Camp Gagnon - Fyre Festival Host on Surviving Prison & Why Fyre Fest 2.0 WILL WORK

Episode Date: May 22, 2023

Billy McFarland, the host of the infamous Fyre Festival, talks about the worst days leading up to the event, his plans for Fyre Fest 2.0, and what the Netflix and Hulu docs about him GOT WRONG. WELCOME TO CAMP.Thanks to BlueChew, The Freeze Pipe, & Morgan & Morgan for sponsoring today's episode!Mark Gagnon is our HostWill Schwartz is our Content Producer and Lead EditorGabriel Reyes is our Community ManagerKostis Zacho, Gabriel Reyes, & Theodore Bukvic are our Clips Editors

I have never told this story. It was like the spring of seventh grade. So I was 13 years old. I had a web posting business. I was basically renting servers from some guy in like upstate New York. He was maybe 30 years old. I like DM'd him like some joke. So he turned my server off.

I can't all these like customers paying me 20 bucks a month like yelling at me or whatever. I'm a kid. I'm freaking out. And he's like, oh, you can't like talk to me like that. Your server can't come back online. What can I do to get my server back online? He says, send me a picture of your butt. Just of the butt?

I did it. Wait, did you really do it? Yeah. He's like, just the only way to come back online. So I went in my bathroom instead of a picture of my ass. Oh, my God. Dude. Like, mirror pick?

Yeah. And I quickly, like, found someone new, but got the server back online. You found someone new? A new person that paid for a server. A new server daddy. This is Billy McFarlane, the creator of the infamous Fire Fest. He defrauded investors of over $26 million and spent four years in federal prison. And today, we're talking about what the documentaries about him got wrong.

how he survived prison gangs as a white-collar criminal, even spending seven months in solitary confinement, and why people still want to work with him on Fire Festival 2. I'll be honest, I was a little bit skeptical before talking to Billy, but this conversation is really, really cool. We get into themes of like, what does it mean to truly be free and how insecurity can drive all of us to really, really dark places. He shares a bunch of stories that he's never talked about before publicly,

and I'm really excited for you guys to hear it and make a judgment on whether or not he's changed. So, without further ado, enjoy my conversation with Billy McFarland. Welcome to Kent. Billy McFarlane, what's up, brother? Mark, great to be here. Normally I started the episode kind of introducing you guys, but you've brought just a handsome Guido. Yeah.

So would you mind introducing me to John? So I'm trying to hire a security guard. John is way overqualified, but I figured that's a good place to start. Did you just feel of this guy's forums last night at the club? And you're like, you're coming with me. Like, who is this specimen of a man? John, just like, show us off your presence, please. I mean, I got the chain.

I got the muscles. I'm actually a venture captain. And I don't prefer Guido. I prefer like Daigo or Wop or something. Okay, gosh, I apologize. I'm sorry that I crossed the line. I haven't commented on your hair. Dude, honestly, I feel like I'm pulling it off.

I got, it's a little greasy right now, so you should feel comfortable. Um, he just put a little TV spot and we, his chain was, you know, shining in the camera. So bring the chain out, dude. Come on. Come on. Are you being shy? The Cuban. Why are you being shy all of a sudden?

Come on. Yeah, let the link show, baby. Don't fuck around. I've been taking the nobody to rename it, the restitution chain. Yeah. This is how we're paying back to the Bahamas. Maybe that's my plan. Let's go.

Let's go. Dude, how is restitution going? Oh, it's fucking rough. Yeah. I got out August 30th. So like, what, eight and a half months in? Mm-hmm. I made a payment every like three or four weeks.

Yep. Pay back like just under 40K so far. I know it's like super, super small, but got to start somewhere. It's a huge ass bound to climb. Yeah. We're looking at 26 mill. Yep. That sucks.

Yeah, it's terrible. It's terrible. Mentally, it is. is a fucking, like that is a heavy burden to deal with. Just like feels like a hole in my chest type of thing. It's like, I can't look so many people on the eye until that's paid. Really? Like, it's like, sounds crazy, right?

Because it's just such a fucking obscene amount of money. Yeah. But it's like, I just like know mentally that I am incomplete until this happens. Yeah, that does not feel good now. Like walking around. But at the same time, I wonder, I've talked to another guy that was in kind of a similar situation that had to pay restitution. He was convicted of wire fraud. And he said that the restitution actually gave him a little bit of a chip on a shoulder

that he was like, I can't play small. I'm not paying this off driving Uber. Right. Like I got to play. He was like, I gotta play big. He's like, I gotta go for it. Do you feel any stronger need to play bigger because you're not gonna pay this off? I have a nine to five.

So many questions for you. That's in my entire MO is that like if I go and like, you know, make minimum wage, no one is getting paid. Yeah. So I might as well go for it and go for it honestly. if I fail, like, that's okay, and at least I can find pride in the attempt. And I've gotten so much shit for that mentality. Did this guy pay his restitution back?

Like, I've never heard anybody else frame it. He's in the process, actually. That's really cool. Yeah, his name's Ian Bick. Okay. And it's sort of similar kind of stories that you should check him out. But yeah, he was running events in Danbury, Connecticut when he was like 16, 17 years old. And then it was losing money on the events, but telling the investors that he was making money.

And then he was getting went underwater, got arrested, convicted, spent three years in like a minimum security prison and is currently paying back restitution. But that's kind of his philosophy. He's like, I got to go for him as well. If you go for, honestly, like, I think that's all that really matters. But yeah, I think it's crawling in a hole and dying appeases a lot of people. But like at the end of the day, I think it's a coward move. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, is there any situation where you can just like declare bankruptcy to leave the country? No. That's not an option. I guess like at some point you can leave the country. But dude, like can't run from the problems. Right. You got to got to take it head on. And that's where we're doing fire festival too to.

Let's go. I feel like you can kind of run a little bit, right? Like some people could. I just think that most people don't pay. Yeah. And you could only pay whatever you're earning. So I think like most people take the path where they just don't get high income, high stress jobs. And they pay, you know, $100 a month and $50 a month for the rest of their lives.

Yeah. Yeah. I think like that's just the wrong way to approach this. And you got to remember the 26 million. Like, who did it come from? It came from investors that knew there was a risk involved. So if they get back to even, that's actually like winning. Because when you get into this shit, you know you might lose.

You know what I'm not? I'm not dismissing anything he freaking did, but they've moved on. So they get a check in a couple of years. Oh, here's the $100,000 you put into Fire Festival back in 20 whenever. Yeah, it's win. What percent of restitution is going back to investors and what percent is going back to like people on the island and like sort of like the disenfranchised people that I think people have much more of a stronger connection to? That's great question. So the restitution are just to people that were.

victims of the crime and that were only, that's only investors. Really? So the 26 odd million dollar number are purely investors who were lied to by me, you know, before a fire festival. Oh, interesting. The people who are owed in the Bahamas, that's totally separate. And like that is my personal mission to get them paid back this summer. I actually think the number of the Bahamas is only around like $350,000.

So still a big number, but it's possible to, that's a lot more feasible. It's more feasible to, you know, do something productive, earn and pay in the back. Yeah, and personally, I care more about those people than like, again, like, yeah, you fucked up. You shouldn't defrauded all these people. But at the same time, I'm like, I care about the guy in the Bahamas that's not making a ton of money. Yeah. That had a shitty week or a shitty year. From that, then, you know, like the investor that is missing a million bucks and doesn't even know it. Right. How many investors are there total, roughly? It's like between 40 and 50. Yeah. And, you know, some who invested many millions of dollars

and some who were smaller checks. I think, oh, sorry. Yeah, the hard thing for me is, like, I go back and forth as to, like, who I owe more. I know it's kind of, like, a weird question when you owe so many people. But they were a handful of investors who backed my first company when I was, like, 19 years old. This is magnesium. It was before that called Spling. Spling.

Yeah, pre-magnosis. And, like, those people I feel the most guilty about. And, ironically, they are some of the bigger pockets. And, like, I think they're less hurt financially than the others, but it's, like, the trust that I owe back to them. I think the money to them is not going to change your lifestyle if they're paid back in six months. But I think giving them back that trust is almost more important than the money. Yeah, you build up all the social equity over years, building up trust and then take it away through a series of lies. And that hurts you.

That hurts that person. Yeah, both ways. Yeah. And I'm sure those people are more affected by the lies than the money. I agree. And is there a way that you've tried to amend the lies? Because let's say over time you're able to amend the money. That's one thing.

Do you think you'll ever be able to amend the lies to your friends that you defrauded? I think it just takes time. And like literally it's me every month being like, hey guys, you know, bad month. I only paid X dollars or hey guys, like decent month. I paid this like this amount of money. And like just being honest, like here's how I made it. Here's what I'm doing. Here's what's going well.

Here's what's not going well. And it's going to take 10 years of doing that shit to build this trust back. Yeah, that's tough. And are you talking with them directly? Or are you talking with their people? Is there intermediators? Do you have personal relationships with these people still? Some.

And I think in jail, we all being like people in prison all kind of like tell each other dreams like what life is like outside of jail, right? I think I expected to walk out and have all of this past relationships just like come run to me and it didn't happen. And it took a really fucking long time. And I think I'm starting to hit that barrier now where a lot of people who had left are starting to reach back out, like whether it's investors or team members or artists, wherever the hell it is, right?

So it's like been like a weird whirlwind. the past couple weeks, just like reconnecting back with these people. Yeah, yeah, that's really tough. Now, obviously, you know, I don't, I think a lot of the stuff with Firefest has been covered the two documentaries, which you still haven't seen. No. Bro, you've got to watch them. It's like, I'm curious why you haven't.

Like, if this is what the public perception of you is, this is what America is looking at and this is who they believe you to be, whether rightly or wrongly, are you not curious as to like how you can present yourself in a way that's counter to what it is if you don't know what is being presented? the proof of the documentaries suck or the fact that you just tell me I was eating Dairy Queen in the documentaries. You were eating Dairy Queen, bro. Check the Hulu one, one hour, 22 minutes. You're chowing down on some cookies and cream.

I much prefer the Froyo places where I could just take all the toppings myself and throw it on. Bro, you will. That's bullshit. You were a former fat kid, bro. I love that. Former Fat Kid energy is the fun of shit. They have totally fat. He's like, dude, you would go to the Wawa, you get two crispy tuna melts, okay?

