How Pomp Makes 8-Figures With A Podcast & Newsletter (434 Part 2)

Anthony Pompliano

But what I've over time started to realize is that, and it goes back to kind of why we want to start so many of these companies, investing in other people's companies is great. Obviously, the power law takes over, and when that occurs, it's amazing. Angel investing can be really profitable. However, you're much more likely to take, you know, $50,000 or $100,000, start a business, and get to like $1,000,000 in revenue, throwing off $500,000 to $700,000 in profit year after year after year. You can do this with a very high degree of probability of success. So, in some way, what's better than angel investing in other people's ideas? It may actually be just like angel investing in your own ideas or your own companies. That's really where I've been focused. Yes, I will still on occasion invest in other companies, but now I want to start these businesses. I look at it as: what is the competitive advantage we have? Capital, but we also have distribution. If you have capital and distribution, you basically just need a decent idea and an absolute killer operator. If you can define those two things and combine them with the capital and distribution, you have a good chance of being able to make some money.

Shaan Puri

Alright, we got an episode here with Pompe, Anthony Pompliano, who you may know as the Bitcoin guy. He's huge all over YouTube, Twitter, and everywhere else. He came on, and we're actually going to do this as a two-part episode. At the beginning, it was all business. We were "business in the front," talking about this crazy $1,000,000 Balaji bet, where he's betting that Bitcoin is going to $1,000,000 in the next 90 days. We talk about that, why Balaji thinks it, what we think about the bet, and Pompe does a, you know, "Econ 101," where he explains what's going on with the banking system from his perspective. That was good. But here's...

Sam Parr

The thing though, in that episode, the whole episode is about something that's going to happen inside the next 90 days. So if you're going to listen to it, it is a little fearful. Actually, listen to the whole thing because we're talking about something that's happening in 90 days. Then go ahead. The second episode was way more fun and it was pretty wild. Go ahead.

Shaan Puri

We talked about his business empire. You know, what he's building and why he's building it that way. Why he gave back all the money from his fund and shut that down. Why he...

Sam Parr

it's huge

Shaan Puri

He turned off all his advertisers, which amounted to $1,000,000 in advertising. What he's doing instead... So we talked about that, and then it went off the wall. The podcast got a little crazy, but in a great way. I think people are going to love part 2.

Sam Parr

He broke down all of his businesses and how they work. It's very impressive. It was pretty wild, and he's impressive. He's significantly more impressive than a lot of people think, I believe, because there's way more behind the scenes.

Shaan Puri

Pretty funny stories! Pop is usually pretty buttoned up on his main channel because he's talking finance; he's talking serious. But he tells some pretty funny stories. So, the second part is the more fun episode, while part one is the more serious episode. I think you'll like them both.

Sam Parr

And we have to remind you guys that our episodes... we work really, really hard. Unlike every other type of podcast out there, our stuff's not free. But you don't pay with money. All you have to do is go to our YouTube page. We call this the "Gentleman's Agreement." What is it? The "Ladies' Understanding."

Shaan Puri

the ladies understanding

Sam Parr

You go to our YouTube page, and the reason it's called that is because it's an understanding—it's an agreement. We can't be there behind your screen to check this; otherwise, we would. But everyone's doing it, so just go ahead and click "subscribe" on YouTube. Then, just go ahead and do that on Spotify and iTunes. The more you do that, the more our volume goes up, and we get more downloads than we could. Keep doing this type of stuff. Pump ain't gonna come on to episodes like this if we don't have a big listenership. Same with all the other guests.

Shaan Puri

alright enjoy

Sam Parr

Can we talk about, instead of value ruining, value creation? Because Pompe owns like four companies, I think. I wanted to ask him about that. My fight or flight mode is like too much right now. I need a rags-to-riches story. I need something interesting. I need Pump to tell me how he makes the paper now because I need to calm down. I need to meditate by Pump telling me how he makes income. Is that alright, Sean?

Shaan Puri

yeah but but how what's your question how do you wanna frame it

Sam Parr

Well, from what I understand, you have four or five different companies. You have this office in Miami, and it feels like you have... at first, I was going to call it a mini empire, but that doesn't sound so mini. Actually, it sounds more like a medium empire... yeah, maybe a big empire. I don't know. Can you explain what are the things that you have going on?

Anthony Pompliano

yeah so you know from my career if you really think about there's kind of 3 stages to some degree at first it was like hey how do I build companies and I basically had enough success where I was like okay maybe I'm not like horrible at this but I definitely don't know how to like build companies to scale etcetera that led to facebook where like that was kinda my equivalent of like an mba right I literally was with all these super talented people in 2014 2015 I was put on a number of different projects where I got exposed to mark zuckerberg and sheryl sandberg and a bunch of the leadership of the the company and I just learned a lot it was like the best learning experience possible and shortly thereafter I started investing and when I started investing it was kinda like I didn't have an idea to start a company so like oh let's try this investing thing and I really enjoyed doing it ended up building 2 different asset management firms and like it's fun but like the product is kind of money and you get to work on a bunch of different ideas but I think that I keep coming back to an idea of like venture capital is such a slugging percentage game that what you end up doing is you end up actually playing an access game almost more than you do playing a business game and what I mean by that is outside of the maybe the big 5 or 6 venture capital funds once a company gets derisked it is all access right it is literally who do you know how do you get into a deal how do you actually get an allocation whatever and like that's fun but that to me is more of like a kind of a status type thing of like oh what do these people think of me will they invite me into the deal and like that maybe is like an underbelly of the venture capital industry and so simultaneous to building those asset management firms I started creating content on the internet and in hindsight like it was optimized initially for learning then it kinda switched like oh there's a lot of deal flow that comes from this and so I like took it a little bit more seriously and then there was this like final transition to like oh these are like businesses right and I think the big that I had was historically you built a company by building the product and then going and looking for customers now you can find the customers and then build the product and so that's essentially what we've done is we've built this very very large audience you know the podcast has 25,000,000 downloads last year youtube's half a 1000000 subscribers one day I think you guys are gonna pass me so keep going the email is big twitter's big etcetera

Shaan Puri

and is

Sam Parr

there a podcast is are you bigger than us right now are you trying to flex on us or are we already bigger I think you're still bigger

Anthony Pompliano

downloads

Sam Parr

Ranges from **100,000** to **150,000** per episode. If that's so, the RSS feed, the actual pod, is in the **100,000** ish range—sometimes more, sometimes less. Then the YouTube videos are **20,000** to **50,000**. So that's why we say **100,000** to **150,000** downloads per episode. So you...

Anthony Pompliano

Guys will do more than me on individual episodes, but I have this crazy power law. We just put up an interview on YouTube, and it's got, you know, 100,000 views in the first 12 hours, right? So it's very much concentrated on the long tail, which is also interesting. Would you rather have the consistent 50,000 to 100,000 YouTube views and podcast listens, or would you rather have the breakout, like a million views every month or so?

Sam Parr

like this is so may maybe maybe you'll catch up to us one day I don't know

Anthony Pompliano

So, the general idea has just been: how do you build those businesses? Really, it's like once you know who the audience is, you can go and build products. I very much look at it as a game, and it goes back to the whole idea of like, I don't have hobbies. This is what I do in my free time, and I really enjoy doing it. We've built a number of different businesses; some of them have been bigger than others. But really, it's like if you have distribution, then you can build companies in the 21st century. We see really, really big creators doing this. I tend to think anyone can do it, and then I guess...

Shaan Puri

what are the businesses

Anthony Pompliano

so there's the media company itself then we have a with the 2

Sam Parr

Asset management... you have, you have... so yeah, let's just listen. So, number one: a media company that has advertising. Is that a substantial size business?

