My First Million: Hasan Minhaj - Comedy, Netflix, Haters, & Money

Netflix was like, where do you want to do the special?

LA, Chicago, New York?

I was like, nah, son, Davis, California.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I feel like I can rule the world.

I know I could be what I want to.

I put my all in it like no days off on the road.

Let's travel.

Never look it back.

That's it.

It's official.

Your boy's gone Hollywood.

That's right.

We don't just have a business celebrity on the pod today,

not a tech celebrity, not some guy who's famous on Twitter.

I'm talking about a bona fide star Netflix special.

Obama knows this man's name.

We got Hussain Minhaj on the show today.

If you don't know who he is, he's got a Netflix comedy

special called Homecoming.

He had a show on Netflix that had six seasons called Patriot Act,

where he got, you know, he was like sort of like almost a poke

in the bear with the Saudi prince.

And he was really calling out a bunch of people.

It was amazing.

He got his start on the Daily Show with John Stewart.

And I just caught up with him because I went to his show.

He's touring.

He's doing a world tour right now, 50 something cities.

And he did eight shows in the Bay Area.

I went to the last show and he did it like eight shows

over the weekend and they all sold out.

He was at the Masonic theaters, thousands of people in the crowd.

And this dude was just on fire.

He was so good, so funny.

And he's a great storyteller, which is something, as you know,

I love storytellers.

So I was learning from him, taking notes, basically.

And and this podcast turned out kind of amazing because he listens to the pod.

He's not just some guest that showed up and says, all right,

what do you want to ask me?

He's a listener, so he knows the vibe.

He knows the feeling.

He's like, yeah, you know, you want to buy the Lakers and Sam wants to buy a lake.

You know, you're crazy crypto better.

And he's Mr. Conservative Vanguard 500, right?

He likes blue collar hot dog businesses.

And you like, you know, crazy VR.

So he knew what this vibe is all about.

He wanted to record it in person.

So unfortunately, Sam's not in this episode because we did it in the Bay Area.

Sam lives in Austin.

And but, you know, even though he was missed, the episode turned out great.

I'm really happy with it.

It's a little bit weird.

I can already hear you when you when you listen to this, you're going to be like,

dude, what the tables got turned because Hudson was just asking me a bunch of questions

from from the jump.

He was asking me a ton of questions.

And I would ask him a question, but he's a great conversationalist.

And he was very curious.

So he he knows, he feels like he knows us because he listens to the pod.

So he was already asking questions.

And so if you came here to just hear me talk to ask him a bunch of questions,

I kind of apologize.

I'm sort of a bum at interviewing because I took the bait.

He asked a question and I would give him my answer.

And then I would remember, oh, no, no, no, no, people aren't here to hear me.

They're here to hear him.

So I would go back and ask some questions.

But it really was a two way thing.

Very unusual, very different than most interviews.

You guys don't know this, but we've had a bunch of successful people come on

that are kind of duds.

You know, not only do they not ask any questions themselves,

they don't really come with much to say and they don't have opinions and ideas.

They're just used to just sitting in a chair and answering the same

10 questions about their past that everybody else asked them.

And we actually don't even air those episodes.

We dump them, even though they're pretty big name people.

And so this one turned out very different.

I think you guys will like it.

It's just a real last conversation.

The, you know, the ultimate goal with this show, the whole podcast

is not to be super educational.

It's not to be super entertaining.

We're not comics.

We're not, you know, like whatever, Caller Daddy or whatever.

It's not the most entertaining show.

We want this to feel like you're hanging with us.

Like if there's two chairs at the table, we want you to feel like you're in that third seat.

Like we're the, you know, we're your friends from another mother type of thing

that we are friends that you would want to hang out with.

We just happen to live in different cities and live in different social circles.

So this show is your way.

This this podcast is your way to just hang with us.

And that's the feeling I think you're going to get from this episode.

I felt like I was just hanging out with us and it wasn't a formal interview.

It wasn't some like keynote speech.

And I think you're going to have that same feeling like you're just

hearing two people hang out riff and genuinely ask each other questions

that they're curious about.

We talk about his routine before he goes on on stage because when he came out,

he was on fire. So I said, I wanted to know, what did you do to get yourself

into that state so that you're ready to perform?

Because I want to perform when I go into a meeting with my team or I go into a

sales pitch or I walk into a boardroom and I'm trying to sell my company

for a hundred million dollars.

I know I got to be on my A game and that just doesn't happen out of anywhere.

You got to practice getting into your A game.

You don't want to leave it to chance how I feel that day.

You want to be able to turn that switch on whenever you want.

And I know he can do that because he's a performer.

He does this on stage every single night.

So I wanted to learn from that. He broke down his routine three hours

before, two hours before, one hour before. What does he do to get in state?

He talks about, you know, the motivation behind why I do what he does.

I do why he does what he does and also how he got his break.

What is the kind of the core insights that make him successful in what he does?

And we talk about dealing with social media and the positivity,

the negativity that comes along with that and how you kind of keep your

brain clear of that noise as well as, you know, what he should do with his money,

investing his money. He asked me, what would you do if you were me?

Would you be over here? Would you be over there?

What would you be investing your money in?

And so it was just a good conversation.

I think you guys are going to like it.

Enjoy the show and let me know. You could tweet at me, Sean VP.

Tell me what you think about it. All right, enjoy.

Because you're completely free now, right?

I'm completely free.

Well, you're never really free.

He goes, you know, you build a prison of your own making now.

Yeah. So, you know, two little kids a day starts with morning shift, dad duty.

Yeah. So I take the mornings.

I got a two year old and an eight month old.

Yeah. And so we're like, we're the same.

Yeah. When you were talking about yesterday, I was like, I feel you.

Yeah. And we, so I do the morning shift.

That's just straight dad time.

Then I basically pick between, I got three kind of major projects.

Yeah. So I got investing.

So sometimes we'll be looking at deals.

Then it's, um, could be content, but content is really kind of on a

specific niche schedule. It's like Monday, Wednesday for an hour,

we sit down, we do the show and that's kind of it.

I don't do too much more than that. I write sometimes and like Twitter,

emails or whatever. And then I have a business.

So me and my wife started an e-commerce business.

Oh, cool.

And so that, that's scaled up.

So basically in the last year, that went from zero, like just an idea to

now we do like over a million dollars a month of revenue on that business.

And like, I was looking for something new that I could do as a side hustle,

something that wasn't like going to take up all my time,

but could still be a valuable business that was, uh, you know, like

some part, part time basically.

Yeah. And so that's what, have you always been like that?

Multiple hustles. Have you always been that guy?

I was always that guy, but it weren't working before.

Really?

I was trying to do that and I was failing at it.

Like since high school, like you were that dude?

So no, so, so a lot of people have this story.

A lot of entrepreneurs have this like, oh, back in, I was my lemonade stand.

I was selling, I was doing newspaper routes and I hired all these kids.

Yeah. Baseball cars.

I was, dude, the lights were off in my head until like 21.

So like, I was like, I'm going to be pre-med.

I was going to be, I wanted to be a team doctor for an NBA team.

So I was like, okay, what do I do?

I wanted to be on the NBA team.

All right.

Genetics not working.

Yeah.

Team doctor.

That seems like the point of my genetics and like my interests.

Yeah.

And only when I met a team doctor, I was like, wow, this is boring as shit.

Like, you're just like, you know, these are just joints that are in pain.

And it's only so much you could do is like, wow, this is not as exciting.

Shit, I didn't even plan B.

So I was 21 when I figured that out.

Wow.

And I was like.

You were selling undergrad.

Yeah.

I had just taken to MCATS.

I was ready to go to med school.

I was like, what else?

I had this random business idea with a couple of buddies that sounded kind of silly.

It was so silly that it was almost like not dangerous.

You know how that is?

Yeah.

Like sometimes a very serious sounding idea is almost too intimidating to do.

But this almost seems so goofy.

It's harmless.

I was like, I'm just going to go try.

I'm just going to do this.

But obviously I'll eventually go to med school.

Obviously I was like, I'm not going to do this for a couple of months.

And you're also, you're at a point in your life, college is so unique in the sense that

you're leaning on this thing where if people ask you, hey, what are you doing?

I'm a student.

Yeah, exactly.

I got my cover.

Yeah.

I got my cover story.

Yours is similar, right?

Yeah, totally.

Yeah, freshman in college.

Exactly.

So those.

How long did you have the like?

Okay.

So let's take that.

Decide.

All right, I'm going to do this for real.

This will be the job.

Was it right away?

Or did you kind of play with it first and then decide a year later to you?

So it's really interesting.

So for me, I was a, it's so funny.

You were at the show last night and so you could tell, especially in the Bay, there's

just this level of connection I have in this city, New York, certain cities where I'm like,

I know you guys.

Yeah.

We're all Kuman kids.

And they're like, yeah.

That joke killed my life.

We're like, we're like Taipei.

Like, we're good.

We got to do this.

You know, I know you.

I know you.

I know what your house smells like.

I know the way your mom talks to you, I know you.

I've seen you at family parties.

I know you.

Like I really know you.

And there's a level of intimacy there with that material.

The point of the story is, is that I was part of that camp where there was a clear track.

Relatively speaking in the community, I wasn't the brightest kid.

Every community has like the Stanford kid.

I'm always like, I go up to like people in Dallas and I'm like, yeah, you grew up in

Dallas, right?

Who's the Stanford kid?

And I was like, man, it was Nikhil.

I'm like, yeah, yeah.

So assuming you're not Nikhil, what was your path?

Right?

Everybody has one.

And somebody was like, Brunov, man, Brunov went to MIT.

They was like, he's the star.

Who is the star of your community?

There's a kid, right?

Yeah, you're not going to name him, but it's fine.

So every kid.

He won the spelling bee.

Yeah.

And you're like, you're like, okay, this person is the shining star of the community.

What's my path?

And so I was a speech at a big kid.

I go to college and the first open mic that I did, a friend of mine, funny enough, who

I knew in college was illegally downloading a ton of stand-up comedy.

I went to college during like the Kazaa.

Yeah, Lime Wire.

Lime Wire era.

I think we're the same age.

I'm 36.

Yeah.

I'm 33, I think.

Yeah.

So we're like, we're that same era.

And you said 33, I think.

Yeah.

I was like.

I haven't been thinking about my age in a while.

I think I'm 30.

I think I'm 33.

Yeah.

I'm 33 or 34.

I think I'm 33.

Yeah.

I'm 36.

And so I went to college during that era.

He downloads a Chris Rock special, Never Scared.

I remember the special.

He's in the purple suit.

And I remember being like, oh, this is funny speech and debate.

This is.

Connect to the dots.

Yeah.

This is forensics, but funny.

Right.

Oh, I see the matrix.

And then I come to find out, oh, like a lot of the comics that I really loved.

There were certain comics that really thought critically like that.

Greg Geraldo, Rest in Peace, one of the all-time greats.

He was a former attorney, and then he became a comic, Demetri Martin, who was really big

at the time in the early 2000s, early aughts.

He also was an attorney, worked at the White House for a while and then like got into comedy

and he had a big run in comedy.

Anyways, all these people that I like, Karlin, they were these critical thinkers that kind

of were doing speech and debate, presenting an argument or a take.

And it just was a light bulb moment.

And I had this thing inside of me.

I'm like, oh, this is one of the first things in my life where I have an alacrity and speed

at which I do this that I never had at Kuman or at the SAT or at the MCATs or at the LSATs.

Like, I can pick this up really fast.

And I don't know if you felt this.

I think a lot of, you know, daisy kids have this or whatever, kids in general.

Your parents will put you in soccer or basketball or swimming and you're like, ah, there's always

that kid from just the first drill picks it up fast.

And so much of adult life is figuring out what's my thing that I pick up fast like that.

And that was that.

All right.

Quick break to tell you about another podcast that we're interested in right now.

HubSpot just launched a Shark Tank rewatch podcast called Another Bite.

Every week, the host relived the latest and greatest pitches from Shark Tank, from Squatty

Potty to the Mench on a Bench to Ring Doorbell.

And they break down why these pitches were winners or losers.

And each company's go-to-market strategy, branding, pricing, valuation, everything.

Basically all the things you want to know about how to survive the tank and scale your

company on your own.

If you want to give it a listen, you can find another bite on whatever podcast app you listen

to like Apple or Spotify or whatever you're using right now.

All right.

Back to the show.

I had the same moment, 21 years old, when we started that way, had this business idea.

And it was like, we didn't even know what the fuck we were doing, right?

As in, nobody does in the beginning.

And I remember thinking, oh, man, my parents probably not going to be cool with this if

I, because especially, our idea was to create the Chipotle for sushi.

So it wasn't like even like a business idea, like, oh, bioengineering, blah, blah, blah.

Like, you know, some new microbial, whatever.

Yeah.

Why does it sound like you were high when you said that?

The way you said Chipotle for sushi is like such a like.

I wish I was.

That would be a better excuse.

We just, I just tried sushi for the first time.

And all before that, I was eating in Subway in Chipotle a lot, and I was like, why don't

I just, why isn't sushi served like that the way I'm used to?

Yeah.

There's as simple as that.

Yeah.

Yeah.

All right.

I'm going to.

Did you always have.

So this, this moment, this problem solving thing.

Yeah.

Why don't they do this like this?

Have you always?

That was the start of it.

That's what I'm saying.

I didn't always have it.

Yeah.

I started to realize.

Because Naval has that too, right?

When I do, he does.

I've seen interviews with Naval and Naval.

It's like, I was always like, why doesn't that pizza place do this?

Yeah.

I wasn't like that.

And I say this because I remember I used to watch those guys, like Naval, he's like

a hero to me, right?

He's like a mentor in many ways.

Yeah.

And when I hear him and you know, you hear these people talk about how they, they just had it from day one early, early age.

Yeah.

It makes you think if you don't have that, your thing, which most people don't by then it's

like, I guess I'm just not that type.

I guess I'm just not cut out that way.

I guess they're different than me.

Yeah.

And so I'm always very like upfront about it, which is like, no, there was no signs of anything.

I didn't know what the heck I wanted to do.

I didn't know what I was good at until I did.

And that just light bulb comes on when it came on.

Yeah.

And I remember going to my debt.

I remember we started working on it.

And like you said, I had this alacrity of, I was good at pitching.

And it was a pitch contest that we were working on first.

Yeah.

Business plan pitch.

And were you a great student?

Mediocre.

And that's why I called my dad.

I said, you know, hey, you know, I'm thinking about doing this thing.

I was kind of expecting the Indian parent thing, which is like, no, stay focused med school.

Remember the whole thing you just worked on for four years, why I paid for this expensive as college?

Yeah.

Like do that thing.

Yeah.

And he was like, he was like, I think you should run with this.

I go, you think it's a good idea.

He goes, no, I think it's a terrible idea.

I think food business is awful.

I think restaurants are terrible idea.

I don't understand what you mean, you know, but you don't know anything about sushi.

So I think it's a terrible idea in like 10 different ways.

Yeah.

He's like, but what time did you wake up this morning?

I was like, I don't know, like 8 30.

He's like, and what'd you do right away?

I'll say, I started working on this.

He goes, that's why I know you should do this because the light obviously.

This is your dad?

Yeah.

He was like, we've been trying to get you to like study and like do.

And just care about anything.

Yeah, care and like wake up with your own light bulb on and be able to go do that thing.

What is your, what does your dad do?

No, I'm asking.