How could I think it was going to dairy cream? You go get chished from lays. So you guys have like gas station recipes? It's the funniest shit. What was like your OG fat? boy snack I would just like camp out at restaurants just fucking eat all day it's like I eat like an eight year old too yeah yeah yeah I wasn't eating nice food it was just like a lot of just like comfort food yeah yeah it's like taking phone calls like working like what was your

what was your spot like I don't fuck I don't even fucking know like I just went everywhere and just like ate all day long oh I just like found comfort through the food stop working out yeah like I think like subconsciously I knew was doing something wrong and I was just like redlining in every aspect of life. Yeah. Whether it was like work, play, food, alcohol, like adrenaline, you know, jet skiing, boating, scoop-diving, flying. It was all to the limit and just like pushing everything to the absolute boundary.

Yeah. Do you think that you were genuinely using food as a way to like sort of cover up emotional discomfort that you were feeling or like maybe even like insecurity you were feeling from like childhood and shit? I think that I was trying to find those moments of like, wow to justify all the suck that was happening behind the scenes. Whether that was accomplishing something physically that was crazy or like it's like eating a ton of food and like getting drunk and escaping, you know, trying to find a new island of the Bahamas that no one's been to. It's just like pushing for that one moment where it's like, okay, all this bad shit is worth it because look what just happened.

Yeah. Pure avoidance. Yeah. Yeah. When you're like being when you're confronting something so painful, you're like let me just ignore that. And then go pursue something that feels good. Yeah, just trying to make it worthwhile. Drink. Like this fucking fondue restaurant you found. Yeah.

Who knows? I think a lot of people do that in different ways. Like look at the best athletes, right? Of course. They put themselves through hell. And it's like worth winning in their mind. And they justify the nine months of suck to hold the trophy up, you know, at the end of the season. Or even, I mean, to like the avoidance thing.

Like they might be dealing with shit in their personal lives. Like I'd rather not deal with this. I'm going to go work out. Yeah. Yeah. I'm going to go get forearms like this guy. Exactly. Let's just go fucking do these shit.

No, but you see a lot of guys like that for sure. Yeah, of course. That's an interesting hot take here. The size of your forearms is directly correlated to your personal problems. Yes, that is 100% true. Can you attest to that? Obviously. Obviously.

I got a lot of freaking problems, apparently. That's what happens. You're trying to push down your problems. Your forearms get big, maybe. I'm curious in high school. Yeah. Like, I know you've talked a little bit about like your parents. Like they're super sweet.

Like they've been like really good to you. You grew up in New Jersey and not far from here. In high school, did you feel like you had a big, social circle. Were you like friends with a ton of people? Were you like prom king dude? Were you like computer coder guy? What was like your stereotype in high school? I definitely had like a lot of friends. I think I was had a lot of like loose relationships. And I think that kind of carried over especially in life to whether it's magnetesis or the fire days. But I was always doing different shit. Went to like pretty nice. I would say like really preppy high school. But like I would leave and literally

go to the hood to like train jiu jihitsu and MMA before it was like a popular thing. This is like 2007, right? Or like, you know, friends would be at parties and, you know, I'll go home to like go on poker stars and go on a poker tournament. I'm like, even though I was welcome at the party. So I was always trying to find ways to like make my own path rather than like just be the party kid in high school. And why, what was that desire to make your own path? Like if you have this circle of friends, there's girls hanging around, you're going to cool parties. What is, what were you searching for in that time to validate to yourself?

Like, what do you think that was? I think it's like this never ending. for freedom. And I really hate being told no. And I think I have this weird drive in me where it's like, I want to find out myself what the actual boundaries and limits are. I don't want you to tell me what they are. So yes,

I'm supposed to be in high school and doing everything I can to maximize my college acceptance is like next year. But it's like, fuck that. I want to see how many websites I can make. I want to see, you know, how I could find the toughest guy in the world and,

you know, the Ironbound District of Newark to punch my face in. or like, I want to go on the poker stars and, you know, see if I can beat the pros as this kid from my, you know, parents' bedroom. Sure. So it's all about trying to find my own freedom and find out what the limits were. Yeah. And that doesn't fucking work because, like, I found out what the limits are.

And that's 10 months of solitary confinement and four years in jail and fucking their life up. Yeah, that shit sucks. Now, I know, like, a lot of people that have that similar mentality with, like, I'm going to push limits. I'm going to find where the boundary is. And oftentimes they get caught up in some shit. Yeah. I'm curious, like, were you getting in trouble as a kid?

Like 12 year old Billy, are you like stealing license plates or like doing like mischief? Not really. Like I never did anything like bad per se. But I would like I would do things that wouldn't have content. In my mind, we're not like violations of the moral code. Like sure, I would like leave class to go run my business from the bathroom. But in my mind I wasn't hurting anybody. I was employing three people in India as a fucking 13 year old.

Right. Like, oh, I'm helping them out. Like that was kind of how I did it. So it was like less like childhood mischief stuff and more. more like entrepreneurial mischief. Now, but your parents are in real estate. So they, I guess, are not like, in the way we look at like tech entrepreneurs, like they were not Zuckerberg people.

No, they're New Jersey people. They're not like, they're not like Manhattan. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They're just like solid, like outside of New York. Yeah, like regular New Jersey. So where did that inspo come from where you're like, oh, I'm going to be fucking Bezos? Like where does that drive come from as a 12 year old? I just had this, I don't think I've ever said this before, but I had this like weird experience

where I would, my parents would take me on a lot of vacations as a kid, but we would never go to like nice resorts and sit by the pool, like a lot of my peers. We would generally go to third world countries and like out of the way places that weren't super nice, but they were really, really adventurous. And we'd gone to this like a little island in Belize and I was like maybe like 14 or 15. and I became friends with a couple of, like, you know, local guys there. And, like, I'd run away from my parents. I had my first, like, beer or two with these local guys. And then, like, 18 months later, my high school announced is, like, this marine biology

trip to the same island. So I'm like, fuck yeah. And I had these, like, guys' numbers saved on my Blackberry from, like, you know, the year and a half before. Now I'm, like, 15 or 16. I convince all my friends to, like, sign up for this marine biology trip. And it's, like, two teachers and, like, you know, 10 of my ridiculous, like, guy friends. And we land.

And I'm, like, text these guys in the black guys. They meet us with like some beaten up SUV like scoop us up drive us away Take us out to like the bars and the clubs and the teachers are looking at me like what the fuck is wrong with you And then the head teacher comes up to me like that trip when she's trying to punish me She's like you're there going to be a billionaire in jail in 10 years and I was like 15 60 at the time She's like how the fuck do you know these guys? Pretty much nailed it dude you almost did both actually back to back I mean that's pretty good I mean that's wild did you have like girlfriends when you were like middle school high school

Yeah, yeah. And like, was there any, like, as you're running these businesses, like, was there a desire for, like, female validation? Like, oh, I got this shit pop in and, like, showing girls, like, the bank account just to, like, get that kind of relationship, Kogan? Yeah, for sure. So I had a social networking site. I built in seventh grade called Your Hot Site.

Yeah. And I just, like, didn't really know what I was doing, but I had it limited where you can only upload so many pictures. And this is, like, in their early MySpace days before Facebook hit, like, the mainstream. And I, like, didn't do this on purpose. but like when one girl came up to me, it's like, hey, I can only have, you know, X number of pictures, can you fix this for me? And it was like a one button fix, right? And then in my like 13 year old mind, I'm like, ooh, I can one button fix it for everybody or I can just do it for

her. And then every other girl has to come up to me and ask you to fix it for them too. So I'll just fix it for her. Right. And it's like I was too young. Like I hadn't even got through puberty yet. Like I was too young to like actually know how to like be with a girl or like have any desire to actually do it. But you're getting attention. Yeah. But it's like, oh, this attention is pretty cool. And now like all day long, Everybody's going to come up to me asking me how to fix this before. I'm like, that's pretty sick. Do you have siblings? Younger sister, late 20s.

Okay, cool. So you're the oldest. Yeah. Oh, wow. And so, I mean, your parents were probably like pretty doting. Like, they would give you a lot of attention. Did you feel like they were enabling you in any way? Like, if you were making a business not really focusing on school, where they kind of like, oh, that's way cooler, fuck school.

No, it was actually super rough. And they were, like, very anti-prosuits outside of school. And, like, literally I told them that I had a summer. job as like a camp counselor so I can go to Newark, New Jersey and go train Jiu-Jitsu. So like they wouldn't know where I was going. And like I'd bring home my money that already had saved from my computer projects. Yeah. And then they would take like literally whenever they found out I was doing a business,

they would come and take my computer away. I just had like a, you know, a dresser drawer full of computer parts that'd build a new one. They come keep taking them away. So it's like this never ending battle like them trying to stop me. And you know, I felt bad for them because like, how the fuck do you handle this like 13-year-old menace, right? It's like they're not technology advanced people. And it's like, I can go on eBay and they ship some parts to the house and pick them up when they're not home.

And like, how do they stop that? So it's kind of like a weird thing for them. Yeah, I feel for them. Oh, that's interesting. Did you have like mentors at that young age that were like kind of guiding you? I would meet people online. And I was like really good at pretending like I was older. This is how it starts, bro.

This is some Chris Hanson shit right here, bro. Billy walks in and like, why don't you take a seat? Yeah, you've been meeting a lot of people online. But I was super, I was 13, 14. So I was the kid, right? Oh yeah, that's true. You're the victim. You're the victim. Oh, shit. Yeah. That would have been a great job for you, dude. You're just the kid in the house, the guy shows up. They're like, Billy, run.

The guy, the fucking Catcher Predator guy showed up. I've never told this story. And, uh-oh. It's actually to catch a predator shit. Let's go. I've never told this. I'm like, I don't know. I don't even know how I just fucking thought of it right now. Oh, I know how. I called you a pedophile. Yeah, you called me a pedophile.

I was in seventh grade, so I was 13. I remember it was like the spring of seventh grade. So I was 13 years old. I had a web posting business. And I was basically renting servers, like virtual servers from some guy in like upstate New York, right? And he was maybe fucking 30 years old. And I like DM'd him like some joke like, I was a 14 year old kid or 13 year old kid

like making fun of him or whatever. Yeah. So he turned my server off. And he's a grown man, right? And I can have all these like customers paying me 20 bucks a month like yelling at me or whatever. I'm a kid. I'm freaking out.

And he's like, oh, you can't like talk to me like that. You know, your server can't come back. online like what can I do to get my server back online he says send me a picture of your butt that is a weird-ass request bro just of the butt like come on dude so I did it you got the server back wait did you really do it yep you said 13 years old what you said the guy that guy should probably be in jail right yeah yeah for sure you should be in the hell with you, bro. You guys should have bunked up. He's like, finally. Well, I can kick his ass at least.

