stayed the whole time.

And then he's like, let's go to the studio.

They are like to me, I think not only is Heberman's the size

of his audience is crazy.

But if you break down on how they think about the quality of the product,

how they think about the quality of the business model,

like there's ideas I got from Rob that I told Andrew or that I told

Ben and David that they're now using that it's going to wind up

making them millions of dollars, like the way they set up their business,

their ads, everything, they're just fucking first class dudes.

Are you I see that you're always tweeting out.

It looks like a screenshot from Kindle.

How many books a month are you reading to to pull this off?

OK, so I think this is me and you were talking about the advantage.

I think you have it Hampton, which is really fucking special.

And it's an echo of what Bloomberg used to build his very unique business.

Like your business is going to produce a lot of proprietary

information is extremely valuable to other founders.

And then you can repurpose them.

Dude, you know, I fucking people I've had dinner with that tell me

about the Hampton blog and you guys just just launched.

Oh, really?

I think we just we just we just like I threw it together.

Like I think two weeks ago, I heard about some guy doing concrete

or some shit or yeah, yeah, yeah, he was like,

searching, they told me that he was like searching through like like war dogs.

Yeah, like looking for the look at the database of government contracts

and seeing what he can fulfill.

Yeah. So what I realized is when I text you that are yesterday was I'm doing similar things.

So I realized what this is the magic of you said something was really smart,

where you're like rich people read a lot and it's very true.

Our mutual friend Angel Wilkins had just tweeted out.

He's like, I wish I could short entrepreneurs that don't read.

And that's what I found as well.

It's like not only if the people I studies like they had,

they were so good at what they did that somebody wrote a book about them.

Like that's fucking crazy.

Right. And then you read their books and they're constantly reading

biographies, studying great work that came before them.

And so the Bloomberg idea was like his business is fundamentally like,

I want to sell you like a twenty seven thousand dollar year subscription or whatever it is.

My business, his business collects a bunch of unique information

and he made like a bunch of atomic pieces of content sort of media company.

As a way to get his brand.

And so 90 percent of the people that read his media will never buy subscription.

But his media is spread around everywhere.

Just like there's a ton of people are going to read your Hampton blog.

You know, obviously, I think you should do a podcast if you do fucking short form, whatever.

It's like that's going to be spread out like that.

And then, you know, one percent, five percent of those are going to convert to members.

And like the more members you have, the more data you have,

the more data you have, the more members you have and just keeps going.

So to answer your question, I just hit episode 300.

I've read over 300 biographies of entrepreneurs so far.

I have that's over a hundred thousand pages.

What I realized is like over time, I input all my highlights into this app called read wise.

And so everything you see externally are just there essentially

highlights that I like the one I posted yesterday, we were talking about Bloomberg.

And I say, oh fuck, let me go and read back through my highlights on Bloomberg.

And I found one where he said that, like, you know, if you try to love what you do,

because you love what you do, you do a lot.

And then, you know, that compounds everything.

And I put that out and like immediately these hit and then people discover the podcast

and they started listening.

And so me and you and Bloomberg kind of running the same idea, but in, you know,

different, uh, different industries are different.

Like, dude, I use up until like, so two years ago, up until two years ago,

I was reading a ton and then I, so I like to listen to books.

I like to listen.

I'll listen.

I have one that I'm listening to and one of that I read at night and I like to

listen while I'm on walks.

And there's this one narrator who I love.

Have you ever listened to Titan or Vanderbilt's book, Tycoon?

He, uh, the narrator is awesome.

And so I was like, I love this narrator.

He's so good.

So I went and found books just by that narrator and I started scrolling through

and I'm like, oh my God, this guy's done 1500 books or something like that

that he's narrated.

And it's like how to win friends and influence and like all these like

businesses, self-healthy books.

And then I go and look at his LinkedIn and I'm like, huh, he's reading all these

books. Why isn't he more successful?

And I'm like, I'm like, huh, that doesn't work.

So I got angry.

So now I, now I read mostly for fun.

And if I don't like something, I, I, I brush it off.

I put it away.

Uh, and so I quit reading nonfiction books.

Now I strictly read biographies or history.

So your friend Ryan Holiday has a great post where he shared like his top 25,

biography recommendations and his, the intro to that post is excellent.

Cause he's like, listen, you go to the most successful people in the world,

look at their bookshelves, they read a lot of shit.

They all read biographies at all of them, without exception.

He's like some of the most high value reading you can do.

You notice that as you read through the biographies, like they're all doing this.

Now here's the thing, um, this, uh, this actually clicked for me the other day.

Uh, you know, Eric Jorgensen, right?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

He helped Naval write the thing.

Yep.

So he gave me this fantastic book recommendation that I had missed

despite it's getting Peter Beveland and he counter its book on Buffett and Munger.

It's called, uh, it's just all I want to know is where I'll die.

So I don't go there.

And there was something that Buffett and Munger were saying in that book that

really clicked for me.

They kept saying, like, listen, we're going to share everything we know with you guys.

We know that most of you are just going to listen or read it and never do anything.

And I thought about that for a long time.

I was like, oh, so learning is not memorizing information.

Like the guy you were just describing.

Learning is changing your behavior.

If you don't change your behavior, then you're didn't actually learn.

And so therefore I'm not applying the lessons I'm learning in this book for

my own business, then that means I'm just wasting my whole fucking life because

I'm, I'm working on the seven days a week.

Like I'm giving a lot of my life better sheet to this.

And I think that's the important part is it's like not just these people

didn't just fucking read.

They took this idea like, okay, how can I apply it to my business?

And then they actually changed their fucking behavior, which is like the key.

No, and I've done that a ton.

I mean, I'll, I'll, what I, my, the reason I read biographies is I look for patterns

and I say, uh, what mistake did this person make?

And how do I avoid it?

And where did they win?

And how do I like lean in on that?

And then like the way that I kind of, this sounds really lame, but we make a joke

that I'm, I call myself a manifest cowboy because I'm a little redneck.

But the reason being is I'm pretty good at like setting five year and 10 year

goals and staying focused and working backwards to achieve it.

And like, I can, like, there's this one book called how to get rich by Felix

Dennis and like, I like listen, I was like, all right, and he, and he was, uh,

he had cancer, I believe, or, uh, I don't know if he had a cancer when he wrote

it, but he died soon after.

And he was like, if I could do it all over again, I would try to be financially

secure by age 35 and then just putz around.

And I was like, okay, let's do that.

And so I like just worked backwards.

So like, how do you just like have like the bills handled?

And then everything else is just, you know, icing on the cake.

And so I'm pretty good at that.

But I went to last time you read it.

I read it all the time.

I refer, I use it like a textbook.

So like when I think about like, um, equity and how much to pay people, I

go and read the sections that he talks about.

So I have it, if you just Google how to get rich free PDF, there's like a

website that has it.

So I bought many copies and, uh, I have a bunch of his biographies, but I'll

just like refer to that all the constantly.

I'm like, all right, what did he say about this?

And he gives like pretty practical advice, like on company credit cards,

like how do you issue your company credit cards and like, uh, office space.

And so I refer back to it constantly.

Andrew Wilkinson gave me advice.

He's like, uh, what he did.

He's like, I read the book before I got rich, and then you read it

after you get really rich.

Hey, yeah, yeah, I thought that was really great advice.

We, uh, so you and I are both UFC fans and I was asking you, I was like, what

should we talk about?

And I was like, I want to talk about the difference between the people

who are pretty good and absolute killers.

Yeah.

And you were like, oh, that's just like a new FC.

That's kind of the same way.

But I, because I'm fascinated with like, I listened to your, uh, I think his

name is Sam Bronfman, the guy who started Seagrams, which eventually

turned into like all these other things.

And then I was fucking savage.

He's a savage, you know, like he almost reminded me of myself, not in the

savage sense, but he did a few funny things.

He, uh, he was like a hermit and he like didn't go anywhere unless his wife

went with him.

And I'm the same way I'm like, I don't go out unless my wife comes up

me because I have like some social anxiety a little bit and like, but when

it came to business, he was like pretty brash and, um, uh, like told people

exactly what he thought, uh, except like when it came to social situations,

he was like super not confrontational.

If I go to the grocery store and I don't see what I'm looking for, I leave.

I don't ask, you know what I mean?

I'm like, dude, I just don't even want to ask for help because it bothers me.

Um, but anyway, I listened to him and then I listened to Napoleon.

That one was really good.

Oh, look at this book.

Sorry.

Uh, Sam Altman said the best book he's read in the last few years is this one.

It's really hard to find.

It's first published in 1955.

Is that the concise history one?

I can't see.

No, no, no, I'm about, I'm going to do this in like two, um, two, probably

two episodes called the mind of Napoleon.

It's, it's Napoleon's old fucking words.

And that's cool.

Yeah.

So, cause they're gonna say everybody's obsessed with Sam

Altman right now because of chat GPD.

I didn't mean to interrupt you, but Napoleon's.

Well, Napoleon has this amazing saying.

I forget if I heard it from you or Ben Wilson, but it was something like, um,

uh, he was talking to someone, he goes, you and I are not the same.

I am born of a people of conquerors or something like that.

Like he had this, like, uh, like this, he felt like he was just like, I'm here

to conquer, get out of my way.

And he had that at a young age and I thought that was really insightful.

Um, there is something that you picked up on where.

People, it's, it's fascinating how like, uh, you'll listen to founders or

you read a bunch of biographies and you realize like the most successful

people in the world, you're like, Oh, I don't, I don't want their life.

And that's the way I feel.

Like, sure.

Add of like, exact.

