Investing Billions - E258: Ryan Serhant: Why Leaders Who Don’t Evolve Get Left Behind

Episode Date: December 9, 2025

How do you build a $10B real estate empire by turning yourself into a media company—and why is vulnerability the ultimate competitive advantage? In this episode, I talk with Ryan Serhant, founder and CEO of SERHANT., one of the most influential real estate brokerages in the world and a pioneer at the intersection of real estate, media, entertainment, and technology. Ryan breaks down the turning points that shaped his career—from selling a $13M townhouse through YouTube a decade ago, to betting everything on social media before anyone believed in it, to building a fast-growing real estate ecosystem powered by content, authenticity, and scale. We dive into Season 2 of Netflix’s Owning Manhattan, the biggest highs and lows of his year, the reality of leading a thousand-agent organization, and why the future of real estate is screenless, human-centric, and powered by creators.

Season two of this show is probably the most raw season of reality television I've ever seen and I've ever been a part of. It'll be uncomfortable for people to watch. It tack us a lot. It goes through addiction. There's so much in the show that I've just never seen before in the space. There was an altercation in the office. They were shot in real time.

It was a fight. Not staged. No, not a stage. Dude, I wish. It would make my life so much. much easier. There's a deal we did. Peter did. He's a new cast member this year that he sold for $60 million. I have a buyer and he f***ed me over in real time. We're in the car filming $5 million all cash. And he hangs up the phone on me and we do a U-turn and we drive back to the office

and the cameras just followed. We go up into the office and I call him out. I go into the cell phone booth i try to put the deal together and i lose it and he sells it to somebody else in real time as it's happening and i had a mental breakdown and broke a whole vase on our first floor and then the episode just ends we're not doing the deal take me back when you sold your first $13 million home on youtube how did that happen it was on west 18th street and 7th so between basically 7th and 8th which is not where everyone decides they want to live. We were broker number two, and the seller was very frustrated that it hadn't sold

because in the West Village, this house is $40 million. This is 10 years ago. If you're going to sell real estate in today's world, you can't just take pretty photos and stick along the internet or run ads. You're just, you're fishing with blind bait in the dark, and maybe you get lucky, and that's how every other real estate agent operated. So we created a video, started with me at the top,

of the house and then cut through the house like an elevator and this is 10 years ago today this would be boring then on youtube like this was like how did they do that and you just dropped it on youtube just dropped it on youtube and then it had a pool in the basement and i convinced my wife to be in the video too and so it ended with the two of us falling in the pool in all of our clothes a 13 year old girl she sees it shows it to her mom who's looking for a townhouse on the east side and says this is what you want you want a house with a pool in it that's modern She sees the house. She loves the house. She used to be sold in the location a little bit, but she just cared about it.

They offered us $12 million. We countered. She came up to 13. We did the deal. So the deal didn't happen in YouTube.com, but that buyer was sourced through the kid through YouTube. What was your commission on that deal? She's probably 2.5%. So roughly 350K?

Yeah, about. Is that the moment you realize that social was the future? and the traditional real estate was a dying thing? It was a proof point for me because I started a million-dollar list in New York in 2012. I saw the power of content to commerce for luxury items, which until that point had really been done, let's say like for cars,

but everything then below market. So make-up, right? Consumer goods. Anything you can follow the credit cards. Yeah, you can buy with a credit card. A house really can't buy with a credit card, even today. There's just too many different spokes in that deal wheel. And so I'd been putting things on social and we've been finding buyers and brokers through Instagram, you know, which kind of had come out in 2013.

But it was the first time I'd created my own version of what I did on Bravo, shot it, put it on YouTube the next day to millions of people who sourced it and find it, really targeted a marketplace and then actually sold it. And I used that house as my case study for like five years. And then obviously they started rolling it from there. And even back from there, 2010, you really bet your career on social. Were you sure that that was the right thing to do? Or was it just kind of an inkling? I hope I'm right. I didn't really have another choice.

