My First Million - David Senra: Podcasts With Billion-Dollar Potential, What Separates Good From Great, and More

Episode Date: April 27, 2023

Episode 448: Sam Parr (@TheSamParr) talks with David Senra (@FoundersPodcast), Founder of Founder's podcast, about his love of podcasting, how to become a killer in business, and life lessons from successful entrepreneurs. Click here to sign up for our event in Austin, TX on Saturday April 29th: mfmpod.com/atx Want to see more MFM? Subscribe to the MFM YouTube channel here. Check Out Sam's Stuff: * Hampton * Ideation Bootcamp * Copy That Check Out Shaan's Stuff: * Power Writing Course * Daily Newsletter ----- Links: *Founders podcast *James Dyson's autobiography * Do you love MFM and want to see Sam and Shaan's smiling faces? Subscribe to our Youtube channel. ------ Show Notes: (02:25) - What did you do before Founders? (03:55) - How big is the podcast? (10:40) - How many books do you read? (18:50) - The difference between pretty good and killers (21:00) - Can you make yourself a killer? (28:20) - Finding good industries to get into (46:20) - Lessons from meeting Sam Zell and Charlie Munger (59:20) - What is next for you? (01:17:25) - Chuck Yeager ------ Past guests on My First Million include Rob Dyrdek, Hasan Minhaj, Balaji Srinivasan, Jake Paul, Dr. Andrew Huberman, Gary Vee, Lance Armstrong, Sophia Amoruso, Ariel Helwani, Ramit Sethi, Stanley Druckenmiller, Peter Diamandis, Dharmesh Shah, Brian Halligan, Marc Lore, Jason Calacanis, Andrew Wilkinson, Julian Shapiro, Kat Cole, Codie Sanchez, Nader Al-Naji, Steph Smith, Trung Phan, Nick Huber, Anthony Pompliano, Ben Askren, Ramon Van Meer, Brianne Kimmel, Andrew Gazdecki, Scott Belsky, Moiz Ali, Dan Held, Elaine Zelby, Michael Saylor, Ryan Begelman, Jack Butcher, Reed Duchscher, Tai Lopez, Harley Finkelstein, Alexa von Tobel, Noah Kagan, Nick Bare, Greg Isenberg, James Altucher, Randy Hetrick and more. ----- Additional episodes you might enjoy: • #224 Rob Dyrdek - How Tracking Every Second of His Life Took Rob Drydek from 0 to $405M in Exits • #209 Gary Vaynerchuk - Why NFTS Are the Future • #178 Balaji Srinivasan - Balaji on How to Fix the Media, Cloud Cities & Crypto * #169 - How One Man Started 5, Billion Dollar Companies, Dan Gilbert's Empire, & Talking With Warren Buffett • ​​​​#218 - Why You Should Take a Think Week Like Bill Gates • Dave Portnoy vs The World, Extreme Body Monitoring, The Future of Apparel Retail, "How Much is Anthony Pompliano Worth?", and More • How Mr Beast Got 100M Views in Less Than 4 Days, The $25M Chrome Extension, and More

I am probably the most optimistic person in terms of like how good business of a business podcasting can be. And I start talking crazy. And then I have some friends that I built giant businesses on the back of podcasts. I was at dinner with them last week. And they literally pulled me to the side. They're like, shut the fuck off. Stop telling people all this shit. I feel like I can rule the world.

I know I could be what I want to. I put my all in it like no days on. All right, everyone, today's podcast is special. The guy's name is David Senra. He's got a podcast called Founders. I've listened to dozens and dozens and dozens of episodes. He basically breaks down different biographies that he read about business people, artists, whatever, anyone who's, you know, the 1% of the 1% of their field. And on the pod today, we talked about the difference between people who are, like, somewhat successful and the people who are absolute killers and what traits they have and what the commonalities.

So it's super fascinating to hear from someone who's read literally. three or 400 biographies and studies us for a living. He talks about the commonalities of these killers, whether that's UFC fighters or billionaires. It's really fascinating. I think you're going to dig it. My favorite part is when we talk about, he has this really cool quote from Joe Rogan describing John Jones, who's this amazing UFC fighter and the difference between John and the rest of the people. And then somehow David weaves that in with business people.

And he lists out all the business people who he says are the 1%, the 1%. the killers of the killers. And he talks about what traits they have and what you can learn. I think you'll dig it. Check it out. Talk soon. Yeah, you know it's up.

I understand why you'd live in Miami if your family's there. I don't love like New York, but I'm eventually going to move there for family. So I, the family, you know, supersedes all the other stuff. That's the only reason we stay here. My wife is Colombian.

So 70% of Miami-D County's Hispanic. All her family's here. Like, I've been traveling a lot more for work. And like the day I leave, my kids wake up her mom is here her grandmother's here so like from my kids perspective like columbians are they with south americans general what they do is like they're very i like their multi-generational like housing my wife grew up in a house connected to her grandparents house yeah i dig that too oh that's incredible like i had nothing like that when i was a kid

and so i was like man i really want to live in california but i'm just going to stay here for family and then you know spend my summers in california what'd you do before founders pod I've done a shit ton of businesses since I was like 18 years old I think me and you around the same age I might be a few years older than you The business I was working on right before I actually started founders while I was doing it

was this thing called RoboDB which is a way to track the true origination points of Robocalls through the payment network and it was just like a business that was kind of like a clever hack but I wasn't interested in it the way I was podcasting

So, like, I was obsessed with podcasting for, for years. I remember my friend Eric, he invited me over to his house one time. It's like, 2010. He's like, dude, you've got to come over and watch this new podcast. Do you remember the guy from Fear Factor? And I'm like, yeah, I watched Fear Factor when I was in, like, high school. And we went to his house and it's like when Joe Rogan was on like the white couch and he was on like Ustream. And then he'd have like, there'd be like things falling down.

He'd have like, you know, the cheesy kind of like there'd be stars or spark. and stuff like that. I'm like, what is this? He's like, oh, you can also listen to it on your phone anytime you want. And that just blew my fucking mind. I could not believe that. Yeah. But were you successful or were you kind of like a struggling entrepreneur? And then this is like, is this your first like breakout?

This is the first thing that's going to make like I'll make a lot more money. I was like making like dentist or doctor money for like a long time. You know, like not struggling, but not nearly like, you know, what a podcast could could do. Like a successful podcast. Could do. How big is the pod now in terms of listenership? It's fucking crazy right now. A few weeks ago, I just cracked over 100,000 individual listeners per episode.

No, no, overall. So when I sign into my podcast host, it says, like, unique listeners last seven days. That's the only, I'm not big on metrics. Like, I don't pay attention to them at all. I just try to make what I want and then put it out into the world. But the one number I want to see grow is that. Number because Founders is also weird. You could discover it now.

And because the back catalogs Evergreen, I'll talk to people. They'll listen to like the first latest few episodes. And then they'll go back and listen to shit that I did like six years ago, five years ago. And it's just you, right? Because you're part of what?

Colossal. Is that it? Colossus. Colossus, sorry. And so they like sell your ads and they take a cut. And so is it just you and a producer or what? Nothing. Just me.

So, Patrick, I love, we were talking a little bit about this yesterday. Like, the one thing I love about podcasting industry is how positive some everybody is. So I listened to Patrick's podcast for years. Like, I was taking notes on this podcast. I went back and looked since like 2019. And last year in May, my podcast is a subscription podcast, right? You could listen to the first 30 minutes. You can listen to all of it for the first six years in its existence.

You had to pay to upgrade, right? I had no... Yours? Yeah, yeah. Wait, oh, I don't know. So you've been doing this for six years. Yeah, sorry, in 2016.

Oh, wow, that's crazy. To me, like, you just got on my radar like a year ago, maybe. Everybody was like that. So Patrick played a big role in that. David and Bad from Required. They played a big role that was just on your podcast. But what happened was Patrick just randomly tweeted it out. You know, he's got, you know, this massive, very valuable audience,

in terms of size and then average net worth. Like he's got one of the most, I would argue he's got the most valuable business podcast audience in the world. Right? If you keep, if you, like the fact, the average net worth of his audience is extreme.