He's he kind of had a career where he was in like, he was the engineer, research, like

worked at a big company, worked at a big oil company.

And then he, he realized like he was like 30 something.

He looked around.

He saw in his office, he's like, my office is the same office I've been in for 10 years.

Yeah.

I got all these patents on the wall.

He's like, but these are just like certificates.

They give me to like pat me on the head and keep me, you know, just to keep me doing my

thing, sitting here like a scientist, like doing my thing.

Yeah.

He's like, the guy I hand the patent, the idea to, he gets promoted.

He gets to go to London and he gets to like, yeah, he takes my idea, makes it sound like

it's his idea.

Yeah.

He's like, maybe I should do the business guy thing.

Cause it's like those guys just take my ideas and like run with it.

Yeah.

So then he switched into the business side.

And so that's why he kind of, you know, most parents have this where like the thing they

regret, they kind of push their kids like, no, do it.

You know, like, so for my dad, those two things was like social.

Yeah.

He's like, I didn't, I didn't, I didn't know anything about socializing until it was almost

too late.

So like go to that party.

He would drop me off at a party.

Wow.

And he would be like, you need to go.

And I'd be like, I, I was just socially scared.

I was a high schooler, right?

I didn't know what the heck was going on.

Did they let you have girlfriends and stuff?

Yeah, they were cool about it.

They were like, whatever.

That's awesome.

Yeah.

So they were pushing me to, again, fill the gaps that they didn't have.

Yeah.

And one of them was, my mom was, my mom, cause are you the oldest sibling?

I'm the oldest.

Yeah.

So the oldest paves the way.

Yeah.

So my sister had already done it.

Yeah.

And so my mom was like, she had to talk to me.

She went to Vietnam with them.

Yeah.

Your sister didn't tell us anything and did everything anyways.

Yeah.

Everything we told her not to do, she did.

And then she didn't tell us, which made it worse.

And then we found out later as we do.

And it's like bad.

She's, by the way, I know that the listeners sometimes get mad at this.

They're just like, I'll get to talking about Bitcoin.

The reason why this is, no, the reason why this is important to me is like understanding

someone's drive shaft is so imperative to why they are where they are.

Yeah.

You're looking under the surface.

Yeah.

Like sometimes people are like, ah, that's stupid.

No, because all of your, I'll just speak on my, like my field, which is not big.

It's relatively narrow.

If you take 100 comics and you're all in the green room, you'll quickly see the ones

that are talking shit.

You'll see the ones that don't like to write.

You'll see the ones that use sometimes comedy in the comedy club as a crutch to give them

a place to go to just socialize.

The ones that love it.

The ones that are sociopathic, sick offense, all of those things.

If you start to find out more about them, which is why, you know, sometimes you come

up in a comedy scene, I came up here in San Francisco in the Bay, you quickly find out,

oh, this person's running from something.

Right.

This person, do you know what I mean?

And that informs the next 15 dominoes of their career and their life.

And when you did that, because comedy, I think is kind of known for that.

Yeah.

Comedy is like this torturous field where it's like, you know, nobody makes it.

Then even if you do make it, it's like, just continue.

You have to come up with new material reinvented every year or every two years.

It's just this brutal field.

And then even the better you are at it, you're a truth teller.

Right.

And often these truths are kind of ugly or they're kind of painful about yourself or

about society, about whatever.

So there's this like darkness that's with like a lot of great comedians.

Sure.

It lives with them.

You seem like a well adjusted, you know, good looking guy, happy person.

You saw the show last night.

Did I come off as unhinged or?

No, you came out.

You came off like, you came off like, I'll tell you exactly how you came off to me.

And then I don't mean this.

This might sound like a compliment.

Yeah.

You seem to me like somebody who isn't the naturally is not naturally isn't the funniest

guy.

Like some comedians, you just see it.

You're like, dude, they could just be doing this at their dinner dinner table.

Yeah.

And they're just probably slaying whatever room they're in.

They just happen to be in a big auditorium.

Yeah.

Yours.

I could tell it.

My sister even said that she goes, he works on his craft.

I could see that the stories you were telling the beats.

They're like the punch lines.

It just felt like everything was put together.

It was thought through the lighting, the sound, the like position where your body language

on the on the stage.

It seemed like you had worked this set.

Not like this guy's just funny.

He had two drinks.

He gets up here and he starts spitballing, which is like, you know, the vibe that some

comedians give off.

And so to me, that was what I got was like, it's like, it's ironic.

He's like, this is kind of like the Indian kid who like does like hard work and practice.

And he's like really good at the thing that he put his, he said his mind to.

Yeah.

That's the vibe I got.

Is that accurate or is that like my own projection of shit?

I think, I think that is definitely accurate.

Like I really do care.

Like I love it.

I love this thing.

Okay.

Do the thing.

Do you agree with my first thing, which is amongst a hundred comedians that are like at the same

level?

Yeah.

Are you naturally, are you the average above average, below average?

Where would you say?

Yeah.

So what you're talking about is just like natural.

There's people that look funny, talk funny, say things in a funny way.

So their voice sounds funny.

They look funny.

You're already in the top heap.

Think about those guys.

Chris Farley.

Yes.

Another comic.

I love Felipe Esparza.

Felipe Esparza just looks funny.

Hannibal Burris has an amazing voice.

Chappelle has an amazing voice.

Right.

Do you know what I mean?

Yes, exactly.

He just like sounds funny.

And he also sounds really funny.

Chris Rock has a great voice, right?

Right.

He sounds funny.

Yeah.

I look like a news anchor.

You know what I mean?

Like I look like I should be doing like a five day forecast or whatever.

But I also have like a, I have a genuine love and I have something that I want to say.

Like a message.

Yeah.

I just want to say something.

There's something inside of me that I want to say.

And yeah, one of the things that I definitely feel is like when I put together a show,

like on tour, I want to give you a show.

Right.

Like I want it to be a show.

And for me, putting together mixing stand up comedy storytelling and theater, that to

me was my elixir.

Yeah.

It was my elixir.

Like we were at the show.

I wanted, I was thinking about, what do I ask him?

I was like, I got a bunch of questions, but the one that I truly wanted to know, which

I don't even know if there's a good answer for this.

But the question I was like, at the end, so you went up there for an hour and like by

the end it was like, you know, in tetherball, when one person gets the momentum and it's

just swinging and the other, the person, the other person is just like flailing, they're

helpless.

Like the ball is just out of reach.

Yeah.

But the one person knows they're like, I'm about to, you haven't won yet, but the momentum

is so strong.

Yeah.

From about halfway through the show to the end of the show, that's, I felt like it was

tetherball.

You were dominating and the crowd was just in the palm of your hands.

It was so good.

And at the end, you know, mic drop, crowd goes wild.

What is that feeling like, because most human beings are never going to experience that.

But it seems, sitting there, I'm like, that must feel fucking amazing.

Even though you've done this many times, it must feel fucking amazing.

Does that, what does that feel like, at the end of the set?

Every artist and I think every human being, whether it's intimate relationships, personal

relationships, collaborating and business, family dynamics, and hopefully your career.

Everybody wants to feel seen.

And there's this moment in act two of the show where I basically go, man, I want to

give you guys all of me.

I want to close the gap between who I am on Instagram and who I am on iMessage.

And when I look in people's eyes, I could tell everybody that's in like the Bay Area

work from home crowd.

They're like, fuck, I can't be me.

And there's part of me.

How far were you laid down?

Yeah, when I laid down, I'm sharing all these secrets with you guys.

And I'm like, there's this moment of, do you see me?

I want to be seen.

When I'm with Beena, when I'm with my spouse, she's like, hey, when we're disagreeing on

something, it's like, you don't see me.

You actually don't see me for who I am.

And the most enriching thing about that last moment when I say good night and I see people

in their reaction, I feel seen.

I'm like, oh, I think y'all, you guys get me.

And to me, laughter in that exchange, in that live experience is an expression of love.

You know what I mean?

Because I can't make you laugh.

I can't force you to laugh.

Much like love making.

It's an intimate act.

And that release of laughter is like, oh, you get me.

You feel me.

It was the journey from the beginning of the show.

So that's the end.

That's the climax.

That's how I feel loved and seen before the show.

And again, we're sitting there and the openers went on and we say, okay, he's about to come

on.

And my sister goes, oh man, what would you feel if you were about to go on?

And I said, well, you know, I was just thinking in my head, I was like, I know he's done this

many times and now he's figured out a system to how to deal with that combination of excitement

and nerves.

What's the feeling like for you now?

And what's the system you've developed to get on stage and have that switch flipped?

When you came on within two seconds, it's like, this guy's in a state of mind.

He's in a state, as we say, of like, he's here to perform.

He knows what he's here to do.

There's no tiptoeing into it.

So I was wondering, what do you do the five, 10 minutes before or an hour before?

I don't know what you're kind of like warm up routine is.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I think you're ready.

The listeners want to know this.

I'm sure.

I don't really.

This is your personal curiosity.

I want to know it.

And I, my trainer has this great phrase.

He goes, who are my customers?

The people that love what I do, because he's like, people always ask, oh, who are your

customers is some demographic, some like, some like marketing intellectual answer.

He's like, easiest way in the world is.

The people who love, who, who your customers are the people who love what you do.

Yeah.

So just do what you do.

Yeah.

You will naturally attract the people who love that and you will repel the people who

aren't interested.

Yeah.

And you will never have to guess what the heck people want because you just do what you

want.

And so that's the approach I take to the pot.

Yeah.

Um, no, I love it, man.

I love, I love talking to shop like this.

For me, it's actually, it's a, it's the three hours before.

So what I try to do before any show, I try to make sure that like, I exercise.

I exercise in some capacity because, and I don't know if you feel this way and maybe

it's within our community.

It's so funny to go back to what you're talking about where you're like, oh, it seems like

a guy who works really hard.

Cause it's funny.

I was doing Mark Marin's podcast and Marin said the same thing about me.

He's like, yeah, you seem like really put together and he's like, why aren't you unraveling

like the way other comics are, right?

And I'm like, yeah, I, I'm just philosophically not from that camp.

I'm not from the tortured artist camp.

I'm more from the place of like, I'm creating from a place of passion and love and actually

real talk, it's about emptying the tank.

I just want to put it all out on the court, right?

You know, and this court happens to be the stage, right?

And I want to do my best.

I want to be like, I put everything into picking out this outfit.

I put everything into picking out these jokes, these tags, the stage design, the lighting

design, like this is it.

And I want to know when I go to sleep here at night, when I put my head down on the pillow,

I did everything I could, right?

Like living a life without regret and only you can answer that is the best.

Everybody's talking about chasing happiness to me, it's about chasing satisfaction, like

that self satisfaction and you know what it is.

You know what it is.

Right.

And you know, when you sold out, you got a good result, but you kind of didn't do it

the right way.

Yeah.

That sticks with you.

And some people just like, let that stick with them.

Yeah.

Other people say, all right, even if I won, I'm not going to win on those terms again.

Yeah.

And if I lost, I can lose on these terms and be good at night.

And I'm sure there's listeners to the pod that spend their time retweeting the right

things and quote tweeting and dunking on VC people.

And you know, they say the right things, they'll regurgitate the right opinions, but

they know when they put their head down at night, hey, you're supposed to train, you

jerked off instead.

Right.

You're supposed to do this.

You didn't, but only you can answer that.

Right.

So you can signal all you want.

For me, what that stage represents is like, no, I'm putting myself in a high level of

accountability in front of 3,400 people, I'm putting it all out here, even, and if you

don't think I'm good, if you think I'm corny, if you think I'm whatever, hey, it is what

it is, but I stood here and I did it.

I did me.

And on my terms, and I did my best.

So you're saying, so you're saying three hours before you three hours before what I

do is I like to do the, the, uh, some form of exercise and I try to get out of my head.

Workout workout or you're just trying to break a sweat.

What do you, what's the, yeah, trying to do on tour.

It's just about body maintenance.

So I'll do running.

I'll do some pullups, some core stuff, just stuff to get my body going and start breaking

a sweat.

And what I love about like right around a minute, 30 to 45 is I'll get out of my head

and into my body and so much of life right now is getting out of your head.

And it's funny.

I called you randomly.

I was appreciative.

I appreciate you picking up the phone the other day.

We had a long conversation.

We can get into that later, but so much of, I think what you do and what you put out in

the world and I call it like tech Twitter talk.

It's all in your head.

Intellectual.

It's all just heady, anxiety inducing stuff, uh, theorems up, Solana's this.

It's like, it's all head shit.

It's not a body feeling thing.

Like grounding yourself two feet on the ground.

I'm here in this moment.

What do I do?

And so much of performance and to be great at it.

The best Chappelle, the best performers, they're not in their head.

They're in their body.

They're really there.

Somebody screams, somebody says something, somebody heckles, they're in their body.

When you watch Steph Curry play, when I watch Devon Booker play, these guys are so in their

body.

Right.

Luca is the best at this.

He's in his body.

He's in the, he's in flow.

And so Luke is like a kid and kids do this well.

Yeah.

Kids do this pretty naturally.

I love that.

The older you get, the more heady you get, which is, you got to fight that, right?

And so that's a great way to get out of my head, get into my body.

And I'll probably, I eat something.

I take a shower and then I put, I put on the outfit.

And for me, it's like being on stage and putting on that, it feels like a uniform.

And like for me, it feels like, I want it to feel like a show.

Like from the watch to the jacket, to the pants, I'm like, there's a level of confidence

that you have when you move into a room and you're like, hey, from, from my heels all

the way up to my head, I'm wearing my armor.

Right.

Like I'm coming correct.

And you just, you carry yourself with a little bop.

You're like, no, I feel better about myself.

My shit isn't slouching.

There's no stains on my stuff.

You know what I mean?

Like the moment I saw you today, you walked in, you're wearing your tech pants.

I could tell you washed them a few times, but there's some stains on the backside.

You know what I'm saying?

But that feeling of like, no, man, when I'm coming in here, I'm going to be fresher

than Sean.

Yeah.

I'm going to, I'm going to, I'm just going to be fresh.

Yeah.

That already gives me a feeling of like confidence.

I know what I'm doing.

You know?

And by the way, the opener, Marcella, like Marcella was just like dressed to the

nines.

You know, it's a feeling.

Then I get to the show.

I finish eating.

I'll meditate.

So meditation for 10 to 15 minutes will allow me to just again get out of my head and drop

into my body and something simple, just headspace.

Right.

Like I'm not getting too crazy about it.

And what I love about headspace specifically is so much of it is just basic breathing,

establishing a level of intention.

I'll meditate and then I'll pray.

And for me, like prayer is really important because it's got to be about something bigger

than just myself and my corporal being.

I'm like, what am I doing this for?

And just in establishing an intention and for me, the intention is like love.

Let me give joy to people.

And I want the seed of everything that I'm doing to come from that, not be like, not

be petty energy, angry energy.

I'm going to prove you wrong energy.

Like I'm in the laughter business.

Right.

I'm here to make you feel joy, right?

And that warm feeling.

So establishing an intention there.

I get to the, I'll get to the venue about an hour before I have a double shot of espresso.

I'll let my bowels do what they do.

You always get those jitters like you got to pee, you got to do what you got to do.

And then about like 30 to 45 minutes before I like to be loose just with the, with the

staff, let them know like, Hey, what's up?

How are you?

Door guy, security guy, openers.

You know what I mean?

Another way to get out of your head, by the way.

Yeah.