First of all, you said something that was really smart too.

It's like people dis like manifestation or visualization.

And they think it's like, what, like Willy Puffin nonsense.

Okay, that's fine.

I can just tell you pops up in the books over and over and over again.

I told you yesterday I'm reading this fucking insane biography of Tiger Woods.

This dude is like eight years old listening to motivational tapes,

writing it out and on his wall, it's like, I am powerful.

I will achieve my goals like over and over and over again.

And you see this from Edwin Land, Steve Jobs, Estee Lauder, uh, Bob

Noyce, founder of Intel, Arno Schwarzeger.

Have you read the education?

I want to send you, I was going to ask you for your address to send you his book,

but I was like, he might have already read it.

Did you ever read the education of a bodybuilder?

I've heard about it.

I've never read it.

It, the first 113 pages is, it functions as a, as a autobiography of Arno

when he's 30 and like the visualization thing, seeing things.

And like he said, he's like, he would lay in bed at night and just picture

himself on the stage, holding the trophy of the Mr.

universe or whatever in his hand.

Everybody's like, essentially like bowing down to him.

He's a conqueror to use like that example.

What I find is that a lot of the people that, um, like even Felix Dennis, man,

uh, I think his, the advice he gave was wise.

Like that guy had a hole in his heart that could never fill.

He spent $100 million in a decade, 10 million a year on cocaine, alcohol and

prostitutes, you know, like that's a fucking crazy story in that book.

And he, what I love about autobiography is much first, usually they

write them towards, and they're like, they don't hide shit.

They're like, I was fucked up.

I was a bad father.

I cheated on my wife.

I, whatever, you know, um, so the, the, the tie this into like the UFC thing.

And, and the, like the conquering is that quote, um, I think it's a, I

am of the race that founds empires is what it is.

So I want to read this quote that you and I were, uh, discussing where I

think Joe Rogan is obviously like the world, the world's leading expert on,

you know, MMA, like the stuff.

I wish I could talk to that guy.

Just, I hope I get, I hope I get the chance just to ask him.

I wouldn't, I just want to talk about MMA and all the shit that's in his brain.

And I was very curious what was going to happen with this John Jones

surreal game fight, right?

So for those who don't know, John Jones is this very controversial

character at age like 22, 23.

He was like the first UFC fighter sponsored by Nike.

He was the golden boy.

He was the champion when he was 20 or something.

And he's just a killer, never lost.

But he, you know, has hit his girlfriend before he's gotten arrested

for drinking and driving.

He's a mess.

He's a killer on and off the field.

Did you ever see the video of him where, remember, like during the

pandemic, people were like lighting shit on fire.

There's all these riots and they did it in Albuquerque, where he's at.

And he stopped him and he, yeah, you saw that.

Could you imagine if those two guys, there's two small guys, like young

kids, like straight painting and analyzing shit.

And John is just walking around like, give me the can.

Give me the can.

Give me the can.

Like, dude, if you know who that is, you'll give him the can.

Cause you know, John Jones is like six to probably.

Well, now he weighs 260 pounds.

I mean, he's like one of the scarier people you could ever see.

And he's athletic.

The guy's a freak.

He's a freak.

And, but he comes off.

This is why this is interesting.

He, he, he tries to come off like a nice guy a lot of times in interviews.

And he, and when you listen to him talk, you think, or at least I think this

is learned behavior.

And you are actually a little more sociopathic than you are not.

And you will kill someone easily and sleep like a baby at night.

100.

So this is the, the fascinating thing about studying history.

So this is what Joe, Joe Rogan said about John Jones, which I think is going

to remind me, it reminds me like a young Bill Gates, which we can talk about.

He says Joe, Joe's like, listen, there's human beings that have a ruthless

competitive drive that is terrifying to the ordinary person.

John Jones is a bad guy who is trying to be a good guy.

If he were living a thousand years ago, he'd be on a horse with a battleaxe

chopping the heads off of everyone and everyone would be running.

These dominators have always existed.

He's a fucking conqueror.

That is the thing that's inside of him that leads him to be the goat.

Greatest of all time.

Without that, you don't get there.

There's a thing inside of some people, there's a driving force that allows them

to overcome the greatest people around them.

When I heard that, I wasn't thinking about John Jones.

I was thinking like, that's Michael Jordan.

That's Jeff Bezos.

That's a young Bill Gates.

That's Edward Lan.

That's John Rockefeller.

That's Carnegie.

That's all of them.

They had, they have this ruthless competitive drive.

To me, there are different species than an average person.

Um, and so the example of that is like, I did this, uh, this excellent biography

of the young Bill Gates, right?

In my opinion, the perfect biography, it's like, I don't need to know what their

great grandfather did for a living, right?

It's like, tell me the struggle.

The reason we're like, give me a little background to what family they were born

into, then tell me the struggle.

And then once they're rich and the book.

And so there's a book called hard drive Bill Gates and the Making of the

Microsoft Empire that covers the first 35 years of Bill Gates life, right?

So ends right after the Microsoft IPO.

And I'm obsessed.

The reason I have a solo podcast, uh, is because my podcast idol is

Dan Carlin, hardcore history, right?

And is he by himself?

100% he's got a giant audience.

Um, we should actually talk about podcasting.

If you're interested in that he, he, a lot of people share numbers.

He had said, uh, don't let me forget the threat on Bill Gates.

By the way, um, he had said the latest episode.

This is like two years ago, uh, that got published.

He got 19 million downloads on.

And then he said, oh wait, they said, oh wait, uh, it turns out some of them

were double counted.

So in any case, cut it in half as nine.

He's got an audience of probably 10 million people that listened to him.

That would be one of the biggest episodes of the year for most every podcast.

You know, the big dogs get a million or 1.5 per episode, but rarely, you know,

Joe Rogan, if he interviewed like Bernie, when he interviewed Bernie Sanders

or someone like that, that maybe got five or eight or something like that.

So Joe, Joe's audience and Joe has more data than anybody else does.

And all the Spotify exclusives have more data than anybody else does.

He said, uh, remember when they tried to cancel him?

This is also the magical podcasting man, uh, which I know we don't like, we, we

have to be careful here cause we talk about it forever.

Um, the problem is, is like you have people that don't, if you listen to Joe or

you listen, like I listened to you and fucking Sean forever.

I know even before we met, I like, I know who you guys are.

I know manifest cowboy, I know the fucking terminology.

We have an idea of who you are.

Like the person before you meet them, right?

That's the magical podcasting.

It's like, we're not creating content.

We're creating relationships at scale, which is very fucking powerful.

And still people, most people don't, they, they underestimate how powerful this is.

Um, and so what happens, like you have, you know, people saying Joe Rogan's

racist, you know, they, they, they cut the clip and then, you know, he's anti

backs, everything else.

And so they try to cancel them.

And then somebody's been listening to him for fucking 10 years and listens to him.

10 hours a week.

It's like, you're not going to tell me anything about Joe that I don't know.

And so what happens is he said his audience added two million people.

I think we're from 12 million subscribers to 14 million subscribers on Spotify.

Those are the numbers I've heard.

Yeah.

Um, and it speaks to like this.

He's still the biggest by far because even like the top, you know, humans,

everybody else, like yours, 1.5 without YouTube and everything else.

So there's still just crazy how big and successful Joe show is.

Um, but what about Bill, the bill?

Uh, so Bill Gates is, I was doing an episode on him and I had just been

listening to Dan Carlin's, uh, Wrath of the cons series on gang of con for like

the 15th time.

And Bill Gates, uh, who you think he is is like, this is Genghis Khan in a

Mr. Rogers costume.

He's in a disguise and he is unbelievably relentless.

So there's this guy named Michael Moritz who was, uh, now he's a billionaire.

Uh, he's one of the guys that helps scale Sequoia, but at the time he was just a

journalist and this is a perfect example.

He's giving, uh, he's just a journalist.

I think he's writing for time magazine and he's meeting Bill.

You know, Bill's probably maybe 28, something like that.

They do an interview.

Bill's like, Hey, I'll give you a ride to the airport.

They get in Bill's car and Michael's like, Oh shit, somebody broke into your

car.

What happened here?

He's like, what are you talking about?

He goes, your radio.

It's like somebody stole your radio.

He's like, no, I ripped it out.

He's like, why would you do that?

He's like, from my house to Microsoft office, the office is seven minutes.

That's 14 minutes a day from Microsoft's office to the airport.

I go there three times a week.

That's 15 minutes around trip.

You know, 30, 30 minutes, or 15 minutes each way, 30 minutes around trip.

And he adds this up.

He's like, so that's like two hours in the car.

And if I have a radio, then I'd listen to it.

And then I'm spending two hours not thinking about Microsoft.

And there's all these fucking crazy stories because somebody asked the

other day, like, what's the largest foodstrap business of all time?

And Paul Graham answered Microsoft.

And people were like, Oh, they took VC.

No, no, they were printing money and they sold a million shares of Microsoft

for a million dollars to a VC.

They did not need the money right before they went public to get expertise.

That was a bootstrap business.

The year before this is in 1980 money, the year before Microsoft IPOs, they

did 140 million in revenue and 38 million profit.

That's insane, right?

He's like, and then so this extreme John Jones, the serial game thing, when

you hear about how he thinks about his fucking competitors, it's not just

enough that he needs to win.

He's like, I have to fucking destroy you.

So there's this spooky fucking, um, this spooky story that's in one of

Bill Gates biographies, number two of them.

And, uh, Bill would be able to tell you, like in the software industry, he's

like, I know the CEO of every single software company.

I know what the revenue was.