Yeah, exactly. He's like fat nerd. Yeah. Take him. He's surviving going to Jitsu, man. Bro, that's wild. And so, and that was, what happened with that guy? Like, you just kind of lost touch? Yeah, just lost touch and, like, you know, found a new provider, whatever it was months later. Bro. But dude, he was like, I was a member sitting in my room.

And he's like, it's the only way to come back online. So I went in my bathroom instead of a picture of my ass. Oh, my God. Dude. Like, mirror pick? Yeah. I had like an old flip phone cell phone. Bro. This is 2007. I graduated from high school in 2010, so five years before I had 2005. Crazy, right?

Dude, that's insane. It's kind of scary. That's how it starts, bro. You should use that in court. You should have been like, guys, I'm a victim, okay? You guys looking out for me. Did you feel actually emotionally weird about that? Like in the moment or are you just like, dirt and a boy?

You're like, who gives a shit? It's my ass. He was asking all these weird questions, man. I don't know. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, that was just the, that was the, yeah, and then like that was, and I quickly, like, found someone new, but got the server back online. You found someone new? A new person that paid for a server.

Another server day. A new server daddy. That's actually where GoDaddy came from. That's where I started. So, guys, I've been talking a lot of shit about marketing, but I invented Go Daddy. Dude, that's wild. And so, like, why, like, why are you, like, I'm going to start the biggest business of the world? I'm going to beat people up.

Yeah. And then, like, my sophomore year of. high school. I think it was like season two or three, the ultimate fighter. This is 2006 or 2007. So super early before the UFC was like mainstream. And I was like trying to work out, you know, at home. I was kind of like sucking it up with sports at school. And then I see in like TV, like the ultimate fighter came on. I'm like, yo, these guys are fucking crazy. Like, what's it like to meet one of these guys? And it's like went on Google and looked for Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. And jiu jihitsu is not permeating like professional culture at the time.

It was in the hood and the hood only in New Jersey. And so I literally went to the hood to like fucking go and see how crazy these guys were. Whoa. And it's like fell in love. Dude, that's wild. Yeah. And obviously now it's crazy where Mark Zuckerberg just competed like two weeks ago. It's totally changed.

But so anyway, fast forward, I like sign up for a jihitsu competition in like Newark, New Jersey. And I take the guy down and knock out my front tooth. And my mom who's like comes out of nowhere, drives to me and like yells at me in front of 3,000 people like ball and grass. Like I fucking hate this sport. This is disgusting. This is terrible. Like my two's out. Like I'm bleeding everywhere.

It was kind of a crazy experience. Like that was my way to rebel. Yeah. And it's like super cool to see how mainstream it is now. Did you get into street fights? Never. Never. Never.

No one was picking on you. No. Like bullies, nothing like that. Never. Interesting. So you just want to fight because like what did you feel like that would bring you in that in that moment like as a kid? I thought it was different.

Yeah. Yeah. Everyone's playing football and you're like. Yeah. And then I started like a jihitsu club in my like preppy high school. And like after class. So he'd all be like rolling around and teachers be coming by like, what the fuck are these guys doing? Yeah.

Had my like assistant football coach like in the jiu jitza club. I'd be like sparring him and like what's happening here, guys? It's interesting because right now, I mean, you seem like so well adjusted, especially much more I presume like since, you know, being incarcerated. But do you feel like in high school or even middle school you were battling any like personal insecurities that you were trying to overcompensate? For sure. And I think I get bored really fast. And that's like one of my huge flaws. or it's like, hey, if I can only do this, whether it's, you know, become proficient at basic

jiu-jitsu or like build a website or sell a business. And then this would happen. I'm like, oh, wait, like this isn't what I thought it would be. Like, what's the next level? And I think if channeled properly, that could be really good for business success, but if not channeled properly, it's just a path to nowhere. And that's like super sad. And so, yeah, I guess getting bored, like you create something and you're like, that will get me X. Yeah, that will get me, um, that will get me, um, Like what do you think those exes were in your mind? Like was it always money? Was it like, oh, parental validation?

Was it like, oh, chicks want to bang me? Like, what do you think? Was it changing? I think it's always freedom. Always freedom. It's always freedom. And like, sure, money could have been a part of it. Girls could have been a part of it.

An island could have been a part of it. I think it was like a never-ending search for freedom. And everything else was a tool to try to seek and find that freedom. Sure. And did you not feel free? That's a good question. You should be my therapist. This is great.

On your podcast, ladies and gentlemen. These cameras are not on, okay? These cameras are not on. This is an intervention. Me and John Braw you here today. No, I'm just genuinely curious. Like,

that search for freedom is obviously a palpable human desire. A lot of people strongly feel it. I obviously feel it. I want to not be withheld by this nine to five. And I look back on my childhood. I'm like, yeah, everyone I knew had a regular job. Even the wealthy people I knew had regular jobs.

They had a car dealership and they were really good at it. Yeah. But ultimately they were still beholden to this social infrastructure that was sort of ascribed to them. Yeah. That to me always felt sort of, it felt fucking suffocating. I hated it. So I was like, what if I can go do comedy?

What if I can tell jokes to people and tour the road and not, and be able to be like, hey, I'm going to take two weeks off and be my own boss. And so that freedom felt really good. And I look at that based off where I grew up. So for you, like that what you just said, like that search for freedom, what was the. Tratman you were feeling. I don't know. That's actually, this is an interesting, I think, an interesting question. And if you kind of look back, I'm just like thinking, you know, I read a lot of memoirs in jail.

And I just like never kind of correlated this. But I feel like people who have done creative pursuits both successfully and unsuccessfully have had this never-ending search for freedom and have wrongly believed that some quest would give that freedom. whether it's like, you know, exploring a new land or, you know, going on a bigger tour, selling at an arena, or meeting some girl. And at the end of the day, like, all it does is move the goalposts. Yeah. And it's like, how can you, it sounds cliche, but how can you, like, leverage a journey along the way to find that freedom? And I don't have the answer. I don't know if anybody does.

But I think it's kind of like man's never ending search to feel truly free. And I think in reality, we can't be free, right? We live for a finite amount of time. We need to, like, eat and shit and sleep and do all these things. We can't escape the realities of life. And I think we all wish we could. And whether it's drugs or alcohol or creative pursuits. Yeah, absolutely.

It's probably like a feudal attempt. Yeah, no, I agree with you. And a lot of those memoirs like, dude, I loved, was it Walter Isaacson's bio Steve Jobs. Yeah, it's great. My favorite book I've ever read ever. And he even touches on like Steve's desire to create something great.

A lot of it came from like, Heath seems to think a little bit of like some childhood abandon it from like being adopted and I and like I think with Bezos a similar thing. Yeah. Like also adopted. And so a lot of these people are finding or searching for this freedom based off of like some type of unresolved or maybe even a resolved childhood issue that sort of change the way that they interface with the world.

And again, I don't want to put this on you. I think we all and I'm like not separating myself for a moment. I think we all have these issues. 100%. We just channel them in different ways. Yes. And that's where I always like I always laugh when I see like, you know, somebody else's criminal court case gets public,

gets all this media attention. Like, oh, they've had these issues here. But everybody's saying that person has this issues, you have similar issues too. A million percent. You just channel them differently. And like, I don't know, I think through this experience, like we all have the same problems in different ways,

and we just find different ways to fucking cope with it. And whether that's like working nine to five and saying, hey, my life sucks, but it's good because I'm providing for my wife or husband and two kids. Or it's like, I don't want to be shackled. So I'm going on tour. And that's how I'm going to justify my existence. I think we're all like a million percent there.

A million percent. But I do think people look at sort of the chemistry of what created the situation, the more unique the situation is. Yeah. And what you did is extremely unique and is extremely fascinating. And I think obviously, I mean, there's two documentaries that were made within two months of each other. Like there is obvious desire to know more.

And I think because of the circumstances of which you became so prominent, a lot of people want to know the background. And I think it's atypical what you did. So I think people are looking for the atypicality and what your upbringing was. Makes sense. No, it's definitely a fair question line. Yeah.

And I think it's completely reasonable to be like, bro, I don't know. Yeah, I'm still working on like that self-reflection. Yeah. And yeah, I think we all are. But like people would ask me, especially early on, they'd be like, because my parents had seven kids. Damn.

Yeah, I know. They started with nine, so it's actually sad. But no. He said sad. You can laugh for that. No. No, no, my parents had seven kids and I was six of seven. And I remember people asked me like, oh, you do stand up.

It must be because you didn't get enough attention as a kid. And I remember having resentment towards that. Because I was like, no, fuck you. I had a great childhood. My parents loved me. That's not why I do it. And then I look back as I've gotten older. I'm like, maybe there is something to that.

And it's not a moralistic thing. It's not right or wrong that that happened. But I do think that that adds to the chemistry of my childhood that made me who I am. I think very few people actually understand. understand all of their makeup in terms of how they operate. And I actually think that would make us a superhuman, right? If we knew our Madden ratings, we could just design our life to find the highest level of success.

Like, we knew our speed was 99, but our, you know, awareness was a zero. Like, we would just, like, fucking run straight lines all day long. So I think it's actually super interesting. If we can, like, I don't know, maybe it's actually a good startup idea. To have Madden ratings applied to your personality as a human so you could adjust your life to find people performance. This fucking guy. That's good idea.

I'm like, who wants to back me on that? I'm like, Billy. You can meditate. You can reach enlightenment. You can find all the reasons why you're on the way. Madden ratings for like for every human. And he's like, we're going to make some money.

What do you think, you know? Yeah, I'm in. I'm in. I think it's a good idea. Yeah, I will invest. Okay. Yeah, thank you. My madden rating on,

on sniffing out bad deals is low. Okay. I'll give you my, my African bank account number. Yeah, exactly. Just to say, shall, it's no big deal. So you mentioned that you did,

like you played public. poker. Yeah, in high school, yeah. Do you like gambling? I used to as a kid, like in high school. I think I, I don't know if I liked gambling as much as I liked doing something that I shouldn't have had access to at that time. Right.

So it's like, hey, if I'm 15, if I could play against a bunch of 40-year-olds and like poker online, that was cool because this is like a new world. Yeah. So I think I enjoyed like, you know, I would never be like, oh, let's go play poker right now as my ideal activity. Like sure, I play for fun if like friends are playing, but I'm not going to go seek it out. Right. Yeah. It's like you like drinking and then you turn 21 and you're like, I don't like to drink. Yeah. Yeah. I'd like pissing my parents off. Yeah. What's up guys?