Like, I'm not from New York. I didn't have family here helping me out. It wasn't like I was best friends with a lot. lot of rich people like I looked at the top agents in New York City the top agents in the country and they all came or had some sort of hook that enabled them to leapfrog over the competition and I had zero the only thing I had was was I understood my audience um on social better than I think anyone else in sales at the time and I understood reach and so if everyone else went to a swanky Upper East Side private school, I had YouTube, you know, if everybody else

like had a rich family that was going to give them their first listings and deals and connections at Shabbat, like I had Instagram. And I just really, really, really created this media enterprise to create deal flow. Even today, like studios at the company, like is top of funnel organic lead gen in our pyramid. Like, The company is an upside down pyramid. It starts with studios, then goes into sell it, right, and then so on and so forth. To get down to the bottom, everybody creates deal flow, creates content, round and round, around we go, back to the top of the pyramid. And those are the early days.

You've built a rare combo of really viral things and also luxury brand. How do you balance those two things and how do you know that you're not hurting your brand by doing something too crazy? Any desire to be a quiet under the radar salesperson, I definitely hurt. But the world is really big, relatively speaking, and all of the business I've received that's inbound from people who don't know me where I've been able to create a relationship with them while I sleep because I'm engaging with them through platforms in a way that compounds. over and over and over and over and over and over again outweighs any potential deal I could have done if I had been the quiet under the radar, very traditional, oh, I don't do that kind of goofy

stuff broker. This goes back to your philosophy on not being a secret agent. People don't know what you sell if you don't tell them what you sell. Why is there such a disconnect with people and so a few people actually talk about what they do. I think there's a confusion between bragging and being confident in your abilities to help people. Like, when I talk about success, I never, and I think the reason my audience connects with me so much and the reason so many people come to this company

and they buy the books and they watch the shows is I don't give myself my own trophy ever. most people who talk about themselves in their own business, they do it because they award themselves their own trophies. I talk about the business because I'm so excited about the wins and the deal my buyer got and like the deal my seller got. And, you know, I talk about our agents now more than I talk about myself ever. I still do a significant amount of transactions and I never talk about something.

So that's the subtlety in that you're passionate about what you're talking about, but you're really talking about the client, the opportunity. the property, not Ryan this, Ryan, that comes in somewhat of a self-deprecating tone, which I think is helpful, you know, and I learned that in the million-dollar listing years. Like there was an episode during Hurricane Sandy in New York City where like it was a rough time to be in New York City because we had no power south of 42nd Street and they filmed the whole thing. And I was by myself, you know, I was like alone. My parents, like, do we, you know, we're busy, and I, like, didn't know what to do.

And people really connected with me at that point. And I was hard on myself. And I was like, wait, but that's how I always am. I'll just be vulnerable. Like, if you elect to put yourself out there into the world, you can't go one toe in the water. And I tell everybody I meet now, like, the Internet calls bullshit more than the person sitting in front of you. Because the person sitting in front of you, or we're here, we made this effort. You're going to give me the benefit of the doubt because you're sitting in that chair.

I'm not going to scroll. You can't. I mean, you could. It would be weird. But on the Internet, I can scroll from you this minute I sense any bullshit. And so you have to be more authentic online than you are even in front of your own family now. And I think people connect to that, right? They connect to the failures.

You'll see season two of this show is probably the most raw season. of reality television, I think one, I've ever seen and two, I've ever been a part of. Like, it, it'll be uncomfortable for people to watch. It tackles, like, I mean, it tackles a lot. I mean, it goes through addiction. Like, it, it, I mean, like, there's, there's so much in the show that, like, I've just never seen before in the space. I'm excited for people to see, but I think it might be a hard watch for some people.

