a16z Podcast - Jake Paul & Anti Fund: From Creator to Investor

Episode Date: June 22, 2026

Jake Paul and Geoff Woo join the podcast to announce Anti Fund’s new $100 million growth fund and discuss the evolution of their investment strategy. The conversation covers the fund’s portfolio, including investments in companies such as SpaceX, OpenAI, Anthropic, Anduril, Cognition, Etched, and Modal, as well as the lessons they’ve learned backing founders and identifying emerging technologies. They discuss founder psychology, resilience, ambition, and why they believe attention, culture, and distribution are becoming increasingly important advantages in the AI era. Along the way, Jake reflects on his path from creator to entrepreneur, athlete, and investor, while Geoff shares his views on venture capital, technology, and how AI is reshaping opportunity for founders and builders.   Resources: Follow Jake Paul on X: https://x.com/jakepaul Follow Geoff Woo on X: https://x.com/geoffreywoo Stay Updated:Find a16z on YouTube: YouTubeFind a16z on XFind a16z on LinkedInListen to the a16z Show on SpotifyListen to the a16z Show on Apple PodcastsFollow our host: https://twitter.com/eriktorenberg Please note that the content here is for informational purposes only; should NOT be taken as legal, business, tax, or investment advice or be used to evaluate any investment or security; and is not directed at any investors or potential investors in any a16z fund. a16z and its affiliates may maintain investments in the companies discussed. For more details please see a16z.com/disclosures. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

We're officially announcing the $100 million over-subscribed growth fund and some of the tier one names, maybe all the tier one names. Anderil, etched cognition, seronic, modal. When we announced anti-fund was like, GW, like, you're making a mistake. Jake is not like good. You're ruining your career. And we're just like, whatever, Ralph. Like Mark and Dresen and Chris Xun were some of our very, very first LPs. When you have like the living goats of the industry, being like, hey,

you guys are good. It's like, okay, let's do it. Jake, given your career, you could have partnered with a lot of different people. When did you guys know that you were going to be such a partner? One way I think about it is that like, if Jake can just live his life and get a bunch of views and someone has to like $100 million in fire to get a bunch of views, who do I want to be partners with? I think a lot of people in the space don't know how to actually pull cash out. They can have a lot of followers, but not the cash, and cash is king.

What happens when one of the Internet's biggest creators teams up with a long-time Silicon Valley investment? Jake Paul and Jeff Wu started anti-fund with a simple premise, back ambitious founders building the future. What began as an early stage venture strategy has now expanded into a new $100 million growth fund, with investments across AI, defense, aerospace, infrastructure, and software. In this conversation, they discuss investing, entrepreneurship, resilience, and what they look for in the founders and companies shaping the next decade. Jake Paul and Jeff Wu, join the podcast to talk about anti-funds next chapter. Jake, Jeff, we've got some big news.

Thanks for coming on the podcast today to discuss it. We've got a growth fund. Why don't you show the big news? Yeah, we're officially announcing the growth fund that we've been working on for quite some time in some of the tier one names. A lot of the tier one names, maybe all the tier one names. Anderle etched cognition, SpaceX, open AI, anthropology. seronic, modal.

So yeah, the list goes on. A lot where collaborators in, maybe we just zoom out first. For those who are not familiar from what you can see beyond the surface, how would you describe Jake's superpowers that led him to be the amazing partner for you here? And then I'm asked Jake the same.

I think Jake from the outside could be like an entertainer or a professional athlete. But I think to me, Jake's always been a constant entrepreneur, one, and then two, I think he's really created himself as a tastemaker and a cultural leader of his generation, right? Like, all the young kids today look up and want to be an influencer. Jake literally created the influencer term in that, like, job profile, if you think about him in Stanching the daily vlog. So I think it's easy to, especially with an internet character, like you take pieces of that persona and just put that as a whole human. But the underlying threat is I think he's a very generous, thoughtful, kind human being who is very ambitious and is going to not stop in whatever venues that he chooses to participate and compete in.

So I think if it's entertainment, media, sports, and hopefully with venture capital, growth equity, investing, we take that on together. Thank you, Jeff. I want you say the same for Jeff. I see the same question that we'll get into both of your stories. Yeah, I think Jeff is one of the smartest people that I know just across the board. And I think the work ethic and his background being so different than mine as well. We make such a great team, you know, computer science, Stanford, but is deep, deep networks. And we just think similarly and a lot of things. And I think that lends itself really well to being great partners. But yeah, he's nonstop thinking ahead. and sees a lot of things before they come around the corner. And he actually said no to investing in my first company when I was 18 years old. And the company failed.

So he was right. So just really great judgment. Great people, you know, this is the people business. And so just being able to really read people and have that EQ as well as IQ is really important. You're just making us flat at each other. Yeah. Eric, you're an OG, so I appreciate it. I compliment you as well.

I appreciate what. I mean, speaking of OG, I remember Corey Levy many years ago said, hey, I've got this kid. You got to meet. He's building somebody super interesting. He's super talented. And I was out of town. I was like, ah, you know, he ended up introducing him. We never ended up meeting.

And I remember something to reflect back. I'm like, holy shit. First off, Corey's incredible. Yeah. Judge of talent. But, too, it's like, you got to take bets on the up and coming talk because you never know where they're going to end up. Jake, the idea that someone would become a media sort of emotional.

mogul then professional athlete, then a tech investor. That's like a pretty distinct path. Say more about what other people can learn from how you took your path. Was it all organic? What was sort of your strategy or how do even retroactively make sense of your sort of multi-hyphenate career? Yeah, it's really interesting. I think always being like entrepreneur first and very analytical. And when things are working, double, triple, quadruple down. And when they're not just sweep the things under the rug. And so that's what someone once said about A-Sign Z. I love that they just launch a bunch of stuff.