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I'm curious, like, specifically the moments of high stress, like to me that is the most interesting thing about it. Like being a day out, being a week out, dealing with that pit. Yeah. Like what was the most stressful moment? Like what was the moment where you were like,

if a coconut fell and hit me in the head and killed me, I wouldn't care. And how many moments were there like that? Every day. Really? Yeah. It was that persistent. The two months leading up to it,

we were totally out of money with mounting bills every single day. day on like mounting levels of importance. I think I've spoken about this before, but just like can't harp how crazy this was. I had a full-time employee whose entire job it was to take all of our vendor bills, organize it into a Google sheet, and it ranked them by how urgent they were. And like the highest level was like deathly urgent and like the lowest level was like, if we don't pay today, we're still fuck.

So there's like no level of okay. And then I'd literally wake up and be like, okay, I have until two o'clock to get this money from somewhere wired to me. So he can sit there and wire everything out by four o'clock that day. day before the bank closes. So I'd wake up at 9 a.m. I'd like, all right, fuck, I have five hours to raise $2 million today. And some days was $50K and some days was $4 million. And it was every day for two months straight and like money through Friday, like life fucking sucked. Did you ever attempt to acquire money through like non-legitimate means? Like through like money laundering, like

drug shit? Like anything like that. I lied to investors. Sure. Yeah. Yeah. So that's illegal. But in terms of like getting money from non-investors, like, okay, let me get drug money from over here. Let me get this shitty money from here. I never did any activity to earn the money other than raising from investment. Like I never did any illegal activity to earn it except for lying to investors. Like I was doing consulting work. I was doing this work. I was like getting money from magnesium here and there.

But it was all like through the business. All the investors were legitimate though. Yeah. This other guy that I talked to, he got into the similar situation. where he's like barring money and then kiting money over here to another person and then just hiding like moving this whole three card Monty and then eventually he had to get

like gangster money. Got it. In order to like cover himself got it with high interest rates and like loan shark shit. What happened to this gangster money guys? Do they go crazy? He had to get his hands broken in a couple times. Really? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Actually? Yeah. Oh, that's still real? Yeah. Oh, man. My investors are soft

man. That didn't happen to you. They just sue me and take away my life. yeah you're like i'd much rather break my hand that's way better mine is like call the government get me locked up yeah i mean he had both he had to break his hand and go to jail yeah so i'm curious my investors were not like in on the ski i don't like in on the ski sure sure sure yeah but and yeah you were defrauding them no they weren't aware of anything no um but like the one weird thing is that i just didn't have any of my own debiter credit cards for like four months and i had like literally 20 people who had the passwords to all my bank accounts and I was like everything was so

loose and commingled you know like Johnny would have my chase card you know like Sarah would have my amex card and they're all in place like doing legitimate business expenses and like I didn't even axed my own shit you know I call one guy yo why are this vendor 200k or else we're not going get our fucking mattress patting yeah I mean they would all do it's like everything's like touch and go. It doesn't make sense. There's no organization. For you to be doing everything. You're like everyone else do everything because it's like no time. I think we see in the movies like people in the back room like cooking in the books.

I was like the complete opposite of that where everything was open. Like everybody had access to everything. There was like no hidden banks or anything like that. Like everybody knew at all times how much money was here or there. And so I was like super loosey goosey with it. And like it's terrible. But it's like had a weird approach. Yeah.

Now this was kind of fucked up about the Netflix documentary though. They kind of painted him. I'm glad you didn't see it because they kind of painted him like he's using this money for personal gain or something like living the life with it. Right. That's what people don't understand or you got to like peel back the onion to really look at. All of the shit was going towards trying to make this shit happen. Yeah. You know, so yeah, maybe he lied.

Hey, I need 200 grand this afternoon. He wasn't telling that investor. Hey, by the way, we blew through the 25 million already. He's not sharing that information because he needs the 200 grand wrong to do and he went to jail for it. Yeah. But at the same fucking time, it wasn't like he was putting in his pocket by him. Ferraris. Yeah, no, of course.

Yeah. And that's the thing that I think is misguided, like you said. Like I don't think that you are intentionally trying to hurt people. I think that you are. And I also don't think you're dumb. I think that was an unfair thing that was painted that you were like dumb, bumbling. I think you are unfortunately a genius marketer. Too good of a marketer for how bad you are in production, creating events.

And that's like an unfortunate parallel. If you were a bad marketer, this event would have sold 100 tickets. and it probably would have been fine. Yeah. You were just too good of a marketer for how bad you were at producing the event. And that sort of disconnect, I think, is what fucked you up. But it's not that you're dumb,

it's that you're actually a genius in a very specific lane. Now, I'm curious, if you could go back in time, we have a time machine to the day before that first influencer post, which, like, is, also, I'll give you credit, you really did figure out the influencer marketing game before a lot of people. I mean, like, 20, what, 15, 2016?

Yeah, 2016. Yeah, I mean, I mean, In 2016, like the way that that high, low model, like influencer marketing thing was done, like micro influencers, all that shit, you figured it out, which again, is to your credit, I think, is a genius marketing tactic. If you can rewind to that day before it goes out, what do you change? And if you can talk to young Billy, what do you fix to not go to prison? The date.

Literally just that date. So we dropped the Instagram post in like mid-December and announced an end of April festival date. So four and a half months. The fucking date, man. Yeah. And it was ironic because, like, I wasn't, I wasn't, like, committing the crimes at this point, but I was still operating with this mentality that we need to level up every fucking day. So it's like, all right, I get to do this festival right fucking now so I can move on to the next big thing.

I just, like, couldn't fathom that this is a massive project. I need help. This is career-defining if this works. Why not give it 18 months? Yeah. Why not give it 12 months? There is no fucking rush. And what was the rush?

I think this constant need to level up. It's like, oh, a festival sounds fun, but I'll be bored of that soon. It's like, let's just do it and then go on to the next thing. Yeah. And it's like so immature and silly in retrospect, but that was a mentality at the time. Did you like the attention that you were getting as things were building up? Like as there's like people hitting you up, like, dude, can I get tickets? Hey, can you help me with this?

What was so ironic is that like it was so good for business, right? It's like these sponsorships are coming in, these consulting jobs are coming in. You know, and we obviously spent a lot of money, but I made it. more money than I ever had my entire life in those four months from announcement until like festival date. It made so much strategic sense to bring that out over 18 months. Like, why only do that for four months? Like, I was fucking on fire.

Yeah. Why not make that an 18 month period? Make it three months and raise money for three years. Exactly. And like one, we can properly execute the festival. But two, I was becoming a fucking beast in terms of like income at that time. Why not extend that and like really deliver on these projects? Yeah, because the idea and the marketing was was brilliant.

It's great. Like, yeah, a destination festival. Like, all that shit is awesome. But it really just was the execution. I'm curious if you feel like you're a victim, I mean, not literally a victim, but like sort of succumb to like hustle culture of the time. And people don't remember, like in that era,

there's like so much social media hustle culture. Like, get out there, make money. Fuck everyone. Don't sleep. Like, punch your mom in the head. Get like, get it going. And I wonder if you felt external pressure to be like, okay, I'm going to be great.

And not necessarily caring about what you were making, but just the fact you were making something cool. I actually think I was really bad at taking in information at that point. Like, I wasn't really watching those videos. And like, sure, I knew they were out there. I think that's something I've actually really improved on is just like studying more before, like, taking massive action. But I think I would take the massive action with very little thought. And that was why a lot of big things happened.

That's also why I reached extreme failure. Sure. So, yeah, so I think like I was less victim to like third party circumstances and more victim to my boredom. And it's like, I don't want to be a festival guy. I want to be a tech billionaire. So let's make this festival happen in, you know, four months so I can move on to be a tech billionaire. Yeah. Whereas like right now I'm like, dude, if I can take 18 months to build a festival, that's a fucking dream life. Right. It's like I didn't have the maturity of that time to understand that. Yeah. And I just think that's a shame. I think that's a good cautionary tale for a lot of people that fall into that mindset of like I'm going. to be a tech billionaire. It's like you have no connection to the product. You don't care about making people's lives better. You don't care about actually making something that's going to improve the world. You just want to be a billionaire with a sexy word in front of it. And I kind of

feel like you were in that modality in that time where you're disconnected from the product and therefore the product sucked. Whereas now, if you're a little bit more like, dude, I want to make something awesome. And maybe the money's great or maybe it's just okay. But I really want to create a good thing that's going to be a gift to humanity. Sure. I think that is always going to be a better outcome. So I'm curious in that time, did you feel like, oh, you were disconnected from the product

and just wanting to be, like, rich or successful or established? I think it's like wanted ultimate freedom. Yeah. And it's like, how could it just, like, go faster to get there? And then I'm also looking at the guys who in my mind had the ultimate freedom. So some of these, like, billionaire wildcat investors at mine who, from all appearances,

we're living this, like, ultimate free life. Yeah. Like, these guys aren't to be in concerts. They're doing this. And it's like, so in my mind, I didn't do that. It felt small. It felt small. Exactly.

And like, it wasn't small. And had I executed it, I would have had a really good life and brand for myself. And I just didn't know how to equate that to reality. Yeah. And also, these people who I thought were ultimately free. Like, dude, life's not fucking easy when you have 2,000 employees and all these problems, right? Like, their life's arguably was more unhappy than it would have been running a festival. Sure.

And at that time, I know there was a handful of people that were like, dude, this timelines are not going to work. And you didn't really heed their warnings, obviously because you're like, I got to, to make this shit happen because I got to move on to the next thing because I'm awesome and I'm a tech billionaire. Did you feel like? It sounds great, right? Yeah, right? As I'm saying, he's like, dude, this is a good idea. That's awesome.

In that moment, like, did you feel like you were acting as a narcissist? I've been asked this so many times in so many ways. And I guess I don't know is the short answer. I think I had this like sigh to me, which is actually terrible in that I really want to make people. happy. And I think I'm just like a fucking pussy. But like if I do like it. And it's true.

But if I feel if I see someone going through pain or sorrow, I immediately feel more bad for them and place that as a priority over whatever my issue is, your issues are. And I do everything to like make them feel better in the short term while fucking everything up in the long term. So like I just don't know how to weigh. and I really didn't know how to weigh like honesty today for long-term success and I sacrificed the farm to make someone happy

in the moment every day and like I think that's actually a really negative trait so whether that is narcissism to like want to make someone feel better or whether it's just like being a fucking pussy maybe it's a mix of both I don't know right but regardless you feel like that was a bad trait terrible trait yeah terrible trade

in time do you feel like you've worked on that I've worked on it and like I think it's kind of intuitive but you can't run a business when you're sacrificing everything for the needs and gratification of like a lot of people on a daily basis. Especially the short term sacrifice. Yeah, exactly. That is the biggest thing. Like you can't have any relationship if it's constant compromise in the short term.