We'll get to some spoilers in a bit, but I want to double click on the space. vulnerability, especially in real estate. It's such a traditional market. When did you decide to be vulnerable? And did you have to calibrate that over time? Did you become too vulnerable and then you had to step it back? Talk to me about that. No, I think, I mean, for what it's worth, I get more business, the more vulnerable I am. Has it ever backfired? Probably. I don't know of a specific example. I mean, I'm also just myself and I do a lot of weird, goofy things. And that's backfired because agents, my competition will use it against me. And I have these moments where I'll freak out on studios here and there. I'm like, people aren't taking me

seriously anymore. Like, why am I chasing ping pong balls down the street? Why am I, you know, running in an inflatable tube through Soho to push, you know, our courses, you know, because my competition can't do what we do online. They don't have the audience we do. So they do exactly what they know how to do, which is to talk poorly about it and say it doesn't mean anything. It's stupid and it's goofy. So a lot of times, especially early in my career, I would go to a pitch with a client. The client would say, listen, I love you. I totally get it. But I met with five other brokers. And they told me everything that you do will hurt me and hurt the house, that it's all stupid the social media thing isn't real and in 2013 to 2018 maybe there was some some honesty to

that but it was it was I know I did really educate people which is why that deal that townhouse deal in 2015 was so was so helpful for me because I could use it and they could use the clients as case studies too as testimonials I'm like I don't call them what I know there's always this collaboration between social and real life but what's the largest property you've ever sold through social media. $160 million. And what property was that? It was a property in Palm Beach.

It was this year, and the kid found me, introduced me to the banker of the family. The banker called me, interviewed me, introduced me to the family, family bought the property over the phone. So I know you've said that season one changed your life, changed the trajectory of your life. In the last year,

there's a lot of highs and a lot of lows, what's one really high moment that a lot of people don't know about? I went, I invested so hard during the tariff fallout. That was like the best weekend of my year. It's where, you know, I don't talk about investments ever. I don't talk about money ever. It's not really my lane. It's not my niche. When I do, it doesn't really perform well because people are like, for sure, it's real estate, real estate clown. You know, they swipe away. But I had, like, I had been waiting for a reset. And resets now happen so fast, right?

V-Shay. Yeah, you're in a bear market on Friday. You're in a bull market by Tuesday. And every time there's a correction, it's the worst it's ever been. And every time things are hot, it's never been better. And it never changes. Whether it's COVID, a terrorist attack, global pandemic, a hurricane, right? It never, ever, ever, ever changes.

33-year-old TikTok mayor? Yeah, exactly. When Mamadani won, we had 48 hours of the Mamadani discount. And then it went away because nothing changed. But we pushed hard, right? What was I talking about before then? You're talking about the Trump tariff. Oh, yeah.

Yeah. What did you invest in? Just put money into the markets. Like I, because I'm, you know, when, when COVID hit and the market fell 10,000 points. I, like a lot of people, was nervous, especially because we were about to start the business and we were about to start the company. I thought we were going to announce Sirhant on July 1st.

That was going to be July 4th week. My birthday was July 2nd. All these pieces of paper in this hallway say announcement by July 1st. And then COVID hits, throws us off. Things got pretty dark. And then we pushed until September. But I was like, man, if there's ever a big market correction ever again, it never lasts and I'm going to double down and I waited and it never happened until Trump

announces tariffs with that poster and the market sold off so fast up until that one moment right where he came back out and was like I'm going to figure it out 30 days the day before that I mean I put a lot of money just generally into the marketplace and that was great that was a good that was a great one last time we chatted you were just growing up growing really quick. I know this the past year you grew another 50%. What has had to change in you as the CEO in order to scale certain things? Oh. Everything. I think I've had to learn to become incredibly clear about what I want in people. I've always given people the benefit of the doubt. Like hire for intelligence, hire for energy,

enthusiasm, empathy, get good people, make sure they're uniquely qualified. and they'll figure it out. And when they don't do that, it then builds resentment. And so I've really had to learn to be very, very, very clear on this is exactly what I want if I'm going to pay you and you're going to be here. And if you don't do this, then I've made it very clear what I want and then I'm not going to pay you anymore. And then we don't have to work together.

It's totally fine. There's other companies. That was hard. Oh, that was a low moment this year. It's firing our president. I'm about that. Yeah, it was hard, man. Like, with every employee you hire and every agent two,

but I think you have, no one's perfect. I'm not perfect at all. And I kind of have this like cost. I'd say I have this benefit and risk seesaw with everybody. And for everybody who is currently here and working, the benefits outray the risk. And the risk can be personal, they can be cultural, they can be, you know, they can be about the work, right? They can be about the work product sometimes.