Anthony Pompliano

it used to have advertising it was a very substantial business it probably was one of the best monetized podcasts in the world based on the audience to to revenue it it it was a big podcast and so both on the revenue side and also the the demos I turned all the ads off and I think there was really 2 things that fit into it 1 was when you have an advertiser usually you just go and you find companies that you like their product you then say hey I use this product you guys should check it out and that's like fine if you're doing like a bar of soap or you're doing like liquid death or you know like what whatever the the normal product is the problem in finance is like people put their money into a product that you then share and so you're essentially like renting your reputation to someone else right and you have no control over the business you don't know what they're doing and then it's not like oh I bought this you know chair that got recommended or I bought this sweatshirt that sean and sam said was really cool I don't like it like idiots right but like I'm not that worried about it when somebody puts their money into a product then all of a sudden it it's a whole different game and so I just didn't wanna be in that world anymore especially when a lot of them are crypto companies and crypto companies kept blowing up etcetera but the second thing that I realized from a business opportunity standpoint is when I got rid of all of the advertising I knew that we would take a massive hit we have a team we've got an office like all this stuff and so I had to commit to personally covering everything so like once I made the decision I've been losing money every month but I'm doing it because the bigger opportunity is to actually own the products and services that you put through the distribution so think of it like you guys will get paid as a podcast host for an ad they might pay you $1 to read the ad but they're making 3 to $5 on the back end as their return on advertising now if you can cut out the middleman and you can just own the product or service that's a way better deal the reason why most people don't do it is because they don't have the skill set or the interest in actually building the product or the service and so I basically just was like look we kinda like figured out how to do advertising based content I want a hard challenge I want to do something that is going to be by most people's accounts stupid to give up all this revenue and go try this and like it's 1 intellectually stimulating but 2 is if we figure it out it'll be a way bigger business and it'll be a much more sustainable resilient thing over the long run it's just you gotta be able to weather the kind of bumpy transition in between ad base to you know owning the products and services yourself

Sam Parr

So, we have a fund. We have a media company, which sometimes does, and sometimes doesn't, actually make revenue. Then we have... hold on.

Shaan Puri

hold on the fund didn't you give all the money back are you aren't you no longer in the fund

Anthony Pompliano

So, there are two different asset management firms. One was a joint venture with Morgan Creek Capital, a hedge fund. We invested all the capital and, you know, invested in companies like Coinbase and we bought some Bitcoin, those types of things.

Sam Parr

and you get a cut if it ever does well

Anthony Pompliano

Correct. Then, I had a second asset management firm. I was one of the first people to do a rolling fund on AngelList, which I found to be an incredible product for someone who has a small team and kind of wants to punch above their weight. I think we grew it into maybe the third biggest rolling fund on the platform at the time. We made a bunch of investments, and then I just got to the point where I started to do the math. I was like, "What do I enjoy investing in?" I enjoy investing in the pre-seed and seed stages. I actually don't like doing Series B or Series C stuff again because it's more of a status and access game. I enjoy meeting someone who says, "I have an idea," and talking to them to figure out if it's a viable idea and what the first steps are. If you actually look at the math, if you can afford to personally invest in those deals, a lot of times it's actually better economically to personally invest than it is to invest out of the fund because of the way that the carry works and the management fees, etc. So, it was like, if I invest personally rather than through the fund, I also don't have to spend time on LPs, on the updates, or do all the things that go into managing a fund. I get time back, and I could make more money. I'll always pick that. So, I gave back all of the uninvested capital out of that fund and now just do all of my investing personally.

Sam Parr

And do you do big checks, or is it like the normal $15,000 to $30,000 angel check?

Anthony Pompliano

No, I'll do bigger than that. But what I've over time started to realize is that, and it goes back to kind of why we want to serve so many of these companies, investing in other people's companies is great. Obviously, the power law takes over, and when that occurs, it's amazing. Angel investing could be really profitable. However, you're much more likely to take, you know, $50,000 or $100,000, start a business, and get to like $1,000,000 in revenue, throwing off $500,000 to $700,000 in profit year after year. You can do this with a very high degree of probability of success. So, in some way, what's better than angel investing in other people's ideas? It may actually be just like angel investing in your own ideas or your own companies. That's really where I've been focused. Yes, I will still on occasion invest in other companies, but now I want to start these businesses. I look at it as: what is the competitive advantage we have? We have capital, but we also have distribution. If you have capital and distribution, you basically just need a decent idea and an absolute killer operator. If you can define those two things and combine them with the capital and distribution, you've got a good chance of being able to make some money.

Sam Parr

And so, you have... and by the way, what's your biggest angel investment? Or what will end up being, so far, the most successful one, do you think?

Anthony Pompliano

Some of the... I mean, Bitcoin obviously is probably the one that will end up making the most money, both in terms of the amount of money I invested but also just the aggregate dollar value it'll be worth. I tend to be in Sean's camp; like, the dollars aren't gonna matter. It's just gonna be the Bitcoin. I think that some of that people will find interesting. I don't know the exact math on all of them. One of the things is, when it's your own money, you probably pay less attention than when it's a fund, right? Because you're kind of just like, "Oh, I invested that money; it's gone. Hopefully, I get some back later." But I invested in Varta Delian and a bunch of those guys. They're doing kind of space manufacturing, and I find that really fascinating. A friend and I invested in something called Everlywell, based out of Austin. Actually, they do at-home diagnostic testing. I invested in Howard Lerman's new company, Roam. They're kind of building a workspace for remote teams, kind of a Zoom and Slack type killer. That seems to be doing very, very well, along with a whole host of other ones.

Sam Parr

So, alright, we're... and then you've got the fun in investing. You got that media company. You also have the Crypto Academy. You have CryptoJobs, which has now parlayed into a proper recruiting service.

Shaan Puri

yeah

Sam Parr

are those 3

Anthony Pompliano

So, you can basically think of the inflection points business, a business called Inflection Points, as a holding company for all these different products and services in a specific vertical. I'm fascinated with Mark Leonard. I don't know if you guys know Constellation Software; he basically buys these vertically specific software companies. Well, what happens if you don't have a holding company that ends up buying across different verticals? What if you just have a holding company within a specific vertical? That's basically what we've built. We have a job marketplace where companies can go list their open roles. They pay for it, and we then use the distribution to drive traffic so people can go get a job.

Sam Parr

We also have... and that's **popcryptojobs.com**, right? That's it, correct? Okay, and that's like a pretty basic business. It's just a job board.

Anthony Pompliano

Think of a job board, right? That's how we got started. We launched it, and it got to about $50,000 in monthly revenue pretty much in the first four weeks. It was like, "Okay, we have a business here, right? We can go and try to scale this thing." We then bought a recruiting company, kind of traditional headhunters. **Proof of Talent** is the name of that business. You can do self-serve; you can go and list the jobs, and people will come to you. Or you can work with the recruiters, who just take a percentage of the first-year fee. Then we started doing corporate training. There was a very large company that came to us and said, "Hey, can you train our people?" So we got into that business and ended up growing that to seven figures in revenue. Then we just started a research business. The research business is like buy-side research. You pay a subscription fee, and they deliver research a couple of times a week, called **Reflexivity**.

Sam Parr

can you say what that's can you say what that was called

Anthony Pompliano

So that one's like a perfect example, right? Reflexivity research is within that holding company, but I think it's a perfect example of what I want to do now, over and over again. So if you have an idea, please reach out to myself, Sam, or Sean. Will Clemente is a young guy in the Bitcoin and crypto world who has done really great analysis. I've worked with him for about a year, and I know that he's hardworking.

Shaan Puri

how did you find that guy he was like in college right when you found him that guy was great

Anthony Pompliano

he was working at target

Shaan Puri

he was working at target literally

Anthony Pompliano

he was literally working at target and he would go into that

Sam Parr

this story can end either way this is gonna end wonderfully or

Shaan Puri

"Or not." I mean, the... the... the bitty bitty researcher was working at Target. Alright, this is either a great underdog story or it's gonna be, "How could you guys trust this guy?"

Anthony Pompliano

Well, I don't remember every single detail, but he had like, I don't know, a couple thousand, maybe 1,000 followers on Twitter. He was going into the bathroom at Target and tweeting like Bitcoin charts and stuff. I met him because of the things he was tweeting and then was in...

Sam Parr

the bathroom

Shaan Puri

no online and then I started being like hey you know like what's your background

Anthony Pompliano

What do you do? Like, also, he's like, "I'm literally in the bathroom at Target tweeting on my lunch break," right? I was like, "Alright, that's pretty cool." So we just started to interact online. Then I started to bring him on the podcast, and I got to know him. It was like, "Okay, this kid is smart." He's young, so he doesn't have a ton of experience, but his compounding rate of learning was off the charts. He would read a book in 2 or 3 days and then send me, "Hey, here's all the things I learned from the book." Then he'd read another one and do it again. It was just like, "Alright, the trajectory of this is not linear. This is very much compounding or exponential." This is a young person.