And then when it doesn't work, you just pretend it never have. Seriously, I've failed so many times to get to this point and made so many mistakes. And I think it's resilience in this day and age and having a public career as well and being a public figure. I think you have to have tons of resilience. You have to know yourself. You have to go through ups and downs. But I think being an entrepreneur at heart,

I always looked at everything from a business lens and always hustled and showed up every single day and knocked down every single door of opportunity and always wanted to grow my network. I think that's been a super powerful thing that differentiates me is always knowing the right person at the right times to ask them for help or ask them for a favor and also doing favors for them when they need you. and not charging for it. I think people in this entertainment world are very transactional and short thinking and not professional. They show up late. I've always tried to be the most professional entertainer. And so that's lended self well. And then when I went to box, it kind of started as this crazy thing.

But then it was a million pay-per-view buys, 30,000 tickets sold out. I had a blast doing it. I was like, okay. content experiment for you or did you know you were going to go all in no i didn't know i was going to go all in but after the first one it was like this was absolutely massive i'm going to become world champion and that was like a pivot moment where it's like yeah this content stuff's cool and doing great but i can still do content within boxing but this boxing match was the most viewed amateur of ever 30 000 tickets sold the press conferences were getting tens of millions of views so i was like

Clearly people love this and I love it. And so I'm going to go all in. And then that lends itself to now being one of the highest paid athletes on the Forbes list because of just following the numbers. So I think being analytical as an entertainer is also important. So you have the content. You have is massively high grossing boxing career. Why get into tech? Yeah.

So I think it was actually, again, just being entrepreneurs. at heart, but it was actually one of my first loves was the valley and coming out here when I was 17 with Corey and Alex de Belov actually and they showed me all these crazy companies and I got to meet some really smart people who were building the future and seeing like even Corey's after school setup where he had all the screens and all the employees were there and it was just like so different and so cool and that's when I fell in love with wanting to make my own startups and being a founder, but also being in the investor world and even understanding how it works and all the VC lingo and started growing my network. And so it's really

always been there since I was a kid. And it's always been something that I loved. And then when I was 23, I wanted to take a bigger bite at the Apple. And that's when I met Jeff and the stars aligned. And we just decided to go bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger and turns out that we're actually really good at it. So it's fun when things are working and it's fun helping shape the future of America with these companies. And it's like a full story, like Mark and Driesen and Chris Dixon were some of our very, very first LP.

So appreciate them for helping us put us into business. And also giving those confidence, they've seated almost every single emerging managers. So when they see, hey, like when you have like the living goats of the industry, being like, hey, you guys are good. It's okay. Let's, let's do it. Yeah, I was just telling the story.

I think there were our first pitch call for the fund. And I was like all nervous before and didn't even have the full pitch perfected yet. And so, yeah, by the end of the call, they were just like, all right, yeah, we'll like, we'll invest in. And we're like, okay, great. Perfect. Yeah. And when did you guys know that you were going to be such a partner? Because given your career, you could have partner with a lot of different people.

And for you was also at risk of, hey, it wasn't as common back. the date to maybe partner with YouTube business. What did you know that you were going to be partners? I feel if I can start. And it's really funny because we were just spending the weekend with the all-in podcast besties and Jason Kellicanus. And I remember when we announced anti-fund, J-Kell was like, GW, you're making a mistake. Jake is not good. You're ruining your career. And we're just like, whatever, Ralph. And it's like a full circle moment because I joke about it now. But one, I think like there's no beef. It was fun to play poker with those guys.

But two, like Jake Helt, you're a podcast. You're trying to be what Jake invented. You are a VC-turned influencer. And I think we will give you guys a run for money from who can be the better investor. No, but I remember. Shots fired. But I remember that I found that Jake was very wise for 23, 24. And what I mean by that is I think very few people have the amount of inbound requests,

outbound requests for their time across so many different spectrums. I would say that one way I compliment Jake, he context switches so widely, right? There's one moment for this paparazzi is going to events, and he's like a celebrity on a red carpet, and he's blinged out in influencer gear. Next moment, he's a professional athlete training. and preparing for a massive Netflix headline fight.

Next moment, he's like negotiating business deals and inside the weeds of numbers and like his metrics. And then you pivot off the next thing. And he's like filming a TikTok, right? And I think in Silicon Valley, there's a lot of smart people. And I think the context switching is pretty wide as a founder. But to go from like go entertainment mode to like serious quantitative analytic mode,

that broadly is very, very, very. very impressive. One, and then two, I think Jake has, the one word that you mentioned is that resiliency. Like, Jake has just seen a lot of shit like coming up in Hollywood, going through the influencer phase, going through controversy, like surviving it, having haters. Like, most people do not eat that much pain. And I think that if you think about investing or startups, it's pain tolerance. And if you're literally fighting and punching people or getting punched on the face for a living, and then two, like the internet punching you, right, which is like the most toxic environment, like internet trolls like hating on you, if you can survive that and thrive in that environment,

that's presidential like head of state level courage and resiliency. So those two things I think is what is inspiring to me in terms of like, much can I context switch, how much pain tolerance can I have? And hopefully that's what we can imbue with our startup founders and our portfolio companies and our co-investors, right? Like that human quality that is very rare is enshrined to me and hopefully for the people that we work with. On that note, Jake, what can people learn from you about resilience and pain tolerance?