And sometimes the risk then starts to outweigh the benefit and you have to make difficult decisions. So I don't want to go into details because I can't. But that was a moment where like, I don't know, like it felt like such a failure on my part. Like any time you have to let someone go. And it's actually a failure of the CEO because. It hired him. Exactly. And for, you know, for the rest of the company, too, like for somebody, you know, at the C-suite level, you know, who has a leadership role, they're only effective if they work with everybody.

So it's not like you're letting go of somebody who's doing, you know, one action and then they don't do that action anymore. And that was a brutal, brutal, low moment to go through. And it was time after time after time again because I kept vouching and vouching and the company, everybody kept. coming to me. And I, like, you know, I think culture is defined by the behaviors you allow, right? So the implied culture, not the stated culture. The way everybody understands how this business moves is defined by what you allow to happen. If you allow laughter, right?

There's humor. If you allow innovation, right? There's excitement and there's growth. If you allow bad behavior, if you allow lying. Right? If you allow harassment, you know, all the things, even if that person's work product is really, really, really great, you have set the tone that bad behavior is worth it if the work is there and it becomes incredibly unhealthy. It's this double-edged part of empathy. Yeah. Taken to extreme, every action someone does could be explained by some reason.

That's some childhood trauma. So if you just chase the reasoning back, you could excuse anything. You can excuse murder, you know, his parents, his father might have been his mother and he went to him at school. But that doesn't make it right. Yeah. And as a CEO, you have to balance that empathy with pragmatism and how to build a great organization. Yeah, pink flags are red flags in disguise, you know. Like, it's also hard on the hiring side.

Like, it takes time to hire the right person. And, you know, I've gotten close on a handful of different executives this year. And then there's just something that doesn't click. and I'd rather not take the risk, right? I don't want to, for their life to, uproot their life. Sometimes these people have to move. And like, if I'm just going to, if it's not going to work, I'm just going to make sure it just doesn't work.

Have you ever thought about sitting down and etching the Sirhan cultural values? That's what we stand for. This is what we don't stand for. Yes. And making it really explicit. Yeah, we have a success at Sirhant Doc that goes to employees. And what are some of those core values? For employees.

you know, I say first and foremost is just brutal, brutal, brutal, brutal, transparent honesty. Like, you have to be honest. Two, you have to perform magic. You just have to. What are you doing by that? Like, you have to do something that your department or other people don't know how to do.

Otherwise, how are you being additive? And to be a one of one. To the culture. Yeah, be a one of one in the company you're in. Like, every new employee who starts here, I sit down with them. say here's the four things I care about. First thing, okay, you have to establish credibility, right?

Like, why are you here? Make sure everybody knows that you're credible, you're hired for a reason. Second thing you have to do is you have to gain respect. And the third thing you have to do is you have to earn trust. Respect and trust are not created equal, very different. And the fourth thing you have to do is you have to perform a magic trick, right? Be a one of one and let people know that, oh, you know how to do that thing. over here that we didn't know how to do. Thank God you're here. And everyone will be able to move

much, much faster that way. Because I've never really thought about the difference between respect and trust. What's the difference? I mean, you might trust a family member, but you also might not respect them too much. You know, like I have friends. I trust them with my life. I don't really respect them. So you don't respect their life choices, but you might trust them to do it. Look at the biggest names, you know, in lights these days. really respect them. You respect what they've been able to do. Prob don't trust them. You know, because you know they're going to be out for themselves. So you've got to be able to walk that fine line when you're playing a team sport, which is what it is to be in a company. What's one thing that

broke over the last year that you had to fix internally to really get to next level? Every system we have. Like we crossed a thousand agents earlier this year. which I think when people look at a brokerage and they say a thousand agents, that's not a lot. To remember, a thousand agents is 1,000 LLCs for the most part. It is a thousand businesses that we then have to support, right, in the back end and in the front end. So it's a significant amount of work. We're at about 1,500 now, but it was like, it was a lot. So the way we set up the business was for, you know, a startup company.

And so as you scale, everything breaks. You know, there's that classic phrase of building an airplane while you're flying it. Yeah, that's not so awesome when you're in the middle of it. Making our parachute while you jump out of the plane. Exactly, right? Somewhat scary. Yeah, this year, I mean, in specific, like our payment system just was not up to par with where we needed it to be to be national. And we decided to move west this year.