Shaan Puri

that I

Anthony Pompliano

wanna spend time with

Shaan Puri

Why is a guy who's this smart, getting into learning, working at Target in the first place? Was he just not interested in school but only interested in blockchain? Why does this happen? Oh, he...

Anthony Pompliano

He was in college, and this was like his job while he was in college. He would just go to the local businesses. Right? He got a job at Target.

Shaan Puri

cool

Anthony Pompliano

So, he ended up dropping out of college and kind of bet on himself. He got a job eventually, and we were like, "Hey, maybe we should start a company together." We figured out the structure of the business, put some money into it, and in the first 6 months, we got to $100,000 of ARR (Annual Recurring Revenue). I think that we will be at maybe $300,000 to $400,000 of ARR after the first, you know, call it 9 months. Then, I think that maybe we can get somewhere around $1,000,000 in the first year. So, it's like, if you can do...

Sam Parr

This product, by the way, I'm looking at the site. I used to own this thing called Trends.co, and we got that to be a good business. But you guys are doing something very similar. However, you're making... I made the mistake of being broad. You're doing just crypto. It's $25,100 a year. And what is it? Just a weekly newsletter?

Anthony Pompliano

No, you get like anywhere between 4 to 6 different research reports per week. Then there's a weekly call, which we call an analyst call. We've got a bunch of these young people who are like crypto-native kids. I’ll use "kids" because they're mostly under the age of 25. They’re super, super smart. They're in all the Discord channels, and they really understand what is happening in the community. Then you take someone like me who can help them wrap that into something that can be consumed by large family offices, hedge funds, large asset managers, individual investors, etc. So not only do you get the research reports, but you also get that weekly call where you can ask them questions.

Sam Parr

they're like and they're and they're

Shaan Puri

They're waiting for their report. Jason here from JPMorgan. Just a quick question for Commsquat 69. You mentioned that you...

Sam Parr

were yeah literally vaping on the call

Shaan Puri

Would love to hear you expand on that. Also, whoever's vaping, can you please mute the microphone?

Sam Parr

they just call everyone bra like sup bra yeah it's good

Anthony Pompliano

We literally have public company CEOs who are subscribers. They get on the call and they're trying to learn all this stuff. When you have these businesses, I think there are pros and cons to these internet-native businesses that are started, especially with young people who want to work and have this desire to push forward. The good thing is that they're young; they're too naive to know all the things that would stop someone else from doing it. They have a lot of time on their hands, and frankly, they're willing to make mistakes. They don't get embarrassed because they did something wrong. You just say, "Hey, don't do that," and they're like, "Okay, thanks," and they just go and do something else. The downside to it is that at one point, we literally had to have a little internal session on how to write, you know, like grammar, punctuation, spacing, and all those types of things. You go into these businesses understanding that it's all about momentum. You have to look for the rate of or the compounding rate of learning. If you can set it up correctly, these businesses can grow to be pretty substantial. They can be profitable. Also, the thing I enjoy the most is that if I could go back and be 22 again, I wouldn't want to get a regular job. I would want to bet on myself, use this internet thing, and try to make more money than I could at a regular job. In many of our different businesses, we have people who have made enormous amounts of money compared to what they could make if they went and got a normal job doing the exact same skill. But it all comes down to incentives. In every business, what I try to do is create upside. We take a portion of revenue or profit, depending on the business, and put it into a pool. Then we try to split that among the team. If you have a profitable business and you're able to incentivize people by saying, "Hey, when you win, I win, and when I win, you win," people will produce incredible quality and velocity of work. Ultimately, the capitalistic incentive takes over. They simply want to make money and do good work to make that money. This alignment of interests can lead to these businesses absolutely exploding.

Sam Parr

But why do five things instead of just one thing that could maybe grow a little bit faster or have more of your focus?

Anthony Pompliano

I am doing one thing, so I think this is a different way of looking at it. I'm providing capital and distribution. That's the only thing I do, right? When I start the research business, Will and the people he has hired are doing the research. They're doing all the different things. I'm really, really good at putting together the deals and the capital, and then pushing a high-quality product through my distribution. Hopefully, that'll grow to not just be my distribution but also include other people's distribution. I couldn't run the recruiting business. I couldn't run the research business. I couldn't run a lot of these different businesses. I have to kind of stay within that circle of competence. It's just like provide capital, have a huge megaphone, and I guess maybe pick correctly, right? Pick the people that you're going to do it with correctly, and then just get out of the way and let them be great at what they do. If you have the stars aligned, they can become pretty big businesses.

Sam Parr

Sean and I are kind of in a similar spot as you. The thing I keep asking myself is, "Yeah, this is awesome. We, you know, and Sean and I each separately are doing very similar things as you." But I think to myself, "When are people going to stop listening to me? When am I not going to be cool anymore?" Do you get that fear of like your clout won't matter?

Anthony Pompliano

Well, I think that I've now been on the internet long enough where I've gone through peaks and valleys. Like in 2021, I could have literally tweeted "sup" and it would have gone mega viral during the Bitcoin bull market. Right? Like, literally, I could just breathe on the internet and everything went viral. But that's not me. You have to be grounded enough to understand that this is the Bitcoin bull market, you know? It's not because I'm some genius. Now, when that stuff crashes, I have this saying: "If you get the praise on the way up, you gotta eat the shit on the chin on the way down." And so, like, you naturally...

Sam Parr

You've eaten a lot of shit because you're so charismatic and you make all these bold claims. I mean, you get a lot of crap.

Anthony Pompliano

yeah but like if you view that from the perspective like these people are attacking me like you'll be super depressed and you'll like run away and and be quiet and a lot of people do that when the bitcoin you know bear markets come or other asset markets come like there are people who just disappear right instead I look at those opportunities as kind of a defiant way to say like it does not matter what happens I'm not leaving and so you know in this last one when ftx blew up and all this stuff happened I went on national television and was grilled by a a reporter for 20 minutes in a completely unscripted thing he like he wasn't friendly but it to me like that's where my skill set shines is like I will debate anyone at any time on topics that I think I understand and it's even better if it's on live tv because guess what we did I went on television I did it I got off twitter was like on fire people were like that was the greatest segment of all time these 2 guys just went at it and I emailed them and I said send me the video I took the video and immediately uploaded it to youtube the full thing and I said title pump destroys tv host on bitcoin in publishers right and so like why go on television it's to get the clips to get the content to then post on your own stuff right so I I think that the hate you have to also realize like oh like that's the president of my marketing team that guy there's a guy yesterday true story who created an entire thread of hate he had videos he had tweets he literally filmed himself unfollowing me right like he filmed his phone screen record unfollowing me and I almost dm ed him and said thank you right but I was just like dude do you not understand how the internet works the more you attack people the bigger the audience gets and I don't wanna be attacked like I'm not seeking controversy I'm not seeking to be attacked but what ends up happening is if you have that view of that lens the haters are actually on your team they just haven't realized it yet and so like let them do their thing let them keep hating and naturally the audience gets bigger and bigger over time

Sam Parr

What distribution channel is going to be the most effective for you? When you talk about this distribution, if you only had one of them—let's say Twitter, an email list, a podcast, or YouTube—which one would you say is the most powerful? This is the one I'm focused on growing.

Anthony Pompliano

So, the one that I wouldn't give up is the email. However, I don't necessarily think that's the one I'm most focused on growing. I think that audio is a really interesting medium where you're basically whispering in someone's ear for like an hour. It's super intimate, and people really come to trust you and things like that. So, I think there's probably...

Sam Parr

Someone out there is just doing reps at the gym and grunting right now while listening to us. We get that a lot. So, you're in people's ears as they're bench pressing.

Anthony Pompliano

I mean, somebody's bicep curling right now, but also someone's literally at the bottom in their deep squat and they're like, "Damn."