Is it just something you've had since you were a kid? Is something you've learned over time? Is it something you've just sort of like been pushed off the deep end? Yeah, no, I think it's a little bit of all of those things. I think I had like a very intense father, so I think it started there. And just being able to deal with him and growing up in that environment. And I think the hard work and that led me to a very public career, it all started with people actually like hating on me from day one like in my school so there was never like a moment

where me making the videos didn't have like a ton of haters my whole school in high school like turned against me and was like talking shit making anonymous accounts saying things about me my principal teachers were saying things so it's always been there so I think I'm just used to it because of that, which is pretty interesting. And then, you're like, what else are you going to do? Like, I don't know. Just be a coward and quit and give up and let people run you. Like, I could just never be that person.

And I just don't think that way. And I know who I am. I think that's very important as well. And I feel like a lot of people know who they are, but they let the comments and critics, like, get to them very easily. And so if you could just look yourself in the mirror and be like, I'm doing good. I'm a good person. I'm doing good things in the world. I have a good heart. I mean well. And if you can mean those things, then it doesn't matter what anyone says.

Yeah. When people ask you, like, hey, are tools like therapy helpful or other sort of self-care tools, whether physical or emotional or mental to help deal with? Like, what do you tell them? Yeah, definitely. I fully believe that. I think you just have to. be careful. You know, you don't want the therapy to like turn into victimizing yourself and then always being in constant sad loops. So I think you have to be careful. And at some points, if it feels needed, yes, but I don't think you should get like trapped into the cycle of therapy and always kind of having a call with someone or an in-person meeting with someone that is generally probably going to be negative.

And so I think it's very important, like, who that therapist is as well. But I do think it's important to learn about yourself and unpack things. And I think the childhood, like trauma and going back and realizing like, oh, you know, you had this that happened to you. And this is maybe why you have anxiety in this moment and these things. And so I really like childhood trauma work. that you can connect to why you behave certain ways as an adult. Yeah.

And I think it's important to unpack those things and learn about it. Totally. Jeff, why don't you also make sense of some of it, like when you're reflecting your career, looking back, you've taken some big swings and some different spaces. When you look back at the threads that have tied your career together, how do you make sense of it? What are some of the big insights you've had that have led you to go deep on certain things?

I guess like I've always been like almost an academic or a engineer or scientist at heart. How do you like what is the nature of reality? What is the truth? What are the underlying systems or rules that govern yourself, a company, a society, right? So if I think about some of the things I've been interested in, whether it's biohacking, how do you optimize your singular person? Actually, that's how I got to know the Andresen family. with Keaton IQ, Chris Dixon was a seed investor. I wanted to figure out how we could engineer better brain performance, human performance.

And then you think about at the larger scales, right, how do you impact culture? How do you impact society? What is the right way to organize a company, organize a venture firm, organize a nation state, right? Like that's like the largest scale of optimization. So I think there's like a tinkerer or like a student or an academic that just likes just figuring out those different systems. And then the second part is I think with a little bit of battle scars and wisdom, just like fewer things that just compound really, really well. So now I think about why venture and growth is a very interesting problem to play with is that managing $1 to $100. to a million dollars to a billion dollars is kind of the same level of hard right it's like hard

to spend a hundred dollars really well it's hard to spend a hundred billion dollars really well but it's you only like one or two people or three people to manage a hundred bucks or a hundred billion bucks right like those are the best investors are just like really really strong conviction folks who just are making big bets um so that's where i think we've gravitated towards and i think jake has a different lens on how he can scale his is thought leadership and cultural leadership and his ability to convene and bring people together at the higher and higher skills. So I think that's like a shared level of just like shared ambition and maybe arrogance in terms

of we think we can play at those highest levels of wielding capital, wielding technology, building building culture. So if that is like the end point of just like, okay, what are the underlying rules of nature, rules of reality, what's the most efficient? way to start pulling and playing with those levers. So I think science, computer science, physics are foundational to just the nature of reality. And then capital is the lever of like human society and civilization. And I think where anti-fund has been quite unique is that in a world where there's more and more capital is attention more scarce, is be able to control mind share

more scarce. So one of the original questions, like why is Jake like an ideal partner, it's like you really can't name a better partner than Jake Paul in terms of wielding attention and driving cultural taste. So if you can really master those two lovers, maybe we can control the world, right? Like, let's just try and have someone stop us. There was a famous tweet of if you're smart, pivot to being hot. Or if you're focused on intelligence, you know, pivot to being, you know, wielding attention. And you had this blog post of, you know, there's two jobs, AI maxing and looks maxing.

Why don't you talk about that? Yeah, no, I think it's, I think it's actually true, which is that the only thing that really will matter is that if we assume that, like, we're pretty AGI-pilled. Intelligence is just going to be metered out through compute. then what matters. Then it's like one, like your relationship with people. And I think looks maxing is like a pretty narrow focus on like, you know,

the physical appearance matters. And like people like people that look good and symmetric and healthy. So that's fine. But I think it's beyond just looks. It's like your vibe, your ability to just be charismatic and engage with people. So that's like an important skill set in the future. Can you just have better vibes?

everyone else. And I think with venture, right? Like, I think, I think what you've done with the media strategy for Andrewies and Horowitz. I mean, you guys are literally executing on looks maxing the VCU world essentially, right? Like, you guys have your own propaganda arm just pushing out your view of the world. And then the second part is that like, okay, if you don't have, maybe you're not maxing out on vibes, then you've got to just be best at wielding intelligence. So all you got to do is like play with Codex and be on the computer all day long and then on this on the on the on other side of workout sleep a lot and looks max then you got everything covered if you were 22 like just getting out of college today but in 2026 um what would that look like in terms of how you'd

want to spend your time i was we're just we were just stopping by stanford and jake's going to go back to college and uh so that might be the answer that he can actually think about um yeah i want to play on the Stanford football team, actually. So we'll see what happens. He's going to do one year on the Stanford team and they get drafted, the Cleveland Brown, it's happening. That's cool. I'm actually like old school in the sense that like, and I think I saw that earlier in

my career where like, oh, if computer science and math is automated, then you don't need to study this stuff and just do like cultural or other fuzzy stuff. I would just go deeper and deeper into actually understanding math, actually understanding computer science, because if you actually know underlying how these large language models are actually working, you actually can wield them and prompt them better. So I'm actually like doubling down that, yes, like get really good at math, get really good at computer science, right?