I think you can compromise kind of in the long term and pivot things. But if it's just constantly capitulating on a daily basis, like you can't make any progress. It could be simple. It's like, hey, a small investor is like, oh, it's my daughter's sweet 16. They really want this artist to be there at their part. party and I know the artist is only going to go if I fucking drag them there by my hand. And I'm going to and this daughter is crying because her birthday party is not coming together. And now I feel so bad that I'm going to leave my other 100 employees alone when they really need me.

And I'm going to drag this artist there. So this girl hugs her dad and is all happy. And like that's warm and fuzzy, but I just fucked my business because I wasn't there. And like that hurt that investor in the long term, but it also hurt the other 40 investors. But I couldn't realize the damage I was causing because all I could see was like that one problem. Yeah. And that's tricky. Yeah, I feel a similar thing.

I've done that before, which I call like well-intentioned weakness. Yeah. Like, my intentions are good. I'm here to help people, but as a result of, you know, helping my friend move, I actually neglected my wife. Yeah. And my wife is a greater priority to me than like this, a friend that I don't really know that way. Yeah, for sure.

But just that immediate thing of trying to be well-intentioned was actually weak because as a real man and a husband, I should be taking care of my wife. Yeah. And I think that happens to a lot of young men where they are kind to genuinely, generous, but yeah, it becomes misguided. And I'm curious why you did the Hulu doc in the first place. Like, the Netflix doc doesn't really feature you speaking directly. And the Hulu doc, I mean, again, you haven't seen it.

I'd avoid it because the Hulu dock doesn't make you look great. I'll be honest. I need the cash. Yeah. Oh, really? Oh, they paid you. Oh, interesting. And was it significant looking back?

Do you wish it was different? Do you wish you hadn't done it? Really. I owed a guy at the time. I was on bail. I owed a guy. I think the total contract was like maybe, I think it was like 200 grand for Hulu.

Yeah. And the first tranche basically, three quarters of it just went directly to someone I owed. I need to pay him. And it's like, fuck, took the deal, wired,

like, wired my lawyer of the money and he kicked three quarters of it, you know, to the guy owed. I'm like, so I didn't really see much from it at the time, but it was paying someone back. I owed.

I'm like, fuck, I need the cash. Yeah, we actually to deal with fuck Jerry and the Netflix stock that they could use the footage if they gave 11% of the

film to ticket holders and they're also supposed to put at the end of it saying like billy for goad uh competition and exchange you giving money ticket holders but they never did it oh really yeah so did you so did the deal not go through or did you use the footage they used the footage but you didn't see any of the money they didn't or the ticket holders didn't do anything yeah and they didn't put the disclaimer no so wow my guess is the the fuck jerry guys never told Netflix because i signed the deal directly with them yeah and they're like their c u guy i think it was just like a i mean i was committing fraud too but but I think he's also a fraudster. Of course, sure.

So I think my guess is he didn't tell the other production companies or Netflix. That's how they got the footage. Did you feel like it was a conflict of interest that they were producing the doc with Netflix? Not really. They didn't really do. I think their involvement in the festival was certainly overblown. Oh, really? Yeah, they didn't really do much.

Oh, interesting. Yeah. And so when you say he's a fraudster, like not related to the festival, like externally? Yeah, I think like my real exposure to the guy was when he was making the documentary. Got you. And he took a very threatening approach. It's like, oh, well, if you interview, you know, we'll give you, this is to everybody, it will give you creative control over your interview.

If you don't interview, we're going to fuck you make you look like a scumback. And he's like running around to all the investors, like an employee saying that. Yeah. And then obviously the footage, we signed a deal saying he would give 11% back ticket holders and just, I'm sure he just never told anybody. Damn. He's like, oh, look at the footage we got Netflix. Like, give you a pat in the back and it's all bullshit.

Yeah, it sucks. Yeah. So the day you get sentenced, you're sitting there in the courtroom. Mm-hmm. Your parents are there? Yeah. What was that first conversation like with your mom after sentencing? Dude, all I just heard is like, I'm in custody.

So like I can't leave the court. Like jumpsuit? Yes, yes. Whoa. Yes. So I'm in custody. I'm shackled. Like my legs are shackled.

Crazy, right? And then my family is sitting behind me. And then like the other side was sitting on their side. And like when the judge said six years, I just heard like the gasps. I'm like, oh, fuck. That was like a really raw. like emotional feeling that's the fucking crazy.

Yeah. Like, is it like blackout? Like, do you feel the blood rush away? Like, what is the physical feeling? I just heard my family gasp

and then not, not, and then one of my lawyers just goes, oh, it could have been worse. Like, what?

Like, yeah. I could have got the death penalty shorts. Doesn't make me feel good though. Could have been even by a shark like six months ago. Yeah.

Could have worse. Don't say that to someone. Someone's in a car accident and paralyzed from the neck down. You're like, dude, could be dead. Like, what?

Yeah, bro. Poor mom's by having a heart attack behind me. It can't be much worse. That's a good lawyer for him, though. He's getting ahead of himself being like, hey, could have been worse. Exactly. I mean, that's wild. As far as, like, precedent goes for this type of thing, like fraud and, like, the crimes that you committed.

Did you feel like the punishment was more harsh as harsh as it needed to be or less harsh? Like, could it have been worse? I think the punishment was totally fair. Really? Yeah. And. unfortunately I think there is a time period in prison and I believe our threshold is all different where if you exceed that threshold you are just fuck for the rest of your life and I think that

my time in solid drink confinement was on the border and like I'm not sure if I crossed it I might have I might not have but there are just like ramifications from that like that is really sad however I think just like based on what other people get I think my punishment is fair sure When I started my sentence, I started a prison in the New York area that had a lot of financial crimes guys. And a lot of them had lost amounts that were way higher than mine and like less time. And I'm like, fuck, this is so unfair. You know, this guy defrauded investors for $100 million dollars and only has two years. Why do I have six years?

And then as I got transferred to more jails, like further west, like I was in a jail in like Ohio. And there was a guy that had like a million dollar crime in 25 years. Wow. I'm like, oh shit. And like the guy had done a lot of great things in his life too. So I'm like, oh, fuck. And like, you know, even though it's like a federal system, it's like, wow, I'm just sitting there one day. I'm like, wow, I'm really lucky that I was in New York City where all these big boys are.

And they're used to seeing these billion dollar bank fraud cases like, you know, on a regular basis. And I'm nothing. But if I'm in fucking Minnesota, I could have gotten 25 years just because I'm the biggest fish in town. Right. So it's like even though the system should be fair, it's never totally fair. So at the end of the day, like, I think my sentence was fair. And if I served 25 years and lost my life, like, I think that's too extreme. But also if I just did a year, it probably wouldn't have been enough.

Yeah, I think it's fair. Really subjective. And I know, like, I knew a guy, this is a personal story, so I'll leave out the details. But like, I knew a guy who was convicted of defrauding, like, elderly people, like, through, like, pension accounts. And his punishment was way harsher because it was, like, I guess they would say, like, an oppressed class or something like that or people that are indefensible. Did it make any difference who your investors were? Like if they're business people, do they look at it like, ah, it's not as big of a deal? Like, does that matter?

I don't know. I'm sure they do. And like there is a human element that goes into it, that goes into the sentencing. So, I mean, you have to, right? You have to look at all aspects of the crime. And like, I think that every judge and every prosecutor probably has their own process. Sure. But, I mean, you have to look at it.

Yeah. It's like a rule of thumb for like angels. investors or early stage people that would invest in something like this for every 10 deals you're kind of assuming seven of them are going to go to zero anyway right you want three of them to be that potential unicorn it's also probably worth mentioning too the concert goers that he was selling the tickets to that showed up a lot that pissed a lot of people off too most of those people got their money back sure for chargebacks from the credit card company you know what I mean so all those people buying those villas and all the shit and bitching about their grilled cheese and stuff right or their cheese

sandwiches they all got their money back for the most part interesting yeah so I'm actually curious like now you're in prison at this point you're a national news story I know you told milk was like you didn't really see much of the controversy at that time because you were kind of you know you were locked away yeah before that though obviously that weekend it's trending on Twitter like were you reading Twitter and like seeing the feedback in that moment I just remember being like when the festival got canceled like being at the festival site and just fielding phone calls from I would say like two dozen of the investors who are all telling me what to do. And it was like just like conflicting information.

Oh really? One guy's like, if you don't go on the media right now and try to sell next year, we're going to fuck you. And that person's like, if you don't shut the fuck up, we're going to fuck you. They're all just like equally important and all telling me conflicting things. And I was just so fucking confused. Oh, that's interesting. Yeah. Like it's like I had, you know, a thousand people I'm trying to fly off the island, 700 employees at the time who are.

running around like chickens at a head and now two dozen investors who are all very well-connected powerful people all telling me different things yeah it's like how do I handle this like mass amount of information and now it's like super fucking difficult did you feel like a failure in that moment or were you still optimistic I think that like I heard what I wanted to hear from the investors on the phone so the ones who told me like sit down and shut up I ignored them like oh they're wrong and the guys who are like this is going to be a comeback story you're going to go in the news right now and I'll take this next year so we don't lose all our fucking money.

I'm like, yeah, they're right. And so like I went on the news and they're all these stupid ass interviews from the festival grounds talk, but oh, I messed up, but we're doing this next year, blah, blah, blah. So, yeah, it was just like a weird situation.

Do you think that was a mistake in hindsight or are you like, I just did what I should have done with the information? In the reality, I don't think it fucking mattered. Gotcha. Like, it was all just like a fucking cluster fuck and whatever I said at that point, like I wasn't committing a further crime,

but it wasn't going to take away from the crime that was committed. So I think it was just like an irrelevant, than dust in a much larger desert. Yeah, that is an interesting attribute that I've found amongst a lot of people that are just inevitably successful, is that regardless of what has happened to them,

whether criminal or not, there is an unwavering self-belief that it will work out. And for you to stand there on the festival grounds of like the most prominent failed festival of all time to be like, it'll work out. Shows, to me at least, like an unwavering self-belief, that I think is cool and is awesome in people that it works out in. And then when it doesn't work out, people look at you like an idiot, narcissist, you know, evil person.