Shaan Puri

what are these guys

Anthony Pompliano

They're calling me out right now, right? But like, you're basically just in people's ears or in email. You have direct communication. Also, you can write. If you understand what your best quality is, some people excel at writing, some people at video, and some people at just audio and talking. I know people who have podcasts and script out every single word of the episode. I don't think you guys do that, right? And like, if you guys did do that, one, it would take you forever, but also, two, it wouldn't be as entertaining. It wouldn't be as fun. So, it's kind of trying to figure out what the match is between the participant and the medium. If you guys were sending an email and you two wrote it without hiring anyone, sorry, but it would probably suck, right? There would be no magic here. What makes this so magical is the serendipity and the iterative nature that you guys have back and forth. As people start to get onto the internet and try to build these audiences, you really have to question: where is my advantage? Where do I actually have something that can cut through the noise? Because now there's so much noise. If you don't cut through, then you might as well not get started.

Hubspot

this data is wrong every freaking time

Sam Parr

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

Hubspot

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

Sam Parr

hubspot grow better I'm exhausted

Anthony Pompliano

I'm just exhausted I hate when

Shaan Puri

you end the episodes that way you you I

Sam Parr

just like that's how I feel because

Shaan Puri

Imagine watching a TV show. They're putting on a show, trying to have a good time, and at the end, they're like, "Fuck, man." You'd be like, "Well..."

Sam Parr

I just feel like I've just got down

Shaan Puri

I'm down, Sam. You are? I'm not down. You're a... people will follow your lead. If you had a good time, they'll have a good time. You gotta have, down as we say, showmanship. A showman wouldn't be tired at the end of his episode.

Sam Parr

Dude, I'm not down; I'm amped! It's like I just got done working out. I gotta go rest for a minute and then get up and implement all this stuff. I feel like I need to go, and like, I maybe I'm into crypto now. I don't know. Like, he just Malcolm Gladwell'd my ass! I just feel good about what I heard, and you're just full of energy. Do you nap? No? Are you a napper? No? You don't nap?

Anthony Pompliano

no hell no why would you nap

Sam Parr

you don't nap

Anthony Pompliano

to do oh

Shaan Puri

dude I do nap over here

Anthony Pompliano

napping yeah I take

Sam Parr

a 30 minute nap every day

Anthony Pompliano

do you guys both take naps for real

Shaan Puri

yeah I nap

Sam Parr

every other day since 99

Shaan Puri

trying to sleep every day once I get to every day I know I've made it

Anthony Pompliano

how many hours do you guys sleep at night

Sam Parr

7 normal

Anthony Pompliano

Same. Oh man, I don't think I could nap during the day. But I also drink coffee in the morning, so like that might screw it up too.

Shaan Puri

I I gotta tell you guys a hilarious story before we go so so pablo talking about his like analyst team is like you know the the the high quality analyst team that's all like you know you know 2 years out of out of undergrad and we at milk road we basically had a super lean team it was me ben but I wasn't active day to day really I was you know just kind of guiding ben was running it and then there was our our lead writer diego who's awesome and then we hired 1 guy we were like maybe we should do social media and so we put out a thing being like hey I don't know how to use tiktok but if you do come work for us and so this guy billy uploaded this incredible video it's on the it's on the internet you go go look on twitter basically he uploaded his video of him just chugging milk shirtless and just like doing it was just like a ridiculous video he's like he would find somebody but hey can you hold this phone I'm trying to get a job and then he would chug the milk and they'd be like a job what is this and so anyways we hired billy we tried to do the tiktok thing didn't fully work out but it was okay but billy's billy's a great guy he helped ended up helping write the newsletter so two hilarious things just happened 1st they did a milk road team off-site like something we never did because my whole ethos building the milk road was like I'm not trying to be a ceo anymore like I'm not trying to like stand up in front of the company with a t shirt with our name on it and tell everybody how great everything is like I just don't wanna even have to do all that stuff but the the new guys who bought it they wanna do the company building so they invited everybody out and I asked ben I go how was the off-site he goes he had one one insight from the whole thing he goes billy showed up in a wife beater but not as a joke he just said this is how what he wore to the event and no one said anything and I was like no one said anything I go wow that's incredible I can't imagine not saying anything and then let's fast forward 3 weeks billy billy they offered billy a raise and he quit instead and I was like it's a ben goes billy you you got a raise and you quit like this guy's a conundrum man what what's going on he goes he goes he goes you quit like what's what's the plan and he just replied to ben in the text message he goes do I look like a guy with a plan that became the most badass thing I've heard all week do I look like a guy with a plan

Anthony Pompliano

But Sean, I tend to think that we over-index a lot on people wanting to always hang out with their heroes. They want to hang out with older people, those who have done the things they are trying to do. There’s a lot of value in that, but I do think we drastically under-index on finding the young, energetic person who you might think, "You are literally an idiot," but damn, are you going to be an awesome idiot who's going to run through 20 walls and eventually find something on the other side. What it does is it forces you to up your game. Have you ever talked to a 21-year-old and said, "Okay, so let's get this done by Wednesday," and they respond, "Okay," then send it back to you just 2 hours later? You’re like, "Damn, why do we wait until Wednesday? This kid is actually correct; we should just get it done now." I do think that internet companies or these native companies have a big advantage. You know, you guys had Nick Huber, you’ve had Andrew Wilkinson, and a bunch of people doing this. When you find the right person who can just get things done, you are unstoppable with the internet now. I think that is something more and more people are going to wake up to. It wouldn’t surprise me if we bankrupt Main Street businesses because they all move online as people realize, "Why am I going to have a physical store that people have to walk into when I can just do this online thing?" It is a big concern for these local communities, but at the same time, there’s way more economic opportunity online for people who want to pursue that.

Shaan Puri

One of the other guys we tried to hire at Milk Road was a young guy, 20 or 21 years old. He was working at Main Street at the time, and I loved this guy's tweets. I thought he was interesting. He would tweet out these little random websites he was making on the weekend that were super simple. It was like, "It's either going to go viral or this is the dumbest thing ever." There was no in between. There was no core product or service; it made no sense. Nothing he did made any sense, and I was like, "Dude, I love this guy!" I told Ben, "Hey, we should hire this guy." He asked, "What's he going to do?" I replied, "I don't know. We should just have him do what he's doing now but without his full-time job. What if we just gave him more time to do the stupid stuff he's doing on the weekends, Monday through Friday instead?"

Sam Parr

and so I talked to him he'll figure it out

Shaan Puri

I talked to him and I was like hey you know dude I think this milk road thing's gonna work it was super early we were like I don't know 4 weeks into it or something and I was like I think this thing's gonna work you should join he's like same thing what am I gonna do I go just do do do weird you know rohan stuff that you do go just go ahead and do that and he's like alright cool let let me let me like let me let me hit you up he's like he's like when do you wanna start like tomorrow and I was like no no like I got like I'm traveling I'm gonna be back on wednesday let's talk on wednesday which is like 4 or 5 days away fatal mistake classic 34 year old mistake thinking that that the world's not gonna change in 4 days this guy's entire he in those 4 days he ends up launching an nft project that goes super viral ends up making so much money he goes and becomes this anonymous account frank d gods and he he he says and and he created the d gods project I can talk about it now because he's like out publicly but for a while I was like what the fuck is this and so I kept trying to hit him up and be like what happened I didn't know he was the guy behind dgods and so I was like dude what you ghosting me like we we were we had such a good idea he's like hey man like 3 weeks later he just resurfaced he's like sorry bro like like it's it was like no time had passed between our conversations like oh yeah about that I don't know man I I now I'm doing this other stuff I gotta do this and I was like tell me about it so he he screen shares and he shows me how he's growing it and one thing I'll never forget that was like the classic like this is this guy is an idiot this makes no sense but I I'm down and I'm I wanna be in this car and so he he shows me the site and I go how do you stop people from just selling it like you know right away like what what are you getting because nothing holds value unless the the people who buy it hold it was just why like for bitcoin the genius meme is the the hold old meme right because it became culturally the normal thing to do to just hold the thing and he goes oh yeah I had the same thought so I created something called the paper hands bitch tax and I go what basically if you sell at a loss if you sell for less than the mint price not only do you get just like you know you take the loss on the principal but we also apply a 25% tax because you had paper hands and we applied the bitch tax to you for selling on the on the dip and I was like he's like people loved it and I was like what the fuck and it totally it totally worked it became like again he he created a meme and it and it it was a monetized meme in his case and I just thought it was awesome so yeah I'm totally down to hang out with these guys