Be with others.

Be there.

Yeah.

Serving others.

Yeah.

And then about a half an hour before I'll go to my green room.

I usually write it down.

I'll write down.

It'll just be on hotel notepad paper.

Hey, what are a couple of new tags that I'm working on tonight?

Just move the ball forward a little bit, remind myself, y'all, I'm going to do this.

For example, last night, one of the things I talk about an act, one of the show is fertility

and a new joke that I did was like, you know what it's like being infertile as a man?

I felt like Woody in Toy Story when his arm got ripped off.

Right.

That was a, that was just one line.

And I was like, Hey, make sure you do the Woody Toy Story line, you know, and every

show I try to add a few of these extra moments and you add that up over the course of like

a year, two years, three years, you start to see what works and what doesn't work.

And I'll have a thousand, 3,000 different variations of that, right?

And then I get on stage.

And by the time I get on stage, there's just this feeling of like, now it's just pure

play, whatever happens, happens.

And when I'm on stage, what I try to do is I try to remember when, when I'm opening

in front of my crowd, they're like really hot.

And one of the things I try to remember is don't yell, don't scream, try to actually

bring them to you, like set the tempo of the game, right?

Don't get like too excited or too hot, like you can whip them up, but then like sit down

at the stool, bring them to you and like make the room feel like it's coming to you.

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Did you ever watch a film of yourself, basically?

Yeah, I watch tape all the time.

Yeah.

And so I see bad habits.

It's kind of brutal, huh?

Yeah.

To watch yourself.

Yeah.

But it's cool, though, actually, like those moments where you, like, is very painful for

your ego.

But there's a lot of growth in that.

The only way to break through and get to, like, the next part is that part.

I've done that even in the business world.

And I'm going to keep bringing it back to this.

No, let's bring it back to you.

That's where a lot of the audience lives.

The things you're talking about of how to get ready for the, for your performance, your

day, what you do, that's, I mean, I athletes do this before they get on the field.

You do the performers do this before they get on the stage.

I do this before I get on my laptop.

It sounds lame.

It sounds like dorky, but it's like, well, I'm trying to be my, be the best version of

myself.

Yeah.

I'm trying to set an intention before I go out here.

I'm trying to get out of my head so I can do my best.

Yeah.

I do all the same things.

And I just apply it into this world.

And it doesn't matter if it's a call with a supplier or it's a podcast.

The episode of whatever, before you came here, yeah, got it.

I got through my routine to make sure that is your routine similar ish.

Very similar.

Obviously compressed because, you know, a longer day, so I'll try, I practiced it where

I can do it in 10 minutes.

Now I can get that state in 10 minutes.

That's my goal.

Really?

Has three, three components.

Breathwork.

So there's first three minutes of breath.

And so I can use breath to change my physiological state right away.

It'll be pushups and breathwork.

So I'll just do 15, 20 pushups.

I'll do breath.

Next three minutes.

Again, how do you get out of your head?

It's not about you.

Gratitude and thinking about others.

I have this little exercise I do.

Again, sounds a little bit cheesy, but I'll say it out loud.

People want to try this.

Just try it.

I just let, I rotate through almost like in my head.

So I'll visualize like, let's say my mom, my sister, whoever.

People I love.

People in my life.

I just visualize them laughing.

So I just visualize them laughing, which is them in their joyful state.

Yeah.

And there's no like, I don't have to think about why I laugh.

Nothing.

I just, I've seen them laugh a thousand times.

I just see them all laugh in succession in my head.

And now I'm not thinking about me and my problems and my needs and my desires.

I'm just thinking about them.

And I'm just, it's a good energy that I like.

The last, you do, you do establish an intention.

I do establish it.

And then the last bit is I remember why I'm here.

And so the thing you were saying, which I'm, you were saying, I want to bring joy, love

to the audience, want to make them laugh, make them have a great time.

Same thing.

I used to think, what am I going to say?

Whether it's a meeting, a presentation, a podcast, what am I going to say?

I wasn't going to show up, what am I going to say?

Yeah.

That used to paralyze me.

Really?

What am I going to say?

I want to get the right words.

I don't want to fuck up.

So then as soon as I start talking, there's a little editor in my head being like, that's

not a dumb, you walked up and you said that thing is super, and then I'm in my head while

I'm doing the thing.

And that was brutal.

And I wanted to just be clear and okay, how did I do that?

So then I stopped, but I just, I imagined the end.

So I already imagined.

I already imagined us saying bye to each other at the end of this.

Yeah.

And if that happened, that means this all went well.

And I remember, okay, the people listening to this, what are they going to be thinking?

They're going to be thinking, they're going to be saying these things.

Yeah.

Dude, that episode was amazing.

Dude, I love Hudson, man.

You have him on again.

He was so good.

Right.

So now I don't have to think about what questions do I ask?

I'm already remembering what I'm trying to deliver.

And then it's, I'm not going to learn a new skill in the next five minutes.

Like the performance is going to be based on all the hard work I've done over a decade

about whatever I'm doing.

So I don't try to like cram for the exam.

I just try to put myself in the right state of mind.

So I just performed the way that the things I already know how to do.

So that's my routine for, for, you know, my, to start my day every day.

How do you get over, you're part of this thing.

Again, I call it like the business internet world, which can be filled with people that

are sincere in their intentions.

It's filled with grifters.

It's filled with sometimes people that are trying to do, get rich quick schemes.

You're part of this really, it's actually quite similar to Hollywood and politics in

that way.

Cause if you work in show business, you'll quickly see that too.

You know, like shit can run from people that are like really about it.

Artists, artists, Nas, Kendrick Lamar, all the way to Logan Paul and Jake Paul, like

that are just about like the WWF circus show up at all.

Right?

This world that you run in and people are now talking about money and business in a

really interesting way.

When people come out and they comment about you and your businesses and they quote, tweet

you and they're dunking on you.

And that's a part of now the social currency.

This is all, this is a social currency that you're a part of.

Oh, the more subscribers I get, then I can do me on these commercials and we can sell

the pod and you're a business guy, right?

How do you deal with those negative critiques?

Does it bother you?

Does it?

What's.

Um, so the honest answer is yeah, every negative comment is like 10 times 10 for every positive

comment, you know?

And so that is the initial reaction, but there's also a difference in response and reaction.

So the initial, if I'm not in the right state of mind, that initial reaction, I'm kind of

going to clap back or they're so dumb because of this is in this.

I'll go look at their profile.

Oh, you only got 11 followers and you're saying this shit.

Maybe, you know, maybe this is why you have 11 followers because you think this way, you

know, I'm right.

You're wrong.

Blah, blah, blah.

Yeah.

And I realized pretty quickly that doesn't get me anywhere.

It's like almost like half a day or a whole day of mine, just checking the mentions for

good and bad.

Like this happened.

If I go viral, good.

You know, I go check all them.

I'm just addicted to refreshing that thing.

You did an amazing bit about this.

That was the most, for me, the most relatable.

Yeah.

You just, you played it up.

It was amazing.

Yeah.

People aren't going to know this.

Go see the show.

You'll see this part about the, the, the, the, the social media comments, likes, yeah.

Social media hit.

That cocaine cloud.

That cocaine cloud.

Exactly.

And with that comes the, the, the kind of the, the negativity and that also is fun and

exciting.

It's, it's this thing in its own way.

Yeah.

And so what are kind of like, where did I land with all that?

Yeah.

Okay.

So, you know, the good, they think I'm like a genius guru.

I'm not, you know, my wife will remind me of that real quick.

And you know, the other people who think I'm an idiot scammer or whatever, people who think

I'm an idiot who doesn't know anything about anything, or I'm wrong or whatever.

Yeah.

I'm not that I've stumbled and said this, said this the wrong way or whatever.

Yeah.

Um, okay.

Where is my focus going to go?

Like focus on why I'm so great or why I'm so terrible really does nothing for me.

Right.

So I said, okay, I do need a sounding board.

So I'll say, so, so I get a reaction from people.

Good or bad.

I'll be like, hmm, let me just get curious.

Why are people reacting in this, in this way?

I'll take a minute to observe that.

Yeah.

Then I'll go internal and I'll say, what's my, what's my judgment?

Because I guess my rule that I created for myself was that I want my own opinion of myself

to be higher than anybody else's opinion of me.

You mean positive opinion?

Anything, anything.

If I think something sucks that I did, I don't care what anybody else says.

I think it is.

So I basically want my opinion of myself to be the trump card.

And so that works for self-respect.

Like I stopped seeking the respect of others because I'm like, well, if I don't have the

main respect, my respect, then what is all this stuff worth?

And then how did you get that wisdom because that's, because we are social creatures.

My trainer.

So my, my trainer's kind of my, my, my, my trainer brought it from my personal trainer.

He's also like a kind of like a, he's like me.

He's like, dude, it's all in the mind.

This is a solar player, solar player game.

Yeah.

And we got to train this just as much as we train the rest.

So he, he said something at the very beginning.

He's like, why do you want to work out?

And I was like, oh, I just want to get fit, but I've got real fat doing my last company.

I just want to lose the weight.

Okay.

He wanted, like you wanted to know the drive shaft.

What's driving you to do this?

Yeah.

What's making you think that?

What's making you, why'd you call me today?

Why today?

Why didn't you call me six months ago?

What changed?

Yeah.

And eventually it got down to, I had this experience where I went with my two best friends who

are business kind of like mentors, a bit older than me.

All the things I do, they've done a little bit more.

And we all went on a Spartan race together and I thought, oh, I'm a little out of shape.

Oh, we're all out of shape.

It's no big deal.

Yeah.

We went on the Spartan race and I was way behind and I was just huffing and puffing and I was

dying on this thing.

And they were like trying to help me.

And every time they helped me, I just felt like a bitch.

I was like, oh man, I like this is embarrassing.

I'd rather they just ran and finished the race and left me to like, you know, die on

my own on this mountain here.

The worst thing you could do is like push it from me from behind because I'm like, it's

like, don't give me the pep talk, no, anything but the pep talk.

Yeah.

So I told him, I said, I was pretty embarrassed.

I had this situation.

I said, I just want to like have the respect of the people I respect.

I thought that sounded like a good thing to say.

Yeah.

And he goes, he goes, okay, respect.

He goes, respect's one of those things because you want to give it, not seek it.

He goes, so he goes two things.

He goes, we're not going to do this.

We're not going to start this program from a place where you're trying to get the respect

to others.

He goes, whenever you feel you lack, it's time to give.

So like, let's not worry about who you're, who, what respect you're trying to get from

others and who you're trying to prove to yourself to and all that.

Let's become a giver of respect to yourself and to others.

So who and so we started flipping the script and it just became one of my philosophies,

which is, whatever you feel like you lack in the moment, that's a signal, it's time

to give that exact thing.

And when you give it, you realize, I got it.

I have it in abundance.

It's kind of like a circular way of thinking about it.

But that was the thought process for me at least on this, on this topic, I guess.

That's cool.

Yeah.

That's really interesting, man.

I don't know.

You know, I, I know I called you about one of your tweets that went viral again and

it was about how it was specifically about the metaverse and how the digital world will

matter more than the physical world.

And I think the reason why it so deeply philosophically rubbed me the wrong way was because the pseudonymous

digital world has commodified cowardice in such a way that the real world and the game

checks you.

And what do I mean by that?

You know, I grew up, I was a, you know, daisy kid who'd play at 24 hour fitness.

You play ball at 24 hour fitness, first to 12 straight up or win by two.

If you lose, get the fuck off the court.

Right.

I remember there'd be these guys.

There's an honor code.

These guys that were nice.

It'd be 11, 11 straight up.

This dude would step back, hit it.

And as he's about to hit it, he'd go get the fuck off the court and you would respect

it because he stood there and he's like, I beat you 12 to 11.

It's over.

There's no argument.

Yeah.

This is not subjective.

It is objective reality.

Next.

Yeah.

And you got to sit there and you got to run it back.

You got to wait another one game or two games or three games and then run it back.

But for the first time in history, there are people that stand on stage, that stand on

the stage of business or life or comedy or art, and they use their actual government

name and then pseudonymous trolls who don't use their government name can launch digital

drone strikes attacking you, your character, your family that can then potentially impose

economic sanctions upon your future and they do it pseudonymously.

Yeah.

Philosophically, I don't rock with that.

Say that shit with your chest.

Get on the court with me at 24 hour fitness.

Let's cook.

Let's play each other.

It's that feeling that fundamentally bothers me.

This is a dishonorable craft.

It's not honorable.

It's not a fair fight.

How do you think I should unpack that?

That's the problem.

I was like, why does this bother me?

Yeah.

Well, that's the first good that that's the right question, which is not why are they

doing this?

Why is this?

Why does this bother me?

Right?

The curiosity is what will set you free because you got to say, do I enjoy focusing on this?

Do I enjoy this like trap?

This like uncontrollable?

Yeah.

You're not going to stop it.

Yeah.

We all agree on that.

You're not going to turn them all off.

Yeah.

So that's not going to happen.

This is the world now.

This is the world.

And I'm also thinking about my children too, because I'm trying to prepare.

I got a three-year-old and a one-year-old.

So I prepared them for this new world order, and in a weird way, I'll keep riffing this

out with you.

Let's figure this out.

In a weird way, there's times where I'm like, yo, I wish you punched me in the face, actually.

I would prefer that.

How many fights have you gotten in your life?

I've gotten into three.

Okay.

I've gotten into three.

I've lost all of them.

Yes.

One time, some kid was trying to steal my shoes.

I didn't let them.

And then he just beat the shit out of me.

But I'm proud.

I kept my shoes.

He wanted my Jordan 13s, but I kept them.

But I remember being like, I like the IRL nature of this.

There is some level of virtue, even in this fight, that it ends, and it ends today.

We've resolved this here.

Which is why you see it when people fight.

It's gone.

The beef is usually gone after.

It's gone.

As long as the fight was on fair terms, both people are like sort of mutual respect by

the end of it.

Yeah, it's over.

Yeah, it's over.

It's settled.

That doesn't happen almost.

It's a time where we don't really have that.

And the reason why I'm saying, say it with your government name.

If someone says Sean is corny or Hasan is corny, anytime any comedian or contemporary

says that, I go, cool, put up your hour against my hour.

Oh, I'm corny.

I'll do 10.

You do 10.

Let's see what it is.

Let's play to 12.

Right.

Let's play to 12.

Like, I love the dance of it.

Straight up or win by two?

That's a merit-based thing.

Yeah.

But when Baltre...

Comedy is a merit-based thing.

Again, you said.

You can get up on stage.

Yeah.

No matter what your name is, you can't make them laugh.

Yeah.

You can't just force them to laugh.

Yeah.

It is merit-based.

You must earn that laugh.

It's why my favorite thing right now in pop culture is the verses.

Right.

I don't know if you saw Dipsett versus the locks, but you could see Jadakiss go up against

Dipsett.

Right.

And I thought Dipsett was going to win, but Jadakiss was so nice.

He just buried them.

And it was...

It was...

You play your records.

I'll play my records.

And I...

And there's something so honorable in that, and this new digital world order is so not

honorable.

Right.

Because there's no reconciliation at the end either.

So I quote, tweet you.

And by the way, shitposting is now incentivized.

So actually being a negative Nancy and being an absolutist in your position is now commodified

and incentivized so that you can't even recognize, yo, you won, I lost, good game.

And there's no shake on it.

Well, it even gets worse because what you say online, what you display online, the photo

you take online is so easily faked.