And he just randomly tweeted out like last May, hey, I never find a new podcast to listen to. I think David Center, his founder's podcast is excellent. You should listen. And I was like, what the fuck?

Like, I know you, dude. Like, I watch, listen to your podcast. Like, this is crazy. And so I had become friends with this guy named Sam Hinkie,

Sam Hinkie. He's the former general manager that's Philadelphia 76ers. Now he's an investor in Silicon Valley. And I knew he knew Patrick. And so I screenshot it. I was like, oh shit, look what your friend Patrick said. And then Sam immediately put me in a group chat with Patrick.

He's like, you two should know each other. And so Patrick, the first time we talked, we talked for like an hour and a half. We had like the same interest for addicted podcast, addicted history, addicted entrepreneurship, all sorts of stuff. And so we were just friends for a long time. And then I had several people, Rob Moore being one of them,

we should probably talk about. Yeah, Rob and I, Rob's been hooking me up constantly. Like, I'll talk to him and we'll email back and forth. He's always helping me. Okay, so this is the positive sum nature of podcasting. I'm sorry.

And for those who don't know, Rob Moore and Andrew Heberman are partners on the pod. Rob is the co-founder of the Hewomen Live Pocket. So, okay, there is, this is the interesting thing. One of my favorite quotes, I've read every single thing I could find on Steve Jobs, right? And one of my favorite quotes that really describe Steve's, one of his superpowers, was that Steve was gifted at finding markets full of second rate products. And what you,

what you guys realize, I think as well is like people have essentially, like when you're inside podcasting, the perception inside of it is completely different than when it's outside of it. It's like, there's too many of them. It's too late to get in. And like,

you need to start a long time ago. And what happens is like everybody's social podcast quits, right? And when you get in there, podcasts in general are full of second rate products. Rob Moore and Andrew Huberman, and I put David and Ben up here as well. It's like they're first, they have first class products and a first class approach to building their business. So Rob, I've never talked to Rob less than two hours. Every single fucking time we talk, he, dude, look what I have on my desk. Like, what's that?

Oh, Rob, is that a Lieberman tweet? Yeah, it's Rob and. Andrew have been so relentless with supporting me. They have no benefit. They just, they keep,

like, every time Andrew treats about me, the fact that he was, one of his favorite podcasts, his founders, he sends me up to church just from his tweets. And so,

Rob's like, hey, we had this new studio. Next time you're in California, next time you're in California, come out and like, I'd love to give you a tour. And our mutual friend,

Andrew Wilkinson had invited me to Victoria. So I was like, oh, I'm actually flying to Victoria, like next week, that's a pain in the ass to get to from Miami. I'll just stop in California for a few days to see you. I meet up with Rob. Is Rob in L.A.?

Yeah, yeah. Rob's in Malibu. I met up with Rob. We talked podcasting for seven straight hours. That's crazy. Literally, we meet up to have lunch. We stay at the same spot. They're like, it's dinner now.

We're like, let's fucking have dinner. And then we stayed there the whole time. And then he's like, let's go to the studio. They are like, to me, I think, not only he ruins the size of his audience is crazy. crazy, but if you break down on how they think about the quality of the product, how they think about the quality of the business model. Like, there's ideas I got from Rob that I told Andrew, or that I told Ben and David that they're now using, that it's going to wind up making them

millions of dollars. Like the way they set up their business, their ads, everything. They're just fucking first class dudes. Are you, I see that you're always tweeting out. It looks like a screenshot from Kindle. How many books a month are you reading to pull this off? Okay, so I think this is me and you were talking about the advantage. I think you have at Hampton. which is really fucking special. And it's an echo of what Bloomberg used to build his very unique business. Like your business is going to produce

a lot of proprietary information. It's extremely valuable to other founders. And then you can repurpose them. Dude, you know how many fucking people I've had dinner with that tell me about the Hampton blog and you guys just launched it? Oh, really?

I think we just, we just, like, I threw it together like, I think two weeks ago. I heard about some guy doing concrete or some shit or, or something. He was like searching, they told me that he was like searching through like, like war dogs. Yeah. Like looking for the, look at do a database of government contracts and seeing what he can fulfill. Yeah. So what I realize is when I text you that are yesterday was,

I'm doing similar things. So, um, I realize what, and it, this is the magic of, you said something that was really smart where you're like, rich people read a lot. And it's very true. Our mutual friend, Angel Wilkins said just tweeted out. He's like, I wish I could short entrepreneurs that don't read. And that's what I found as well. It's like not only if the people I studied, they were so good at what they did that somebody wrote a book about them.

Like that's fucking crazy, right? And then you read their books and they're constantly reading biographies, studying great work that came before them. And so the Bloomberg idea was like, his business is fundamentally, he's like, I want to sell you like a $27,000 year subscription or whatever it is.

My business, his business collects a bunch of unique information and he made like a bunch of atomic pieces of content started a media company as a way to get his brand. And so 90% of the people I read his media will never buy subscription. But his media is spread around everywhere. Just like there's a ton of people I've got to read your Hampton blog. You know, obviously I think you should do a podcast. If you do fucking short form, whatever, it's like, that's going to be spread out like that. And then, you know, 1%, 5% of those are going to convert to members. And like, the more members you have, the more data you have, the more data you have,

the more members you have, and just keeps going. So to answer your question, I just hit episode 300. I've read over 300 biographies of entrepreneurs so far. I have, that's a lot of, over 100,000 pages. What I realized is like over time, I'd input all my highlights into this app called Readwise. And so everything you see externally are just, they're essentially highlights that I, like the one I posted yesterday,

we were talking about Bloomberg. And I was like, oh, fuck, let me go and read back through my highlights on Bloomberg. And I found one where he said that like, you know, if you try to love what you do, because you love what you do,

you do a lot. And then, you know, that compounds and everything. And I put that out and like immediately, these hit. And then people discover the podcast. And they start listening. And so me and you and Bloomberg are kind of running the same idea, but in, you know, different,

different industries or different. Dude, I use up until like, so two years ago, up until two years ago, I was reading a ton. And then I, so I like to listen to books. I like to listen. I have one that I'm listening to and one that I read at night. And I like to listen while I'm on walks. And there's this one narrator who I love. Have you ever listened to Titan or Vanderbilt's book, Tycoon?

the narrator is awesome. And so I was like, I love this narrator. He's so good. So I went and found books just by that narrator. And I started scrolling through. And I'm like, oh, my God. This guy's done 1,500 books or something like that that he's narrated. And it's like, how to win friends and influence and like all these like businessy,

self-helpy books. And then I go and looked at his LinkedIn. And I'm like, huh, he's reading all these books. Why isn't he more successful? And I'm like, I'm like, Huh, that doesn't work. So I got angry. So now I read mostly for fun.

And if I don't like something, I brush it off. I put it away. And so I quit reading nonfiction books. Now I strictly read biographies or history. So your friend Ryan Holiday has a great post where he shared like his top 25 biography recommendations and his the intro to that post is excellent. Because he's like, listen, you go to the most successful people in the world, look at their bookshel. they read a lot of shit.

They all read biographies. All of them, without exception. He's like some of the most high value reading you can do. You notice that as you read through the biographies, like they're all doing this. Now, here's the thing. This actually clicked for me the other day. You know Eric Jorgensen, right?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. He helped Naval write the thing. Yep. So he gave me this fantastic book recommendation. I had missed despite this game, Peter Bevelin, and he kind of, it's a book on Buffett and Munger. It's just all I want to know is where I'll die so I don't go there. And there was something that Buffett and a Munger were saying in that book that really

clicked for me. They kept saying, it's like, listen, we're going to share everything we know with you guys. We know that most of you are just going to listen or read it and never do anything. And I thought about that for a long time. I was like, oh, so learning is not memorizing information like the guy you were just describing. Learning is changing your behavior. If you don't change your behavior that you didn't actually learn. And so therefore, if I'm not applying the list as I'm learning in this book for my own business,

then that means I'm just wasting my whole fucking life because I'm working on seven days a week, like, I'm giving a lot of my life energy to this. And I think that's the important part. It's like not just, people didn't just fucking read. They took this idea, like, okay, how can I apply that to my business? And then they actually change their fucking behavior, which is like the key. No, and I've done that a ton. I mean, I'll, what I, my, the reason I read biographies is I look for patterns and I say,

what mistake did this person make and how do I avoid it and where did they win and how do I, like, lean in on that? And then, like, the way that I kind of, this sounds really lame, but we make a joke that I'm, I call myself a manifest cowboy because I'm a little bit of a redneck. But the reason being is I'm pretty good at like setting five year and 10 year goals and staying focus and working backwards to achieve it. And like I can like there's just one book called How to Get Rich by Felix Dennis. Love that. And like I like listen. I was like, all right. And he and he was, he had cancer, I believe. Or I don't know if he had a cancer when he wrote it, but he died soon after.