Anthony Pompliano

Sean, while all this was happening, I just looked at my DMs. I have another perspective on the exact same situation. One of the hacks that people have figured out is if they post something on their Instagram story. A lot of times, people with bigger audiences would just share it, but in the DMs, it looks like they messaged you. So now there's like, they posted something, then you posted something. He did that. He posted something, I reposted it, and then he followed up with, "He's gonna kill me for reading this out loud." He goes, "If you have any ideas for some more fun tools for us to make that you think would be helpful, we'd love to chat, man." He said it like we were boys, right? But he was just kind of saying it like, of course, you're gonna engage. I didn't respond. Maybe I didn't see it or whatever. So I guess I went to LA for the Super Bowl, and then he follows it up with, "Yo, we gotta kick it while you're out here." Again, like we're boys, and I'm like, "Who is this 20-something-year-old kid?" He just keeps messaging me until finally, in July, he starts DMing me things, and he just keeps saying "Yo." So I met him in person in Miami, and I was like, "Who are you basically?" He's like, "Oh, I'm into Bitcoin or whatever, but I have this secret to tell you." He told me about the NFT thing, and I was like, "What is going on?" He was showing up to conferences with handkerchiefs over his face.

Shaan Puri

right

Anthony Pompliano

and like

Sam Parr

completely different with

Anthony Pompliano

His identity... I was just like, do you understand how you cannot have any degree of success, reputation, or anything to be willing to go to the lengths of success that he went to? I think that's why young people are so empowering to be around. It's just like that kid was willing to do a bunch of stuff. No matter how cool we think the three of us are, we would never do 50% or 60% of the things that he did because we're like, "I can't do the paper hand bitch tax," because then everyone's like, "Pump, fuck you!" You know, like yelling and screaming or whatever. This kid's just like, "Dude, this would be hilarious. Watch this. Implement!" And it works. So, I don't know... it's just like, how do we find more of those? If you're a young kid who has an idea of like "rip your hand bitch tax," please DM us.

Shaan Puri

I'll tell you where I messed up. I had met, I think I told stories in the pod about like four people like this. I basically had four people that I kind of either did hire or was trying to hire as a really junior, kind of like intern-mentor type situation. They have all gone on to become multimillionaires and done super interesting things. I was like, "How do I have more of this young energy in my life?" Because these people are awesome. They're flawed for sure; they do a lot of dumb stuff, but the things they do are always interesting. It's never boring, right? It's like reality TV in a way to me. So I'm like, "Alright, I want to be... I don't want to just get older." As you become more successful, you start hanging out with older and older people, then you become old. So I'm like, "No, no, I'm trying to fight that." I did this dumb thing, which was I tried to recruit. I put out the call for people like this. I was like, "Hey, if you're young, you're smart, you know, join. I just want to hang with you. I'll invest in your stuff or I don't know, I'll mentor you. I'll do something." I put out a type form and I got all these smart people applying, but they were all the wrong people. I had done it in a way that was like the high achiever path. It was like, "Here's an admission form," and they were like a test. I know how to win the application process and get picked. They just said all the right-sounding things, which was, "Here's my background, here's my pedigree." They were well spoken, and I recruited like 20 of the wrong people. I just had to abandon ship. I was like, "Okay, I need to find a way to get like the shitheads and the..."

Sam Parr

yeah they they're they're the wrong type of nerd

Shaan Puri

Exactly. I don't want a high-achiever nerd who's used to ticking all the boxes and getting good scores on all the standardized tests. You know, getting picked for the things that their parents wanted them to do or what school wants them to do. It's like you need the person who's gone off the path. You know, the one who will be in the bathroom at Target, doing reckless Bitcoin stats and stuff like that. You need somebody who's a little bit off the path because they're the ones who do more interesting things. So, I don't know, I haven't figured out how to recruit that except for like referrals, basically. I'm like...

Anthony Pompliano

who do

Shaan Puri

you hang out with

Anthony Pompliano

it's marshawn lynch their like his famous quote of like I'm about that action boss

Shaan Puri

I'm about that action boss

Anthony Pompliano

Yeah, and like there's a young person I know. I won't use his name or what he built, but people may be able to figure it out. I think he moved to Miami or something, or like was visiting Miami maybe. I saw him on Twitter; he was tweeting some interesting things. I just DM'd him and was basically like, "What's your deal?" Right? And similar to Sam's, like, "Let's talk." I was just like, you know, "What's your deal?"

Sam Parr

and no I I I usually say what what's your story tell me your story

Anthony Pompliano

sean do you have

Shaan Puri

a couple

Anthony Pompliano

of the sam let's fuck

Sam Parr

is for friends

Anthony Pompliano

When I was in Austin, we were texting, and he was like, "Should we do dinner?" I responded with, "Let's fuck," and he was like, "Goddamn it." So this kid comes to the office. I don't know, he's probably in his early twenties, and he's literally like, "Yeah, so me and my friend built this app. It has been downloaded 75 million times and it's making like a million dollars." I was like, "What are you doing?" He's like, "Yeah, I'm gonna figure out a new thing to do." I said, "Well, what about the thing that's working?" He replied, "Oh, it's on autopilot. I'm gonna figure out this new thing." I was just like, "Man, you are so cool. I hope that you are so successful. We need like 100,000 of you in the world." He literally could care less about the money and all that stuff. He just was like, "How do we build cool shit?" So I was like, "Man, imagine if one of us had built an app that had 75 million downloads. We'd be talking about it nonstop. That'd be our main focus."

Shaan Puri

Yeah, Ben, update my LinkedIn and endorse my skills. Dude, I have the craziest version of the story.

Sam Parr

I know we're way over but

Shaan Puri

I gotta tell the story; it's too good. So, that guy Rohan, I'm like, "How do I meet more people like him?" My strategy was, let me just hang out with him. I told him to bring a friend. So, he drives from LA down to San Diego to where we're hanging out at this house, and he brings a friend. Of course, the friend is, you know, the 24-year-old version of the Dos Equis guy. He's the most interesting man in the world. So, this guy comes in, and I'm like, "Alright, what's your deal, guy who has curly hair and maybe still has pimples? Yo, you must be the best." And he, of course, was.

Anthony Pompliano

the best

Shaan Puri

So, he's like, "Yeah, my name's Luca." And I'm like, "What's your story?" He goes, "So, I went in reverse order." He brought in these guns, like these Nerf-type guns, like gel blasters. I don't know if you've seen this, but there's a gun called the gel blaster. It's basically like...

Sam Parr

they're everywhere

Shaan Puri

yeah it's everywhere now I didn't realize this

Sam Parr

it it it's like a $50,000,000 a year business

Shaan Puri

so he basically was like oh right now I'm working on this like d to c product this like you know thing oh yeah we just we're in walmart nationwide or whatever you know like I don't know some some shit like that where basically it's like if you're 13 year old years old this is your like number one thing you want for christmas it's like this it's kinda like less painful than a paintball gun but like cooler than a nerf gun where it's just a foam thing it's like this little pellet that's like a gel pellet and it shoots like a machine gun so already he brought 2 over the party became way more fun people are shooting each other it's so I'm like alright you're doing this that's crazy he's like yeah you know I was trying to do this but then we got ripped off we got sued by this one thing blah blah blah I was like alright what'd you do before this he goes oh yeah I'm into crypto that's why I know you know why I know you guys you know I bought pudgy penguins so he did like a hostile takeover / buyout of pudgy penguins this nft project which again it's not what you're is you know you don't usually think I'm gonna go spend 1,000,000 of dollars to buy pudgy penguins nft ip but he decided that that was a good use of time I said how'd you get 1,000,000 of dollars and he goes well before that I I started this online ecommerce brand I was selling gold chains you know like rappers gold chains and grills and shit like that I go what he's like yeah I just like I just realized that you could just buy these like kind of crazy blinged out rapper gold chains and like and I sold them and then I sold my company to this company shop gld which which is like 304,100,000,000 a year I was like they've been 300 400,000,000 I've seen these people like sponsor you know like kinda like you know random instagram influencers I'm like wow this is all crazy I go how'd you get started doing that and I got one level deeper he goes well I I had to like you know for family reasons you know me and my mom were like homeless for a couple years and I had to like oh my god I he's like I just quit school in high school and I had to go make money so I went down the street and I started knocking on doors trying to get a job I got rejected everywhere the last door I knocked on was a startup called ring and the guy jamie was was there it's a tiny office and he's like who are you what do you need he's like I need a job badly like to help pay you like for family stuff I'll do anything and he's like okay well I got like I gotta box up all these orders can you just help me with that and so he like started boxing up the orders he was like the first employee at ring and then was like with jamie for a few years before going off and doing his own thing

Anthony Pompliano

and I was like but

Sam Parr

now he and now he's your son

Shaan Puri

So, this was all before... like 20. He was about 24 or 25 when I met this guy a couple of months ago. I'm like, "You have lived three lifetimes in terms of career epicness and just really interesting things." I can't wait to see what this guy's going to do next.