So it's not even like 20...

It's like if instead of going and playing at 24 hour fitness, we each submitted a mix

tape.

Yeah.

And it's like, here's my mix tape versus your mix tape.

It's like, well, how much editing really is going into your lifestyle, your opinion,

your persona, your face?

All of it is filtered, is edited, is curated, leaving out the bad shit.

And the more real you are.

So the way I look at this...

And by the way, I'm not, by the way, I'm not shitting on digital skills.

So if two people are competing against each other in video games, I still like that.

Like there's NPA 2K tournaments, but it's, are you better at 2K than me?

So I think about like the way in which I want to live my life and I want my kids to live

honorable lives too.

Hey, compete and there's no, there's no, there's nothing wrong with losing, but like

be a good competitor, be an honorable competitor, say good game.

But when I'm using my government name and Baldrape 79 is risking nothing, I'm like,

this is whack.

This game is whack.

And in Baldrape, even you can't deny that.

But I don't know if the people on the other side recognize that.

Go ahead.

I mean, I just love your analysis on this.

I guess the way I look at it is with the pendulum has swung.

So before, and they sort of like in the past, when everybody was online, everybody was

in real life, real name, merit-based, you had still had people's opinions in their

heads.

I just couldn't broadcast it.

People, if somebody, if somebody thought you were corny before, they were thinking

that they weren't saying it, that they couldn't get amplified from each other.

Or they would say it.

And you're like, okay, cool.

So you think I'm corny.

It took a buy-in.

They had to ante up.

Yeah.

And let's square off in the lunchroom.

So you think I'm corny.

Now I can make fun of your shoes.

I can make fun of your hat.

I can make fun of, you know what I mean?

Who you're dating.

I can make fun of your mom.

So there was a cost to enter.

There's a cost to enter the arena.

The cost of the barrier to enter is so low now, right?

Fake name, fake handle, whatever.

You can just go on there and say whatever you want.

You know what we're analyzing right now?

This is Kevin Durant syndrome.

Kevin Durant is one of the greatest basketball players on planet Earth.

And there are people on the internet that get Kevin Durant and his feelings.

Filed up.

Yeah.

And then he says he doesn't care.

But obviously, you know.

Yeah.

So this actually, but because to me, I was like, yo, if, and I talk about it in the

show, I'm like, yo, these memes hurt my feelings.

I'm a person.

Right.

And I'm like, yo, if KD is getting in his feelings, seven foot two wingspan can cross

people over.

But like, but like a velociraptor, but can move like a point guard and like, then just

like shoot and sledgehammer on you.

Like, and he's getting in his feelings about these like laymans at home.

We're in a big fundamental shift in society and culture in a way that it never was like

that before.

Yeah.

So I think basically the reason you get the rewards you get are because of all these

things as well.

So by you going out there under your real name, with your real face, with authenticity

telling your real life stories, which is what you do.

Right.

You're talking about fertility issues.

You're talking about stuff like that.

Yeah.

You're getting like the score, the meter is just running up right because it's in such

scarcity today.

We don't get that from most people in most situations.

So when somebody does it, you're running up the score real quick.

Right.

You get the benefits of being the counter to all the high level of a counter to it.

You're putting it on the line.

So you're getting all of the benefits and you're getting the scale of those benefits

before without technology, right?

You do on local shows and I saw this guy in North Carolina.

He was amazing.

The guy, you know, in Texas, I don't, I'm not a fan of that person.

I've never seen them.

Yeah.

You do the Netflix show.

You do Twitter.

You do stuff like that.

You're reaching everybody everywhere all at once.

Yeah.

And so you're getting the benefits of that leverage.

Yeah.

And so you're running up the score because that is what society lacks today.

There's this real like honor code of like, look, I'm going to go try to earn it under

my real name.

I'll put myself out there.

I'll let you judge me.

Yeah.

And if I'm good, I'm good.

If I lose, I lose.

And I'm willing to play at those stakes.

Because you're willing to play, you're getting all this benefit and people are not willing

to play.

They're not going to get any of the benefit.

They're going to get a.

So they get this proportional like, you know, small bit of success if they just like kind

of shit on you.

Yeah.

They get a little immediate dopamine hit, but ultimately they sort of don't ever really

their score never really goes up.

So you're talking about the capital markets.

It's efficient.

They will reward it.

You will get a grant or whatever.

Yeah.

Or you're getting rewarded for being authentic and being accountable and you're getting.

And with that power comes the trade off, which is would you like this giant prize?

Yeah.

And here's the, here's what the hair on the deal.

Yeah.

Here's the cost of that big reward where you blow up in like, I don't know, five years

or something like that.

The last five years you had this like media, media rise.

Yeah.

It's because you had the right answer when society was going one way, you were an awesome

counterpoint.

Yeah.

You're willing to say what you, what was on your mind and willing to say what was right.

And you use technology to go viral as hell because you had something good.

It went viral.

It spread like crazy.

So you're going to have to pay this, this tax, this big along the way and you got to

recognize there are two sides of the same coin.

And so that's where it's like the, the, the 24 hour fitness scale where it was everybody

was being accountable, yeah, cool, but it was only operating at this like small scale.

It's not scale.

It's not, it's not scaled up.

Yeah.

You're getting the benefits of this thing and with that come certain tradeoffs.

And that's, I think that's just like the way I look at it.

And I think that.

That's a good framing.

Society is going in that direction.

And so you're already on the right side of history here where you're willing to play

a different game.

And because of that, you're going to win a very different prize.

And you're seeing that your career basically is an example of that.

So just so the listeners know, I called you on the phone when that thread went viral and

I said, Hey, Sean, like, and I'm so glad you picked up very few people pick up these days.

Like real talk, pick up the phone and I go, Hey man, like, this actually irks me here.

And you know, I'm such like a, I'm an artist, man.

So I operate from a feeling thing.

And then I start questioning, why do I feel this way?

And I was like, I'm an IRL guy, but when you're telling me everything is going to be

on the metaverse, I don't want to be a pseudonymous drone.

Right.

And I don't want to, I don't want to throw drone strikes at people that I can't see.

I want to talk about what's real.

And if you watch the show, like I'm talking about what's real about me and being on my

kids, what I went through going at dictators and governments and it's real.

This is real life.

I talk about lawsuits and this just crazy shit, but I'm like, Hey, it's real.

It's my experience.

Right.

I'm being sincere and authentic in that experience.

And I got the receipts.

And I don't want to live in a world where I'm a Reddit commentator and you're a Reddit

commentator and let's just like argue at Infinem.

That's a zero value out to society, to me.

Right.

But I guess, I guess what you're saying is right.

You're like, well, the more you double down on that, the capital markets will perhaps reward

you.

So you're being awarded right now for that accountability, right?

So the comedian who gets up there and just tells dick jokes is not going to have the

same emotional resonance as you going up there and talking about fertility issues and then

you're dealing with it and what that was like and the attention that's loaded in that.

Because anybody, I just had two kids, anybody who's been through anything with kids and

that whole process, the uncertainty, like we didn't even have any issues, but my wife

was worried that we might have issues and it loaded the relationship with tension.

I'm sure you have friends that went through it too.

Let's get started earlier because it might happen.

You know, like it's a connection.

So you put yourself, the real you out there, you get the reward.

Comedian who just makes the dick joke.

I laugh.

I move on with my life.

I don't feel like I'm going to back this guy the way that I felt like by the end of

your show, I was like, I'm about what this dude's about.

Oh, wow.

Right?

Because that's you.

That's what you do.

You drew a line in the stand.

You said, this is what I'm about.

Yeah.

You've told you, you built your case.

Yeah.

And at the end of that, how could you not be like, I'm on and it's like you rock with

me.

Cool.

If you don't.

Cool.

And so it was a very different thing.

It wasn't just laughing.

It was like laughing.

But also this is this person just put their balls on the table and said, this is what I'm

about.

Yeah.

And you got to respect that.

And then you got to react to that.

You're either about that or you're not.

And that's okay.

You can go either way.

Yeah.

But he made it very clear.

And then I'm like, that guy's going to build an army.

Because he's going to build, because there's a lot of people who are going to hear that

and be like, mm-hmm.

I rock with that.

I rock with that.

Yeah.

Whereas if you just did a bunch, if you just did a bunch of impressions of like what Indian

auntie sound like, I would have laughed.

Yeah.

And then I would have been like, next time you have something, I'm not lining up for

it.

I'm not camping out for it.

Right.

Right.

Because I don't, I didn't connect in that way.

Right.

But you did it.

So you're saying just be aware of that.

Be aware of that.

And, and like recognize what you're, just remember what's already working for you and

why, why that bothers you is because you're the opposite of that.

Yeah.

But there's also a piece of it that could be you, but you've intensely driven the other

way.

So when you see it, you're like, I built my brand being the opposite of that.

So yeah, it's like when Apple sees a poorly designed product, Steve Jobs was disgusted

when he saw other products that were not thought, well thought through.

He was annoyed with it in a way that no other CEO was because he built himself as we care

about the inside of the fucking design of the, inside the case, what that looks like.

These motherfuckers don't even care what the outside of it looks like.

Right.

You know, so like it disgusted him in a way that it disgusts you, somebody who has no

accountability, sort of stands for nothing, just trying to dunk on people on the outside.

Right.

So I think that's, that's that part of it to go to the metaverse side of it.

I think it's not as different as you think.

So let's say the world does move to where we have these online identities and that,

that digital identity matters a lot.

You know, you have a screen name and my first screen name was Mr. Gubbopple, you know, so

like whatever that's, that's what, that's whatever I picked up was in fifth grade.

That's so funny.

I don't even know what that is.

Yeah.

Let's say that.

Let's say that stuck with me.

Right.

It's so funny.

You know, my first screen name was Hasan Minhaj one.

I've always been this way.

Yeah.

It's always.

Yes.

It was taken.

And then I remember on AIM, Hasan Minhaj went online.

Do you remember the door?

Of course.

Right.

And then I'm like, yeah.

And I messaged him and then itched immediately the door closed.

So I think that, yeah, whatever your screen name is, it'll be the same.

Like this name you have, Hasan Minhaj, that's what was given to you.

It's your, it's for better or worse, it's your stage name for the world.

Sure.

And you're building up, you're building up a reputation.

Accountability.

Yeah.

It doesn't matter if that name was Mr. Gubbopple or it was, it's, Hasan, it doesn't really

matter what's a real name.

It's wherever you're, whatever you're going to make accountable, you're going to say,

hey, if you like me, if you trust me, put my reputation on this name.

Yeah.

And then if I fuck up, that name has like lost its value.

Yes.

Well, the matter is you might be able to pick a second name, but like it's still going

to work the same way where people are still going to have to put up or shut up under some

handle.

It just doesn't matter if it matches your social security number.

It's kind of like my, my take on that, but I don't know, it's a wild world of how that's

going to turn out.

I think we're still like, it's just, we're still a ways away from that.

Where do you, where do you get the points of like the things that you do that you're

doing right now?

Like the fact that you take time to train and think you're, you are preparing your mind

as a physical corporal being with two feet on planet earth rather than being just like

this guy with like the headset and you're just like in the matrix.

You know what I mean?

And your body is literally just being used as heat to fucking be a part of this.

Body player.

One world.

Yeah.

You know what I mean?

And I'm just like, yeah, I'm not going to say I'm above that.

Like maybe when that's here, maybe I will like yo, I'm afraid my kids are going to like

tackle me and they're just going to put it on my head and be like, just join us and join

us dad.

I'm like, I don't want to do this.

Well, it's like, I don't know if you remember before the phone.

I remember thinking it was like batshit crazy that people were going to watch movies on

this tiny screen.

Why would you do that?

That's like, I don't want to do that.

That's no fun.

I want to go into the theater.

I love the feel of the newspaper.

Yeah.

I mean, hey, you're going to check your phone like 170 times a day.

Yeah.

I would have been like, why would I do?

I'm not a hamster.

Like I don't want to live that rat lifestyle just constantly checking for my email.

Yeah.

Why would I need to do that?

I can just check my email once a day or whatever, you know, like, yeah, the things I do normally

today would have seemed really abnormal and I could have, I would have been kind of disgusted

by some of the things.

Yeah.

And then other things I would have been like, there's no way that, you know, like, how would

I be able to do that?

It's not plugged in.

Where would the internet come from?

Like how do you now?

How do you embrace that?

But then how do you eliminate noise from your life?

Like one of the things I'm genuinely curious about is like Trung, your friend Trung, who's

hilarious online, fucking hilarious, right?

My question is, is I was like, how much just internet garbage is going in that guy's head

every day?

I want to meet him.

Where is he in like Vancouver?

Something like that.

He's in Vancouver.

He's in Canada somewhere.

I should have invited him to the show where I was just in Vancouver.

But I'm like, how much just fecal matter of garbage is going in your head for him to

be like, this is the meme.

Right.

Because he has to sift through.

Right.

That's his job.

It's filtering through shit.

Yeah.

Shit.

Here's one.

Here's a good one.

Yeah.

Just horseshit.

Yeah.

And how does that affect your just your like your body and mind?

So what I'm asking you, and I would love to ask Trung is like, for you guys, how do you

eliminate just like, this is just sheer garbage.

And if 80% of your day is just sifting through that, which is so much of what internet discourse

is.

And again, the algorithm is incentivized that just people yelling at each other, not solutions

oriented thinking and conversation and dialogue.

How do you then have like a high efficacy rate?

Because I feel like we live in an era now where you're busy, but you're just, you're

doing absolute horseshit.

Yeah.

This is where I've heard this great quote from this guy, it's an entrepreneur, I don't

remember his name, but he told me something.

He goes, he was, he was talking about like, I was like, so what are you doing outside

of building your startup?

Like I was, if I'm going to invest, I first get to know like, what do you do when you're

not coding this thing?

And he was like, I think, oh, I got some friends and here's what we do.

And I go, he's like, yeah, we're making music.

I was like, so you're trying to like make a band?

He's like, no, we just like, we make music together because it's more fun than listening

to music.

I go, what?

And he goes, he goes, yeah, we make videos, I'm like, you're trying to be a YouTuber?

He's like, no, it's just better than sitting there and watching YouTube.

He goes, I have this rule, which is good friends consume together, great friends create together.

He goes, so, you know, you can look at all your relationships and say, what percentage

of the time are we just consuming?

We go to a restaurant, we just consume shit versus cooking something together.

When we go to the movies, we just consume something or binge watch a show versus like, try to

make something together, make some art, do a project together, build a gingerbread, doesn't

matter what the thing is.

He goes, the great relationships in my life, I recognize they're great because we create

and the ones I want to be great, I create more than we consume.

So similarly, whether it's even with work, I try to create, I think most people are consuming

like 99% of the time.

I think they're literally just mouth open and jesting like whatever the hell everybody

else's, you know, the few content creators are creating, they're just taking it all in

and then they're hoping that their brain doesn't get like, you know, turned into like peanut

butter.

And what I do is like, I know it's very addictive to just sit there and scroll the feeds.

I do it from time to time, but I try to say, all right, I need to be creating 80% of the

content.

I'll consume 20%, but of my time that I'm thinking about content that's like, that's like doing

this, I'm not with my family, I'm not in the gym, I'm not whatever, I'm going to be creating.

And so I can only consume to the extent it helps me create.