And he was like, if I could do it all over again, I would try to be funny. financially secure by age 35 and then just puts around. And I was like, okay, let's do that. And so I like just worked backwards. So like, how do you just like have like the bills handled? And then everything else is just, you know, icing on the cake. And so I'm pretty good at that. But I, uh, when the last time you read it? I read it. I read it all the time. I refer, I use it like a textbook. So like when I think about like equity and how much to pay people, I go and read the sections that he talks about. So I have it.

If you just Google how to get rich, free PDF, there's like a website that has it. So I've bought many copies and I have a bunch of his biographies. But I'll just like refer to that all the constantly. I'm like, all right, what did he say about this? And he gives like pretty practical advice, like on company credit cards. Like how do you issue your company credit cards and like office space? And so I refer back to it constantly. Andrew Wilkinson gave me advice.

He's like what he did. He's like, I read the book before I got rich. And then you read it after you get really rich. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I thought that was really great advice. So you and I are both UFC fans. Yes. I was asking you, I was like, what should we talk about?

And I was like, I want to talk about the difference between the people who are pretty good and absolute killers. Yeah. And you were like, oh, that's just like in UFC. That's kind of the same way. But I, because I'm fascinated with like, I listened to your, I think his name is Sam Bronfman, the guy who started Seagrams, which eventually turned into like all these other things. And then I listen to. fucking savage. He's a savage.

You know, like, he almost reminded me on myself, not in the savage sense, but he did a few funny things. He, uh, he was like a hermit. And he like, didn't go anywhere unless his wife went with him. And I'm the same way. I'm like, I don't go out unless my wife comes up me because I have like some social anxiety a little bit. And like, but when it came to business, he was like pretty brash and, um, uh, like told people exactly what he thought.

Uh, except like when it came to social situations, he was like super not confrontational. If I go to the grocery store and I don't what I'm looking for, I leave. I don't ask. I'm like, I'm like, dude, I just don't even want to ask for help because it bothers me. But anyway, I listen to him and then I listen to Napoleon. That one was really good. Oh, dude, look at this book. Sorry. Sam Altman said the best book he's read in the last few years is this one. It's really hard to find. It's first published in 195. Is that the concise history one? I can't see it. No, no, no. I'm about, I'm going to do this in like two, two, probably two episodes. It's called The Mind and Napoleon. It's, it's, it's, Napoleon.

only these old fucking words. That's cool. Yeah, so, because everybody's obsessed with Sam Hilton right now because of chat GPD. I didn't mean to interrupt you, but Napoleon's. Well, Napoleon had this amazing saying. I forget if I heard it from you or Ben Wilson, but it was something like, um, uh, he was talking to someone. He goes, you and I are not the same.

I am born of a people of conquerors or something like that. Like he had this like, uh, like this, he felt like he was just like, I'm here to conquer. Get out of my way. And he had that at a young age. And I thought that was really insightful. There is something that you picked up on where people, it's fascinating how like you'll listen to founders or you read a bunch of biographies and you realize like the most successful people in the world,

you're like, oh, I don't want their life. And that's the way I feel. For sure. Out of like, first of all, you said something that's really smart too. It's like people diss like manifestation or visualization. And they think it's like like willie,

buffoon nonsense. Okay, that's fine. I can just tell you it pops up in the books over and over and over again. I told you yesterday I'm reading this fucking insane biobron Raphaia Tiger Woods. This dude is like eight years old listening to motivational tapes, writing it out. And on his wall, it's like, I am powerful. I will achieve my goals, like over and over and over again. And you see this from Edwin Land, Steve Jobs, Estee Lauder, Bob Noyes, founder of Intel, Arno Shoresneger. Have you read the education? I want to send you, I was going to ask me for your address to send you this book, but it's like he might have already read it.

Did you ever read the education of a bodybuilder? I've heard about it. I've never read it. The first 113 pages is it functioned as a as a autobiography of Arnold when he's 30. And like the visualization thing, seeing things like he said, he would lay in bed at night and just picture himself on the stage holding the trophy of the mystery universe or whatever in his hand.

Everybody's like essentially like bowing down to him. He's a conqueror to use like that example. What I find is that a lot of the people that, like even Felix Dennis, man, I think his, the advice he gave was wise. Like that guy had a hole in his heart that could never fill.

He spent $100 million in a debt. decade, 10 million a year on cocaine, alcohol, and prostitutes. You know, like, that's a fucking crazy story in that book. And what I love about autobiography is a bunch of entrepreneurs. Usually they write them towards, and they're like, they don't hide shit. They're like, I was fucked up. I was a bad father. I cheated on my wife.

I, whatever, you know. So the tie this into like the UFC thing and like the conquering is that quote, um, I think it's a I am of the race that founds empires is what it is. So I want to read this quote. that you and I were discussing where I think Joe Rogan is obviously the world's leading expert on, you know,

MMA. Like the stuff, I wish I could talk to that guy. Just I hope I get that, I hope I get the chance just to ask him. I just want to talk about MMA and all the shit is in his brain. And I was very curious what was going to happen with this

John Jones surreal game fight, right? So for those who don't know, John Jones is this very controversial character at age like 22, 23. He was like the first, UFC fighter sponsored by Nike. He was the golden boy. He was the champion when he was 20 or something,

and he's just a killer, never lost. But he, you know, has hit his girlfriend before. He's gotten arrested for drinking and driving. He's a mess. He's a killer on and off the field. Did you ever see the video of him where, remember like during the pandemic, people were like lighting shit on fire.

There's all these riots and they did it in Albuquerque where he's at. And he stopped him. Yeah. You saw that? Could you imagine if those two guys, there's two small guys, like young kids are like spray painting and vandalizing shit? And John is just walking around and like, give me the can. Give me the can. Like, dude, if you know who that is, you'll give him the can.

John Jones is like 6-2, probably, well, now he weighs 260 pounds. I mean, he's like one of the scarier people you could ever see. And he's athletic. The guy's a freak. He's a freak. But he comes off, this is why this is interesting. He tries to come off like a nice guy a lot of times. in interviews. And when you listen to them, talk, you think, or at least I think, this is

learned behavior and you are actually a little more sociopathie than you are not, and you will kill someone easily and sleep like a baby at night. So this is the fascinating thing about studying history. So this is what Joe Rogan said about John Jones, which I think is going to, it reminds me like a young Bill Gates, which we can talk about. He says, Joe, Joe's like, listen, there's human beings that have a ruthless competitive drive that is terrifying to the ordinary person. John Jones is a bad guy who is trying to be a good guy. If he were living a thousand years ago, he'd be on a horse with a battle axe chopping the heads off of everyone, and everyone would be running.

These dominators have always existed. He is a fucking conqueror. That is the thing that's inside of him that leads him to be the goat, greatest of all time. Without that, you don't get there. There's a thing inside of some people that's a driving force that allows them to overcome the greatest people around them. When I heard that, I was the thing about John Jones. I was thinking like, that's Michael Jordan, that's Jeff Bezos, that's the Youngville Gates, that's Edwin Land, that's John Rockefeller, that's Carnegie, that's all of them.

They have this ruthless competitive drive. To me, there are different species than an average person. And so the example of that is, like, I did this excellent biography of the Young Bill Gates, right? In my opinion, the perfect biography, it's like, I don't need to know what their great-grandfather did for living, right? It's like, tell me the struggle. the reason we're like give me a little background to what family they were born into then tell me the struggle and then once they're rich end the book and so there's a book called hard drive

Bill Gates in the making of Microsoft Empire that covers the first 35 years of Bill Gates life right so ends right after the Microsoft IPO and I'm obsessed the reason I have a solo podcast is because my podcast idol is Dan Carlin hardcore history right and is he by himself 100% he's got a giant audience we should actually talk about podcasting if you're interested in that.