I know what their, where the product is right now.

I know everything about them.

And so they, he had a bunch of like frenemies.

He's like, I wanted to destroy you, but he would talk to you.

And a lot of them were getting customers at these early days of like these, uh,

these software, uh, conventions, which is very, like very new.

And so this guy, Philippe Kahn, that he was trying to fucking destroy, he

literally wants to put you out of business.

Cause he told his employees, like if I, if we lose a $50,000 contract, that's

not 50,000, that's a hundred thousand, because we lost 50 and our fucking

enemy got a hundred, got 50.

So you just caught $300,000.

He was like, that's psychotic about it.

And so Philippe goes over, sees Bill sitting by himself in like a foldable

chair, just looking at something.

Philippe walks up to him and he goes to say hi to Bill and he realizes

what Bill is looking at.

He's looking at a picture of Philippe Kahn.

He's in public in a fucking corner of a convention center, staring at a

fucking picture of his enemy.

Like what Joe said about John a thousand years ago, we lived at a zero

sum, if you want to build wealth, what'd you do?

Like you took their land or took their resource to somebody else.

Confer.

Yeah.

So a thousand years ago, that personality type, Bill Gates, would have been,

he would have been at a polling.

He would have been leading an army.

It just so happens that this thing personality type that is, that exists

today, has existed forever, will exist forever in the future, can run

companies and build wealth.

And when you, when you study the personalities of these people, it's

like, they're all like that.

Thank God we are living a free market economy.

Or else there'd be, they'd be pillaging and raping and doing everything else.

Well, that's why my favorite era of American history is like, um, 1890,

so that's, uh, 30 or 20 years after the civil war.

So we're, America's kind of getting back to it up until like 1920.

Because in 1920, um, like the Sherman act, which was the anti monopoly

act, uh, started coming about and then the SEC was invented.

And so between like 1890 and 1920, America was really the wild west where

we had some technology, you know, we had cars, we had, uh, I think phones

were coming about telegraph.

So we could railroads, railroads, we could, and the stock market existed.

So we could like make wealth, but there was a few things that you could do.

So for example, Andrew Carnegie and, um, uh, who's his partner, Frick, like Henry

Clay Frick, yeah, like when people would, uh, when the union workers

would boycott and protest, they killed them.

Like they, they hired a private police team and they went around a private

army and they literally beat like 10 of them to death.

And I don't think anything happened.

I don't know if anything happened.

No, because they also own the politicians.

Yeah.

And it was wild.

And then like there was a time where J.P.

Morgan loaned the US government money.

And, and then there was a time, a lot of people don't know this, but JFK,

John, John F.

Kennedy, the, uh, president, his father, Joe Kennedy was like the seventh

richest man in America at one point.

He got rich from insider trading.

Then after he was already rich, he created, or he was the first head

of the SEC that made insider trading illegal.

Like it was like hardcore crony capitalism.

That's one of the reasons why I like reading about John Rockefeller is

because of all the things he did, he was dishonest once or twice, but for

the most part, he was a ruthless competitor and he didn't lie.

And he was honest other than, uh, one big time he lied.

But besides that, he was pretty straight.

And how crazy was it that his employees net, he did like, he never, we

never heard him raise his voice and he never said an unkind word to us.

Now he's competitors, different story.

He's completely boosted us with them.

But inside of his, you're not going to find anybody that worked inside of

standard oil and then obviously they hid all the things they owned.

This is actually an idea I stole from, uh, Rockefeller, his competitors.

He wasn't really, I mean, he was ruthless, but he would go to them.

He goes, Hey, I'd like to buy you.

This is a very fair price.

Come and join me and I'll make you rich, which many did and they got rich.

And he said, if you don't join me, I'm going to destroy you.

So let me know if you, and so to me that's like, he's like, look, we can

work together or I'm going to end you.

You can pick, but he wasn't like necessarily like rude about it.

Yeah.

So the one thing he said was so badass.

He was trying to buy somebody out.

They were resisted.

He's like, I have ways to make money that you know nothing about.

He was, I always say, like, there's a, there's a very common theme that

common themes are reappearing in the history of entrepreneurship.

And so I have maximums for a bunch of these.

Like my favorite one is excellence is a capacity to take pain.

It's just like, you're not going to achieve large success without being

able to tolerate pain for extended periods of time.

Right.

Another one is bad boys move in silence.

Like they find an advantage and they shut up about it.

This is what Steve Jobs realized when he was trying to build Pixar.

He's just like, we can't get any fucking data on how profitable

because they're transitioning from selling hardware to just pure animate.

They're trying to build the first computer animated movie.

And Steve Jobs is like, I don't get why we can't get any information on this.

And then he realized he's like, oh, the reason that you can't go to the library

and check out a book that says like the business model of animation is

because there's only one company ever did a well and it's Disney

and they don't want anybody else to know how lucrative it is.

And so he realized that because they they made like Snow White

like 60 years before and right when he's doing negotiations with Pixar and Disney,

they re-released it and we're selling like VHS tapes.

And I think that they might have had DVDs at this point.

And they're like, wait a minute, you sold 28 million copies of a movie

you made 60 years ago.

That's all profit.

And they said they made a quarter billion in profit on that one movie

releasing it for the like this new technology.

And so I actually took an idea from Johnny Rockefeller.

Rob Moore plays a role in this is like what what Rockefeller would do

is like he had the secret allies, right?

And so he entered into an industry where he thought was very disorganized.

And so he wound up building relationships and allies

with all the people in the oil.

Remember, the oil business when he jumps in, it's not what we think is oil.

He was he was like refined.

It was a refiner.

He was selling kerosene for fucking like lighting and stuff.

He made he actually made more money in retirement

because after he retired, he still owned a shit ton of equity.

He goes back to Felix Dennis and then the ambition of the core.

And so now like, oh, this this my my stock is even worth more.

But what he would do is he'd go around and he'd organize all the other people

in the industry.

So like, I do this with a bunch of podcasters, like me and you just started

doing this like texting about this is just like you just share information.

Like you build secret allies and you just say, hey, this guy figured out

this for your podcast, you should use it.

And like everybody in the podcast industry is extremely positive.

So I listened to your interview with Brandon Shaw, he said the same thing

about he's like, Joe told us we have an obligation to help each other out.

And so for business podcasters, like they're all kind of like satellites

and like loosely defined.

And so me and Patrick have been going around building relationships

to people and just sharing information.

Like I was at the choir guys house in San Francisco a few weeks ago.

They're like, we get Patrick, they have one of the most profitable.

They're Ben and David who are fantastic.

I'm actually wearing their merch right now.

They have one of the most profitable podcasts and compared to audience

size and how much they make.

And they're like, well, Patrick told us that we weren't charging enough.

So we tripled our prices.

Then we and then we still sold ads and then we tripled them again.

And then it's like, holy shit, he was right.

And so that idea is like, we're no gatekeeping.

Just share information and try to help people as much as possible.

That's an idea from Rockefeller.

When you read about some of these killers, do you think they are different

than me or do you start becoming that?

Like, do you think that just surrounding yourself with them is going

to change your behavior or is it just like aliens exist and I am not them?

No, here's the thing.

We I don't know if we recording.

I like how you guys should jump right in, by the way.

So I don't I think most of our discussion was caught on the recording.

But I am very glad that I have a wife and two kids up and down.

Like, here's here's my thing.

It's like the thing that I don't like and it's very present in all these books

is like, if you're an adult, it's your job to figure it out

and like that let people take advantage of you.

Right. So if like, John De Rockfeller gives you a bad price

and for your business, you accept it, that's on you.

What I'm and you hear this on the podcast, like I'm induced

in this state of rage is when people fuck with kids.

I can't stand that.

And so up and down my family tree, like I was the first person

to graduate high school in my family, much less college.

I'm the first male in my three generations not to go to jail.

Right.

And so like up and down both sides of my family tree, I just see a lot of like

terrible parenting and this is not necessarily my parents.

They did the best they can consider both sets of their parents for shitty people.

But like, I saw drug abuse.

I saw sexual abuse.

I saw people go into jail, cocaine, all this crazy shit.

Right. And so I was like, if I'm going to have kids, I'm not going to be a shit father.

And I think the fact that I have a kid and a wife that we get along really well,

it saves me from not.

I think if I didn't have that, I would literally work from the time

my eyes open the morning till the time they close.

And I would just fucking like, I think the scary part is that I

and I try to compare myself to, you know, you can't compare myself to rock

fellas, but like.

I have a little bit of that in me, too.

And I think I hear from a ton of people listen.

They're like, I think like that, too.

The whole thing is like learning from their experience like, hey,

but they get to their life.

They're not necessarily happy, you know, like, so I don't want that.

I don't want to destroy everything around me.

Because I chased professional success.

But I think men in general, you know, type a aggressive men.

Like that's what successful people, super successful people are crazy.

Like they're not normal humans.

And it's probably one to five percent of the population that are borderline

sociopathic, you know, nothing motor people.

That's that's a little extreme, but like they're willing to do

whatever they can if you get in their way.

And so I I've been lucky that as we've it's funny that as we've I've got

more popular for like content and business shit, a lot of people in

different fields who I previously looked up to, like, for example,

a Lance Armstrong or someone like that, they'll like message me

and I'll get an opportunity to hang out with them.

And this isn't about Lance, but this is I've been lucky that it's

been a bunch of different people and I'll go and hang out with them a couple of

times. And then I think I don't want to be around you ever again.

Like and so like I don't enjoy being around them.

And so I've had a bunch of people who if you told me when I was 12

that these people want to talk to me, I'd be like, that is sick.