How do you build community in the startup was not hard because it's like comics probably

where they're all trying to do something really hard, build a business from scratch and like,

you know, works, you know, and so like, you know, there's a misery loves company type

of thing where it's like, there's this, there's this rapport that's built amongst people.

We'll help each other out, we'll get along with each other, we're all going through the

same shit.

So my community became other people who were startup founders when I was doing that.

And now that I'm kind of more creating content and you know, building an audience and a brand,

it's people who are trying to do that and trying to figure out like, like we have one

friend, Pomp, who is amazing at content, like he's great.

He's building his brand.

He's like the Bitcoin guy.

He's the Bitcoin guy.

Yeah.

But when I look at it, I say, wow, there's a lot of things I admire about what he did,

but I also got to learn that like, I would never want to do what he's doing.

He does this thing.

He does a daily business show on YouTube now every day he wakes up five in the morning

or whatever.

And he's creating like a three hour live show.

Yeah.

He's doing his squawk box every day.

Every day.

And I'm like, I get it.

That would work.

I would never want to do that.

I never want to go that path.

So I'm like trying to triangulate and learn from, but he did these other three things

I thought were fucking dope.

Yeah.

But I'm like, oh, that's a great idea.

I should add that to my game.

Yeah.

It's just like any athlete.

It's like anybody trying to get good at anything, you surround yourself with people who are in

the game trying to do the same thing as you.

That's your peer group.

And you commiserate and you share strategies with each other.

And then you have some people who already like have done it.

They're kind of your mentors and you go to them, you know, from time to time and ask

them for something.

I'm sure you have the same thing.

Totally.

I bet.

Yeah.

I asked the Jedi.

Yeah.

Yeah.

There's a bunch of Jedi.

And then there's other Padawan that are part of my like contemporary class that's all

the time.

Yeah.

And how did you get good?

Like, when did you go from suck to non-suck?

Like, because everybody starts, I believe that suck.

That's like the Pixar way.

I don't know if you've heard this before.

But as far as the philosophy, which is all movies start at suck, our job is to like remove

the suck.

Yeah.

So there's non-suck left at the end.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So I took that approach.

Man, the Daily Show changed my life, man, seeing the way Jon Stewart worked and especially

that institution, both the Daily Show and SNL, love them, hate them, they're part of their

comedy institutions, SNL for 50 years, now Daily Show 25, you know, that are these pedigree

bootcamps for understanding the process about how to think about comedy.

And one of the things that I realized is what Jon taught me and Trevor showed me, you know,

Jon really unlocked the code, but it's like, it's all about your take.

What is your take in being able to back it up?

So it's not even being funny first.

What is the take?

What am I trying to say?

What is the take?

What am I philosophically, artistically trying to say?

And it's...

Let's give an example.

You had in the show last night, you're like, you met this guy who's a private equity guy.

You're like, what the fuck is that?

Yeah.

He's like, oh yeah, we do like LBOs.

You're like, what is that?

Yeah, what is a leverage buyout?

And I was like, we'll use that.

As you get to the bottom of it, you're like, so you use other people's money to buy other

people's companies and then you ruin the people's lives and then by firing them and gutting

them and making them profitable and then you flip it to somebody else, you're like, yeah,

I'm not cool with that.

Like, I think that's a little bit of a fucked up way to win is to like, this kind of like

vulture...

Just legal stealing?

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah, that was never your money to be in it.

That was a great take.

Yeah.

And then you're like, what's stealing?

Well, it's legal.

Oh, just because it's legal doesn't mean it's ethical.

Right.

You know, Bill Cosby got off legally.

Right.

We all know what it is.

And so like, that is what the joke I would start with.

That's my take around leverage buyouts and vulture funds, right?

Then you start tagging it.

You can do that Bill Cosby tag.

He got off legally.

It's not...

We all know it's unethical.

Whatever he did or whatever.

The Gloved in Fiddo Jacks.

Yeah.

Right.

All right.

So you must go ahead.

Okay.

And then you start tagging and then the funny just starts flowing from there.

And then you go, that's like this.

And then you can just...

And what are you doing?

You're sitting in a room with like a few people.

You just spitballing?

Riffing.

Bantering.

Just like that.

Yeah.

And then eventually you got to put pen to paper.

Right.

And you got to start writing the Act One.

And you start to see...

When I watch Weekend Update or when I see an Act One on The Daily Show or any of those

desk segments, I now see The Matrix.

I now see, oh, I know how to construct a seven and a half minute piece.

Last week tonight, Patriot Act, I know how to do a 27 minute piece on it.

Right.

I know the beats and the flow of that.

And what was really cool was it just gave me that central kind of like philosophy.

How do I do this?

And so the first 10, 11, 12 years of my career, I was just trying to be funny.

And what John in 2014 really helped me unlock was like, no, no, no, you need to have like...

There needs to be an actual process and purpose to what you do.

Now, I'm not saying this as a virtue thing.

No, you just need to be like, even if you're doing dick jokes or even if you're being silly,

there needs to be... you need to understand the game and how to heighten it comedically.

Even stupid silly jokes are like that.

And so that was the unlock for me.

And then just reps trying to get as good as possible.

Now my next thing that I'm just working on the most is the jazz part of it.

Like, yo, just have fun.

That's always been one of my weaknesses because like I told you, I'm like, I'm a Kuman kid.

Structure.

And so we're so built around fear.

And so there's these moments that I try to have on stage.

I don't know if you saw, it's like, I'm just kind of unhinged.

Like the first like three or four minutes of the set, I'm just, I'm literally just riffing.

When I was making fun of the kid's shorts, there was a kid in the front row of the show,

just short shorts.

Like his thighs.

Yeah, his thighs were just like all up on the chair.

And then like the seats in the back and, you know, seeing people come in late and then

riffing off of that.

It's pure jazz.

Now, jazz has structure, but there's also play and then you can go back to it and like

it's that organized chaos that I'm trying to like start to tap into.

Yeah.

And you're doing well now.

You, I don't know how you were doing before, but I'll say, let's say, when was like the,

when did things start getting real good as about the last four or five years?

Yeah, I would say probably around like White House Correspondents Dinner.

That was my kind of big breakthrough national recognition moment of like, you don't have

to be a fan of the Daily Show or just a fan of comedy.

Like I penetrated, you know, front page of the news feed type fame and cloud and credibility

type thing.

Yeah.

And you, so you start doing well, start making money doing this thing, which is amazing.

Yeah.

So hard to do.

So you did it.

Yeah.

And what do you do?

So let's, I'm going to talk about the breakout, how you broke through, but now that you're

here, you've arrived, you're doing really well now.

Business side of things.

Yeah.

How you run in the show.

So what, are you just in like, dude, I'm just fucking touring 24 seven.

I don't even think about the money just goes in an account.

I don't think about it yet.

Yeah.

Are you like investing?

What do you, what are you thinking about?

Yeah.

And so, you know, that's the really interesting thing is now I'm starting to think more about

the business side of things, not in so much of the, I'm a venture capitalist.

I want a hundred X.

I want a thousand X.

The way show business works, I think like any business really, but show business specifically

is extremely predatory.

And it's built on this idea that we provide the labor and they're kind of banking on you

being desperate, dumb and not owning your IP and content creation.

They kind of are banking on that.

And they meaning like the big studios, the big streamers, the powers that be the agencies,

all those sort of things, they're banking on you not knowing what it is.

And I think for the first time in history, we're starting to see close groups of collaborators

starting to come together and build things themselves.

They can still run them through the big pipes in the studio system.

But they're also like, no, no, no, we independently operate.

We cook everything.

We write everything completely.

So like me and Prashant, we started a company and we write, we produce, we executive produce

people's projects, but we do the whole thing kit and caboodle.

And hypothetically, Sean would come to me and go, hey, listen, man, I'm, I'm hosting

this 15 minute event at this thing.

And I want it to fucking rip.

I want it to kill.

I go, cool.

Let's, what's your take?

What do you want to say?

Come sit down with me in PV.

Let's break down your act one.

And we'll tag it up and do all that stuff.

And that's a cool opportunity for us to collaborate and for us to brown paper bag amongst each

other.

And I love the ethos of that, like, hey, let's build together.

You're an artist and a creative.

I'm an artist and a creative.

I think lawyers are important.

I think agents are important.

They're fine.

They're not necessarily evils.

This brown paper bag, this honest relationship that we have as artisans together is of,

you know, the paramount importance.

And the more artists we can learn about just the business side of things, I think it's

going to be for the, for the better.

The other, the other part of it, man, is I'm just, I'm so much of my life was just trying

to make it.

Yeah.

Now I don't even know what to do with money.

I'm trying to understand what is money, what to do with it.

Right.

And what's your mindset now?

So what, wherever you arrived on that.

Money represents, you know, in capital represents two things.

Money will not solve all your problems, but money can take care of certain, certain problems.

So if there's 10 problems, four of them, say childcare, my daughter's braces, you know,

being able to Uber back and forth to the airport, I can take those problems off the table.

It will not solve my marriage.

It will not make me a loving father or an attentive father.

Those are problems I have to solve that won't make me in shape.

It won't help my mind, but at least taking those pain points off the table means a lot

to me.

But there's another data point as an artist that money can help solve two things.

It gives me the opportunity to say no to things.

You have fuck you money.

Like you should host this game show.

No, I'm not going to do that.

It also gives me the opportunity to imprint my worldview upon the world on my terms.

So the show you saw, I own it outright.

I, I'm not just in the comedy business.

That on yourself.

I own a trucking business.

Like I own and operate that 18 wheel truck.

You're like Mayweather now.

Those lights, those like the, there's the holodeck that I'm standing on that glows.

Like I own it.

I don't know what I'm going to do with it after this special.

But there's a sense of empowerment of, yo, I want to say this in the world.

And I have the capital to imprint my worldview upon the world.

And that there's a deeply empowering feeling in that the next thing that I'm trying to

learn in the reason why I want to be on podcasts and meet people like you is artists, we need

to learn more about how money works.

So once you make it and you want to buy a house and provide for your family and, you

know, hopefully have childcare in some capacity and how do you not blow it on dumb shit to

the point where it gets really sad, man.

There's a lot of artists and entertainers.

You'll get hit up and they'll be like, Hey, so and so has cancer.

We need to do a comedy benefit to pay for their medical bills.

I'm like, this is sad, man.

This guy was on SNL.

This guy was on bubble.

This guy was on a sitcom.

And I'm like, yeah, this has to stop.

And my question to you would be, and this is the thing I'm trying to figure out is if

you were an artist and you all of a sudden we make our money in lump sums, you all of

a sudden were given $2 million.

I'm million dollars, 500,000, you just make these lump sums.

What would you do with that money?

That's the fundamental question that I'm trying to figure out an answer.

Well, the first thing is you can be a bunch of people telling you what to do with your

money and you got to avoid them at all costs.

Correct.

The people that are swooping in with an X grade opportunity and trying to get you to buy

a fucking, you know, Kentucky fried chicken franchises and shit like that.

Like, you have to sort of say, all right, how do I get a trusted person who is an expert

at this that is actually good at their job?

And how do we align our incentives so that they're not able to just pillage me like happens

to a bunch of athletes.

They're not just my homeboy, you know, from high school or whatever.

I trust them, but they're not really experts.

Like you have to find that intersection of trust and expert.

Can I tell you where it gets really hard?

You know, I'm fortunately like, again, I grew up, I'm kind of just, you know, I'm a nerdy

kid.

I was never, I don't roll with an entourage, you know, like I pulled up in an Uber like

solo with my backpack.

So I don't have all those pitfalls that other artists and entertainers have where there

are a couple of, yeah, jewelry purchases, a couple of car purchases and a divorce away

from just like losing it all.

You know, I'm a pretty like level headed, you know, guy.

That being said, you know, it's interesting.

You try to do your research and it's crazy.

I'm 36 years old.

I'm starting to read about, you know, financial literacy and stuff like that.

And I'll read books.

I'll read J.L.

Collins's book, you know.

And, you know, he's an advocate of VTSAX, just Vanguard funds.

But when I go on the internet and I start looking through your mentions and I go through

your page or Sam's page and nobody trying to fuck with VTSAX like, you old man, you're

not on the Solana tip.

How do I figure discern truth, ontological truth, reality and light from just this banter,

this just never ending up down nature of noise.

So here's how I would break it down.

I'd say, what do I want?

So some people were saying, I'm trying to become, I'm trying to become Kevin Hart.

I'm trying to do whatever.

I'm trying to have this mega, mega empire, billion dollar status.

And some people say, look, I came from nothing and I got this thing now.

I'm not, I need a certain level of security and safety.

That's what makes me happy is knowing I can never go down to zero, knowing that I can

never fuck up and lose it all.

It is, it is safety for life for me and for my kids.

What is that number?

Yeah.

So you start to play with these numbers.

What does life cost?

And what do I want?

Yeah.

What are my goals with this?

What's my burn right now?

You first got to take that lay of the land.

I don't need any strategy without an objective.

So any strategy is meant to get you to some objective.

And what most people do wrong is they're just picking strategies without really curating

the objectives.

Yeah.

And why?

Why is that thing?

Can I stand and defend?

Why?

I believe that this is what I'm going for.

Yeah.

That this is my strategy.

Like how do I get to the point where I know what I want and I can defend what I want to

do myself, not to, you know, like I can articulate it.

Yeah.

Actually why I've decided that.

And I said no to these other plausible paths that might be right for others, but they're

not for me.

Yeah.

So you set your goal that way.

So that's the first.

My goal is two things.

And I've identified them because I think about these things for a long time, you know, being

on tours really good because you just start to, planes are great.

You just have a lot of time.

Take a shower in the air.

To think.

Yeah.

And one of the things that I thought about was like, it's two things.

It's like to me, being a father and a husband means providing financial safety and security

for my kids.

I grew up in a family.

I don't want to give away.

I don't want to talk about this too much.

But money was always a thing that people in my family argued about and I never wanted

that to be a thing here.

And it's a tough thing to do if you're an artist.

Are you kidding me?

That's why did you pick that path?

But it's what's honest to me.

But to me, what money and business represents is, okay, if I can earn enough so that God

forbid this goes to shit, but I have enough runway room and this is going to sound crazy,

but for 10 years.

Because I do deep work.

Like it took me two and a half, three years to write this show, took me a long time to

put it together.

And I hope the depth of that resonated with you into the audience.

That's my dream.

Like, you know, do you feel what this meant to me and what this, I hope, I hope you see

me.

I hope you see it.

I hope you feel it too.

But in order to do that, I have to have runway room.

I have to have two years to be able to hold up and write this movie, write this thing.

I have a couple of projects that are now lined up after we shoot this Netflix special.

But they've required a ton of time.

Time you need financial capital to cover your burn.

To cover, like I said, you know, my daughter, baby girl, she has glasses now.

And escalating burn.

Yeah.

And now there's all these additional things.

My mom, her knees are going.

She needs knee replacement surgery.

You know, I'm the eldest.

These are real things.

And I put it as like, no, I need that burn for, you know, 10 years.

But now we live in a world where we're not even going to be able to retire.

So I have to start thinking, no, I got to be rock.

I want to be Mel Brooks.

I want to be doing this, you know, hopefully Dick Gregory, I'm doing this until I die.

I love that.

Dick Gregory died with dates on the books.

He was going to do Rooster Teeth Feathers in Sunnyvale, California, bro.

Living legend, man.

And I'm like, what an inspired life.

So many people are like, well, he wasn't the biggest comedian.

I'm like, bro, you lost the plot.