A lot of people who will share numbers. He had said, don't let me forget the thread on Bill Gates, by the way. He had said the latest episode, this is like two years ago, that got published, he got 19 million downloads on.

That's insane. And then he said, oh, wait, then he said, oh, wait, it turns out some of them were double counted. In any case, cut it in half. He's got an audience of probably 10 million people

that listen to him. That would be one of the biggest episodes of the year for most every podcast. You know, the big dogs get a million or 1.5 per episode, but rarely, you know, Joe Rogan, if he interviewed like when he interviewed Bernie Sanders or someone like that, that maybe got five or eight or something like that. So Joe, Joe's audience, and Joe has more data than anybody else. And all the Spotify exclusives have more data in anybody else else else. He said, remember when they tried to cancel him? This is also the magic of podcasting man, which I know we don't, like, we, we had to be careful here because we talk about it forever. The problem is,

you have people that don't, if you listen to Joe or you listen, like I listen to you and fucking Sean forever. I know, even before we met, like I know who you guys are. I know manifest cowboy. I know the fucking terminology.

We have an idea of who you are. Like the person before you meet them, right? That's the magic of podcasting. It's like we're not creating content. We're creating relationships at scale, which is very fucking powerful. And still people,

most people don't, they underestimate how powerful this is. And so what happens is like you have, you know, people saying, Joe Rogan's racist. You know, they cut the clip and then, you know, he's anti-backs, everything else. And so they try to cancel him.

And then somebody's been listening to him for fucking 10 years and listens to him 10 hours a week. It's like, you're not going to tell me anything about Joe that I don't know. And so what happens is he said his audience added 2 million people. I think we're from 12 million subscribers to 14 million subscribers on Spotify. Those are those numbers I've heard. Yeah. And it speaks to like this.

He's still the biggest by far because even like the top, you know, humans and everybody else, Like, you're 1.5 without YouTube and everything else. So there's still just crazy how big and successful Joe's show is. But what about Bill? The... Back to Bill. So Bill Gates is... I was doing an episode on him,

and I had just been listening to Dan Carlin's Rath of the Khan series on Gang of Khan for like the 15th time. And Bill Gates is not who you think he is. It's like, this is Genghis Khan in a Mr. Rogers' costume. He's in a disguise. And he is unbelievably relentless. So there's this guy named Michael Moritz, who was, now he's a billionaire. He's one of the guys that helps scale Sequoia. But at the time, he's just a journalist.

And this is a perfect example. He's giving, just a journalist, I think he's writing for Time Magazine. And he's meeting Bill, you know, Bill's probably, maybe it's like 28, something like that. They do an interview. Bill's like, hey, I'll give you a right to the airport. They get in Bill's car. And Michael's like, oh, shit, somebody broke into your car. What happened here?

He's like, what are you talking about? He goes, your radio. It's like, somebody stole your radio. He's like, no, I ripped it out. He said, why would you do that? He's like, from my house to Microsoft's office is seven minutes. That's 14 minutes a day. From Microsoft's office to the airport, I go there three times a week.

That's 15 minutes around trip. You know, 30 minutes each way, 30 minutes around trip. And he adds this up, he's like, so that's like two hours in the car. And if I have a radio, then I'd listen to it. And then I'm spending two hours not thinking about Microsoft. And there's all these fucking crazy stories because somebody asked the other day, like, what's the largest bootstrap business of all time? And Paul Graham answered,

Microsoft. And people were like, oh, they took VC. No, no. They were printing money and they sold a million shares of Microsoft for a million dollars to a VC. They did not need the money right before they went public to get expertise. That was a bootstrap business. The year before, this is in 1980 money, the year before Microsoft IPOs, they did 140 million in revenue and 38 million profit. That's insane, right? He's insane. And then so this extreme, John Jones, the serial game thing, when you hear about how he thinks about his fucking competitors, it's not. just enough that he needs to win. He's like, I have to fucking destroy you. So there's this spooky fucking, this spooky story that's in one of Bill Gates' biographies. I've read two of them. And Bill would be able to tell you, like, in the software industry, he's like, I know the CEO of every single software company.

I know what the revenue was. I know where their product is right now. I know everything about them. And so they all, they have a bunch of like frenemies. He's like, I want to destroy you, but he would talk to you. And a lot of them were getting customers at these early days of like, these software conventions, which is very, like, very new. And so this guy, Philippe Khan that he was trying to fucking destroy it, he literally wants

to put you out of business because he told his employees, like, if I, if we lose a $50,000 contract, that's not $50,000. That's $100,000 because we lost 50 and our fucking enemy got $100,000. So you just cost me $100,000. He was like, that's psychotic about it. And so Philippe goes over, sees Bill sitting by himself in like a foldable chair, just looking at something. Philippe walks up to him

and he goes to say hi to Bill and he realizes what Bill's looking at. He's looking at a picture of Philippe Khan. He's in public in a fucking corner of a convention center staring at a fucking picture of his enemy. Like what Joe said about John, a thousand years ago,

we lived at zero sum. If you wanted to build wealth, what'd you do? Like you took their land or took their resources to somebody else. Pallage. Yes. Yeah.

So a thousand years ago, that personality type, Bill Gates, he would have been in Poland. He would have been leading an army. It just so happens that this same personality type that exists today, has existed forever, will exist forever in the future, can run companies and build wealth. And when you study the personalities of these people, it's like they're all like that.

Thank God we are living a free market economy, or else they'd be pillaging and raping and doing everything else. Well, that's why my favorite era of American history is like 1890, So that's 30 or 20 years after the Civil War. So America's kind of getting back to it up until like 1920. Because in 1920, like the Sherman Act, which was the Anti-Monopoly Act, started coming about. And then the SEC was invented. And so between like 1890 and 1920, America was really the Wild West where we had some technology.

You know, we had cars. We had, I think phones were coming about. telegraphs. Railroads. And the stock market existed. So we could like make wealth, but there's a few things that you could do. So for example, Andrew Carnegie and, um, uh, who's his partner, Frick. Like Henry Clay Frick. Yeah. Like when people would, uh, when the union workers would boycott and protest, they killed them. Like they, they hired a private police team and they went out, a private army and they literally beat like 10 of them to death. And I don't think anything happened. I don't know if anything happened. No, because they also own the politicians. Yeah, and it was wild. And then,

like, there was a time where J.P. Morgan loaned the U.S. government money. And, and then there was a time, a lot of people don't know this, but JFK, John F. Kennedy, the president, his father, Joe Kennedy, was like the seventh richest man in America at one point. He got rich from insider trading. Then, after he was already rich, he created, or he was the first head of the SEC. that made insider trading illegal. Like, it was, like, hardcore crony capitalism. That's one of the reasons why I like reading about John Rockefeller is because of all the things he did, he was dishonest once or twice, but for the most part, he was a

ruthless competitor and he didn't lie and he was honest other than one big time he lied. But besides that, he was pretty straight. And how crazy was it that his employees, like, he never, we never heard him raise his voice and he never said an unkind word to us. Now, his competitors, different story. He's completely boosted us with them. But inside of his, you're not going to find anybody that worked inside of standard oil. And then obviously they hid all the things they owned.

There's actually an idea I stole from Rockabend. By the way, his competitors, he wasn't really, I mean, he was ruthless, but he would go to them. He goes, hey, I would like to buy you. This is a very fair price. Come and join me, and I'll make you rich, of which many did. And they got rich. And he said, if you don't join me, I'm going to destroy you. So let me know if you.

And so to me, that's like, he's like, look, we can work together. or I'm going to end you. You can pick. But he wasn't necessarily like rude about it. Yeah. So the one thing he said was so badass. He was trying to buy somebody out.

They were persisted. He's like, I have ways to make money that you know nothing about. He was, I always say like there's a very common theme that common themes that reappear in the history of entrepreneurship.