Now I just I'm just like, I don't like being around you.

It's actually not enjoyable being around some of these people

because it feels like I don't know exactly how it feels like.

Like it feels like we we're in a pissing match when we're with each other.

And I simply don't enjoy it.

And so now I have I have a role in my household, which is no new friends.

So I default whenever I talk to someone, I default to I'm not going to be friends

until it's like, all right, maybe after a while we can we can we can cross the

threshold. But by default, it's I don't trust you and I'm not going to let you in.

Whereas before it was like, oh, anyone who wants to holler at me.

Yeah, I'm in. And then I go and hang out with some of these ballers and these

killers. And I think, oh, this is this is a very unenjoyable hang.

You know, there's a bunch of people who maybe Ben might know who we're talking

about. But there's like a couple of people that are like some of the most

famous and successful people in the world.

And we've been lucky to hang out with them and then we'll go hang out with them

after the pod. And I'm like, oh, this is just miserable.

I don't want to be around you at all.

And so my point being is for the to what you said about the most

successful people being crazy, not only are they crazy, I don't want to be around

them. It's not fun. They're not fun to be around.

And so you really see that there is a price to pay, which is you are in the

one percentile or 99 percentile of this of these other traits, which usually

not always means you're going to be lacking in a handful of other traits.

And sometimes that's like, whatever the traits are of you wanting to be near

someone, I guess, like physically and hanging out with someone.

That's my big everybody's like, OK, like, are you doing all this?

Are you going to run like the next Apple?

Like, what are you doing this for?

And I'm like, no, like the 300 people that I've studied, the person

that I want to be the most like is the closest person

that I've studied and read about that has come to mastering life is a guy

named Ed Thorpe. Right. And so it's up. Who's he?

So this is a fucking crazy story.

So it's episode 222.

And the crazy thing is like, usually the episode titles are just the book I read.

Right. This says my personal blueprint.

Right. And because what he did is like, first of all, he's a

Ed Thorpe is one of he was the guy that made the first quantitative hedge fund.

Right. The reason I liked him is because what I think you were talking about earlier,

like you have buried interests, right, where you need a balance

because I've also heard you speak enough for him.

Like, OK, he's clearly Taipei and driven.

And like, if you didn't have your wife or you didn't have these other things,

I could also see you go and not sociopathic, but like, you know,

no limit to the kind of empire you want to build.

You have a chip on her shoulders is like all of them.

I do too. So I see that.

Ed Thorpe essentially like what he does, like he made a ton of money

as a quantitative investor. Right.

But once he had more money, like he didn't need to worry about money anymore.

He refused to trade time to make more money because he understood

he's like more money's not going to make me happy.

But by time is limited.

He was a good father.

He was a good husband.

He was he followed his own intellectual interests like he had fun.

He Tim Ferriss just interviewed him.

And I would highly recommend going to YouTube and just type in Tim Ferriss at

Thorpe and look at that guy's picture and tell me how old you think he is.

I've done this a bunch.

I did it with my wife.

I go, how old do you think he is?

She's I don't know, 65.

He's fucking 90 because he learned when he was really young that physical

fitness was really important.

And so he gave me the best heuristic health.

He goes, I view every hour in the gym as one less day.

I'll spend in the hospital at the end of my life.

And the guy's still doing like pull-ups.

He looks fucking fantastic.

Right. He's like not.

I think it might be like 92.

Um, and so this whole balance of like your friend Ryan Holiday.

Actually, I learned this from his content was like, what it means to be a

completed human we've known that forever.

We just get distracted.

It's like, you want work that has meaning.

You want good relationships.

You want to have fun and you want to make sure that your body's healthy.

You should feel good.

That's it.

There isn't anything else.

I love what you just said, because the same thing, when you have a successful

podcast, you get hit up on all kinds of fucking crazy experiences, which is actually,

you know, huge benefit, but it's like, man, I'm not going to build a thousand

relationships that are like an inch deep.

I just talked to the same people over and over and over and over again.

It's like, you have a limited amount of people.

You could actually be friends with and yet we're all connected.

So we're like, we're hugely distracted.

So I was like, okay, I'm not smart as a door.

He's way smarter than me.

So I'll just fucking copy his blueprint.

I'll write that down.

I'll be a good father.

I'll be a good husband.

I'll take care of my health.

I'll have work that I'm really fucking obsessed with, but I picked guardrails on.

Right.

And like, I'm not going to keep trading money or time, which I'm going to run out

of for more money when I'm not even spending the money I have.

I want to, um, I want to ask you some more questions about history, but a story

really quick, I have a friend who's 40 low forties worth a billion dollars, um,

has a publicly traded company and he was telling me the story about how he had

this phrase called, it's never enough.

And he was telling me a story about how he went to one guy's home who was worth

50 million and the guy was complaining about how he lives in this fancy

neighborhood and he can't, his home is his $6 million home is less good than

is worse than the other people in the neighborhood.

Then he's like, I went to another guy who's worth like half a billion.

And he was saying like, yeah, but you know what?

I don't have a super yacht.

And then there was another guy who had like one or two billion and this guy was

complaining, he's like, can't get a sports team though.

It's not enough.

And so I don't want to be around people.

I think you hit it.

Don't be like, I don't want to be around people like that.

It's never enough.

And that's what I've also learned because like, I've thought that when I've

hit certain points, I'm like, well, I won't want anymore.

It's you always want more.

And it's a very challenging thing.

It doesn't have to be that way though.

I had the advantage because like this is the crazy thing about podcasts.

You just said like you never know who's listening.

So I got invited to have a two hour lunch with Sam's though, right.

And that's fucking crazy.

It came inbound.

Sam had listened to the podcast I made on his autobiography and he's like, I

want to meet that guy.

So Sam Zell, Sam Zell is a real estate guy.

He's got a great book called, uh, am I being loud enough or am I being

subtle or am I being subtle enough?

Yeah.

Am I being subtle enough?

He's, uh, he's probably close to 90 now.

He's kind of, he's kind of got this blue collar ish vibe about him, but he's

worth probably five or $10 billion, something like that.

He owned, uh, uh, all these real estate things.

He created the REIT, I think then he like owned Schwinn bicycles.

He owned the LA times, I think, or the Tribune, something like that.

So he's like a, a tycoon.

He, so you're, and you'd fucking love him.

So he's 81 years old.

He sold his, his real estate company for $30 billion to Black Roark or Blackstone.

I don't fucking know.

You know, they're all being the same.

And so, you know, who the fuck, how, how often do you get to meet somebody

that sells their company for $40 billion?

And I couldn't believe it was going to happen.

I thought it was like, Oh, like, this isn't really happening.

And I was like, Oh, maybe it's going to be like a lunch I'm invited to.

And there's like 20 people there.

It's like, Oh, he sat eye to eye for two fucking hours and he's not like that.

You would, the reason I, I got back after the lunch and I told my wife,

I go, I want that, I want that.

I want to be 81 years old, completely still, unbelievably curious about

the world around him, still doing deals, doesn't give a fuck.

He's not one of these like media trade guys, right?

He only wears blue jeans, I think he invented.

He takes credit.

He's like, I invented business casual.

I'm like, Sam, I don't know if you should invent this schedule.

It was fucking hilarious that you would say that you invented business

casual, will not wear a suit, still rides a motorcycle.

Still, I think smoked weed, it's fucking crazy.

But the thing, the advice that he gave me, he's like, David, he's like,

the richer you get, what you realize is one, he goes, you'd be shocked at

how many rich guys I know that aren't having fun, which is describing

exactly what you're saying.

You go to their house and they're talking about other people or what

other people have.

I'd run the other truck away.

Sam didn't talk about that.

He goes, listen, he goes money.

He's like, there's very few true luxuries in life.

The richer he got, he's like, then I just kept just buying nicer of the

same shit.

So I'd buy a house, then I buy, get richer, then buy another house.

Like this was fucking stupid.

So he's like, I basically own nothing.

He has a place in Chicago and he has a compound in Malibu.

That's his words, by the way, he's like, I have a compound in Malibu.

He's like, he's like, the advice he gave me over and over again, he said

five or six times over two hours.

He's like, optimized for freedom.

If you get freedom, you get to choose what you do and then you'll have fun.

And if you have fun, you'd be really good at it and the money will come.

But do not give up your freedom for money, which so many rich dudes do.

It's fucking crazy.

And then he goes, the one thing he's like, none of that shit matters.

I could buy everything I want.

He goes, I rent a bunch of shit, which reminded me of you, because I know

you fucking hate owning a house.

And so I like renting.

Yeah.

He's like, don't own a bunch of shit.

Just rent it when you need it.

Like, because if you own it, then you got to take care of it.

This is advice from fucking the guy that, you know, obviously own assets.

He was buying, he's still buying a ton of businesses.

The day before I saw him, he's like, he's dude, he's 81.

He just, his eyes lit up.

He's like, I just spent $300 million, buying 75% of this company makes

$50 million a year or some shit.

Like he's just loves the deal.

He's like, I'm going to be doing deals.

So I died just because he likes the game.

He's like, he treats it like a game, but he's like, there's only one

true luxury in life.

He goes, try to get the private jet money.

Really?

What was it like meeting Charlie Munger?

So that was fucking crazy too.

Um, and again, because like Andrew and his partner, Chris, um, it was

fascinating because, uh, I heard your podcast where you guys had met Chris

and spent time with them.

Um, and I got to have the, the, the, the few hours before we had dinner

with Charlie Munger, I had like a super long lunch one on one with Chris.

And that dude is fascinating.

I wonder if he'd ever come on your podcast.