But I think the behavior is the same across the board. Like we had Israel Adasanya, the UFC fighter on the pod the day after he lost to Alex Pareda. Nice. And he was like, yeah, I'll get it back. Like it didn't even cross his mind that he could lose again. It was just like such unwavering focus that didn't seem inauthentic. It didn't seem like, you know, arrogance or overcomes. compensation, it was just like, yeah, I'm going to be great. So, again, not to compare you to Izzy.

But it is an interesting attribute to be like, yeah, in the face of failure, I will continue to try to succeed. I think it's cool. What's up, guys? We've got to take a break real quick, because I got to tell you about the best vases in the game. Yeah, you heard me right. These are the best vases in the entire world, and they're brought to you by the freeze pipe. Now, this type of vase has a of different purposes. You could use this for many different things. But the thing that I recommend and what YouTube's monetization team recommends, say use it as a beautiful flower vase. Now this vase is different than other vases, okay? Because most vases, you sniff into them and all of a sudden all this hot air will go into your lungs, you'll start coughing. Your lungs will get full of hot air.

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Now, let's get back to the show. And when did you get involved in Billy and his story? And what drew you to this guy in the face of this massive failure? Yeah. I'll comment. One of the things you just said, though, remember that one scene in the, this is what I thought was really impressive about him. Remember when everybody was getting off the bosses and it was a shit show in the documentary?

He's standing on a freaking milk carton, I think. some kind of table directing people you knew this freaking sky was falling yeah he's 25 years old and he's still right there in the middle of it he didn't run and hide yeah you know what I mean a lot of people would have fricking been on a jet ski on the way to Miami yeah yeah like he knew this wasn't work he was trying to make this thing work still you went down with the ship like I think that's that's admirable you also saying the ship which is stupid yeah but I like in that moment were you like when did you reach out did you guys know each other yeah no no so I just

want to comment on on that but he um so we we we we I actually have a podcast. He was a guest on it. I'm a venture capitalist. He told me kind of what he's thinking the future looks like for him. And I'm like, you know what, dude? He's all over. You can even see kind of talking to him right now.

He's got these big ideas, right? Hey, man. If you had a guy like me, I'm a little bit older than I'm in a lot of deals like the fire app and tech not fire up particularly, but I'm in deals like that. I look at this shit all the fucking time. All right. So I see in him what a lot of these tech entrepreneurs, like they want to have, but they don't have.

All right? There's some people out there raising money that have no business owning a business. They have a good idea, but they can't do shit right. All right? And when I talk to him, I'll get a follow-up email 30 minutes later, bullet pointing, everything we just freaking talked about. He actually does what he says he's going to do. Got to know each other a little bit better.

And I went and rewatched the damn Netflix thing and out with a fresh set of eyes, not just being like, oh, fuck this guy, fuck that guy. I watched it really closely, really closely. And it's like, you know what, man, as an entrepreneur that's out there raising money, all right? There's a very fine line between optimism and lying. Yeah, delusion. There is not one fucking entrepreneur that's ever come to me trying to raise money and said, oh, you know, this might work. They all have home run, home run ideas.

Right. Okay. And, you know, I'll even look at, you know, there's something in the, in the venture capital space. something called convertible notes. And what that means is they're raising money because they're planning on a bigger investor to come in. So I'm going to take these smaller checks, 50 grand, 100 grand, half a million dollars.

Some institutional money will be coming in down the line of $20 million. And that money might never come. And they're sitting there spending your 50 grand, 100 grand in the fricking process. You collect some small fish to get the big whale. Well, that's the idea to keep the business open, up and running.

We're going to collect these checks, and then we're ready. we're going to get a big institutional check in here. Well, if that institutional check doesn't come ever, the business ultimately ends up closing and all those people that put in the 100 or 200 grand on the way, they're fucked. Yeah.

That's money gone. That's money gone. You know what I mean? And if you really look at it from that lens, everything he did is right in line with that. He just didn't have an institutional dollar around coming up in. He blew through all the freaking money.

And what's funny is, him always not, you were saying earlier about how he doesn't want to disappoint people, When the venue got changed, they got kicked off of an island and moved to another one. All right. He didn't have an island. He had to fricking put aside on a swivel go find one. Yeah. Just cancel it at that point. He didn't have the heart to go tell people, oh, half your fucking money is gone. Or it was probably would have been more than, they wouldn't have lost half the money, but it would have been a little bit of a loss. And that's that well-intentioned weakness in that moment. Exactly.

That I think people need to work out. Causes more long-term. Yeah. Yeah. And not to mention the app that was attached to this thing, all that's shut down because of this too. Oh, Jarl Rule's app, yeah. Yeah. Big fan. The brain child. The tech guru. Yeah.

Do you feel like he took the idea? Like, I know right now Javruel has an app, again, for backstory, the original fire app is basically like Tinder for talent. Yeah. And consumers. Like if you want, you know, Cole play to come play at your daughter's bar mitzvah, you can pay them half a million dollars to show up and you can swipe on them. They can get the thing, swipe on it. And that's it. If you want to bookmark for an after party after one of his tour dates.

You can go in there. Yeah. Paying probably $100,000. He'll show up for 10 minutes to a set. Cheap. Cheap. Two Chip. Two Chipole's.

Let's go. But yeah, so now that was the original app. And then the festival was kind of like an extension branding arm for the app. And now Jarl, apparently, according to a documentary, has a similar app. Is it, do you feel like it is an infringement on the IP? So, a festival failed in 2017. I was arrested six weeks later. got out of jail in 2022

just basically a little over five years after this all happened come see me in in 2027 and see what I've done and for everybody who says like oh I was the brains behind this the brains behind that what the fuck have you guys done

it's been five years right you guys haven't done shit comes come to me in 2027 I'll check the score cards then yeah yeah do you feel like he took the idea are you allowed a comment on that I mean I think he tried to replicate it but

I don't think it's done anything I haven't heard. I don't know much about it. So I don't want to speak to why I don't know. Sure, sure, sure. I don't think he's done shit. And it's like, dude, I'm going to do way fucking more the next five years. And he'll have done in the 10 years since. Sure, sure, sure.

He's wanting to be close. Yeah. Now, again, we have a little bit of time. So I want to touch on pirate and get to the new stuff. I'm curious, prison. I know you told the Nelpoys you got in, you got in a fight that then became not a fight. But that's four years in prison. I'm sure there was a lot of other situations that came up.

What, what car did you run in? Like, what people were you with? I was asking the real questions. Like, were you a chomo? Did they think you were a chomo when you first got there without papers? Like, what were some of the details about prison that, uh, that people might not know? I think that like I just didn't understand the racial system. And like prison is just very far behind culturally.

It's, you know, four or 50 years behind, I think your average American society. And then maybe 80 years behind New York City where we were just like by default, very liberal socially. And I think I get to jail. I'm in the Brooklyn Detention Center where there's like, there's like, you know, real rough guys in there. Isn't that where Galene Maxwell is? Um, I, uh, I think she started there, but now she's wherever her permanent spot is.

It's like, it's more of like a pre-trial place. Gotcha. Um, so it's basically people who don't get bail. So it's generally not, generally not the best, best cast of characters. Yeah. And there's like a table with like four white guys and two of them have like Nazi tattoos all over their face.

Yeah. And then there's like 24 year old, you know, black kids who like, like the same things as me. Yeah. And like naturally, I'm going to go hang out with them and not the fucking 50 year old guy

with a swastagan as one. Like, I've never seen that guy before. Like, this could be my friend. Yeah. And that just did not go over well. And like,

I didn't understand that like, you kind of got to pay honor to your race. Yeah. And like at least pretend to like respect them or care about them. No matter how crazy or wrong or much of a scumbag you think they were.

Yeah, it's a bizarre dynamic. Yeah, it's like, I get along more with someone my age with similar. than fucking Nazi, right? It's like, it doesn't matter.

It's like not how things work. Yeah, that's a weird way to say you hung out with Nazis. But yeah, that is wild. That's wild. I wouldn't, yeah, I wouldn't tell people that. But when you were getting moved around, what was the system you spent most of your time in? So did like the last year and a half to do years

at a jail just outside of Detroit in Michigan. Okay. It was actually probably the best one where I was. I think at the, I started more of like a white collar focus facility. And I actually thought it was terrible. Really? I was one of maybe five people under the age of 30 there. So I felt like all eyes were on me.

Or it's like, you know, if I took a shit at the wrong time, I felt like they were there to like get me in trouble. Yeah. Whereas at the place in Detroit, there were like actual gangs doing actual gang things. And I'm not doing anything. It would be goals. I was like, oh, as long as he's not like causing attention to us, like, you know, let him go.

And like they didn't like, they weren't down my ass. So I think I actually felt like a little more free. Even though it was more restrictive in terms of like the rules and the movements and where you can be, what you can do. it felt more free because they didn't have, you know, all the guards looking over my shelter 24-7. Was the Detroit spot? Was that a maximum or a medium security? It was a low. Yeah.

It was a low security. Okay, cool. So how much yard time did you get? It was maybe, I was outside for a few hours a day. Nice. Yeah. And did you ever have to pay for protection either within the prison, anything like that? Never paid for protection.

Okay. I think, like, my entire focus in jail was I'm not going to make a single dollar here. And that really did well for me. I think a lot of people, like, have hustles. whether it's selling drugs or selling cell phones or cooking or cleaning like there's always some like hustle that people have and if you just like don't owe money and didn't get in the way of somebody else making money and just don't really gives a shit yeah you're able to kind of stay out of it my my mentality is like I'm not here to you know trying to make $10 from somebody sure stay out of

the fucking way and you know like hi I didn't spend a lot of money but you know if I spend $300 a month that was enough where I was like paying people to do shit for me right and like I'm an asset not a liability at that point. And I'm sure people are aware of you at this point. The news is national. People kind of know who you are. Are they, is that affecting your time in prison? So it's like actually interesting. I felt like the leaders of the groups were, if you're able to lead a large number of like criminals, like you have skill sets that would make you successful, arguably in different aspects of life. Sure. And I felt like I got along better with like the leaders because they viewed me as like a come up for them in a later.

time in life whereas like you're a low-level guy who got busted with like a couple guns and some heroin like can't think past like this hour right he's like oh fuck this kid you know maybe i can get a hundred bucks from today or the guys like looking the gang's like no like wait maybe if i know a guy in new york and you know he knows a music artist and like i can get a job i get out of here and like yeah like i don't have access to that life and like they would be actually closer to me and i'm sure a lot of it was like for bad purposes but you know we're all manipulators in some sense right and they would they would like you know cozy up to me which is interesting Yeah, I've heard people that say like if you go to prison for financial crimes,

you'll just get put with a lot of people that have been to prison for financial crimes and then get better at financial crimes. Like, did you find yourself like trading, not crime stories, but like business stories and like learning how to do business better through other people you were around? So at the first jail, there was a bunch of people with much larger financial crimes in me, but I just didn't last very long there. So these other jails, there just like weren't that many people who had any kind of like venture capital startup business.