Like the people that are leading these industries are like math champions, right? Like Scott Wu and all these guys are just hardcore at all. that stuff and you know you know we were hanging out with scott at their office a couple months back to you to get technically brilliant a version of AI like maxing is basically just max your IQ and max your EQ right like that's another just like a simple way to put it and like looks maxing and a maxing are just like the more culture like currently cultural relevant terms for it would you start a company would you join anthropic or open AI or you just got to gang up with the smartest, most ambitious people possible. And that could either be your own startup or it could be

joining Open AI. And I think, but I think the most important thing is like team up with like like minded, ambitious people that will push you to the best version of yourself. So if that's a company, then go let's, and we'll like Jake and I will back you. If it's joining Open AI cognition, somebody's like really, really high growth companies so you can learn a little bit before you jump into the deep end yourself, that's also great. But I think the most important, important thing is just get with really, really smart, ambitious people and team up and grow together. I'm not technical, so I think it would be a harder place for me, but I think I would probably try to be in VC coming out of college. And yeah, hopefully if I made a lot of good connections at Stanford, my buddies that I would seed their genius.

ideas but don't cut yourself short like we had Jake was on his like MacBook codexing and yeah I got my GitHub's popping so I don't know on that gethub I won't wrap this is commits well I was gonna ask if you were 22 today in 26 or 18 even could you run the same playbook or is there something about what you did um you know on YouTube or sort of these but new platforms when you were younger that is like wouldn't work in the same way today and you'd have to find a new Like to me, to me, it's obvious, you know, boxing, you just got to be the best of the world. You've got to be the other person. But in terms of what works on sort of the creator space, it doesn't seem to be as an outsider, as obvious.

And so I'm curious if the same kind of media playbook would have worked, you know, 10, 15 years later or it's no. I mean, I don't think it would. I think there's very few, you know, people breaking through on the media side of things. It's a lot harder to grow, a lot harder to amassified. following and to be a known brand and to rise to the top you know you kind of had to be there from the start and that's why you really see with brands that have stuck around at the highest level in social media it's me mr beasts and my brother and there's really no one else and what was your for people who is not as familiar like what was your insight in terms like what were you doing

that was so new or that that amassed such an audience so quickly yeah i think um a lot of it was i mean i think you just have to be entertaining and i me and my brother were doing that posting every single day like 15 minute videos that were that took the whole day to film so just effort first and foremost the entertainment in it um and then i think diversifying with like characters so i basically created like a daily reality show with all these people on it and all these crazy things happening and that was cutting edge at the time and then just always being the visionary of like what's working what trends you know okay let's make a rap song and then all of a sudden it's like one of the

generational anthems of this of you know younger kids know every single word of it's like oh music worked okay let's make more songs let's make a whole album let's make a whole album let's make a Christmas album. So constantly just like bits of iteration, but, you know, spanning the full spectrum of entertainment. So it was like songs, comedy. I would make like scary videos to, you know,

have the fear aspect of it. Then all of a sudden I'm going into athleticism, which is boxing and that whole side of entertainment as well. And so I think, the modern day entertainers have to do it all. We went to Mr. Beasts sort of placed in North Carolina, or Jimmy's place, rather, and he sort of gave us a tour, and he was showing how just analytical the whole operation is.

Yeah. It was much, you're as much more kind of artistic or creative or emergent in terms of like, oh, just fuck around and find out? Or like, how did you, in terms of like, what to spend time on what to do in comparison to something a beast separation. Yeah, I think it's similar, but I think Jimmy is like a numbers guy and is super analytical. And mine is definitely analytical, but not at the level that Jimmy is with how he does things. And mine is more creative, like entertainment focused and just like kind of like a feeling thing.

you're saying. But that's why, you know, Jimmy just maxed out the numbers on, on YouTube and just did every little thing possible to hack the algorithm. It's interesting because there are a lot of people who will get big, but not be super durable, whereas you know, you just mentioned you and your brother and Jimmy is the ones that really struck out. And I'm curious why some people get big for a period of time, but, and I'll hear about them. They're being on TikTok, they're being on some platform, but I don't hear about them years later. Like it's... Yeah, I have seen the biggest stars in the space

from like day one, just not stick around anymore. It's weird. It's really weird. There's a group called MagCon back in the day. They were like the Justin Bieber's of the internet world. And actually Sean Mendez like spun out of there. He was the one that's like obviously made it really big. But it's just interesting.

I think people maybe don't have that resistance. They get tired of working or making content or going to the new platform or, you know, lose motivation, whatever it might be. And I think the people who are like truly destined to do this and love doing it and that are talented at are the ones that have lasted longer. And I think you almost have to, yeah, diversify. like we've gotten into politics business growing brands and so you start to have this audience um that follows you for multiple different things some people love my ranch youtube videos and like only know about that and don't even but i also have i'm on a 16 z podcast where like now people in the tech world are hearing about what i'm doing but they probably won't watch my tictox so i'm

doing all these different things and growing audiences and all of these different worlds. And I think that's been the key. And then I think also knowing how to monetize it and make money. And I think that's been a reason for us to continue to exist because I think a lot of people in the space don't know how to actually pull cash out. They can have a lot of followers, but not the cash. And cash is king. So I think that's been another very important reason for the, I don't even know, 13, 14 years of being at the top of the influencer game. I think to me, Jake is a startup in a of himself.