I'm going to hang out with him tonight.

I want to be with him tonight.

Okay.

Yeah.

Like you should, I know he's more private.

He's another guy where I think he knows, like one of the things I loved

about Chris now is he's wicked smart, but one of the things I thought was so

cool is like he showed me his calendar when we had lunch.

He's like, look at my calendar.

It's like every day at three o'clock, I'm picking mine.

I think it's his son, his son up from school.

Like he's not going to be, you know, he's like, obviously rich and successful.

We'll continue to be more rich and more successful as he carries on.

Um, but he's not doing it at the detriment of being a shitty dad, which is

like, I admire a lot.

I fucking hate shitty dads.

So what was Munger like?

He was, he was present.

So Munger was, uh, he has this line where he's like, Oh, I didn't succeed in life

because of intelligence.

I succeeded because of a long attention span.

Definitely has a long attention span, but that dude is way smarter than me.

Like if anybody's even, even at 98 or what, how does he 95?

So he's 99.

Anybody is going to have, uh, some level of cognitive decline at 99.

And so all I could think about is like, if that is who he is at 99, imagine

trying to compete with that dude 30 years ago.

What was his house like?

I had to be careful because I got into a little bit of like, they want me to keep

some of that stuff private.

So like, I can't answer that question.

Was it fancy?

Was it, uh, was it as you'd expect, which is very, very, very nice.

No, he lit.

He's very authentic.

He, if you read Munger and talk about Munger, he's like, Hey, don't have a

lot of silly needs in your life.

Uh, his whole thing is like, I truly believe that he just wanted to show what

he could do with his brain so he could make a ton of money with his mind

because he's really smart.

He like, where's like, you know, he loves flannel in your, in your picture.

I think like flannel from Amazon.

So the Costco, like his, one of his favorite entrepreneurs, Jim

Senegal, I love a lot too.

And one of his favorite companies, Jim Senegal, or it's Costco because of

that Costco could have made more money, but pass the benefit of their group

buying onto the customer.

And so Charlie is who he says he is.

He's like, he's not, doesn't have fancy watch, doesn't have fancy clothes.

He just buys books as far as I can tell and talks to interesting people and

makes a ton of money, but he's not in it for the money.

He just wanted, he's in it.

He says, he's like, I didn't want the Ferraris.

I wanted the independence.

Who all that you've, so besides Ed Thorpe, who all have you, who have you

listened to or spoken about that you think is like in your top five people of

like, they will conquer the world if given the chance.

Like they are, they are the top, they are the 1% of the 1%.

I mean, I think the selection here is that every single person is in the top,

you know, 0.0001% because you're, to get on founders, you have to

libelize from a book about it.

What I would say is like, I just got done reading James Dyson's autobiography

for the fourth time.

And it is my number one book recommendation by far for entrepreneurs.

And he's written two autobiographies.

The second one's fine.

There's nothing wrong with that.

I'm done with the first one because the first one he writes after 14 years of struggle.

Like what I admire so much about this guy is like, he's not necessarily like a

conqueror in a sense, like he's going to go around.

I don't think he'd be like an Napoleon in other times.

But what I love is like my favorite doctor, nurse or very adamant about what

they want to do in life and how they want to run their business.

It's not formulaic.

They're not going around asking people advice like, what do you think I should do?

What do my product look like?

What is, how should I run the business?

Like, no, I have a very set mindset of like how I want to build the product, how

I want to build my business, how I want to, to like spend my time.

You know what I call that?

I call that they bend reality to their, to their will.

You know, they kick their dent in the universe.

That's what I always call that.

I'm like, they know what they want and they bent reality to fit what they wanted.

Read that, dude, you can read his autobiography in a weekend.

It'll fucking blow your mind because it's like, why is this guy not quitting?

Well, what is, what is happening here?

He's barring, he's got two mortgages on every single house.

He's got these crying at the end of the night.

Everything is going to be successful and he just won't quit.

And what happens is like, you fast forward now, James Dyson is 75 years old.

He owns 100% of Dyson company.

He's like, you know, one, that company's probably worth $20 billion.

It makes supposedly, you know, a couple of billion a year for profit for his family.

That like they take out of the company.

What I love is, um, he, the company he owned before Dyson vacuums, it was this

thing called a ballbarrow, which looks like a wheelbarrow with a ball at the front.

And he goes and rents, uh, does a photo shoot for the ballbarrow at this like

massive estate that has been in England for like 300 years.

25 years later, he buys it.

He's like, this is my shit now.

Like, dude, I've talked to a lot of people who love that book.

One thing that, one thing.

So I remember like, when I've just got started in my career, I was like

firmly in the, in the field of like, I'm going to pull myself up from my bootstraps

and I'm going to, I'm going to make this into existence.

And then I remember when we were selling our company and everything got done.

And that was the first time in my life where I thought luck is so important.

And even though I, I think I'm a badass and that I would, and I think that I

could will myself to a very, I think I could will myself to a really nice

amount of success, but in order to have the Uber success, which we'll describe

as like liquid hundreds of millions of dollars, there's lots of people who are

these types of killers who do have these attributes attributes, but one or two

things both in their control and out of their control went wrong or right.

And that can absolutely change things.

Like it could be like, like, you know, John Rockefeller didn't know that a

car was going to be invented or like with, with Zuckerberg, like he would

have kicked ass no matter what, but it just so happened that like the phone

came out and that like has helped a ton or, you know, someone like, you know,

I'm sure we've seen a lot of fortunes get created during a pandemic.

Like luck is real.

Like when we sold our company and that was my first big win, the CEO, Brian,

got into a nearly fatal accident afterwards.

And I'm like, dude, if that happens like four weeks prior, I don't know if

this would have gone through and I still think I will be very successful.

But imagine if I was selling my company for a billion or two billion dollars

and the CEO, the buyer got killed or quit.

Do you think that with these guys, luck is real?

Of course. You said something great on the acquired podcast.

You're like, I've met a lot of these guys.

It's like they're 20 times richer, but they're not 20 times smarter.

Yeah.

And a lot of Rockefeller is a great example, right?

Like, so the best way to describe it is like moderate level success.

Like, you know, you could probably get to tens of millions of dollars a

net worth. That's like playing poker, right?

It's like that's a skill set you can get.

But like to like Jeff Bezos, like the funniest thing I had dinner last night

with two founders was like, you guys know that Jeff Bezos was a private jet,

has a private jet, like he takes off and there's another one.

Like that level of shit, like there's so many things I got to break.

The idea is like he knew he was going to do everything.

Why does he have a second private jet?

I'd love to ask him. I don't know.

Like, so you know how this is like people track private jets now?

Some YouTuber made a video and they notice that every time Jeff's

playing, maybe it's like the people who does one on his plane.

I don't know.

Well, like there's a jet that follows his other jet around.

And like it's somebody put all this together from public information.

So that level of success, like he knew, OK, the internet's growing.

The everything store was a code name in the hedge fund.

He, for Amazon, they were going to incubate it in the hedge fund.

He was working for David Shaw, a billionaire hedge fund guy in New York.

And so he knew it was like we could sell books and then he also knew he could sell

all those things, but likely.

But he didn't know he could invent AWS.

Like there was no like all that stuff that happens.

Rockefeller's a great example.

Bezos, when he pitched the first investors,

he goes, I think this can make a hundred million dollars a year for Lucky.

Yeah, he he took him 50 meetings for venture

capitalist to get his first million dollars.

And he said the most common question he's asked is, what is the internet?

Yeah, he's a fucking sad.

He is the closest to me.

Bezos reminds me so much of Rockefeller.

Like if you read Bezos, his shareholder letters are excellent

because he's telling you what he's just like the Arnold books that I recommended earlier.

Arnold says, this is my blueprint.

This is what I'm going to do.

He calls a shot and then he goes and does it.

Bezos does the same thing.

But the Rockefeller 20 times richer, but not 20 times smarter thing.

I think it's obviously you're talking about randomness.

You're talking about luck.

Rockefeller was going to be successful no matter what.

Like the business he was in, as you know, it's like he was.

They were wholesaling like produce and other stuff, right?

They were just traders.

And one thing that he did that I think is really smart is like he's work.

He's like 19 years old, working for two founders.

He's he's just an employee.

He goes back and read all of their books, goes back and studies their entire

company history, memorizes all the finances, everything, and then knew more

about the business and the founder said, like that kind of personality is going

to win wherever he's going to go.

Now, he could have stayed in that business and made millions of dollars.

Is he going to build the arguably the most successful company of all time?

If it wasn't for the random discovery of oil.

No, like he didn't control the fact that he was in the what I always say in the

podcast, it's like you find these people that the right right person.

Right set of skills at the right place at right time.

If you're missing any of those, you're not going to build, you know, a

trillion dollar company or, you know, 200 million or 200 billion

dollar net worth, you need things to break through for you that are outside of your.

What do you think you're going to do next?

Like, where, you know, where, what's your blueprint for 10 years?

OK, so this is where I start talking reckless because I am probably the most

optimistic person in terms of like how good of a business podcasting can be.

And I start talking crazy.

And then I have some friends that have built giant businesses on the back of podcast.

I was at dinner with them last week and they literally pulled me to the side

and they're like, shut the fuck up, stop telling people all this shit.

So what's an example of a great business on the back of a.

I'll tell you, I'll tell you off.

I can't like there's there's OK.

So there's one that I don't have any intimate knowledge on.

I can give you an example of that because there's some of that have intimate knowledge.

So I'm not sure what I know is that to be public and adult, but like ButcherBox

Bootstrap, $500 million of revenue, largely expanded from podcasting.