So we started in Arizona. We just opened up in Las Vegas, right? So we're starting to fill in the United States. And the way you do things in every state in this business is so different. So a lot of those systems of protocols and processes really were put to the test. And there was like a phrase I had most of this year, which is just like, well, got you here, won't get you there. From systems to the tech to the people. So before we move on, I have a surprise.

I want to bring my wife and your co-star, Jessica Markowski, talk about, Season two. Let's do it. Let's bring on Jessica. Jessica. Hi. Ever wanted to explore the world of online trading, but haven't dared to try, the futures market is more active now than ever, and plus 500 futures is the perfect place to start. Plus 500 gives you access to a wide range of instruments, S&P 500, NASDAQ, Bitcoin, gas, and much more. Explore equity indices, energy, metals, Forex, crypto, and beyond. With a simple, intuitive platform, you could trade from anywhere right from your phone. Deposit with a minimum of $100 and experience of fast, accessible futures trading you've been waiting

for. See a trading opportunity. You'll be able to trade in just two clicks once your account is open. Not sure if you're ready, not a problem. Plus 500 gives you unlimited, risk-free demo count with charts and analytics tools for you to practice on. With over 20 years of experience, plus 500 is your gateway to the markets. Visit us.plus500.com to learn more. Trading in futures involves the risk of loss and is not suitable for everyone. Not all applicants will qualify plus 500 it's trading with a plus come thank you so much for having me on your podcast so season two what was the most difficult part in season two for you the most difficult part for me honestly from season one i think just the podcast alone that i did was something i was

not really proud of and just overcoming that was very very difficult for me. So it always just like played in the back of my head that I knew that I had so much to really still prove at the company. So that was always difficult for me. Another hand, what was your biggest highlight from season two? I think the biggest highlight for me was I managed to get a big listing in Tribeca and I wanted to do it quickly, effectively, efficiently to really prove that I could really do my job well. And I think we'll see that on season two. just like managing like representing both sides and navigating that was just something I've never done before so learning as I was doing it was really fun well thank you Jessica okay bye enjoy your podcast oh that was it you're leaving now yeah oh okay what's one scene in season two that made you think holy shit I can't believe this happened there are so many man honestly like um first of all I love that and Netflix gives us a lot of freedom to make a show no one's ever seen before

for to your point of like the purple cow like no one no one wants to sit down and watch something they've seen 10,000 times even with different people so the show has like a real narrative thread with voiceover you know you're really watching the show through the eyes like an entrepreneurial lens very cinematic yeah it's incredibly cinematic um which is unique we break the fourth wall this season and so there's multiple times where i talk directly to the camera and it is very jarring I think the audience I remember when I first showed first clips to people

just to see like hey is this going to work or even show it to Danny and his fiance they'd like rewound and they're like I don't know what just happened that was

that was kind of weird but then you're like okay now I got I have to watch more so I think that's really really cool there was an altercation in the office they were shot in real time

there was a fight that not staged no not staged dude I wish it'd make my life so much easier And then I had to really have like a CEO boss moment again with Nile. And that scene though is probably one of the strongest scenes I've seen ever in reality TV.

There is a fight between me and Jordan March. That's completely insane. There's a deal we did. Peter did. He's a new cast member this year that he sold for $60 million. And I had a buyer. And I was excited because we were filming, you know, we filmed for six, seven months. And Netflix just films in real time, obviously.

So, like, if deals happen, they catch them. If they don't happen, they don't catch them. And there's not a lot of, like, pressure to make sure things happen. But they just want to see what's going on. And it's like a blink of time. And so I have a buyer that I've been working for a long time. Peter joins the company and then we put him on the show and he's got this deal. I'm like, oh, this is awesome.

This is like, what a great story, right? We can film this. I got a $60 million deal and put it together. And he fucked me over in real time as the camera. So we're in the car filming $55 million cash I present to him. And he hangs up the phone on me. And we do a U-turn and we drive back to the office. And the cameras just followed.