I don't really have anybody to talk to that much about that. And it was always really funny because I'd have people come up to be every day, you know, asking about like credit card scams or like PPP loan scams. And like, truly I just don't know how to do any of this shit and they would never believe me. Oh, that's like, oh man, I got these numbers, how can we do this? I'm like, guys, like if I can get out tomorrow by helping, like truly I wouldn't be able to go home. Like I don't know how to do this and no one believe me. They all thought I was like some like credit card scammer, right?

Oh, that's so funny. So it's like really funny. Yeah. I just don't know to do this. And then when you're in solitaire, you're in solitaire. You get put in solitary because you're trying to do a podcast over the pay phone and like 15 minute increments. You're trying to record a book through a voice note, which you could have just written down the book, right? Like there's a lot of ways to write a book.

You should have been there wet my ass. I'm saying, stop. I need to John. I need the forearms. What are you doing, bro? What are you doing? The forearm to smash me down. So you're doing all that shit.

You get put in solitary for seven months, which is like insane. I mean, that is a brutal thing. All the people I know that have been in solitary, they're like, You either go crazy or you dedicate yourself to like reading and learning and doing mental exercises and basically like getting into this quasi meditative state. So you mentioned you were reading memoirs. What else did you do to stay sharp? Dude, the worst part was you were only allowed to have two books a week and when you have

nothing else to do, it sounds like a lot like if you're leading a life when you have nothing else to do, no cell phone, no internet, no TV, no radio, can't go outside, you just read, right? You're doing a book a day if you're like trying to go slow. Yeah. And when you can like, once you're done with reading it like really was fucking hard. Like it's crazy how the punishment was so extreme where you couldn't even get books. Yeah. I mean, that seems kind of unnecessarily cruel.

Yeah. Like why not just give more books? Like if it's only going to better. Like let us learn, right? Like it makes no sense. Did you get religious at all? Were you reading the Bible? Like did that impact you?

I read some religious stuff. I didn't get super religious. Did a lot of meditating. And that was like the best use of time. The most spiritual thing that you did. Yeah. It just did a lot of. meditating. But you have to. Do you still meditate?

And I stopped and that's, that's bad. So you got to get back on it. Yeah, making it back to it. Yeah. No excuses. That's bad. And were you, were you raised religious in any capacity? A little bit. Like, where were your parents? Family's like Greek Orthodox, Christian, whatever. Gotcha. But like, yeah, it was never super religious personally. And then in prison, you, like, didn't revisit it and have like a moralistic or religious awakening or anything like that. Definitely read a bunch of stuff and like I think intrigued intellectually like of like all the religious like text and everything like that. I don't think there's like a certain religion that I'm like I believe this is the one. I think like the principles of a lot of them are like I think the principles of Buddhism are pretty interesting especially than like solitary confinement.

Sure. Or it's like you know simple mentality. Hey if I can like try to find a way to help this guy in the cell next to me who's been in here for three years like that's the higher calling. So I think like that was an interesting part of the journey. But I'm not like a Buddhist. I wouldn't say so yeah and then any other jobs in prison that you had to do like orderlies like cooking cleaning stuff I worked in the record I'm not really sure what I did though so I paid someone five dollars a month literally five to do my job for me so I don't know oh really and what was the job

technically I don't know you're just like did your parents send you money while you were in there very rarely it was mostly friends yeah got you and what was the currency while you were in there was like cigarettes it's all stamps it's like mailing stamp like US postal mailing stamps. Oh, interesting. You'd send someone like 100 bucks and then like they'd show up with, I don't know, like a packet of stamps. Like they were like all rubber banded together. It was like money.

It's like funny. It's like guys in jail would flex and like hold their stamps up there. It's like a money like spread it all out on the bed. It's like $47, man. That's hilarious. I mean it does kind of like expose fiat currency a little bit. We're like, oh yeah, it is just whatever the system of the moment says it is. Yeah, that was so interesting.

And it's like trying to explain to friends who are like super, super straight edge. Yeah. They're like, oh, we don't believe you. The world doesn't work like that. Like, stamps can't be a currency. It's like, guys, the world does not work the exact way that you've been taught. With the white guy's face on a currency. What are we talking about?

And I got in so many arguments with, like, friends coming to visit, they just thought I was lying. Yeah. It's like, no, it's not how the world works. Like, we've been taught it's like this. I'm like, guys. Dude, and every system has different currency. Like, cigarettes is a really common one. Stamps, I've heard.

Like, I had a friend that was in a low security that was doing mackerel. Yeah, macro was in the Brooklyn jail. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And like people are trading mackerel as currency. Yeah, you tell me it's not a currency. I can go buy a cell phone, drugs, like food, a cleaner, like clothes. There was a personal trainer from these like fish packets. People don't realize how much money you can make in prison.

There was a guy in a system down south that was making like 26 million over like a year or two. I mean, that could be, you got to go back to jail, bro. He's making money doing like heroin. Yeah, one of the big problems there is people, like, if you're a drug dealer and you go to jail for selling drugs, you're probably not going to stop being a drug dealer, right? So they just start being drug dealers in jail. Yeah. That's part of the issue. And like I saw so many drugs like literally for the first time my life in prison. The guys that bring it in and the markups are insane. So, you know, if somebody costs $10 here, they were sold for like, you know, $500 in there.

Sure. People were making real money. And there's also a lot of drug addicts there too. So you kind of have like, you have a captive audience who is desperate and hooked. It's there's no better. A market is form. Yeah. There's no better market if you're a drug dealer. And especially if you can get like a rich white kid hooked on some heroin. Yeah. Like were people trying to get you. strung out? I would be offered jogs like constantly. I'm like it never got to the point where like it was pushy. But it's always been like oh yeah you know you ready it's time like yeah you want to hit. Yeah it literally yeah. Whoa yeah that's crazy. And it's like and it's scary too and that's all most of the issues came when you know a kid would come and get hooked. His family doesn't have enough money to cover the bills. Yeah. You don't want to owe the MS-13 like it's not going to it's not going to end well. Did you make a a fee fee fee or a suzy? Oh I don't know. It's a sure. that is that's like a little uh it's like a little jerk off bag oh no i actually do know what that is now

no i did not make a fee is that is that is that what they were called i like i actually remember now someone like referring it is that hilarious but uh but you never made one no i never made a pfee what were you what was your stroke game you were just going uh just hand-to-hand combat or what oh god come on baby uh just thinking about the pedophile yeah dude there were a lot of pedophiles Yeah, exactly, dude. You're like, I did not need a Fifi, okay? Beyond the Fifi situation, you literally, you'd walk down the fucking

dorm rooms, and it's like if you offer me $100 million, if I could go and fucking round 20 of these people up, I would have no idea where to start looking besides the guy from the web posting business. I got one. Where do these guys come from? And you guys, like, look at them, and you just know they're a child molester.

Oh, it's just freaky. Something's wrong. Like, their ears too high up on one side, their eyes are twisted. Something here is just wrong. The vibes are off. vibes are off. Yeah. It's like gross. Yeah. Like I literally would say like I would talk to like you can give you $100 million

I cannot find 20 of these guys in the world. I just wouldn't know where to go. They'll find you buddy. They'll start posting my 13 year old guy's picture online. You got them all. You put that little tight ass up there. They're going to start flocking. I mean that's crazy.

My pimply pre-pubes some butt. Yeah. Well I mean is it is it weird having a shit in front of someone? Yeah. Like getting over that for the first number like jerking off in the top bunk like it's all like to the wall. It's all weird. Dude, I mean, solitary, the toilet is like here.

Yeah. And the bed's like here. And for part of it, you have a cellmate. Yeah, I know. You were telling the story with bags. Yeah, it's fucking just shits. I mean, like, you're here. Yeah, you get over it pretty quickly.

Like, I think you just block it out. Hmm. You just like, we have like a weird human ability. We all do it, right? Where when we have options, it's easy. We get disgusted easily or like, get displeased easily. And we have no option. We just fucking mentally just tune it out.

Yeah. I mean, you've mentioned so much that it's thirst for freedom. That is, desire to be free and now you are in the epitome of the confinement like literally the definite textbook definition of confinement a lot of it is cruel like obviously we know the prison system is not necessarily the most fair to the people that are in there um how are you mentally dealing with that restriction of freedom the most the utmost restriction of freedom I'd have a guy uh who's in solitary with me for a period of time and he said like almost the whole world is

behind bars like what do you mean? He goes, yeah, sure. We're, like, locked in this cell. And all we want to do is get out of solitary confinement at this point and be back in, like, the regular jail. But you're in the regular jail. Then you're stuck inside that fence. And all you want to do is get out of the fence.

And you get out of the fence and you're stuck with your shitty husband or shitty wife, your shitty job. You know, what you want to do is get away. And he's like, in that, like, mentality, whether true or not, help me try to, like, justify what I was going through and just like mentally separate the pain from, like, what was actually happening. So I feel like that mentality was actually pretty interesting. He's like,

what do you want most like right now I'm like I want to go outside he goes okay so we're gonna get out of here at some point we're gonna go outside and then you're gonna be like all right just I want to get outside the fence and like I just kept putting that in my mentality where it's like hey nothing's gonna be perfect just fucking suck this shit up do you think you're gonna get married for sure and you think you would have kids yeah for sure and now those things would be maybe want kids really yeah now those things would be an infringement on freedom like you have a wife all of a sudden now you can't bang other people or if you do want to bang other people you got to get permission yeah or like there's all of a sudden now a restriction

All problems. Right? That is infringing on your freedom. And so how are you going to navigate capitulating on those aspects of your freedom? And have you worked on that? Yeah, I think if you can solve this, you will be a genius. Let's go, baby. No, I think that's a good question, though.

But, like, if you want to get married, like, you're going to give up that aspect of your freedom. And I'm curious, like, if you've thought about it, like, if you know what that would look like. Or if that's still something you're working out? No, it's actually a really good good way to put it. And I've never actually equated, like, freedom to these desires, right? Like, I think like, sure, having kids is a desire, getting married, it's a desire. But it does hinge on freedom. But also, I think finding fulfillment, if you can, like, switch my mind right now from finding freedom to finding fulfillment, I think that's like, that's the blue pill for me.