And there's a ton of those industry buying podcast ads.

Yes, got it.

Yes. And then look at this is something I actually learned on your podcast,

which I think you guys do an excellent job with was when you guys were talking

about how Unilever came and bought on it. Right.

Yeah, I didn't I didn't know that happened.

I knew about on it and knew about Joe.

I knew he owned like 30 percent rumored to be owned 30 percent of the company.

But they were like Joe has a ton of ad slots, just that one ad slot that he randomly put in.

He probably added just on the ad slot.

I don't know, seventy five million dollars, like depending on what the actual purchase price was.

Joe. So this idea is like I start talking shit where like people like

everybody knows because of Mr. Beast thing.

Oh, yeah, there's going to be.

I could see why there's going to be like some billionaire YouTubers, right?

Like that I think that is obvious now, given where Mr.

Beast highly likely that dude, unless he dies, he's going to hit that.

My point is it's like that's the deep relationship people have

with podcasters is not comparable to the relationship they have with YouTubers.

It's not at all comparable.

And this is not at all new.

What like what anything that what do you mean people are deeply are more

they like podcasters more like there's more affinity.

It's so do you know Blake Robbins from he's at Benchmark?

No, he has this.

OK, so he'd be actually somebody interested in doctor.

He's the one that gave me the spectrum idea.

He's helped incubate what's the what's the professional

called duty team, 100 thieves or 40 thieves.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I know, I know you mean they went from zero

to like 80 million revenue.

I think like 18 months or some shit like this.

So the HR was developed an audience on, you know, Twitch streaming.

And so so Blake has a spectrum and this comes to you.

Like there's people out there that have heard you and Sean talk

way more than they've heard their best friend's voice.

There's a ton.

Yeah, because when they when they put the headphones in,

it's just us and them and it's usually for 50 or an hour minutes,

you know, 60 minutes at a time.

Whereas a YouTube video, it's maybe eight.

I've heard you talk for 100 hours.

Like so we've text exchange investors in line, but never talk in person.

I was like, oh, I fucking know the same.

Like I know what he's into.

We have the same interests.

Like I think we'll be able to talk about a bunch of shit, a bunch of shit.

Right. So his whole point is like on the spectrum is like, how much

do people how much time do people spend with you?

He's like on the far end, all the way to the left is like TikTok dancers.

Right. TikTok dancers, you know, they might have millions,

millions of followers, but they spent 30 seconds.

And if they try to like sell tickets, they can't even fill a room

with like 3000 people, even if there's thousands, you know, millions of

followers on the far end of the spectrum, all the way to the right is Twitch

streamers. People spend literally 40 hours a week with their favorite

Twitch streamer, right, or 30 hours a week or 20 hours.

He goes, David, podcasting you, you're just one, one, one step towards the left.

He goes, there's going to be people who have listened to you

speak for hundreds of hours.

Right.

And that parasocial relationship is unbelievably deep and comprehensive to

like you saw this, I saw people had said that you're doing a public

meetup, I think in Austin, right?

And or a show and there's people flying in from fucking Dubai.

Yeah, it's crazy, right?

Okay. So think about that.

Like they're not flying into Dubai to watch like a TikTok dancer.

They're not flying in and your podcast is technically a business.

You have all this other stuff you could do.

It's like, how many brands do people identify with so much that they'll

fly across the world?

I just did this.

I'm introverted as fuck, right?

Yeah.

You seem like it.

Yeah.

So yeah, or you see like one on one.

Yeah, but on one on one, but with groups, I hate it.

So, uh, Shane Parrish from Knowledge Project Burnish Street was in Miami.

He's like, dude, let's do a public meetup.

I'm like, oh, fuck.

And I agree just because he's did it.

How many people came?

Uh, like 70, like I think around like 70 people came.

It's awkward, right?

It's not awkward.

Uh, I don't think I'd do it again, but like this is the thing.

Like the only thing I did to promote it, Shane was supposed to set it out to

his newsletter and never did.

Thanks, Shane.

But, um, I just made like this one minute.

I was like in like five days before the event or something.

I uploaded to my podcast.

I was like, Hey, you happen to be in Miami area.

We're going to do this.

Here's where we're going to be.

And like, I'm like, all right, there's no, like my audience is in like, you know,

California, New York.

There's like, Miami's not like the spot for it.

People flew down from New York, Washington DC, drove for hours.

And I'm like, what are you in town for?

Like this.

I'm like, why?

Like, what are you talking about?

And so it's this deep level relationship.

So here's your question.

Like my 10 year plan is this, like, I'm going to be making podcasts till I fucking

die. I love doing it.

It's the best job in the world.

I think Sean tweeted out something that he's like podcasting is the best job in

the world.

It's like, you get to be curious to learn all the time and then you package up

what you learned and you send it out to the world and all this good benefit

comes back to you, you know, relationships, investment opportunities,

businesses, you can launch whatever it is.

Um, and so I'm just going to run the same playbook that like Rockefeller does.

Like right now you scale with ads, people pay a very hot dollar amount

because your audience is valuable.

Yeah.

And thank you for, uh, for promoting Hampton, uh, on your part of that.

That was more than my first car, buddy.

That's for free.

I, I appreciate that.

Hey, I look, hopefully you get more, hopefully you get, uh, more than enough

value in this way.

That's, that's, that's a perfect example.

I did it.

You wouldn't, you didn't have to ask me to do that because I got so much value

from you.

The weird thing that you probably experienced too, that this is a

people, dude, the conversation you have with podcasters, you can, if you're not

on this side, you don't understand a listener does not understand the shit

that like why every single person you talk to that's podcaster has a successful

podcast is like, I'm never fucking not going to quit.

Like I'm never not going to do this.

This thing is, it's like magic.

Um, and so when, when I was a dude, I think Hampton, first of all, is a

great idea because, um, entrepreneurs have to be around other entrepreneurs.

Like we do not think like anybody else, you go to, you're going to have, you said

you're going to have a family.

Once you started having kids, you go to these birthday parties and then you're

back into your outside of your bubble.

And now you're in like random distribution of people.

And every time I'm like, where's the, where's the lunch for you in the room?

And it was not a treat.

I got a leaf.

Like you have to be around them.

Paul Graham has that great line where he's like ambitious people are star to be

around other ambitious people.

If you put them together, they bloom like dying plants with water, which is exactly

what you're doing with Hampton.

The funny thing is like, Oh, thanks for doing that.

I was like, no, no, thank you for making your fucking podcasts.

I said, every day I get messages like, thank you for doing it.

I was like, dude, if you didn't listen, like I get to read books for a living.

I need to be thanking you.

So that's the power of podcasts.

So the answer question is like, I'm going to vertically integrate.

Um, what, what's that mean?

So like by next year at this time, um, like you're not going to be, no one's

going to be able to buy an adult founders, right?

Um, so, and this is the crazy thing about having a podcast.

So like you have all you hit on it.

You're like, uh, super successful.

People read all the time.

Um, they also listen to business podcasts all the time and you were able to

build relationships with them where like, uh, I just met, like, you know,

you said, well, when I talked to Chris and Andrew, I was like, you guys can

advertise for as long as you want, but eventually like what you, I think ideally

is like, find a business.

You guys buy businesses for a living.

You hire managers for a living, like we'll partner up on distribution as opposed

to like just doing an ad.

Uh, you have people like Patrick Ashonis from invest like the best, like

literally saying, Hey, uh, whether we have to buy a company, we scale it, or

we incubate a company, like basically he's like, we need to found, we need to

find founders version of Tigis.

Right.

And what does that mean?

This is something that I think is public now.

So I don't think I'll get in trouble for saying this.

I've heard about this.

You know, I can say it so you can, you don't get in trouble if you want.

So this is just rumors.

So here, let me tell you the rumors that I heard.

So there's this company and you can let me know.

So this way you won't get in trouble for revealing anything.

Tigis is a company where I think what they do is if you wanted to talk to an

expert, you pay the money and they connect you with an expert, but they

record all the conversations and transcribe them.

And so instead of paying money to talk to an expert, you could just read the

transcriptions they had with any other, the experts, whatever.

I heard that they advertised on Patrick Ashonis podcast and he saw how good

it was going and he goes, screw this, I want some type of equity and I'll

invest a little bit, but I want to add a sweetheart deal.

And it was a sweetheart deal and he continued sending them tons of

customers to the point where his equity holding in the company has been

worth, is worth tens of millions of dollars.

Is that roughly accurate?

So I don't know the prices.

I know he says this publicly.

He put 20 million into his company.

He's got a giant fund too.

Um, my point is like, I don't know the valuations.

I, I'm sure if I asked Patrick, he would tell me, but you know, some of my

business, um, my point is that like, okay, Michael Elnick, who's a co-founder

of Teague's, the CEO and a fucking savage.

Like he is, he is like the guys we study, right?

I was, we, we talked, I was talking to him one time and, um, he was just telling

me like, oh, like, what do you do?

Like decompress like you're in a suit.

Like he's building an incredibly valuable company.

He's got a like, and he's completely dedicated to it.

And him and his brother both ran track of Brown.

So like they blow off stress by like running like Phil Knight did in Nike.

And then you ask him, he's like, Oh, so like, how much

do you work?

He's like, Oh, no, I take time off.

Like, I think Saturday morning's off.

And it's like, let's hit.

Oh, Saturday morning.

So he's on it.

I love his intensity, but he said he's just like one, one podcast.

They only advertised they had their first few customers from like, you know,

word of mouth of their network, but you know, the first probably 50 to $60

million of revenue, whatever it is, like Patrick's podcast, because of

who's in his audience, help them scale.