Like you see it. It's an old school reality. Yeah. It's like the real world. They're like shaky. They're like, what's happening? We go up into the office and I call him out. And he's like taken aback.

see a lot of people on camera that usually aren't because they were just working on the second floor. I go into the cell phone booth. I try to put the deal together and I lose it and he sells it to somebody else in real time as it's happening. And I had a mental breakdown and broke a whole vase on our first floor. And then the episode just ends. So that seems insane. I also, I put together another deal at 111th Avenue. And the entire negotiation happens from when I'm in the shower to when I get my shirt on in real time. It was really weird. But it's like cool to also watch that. It's your real life. Yeah, real life. Like we got to go to Miami this year. We got to like the executive team from Mercedes-Benz flew in from Stuttgart Germany. We got the

silver arrow car. You know, so like how do you launch a $1.5 billion skyscraper? You know, an interviewer asked me the other day. It's like, define season two in two words. and all I could think of was an emotional skyscraper. That's what the show is. A lot of people look as you as the real estate agent, but you're also a character. It's your real life, but you're also building this cinematic experience.

Talk to me about how you build a narrative arc around a season for something like an owning Manhattan that's based on real life. You create the world, to then improv. So, you know, we sit with the team of producers and we say, okay, like, what are the properties that we think we can get access to? Because you need location releases, appearance releases.

Like, you can't just roll around, you know, and open people's doors with a Netflix camera. It doesn't work that way. So you have to have approvals, right? You have to be able to get into places. But then we kind of look at, like, what's the arc of the company? You know, we, you know, for season one, we went from, you know, we were a couple hundred agents.

we added a couple hundred during filming and we were under attack you know people were quitting maggie on the show quit i had to fire two people right it was like it was just a lot season two we were on the offense um and so that was really the theme right so what's the theme of the season season one is defense season two is offense so okay we're on the attack so we're gonna go from 500 people to a thousand people we're going to watch that happen in real time we're going to go from new york to start spreading down the east coast we're going to watch that happen in real time. And I'm going to go from really in season one I was broker slash CEO. This season I really move from being everyone's buddy to being the boss, moving from broker, moving to CEO and really

trying to determine what's really important for me. And then we see what happens with the cast, with deals like your wife. I mean, had an amazing deal happen in real time, you know, that we were able to film and put on camera to show people how that's done, which is really cool. And then And there's a lot of deals that don't get done. So you see a lot of things dies. What are some mistakes you made on season one and then also on season two? On season one, the biggest mistake I made was probably not selling the penthouse at Central Park Tower. That will, that will.

Everyone asks about that. My name. People ask me. All the time. Do you ever sell it? Yeah. Thanks. One day, one day I will.

There's only so many people spending $200 million out there. Although, to your credit, you say on the show, there, there's 1,800 billionaires or something, you only have to find one, which is a good framing. But to buy a penthouse for $250 million, you need a lot more than a billion dollars. Correct. Correct. It's a very difficult sale. Yeah. So there's only so many people that have that kind of money. That said, more and more people are making nine-figure real estate purchases now than in the history of time. So it will sell. So, I mean, I say it's a mistake that they didn't sell it. But I also,

I think it's one of the things that's so special about this show. It's 100% real. been in an uncomfortable way. Like if you want to watch a real deal show and watch a business being built, a business being hurt, deals dying, deals happening, and not have any bullshit served to you. Like, that's what this show is. Nothing is fake. Nothing is fake. Like, and that's really, really important because I did a Bravo TV show for 10 years.

I did four of them. It's like, if I'm going to do TV again, I'm going to do it my way. And it's going to be visceral. And so I regret putting a listing on TV that way. large that was going to create that much commotion, that much noise, and that much press. I mean, I had billions of impressions around the world that I then couldn't execute. Season two, the biggest mistake that I made, I don't know. I think the, it's a lot to follow, you know, I think some viewers like it because there's so much.