He's still playing the game.

What a beautiful thing in his 80s.

God, God, please give me life so I can continue to do that.

So that's, it's that burn.

What's that number?

10, maybe 10 years, five years.

And I've told my account in this, right?

Then the other thing is, is what is the financial capital that I need to then continue to imprint

my vision upon the world?

So the show that you saw, the burn to run it, man, is almost 40 grand a week just in labor

costs, trucking costs, getting it to venue to venue.

It's a lot.

Right.

Now do that at scale.

I'm touring for six months, eight months, nine months a year.

I've got to take it over to Europe, to Asia, to Australia.

All of those things.

It's like, I want to be able to count on creative capital.

Yeah.

Only on myself.

I'm not asking for a network.

You know, it's so funny.

Like one of the things that artists now complain about is like, the studio said this and I'm

like, hey, man, we got a shift to now being like, no, no, no, we have that.

Now in order to do that, I got to be able to make money, not at a one X, two X, five X.

I have to start making moves that can potentially 10 X that can then cover that burn.

So those are my two missions.

Yep.

How do I continue to do King's gestures and take care of my family?

I'm not trying to be a billionaire.

It's just those two things.

Yeah.

So that will give you a number or a range.

Yeah.

And you say, all right, what are the strategies that give me that, give me to that and you're

not going to know them yourself because you're like, well, I spent 10 years getting fucking

amazing at comedy, not the money game, right?

The money game is its own game.

I'm going to respect that the same way when I'm like, dude, I want to do comedy.

I know comedy means it's a game that I, I know what it was like to be an absolute beginner

in business.

Like I might ask kick for eight years straight.

Yeah.

It's probably going to feel very similar.

If I ever wanted to like even just like have the experience of going and doing a five minute

comedy set, I'm probably going to have to get my ass kicked for like a year or two to

just be able to go do that.

Yeah.

So you got to say, all right, how do I find somebody who's going to do that?

And I need somebody who, I need them more than they need me.

Yeah.

That'd be a great thing to have, right?

Because a lot of people who need you, they need you for the cloud, they need you for

the money, they need you for many things.

So you need to find somebody who doesn't really need you.

They're happy to help, they're happy to offer, they get something of it.

It has to be a mutual exchange, but they're good already.

And so that's why I like hanging out with people who are good already.

So when I go to them, they're not trying to dig in.

Oh yeah.

Here's the business idea.

Here's what you should do.

By the way, can I get some advisor shares?

Can I get some equity?

It's like, well, you don't, they don't need that because they, they're already playing

the game at a higher level in the money game.

So they don't need me for money when it comes to that.

So I can trust their advice from that sense because it's, you know, they're not looking

for that.

So then you get a bunch of strategies.

You say, all right, here's my, my safety, my safety playbook.

I want this amount of money that's in something like Vanguard, low-cost ETFs, that's expected

to grow at 7%.

I could chart that out and say, all right, that's what that looks like over 10 years.

Yeah.

Then I need my high risk, high reward part of the portfolio.

That's, that's the, that's the, and I've read those books like Jason Calcanus has a

book where he's just like, hey, take $100,000 and turn it into a hundred.

Let me ask you this, is that real?

That part, I do not believe is real.

I think so.

This is what I don't know.

Very misguided.

And I don't know, you know, my whole thing is, you know, and you can like it, not like

my comedy, whatever, but I'm trying to meet people where they're at.

I love people, bro.

Like I never want to lose.

I call it the cost of milk energy.

If you ask my dad how much is milk, my dad will be like in Manhattan at the Bodega or

at Costco over in New Jersey, if we go over the bridge, he'll tell you the cost of milk.

I love that, like knowing how much gas is, knowing how much it is to like lease or buy

a Corolla.

That's why I drive an Odyssey.

It's like, man, I want to fuck with people.

I love people.

So for me, one of the biggest things that I'm trying to do also is like, if I can learn,

perhaps even through my comedy, through my gift, I can help meet the people where they're

at.

I'm never going to run with the A16Zs.

Maybe who knows, they may, they want me to, they may want me to like perform at their

birthday party or something with Drake, you know.

The kids 12th birthday party.

Yeah, they're just like, oh, they really like Hassan, come do 10 minutes.

But I'm talking about like, man, that, I'm speaking to that.

It's funny.

I had this joke that I did on Patriot Act where I made fun of Bitcoin, the dudes who

like tell me to invest in Bitcoin.

I said, I believe in Bitcoin.

I just don't believe in the people that tell me to get Bitcoin because it's all my homies

that told me to take out a subprime mortgage in 2008.

I'm like, Travis, you want me to take out a second mortgage away.

And why are you just like all like diamond hands now, your diamond hands and me to death

or whatever.

And they're like, you dumb motherfucker, look, it's at 60K now.

And the comic in me is like, bro, keep it 100.

Keep it 100 with me.

Use your government.

Look me in the eye.

Tell me honestly.

The reality is, is you have 10K in the bank.

The cost of living in Milipitas is too high and you need that shit to fucking 200X.

And so you are betting everything on this.

And that's why my jokes are getting to you.

Now look me in the eye and use your government name and tell me, am I lying?

So I think that.

Am I being real?

Check me.

If I'm wrong, check me, Sean.

You're not wrong.

You're not wrong.

What I would say is.

But maybe I'm misguided.

Maybe there's a certain level of skepticism you have that is absolutely needed.

And you have to get to the root of, why are you saying this?

Do you know what you're talking about?

What is in it for you?

If I do this, you know, you don't want to be blind following the blind.

What I do, one thing that works for me, that's like a hack at cheat code.

When I was doing that sushi restaurant thing I told you about, we were trying to find the

perfect location.

They said in restaurants, location is everything.

So we're like, oh, we're going to be location experts.

We're scouting.

We're doing all this real estate shit.

We're looking up.

And then we just realized, hey, Chipotle puts like, you know, billions of dollars into

picking the right location.

Why don't we just go right next to where every Chipotle is?

And that's actually the strategy that, uh, that Quiznos and a whole bunch of other brands

had used.

Got it.

Noodles and company.

If you go look next to Chipotle, there'll be a noodles and company there or there'll

be a subway there.

They all just cook.

They're like, well, they do all the research and they're an attraction.

So like, yeah, we just go next to them.

We could piggyback because they're putting their skin in the game.

They're not just telling us as a good location.

They are putting down their roots.

They're investing money, which means this is probably a good idea.

So I have a couple of buddies who I'm like, look, uh, you've been successful in this game.

What are you putting your money into now?

And in what ratios are you putting your money?

How much of your money are you putting into these things and how do you think about them?

I triangulate between four people like that.

Yeah.

And now I have a base understanding of like where they are putting their skin in the game.

They're not telling me to do it because they get something out of it.

They are put themselves investing in this and they're doing certain amount of diligence

that like they are in a space that they understand.

And so you're able to get, there's an intelligent way to copy and then they'd follow.

Yeah.

There's an intelligent way to follow.

And then there's an unintelligent way to follow as well.

Yeah.

The unintelligent way to follow is I heard some shit from some guy who's got an incentive

to sell me this thing and I don't really understand why he's telling me to do this and I can't

really ask him.

I don't know what percentage of his portfolio is in this.

You know, so I can shield some random cryptocurrency I'm excited about.

Yeah.

People are like, oh, you said that was great.

Yeah, I put half a percent of my net worth into it because I understood it in this way

and I thought, had this risk reward, you put 30% of your net worth into it, I never told

you to do that.

Yeah.

I never told you to do anything.

Yeah.

But you interpreted X as Y.

Yeah.

So there's an intelligent and an unintelligent way to do it, but that's kind of my approach

of like how I would do this.

So it's all right, it's a money game you got to learn.

I'm going to learn along the way.

Yeah.

I'm going to do my learning curve by partnering with people who already are playing this game

at a higher level than me that don't need any, they don't need the money from me.

They're not getting a cut of me, but they're happy to do it because it's cool to know a

comedian.

Yeah.

You know, it's like a social benefit.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's just, it's fun, right?

Yeah.

And so like there's, that's how I would approach it if I was, the other thing you said, which

is important, which is the artists have to get leverage.

So like people were last night when we were leaving the show, I was talking to my sister

and I said, oh, it's amazing.

My dad was like, I can't, my dad the whole time.

I told you, I bought the beer.

He's like, I can't believe you bought that beer at the show.

So expensive.

That beer is a dollar at Costco.

I was like, I know, I understand that.

I'm having an experience at the show here.

I wanted to have a beer and enjoy the show.

That was worth $13 to me.

I know the beer only costs a dollar and so he's like, he's like, I can't believe so many

people pay to come to the show.

How can they afford a show like this?

And I said, well, people care about like they're having fun.

Like this is their budget.

I understand you don't allocate your budget to that.

They do.

And he was like, he was like, you know, this guy must be doing amazing because he did eight

shows or whatever in Bay Area.

He's got a Netflix show.

I say, yeah, he's doing, I'm sure he's doing great.

I said, but also think about it like, I don't know what your Netflix deal is, but I know

that if I was offered a Netflix deal, I'd have to do it for zero, essentially, right?

Like Netflix kind of knows that I have to say yes to have a Netflix show.

So my bargaining power is probably very low.

So even though it's a big deal and it might do well, my negotiating power in that situation,

my leverage is low versus this show that you own, your leverage is higher, right?

And so it's like, I say, you know, just because somebody has certain things you do for distribution

and fame, it's totally what you do to monetize.

And that was the Comedy Central deal.

Like you're on the Daily Show, you're on SNL to be on a cultural institution.

Exactly.

To get your name built.

Yeah.

They know like you can, they can pay you whatever.

Yeah.

And so how do you get the leverage back?

And so that's where there's this idea, by the way, that like, who said this, somebody

said this, I'm stealing it, but why wouldn't comedians create like, oh, so everybody's

getting big, big, big checks from Netflix and others to go do a special now.

Yeah.

And okay, here's, you know, I think Chappelle, whatever, something like 30 million bucks,

20 million bucks.

I don't know what the numbers are.

It's on that ring.

Very big upfront payday.

Yeah.

They know they're making the money on the back end, otherwise they wouldn't offer that

kind of money.

Yeah.

And then there's.

But also a key data point you need to know is it's just like you cannot use Ronaldo's

deal, LeBron's deal, Steph Curry's ultramax deal or Chappelle's ultramax deal because

the delta between who the capital is paying number one, man, you got to see what buddy

healed on the Sacramento Kings is making.

Right.

No, because buddy's solid.

But what is he?

But is he top 10 in the league?

Right.

Is he top 15 in the league?

That's the real, again, I talk about the Costco milk thing.

That's the real working class artist.

If you can't be Kevin Hart, if you can't be Jeff Bezos, if you can't be Chamath or whatever,

and you can't ball out at a bill, then what are the moves you make?

Exactly.

That's the way I'm trying to operate my life.

Hey, assume you won't be Will Smith.

Right.

You won't be the biggest movie star in the world, and the capital markets are going

to pay you at a thousand X, say they pay you at 10X.

What moves do you then do to have a healthy, happy artistic career for the rest of your

life?

Right.

That's my mission.

I want to continue to make art.

Yeah.

Honest for the rest of my life.

Yeah.

I think, well, I'll answer your question.

The idea real quick is the idea is if the artist got together and created the streaming

technology now is actually pretty standardized off the shelf, you can have a white-labeled

version of Netflix in six months.

The thing is you need draws.

If somehow, and this is always the coordination problem, if you could somehow coordinate the

key artists to say, hey, we can own the small fucker, we can actually create our own platform

that's a comedy streaming service that people pay for, and we're going to share the business

dividends sort of like meritocratically, meaning if I come to watch your show, if I subscribe

to the service because of Hudson's show, you're going to get the bounty of my joining, and

then if I also watch three other artists, they're going to get some cut of the subscription.

It can be what crypto and other things are enabling is a basically creator-owned platform.

Somebody's going to do this.

I don't know if it's in comedy or if it's in some other music or something.

What's Triller?

Triller's kind of like that, right?

No.

It's the same thing.

They cut checks.

They get the artist to come on board, and then they pimp out the artist to go get customers.

The artist feels like they're getting a good deal because they're cash-rich, but they're

equity-poor.

They might cut a deal with Jake Paul or something because Triller has nothing to lose, so they're

like, yeah, you got 2%.

They'll cut that to one person.

What I'm talking about is if Chapelle, Evan Hart, if you could somehow coordinate the

forces that be to say, let's create a platform that's only put our art on this platform.

Comedy is one of those things where the fans will pay to jump the fence to get the thing,

and they're willing to pay to also support their art.

It's funny.

I have the answer to that.

So that would be a platform that could eventually be valued easily single-digit billions of

dollars that would be creator-owned.

And then as you cycle out and the next comedian comes up, they would just basically join the

syndicate.

They'd be pumping their fan base into it, and they would be getting their proportionate

share based on how much audience they're bringing to the platform.

So I'm going to present two things, and I'd love your analysis on this.

Again, I don't know.

I'm trying to learn, but I'll just share the things that I've learned from just being

in the circle.

Shout out to my man, Az.

Az was, you know, Chappelle's doing all these summer camps in Ohio, and one of my comedian

friends, Az.

I think you've met with him.

He was saying, he asked Dave, he goes, and I love, Az, Az is like, he's always been

a futurist.

He's the writer of Remy, right?

Yeah.

But he's always been a futurist.

He's always been 20 years ahead, and I tell Az, I go, Az, you got the Al Gore problem

in 2000.

It's like the internet.

Everyone's like, shut up.

Yeah, you look like an idiot and then 20 years later.

You don't want to be 20 years ahead.

You want to be maybe like three to five years ahead.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

You don't want to be that guy with an oculus, and you're like, bro, this sucks.

That's always my thing.

I was like, I don't want to be the oculus, dude.

You know what I mean?

You're going to watch a jungle book on oculus.

I'm like, it's giving me a headache, like cut the shit out.

Anyways, he goes up to Dave, and he goes, Dave, man, come on, bro, you're the goat.

You're number one.

You could just put it up on DaveChappelle.com, and everybody would pay you five or 10 bucks,

15 bucks, 20 bucks, maybe a radiohead style, $100.

Nipsey Hustle, right?

Proud to pay.

And Louis did that.

Yeah.

Dave's like this.

He goes like this.

He goes, new fans.

What about new fans?

What that Netflix billboard gives you is it pumps that tile out in front of you, whether

you like it or not.

I don't know, Sam Parr.

I slid in Sam's DM.

Sam's, I slid in your DMs.

You didn't hit me back.

But when he's with his wife and they open up the, and they see my tile and they see

my like, my raccoon on Adderall face, Sam now has to reckon with that.

Then Sam, he's sitting on the couch.

He pulls out his phone, and then he sees you retweet my thing, and he's like, man, this

Indian dude.

What's everyone talking about this guy?

Let me see this guy.

Boom.

I've now picked up Sam Parr.

I know I'm going to convert with you.

Your cousin's going to talk about me.

Your sister's going to talk about me, whatever, but I'm talking about new fans.

You know what I mean?

And the distribution they do to get new fans on board, that's what this proud to pay movement

doesn't have.

So everybody's told me, hey, start an online shop.

I'm like, cool.

I'll do Homecoming King, Lokya, Kanga shirts, cool.

What about your three other coworkers that do it in that room?

I want them to know who I am.

So that's what, you know, Louis put out his last special, Sincerely, Louis CK.