And so I have maxims for a bunch of these. Like my favorite one is excellence as a capacity to take pain. It's just like you're not going to achieve large success without being able to tolerate pain for extended periods of time. Right? Another one is bad boys,

move in silence. Like, they find an advantage and they shut up about it. This is what Steve Jobs realized when he was trying to build Pixar. He's just like, we can't get any fucking data on how profitable because they're transitioning for selling hardware to just pure animate, like trying to build the first computer animated movie. And Steve Jobs is like, I don't get, why, like, we can't get any information on this. And then he realized, he's like, oh, the reason that you can't go to the library and check out a book that says, like, the business model of animation is because there's only one company ever did it well and it's Disney. And they don't want anybody else to know how to how lucrative it is.

And so he realized that because they had made like Snow White like 60 years before. And right when he's doing this negotiations with Pixar and Disney, they re-released it and we're selling like VHS tapes. And I think that they might have had DVDs at this point. And they're like, wait a minute, you just sold 28 million copies of a movie you made 60 years ago. That's all profit. And they made two,

he said they made a quarter billion in profit on that one movie releasing it for the, like, this new technology. And so I actually took an idea from John D. Rockefeller. Rob Moore plays a role in this. is like what Rockefeller would do is like he had this secret allies, right? And so he entered into an industry

where he thought was very disorganized. And so he wound up building relationships and allies with all the people in the oil. Remember, the oil business, when he jumps in, it's not what we think is oil. He was like refiner. He was selling kerosene for fucking lighting and stuff.

He actually made more money in retirement because after he retired, he still owned a shit ton of equity. He goes back to Felix Dennis. And then the ambition of the core. And so now, like, oh, this, my, my stock's even worth more. But what he would do is he'd go around and he'd organize all the other people in the industry. So like, I do this with a bunch of podcasters.

Like, me and you just started doing this, like, texting about this. It's just like, you just share information. Like, you build secret allies and you just say, hey, this guy figured out this for your podcast, you should use it. And like, everybody in the podcast industry is extremely positive sum. I listened to your, your interview with Brandon Shaw. He said the same thing about, he's like, Joe told us we have an obligation. to help each other out. And so for a business podcast,

they're all kind of like satellites and like loosely defined. And so me and Patrick have been going around building relationships to people and just sharing information. Like I was at the Acquired Guys' house in San Francisco a few weeks ago. They're like, we get Patrick,

they have one of the most profitable, Ben and David who are fantastic. I'm actually wearing their merch right now. They have one of the most profitable podcasts compared to audience size to how much they make. And they're like, well, Patrick told us that we weren't charging

enough so we tripled our prices. Then we and then we still sold ads and then we tripled them again and then it's like, holy shit, he was right. And so that idea is like we're no gatekeeping, just share information and try to help people as much as possible. That's an idea from Rockefeller. When you read about

some of these killers, do you think they are different than me or do you start becoming that? Do you think that just surrounding yourself with them is going to change your behavior or is it just like aliens exist and I am not them? no here's the thing we i don't know if we were recording i like how you guys just jump right in by the way

um so i don't i think most of our discussion was caught on the recording but um i am very glad that i have a wife and two kids um up and down like here's here's my thing it's like the thing that i don't like in this very present in a lot of these books is like if you're an adult it's your job to figure it out and like that let people take advantage you right so if like john d rockefeller give you a bad price and for your business you accepted that's on you what i'm in you hear this on the podcast like i'm induced in sustained of rage is when people fuck with kids i can't stand and so up and down my family tree like i was the first person to graduate high school my family much less college i'm the first uh male and my three generations not to go to jail right and so like up and down both sides of my family

tree i just see a lot of like terrible parenting and this is not necessarily my parents they did the best they can because they're both sets of their parents for shitty people but like i saw drug abuse i saw sexual abuse. I saw people going to jail, cocaine, all this crazy shit, right? And so I was like, if I'm going to have kids, I'm not going to be a shit father. And I think the fact that I have a kid and a wife that, like, we get along really well, it saves me from not, I think if I didn't have that, I would literally work from the time I, eyes open the morning until the time they close. And I would just fucking, like, I think the scary part is like I, and I'm trying to compare myself to, you know, You can't compare myself to rock for us.

But like, I have a little bit of that in me too. And I think I hear from a ton of people to listen. They're like, I think like that too. The whole thing is like learning from their experience like, hey, but they get to their life. They're not necessarily happy. You know, like so I don't want that.

I don't want to destroy everything around me because I chased professional success. But I think men in general, you know, type A aggressive men. Like that's what successful people, super successful people, crazy. They're not normal humans. And it's probably one to five percent of the population that are

borderline sociopathic. I'm not saying voter people. That's a little bit extreme, but like they're willing to do whatever they can if you get in their way. So I've been lucky that as we've it's funny that as we've gotten more popular for like content

and business shit. A lot of people in different fields who I previously looked up to, like for example, a Lance Armstrong or someone like that, they'll like message me and I'll get an opportunity to hang out with them. And this isn't about Lance, but this is, I've been lucky that it's been a bunch of different people. And I'll go and hang out with them a couple of times. And then I think, I don't want to be around you ever again. Like, and so, like, I don't enjoy being around them.

And so I've had a bunch of people who, if you told me when I was 12 that these people want to talk to me, I'd be like, that is sick. Now I'm just, I'm just like, I don't like being around you. It's actually not enjoyable being around some of these people, um, because it feels like, well, I don't know exactly how it feels like. Like, it feels like we're in a pissing match when we're with each other. Yeah. I simply don't enjoy it. And so now I have a rule in my household, which is no new friends.

So I default. Whenever I talk to someone, I default to I'm not going to be friends until it's like, all right, maybe after a while we can, we can cross the threshold. But by default, it's I don't trust you and I'm not going to let you in. whereas before it was like, oh, anyone who wants to holler at me? Yeah, I'm in. And then I go and hang out with some of these ballers and these killers. And I think, oh, this is a very unenjoyable hang.

You know, there's a bunch of people who maybe Ben might know who we're talking about. But there's like a couple people that are like some of the most famous and successful people in the world. And we've been lucky to hang out with them. And then we'll go hang out with them after the pod. And I'm like, oh, this is just miserable. I don't want to be around you at all. And so my point being is to what you said about. the most successful people being crazy.

Not only are they crazy, I don't want to be around them. It's not fun. They're not fun to be around. And so you really see that there's a price to pay, which is you are in the one percentile or 99 percentile of these other traits, which usually not always means you're going to be lacking in a handful of other traits. And sometimes that's like whatever the traits are of you wanting to be near someone, I guess, like physically and hanging out with someone.

That's by big, everybody's like, are you doing all this? So you want to run like the next Apple? Like, what are you doing this for? And I'm like, no. Like at the 300 people that I've studied, the person that I want to be the most like is the closest person that I've studied and read about that has come to mastering life is this guy named Ed Thorpe, right?

And so it's up. Who's he? This is a fucking crazy story. So it's episode 222. And the crazy thing is like, usually the episode titles are just the book I read, right? This says my personal blueprint. Right.

And because what he did is like, First of all, he's a, Eddorp is one of, he was the guy that made the first quantitative hedge fund, right? The reason I liked him is because what I think you were talking about earlier, like, you have varied interests, right? Where you need a balance because I've also heard you speak enough where I'm like, okay, he's clearly type A and driven. And like, if you didn't have your wife or you didn't have these other things, I could also see you going, not sociopathic, but like, you know, no limit to the kind of empire that you want to build. You have a chip on her shoulders. It's like all of them. I do too.

So I see that. Ed Thorpe essentially, like what he did is, like he made a ton of money as a quantitative investor, right? But once he had more money, like he didn't need to worry about money anymore. He refused to trade time to make more money because he understood he's like, more money is not going to make me happy. But by time is limited. He was a good father.

He was a good husband. He was, he followed his own intellectual interests. Like he had fun. Tim Ferriss just interviewed him. And I would highly recommend going to YouTube and just type in Tim Ferriss at Thorpe. And look at that guy's picture and tell me how old you think he is?

I've done this a bunch. I did it with my wife. I go, how old do you think he is? She's, I don't know, 65. He's fucking 90. Because he learned when he was really young that physical fitness was really important. And so he gave me the best heuristic for health.

He goes, I view every hour in the gym as one less day I'll spend in the hospital at the end of my life. And the guy's still doing like pull-ups. He looks fucking fantastic, right? I think he might be like 92. And so this whole balance of like your friend Ryan Holiday actually, I learned this from his content was like what it means to be a completed human.