And in startup land, right, it's all power law. And I think essentially Jake has hit escape velocity. So I think I think Jake gets even more powerful in this new era of. AI generated characters and just infinite noise because you'll have a lot of AI generated content and the people that you grew up watching, loving and just supporting or hating as a child. And like that generation is now going to take over from the boomers who are going to be dying off and all of that. I think you compound just like an open AI and anthropic are compounding even faster.

So that's sort of like I'm just kind of excited just on the on the path forward. because it's basically like celebrity survivor battle, right? Like literally everyone has died off except for like the predestined few. And I think the predestined fee literally should be like the future billionaire trillionaires if you just extrapolate out that exponential because there's going to be fewer real people that like you like care about. And I think who are I would almost like juxtapose Jake and Logan with like a Mr. Beast and I don't know whatever I'll just I'll just say it as I feel like Mr. Beast is like so quantitative and analytical that it doesn't matter if Jimmy's in

the video or not like swap him out for another you know game show host maybe they're not as smooth but only Jimmy would say that he's even that smooth of a natural like actor or character but like his analytics and his taste in terms of selecting the content format is very very strong poor I think Jake has a lot of durability is that like you you like follow this story like you I guess like one way I think about is that like if Jake can just talk and get a bunch of views or just live his life and get a bunch of views and someone has to light hundred million dollars in fire to get a bunch of views who do I want to be partners with who do who do I think

has true skill and true charisma without overly calling other people but like I think that is like a measure in terms of like how you take like an analytical lens and like a structural lens to how do you backward engineer what has Jake has been able to accomplish. To that end, you just said, you know, casual people you need to figure out how to monetize. How have you figured out what's worth doing from a business perspective of what's not worth doing? Like, for example, I don't know if you've been in future films yet or I've made your major role. Like, should you be doing that? Or is that a waste of time?

Like, there's a whole set of activities that where you could do it. You'd have some special access or opportunity to do it. People might be telling you you should do it. How do you think about that? that's something that we've talked about and explored there's been opportunities on the table to act for example but i think it's just like what was the time expenditure what was the like return in terms of you know how much money are we making here and then who are the people involved and is it going to perform well and do we like this script and um there's the risk of something going wrong and just like it flops at the box office and everyone shits on you like it happens all the time so i think it's yeah just staying focus right like having the boxing as the core of of everything

for many years and um and content and so never getting away from your bread and butter and staying extremely focused on that and having a great teams around to to help with all of those things um but yeah i think things now have to be like 10 20 30 million dollars opportunities for me to spend time on it and so I think it's pretty measurable from that side of things to figure out if it's exciting in that sense and then I think just on the besides the money thing and just brand building I've just been doing it for so long that it's just like instinctual like is this a good idea yes or no and it's pretty pretty obvious, but there are strategy talks and high-level people that huddle around the board.

And sometimes I'll film a piece of content and maybe not post it because it doesn't make sense. So there is like processes and teams that look at everything and conversations. And it is pretty strategic. But a lot of it also is just like instinctual and on the fly. And it becomes more and more obvious as time goes. on what the good opportunities are. Is all good press, good press, or sorry, is all press good press or most attention, good attention? Or when you look at some of the controversial moments that you guys have been through

or that you see other people in through, do you think that they have been successful in spite of those moments or because of the instinct that led to those moments? Or how do you think about in this new era of attention, you know, this question? I would say that not all press is good press. for certain people. For me, yes, because I can like survive it and like, you're anti-fragile. Yeah, and just it's, it's, you know,

what are they going to say? Like the, my neighbor, like the first reason I was hated from the very beginning, like on a mat, in the mainstream was because I jumped on top of a news van. So it's like that's seriously why people started hating me. They're like, look at this douchebacket. And I was like making fun of the news reporters. shoes and it's like okay like it seemed like bad press at the time but like that was like my first like

mainstream moment really um in the in the press and so um i think for certain people all press is good press but i don't think it's a saying that is good for for everybody and holds true for everybody everything you do has risk just don't take fatal risk like just don't get yourself killed. Probably don't go to jail. The people have come back from that. But like don't go to jail. Don't die.

And as long as you take risks and calculated bets and keep compounding, you'll eventually end up some more good. So I think that's like my take on that question, which is that like I think most people are just too afraid to do anything that even warrants press. So, so like I think when you're already have a platform, then yes, maybe you can be a little bit more cautious. But most people are just totally irrelevant. Like you need to do something a little bit risky

to even get to a place to be canceivable. Most people can't even be canceled because you didn't exist. So the general advice, like, yo, just live more and do more shit in general because you're nothing and you maybe can get out of nothing. Retard max. Yeah, another way. Retard max is cool too, yeah. I want to understand this new media environment

by analyzing a couple people can you guys explain clavicular as in why is what's his talent what makes him so successful what advice might you have for someone like that how do you make sense I mean it's kind of what you just said what Jeff just said is and he's doing it

on the highest level it's entertaining I think I've I've had this saying that I've used and I think it holds true in the world of entertainment is that people want to see something they've never seen before. And so it's so new and fresh and different and kind of crazy. But a lot of the stuff he says is true. His delivery isn't always the best or whatever. And he is like very abrasive. It doesn't care. But he's talking about a lot of relevant things and everything is out there about him. So you fully know him and he's not afraid to be fully authentic and say exactly, uh, expose himself to the world. And I don't think people have