cast is large. You know, there's 12 people, 11, 12 people. That's a lot. Like friends, totally different. But it's a classic example of how many stories you can follow. All right, it's six people. And you kind of go back and forth between their lives. And that's still a lot of people. But eight 40-minute episodes to follow the lives of 12 people plus New York City, plus a company, it's a lot. So I think I probably would have narrowed in on some storylines maybe a little bit stronger and maybe lightened the load on some others maybe, but I'm super proud of season two. I think it's the coolest season of docu TV that I've ever seen. I think it's a lot of fun too. It's also funny. You called the

real estate media convergence almost a decade before anyone else, so you're really cutting edge. Where do you see just the future of content in general. You see the different platforms, TikTok, Netflix, Instagram. What do you think is going to still hold true in five to 10 years and what's going to evolve? I think it's getting more and more and more honest, which is why you see so much of the younger generation moving away from content that's fully produced to content that is just fully streamed, right? Because it's hard to produce stream because it's right now. It's just live. And so, which is kind of like the old school days of original TV.

It was live in front of a studio audience, right? And there's a real talent to being able to do that. And so I think you're going to see that. I think you're also going to see more interactive media and content. So like, listen, last year, season one, we had our premiere party, but a lot of our promotion was produced. This year, we have the premier party, but we have, I think we have owning Manhattan live that's happening where fans get to come and interact with us.

They come to Sirhan House in Soho. We have the Ryan meetup, which is a group of people only named Ryan. So we have 600 Ryan's coming and flying in to New York as a premier event. It's interactive with the show. I also think what we're also seeing is a reaction just to ADD, right? Adult, adult attention, deficit disorder. And even 40 minutes is a long time for people. And so you see it now, right?

You see TV shows. They move incredibly fast. And you can't breathe, but because you've got to keep attention or people will switch platforms. And so I think you're going to see the rise at the microdrama. You're seeing it now. You're seeing brands create it. And you're seeing entire storylines being told in a way that people feel

emotionally satisfied in under five minutes. I don't know if it's good, but it's definitely going to happen more and more and more now over the next couple years. What would people be surprised to hear your video? for the future for Sirhant and where where do you want to take the company that other people might think is a little bit contrary? I believe that our ecosystem is built to help people move forward and we do that by helping buyers, sellers, developers, and salespeople in real estate move faster, better, and where we can, cheaper. And we do that in part because we're a media

and technology company, it also happens to sell real estate. And so we're building out that ecosystem. And we have a major AI component to that that really, really automates back office so that I can basically make the entire real estate experience. and transaction experience screenless. And I think that's a contrarian point of view. And I think we are also making, therefore, the agent and consumer relationship that much stronger because we're creating tools and features

that force greater connection instead of dividing it. And a lot of our competitors are just focused on the division and focused also on the property. right we for some reason maybe because I'm crazy are like a thousand percent focused on the people empower the people empower the property and we're the only ones who do that and therefore we are the resistance for people starting out in real estate as agents what's the number one piece of advice you give them today go follow Jessica Markowski online do those first two things I, you know, I tell everyone, you've got a, um, your first three years in the business or grad school.

If you make money, you're lucky. You're here to learn and you want to leapfrog. So join a team. Do all the work no one else will do. So then three years, you have the opportunity to do the work. No one else can do. And that's it. It's not that hard.

Most people are unwilling to do that. And that's why they tap out. And also get reps and get on deep. deals. Make sure, even if you're getting 5%, make sure you're on a deal. Always learn, have the conversations. The biggest agents of anything, whether it's finance, cars, real estate, were number 11 in an organization, but they did all the work. And so as people age out or they tap out or they have fired, they want to go do different things, you just, it's not even a ladder. It's like an inverted slide.

Like your future is just defined for you because you're the one the customers are going to have the connection to because you did the work other people didn't want to do. It's really not that complicated, but people want microdramas, right? They want success in two minutes. I want to swipe for money, swipe for dollars. There's a lot of places to make money now. You can make a lot of money on your phone. Oh, Ryan, thanks so much for taking the time and love the season two and looking forward to

season 10. That's it for today's episode of how I invest. If this conversation gave you new insights or ideas, do me a quick favor. Share with one person in your network who'd find a valuable or leave a short review wherever you listen. This helps more investors discover the show and keeps us bringing you these conversations week after week. Thank you for your continued support.