We've known that forever. We just get distracted. It's like you want work that has meaning. You want good relationships. You want to have fun and you want to make sure that your body's healthy and you should feel good. That's it. There isn't anything else. I love what you just said because the same thing.

When you have a successful podcast, you get hit up on all kinds of fucking crazy experiences, which is actually, you know, huge benefit. but it's like, man, I'm not going to build a thousand relationships that are like an inch deep. I just talk to the same people over and over and over and over again. It's like you have a limited amount of people you can actually be friends with. And yet we're all connected. So we're like, we're hugely distracted.

So I was like, okay, I'm not smart as a Thorpe. He's way smarter to me. So I'll just fucking copy his blueprint. I'll write that down. I'll be a good father. I'll be a good husband. I'll take care of my hell. I'll have work that I'm really fucking obsessed with, but I pick guardrails on.

Right? and like I'm not going to keep trading money or time, which I'm going to run out of for more money when I'm not even spending the money I have. I want to ask you some more questions about history, but a story really quick. I have a friend who's 40, low 40s, worth a billion dollars, has a publicly traded company,

and he was telling me this story about how he had this phrase called, It's Never Enough. And he was telling me a story about how he went to one guy's home, who was worth 50 million and the guy was complaining about how he lives in this fancy neighborhood and he can't,

his home is, his $6 million home is less good than, or it was worse than the other people in the neighborhood. Then he's like, I went to another guy who's worth like half a billion

and he was saying like, yeah, but you know what I don't have? A super yacht. And then there was another guy who had like one or two billion and this guy was complaining he's like,

can't get a sports team though. It's not enough. And so, I don't want to be wrong people. I think you hit it. Don't be like, I don't want to be around people like that. It's never enough.

And that's what I've also learned because like, I've thought that when I've hit certain points, I'm like, well, I won't want anymore. You always want more. It's a very challenging thing. It doesn't have to be that way, though. I had the advantage because like this is the crazy thing about podcast you just said. Like, you never know who's listening. So I got invited to have two hour lunch with Sam Zell, right?

And that's fucking crazy. It came inbound. Sam had listened to the podcast I made on his autobiography. And he's like, I want to meet that guy. So Sam Zell is a real estate guy. He's got a great book called, Am I being loud enough? Am I being subtle?

Am I being subtle enough? Yeah. Am I being subtle enough? He's probably close to 90 now. He's kind of got this blue collar-ish vibe about him, but he's worth probably $5 or $10 billion, something like that. He owned all these real estate things. He created the REIT, I think.

Then he owned Schwinn bicycles. He owned the LA Times, I think, or the Tribune, something like that. So he's like a tycoon. So you're, and you'd fucking love him. So he's 81 years old. He sold his, his real estate company for $30 billion to Black Roak or Blackstone. I don't fucking know.

You know, they're all named the same. And so, you know, who the fuck? How often do you get to meet somebody that sells their company for $40 billion? And I couldn't believe this is going to happen. I thought it was like, oh, like this isn't really going to happen. Now it was like, oh, maybe it's going to be like a lunch I'm invited to and there. And there's like, like, oh, he sat eye to eye for two fucking hours. And he's not like that.

You would, the reason I got back after that lunch and I told my wife, I go, I want that. I want that. I want to be 81 years old, completely still, unbelievably curious about the world around him, still doing deals, doesn't give off fuck. He's not one of these like media trade guys, right? He only wears blue jeans, I think. He invented, he takes credit. He's like, I invented business casual. I'm like, Sam, I don't know if you should inventing business casual.

It's fucking hilarious that you would say that you invented business casual, will not wear a suit, still rides a motorcycle. still I think smoked weed like it's fucking crazy but the thing the advice that he gave me he's like David he's like the richer you get what you realize is one he goes you'd be shocked at how many rich guys I know that aren't having fun which is describing exactly

what you're saying you go to their house and they're talking about other people or what other people have I'd run the other truck away Sam didn't talk about that he goes listen he goes money he's like there's very few luxuries in life the richer he got he's like then I just kept just buying nicer of the same shit. So I'd buy a house, then I'd get richer, then I'd buy another house. He's like, this was fucking stupid.

So he's like, I basically own nothing. He has a place in Chicago and he has a compound in Malibu. That's his words, by the way. He's like, I have a compound of Malibu. He's like, the advice he gave me over and over again. He said it five or six times over two hours. He's like optimized for freedom. If you get freedom, you get to choose what you do and then you'll have fun.

And if you have fun, you'd be really good at it and the money will come. But do not give up your freedom for money, which so many rich dudes do. It's fucking crazy. And then he goes, the one, thing. He's like, none of that shit matters. I could buy everything I want. He goes, I rent a bunch of shit. He goes, I rent a bunch of shit. I know you fucking hate owning a house. And so he's like, renting, yeah. He's like, don't own a bunch of shit. Just rent it when you need it. Like, because if you own it, then you got to take care of it. This is advice from fucking the guy that,

you know, obviously own assets. He was buying, he's still buying a ton of businesses. The day before I saw him, he's like, he's, dude, he was 81. He's just, his eyes lit up. He's like, I just spent $300 million dollars buying 75% of this company makes $50 million a year or some shit. Like, he just loves the deal. He's like, I'm going to be deal so I die just because he likes the game. He's like, he treats it like a game. But he's like, there's only one true luxury in life. He goes, try to get the private jet money.

Really? What was it like meeting Charlie Munger? So that was fucking crazy too. And again, because like Andrew and his partner, Chris, it was fascinating because I heard your podcast where you guys had met Chris and spent time with him. and I got to have the few hours before

we had dinner with Traylor and Munger I had like a super long lunch one-on-one with Chris and that dude is fascinating I wonder if he'd ever come on your podcast I'm gonna hang out with him tonight I want to be with him tonight okay yeah like you should

I know he's more private he's another guy where I think he knows like one of the things I loved about Chris now he's he's wicked smart but one of the things I thought was so cool is like he showed me his calendar when we had lunch he's like look at my calendar

It's like every day at 3 o'clock, I'm picking my, I think it's his son, his son up from school. Like he's not going to be, you know, he's like obviously rich and successful will continue to be more rich and more successful as he carries on. But he's not doing it at the detriment of being a shitty dad, which is like I admire a lot. I fucking hate shitty dads. So what was Munger like? He was present? So Munger was, he has this line where he's like, oh, I didn't succeed in life because of intelligence. I succeeded because of a long attention span.

Definitely has a long attention span, but that dude is way smarter to me. Like if anybody's going to have... Even at 98 or how old is he, 95? So he's 99. Anybody is going to have some level of cognitive decline at 99. And so all I could think about is like, if that is who he is in 99, imagine trying to compete with that dude 30 years ago. What was his house like? I had to be careful because I got into a little bit of like, they want me to keep some of that stuff private.

So I can't answer that question. What's it fancy? Was it as you'd expect, which is very, very, very nice? No, he's very authentic. If you read Munger and talk about Munger, he's like, hey, don't have a lot of silly needs in your life. His whole thing is like, I truly believe that he just wanted to show what he could do with his brain. So he could make a ton of money with his mind because he's really smart. He like, where's like, you know, he loves to.

Flannel in your picture, I think, like a flannel from Amazon. So the Costco, like his one of the state entrepreneurs, Jim Sinigal, I love a lot too. And one of the favorite companies, Jim Sinigal, it's Costco because of that Costco could have made more money, but passed the benefit of their group buying onto the customer. And so Charlie is who he says he is. He's like he doesn't have fancy watch, doesn't have fancy clothes.

He just buys books as far as I can tell and talks to interesting people and makes a ton of money. But he's not in it for the money. He just wanted, he says, he's like, I didn't want the Ferraris, I wanted the independence. who all that you've so besides Ed Thorpe who all have you who have you listened to

or spoken about that you think is like in your top five people of like they will conquer the world if given the chance like they are they are the top they are the one percent of the one percent I mean I think

the selection here is that every single person is in the top you know point zero zero zero one percent because you're only to get on founders you have to live a lay some work or somebody were to book about it What I would say is, like, I just got done reading James Dyson's autobiography for the fourth time. And it is my number one book recommendation by far for entrepreneurs. And he's written two autobiographies.