Anthony Pompliano

But like that, to me, is the future. It's like all these young people who have that skill set. It's not for everyone; some people just want to go be the accountant or go be, you know, kind of a mid-level manager, and that's their career aspiration. That's fine. But for the people who want to do this, like that guy literally knows more about business, and like IP, and you know, physical store distribution, and like all these things than most people coming out of MBA schools. Right? Good for that kid.

Shaan Puri

100%. 100%. I was like, "Hey, I'm trying to think about influencers," and I literally felt like someone was being like... it's like when my grandfather comes to me. Yeah, exactly.

Sam Parr

they're they're they're gonna start calling you gray bush

Shaan Puri

Yeah, exactly. Well, it's like I've helped my grandfather set up FaceTime, you know, just so he could see his grandkids. And it's like, I don't know, just push the green button. That's all that's as far as you're gonna get here. That's how I felt by the end of talking to this guy about how to do online marketing through influence on Instagram. By the end of it, he was like, "You know what? Just send me the link, dude. I'll take care of it for you. You're not gonna be able to do this stuff."

Sam Parr

Dude, that's crazy! These are some good stories. I'm back; the energy's back, baby! Should we just...?

Anthony Pompliano

should we just go forever like just do like a 10 hour rip and see what happens

Shaan Puri

Like 30% of Palm's morning show, he would still be sitting there with his brothers. "Dude, we can still have like 2 hours of airtime to fill."

Anthony Pompliano

You want to know the craziest part about the morning show? It was the greatest thing I ever did and the worst thing I ever did because it took so much time. But man, there is no better thing than just hanging out. Imagine if we livestreamed every single day for 2 hours about whatever the heck was going on. You would never have more fun than doing stuff like that. The problem is, you start to just say what's actually on your mind and it can make it look really dull later.

Sam Parr

One time I was on your show, and I totally ruined it for your sponsor. Do you remember that?

Anthony Pompliano

no what'd you do

Sam Parr

I think you had sofi on as like a sponsor

Shaan Puri

yeah

Sam Parr

And I... I... I felt like something wasn't going well with them. I was like, "Sofi? More like so fucked." Then I saw your face freak out, and I thought, "Oh wait, Sofi marketing people, if you're listening to this, this is me, Sam. I'm saying this, not Pop, so don't yell at him. You guys suck or something."

Anthony Pompliano

They were incredible, and it was like they had the stadium and the whole thing. But, you know how it is, right? There are probably people who have said things about sponsors or maybe a company you're an investor in or whatever. You're always like, "I wish you hadn't said that." But here we go. That was definitely one of those moments where I was just like, "Well, there's a lot worse things that Sam could've said." So, on the grand scale of what is possible, that was not great, but still, you know, we'll just keep moving here.

Shaan Puri

well so

Sam Parr

well I made sure I I well I talked to him go sorry go ahead

Shaan Puri

You’ve got the Donald Trump thing where it’s like if you’re crazy from the beginning, if you just say wild shit all the time, there’s no penalty. It’s only like, if you’re a little too smart and responsible, if you slip up even a little, people are gonna get on you. But like, if you’re just wild all the time, there is no penalty. You somehow get an "out of jail free" card. I think I’ve been trying to steal that from Sam now, of how to just keep it loose. Somehow, like Sam does it to guests. They’ll come on and he’ll be like, “You know, you’re really good looking for an ugly tech guy.” Their heads are already spinning. Or he’ll just say, “You’re not rich, but you’ve got a little bit of money,” and they’re just like, “What did he just say to me?”

Anthony Pompliano

sean you'll appreciate this whenever people

Sam Parr

make them

Anthony Pompliano

No, whenever people are like, "Hey, I wanna start a podcast," I kind of talk through it with them for a few minutes in terms of what to do. I use Sam as an example. So I'm like, "Well, you can have a show where you just talk by yourself. You can have an interview show." Within those different categories, you know, you can have a really serious, intelligent podcast where you ask really smart questions. Or you can be really blunt, like Sam Parr. He'll just have guests come on and be like, "How much money is in your bank account?" I always think, man, 50% of people are like, "I'm good, I'm not gonna answer that," and then 50% literally tell you the answer. I'm like, what a genius way to get great content! It's just like, ask the questions that no one will answer.

Shaan Puri

And then he'll follow up with something that's like, "Well, the reason I ask is because I want to know." It's like there's more justification, but there's just none. Because I'm always curious, like, you know, I've been following...

Anthony Pompliano

you for years

Shaan Puri

and I just I was always curious like what is it

Sam Parr

Well, in that book *Influence*, they say that if you give someone a reason for why you're doing something, the more likely you are to do it, right? So, I got in the habit of saying, "Yeah, and I'm asking that because I'm curious."

Anthony Pompliano

right it doesn't matter what comes after

Shaan Puri

it's because it's just a magic word

Anthony Pompliano

alright can I can I ask you guys one question before we before we break here

Shaan Puri

yeah

Anthony Pompliano

Can each of you think of one person? Who's the one person that's on the internet—so not like, you know, Mark Zuckerberg or Jeff Bezos or whatever—who's the one internet entrepreneur that you're like, "Man, that person seems to have figured it out"? I can't wait to see what they continue to do over the next 20 to 30 years. Extra points if it's somebody that no one really knows.

Sam Parr

my obvious one is huber but nick huber but let me think about let me think about

Shaan Puri

wait why is that obvious I don't think that would have been obvious why is it obvious

Sam Parr

Well, everyone knows them. I also think that if I had to bet money on one operator, I think it would be Austin Reif at Morning Brew. I've gotten to know him really well, and he's one of the few people where I'm like... I'm afraid of him. If I hear that I'm going to compete with him, I would be like, "Shit, it's on." So, I would say those two, but let me try to think of someone who's a little bit more anonymous. What about you, Sean?

Anthony Pompliano

let me ask you

Shaan Puri

A different question, Pom. Before I answer, what would be the type of answer that would be interesting to you here?

Anthony Pompliano

It's just somebody who, like, either nobody knows or somebody who's been successful doing something that isn't like, "Oh, I set up a newsletter and now I have a bunch of ad revenue." Like, the pellet gun, you know, is fascinating, right? You're just like, "Man, who even knew that was a market?" So, like, somebody who's kind of out of the mainstream.

Sam Parr

Alright, here's one. We both have a friend, but I'm going to hurry up and say it so Sean does it. There's a guy named Mark Jenny who started this company called RV Share, and he sold it for $100 million. Now he owns like $50 million worth of Airbnbs. We'll message him like, "Hey, do you want to come on the pod?" He's like, "Oh, I can't for the next three months. I'm traveling the world with my kids and their homeschooling teacher." I think he's kind of one of the guys who I look at who's just kind of won at life. And the last one is the guy who started WP Forms. What's it called, Sean? His name is Saeed. He started this company that owns maybe a $100 million a year business where he owns all these WordPress forms and plugins. He says he works five days a week, and one day a month, or one week a month, he takes meetings with all of his CEOs. Besides that, he's giving away a lot of his money, and he's like 30 years old, married with kids, super low-key.