done that. And, and that's why I think he's, he's been successful. And then he's also doing things that generate bad press, but it, you know, good news travels fast, bad news travels faster. So it's growing his brand like wildfire. And then it just, turns into this like loop and he's able to convert it actually into views and then he he keeps on going and all of that um but i yeah it is it is pretty wild and um i think the streaming culture is like really interesting and probably not the best for society because like there's so many of these kids watching and i actually feel like what i was doing on youtube but like this is the final iteration of it and um i feel bad for like sort of contributing to where this has gone but at the

time i like never thought of that or like okay i set the bar here as crazy and now people the streamers have to do it every day for multiple hours and to keep people's attention they're having to like do out-of-pocket shit um which i don't think is like a good influence um but there is obviously it's entertaining so and just to for people not as familiar my understanding from my limited you know observations is he some of his content is well he's a streamer and some of his content is him like going to the club and talking to girls and having very sort of humorous conversations and then some content is sort of focused on his looks maxing journey and just giving a lot of advice and doing interviews and kind of saying you know sort of out of pocket you sort of shit

your term around sort of relationships or gender norms or just sort of like, you know, how to look much better. So much to the extent he's invested so much that there was rumors for a while that he may be not able to conceive or something that he may have. But I think that's not longer true. I can't remember exactly. Is that accurate summary of what, like, what is clivocular doing? Yeah.

I would say that's accurate with noting like, Yeah, he's definitely like very controversial and like taking drugs on the stream and doing pretty crazy things like that. So yeah. Yeah, he spent, I mean, he spent some time. Like, he like joined Jake's first live stream ever. Like, what was like in person? Like, I thought he was nice. Yeah.

That he was a nice guy. Definitely pretty wild on his stream though. And I'm wild, you know, as entertainer known as that. I can turn that on. But yeah, so if I like I'm saying that, then it's probably pretty wild. Is streamer culture today, when you say you were sort of the previous evolution,

where do you see it all going? Is it just going to get crazier and crazier? Are we going to sort of see new formats? Or how do you sort of envision the future of kind of like what you, you know, helped create? Yeah, I think we will see new formats. and people pop up that are unique and different, but I think that the players that are in it now

and are the biggest now will likely remain the biggest. And so I don't think it will shift too much in terms of like all the personalities, but I do think things will get crazy, slightly crazier. But it's probably already near its peak because the platform's now like, aren't allowing certain things to be streamed

and they're already getting like, you know, de-platformed if they do certain things. So I think it's probably at its peak right now with some of the things that are going on. I mean, talking about like you can't die, you can't go to jail, right? Like at some point someone's going to step on that and boom, you peak, the end game of that.

Yeah. I recently learned that there's like that kick is like a Twitch but more edgy. But then there's like, rumble is like an even more edgy version of that. There's just like different streaming platforms for different levels of edginess. Yeah, exactly.

To your point. What is going to a controversy point for, like when you look at some of the stuff that's been like the hardest for you to handle or the biggest controversial moments or when other people come to you and are like, holy shit, I'm in this, you know, massive scandal or so. How do you, how have you like bounce back from that?

Or how do you advise people to bounce back from just like the toughest, what we're like people actually trying to cancel you and they're succeeding a little bit. Yeah, I think faith and God. I think God gives its toughest battles to his most important soldiers. And so there's always, for me, in all of those moments,

I had to like learn something, go through something and grow. And it's always on the other side of it, once I've gotten out of certain situations and learned a lot of things, et cetera, it's prepared me to fly higher in life and do more things. And so I think everything happens for a reason. And yeah, you can't victimize yourself and know that if you come out on the other side of it, you will be stronger and that will lead and lend to a bigger and better life. Jeff, how about you?

I mean, I think Jake puts it really, really nicely in terms of whether it's faith in like a higher power or just like a conviction in yourself that what you're doing is truly worth fighting for and battling for and standing and like dying for, right? So I think it's like, and that's where I think just choosing the right mission is so important, right? Like a lot of things that people choose to do, they probably do not care for. Right? Like if you hate your job and be still putting, you know, 40 hours, 50 hours a week on it and you're like getting attacked or critiqued for it and like there's no conviction there. So in some sense, if you just choose the right battles to fight for and you're willing to take those arrows because you believe in the mission, you believe in the message that almost like helps you with that faith because like you actually believe in and have conviction in what you're fighting for. Like, you know, we're invested some of the top most high profile AI. companies and and and those are some of the topics that were able to just like and I think especially jake can like share his perspective on right if people are going through like really

high profile uh like hate on social media or litigation and controversy I think Jake having lived through that at some of the highest levels and sharing that how he deals with it is like just super helpful for founders that we talk to and work with um but I think just goes back to like I think if they believe in the mission they're doing, right? Like if you think that you're making beneficial AGI or you're really believe like fusion energy or defense tech and making Americans have best weapon systems as really important, which we think is really important, then having that strength to fight and battle for that makes it easier if you have that self-conviction, that what you're doing is correct.

If someone once asked to create something like, you know, it seems like you're not that interested in politics, Why is that? Is there something like it doesn't help me with my looks maxing journey? So as I say, how have you guys sort of approached politics or not approached politics? Or, yeah, how have you guys thought about that?