The second one's fine. There's nothing wrong with that. I'm talking with the first one. Because the first one, he writes after 14 years of struggle. Like, what I admire so much about this guy is like, he's not necessarily like a conqueror in a sense like he's going to go around. I don't think he'd be like a Napoleon in other times. But what I loved is like my favorite entrepreneur. or very adamant about what they want to do in life and how they want to run their business.

It's not formulaic. They're not going around asking people advice. Like, what do you think I should do? What is my product look like? What is how should I run the business? Like, no, I have a very set mindset of like how I want to build the product, how I want to build my business, how I want to spend my time. You know what I call that. I call that.

I call that. They bend reality to their, to their will. You know, they kick their dent in the universe. That's what I always call that. I'm like, they know what they want. and they bent reality to fit what they wanted. Read that dude. You can read his autobiography in a weekend.

It'll fucking blow your mind because it's like, why is this guy not quitting? Well, what is happening here? He's barring, he's got two mortgages on every single house. He's got these crying at the end of the night and everything's going to be successful and he just won't quit.

And what happens is like, you fast forward now. James Dyson is 75 years old. He owns 100% of Dyson company. He's like, you know, that company's probably worth $20 billion. It makes supposedly, you know, a couple billion a year for profit for his family that like they take out of the company. What I love is, um, he, the company he owned before Dyson Vacuums, it was this thing called a ballbarrow, which looks like a wheelbarrow with a ball at the front.

And he goes and rents, does a photo shoot for the ball barrow at this like massive estate that has been in England for like 300 years. 25 years later, he buys it. He's like, this is my shit now. Dude, I've talked to a lot of people who love that book. One thing that, one thing, so I remember, like, when I've just got started in my career, I was like firmly in the field of like, I'm going to pull myself up from my bootstraps and I'm going to make this into existence. And then I remember when we were selling our company and everything got done. And that was the first time in my life where I thought luck is so important. And even though I think I'm a badass and that I would, and I think that I could will myself to a very, I think I could will myself to a really nice,

amount of success, but in order to have the Uber success, which will describe as like liquid hundreds of millions of dollars, there's lots of people who are these types of killers, who do have these attributes, but one or two things, both in their control and out of their control went wrong or right, and that can absolutely change things. Like, it could be like, like, you know, John Rockefeller didn't know that a car was going to be invented. Or like, with Zuckerberg, like, he would have kicked ass no matter what, but it just so happened that, like, the phone came out and that like has helped a ton or uh you know someone like what you know i'm sure we've seen a lot of fortunes get created during a pandemic like luck is real like when we sold our company

and that was my first big win the CEO brine got into a nearly fatal accident afterwards and i'm like dude if that happened like four weeks prior i don't know if this would have gone through and i still think i'll be very successful but imagine if i was selling my company for a or $2 billion and the CEO of the buyer got killed or quit. Do you think that with these guys luck is real? Of course. You said something great on the acquired podcast. You're like,

I've met a lot of these guys. They're 20 times richer, but they're not 20 times smarter. Yeah. And a lot of, Rockefeller is a great example, right? So the best way to describe is like moderate level success. Like, you know,

you could probably get to tens of millions of dollars in net worth. That's like playing poker, right? It's like, that's a skill set you can get. But like to Jeff Bezos, like the funniest thing I had dinner last night with two founders. So it's like, you guys know that Jeff Bezos was private jet has a private jet? Like he takes off and there's another one.

Like that level of shit, like there's so many things that got to break. The idea is like he knew he was going to do everything store. Why does he have a second private jet? I'd love to ask him. I don't know. Like, so you know how this is like people track private jets now?

Some YouTuber made a video and they noticed that every time Jeff's maybe it's like the people who doesn't want on his plane. I don't fucking know. But like there's a jet that follows his other. they jet around. And like it's somebody put all this together from public information. So, uh, that level of success. Like he knew, okay, the internet's growing. The everything store was a code name in the hedge fund. He, for Amazon, they, they were going to incubate it in the hedge fund. He was working for David Shaw, a billionaire hedge fund guy in New York. And so he knew it's like,

we could sell books. And then he also knew he could sell all those things, but likely. But he didn't know, like he could invent AWS. Like there was no, like all that stuff that happens. Rockafell is a great example. Bezos, when he pitched the first investors, he goes, I think this can make a hundred million dollars a year if we're lucky. Yeah, it took him 50 meetings for Ventricapolis to get his first million dollars and he said the most common question he's asked is what is the internet? He's a fucking savage. He is the closest to me, Bezos reminds me so much a Rockefeller. Like if you read Bezos's shareholder letters are excellent because he's telling you what he's, just like the Arnold book that I recommend earlier, Arnold says, this is my blueprint, this is when I

do, he calls a shot and then he goes and does it. Bezos does the same thing. But the Rockefeller, 20 times richer, but not 20 times smarter thing. I think it's obviously you're talking about randomness. You're talking about luck. Rockefeller was going to be successful no matter what. The business he was in, as you know, it's like they were wholesale in like produce and other stuff, right? They were just traders.

And one thing that he did, I think is really smart is like he's worked, he's like 19 years old working for two founders. He's just an employee. He goes back and read all of their books, goes back and studies their entire company history, memorizes all the finances, everything, and then knew more about the business and the founder's said. Like that kind of personality is going to win. wherever he's going to go. Now, he could have stayed in that business and made millions of dollars.

Is he going to build the arguably the most successful company of all time if it wasn't for the random discovery of oil? No. He didn't control the fact that he was in the, what I would say in the podcast is like, you find these people that are the right person, right set of skills, at the right place, at right time. If you're missing any of those, you're not going to build, you know, a $2 million or $200 billion net worth. You need things to break for you that are outside of your people. What do you think you're going to do next? Like, what's your blueprint for 10 years? Okay. So this is where I start talking reckless because I am probably the most optimistic person in terms of like how good business of a business podcasting can be. And I start

talking crazy. And then I have some friends that have built giant businesses on the back of podcasts. I was at dinner with them last week. And they literally pulled me to the side. They like, shut the up. Stop telling people all the shit. What's an example of a great business

built on the back of a pod? I'll tell you. I'll tell you, I can't. I can't. There's, okay, so there's one that I don't have

any intimate knowledge on. I can give me an example of that. Because there's someone that have intimate knowledge, so I'm not sure what I know that I can speak public

and don't, but like butcher box, bootstrap, $500 million of revenue, largely expanded from podcasting. And there's a ton

of those industry. By buying podcast ads. Yes. Got it. Yes. And then look at, this is something I actually learned on your podcast, which I think you guys do an excellent job with,

was when you guys were talking about how Unilever came and bought on it. Right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I didn't know that happened. I knew about On it, I knew about Joe. I knew he owned like 30% rumored to be owned 30% of the company.

But think about it, like Joe has a ton of ad slots, just that one ad slot that he randomly put in. He probably netted just on that ad slot, I don't know, $75 million, like depending on which actual purchase price was. Joe, so this idea is like I started talking shit where like people like, everybody knows because of Mr. Beast thing.

Oh yeah, there's going to be, I could see why there's going to be like some billionaire YouTubers, right? Like that I think that is obvious now given where Mr. Beast highly likely that dude, unless he dies, he's going to hit that. My point is it's like, that's the deep relationship people have a podcasters is not comparable to the relationship that have with YouTubers. It's not at all comparable.