Did you see it?

No.

No.

Why didn't you see it?

Because it was just a closed network between him and his direct fans.

People couldn't get outraged about it.

They couldn't write about it, which would then get you to, it would titillate you and

you've got to watch it, which would then get you to watch it and he'd pick you up as a

new fan.

Yeah.

It had, yeah.

Exactly.

That's a hundred percent true.

It's closed pipes.

It'd have to be paired with a pretty aggressive clips strategy.

Right.

So like one of the ways you grew was not because I watched 60 minutes of the correspondence

like speech for 45 minutes, it was long speech, right?

Yeah.

27 minutes.

27 minutes.

It's because a couple of those clips get on Instagram, they get shared, they go viral.

They go viral.

Yeah.

And Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, that's where you'd have to basically pair it with that.

That'd be the only way that you could get the exposures to say, there's great shit.

We're going to use YouTube.

We're going to use TikTok.

We're going to use whatever.

And we're actually going to pop.

They're going to take the best stuff.

Yeah.

We're going to dangle it over there.

We're going to let that be shareable.

Yeah.

It still may not work to actually like, assimilate the new fan, like that's why that's the way

interesting.

There's that in the coordination problem.

Yeah.

The biggest people you want, they're getting overpaid by the networks because that's the

strategy of the network.

Yeah.

Lock them in.

Lock them in.

And then every other artist has to follow at a almost below market rate because this

is where all the headliners are.

You want to be where they are.

That's what feels like a first class thing as an artist.

Yeah.

If I'm in the airport and people are like, what do you do?

You're a comedian?

I go, yeah.

And then I go, yeah.

How would I see you?

I go.

Go download Dazone.

Yeah.

And I'm just like Netflix.

Because Netflix has that the them factor just like, damn, man, my kids watch Coco Melon.

I watch Netflix.

I watch blah, blah, blah.

So the thing is Amazon, Disney and Netflix right now, they're running it.

And I'm trying to think, to me, I'm trying to have a barbell approach to it.

So if you follow me on Instagram, I put out content, I put out videos, Tyler, my videographer,

we put out stuff, but I'm trying to barbell it and I'm trying to figure out, yeah, how

do we start to monetize those things?

And the most, the most, the clearest sign of that that I've seen, which has a low cost

of entry, has been podcasting.

Comedians podcasting and people like Tom Segura, people like Joe Rogan, people like Andrew

Schultz, those guys have been able to call me, call your daddy, you know, people in that

podcast, Dax Shepard, people in that space have been able to build up their own independent

platforms and have more leverage.

Here's my issue with it.

I find it very risky to put up every single thought and idea that I have in real time

on the internet.

I'm be candid with everybody listening, I have no hidden thing here, I'm just be transparent.

The reason why I'm honest is I love what you do, I think what you do is honest and sincere.

And I think artists need to start to talk to people in your space to be like, you understand

business, we understand art, how can we work together, how does this all, how do these,

these two worlds now merge without being part of a multinational conglomerate and then have

business affairs and lawyers and all that stuff muck it up.

That's the interesting new world that I'm really excited about and that's what I'm trying

to figure out.

Yeah.

I love it.

Yeah.

I don't know how much time you got.

I got time.

I don't want to be respectful.

No, I got time.

The camera's still rolling, are they?

Yeah.

Perfect.

Yeah.

Let's finish up with a couple of things.

Do you listen to the pod?

I don't know if you actually listen to the pod.

I listen to the pod.

Yeah.

Amazing.

Yeah.

When you listen to it, you, there's always, the beautiful part when a guest listens to

the show, because most, most guests don't, but they, if they do, the best part is there's

a moment on podcast and when you're at home and you're hearing people talk about stuff

and you're screaming, either like, you don't get it, talk about this instead or no, I disagree

and like, they normally never get the mic, they just have to sit there and sort of punch

your air as we just drone on about whatever the hell we're talking about.

What are those things that when you're listening, you're like, I would say this or I want to

know about this or I want to talk about this.

What are those things for you as, you know, now that you broke through the wall and you're

here?

Yeah.

For me, I'll tell you the moment that I loved.

And by the way, this has been my ethos with comedy writing and I learned this at The Daily

Show.

You can only tear something down and this also works with movie writing and script writing.

If you tear something down, you got to pitch an alt.

Don't just shit on the idea, pitch an alt.

And what's the alt joke?

What's the alt take?

Otherwise, sit down, like sit on the sideline.

You're not in the game.

So if I'll tell you what I love, actually, there's, I don't have a ton of criticism.

I've actually asked those questions.

The one that I loved is you guys had this run that you and Sam did, there was two things

that I sincerely loved.

You guys had this thing up.

If you had a million dollars, what would you do with it today?

I love that.

Then there's another thing that you did that was really cool.

It was vulnerable.

Again, the reason why it resonated with me is I had a level of honesty and transparency

in it.

You guys were candid about your asset portfolio distributions and Sam was like, I'm a little

bit more conservative and you're like, I'm more risky and there's two moments I love.

It was the thing what I do with a million dollars and there's a moment that you did

where you were like, I want to move through the world in a way.

What if I was worth a hundred million dollars and I want to build my days around that?

So where did you get that from?

So there's two things I love.

Those are just two things I love.

But I want to actually just tag that with a question.

Where did you get that attitude, that BDE, that's a big dig energy?

I had a thing, I was talking to the, when we got acquired, we went to Twitch and they

brought in this guy who became, I was initially a reporter straight to the CEO and then they

brought in this guy who became the chief product officer.

He was like, Twitch is like this gamer, young, Gen Z, millennial type of product.

This guy comes in gray hair, doesn't play video games, you know, was like at Google

in 2003 or some shit like that.

And he's obviously smart and accomplished in the tech world, but seemed like so out of

touch with the product.

So people were like, oh, why don't we have this guy like internally, like rumblings in

the engineering ranks, which sort of like this guy didn't get it.

Like the people already hate upper management in general, they always think out of touch

making bad decisions.

So there was this like skepticism, is this guy going to get it?

And he would ask questions and meetings that were like, oh, like you don't, like you don't

fortnight is like, wait, how are you, how do you have this job?

If you don't know, like, he didn't know what minecraft was, discord for exactly, he didn't

get, he was like, I'm asking questions to learn, why would I ask, obviously if I'm asking

the question, I don't know, I think it's important to know.

You think I should know this.

So I'm just going to learn it right here.

Like instant, he didn't care.

Yeah.

That's a bunch of questions.

When I, he asked me, he sat down with me, he was like, let's do like a one on one.

And he's like, all right, it's career, career planning or whatever.

And he's like, so what do you want to do?

And I basically, when you, when you sell your company of this deal, this vesting structure,

so it's like, you basically get some cash up front and then it's like, after one year,

you're going to get your next big check and after two years going to get the next big

check.

And if you make it to year three, you get the last bit.

I didn't make it to year three.

I only got two, but at somewhere, self-imposed or you guys kind of, yeah, I was just like,

this is enough.

I want to go do other shit.

Yeah.

I'm surprised I even got to two, like one I knew I would do because one locked in my

family security.

So I was like, right.

I'm going to suck this up and I don't care how bad this sucks.

I'm going to get that year.

I'm going to lock in like family is good.

Yeah.

I'm going to get the bag.

And so I was there and he was like, what is the number?

If you don't mind me asking, what is that number in the Bay Area?

I've been so far.

I had always said six million.

I said, six million is where your money works for you every up till then you're working

for money.

Your money works for you at six million.

Why did it?

Why did I say six?

Because I said, all right, you work backwards.

So I said, all right, my burn rate, I think at the time I calculated it, I was like, we're

spending like $20,000 a month was my like monthly expenses.

And I said, okay, well, I don't know if this is going to go up or down, sorry, no, it's

not going to go down.

It's probably only going to go up because it's very hard to give things up once you

have certain services or certain lifestyles or certain size house, whatever.

You don't want to plan to downsize.

I wanted to plan to buffer in some growth.

I said, okay, so that gets you to $240,000 a year.

Okay.

So let's say 200.

How do I make it so that just the interest on the money I own, so just the gains on that

money being invested in the market, and I don't need like a home run, just like, if

I'm making seven percent, let's call it four or five percent is like four or five percent

as a target.

Yeah.

So then you just do the math.

As the rule is, I don't do public math, but you take 240,000, you divide it by the five

percent or whatever.

And that gives you some numbers.

So I forgot what the calculations were, but I know the number came out to about six million.

Okay.

Let's say, all right, at six million dollars invested would yield an amount of money that

will pay for our lifestyle rather than me going and working a job or doing something

that requires income to pay for our lifestyle.

Yeah.

So I came up with this number.

And some people were like, that's too low.

Some people were like, why is your monthly expense is so high?

I said, look, I like to live a certain way.

I'm going to try to live that way.

Like, I'm not telling you you need to spend this much money.

Yeah.

I'm going to get you to probably with avocado.

I like avocado.

Exactly.

The guac's extra.

I said, give me two servings.

That's what I wanted to be able to not have any weight on that.

Right.

And so I was like, all right, well, that's the, I'm trying to live that guac life.

And so, so that became a number, a target number.

Right.

And I said, all right, I want to hit that number.

And I said, okay, so, you know, I was trying to secure that back.

So winding back to this, this question of how did I get this, this mindset?

So I talked to the guy that he takes me in and he says, what are your career plans?

So you got the six though.

I got to the six.

Got it.

I said, all right, well, how do I post tax, right?

It's six.

You have to have it.

You have to have it.

Exactly.

Yeah.

So I said, all right, well, he goes, when you, when you think about your career, what

are you going to do?

And I knew the, the right answers to say, oh, you know, I loved it.

Yeah.

I love it here at Twitch and I would love to stay here forever and I could see myself

being you someday.

The reality was I couldn't, I didn't, I was having fun because I made it my way, but

I was like, this is not where I want to be forever.

And I was like, I'm just going to be honest with this guy.

I'm not going to tell him.

And it's a weird conversation.

You're basically telling your boss, I don't plan to be here for very long, which is in

a way saying, don't invest in me, you know, like, don't promote me.

Don't give me opportunities.

Give it to the next guy.

Cause he cares.

There's kind of like a weird thing, but I decided I'm going to be honest.

So I told him, and he goes, all right, so what do you want to do?

He's like, then we don't need to talk about this Twitch shit, like tell me what you want

to do.

I said, well, first I'm doing this so that then I can go do this thing I want to do.

He goes, I don't believe all that.

I go, what, you don't believe I want to do this?

He goes, no, I don't believe that strategy of life.

I don't believe in this life plan of I'm going to do all this stuff I don't want to

do so that then I could do all these things I do want to do.

You're mortgaging for a future that may not happen.

Exactly.

This, this is never going to come.

He's like, I've been around the block.

Wow.

So if you have that plan, he's like, very rarely do you ever do the thing you want to

do because it's much better just do the thing you want to do.

Start that now.

Don't spend five years doing the thing you don't want to do because it's a means to

an end.

But then, but then what you're talking about is that if you had approached that, you would

have never perhaps gotten that sex.

Exactly.

So, so he had a different mindset.

So I said, all right, well, what does that look like?

And so, so he goes, why don't you just like figure out what you want to do, figure out

what it required, what, what amount of money, what skills, what you required and start accumulating

those.

So that's actually where the six came in.

I said, oh, I want to be able to wake up every day and do a certain amount, do a certain

thing, which is basically wake up and just work on whatever I was most interested in.

Right.

Like I told you, dude, I want to like, want to do comedy sometime.

I want to do, I want to do, I have these other things.

I'm like, dude, why don't I make a song that like just slaps like, why is it a catchy

ass song?

Yeah, I want to produce.

I want to produce a record.

Yeah.

Like, I don't know anything about it, but like, wouldn't that be fun if I just made a catchy

ass song that kind of hit and like, it's not, I'm not trying to be the best musician, but

like, why not?

Like, why, why not write a book?

Why not do all these things?

Like, that'd be a fun way to spend a career.

That's kind of how I thought about it.

Yeah.

So I said, all right, well, if I want to be able to do that, I got to have this.

You need time.

Yeah, I got to have time.

That's a deep work.

Book, comedy, stand up, DJ.

How do you do that?

Yeah.

So that was kind of my mindset.

And so along the way, again, I talked to my trainer and he goes, if you want to have

a certain thing, carry yourself like the guy who has that thing.

Very simple.

Really?

The fake it till you make it thing?

Not even fake it till you make it.

You believe you will feel a certain way when you have it.

That's why you want, let's say you want a hundred million dollars.

You want a billion dollars.

Whatever your number is, five million dollars, one million dollars.

You believe you want that because you think you're going to feel a certain way when you

have it.

Yeah.

So let's skip all the middle shit and let's just.

Believe that we have this.

Let's believe that we're going to have that.

Let's carry ourselves like that.

Let's have that feeling now.

Don't pump the feeling until the end when you're 60.

Okay.

And maybe you've achieved your goal.

So what he's basically saying is a level of confidence, right?

Confidence and security and not playing scared.

Exactly.

Yeah.

Then the byproduct of that.

You know the comedy take I had on this, by the way, this is where my brain works.

The extremely wealthy and the homeless actually operate the same way.

Which is what?

Delusion?

Which is what?

Anything I do isn't going to affect my life anyways.

What are you going to do?

Be incredibly rich.

That's funny.

And people who are like.

They have the same mindset.

Yeah.

Are just like, hey, what are you going to do to me?

What can you take from me?

Right.

They both actually operate that same way.

Sometimes it's people that are in that vast middle that fear either direction that are

like, oh, I cannot fuck this up.

Yes.

Yeah.

So that's the mindset is basically don't wait.

Waiting is the enemy.

So when you're waiting to feel good until you've achieved certain things, anytime you

hear the word wait, run.

That's not the right strategy.

And so it's like anytime you're waiting to do the thing you want to do, don't wait.

That's kind of became my mindset.

I just realized.

Got it.

You mean don't put it off.

Don't put it off.

Right.

Don't wait till X in order to have Y that you really want.

Gotcha.

So if I want this feeling of security, of relaxation, of confidence, whatever, why am I waiting?

Let me tap into that now.

So that became both had two benefits.

There's the benefit, which is you feel better today.

I thought already already a win.

Yeah.

Instead of feeling anxious and stressed and worried, you're already feeling good.

But there's also a strategy to it, which is when you carry yourself like that dude,

when you carry yourself that way, you'd be surprised what kind of doors are sort of

open for you, how people treat you differently.

They treat you with the assumption of what you treat yourself.

Why do you dress the way you dress?

Why do you carry yourself the way you carry yourself?

Because people will treat you differently.

Life will give to you what you're putting out there.

But I also feel it too.

Like I like being fitted.

I like wearing like Jordan's.

Yeah.

And it makes the immediate feeling, which is already good.

And then you get the actual like, I think this Harvard guy called it the happiness, happiness

effect.

He basically said most people wait till they achieve a thing, then they're going to feel

happy.

And then what happens is you achieve that thing and you just move the goalpost.

Yeah.

Well, this is not enough.

But when I, when I really have it, then I can do it, you know, and so they just keep

moving the goalposts and everything.

He's like, not only is that obviously deferring the thing you want, which is bad to, he said,

there's studies that will show that the person who goes into the situation already feeling

happy.

We'll perform better on the test.

Yeah.

We'll be better in the professional setting.

We'll have a higher likelihood of success.

Yeah.

We'll have more lucky breaks.