Yeah, I think it's always been my goal and a part of who I am since I was younger is to like help the people around me and to be a leader and to speak my mind on certain things and I think

when I'm in this position of having a large audience and as an American we all have our right to our opinion and to voice our opinion that's one of the most beautiful things about this country and I think with a lot of people

following me I've taken it upon myself to speak my mind on what I believe in and to hopefully help others understand as well and grow a deeper understanding of politics and some of the things that are going on and I believe it's important as American to exercise that right to our opinion

and to voice our opinion and I've just slowly, you know, started to talk more and more about it openly and I think it comes from my dad as well. He was very political growing up and I've always been involved in it and seeing it and talking about it and I think it's the biggest game in life and um I think it's interesting to be in those rooms and to talk to those people and to help them you know potentially win um certain elections whether that's governor or president or senator so it's just been interesting and and fund and and I think think it really truly does make an impact to the American people in society. And I was going to say that's one thing I respect it while at Jake,

because I know that a lot of people in the public eye are too afraid to step into politics because it's not good for business, right? Like Michael Jordan, like everyone buys shoes or wherever, like that quote. But I respect that Jake, you know, we just had a conversation about this where it's like, you know, like if you actually have conviction, like God, or your faithful, like, pay full dividends for that conviction, right? And I think there's, and I think there's something too, like life and your family and your culture, your neighborhood, your communities, arguably more important, just like stacking

more zeros behind your account, right? Like, at a certain point, like, you win the money maxing game, you win the money game. And it's like, can you actually create a better livelihood for yourself, your kids, your neighbors, your community? Um, and it takes courageous people like Jake to be like, hey, like, I'm okay to like takes a little bit of risk. Yeah. And maybe piss off a segment of people, but I truly believe in this. It's not some BS.

Like, there's like this, a deep conviction that he will sacrifice monetary. Yeah. Opportunity or just reduce optionality because there's true belief and true conviction behind his perspective. That's what that is what leadership actually is. Yeah. So there's no leaders out there. And we're totally screwed. we need people to step up and lead.

Could you see yourself running someday for some sort of elected position? Yeah, I could see being involved for sure. And I think it's like become more and more of a thing. I think Jeff was the first person actually to like talk about it six years ago. And then obviously President Trump like endorsed me on stage to run for president. And then backstage was like, I think you should really do it, etc. I would only want to be involved in it if I was like, I was like, like the best person to do it and to help the the country and if some other people on the other side

of things that weren't good for the country felt like they had traction I would probably do it to yeah help the people of America and make sure we don't get wrapped up into this like whole socialist, communist thing that's going on like in New York with mom dummy, mom dummy. Yeah, that's it. It's really bad and it will lead to

America being in a very, very bad place. And so if something like that's going on and there's something I can do to help, then yeah, of course I'm going to want to get involved or even maybe just help push a candidate and support them. Yeah. So you spent the first 15 years or so, you know, we talk about media, you know, boxing, tech. If you were to guess over the next five to 10 years, what's something else you might add to your repertoire, besides, obviously, going much bigger in the areas you're already in. What could that be? I would probably say, yeah, the most, like, obvious one that I'm, like, super passionate about is definitely politics. And that seems to, you know, grow as I get older as well because of what Jeff was saying is like how do I okay we have the money

we have this stuff like how do I help the world and do my part and I have the courage and I believe the right mindset on it and the right way to think about it and finding truth not only within myself but that becomes a practice out there in the world and so I believe that a lot of my takes and opinions and thoughts on it or are the ones closest to truth and really just finding what's best for the people and for the country and for, you know, creating the future for my kids. And if I can be helpful in that and I think and I know I can and I know I have a very good way of thinking about things, then yeah, I would definitely see. myself in the next 10 to 15 years in that arena for sure.

Last question on this topic. High level, what are the, what's a topic or what are the topics that you care most about in that arena that making sure we really get right? Yeah, I mean, I think education, first and foremost, and I think it's like so, it's bad. It hasn't been reformed since, you know, the 1920s, the 1930s. There's been no change in the world has changed so much. And I think there you see with, you know, being in the investing world, you see some of these like newer aged startups that are focused on school popping up. What's the one? Alpha, Alpha school, very like impressed with what they're doing.

And I think creating that future, you're almost, you know, planting seeds of a fruit tree with changing the education system because then in 30, 40 years, the country is going to have. a lot smarter people, a lot better educated people, and that ripple effect just impact society so much and in a massive way. And we also don't want to fall behind with other countries. And I think it also lends itself to finance. And the number one problem I think that's out there right now with young men and young women even is like, how do they make money? Where do they make money? and if that education is in place and you're repaired and you actually learn about maybe how to do taxes in school and not like about the fucking Pythagorean theorem, I think that would be a much better outcome for the people of America.

And it just wild to me that something like that isn't taught amongst many other things. And so I believe the economy would thrive more from education. And yeah, the list goes, the list goes on. I mean, I think one thing that's cool is like to invest America accounts, the Trump accounts. I know that Jake is supporting the team there on that. Maybe you want to talk a little bit more about that. But I think in terms of allowing the next generation of young Americans actually participate with the fastest growing private companies and having them be a shareholder and a stakeholder and a stakeholder.

of American innovation is really, really important, right? That ties into education, right? To the Jake's point, if people don't grow up knowing how to compound their money, right? Like, I think it's, I, people should know the Pythagorean theorem in the quadratic equation, but yes, you should know actually how, like, tax is. They shouldn't. It's literally taking up space in my brain. But like, knowing how. And I don't have a lot of space, okay?

But knowing how, like, wealth compounds and how is really important. And I think with like the Trump accounts, like having every little kid see their little stock portfolio and realizing, hey, like, this is how money and investing works is super important. To that end, Jeff, if you were 18 today, knowing what you know, would you go to college? Or like, do you advise people to go to college? How do you think about that? Yeah, I think Peter Till in some sense is like kind of hypocritical when he's like, don't go to college. he had Stanford undergrad Stanford Law School. He got all the badges, right?