Anthony Pompliano

that's a great answer sean

Shaan Puri

I'll give you a couple of names that come to mind. I think Amjad from Replit is sitting on a monster business that is kind of hidden in plain sight. People know about it, but it's not yet considered to be big just because they haven't come out with a really flashy headline of being worth $1,000,000,000. When they raised their last round, it was almost strategically shy of the $1 billion mark; it was around $800 million instead. I'm sure they could have negotiated it up, but I actually really like that he didn't. I think it's going to be a really important company, and it's going to look different than the previous winners. You know, what happens is Amazon takes off, and then you think the next big thing is going to be e-commerce. But no, it's actually Google. Then Google takes off, and you think the next thing is going to be search and information. No, it's actually Facebook. It starts off as a college social network, and then you think Facebook's the big thing, but it actually turns out to be Uber. Uber and Airbnb were like real-world applications that you can use your phone as a magic button to access. So, the next interesting thing is not going to look like what the last interesting things looked like. I think what Replit is, which is this coding environment for often beginners and teenagers, is a stealthy, really big deal. But it's kind of boring, so I wouldn't say he's the one I'm looking at because I kind of know what he's going to do for the next 10 years. I almost don't have to look; I could just check in in 10 years and be like, "Yep, the hockey stick kept going," and obviously, that had big implications.

Anthony Pompliano

Well, I'm an investor in Replit, and I think that you're spot on. It's way bigger than people realize. But also, the most important thing is that they capture new coders and then try to keep them in that environment. If they get you early on, it's like going to the source. That's your lifetime infrastructure. It's a fascinating business. I'm an idiot and should have invested so much more money because I completely agree it's going to be a massive, massive company.

Sam Parr

so who are the other ones sean

Shaan Puri

The other ones... So, I would have said a couple of years ago Sam Altman, but now I think that's obvious. So, I'm going to say somebody who I think is on par with Sam Altman but doesn't have the same shine and doesn't have the clear, like, OpenAI type of interesting bet, which is Daniel Gross. So, Daniel Gross is one of the most interesting and impressive people that I've met. I think that he fits your category because he's still young enough. He's ambitious—super, super ambitious—like Sam Altman, but he's free. He's not currently committed to one company for a really long time or in the middle of something, you know? He hasn't picked one path that he has to stay in. I just can't imagine that in the next 10 years, Daniel Gross doesn't do something that is just epic. I think it could be in some field that maybe he's not even working in today. It could be like longevity or some biohacking thing. So, I think that you need people who are willing to go into these other spaces that pull off some impressive stuff. I think the bio and longevity space is really interesting, and there's going to be some tech entrepreneur that's like, "Forget the newsletter, podcast, Twitter, forget software with VCs, forget investing. I'm going to go and do something else with my time." I like people who just choose to play their own game, and ideally a game that not everybody else is playing. I think Daniel Gross is going to be that guy.

Anthony Pompliano

That's a great one. He is kind of like hidden in plain sight, but I think that Sam was at the same time.

Shaan Puri

Like, he came on our podcast really early on, like at the Hustle's office. I don't even know how we got him on. We just... I don't even know who knows, or maybe it was me or you, Sam. I don't remember. But he just walked in. I don't think he had any idea what we were doing. I'm pretty sure we shared a microphone, like we did the thing where you...

Sam Parr

think we were on our iphone

Shaan Puri

I'm going to pass it to you like we were down... definitely down one mic. It's like because we've only ever done two-person episodes. It was this tiny room and we were sitting.

Sam Parr

like this airpod

Shaan Puri

Little table... you know, like it looks like Lunchables should be on top of the table. It was that baby of a table. Our show is not for everybody. It's not like you could sit down and most people would be like, "Cool, let's brainstorm. What's an interesting startup idea you have? What are some spaces you think are cool? Why do you think this is gonna work?" This guy was able to riff for like two hours on everything from running to why somebody should create a new Apple competitor, creating a new laptop, to his investing strategy and why it's different. He talked about how he's gonna beat Y Combinator. All these different topics, and he just went for like two hours effortlessly. I thought, "Okay, that's impressive. That's the type of person I like to follow and be around."

Anthony Pompliano

But is that like a signal? You actually should surround yourself with, one, young people, and two, the most interesting people you can find. Like, I hate going to dinner. Sam and I were talking about this when we went to dinner. I hate going to the classic business dinner where everyone's like, "Oh, what do you do? What's going on at work?" Whatever. I love the person who shows up to dinner and they have some wild thing that makes everyone disagree, argue, and debate what's going to happen. And then you find that the person who has that usually has a whole bag of them, right? They literally are like, "Oh, okay, we're done talking about this one. Here's my next, you know, ace out of my back pocket." Those people somehow always figure out how to be successful. Very rarely do you find the most interesting man, kind of like the kid with the gun, right, that ends up not figuring it out. They may fail a hundred times, but eventually, they do it. Is that just like they think differently? And is that kind of the prerequisite to actually finding true success?

Shaan Puri

Yeah, independent-mindedness. Like, Jack Smith was the other guy I was going to say because he's like this... I don't know, pop. Do you know Jack?

Anthony Pompliano

no who's that

Shaan Puri

He's Jack Smith. He started Vungle, which was a big ad network. But he's a kind of young British guy who is...

Sam Parr

I don't think so company for $900,000,000 when he was 28 years old

Shaan Puri

And so, he... but if you talk to him, he'll never mention it. It's not because he's being humble—he is humble—but it's just not interesting to him. I don't know. Even though it was interesting, he left a few years before it sold because he's like, "Cool, I'm gonna do whatever." Anytime you talk to Jack, he's up to a new, as Sam would call it, "caper." It's not usually for profit; sometimes it is, but it's more like, "Dude, Jack, you don't care about this money." He's like, "But I'm trying to beat this game." So, one time you'll talk to him and he'll say he spent the last two months in his garage trying to build the perfect computer chair. It's like the zero-gravity, floating-on-your-back chair. He tried every product, tinkering with it until he gets it right. The next time you talk to him, he's really into the world of collectibles. He's got this arbitrage going where he's buying and selling baseball cards. You're like, "Sam, you're like, Jack, do you even know about baseball?" He's like, "Couldn't tell you the first thing about baseball, but I can tell you that this card right here is undervalued, and my team in the Philippines is flipping them right now for profit." Then the next time...

Sam Parr

He talked to them. He made a list where he put in a spreadsheet all the companies from which you can buy a pair of clothing and return it within 365 days. He was like, "I want to see if I can live for free for a year off this cloth that I can return," or you know, just like weird schemes. He just loves that.

Shaan Puri

More like, he had a baby and then he didn't name the baby. They just called it "baby" for the first year until the baby could pick its own name by crawling to one of the names. I was like, this guy is not going to do anything in the standard version. He's not doing any of these things; he's not talking about them. Maybe he doesn't even want to. Maybe we should take that out. But he doesn't do it for the effect; he just does it because he got curious about that path or wanted it to make more sense to him than the other way. Then he'll do it. What you don't want is the guy who's at the dinner table who immediately says the crazy thing because they're trying to seem a little bit out there and build their brand. That's the worst. You want the person who's almost aloof to the fact that it sounds batshit crazy. You're like, "Dude, do you realize what you're saying?" And they're like, "What? What's wrong with that?" Well, the...

Sam Parr

Way, the baby thing was like... I made fun of him. I go, "Jack, for once in your life, be normal." Then, like, time passed and I was like, "That's actually a great idea." Because he said, "Why would I name my kid before I even know them? I should see what type of name fits." I was like, "Oh yeah, you're actually right. It is weird that we don't get to know them." So anyway, he does things all the time where at first glance I'm like, "This is the stupidest thing ever. Just be normal for once." Then he'll... I actually think he's right a lot of times.

Anthony Pompliano

But I think that there's someone who has that proclivity of always doing things in a different way. One, it isn't necessarily different to them, but two, those individuals are the ones who actually end up figuring out what is the best chair. They're the ones who will convince a whole friend group to not name their kids for a year, or you know what I mean? There's almost this lack of importance we put on the courage to be different. So, even in friend groups, do you ever notice that everyone thinks one way, and then once one person says something else, a bunch of people flip?