And as a result, like, then there's just a release, there's a million

things you could do.

So in Patrick's case, he's running a fund, like you can do equity.

Um, I'm not an investor.

You said the other day when you were talking to, um, came over here, you

were interviewing, like, you don't like investing in people's companies.

Like you want to like build your own shit.

I'm investing doesn't entirely give me a dopamine rush.

Like I'm, I'm in the game for adventure and that, and I'm searching

like, uh, like a little bit of a rush and I find it to be very so boring.

You give someone money and you don't hear from them for six years.

I'm the same way.

I'm like, I'm not interested.

I get so much deal flow.

Like, Hey, do you want to angel best?

I'm like, no, like, why?

I would just like do my own shit.

And people say I'm stupid.

I'm doing that.

And they have to understand.

It's like, I'm not also running my life to maximize for most dollars, mate.

Like that doesn't make any, like if we talk about learning is not just

memorizing information, changing behavior, how many fucking times you

get to these super rich people that do things they don't like for money and

then get money and they wonder why they're not happy anymore.

All that matters is how you spend your time.

So what's going to be your Tegus though?

What's going to be your product?

I don't know what that's the thing is like, we are having conversation

with two founders about this last night.

The good thing is, is like, we have some ideas.

Obviously, like we'll show that when time comes.

But like, I have all these really smart, successful people that like the

podcast that won out, you know, like Andrew and Chris, a tiny.

I just met with their EIR.

I think they have more than one, but I just had a conversation with their EIR.

Um, uh, Patrick's trying to help me.

The guy that connected me with Sam Zell, he's got like $20

billion of assets under management.

He's just like, well, we can fucking buy a company.

We can do whatever you want.

You know, he's also has investments to some companies to scale up podcasting.

So he understands power and he just likes the product.

So the point being is like, that's where I'm going, but I'm not doing it for money.

I'm doing it because I'm completely obsessed with podcasting.

I think it's a miracle.

Like when I say I start talking to you about podcasts, I'm like, podcasting is

fucking, uh, it's, to me, it's like the printing press for the spoken word.

It's like as big a revolution as Gutenberg's fucking printing press.

And it's just like, it's on demand audio that you can educate yourself anytime

you want all over the world.

That's fucking crazy.

They didn't exist when you and I were kids.

It didn't exist.

I had to fucking walk.

I remember like being obsessed with talk radio and just having to listen to

whatever was on the three or four dials at the time it was on.

And then they go from that to like streaming it in the browser.

I remember when that happened, I was a fucking grown man.

I was like, Oh, this is amazing.

And then when my friend Eric's like, Oh no, you can listen to Joe's podcast.

Anytime you want to like, what the fuck did you just say?

What the fuck did you just say?

That's crazy.

And I think about that, like if somebody like this is a young kid.

So me and you both know Michael Seekin.

Who's Michael Seekin from our future?

Oh, oh, yeah.

Dude, he's in my phone as Michael Future.

And I never referred to him as Seekin, his last name.

Never. I was like Seekin.

I don't know if I'm pronouncing it correctly.

Dude, he's at my house.

He's at my house like twice a week and I just call Michael Future.

I like it's crazy.

I love how arrogant.

Dude, I had a guy in my wedding and I didn't even I barely even do how to say

is I didn't even know his last name.

I just I just called him C Ava Russia.

I love Michael's confidence.

And my point being is like, imagine being, you know, 20, 20, because he would

call DM both me and you.

And yeah, he's really good at it.

He sent me a DM.

He's like, Hey, I love your podcast.

It took an idea that I got for your podcast, made a video about it.

And it got 10 million views.

Can we talk? I go, you did what?

What the fuck are you talking about?

It's an impossible message not to dude.

I always tell him he's at my house all the time and like, I'm not old.

I'm 33, but he's 23.

I mean, he, whatever he's first job in college, he'll come young and he'll come

over and me and Sarah will be like, Michael, just tell me what's what are

the young kids doing nowadays?

And he'll literally just sit there for two hours and just tell Sarah and I

like all these phrases and words and I'm just, I'll just listen.

I don't even say a thing.

I just say, just talk, just tell me like what's up with young people in these

like, we'll just tell me and I'll ask him about his dating life.

He just taught. And so I always try to, this sounds always weird whenever I

say this, I always try to surround myself with young, like younger people.

And I'm like, just tell me, I just want to listen.

Just tell me what's going on.

And he always does that to me.

He's like, you, you treat it at a one time.

He says, I'm like, oh, what are you going to be doing in 10 years?

I'm going to be landing my helicopter on your lawn or something.

But like, I love his confidence because like you at the beginning,

he goes, I got some really bad news today.

Just got back from the chiropractor.

They said that the chip on my shoulder is permanent.

He actually gave me a really good book record.

She texted me yesterday that I'd never had found.

It's like all these like, which one was it?

The ones that I'm obsessed with the history of the American West

and like all that personality type that's like, oh, no, fuck these coasts.

I'm going to go across and do this crazy journey.

It was the one where my Philip Anschwitz or the guy who owns

the biggest ticketing company in the world or something.

It's called like A-W-E, whatever it is.

It's like one that every everyone knows.

I think they own Ticketmaster, I think something like that.

Whatever.

Lakers and the Coachella, he says, I don't know if that's true.

But yeah, I don't.

I'll wear the West begins.

Yeah. And they own Coachella.

Anyway, this guy, Philip, a lot of people don't know this.

It only has 10 reviews on Amazon, this 80 year old, 20 billion dollar guy.

He has a book about the West.

Yeah. And I already ordered it.

The reason I brought up Michael, though, is because one,

I think it's smart to be like, I think we have an epidemic of people

that don't believe in themselves.

People think we have an epidemic of arrogance.

I believe the complete opposite.

It's like there's so many more people that can create businesses

because like the best description of what a business came from Richard Branson.

I've ever heard came from Richard Branson.

He goes, a business is just an idea that makes somebody else's life better.

And if you look at it from there, like there's limitless opportunity.

And so to have the belief that you can do that, something that pops up

these books all the time is that belief comes before a building.

But society wants you to show me that you show prove that you should have

your confidence to serve.

It's like, no, no, you don't actually understand.

It's like the belief comes before the building.

And that's why a lot of people were like amongst my entrepreneurial friends.

They watched the Billy McFarland Fire Festival documentary

and they were like, yeah, he did the wrong things, but it almost worked.

And the reason why like a lot of my entrepreneurial friends were like,

were like, oh, forgiving of him was it's like, yeah, but I've been there.

I've faked it until I made it type of vibe.

And like, because I remember I did this for my conferences, too.

I would kind of fib.

I would tell these 15 speakers individually.

The other 14 had already confirmed, which they hadn't.

And luckily I got them all to confirm and it worked out.

So it wasn't and it didn't end up being a lie.

But there's like so many examples where I promised something that wasn't real.

Where I'm like, oh, shit, I got I hope I can deliver on these things.

You know, that happens a lot.

The point I was making with Michael, though, is imagine being his age, right?

And being able to listen to every single episode of my first million,

every single episode of founders or what are how to take over the world.

We've got to give Ben a shot out because fucking I think what he's doing is incredible.

And like, for example, I was like, dude, you should just make as many

episodes as possible because like you have missed you have Sam Parr saying your

shit is really good, right, which is fucking incredible.

And you have Mr. Beast, literally the biggest creator on the fucking Internet

saying only listen to one podcast.

So I hope that like lights up a fire under Ben as well.

But like just see a built like I would kill.

I would have fucking killed.

That's why I think podcast is a miracle.

I don't want to do anything else.

Let's say I never launched any businesses to ensure tenure plan,

which I don't see how it's even possible because there's a ton of entrepreneurs

I know that like want to partner on these things.

But even if I just made podcasts and I just continue to grow the audience

and I just made money on ad revenue, like whatever, I fucking.

That's that's plenty fine for me.

That's the way I like to live my life.

Do you ever read you ever heard Chuck Eager?

Chuck, is that the guy who broke the somber?

Yes. So the fucking crazy thing is the miracle of books is like you never know.

Like when you're going to read some random sentence that you never everyone loves

that guy's book, all these people love his book.

So I didn't know who the fuck he was.

I kept noticing this this old guy on Twitter in a in a pilot suit talking

hell of shit, like unfiltered.

I fucking love these people that like really talk who they are.

They're authentic.

And I read his book.

It turns out he fucking it sold like five million copies.

The first year came out in the eighties.

Like it's one of the most successful autobiographies of all time.

Well, he was famous back then when he did that.

He I think he broke the sound barrier.

Is that right?

So he broke two or something.

He was the first pilot to break the sound barrier.

And I think he was the first pilot to become ace in a day in World War Two.

He's like, I love killing Nazis.

He says like one of my favorite things to do is kill Nazis.

And so yeah, he there's a great line in his book where he's like from this.

This is what I also love.

It's like great can come from anywhere.

He lived in like this rural.

Um, what's that area in West Virginia?

It's like Appalachian where there's like, yeah, yeah, yeah.

So he lived in like the Appalachians completely like isolated, right?

And so he describes the way he describes in his book about killing all these

Nazis, he he shot down five to become an ace in a day at the shootout of five

enemy planes.

And he goes, the Nazis came up into the skies and they met a goddamn

West Virginia buzzsaw is the way he described himself.

But he gave me another blueprint.

Let me see if I can get the quote exactly right.

This is the magic of having read wise too, because I can just think of

something and pull it up immediately.

It's like a giant search engine for everything I've read.