So not, but I think the underlying point is correct. But to me, like, getting a badge is useful if you don't have any other badges, right? Like, Jake could not have to have the institutional badge of being educated because he became world class at what he does as a content creator, an athlete, a media personality and entertainer. But if you're not like Jake, then you need to like get some external. badges, right? Like, you got to win a science fair, win a math competition. And it happens to be like, you know, you go to Harvard, that's a really good badge to say like, hey, at some external validator that you're at least good at something, right? Um, so to me, it's like, you, I think all of us should try to aspire to be best in the world at something. And it could be the best violin

player, it could be the best business person, be the best boxer, or the best, like, I don't know, podcast or just the best like artists or the best like doodler right but like everyone should have some god-given like talent to be potentially the best enrolled at and then two if there's like education badges that help you validate and give you that confidence that you can be i think it's actually very valuable but i think in terms of like the educational content um i think that will be reformed there right like i think the education system will change but i think the badging system will not change. So my advice would be like collect some badges as a kid, right, become the best YouTuber or go to Stanford, go to Harvard. Get some badges and that I think gives you a lot of

confidence to like do the next thing, like a real thing. Dick, are you seriously considered going to Stanford? I went there today and I was like, this is beautiful. We went to the church and yeah, I don't know. I think it could be funny or interesting. But I, I, I, I would definitely, I think it would lend itself. Like, I do have NFL aspirations after boxing. I want to play slot receiver. And so I think to, you know, get that experience in college first would be good. So I could walk on to the Stanford team.

Yeah, I'm being serious, though. Yeah. Well, this might be the first podcast you mentioned it. So it is. And it happened, the idea of it happened today. because I was like, well, I was originally thinking I'll just go straight to the Cleveland Browns or Dallas Cowboys, but they're probably going to want to see me play first. And so it might be better if I start off in college and have a little bit of an advantage over the younger, not as big kids before going into the NFL. That's amazing. I want to close on some anti-fund topics. Jeff, you talked a little bit about founder taste and how important it is and how rare it is to. actually have it talk about what it means and and how you guys have developed it I mean I

think through both our journeys I mean I think I remember like some of our early conversations with Jake like Jake's met some of the most fucking weird crazy hustler scammy people through his career like going you know 16 to Hollywood and just like getting thrown to the wolves right so I think and like me coming up in Silicon Valley Stanford white combinator uh I think we just got a lot of reps at meeting people of getting pitched things, doing bad deals, making mistakes. So I don't, there might be some talent or EQ

or people reading skill, but I think a lot of it is probably just a ton of reps, right? Like, and again, going full sort of the top, like, I think, remember, I was like, you know, recatching up when Jake was 23, 24, is like, oh, man, this guy's, like, got a lot of reps and a lot of stuff

that, like, 50-year-old men ever deal with, right? Just like, oh, like, litigation, this, business deals. someone, business issues or success, right? Like, just, you just had a, like, he just, like, he just, like, he lives in dog years, right? Like, that's like, I, I feel like that's, Laura, uh, recently joined a stand-up Jake's, uh, family office and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, months is just like probably it's like two years worth of like shit in like two months um uh so so i think there's like that people reading aspect but i think it ultimately goes down to like

okay um do they have a passion and like a reason to believe why they can be world class of what they choose to pursue and then two are they resilient and tough enough to eat a ton of shit to get there um those are like the two like attributes and I think that's like you know some measure of IQ and then personality read and and just yeah track record you know and leaning on on other people that we trust and respect for background um on certain people and their dealings with them so I think reference checks are also very important for us it's um Yeah, one of the companies we invested in like a defense tech, we just like hit up Palmer Lucky's team and we're like, yeah, what do you think of this group?

So always referencing our network for the certain categories of things that we're working on. And that's proven to work really well. You've made investments in some iconic companies we listed some of them earlier. We also put a bunch of the show notes. but you've also incubated, you know, getting better. Because you should resolve incubating more companies where you have unfair advantage that you did in sort of, you know, betting or how do you think about that?

Yeah, definitely. I think have been noodling on certain things to found currently and just like seeing how the world is evolving with this current, you know, AI boom and just seeing the world change. and all of this stuff. And so there's been ideas and, you know, we've grown some of these companies so where they like run themselves like better, for example.

And I spend a limited amount of time on it now because it's just the team is fully built out. And so I think there is a dynamic shift happening for us right now where there's kind of an open, you know, slot to potentially found and start something new in this current landscape. and it's definitely enticing. But obviously there's so much going on right now. And, you know, you could launch a company and then, you know, Open AI or Claude replicates it next week.

And you're kind of shit out of luck. Yeah, totally. We were talking earlier about the need to monetize it. Anecdotally, I've seen the sort of creator class get a lot smarter and more sophisticated about, you know, we've never like yourself getting into venture, getting into private equity. But Jimmy was originally making chocolate.

Now he's just bought a bank. He's like, hey, I can make a dollar off a customer. Maybe you can make hundreds of dollars of a customer. And so you guys getting into actually building software product. And companies sort of, I feel like people are getting more sophisticated about where the value is. And I'm excited to see that trying to continue. Yeah, thank you. And yeah, I think as we become more sophisticated, yeah, it's like cool to sell.

I won't say which companies or whatever, but like we want to play a bigger game. And shift humanity while doing that. I think it's a good place to wrap. Jake, Jeff, you guys are doing some really exciting. We're excited to be co-investors in a number of companies together and more to come.

Thanks so much for coming to the podcast. Thank you, man. Thanks for listening to this episode of the A16D podcast. If you like this episode, be sure to like, comment, subscribe, leave us a rating or review and share it with your friends and family. For more episodes, go to YouTube, Apple Podcasts, and Spotify.

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