Shaan Puri

and and

Anthony Pompliano

They're almost like this... kind of like, "Oh, where's the magnet?" Right? Like, "Oh, this viewpoint is popular." They just kind of mosey on over here and then, "Oh, this other person said this," and they mosey on over there. I do think that we need those people in our society, but also, man, what a boring friend group it would be to have where everyone just gets together on Friday night and they're like, "What'd you do this week?" "I don't know, went to work." Right? Like, "What are you doing this weekend?" "I don't know, gonna just watch the games." It just would not be fun. I think that a lot of people who listen to this podcast, but also just like are "quote unquote" on the internet, they're escaping what could be like their local life of that. They're trying to find other interesting people; they're trying to find other ideas. It's exhilarating for them. So, like, this Jack guy sounds amazing, but how do you find a hundred of them?

Shaan Puri

well it's usually

Sam Parr

when you find 1 and

Shaan Puri

Then you just realize that they're going to do this forever. There's this one Russian guy who started a social network back in the day called **Koob**. I don't know if you ever saw it, but Koob was like TikTok before TikTok. It was amazing! It was only in Russia and Ukraine. I only found out about it because I randomly met up with a group from Ukraine that was touring Silicon Valley. I was like, "Hey, come to our office. I'll give you a talk." At the end, I asked them, "What's the hot stuff in Ukraine that I should be knowing about?" I don't even know why I asked this question. It turned out to be a great question, but I didn't really expect them to have a good answer. They said, "This thing called Koob is blowing up," and this was like two years before TikTok. So, anyway, he built that thing. It didn't end up going huge, I think because of other reasons, like with Russia and the way they control things. But I'm like, this guy is always going to do interesting things. Last week, I checked in and asked, "What's that guy Anton doing?" Of course, he's doing the craziest stuff. Now he's trying to change the way people eat fruit. I was like, "What?" He said, "You ever seen someone eat a mango? Cut a mango? Disgusting!" He goes, "The way Americans eat mangoes is terrible. A mango is..." He just goes off, "Mangoes are beautiful! They're the most delicious thing!" Basically, he has some process that cuts the juiciest part of a mango into a perfect little ball. You look at it and think, "That looks delicious!" His mission is to make fruit more fun and delicious to eat by just cutting it better. You cut it better and package it that way, you store it in a certain way. He said, "I'm going to reinvent the way people eat fruit." And I'm like, "Of course you are! Of course, the guy who created TikTok two years before TikTok is now going to change the way I eat mangoes." But, you know, sure enough, he's going to just keep doing interesting things. He can't not.

Anthony Pompliano

that's an investment thesis weird shit that makes money it's amazing

Sam Parr

Pump, you were messaging me before this and you were like, "It's only an hour, right?" I was like, "Yeah, give or take." And give or take an hour, this is now our longest episode ever! I think, hopefully, you didn't miss any meetings. We're going to break this up into two episodes, I think. I think we have to.

Anthony Pompliano

2 episodes

Sam Parr

I think, I think because the first thing was awesome and the second thing was awesome. I don't want people to miss the second half. The second half was maybe better than the first half.

Anthony Pompliano

Well, you guys were too kind. I listen every week and always enjoy listening to you guys give each other shit and then having the...

Sam Parr

guys funnier

Anthony Pompliano

Well, see, the whole thing about humor is that you guys have your moments, but I just enjoy what I enjoy when the guests come on. You both can just feel it. Like, one time I heard Joe Rogan and Naval on the podcast, and I said to my wife, "Man, Joe Rogan's super smart, but this is like a Ferrari and a Corolla." You know? Like, literally, Naval was just hitting his A-game, and even Joe was just kind of like, "Tell me more." He just had nothing to really go on. Sometimes I can feel you guys are like, "Man, you guys are just absolutely killing it," and then a guest comes on, and you're like, "Tell me more," and you just let them ride. So, I appreciate all the work you guys are doing. You give me a little something to listen to every morning.

Shaan Puri

Sam, the funnier guy, is the one who didn't have to ask, "Who's funnier?" Just so you know, that's a general rule.

Anthony Pompliano

it's better than you I don't know man who's uglier which which

Shaan Puri

I'm sure is

Anthony Pompliano

the next question

Sam Parr

I don't know man I get texts I get at least one text a month saying I'm hilarious

Anthony Pompliano

have you guys done the analysis of who talks more

Shaan Puri

it's gotta be man I don't have yeah

Anthony Pompliano

it's in the movie oh I'm sure some somebody in the audience probably could do it and then you can argue

Sam Parr

with it him yeah

Shaan Puri

They did something. We don't even need data science. We don't need Will Clemente at Target to know this one: don't leave.

Anthony Pompliano

talk and and interrupt more dude bob this

Shaan Puri

Is great! What were you saying? You were saying that everybody should subscribe to our channel or they're going to lose all their money or something like that. What was the agreement? The gentleman's agreement?

Anthony Pompliano

if you don't fulfill the gentleman's agreement like what's going on come on

Sam Parr

the gentleman's agreement and the lady's understanding

Shaan Puri

the lady's understanding exactly

Anthony Pompliano

What you guys should start telling people is, "Help me help you." You know, just throw a screenshot. Yeah, get the video in the feed. Now that Susan, the CEO of YouTube, has stepped down, Neil has stepped in. He's bringing back all the distribution. He's going to send you guys to the moon, so don't worry.

Sam Parr

I wish I could be on a first-name basis with these people. I mean, it's like, what are you?

Sam Parr

like a what are you you're like a it's

Sam Parr

called dave matthews band dave too

Anthony Pompliano

Well, the beauty is you just call them by their first name and then, similar to Rohan DMing me, you just think that you're boys. So I'm hoping that maybe they'll turn our volume up a little bit on YouTube if you...

Shaan Puri

use this susan susan yeah we kinda take

Anthony Pompliano

It’s actually a really funny story. Very quickly, what is the name of the guy who used to walk around with the clock? What is that guy's name? Oh, the big one.

Sam Parr

flav a flav

Anthony Pompliano

Flav, a Flav! So, I'm pretty sure... yeah, I'm like almost 99.9% sure it was him. I was working at Facebook when Joe Montana came to do this veterans event. They needed an escort, kind of like a babysitter for any guest who comes on campus. So, another guy was going to take Joe Montana, and they were like, "Hey, you are going to go with Flavor Flav." I was like, "Oh, that sounds cool! Okay." I'm walking around with him, kind of nervous to talk to him because he's, you know, like a celebrity. But also, is he cool? Is he not? Whatever. We do the event, and at the end, he goes, "Yo, before I leave, where's that Instagram dude at?" I was like, "What?" And he was like, "The Instagram dude." I was like... and he continued, "The Instagram guy, where is he? I know he works here." I was like, "Do you mean like the founders?" And he was like, "Yeah, the tall one. I met him. I know him." I was like, "Oh boy." So, I said, "Kevin?" and he was like, "Yeah, that one." I genuinely know where the Instagram team sits, so I walked through the whole campus. I was like, "Please don't be at your desk, please don't be at your desk, please don't be at your desk." I had never talked to the guy before, and then sure enough, he's there. He's taller than everybody; you can see him the second you walk in the door. I got Flavor Flav with me, and I walk over and I go, "Excuse me, Kevin, Flavor Flav has..."

Shaan Puri

knows you

Sam Parr

he knows you he knows you

Shaan Puri

he would he would he'd like

Anthony Pompliano

To say hi, Kevin turns and he's like, "Oh man, what's up?" Whatever. He's super nice to him, and Flav o Flav just goes, "What's up, yo? You need to turn my volume up on Instagram." I'm like, "I'm definitely being fired. Holy shit, this is so bad." Kevin was like a consummate professional. He's like, "Let me go introduce you to our partnerships team," blah, blah, blah, whatever. I remember on my way out, I was like, "Hey man, sorry about that. Did you know him?" He was like, "I think we met like one time, five years ago at a party, but sure."

Sam Parr

and so

Anthony Pompliano

I always just think about, like, yeah, if you ever get to talk to the leaders of any of these products, that's the question that you gotta ask. Go shoot your shot! Shots like, "Yo, turn!"

Shaan Puri

up your coffee volume up that's so good

Sam Parr

that's my new phrase

Shaan Puri

That hand... do I look like a guy with a plan? Those are just... those are just epic.

Anthony Pompliano

alright fellas appreciate it