And I don't know, like those moments are more valuable than anything else thing at the end of the day. Absolutely. It's tough, right? That, I think, is the ultimate dichotomy, especially of, like, ambitious men. Yeah. Is you desire freedom and then your freedom ultimately enslaves you. For sure. You're stuck on an island with all these people that hate you and the internet's making

fun of you. Yeah. And you're in the pursuit of freedom. Yeah. And that ultimately gets you into a slavery. A slavery to what you're working on to the people that you owe money to. Like it is entrapping. Yep.

And yeah, all things lead to their opposites. I think when you're stripped to nothing to you start like, thinking about, like looking back now about what I was like thinking of in solitary. I wasn't like, oh, I'm wishing I'm waking up on the island desperately trying to raise three million dollars if my life is fucked. Like I wasn't wishing about that. I was like thinking about like the one time I was hanging out with a friend who like didn't want anything from me. I didn't want anything from him. We're just like enjoying the moment and like that's what you craved. I didn't crave the stress of the freedom. I craved the intangible moment where there was like nothing tangible that was coming

from it. Yeah. And it's like I don't know, but it's like still have ambition, right? But it's like how do you marry the ambition with realizing like what actually is important? Yeah. You need to be ambitious enough to put yourself in the position where you can, we can have those moments. So it's kind of like the devil or sword. That fulfillment, I think is the most important. Yeah. It's all about fulfillment. Yeah. I mean, I look at the guy that has a nine to five, but has like kids that love him. He has the emotional freedom of having a wife that loves him and takes care of him. Like kids that will eventually take care of him. Yeah. Like a job that he feels fulfilled. building that he feels like he's helping people.

To me, that is freedom. Yeah, he's got a nine to five and he has like a shitty house. Yeah. That is freedom. I'm jealous of the mindset that will allow that person to be happy. Yeah. Yeah, I understand that. I think that makes sense.

I've like talked to people about that where it's like, oh, wouldn't life be easier if you were content with complacency? Yes. And I think that it's possible for people to achieve that through settling the debt of their insecurity. Yep. Very smart. Yeah. that's the ultimate accomplishment and I'm jealous people to figure that out yeah I

think you can figure it out yeah that's really cool if you can I absolutely think you can I think all people can and I think the path looks different for different people for sure and hopefully the new pursuits that you're working on won't manifest as this desire for freedom and that they can manifest as a desire for fulfillment do you think that you have to fail first before you find that complacency I don't think it's essential I think that failure is inevitable and that you will fail but I also think you can observe large failures and that you can learn from other people's failures so I don't I think some people might need to experience them themselves I feel fortunate like I said I have five

older siblings I saw a lot of failures okay I saw drugs D-Y's yeah fucked up shit and I was like oh I'm not gonna drink until I'm 24 or whatever yeah I'm not gonna do drugs I'm not gonna experiment with shit that my older shouldn't with so I do think failure is essential I don't think it has to be internalized yeah and that the most observant people can avoid some of the pain from that and if you're able to avoid the pain, you're able to avoid the trauma and the trauma will then beget more failures because then you're still dealing with a greater chasm of insecurity.

Interesting. And yeah, like that's my fear is that like the pain that you've experienced from this whole event is going to grow that insecurity and that if you're able to settle that, I think that's a really powerful place to be in. It's really cool. I think that's awesome. And I think everyone's able to do. I think all people.

Very inspiring. And I think everyone is dealing with it. I also, I don't think it ever goes away. I think it is constant work. And I hope that the new projects you're working on can do it. Can you tell me about pirate? Yeah. So it's like, wow, harsh transition from.

Wow. My bad. I also did notice that you're like, bro, I got to have a pirate ship on the fucking island. I need this pirate ship during the festival. We just went from finding fulfillment to being a pirate. Let's go. Well, dude, maybe pirates are fulfilled. I don't know.

Maybe they are fulfilled. Sailing around the world, killing people. Pretty good to me. Why open ocean? wrong pirate booty everything is all good dude I always think about that though like literally I try to put myself

in the mind of people like way back in the day how did those people feel that are on like a tiny boat in the middle of the Atlantic like 1400s looking at the sky just being like what the fuck is all of this like it's an insane feeling to just be like in an ocean no one's ever been in so in that regard

maybe pirates are fulfilled maybe they're enlightened who knows in your favorite book as Steve Jobs said it's better to be a pirate that joined the Navy Hey, there you go. That's all I'm saying. So talking about pirate. This time around, it's all about focusing on what I can do.

And I think I'm good at bringing people together from different backgrounds. I'm good at taking them on adventures. Genius marketer. And good at marketing these adventures and these relationships as they're formed. I'd love to open up a hotel in the Caribbean one day and like host people there physically and then build tech to share that experience with the rest of the world. I think of some time away from that. But right now it's really lucky to have opportunities

where these backers and experts want to come in, want to make fire happen as a Broadway musical, perhaps as an event, and pay people back along the way. That's why I'm here. It's like the opportunity to fulfill the initial vision while paying everybody back and doing what I think is something incredible.

Is it going to be a Broadway musical for sure? For sure. It's already in the works. Yeah. Script? I don't think the script is done. Okay, cool. And when do you think like again, you know how to put a harsh date on it because we know we have problems with us? But having a, a window that you think that there would be like an opening night. Like, do you think it'll be next year? I hope if by end of 2024 it would be cool. That's awesome. I'm not putting it like that in stone, but like I think that's a cool deadline. How do you want to be represented in the film or in the in the play? I don't know how much of a lot to say. I think they have like a tagline they're using to describe the character that plays me. Yeah. And I think it's about like it's about dreaming. I don't want to use the exact the exact word. But I think Broadway play is actually really interesting where it's like a mix of a music concert

Plus the storyline of like all the wild shit that had to happen in all the right slash wrong ways to make fire And I'm not dealing with like any of the like logistical part of this. I think like I'll do the marketing and if I can like go around and fuck up the like the venue in some way to make it like authentic. I think that's fun too. Yeah. Is it gonna be like Hamilton where everyone's black? thankfully I have no say in the casting so dude you gotta do it I'll play the fifth on that one that would be far jail jail everyone's rapping and shit that'd be kind of sick our car safe word was jail okay okay cool and so I'm curious if you're gonna be represented like in the authentic way where like there's good parts there's bad parts if it's going to be like a characterization where you're like all bad or if you're all good but you don't have a direct say I have no creative control. Oh, really? We've actually were pitched by a couple different production companies on this.

And of course, they'd like sell you the bill of goods like when they want you to go with them. Yeah. So they're saying they're going to give me a fair shake, but we'll see when it comes out. Is that scary? Yeah, for sure. And actually, like just finished filming another documentary that's going to come out in the fall. And I have no creative control. That's fucking scary. They basically film me four or five days a week for three months. Yeah. And with however many hundreds of hours of footage it is, like you can make me seem like Steve Jobs, you can make me seem like some like wacko Washington Square Park is high all day, right?

Like how are they going to cut this up? And like that's nerve wracking. Yeah, that's really tricky. And then Fire Fest too. Yeah. So the plan was just do this as a Broadway play. And like by do it, I market it and like let the pros be pros. So I did a tweet saying Fire Festival 2 is coming soon.

That's it. And the tweet just like created this entire media storm. Literally had 512 people email me asking to invest. And not in the position where I'm going to be taking like a bunch of investors. But had a couple. of like major players come in and my immediate response is like if you want us to do fire festival to there we need a couple things and of those things are paying back all the restitution so there is a very real chance that a big player comes in brings down a music company i don't get involved in any of that

i do the marketing and they pay back everybody who's owed and execute fire according to the initial vision so if we fucking do that let's do this podcast from the festival and we're off of the let's go baby Do you think you'll lean into the brand and the meming of Fire Festival? I think you have to. And like the sign is like fire, but then the E is like hanging off of it or some shit. I think you have to in a certain capacity. But also look at the upside.

If you are someone who is seeking attention for business, and this could be an investor, a nation, a tourism board, and you successfully execute Fire Festival, like the amount of media attention you would get is just fucking huge. Yeah. So yeah, especially from a production company's perspective. It's like, yeah, we're able to take the biggest festival failure ever and turn it into a massive success. We're the best.

So there's a lot to gain. I can see that from a, like a production standpoint. So people have the chance now where they weren't part of the failure and they weren't part of the crime, but now they can be part of the redemption. And like, that is really, really valuable. So that's my pitch, all you guys circling. Yeah. And do you know roughly when that could be or where? I think you're looking at at least 18.

months away but that's what I like to hear yeah if if a deal happens sooner in terms of people getting paid back a deal happened sooner so yeah let's fucking go and you you're down to do it even if you make zero dollars and it's just able to go to for sure retribution do you know I'm fucking happy I'd be if I can wake up in the morning being like yeah I paid you back yeah like that does not make up for the moral and ethical violations but like as a human it's like yeah it's way cooler than having a fucking Ferrari yeah right or whenever they could use of the money that I would get paid that's it's kind of a nice perspective like it must be a little annoyed if like a homeless guy asks you for money and you're like bro you have more money than me

like this homeless guy's wealthier than me bro he has zero dollars i would use that lie in jail all the time people would be like oh man you're so rich i'm like i promise you i'm the poorest person in this entire jail bro i'm the poorest person here what i would give to have zero dollars exactly they're like no man you're the rich like dude i am actually the poorest person in here no exaggeration oh man well dude i i know you got a you got another call i really appreciate you both thank you mark for joining me. This is awesome. I genuinely, I hope the best for you, and I hope that you're able to find that fulfillment and that all the rest of your endeavors are great and successful and you're

able to pay retribution and get out of this hole that you put yourself in. Thank you. And thank you so much. I'm sorry we didn't really get into your story. No, it's what I'm here for, man. I like to just chime in here and there. Make sure it doesn't say anything. Isn't that supposed to say?

I just want to give a shout out to John. Yeah, John's been a great from the advice standpoint over the past two weeks. It's been a pleasure getting to know him. Yeah. So he's a great guy. And I think seeing his drive to succeed has been inspiring to me as well. And like John has a presence and sticks to his guns. And like I'm in a lot of way.

So thanks for coming out, John. Thanks, man. Thanks. I didn't know about that. I didn't know about the pedophile thing. We got to rethink this relationship. Anyway, thank you guys so much.

Appreciate you. Please go and ask you for a picture. I'm 31 now. It's got a lot of weird there. Does it? I'm just kidding. Prism was rough. I'm just kidding.

Prism was rough. I'm Chris Hanson. Thank you guys. Yeah, Mark. Thank you. Peace.