That was one of the things they tested.

They basically, they gave you a test and like, you know, the third line of the, of the instructions

said, like, just go to the end, just type, write the letter five in and you're done.

Yeah.

And the people who went in with a stress mindset, they were just trying to solve all the problems

and they had to do the whole test.

The people who went in, relaxed and confident, they were more likely to observe that little

line.

So, oh, another, another break that goes my way.

Oh, great.

You know, like, so I'm going to skip to the end, hand the test in, I'm done.

Yeah.

And so that's called, when I, when I started to learn about this sort of like happiness

effect, this, this idea that you bring the future feeling you're chasing into the now,

not only do you feel good now, but you actually have better results.

I was like, that's just the thing I want.

But it's also a mindset shift where you're operating different than Sam.

Sam's like, I'm not going to take those crazy best.

Sam's the opposite.

But why?

Why is he the opposite?

Yeah.

So what I'm, what I'm saying is Sam may look objectively at, or it's his subjective experience

at your financial situation and be like, you can't afford that.

You can't afford to start this like one million dollar fund and just with Rando's off the

internet and just start betting things.

Yeah.

Why are you doing that?

Yeah.

It served him well.

Like I think, you know, there are many ways to win.

What I'm trying to do is get you guys to beef.

I'm trying to get you.

I'm joking.

I'm joking.

I'm actually curious.

I'm actually curious.

Like there's this great Kronam or Gregor quote where he goes, look, you're going to feel

some kind of way anyways.

Right?

Like any moment you're feeling some kind of way.

So he's just like, he's like, why not feel unstoppable?

Why not feel, I not feel super confident.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's the same sort of thing, which is that there's many ways to win, but you do get

to choose and Sam's way to win and many successful entrepreneurs the same way, which is chip

on my shoulder.

My dad never loved me.

You know, people doubted me and that drives me and that's why I'm successful and they'll

tell you this proudly and I hear it and I'm just like, man, you sound like you've been

suffering for a long ass time.

You know, you didn't have to do all that, right?

Yeah.

Yeah.

I'm glad it worked for you.

But also like the toll was high on that highway, right?

You paid a expensive big, which was every day you were focusing on like the grind mindset

mindset and you're, you're focusing on proving people wrong and how, you know, the doubters

and how you had to like kill yourself to make this work.

I know people who did it the other way.

So let's agree that, let's agree that both can happen.

Yeah.

Let's, let's also do a quick delineation that when you said you're moving like you're

worth a hundred mil.

So you're not, I don't make the size bets.

Like obviously there's a lot of gravity.

No, but there's a way to move to be like, Hey, because I'm serious because there's

some people that may be listening that, that are just like, let me get that.

Let me get that Rolex Daytona.

Let me feel that way.

Right.

If it's a hundred mil, then that's probably a Rolls-Royce Phantom.

It's probably a, you know what I mean, a Maserati, a Ducati, whatever that thing may be.

You're not making those things.

Are you?

Yes and no.

So in the things that matter, like I hired a personal chef.

Okay.

That's something that really the only like the whole true wealthy typically do.

Okay.

I was like, no, this matters to me.

This is the number one want I have.

I think it helps me and my family be healthy.

We don't have to stress out about making food all the time for our daughter who's real

picky and she keeps throwing away.

We got to remake dinner.

Right.

I said, this will improve the quality of my life.

I don't care if we can afford it.

I'm going to get it and I'm going to, then I'm going to afford it, right?

Because I'm not like, I know, I believe in my ability to go get that money.

Yeah.

So I will not limit myself in the things that I really care about.

Yeah.

It's a true belief.

It's something that you really want for you and your family.

I truly wanted it.

Yeah.

I was waiting.

I said, oh, I identified all the spots in my life.

I was waiting.

I said, I got rid of waiting.

That's the thing I really want and I'm waiting for it.

No more.

I'm going to do it now.

Got it.

But do I go and just spend outside of, like, outside of what I care about and what I have?

Like, no, I don't.

And I don't because I also don't want to be owned by those things.

Yeah.

Every time you buy something, you know, it now owns you as much as you own it.

Yeah.

Because that bill owns you in a way.

It owns a piece of your time because you got to pay for it.

I'm very selective about do I want this enough or I'm willing to let it own me a little bit.

And so then I don't need a lot of those things.

And I also have this, like, this is good at these questions, man.

The last thing I do is I want to be able to have as much fun, whether I'm in a mansion

having a feast with celebrities as if I'm stuck in an elevator by myself, which means

I don't want to have to.

I don't want to have to have some nice shit in order to feel good.

I don't want to have to have the circumstances be going my way for me to feel good.

Yeah.

But that's self-satisfaction.

That's you training.

I want to train my brain.

Yeah.

But that's you doing what?

You're training your brain.

You're meditating.

You're boxing, whatever that thing is.

So you feel a self-sense of self-satisfaction.

That's zero dollars.

It's not a hundred million dollars.

That's not a hundred million dollars or a hundred thousand dollars.

Exactly.

Because the ultimate goal, the ultimate way to carry myself isn't that I had the hundred

million.

I just remind myself of that if I ever start to feel lacking.

Because when I heard that, what resonated with me as an artist is play big.

Yeah, play big.

Why are you playing scared?

Cook.

You're on the court.

Cook.

Let it fly.

Launch.

Be loose.

Do the impressions.

Do characters.

That's my thing.

That's my goal.

I want to be loose.

I want to have fun.

I want to be real.

Get on the floor.

Use a basketball analogy.

You have basketball.

Yeah.

In researching for this, I saw your celebrity game.

Got a nice left hand.

Go with the left.

Left and left.

Yeah.

You're not lefty, right?

No, I'm left and right.

The analogy is this.

Steph Curry is not afraid to shoot his shot anywhere on the court.

Once he passes half court, he's willing to let it fly.

That doesn't mean every time he steps across half court, he just lets it fly.

Because he knows like the ultimate goal is to win, but he's not afraid to shoot his

shot.

He's not thinking about missing.

He's thinking about making.

He's confidence in that make.

So I would say a very similar thing on the business side, which is I don't just spend

like a drunken sailor or invest in the most wild shit possible all the time.

I'm not trying to take every risk possible.

Yeah.

I'm not trying to shoot every shot of half court, but I am confident if I pulled.

But you're not afraid to let it fly.

If I pulled or if I'm feeling it, or if I believe I can make the shot, I'm going to

pull.

Yeah.

Even if I missed the last three, even if this is not what other people do.

Like this feels right.

This feels right.

Yeah.

I put in the time and I have the confidence of myself and I'm not going to second guess

it.

Yeah.

So that's where I'll make some, take some risks that feel right to me in the moment.

But the overall objective is to win.

It's not to take maximum risk possible.

Yeah.

It's to minimize risk.

It's to win.

And you got to define what that win is for yourself.

My definition of the win for myself is I want to have the lifestyle where I'm at the mansion

with my best friends.

We're at the table.

We're feasting.

We're toasting.

That's what I want.

Yeah.

But I want to be able to have as much fun if I'm alone stuck in an elevator.

That is my ultimate win where my mind has created that situation where I can have all

those things.

Yeah.

But I am impervious to the environment.

Great.

I will have just.

So that's my ultimate win.

Yeah.

I will get to that.

You know, as I go.

That's great.

Last question.

This is from me to you.

People can be pissed, by the way.

They're like, dude, you had us on.

You just talked about your own fucking philosophy.

No.

You know what I'm saying?

People are going to be pissed.

No.

No.

I'm going to say this right now for the listeners and the watchers.

People are going to be like, he interrupted Sean too much.

And why is he talking like this about Bitcoin?

No, dude.

People are going to be like, Sean, you know you're not the star of this.

No.

No.

No.

No.

No.

No.

No.

No.

No.

No.

No.

Seth.

No.

No.

No.

No.

No.

No.

No.

No.

No.

No.

No.

No.

No.

No.

No.

No.

No.

No.

No.

No.

No.

No.

No.

No.

No.

No.

No.

No.

What would be your advice for somebody like me that's at this point in my career?

I'm at an affliction point in my career. I represent a certain period of time.

Me, my contemporaries, me, John Mulaney, Allie Wong.

We're entering that new era that the Bill Burrs and the Chappels are.

Those are the elder statesmen of the art form.

What is your advice to someone like me looking at it from the outside?

Because you have such a great business mind.

Yeah. I think what's worked for you is going to keep working.

That's what I said before. I think you have zagged when everybody zigged.

Everybody was going in one direction, which was, which is low accountability, low risk.

Doing things under, you know, worried about cancel, cancel culture and things like that.

I think you have built a niche where you're not afraid to call out the Saudi prince.

You're not afraid to call out the president.

But you're calling out not from a place of getting a reaction.

You're calling out when you see a truth, you're putting your finger on it and saying,

I don't care if this hurts. I don't care if this is a nerve.

I'm going to have my take on this. I'm going to stand by my take regardless of what's happening.

And that's when all those are the things that have hit for you.

You talked about that in the show. Yeah.

So I think it's not that you have to keep doing that the same exact thing.

You have to keep in the mindset that got you to do that in the first place.

You got to self assess what got me to, to, to, to observe those things.

What made me curious where I observed those things, where I asked the question that got me to that truth.

Right. What gave me the guts to do this?

Oh, I felt like I had nothing to lose. I was trying to make a name for myself.

Now I got a name for myself.

Now every tweet I'm kind of worried, how are people going to react?

Well, now, now you're not playing the game the way you did at that time.

So I would say, first and foremost, don't lose what got you to the dance.

Second is the stuff you talked about, which is your betting on yourself,

which is your own, your own production, your own, your IP,

your own, your own as much of that pipeline as you can from a business perspective.

It gets you leverage, it gets you capture the value you're creating.

You create a bunch of value, you got to capture it.

You got to look at the supply chain and say, who's capturing all this value?

Why is Ticketmaster taking this much of my fees?

Yeah.

Why is, you know, when I go put this special online,

what do I really make out of this versus what do they make?

How do I get their numbers and how do I understand how to capture value on the distribution side

and not just this side?

Yeah.

I'll try to think about those types of things.

And it seems like you're building like, for example,

my mom saw you on the morning show.

I watched the morning show too.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Oh, shit.

He's getting into these mainstream areas, building the name,

building the face there.

And then you're going to almost like, that's how you go get the new fans.

And you take them back, you build this funnel.

Yeah.

At the bottom of the funnel, the people who are going to know your life story,

they're going to know what you stand for.

Totally.

They know me.

Just like any product in Silicon Valley, you create a funnel.

Top of funnel is new fans, new eyeballs.

How are you going to go get them?

You need a strategy.

Middle of the funnel.

How are you going to get them to get their first taste of you,

their first real experience?

Get them to their first show.

Get them to watch, you know, the first 20 minutes of something

that's your best work.

Yeah.

How do I get that?

And how do we get them bottom of the funnel, which is,

how do we create maximum value?

Like, oh, a bunch of artists are doing NFTs.

What does that look like for comedy?

Right.

You know, let me play with these ideas.

I'm not going to do all of them.

Yeah.

But I'm going to have brainstorming sessions with guys like Sean to say,

Yeah.

What would I do with NFTs?

What could a comedian do with NFTs?

And I would start to think about, because that's bottom of the funnel,

more like funnelization.

Yeah.

I would think about that funnel.

I would say, all right, I am a product and I'm going to build my brand

around that product, you know, and it's a long, you know,

it's a long series of optimizations.

Totally.

But that's how I would think about it.

That's how I would view my, my craft, which is like, you know,

it's easy to just get into the art world, which is like, you know,

I'm trying to, I'm trying to build myself and, you know,

tell jokes, make people laugh.

Yes.

But like, ultimately, you're a product in your experience from the,

like when I showed up at the show yesterday,

there was an hour-long line.

Yeah.

We got to skip it, luckily, because you hooked it up with a nice,

like, VIP stuff.

But everybody, their experience end-to-end isn't just when you

step on the stage.

It's like from before the show.

Totally.

The line, the rest, and I would say, all right.

The playlist when you sit down.

That's friction.

Yeah.

We talked about the interface where you go buy the tickets.

How much friction is there?

I will go look at that whole funnel and I would say, all right,

I'm trying to grease this funnel.

I'm trying to get them to these magic moments with me.

Yeah.

This magic moment where I first made you laugh on that clip on

Instagram.

Yeah.

Second magic moment, your friend takes you to a show.

You have a great time.

Yeah.

Third magic moment is the follow-up of that.

You know, fourth is when you buy the merch.

And actually, the merch stands for something.

Totally.

You know, whatever.

Yeah.

That's cool.

I've always, I appreciate that because I cannot see itself.

Sometimes we're so in our, especially as artists.

It's what it requires to do deep, meaningful work.

But we remove ourselves from, like what you said, the line four

blocks down the street from the Masonic theater, how much you

had to pay for parking, then with the show experiences, like all

that stuff.

Yeah.

Right.

Yeah.

I think you're doing great, man.

Thanks, man.

I don't think you need advice from me to be honest with you.

I think you're doing a great job.

No, man.

Hey, this is my two cents for the space y'all are working in.

I think just continuing to try to be a source of light amongst

just all this heat that's out there.

It's really important, man.

There's a lot of garbage and trying to actually represent

ontological truth and reality for what it is.

Right.

Because you're playing with people's money.

People are listening to my first million for that thing.

Yeah.

I just want to like let you know.

Yeah.

Don't forget.

It's that, but it's that titillating feature.

Yes.

It's like, when you hear that title, you're like, but I want to.

It's, but it's just like, I want to make a million.

With your show, I came to laugh.

Yeah.

I came to laugh at you making fun of our Indian parents and the

goofy things that they do.

Yeah.

But why did I, that's what I, that's what I came for.

That's not what I, what I loved.

What I loved was the stuff you're saying at the end,

the stories about your daughter, the stories about the,

the jerk parent at the, at the library or the repair or whatever.

Those were where I was like, oh man, I attached the same thing.

We have my first million and the hook is ideas.

I'll help you make money and get you,

get you to your first million.

And what do you do with that when you get there?

I know that the people who are really going to love this,

because that's going to fade.

Like you get that hit, you get that hit, you get that hit.

What are you going to be here a year from now?

You should have already got that million by, you know,

by a couple of years in or whatever.

The people are going to stay because,

and these are just great conversations.

I want to hang with these guys.

That's the only thing we do is we create a fun conversation

where people wish they were hang.

I hope that like there's a third seat in the studio.

My goal is that somebody listening to this was like, damn,

I feel like I was in that third seat.

I was listening to a real ass conversation between two people,

not you talking to your book and me talking my book,

but like a real conversation by two people.

You were curious.

And so I answered questions.

I asked you a bunch of questions of stuff.

I was curious about it.

They feel like they got to be a part of a conversation

that was a little bit more entertaining than whatever's

going on in their world that day.

Like maybe they're the real life conversations that they weren't

as interesting.

My hope is that this one is that they feel like they're

in that third seat.

That's like a win for me with this.

Hope people enjoyed this.

No, this is super fun.

Appreciate you coming on.

No, thanks for having me, man.

And thanks for doing it in person.

Because I remember you reached out,

and you're like, let's do a via Zoom.

And I was like, no, we're doing this.

Yeah, sorry to Sam.

Sam couldn't join.

Yeah, Sam, check your DMs, bro.

I'm in your DMs, dawg.

OK.

Cool.

Thank you, man.

Machine-generated transcript that may contain inaccuracies.