Um, and he gave me this idea where it's like, it's how you and I should avoid

what you just described.

You get around all these rich guys.

They never, it's never enough.

They don't seem to be enjoying life, which is what's the point of being rich at

that point.

Um, they, it seems to be surprising to them that they're not enjoying life

because they don't actually like what they do day to day, but they make a

deal with how to money.

So why the fuck, how the fuck could you take one third of your life?

It's going to be spent working, right?

You hate what you do.

You think, how is it possible?

Do you think you're going to get your end of your life and like your life?

It's impossible.

And so he says, he goes, I wasn't a deep sophisticated person, but I live

by a basic principle.

I did only what I enjoy and he was the part.

If I wouldn't let anyone derail me by promises of power or money into doing

things that weren't interesting to me.

And so it took me years.

Isn't that funny how that's like, business people say it, pilots say it.

It doesn't matter.

Like people, a lot of people who I talked to, they, they asked me what my

pot is, if it's all about business.

I'm like, not really, because like, I don't give a shit if you're an artist.

As long as you're like kicking ass and you've like defined what success is

and you've achieved it, I think that's, I think that's dope.

It's all the same personality type just applied to different things.

Like I could show you this.

I don't know if you can see on the camera, but like, this is one of my

favorite dudes.

He's my fucking watch.

His name is Ernest Shackleton.

I love reading about Polar Explores.

I like reading about athletes.

That's the best book I've read in probably three years.

Endurance.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's excellent.

I love, I'm going to make a shirt and I might sell it, but I'll just make it for

myself with that fucking picture where he's just like covered in snow and

looking like shit.

And I love the fact that he came up with his own motto, buy endurance, we conquer.

And he's like, we're just going to win because we're never going to quit.

And I think that could be applied to everything that you fucking do, assuming

that you like to do it.

But, um, yeah, I think Chuck Ears is smart.

We're like, so many people buying to this, this, I feel prestige is a myth.

Right.

Where they're like, I'm going to go do this.

I'm going to do activity acts because it'll give me prestige.

And what prestige is, is you think other people are thinking about you and no

one is thinking about you.

You like humans are self-absorbed.

That is our human nature.

So like think about the person you, I listened to your Ariel Hohani interview.

Your, I love your Hohani.

You're a big fan of his.

How much of your life is spent thinking about your huge fan?

You buy all the shit.

You listen to stuff.

Less than two tenths of one million percent of your life.

Right.

I wish people understood it's how few people are thinking about them.

And therefore you wouldn't chase prestige because prestige doesn't act.

All that matters is like the people around you.

Do they, do they think you're a good person?

Do they approve of what you're doing?

And then your work, all that really matters is like your own opinion.

Right.

Ben texted me the other day about an idea for his podcast and I was like, dude,

because he's like, he added music.

Ben, do you care if I say this?

Okay.

So Ben added music.

He's like, what do you think of it?

And I was like, I don't love it and I don't hate it.

I don't care about it at all.

I thought your episode was fantastic.

It was excellent.

I shared it with friends.

But I was like, he's like, well, the reviews are mixed.

So you go, I saw that I went to the tweets and it's like, some people are like,

this is great.

Some people are like, this is bad.

Exactly.

Fucking exactly.

All that matters is what you like.

If you like the music and they don't, then let them go find another fucking podcast

listen to you.

Dude, his music, although on that first, on his, on how to think over the world,

that's the best intro song is podcasting.

That, that intro song has helped make, uh, make his podcast popular.

The UFC, like that, going back to the UFC thing that, that connected us to,

like go, like, I know you have, but like everybody out there needs to go talk

about Manifest Cowboy.

Conor McGregor is that he is literally in the documentary.

The fact that he was, had somebody film him when he was flat broke living in his

moms, he owed money to every single fucking agency in Ireland.

And he's like, I'm going to be the fucking world champion one day.

He's like literally manifesting this shit.

Remember when he got the double belts and he's like, he chose interviewing him.

He's like, I saw this in my mind.

He goes, oh, look at that.

He's like, I dream.

He's like, I literally saw it and I fucking made it real.

Yeah.

That's why people like him.

That documentary is fucking incredible.

It's because he called his shot.

It's like this.

He just ruins it by doing it.

He ruins it by doing all the other dumb stuff, though.

But it certainly he's, he's, he's a, I have, I have a love, hate relationship

with them where it's like, you've got all this amazing stuff.

I admire you so much.

And I also can't stand some of this other behavior.

You know what I mean?

I think that's where your wisdom is.

He's like, okay, I, I sold my company.

Like I'm rich as fuck.

You're still like, you have a massive advantage.

Like, you can launch businesses, you work on whatever you work on, but you're

realizing this like, but I also like take care of my health.

I want to spend time with my wife.

I'm one out of a family.

I want to like be able to like have freedom.

I've heard you describe like what's important to you.

And this is like, yeah, that's, that's how I feel too.

Because like it's my issue is like, I'm not impressed by somebody's successful

per year, five years, 10 years.

It's like, I like the people that fucking never fucked it up.

And, um, there's a great line of Charlie Munger studies.

Like it's not getting rich that you have to worry about.

It's staying sane.

He's like, it's not part, and this is in a book, it's not normal to human nature

to have unlimited resources or be so much rich, richer, and then not fuck it up

through draw.

He, he says, uh, through ladies leverage and liquor is usually how rich

men go broke.

That's what Munger said.

Yeah.

Well, it's in his book.

He didn't say it in person, but, um, well, point of being is like, I think

there's a sense of wisdom there where it's like, okay, I already have this.

How do I keep building on it?

People like Connor and, and Kanye West is in this example too.

It's like they're gifted at a young age and then their, their super star

success is so disorienting that like, again, it's not getting rich.

You get to worry about it staying sane.

They weren't able to stay sane.

I want to stay sane, dude.

I want to get to them in my life when I'm trying to make decisions.

Like when I'm 80 years old, my like, I knew for a fact, uh, part of the reason

I felt comfortable like jump all in on the podcast, even though I didn't know

if I was going to make it a success or not was that when Jeff Bezos is like,

well, I was making a ton of money as this hedge fund.

I was 30 years old.

I had an apartment on the Upper West side, um, best friends with a billionaire

who's like mentoring me like he's already set for life, right?

But he's like, I knew if I quit now and forgo my quarterly bonus and move

across the country, Seattle, I'm going to sell books on the internet.

He's just like, I feel that the internet is a life changing technology.

And I want to play a role in that technology.

And the 30 year old self, you can confuse yourself and think, oh, it's

not as prestigious as working in a hedge fund.

It I'm going to miss out on, you know, a couple of million dollar bonus, whatever

it is, he's like, your 85 year old self is going to be like, you had a shot

to play a role on the internet and you didn't do it.

That's how I feel about podcasting is just like, I believe it's a miracle.

I want to play a role and therefore like I want to get to my life.

I know 80 year olds like, and David, I'm glad you fucking risked it.

I'm glad you did that.

I'm happy you came on here.

You're, um, you're very fascinating to me.

I've listened to dozens of your episodes.

Um, I'm very eager to see what you become.

I think it's cool.

I didn't know that you're doing it for six years.

I know that I've listened to like episode like number 10, as well as like 300.

So I guess I should have done the math, but like congratulations on your success.

It seems like you're kicking ass.

It seems like you're in the groove and like it's really cool to see someone.

Like it's really fun to see someone, um, like right when it's happening.

And that's like kind of the cool thing about podcasting and like Twitter and

all this stuff is like, you can catch stuff in the middle, not before and not

after, but as it's happening, that's where you are right now.

And I appreciate you doing this.

Where, um, what do you, what do you promote?

Just founders, I call it founders pod.

It's a founder's podcast founders did Twitter, your founders, uh, you're

always tweeting good shit.

Um, I want to say thank you for having me on.

Like seriously, I've loved your fucking podcast.

I would just say that, um, one thing that podcasters, uh, like it's obvious

who has the magic and I've been telling people way before I ever fucking

message you, I was like, you need to watch what Sam and Sean are doing.

It's clear they have the magic.

They have insane chemistry.

I remember listening to you guys when you're like, Oh, I'm only getting 60,000

downloads and episode, which is still super impressive.

And now you guys are fucking blue right past that.

Um, it's extremely obvious that you guys are really good at it.

I hope you like do a ton of it.

I swear, and I know you're not, might not be interested in this, but like

there's a, there's a massive hole in podcasting for like the Pat, Pat McAfee

version of business podcasts.

I agree.

And I think you and Sean, you and Sean, like, like, dude, there is going to be

a business podcast where you have Pat McAfee gets paid like 30 million a year

by whatever his presenting sponsor is, whatever, like I forgot what it is.

Um, Dan Labrador got that $50 million contract from like Drap Kings.

You see Spotify gave, uh, Alex Cooper 20 million a year.

The reported number for Joe Rogan is way bigger than it's reported.

But my point being is like, there's a gap in the fucking business podcast

space, which I think you and Sean have the best way to, like, if you did it every

day, just like you did, like your hour show is a perfect length.

The research, the, it feels like you're hanging out with your smart friends

and you guys are brainstorming together.

There's nothing else that's like what you guys are fucking doing.

Hey, Spotify, if you're listening, I'm, I'm, I'm easy to contact.

You just DM me on Twitter.

Yeah, we can talk.

Thanks.

Yeah, I appreciate you inviting me on.

That was fucking super cool of you.

I appreciate you doing this.

And, uh, yeah, it means a lot.

And, uh, yeah, it was awesome.

That's the pod.

That's the pod.

Machine-generated transcript that may contain inaccuracies.