And this is not at all new what like, anything that what do you mean people are deeply are more uh they they like podcasters more like there's more affinity it's so do you know blake robbins from uh he's at benchmark he has this okay so um he'd be actually interested somebody interested in talking he's the one that gave me this spectrum idea he's uh helped incubate uh what's the what's the professional call duty team 100 thieves or 40 thieves oh yeah yeah yeah i know i know you mean they went from zero to like 80 million of revenue i think like 18 months or some shit like this so nagea was developed an audience on

Twitch streaming. And so Blake has this spectrum and this comes to you. Like there's people out there that I've heard you and Sean talk way more than they've heard their best friends voice. Yeah, because when they put the headphones in,

it's just us and them. And it's usually for 50 or an hour, minutes, you know, 60 minutes at a time. Whereas a YouTube video, it's maybe eight. I've heard you talk for 100 hours. Like so like we've taxed exchange messages in line But never talk in person I was like oh I fucking knows him

Like I know what he's into We have the same interest Like I think we'll be able to talk about a bunch of shit A bunch of shit right So his whole point is like on the spectrum Is like how much do people spend with you He's like on the far end all the way to left It's like TikTok dancers right

TikTok dancers You know they may have millions of followers But they spent 30 seconds And if they try to like sell tickets They can't even fill a room with like 3,000 people Even if there's thousands of dollars On the far end of the spectrum All these are right is Twitch streamers

people spend literally 40 hours a week with their favorite Twitch streamer, right? Or 30 hours a week or 20 hours. He goes, David, podcast and you, you're just one step towards the left. He goes, there's going to be people that have listened to you speak for hundreds of hours. And that parasycial relationship is unbelievably

deep and comprehensive to, like, you saw that. I saw people had said that you're doing a public meetup, I think in Austin, right? Or a show. And there's people flying in from fucking Dubai. Yeah, it's crazy, right? Okay, so think about that. Like, they're not flying in to Dubai to watch, like, a TikTok dancer.

They're not flying in, and your podcast is technically your business. You have all this other stuff you could do. It's like, how many brands do people identify with so much that they'll fly across the world? I just did this. I'm introverted as fuck, right? Yeah, you seem like it. Yeah, so. Yeah, I am.

A one-on-one. Yeah, but on 101, but with groups, I hate it. So Shane Parrish from Knowledge Project Burner Street was in Miami. He's like, dude, let's do a public. meetup. I'm like, oh, fuck. And I agree just because he's did it. How many people came? Like 70, like I think around

like 70 people came. It's awkward, right? It's not awkward. I don't think I'd do it again. But like, this is the thing. Like, the only thing I did to promote it, Shane was supposed to set it out to his newsletter. Never did.

Thanks, Shane. But I just made it like this one minute. I was like in like five days before the event or something. I uploaded to my podcast fee. I was like, hey, you happen to be in Miami area. We're going to do this. Here's where we're going to be. And I'm like, all right,

there's no, like, my audience is in like, California, New York. There's like, Miami's not like the spot for it. People flew out from New York, Washington, D.C., drove for hours.

And I'm like, what are you in town for? Like this? I'm like, why? What are you talking about? And so it's this deep level of relationship. So here's your question. Like,

my 10 year plan is just like, I'm going to be making podcast until I fucking die. I love doing it. It's the best job in the world. I think Sean tweeted out something that he's like, podcasting is the best job in the world.

It's like you get to be curious to learn all the time. And then you package up what you learn and you send it out to the world. And all this good benefit comes back to you. You know, relationships, investment opportunities, businesses you can launch whatever case is. And so I'm just going to run the same playbook that like Rockefeller is. Like right now you scale with ads. People pay a very hot dollar amount because your audience is valuable. And thank you for promoting Hampton on your pot of that.

That was more than my first car, buddy. for free. I appreciate it. Hey, look, hopefully you get more, hopefully you get more than enough value in this way. No, that's a perfect example. I did it. You didn't have to ask me to do that because I got so much value from you.

The weird thing that you probably experienced too, that this is, people, dude, the conversation you have of podcasters, if you're not on this side, you don't understand. A listener does not understand the shit that,

like, why every single person you talk to that's a podcaster has a successful podcast is like, I'm never fucking not going to quit. Like, I'm never not going to do this. This thing is, it's like magic. And so when I was like, dude, I think Hampton, first of all, is a great idea because entrepreneurs have to be around other entrepreneurs.

Like, we do not think like anybody else, you go to up, you're going to have, you said you're going to have a family. Once you started having kids, you go to these birthday parties. And then you're back into, you're outside of your bubble and now you're in like random distribution of people. And every time I'm like, where's the, where's the entrepreneur in the room? And if an entrepreneur, I got to leave. Like, you have to be around them. Paul Graham has that great line where he's like ambitious people are star to be around other ambitious people. If you put them together, they bloom like dying plants with water, which is exactly what you're doing with Hampton.

The funny thing is like, oh, thanks for doing that. I was like, no, no, thank you for making your fucking podcast. I see, every day I get messages like, like, thank you for doing it. I was like, dude, if you didn't listen, like, I get to read books for a living. I need to be thanking you. So that's the power of podcast. So the answer question is like, I'm going to vertically integrate. What's that mean? So like,

by next year at this time, like you're not going to be, no one's going to be able to buy an ad on founders, right? So. And this is the crazy thing about having a podcast. So like you have all, you hit on it. You're like,

super successful people read all the time. They also listen to business podcasts all the time. And you were able to build relationships with them. We're like, I just met like, when I talked to Chris and Andrew, I was like, you guys can advertise for as long as you want, but eventually, like, what you,

I think ideally is like, find a business. You guys buy businesses for a living. You hire managers for a living. Like, we'll partner up on distribution as opposed to like just doing an ad. You have people like Patrick O'Shaughnessy from Invest Like the Best. Like literally saying, hey, whether we have to buy a company, we scale it, or are we incubate a company? Like, basically he's like, we need to find founders version of Tigis.

Right? And what does that mean? This is something that I think is public now. So I don't think I'll get in trouble for saying this. I've heard about this. I can say it so you don't get in trouble if you want. So this is just rumors. So here, let me tell you the rumors that I heard.

So there's this company, and you could let me know. So this way you won't get in trouble for revealing anything. Tegas is a company where I think what they do is if you wanted to talk to an expert, you pay them money and they connect you with an expert. But they record all the conversations and transcribe them. And so instead of paying money to talk to an expert, you could just read the transcriptions they had with any other experts, whatever. I heard that they advertised on Patrick O'Shaughnessy's podcast, and he saw how good it was going. And he goes, screw this.

I want some type of equity. And I'll invest a little bit, but I want to add a sweetheart deal. And it was a sweetheart deal. And he continued sending them tons of customers to the point where his equity holding in the company is worth tens of millions of dollars. Is that roughly accurate? So I don't know the prices. I know he says this publicly. He put 20 million into his company.

He's got a giant fund too. My point is, like, I don't know the valuations. I'm sure if I asked Patrick, he would tell me, but, you know, it's none of my business. My point is that, like, okay, Michael Elnick, who's a co-founder of Teegas, the CEO, and a fucking savage. Like, he is, he is like the guys we study, right? I was, we talked. I was talking to him one time. And he was just telling me, like, oh, like, what do you do, like, de, he does.

impressed. Like, you're in a, like, he's building an incredibly valuable company. He's got a, like, and he's completely dedicated to it. And him and his brother both ran track up Brown. So, like, they blow off stress by like running, like Phil Knight did in Nike. And then you ask him, he's like, oh, so like how much you work? He's like, oh, I take time off. Like, I think Saturday morning's off. And it's like, oh, Saturday morning's off. So he's on it. I love his intensity. But he said, he's just like one, at one podcast, they only advertised, they had their first few customers from like, you know, word of mouth of their network. But, you know, the first probably 50 to 60 million dollars of revenue, whatever it is,

like Patrick's podcast, because of who's in his audience, help them scale. And as a result, like, then there's just a relation, there's a million things you could do. So in Patrick's case, he's running a fund, like you can do equity. I'm not an investor. You said the other day when you were talking to camera who you were interviewing, like you don't like investing in people's companies. You want to build your own shit. Yeah, investing doesn't entirely give me a dopamine rush.

Like, I'm in the game for adventure and I'm searching like a little bit of a rush. And I find it to be very, it's so boring. You give someone money and you don't hear from them for six years. I'm the same way. I'm like, I'm not interested. I get so much deal flow. Like, hey, do you want an angel invest? I'm like, no.

Like, why? I would just like do my own shit. And people say I'm stupid on doing that. And they have to understand it. It's like, I'm not also running my life to maximize for most dollars mate. Like that doesn't make any, like, we talked about learning is not just memorizing information, it's changing behavior. How many fucking times you get to these super rich people that do things they don't like for money and then get money and they wonder why they're not happy anymore? All that matters is how you spend your time.

So what's going to be your TIGA's, though, what's going to be your product? I don't know what that's the thing. It's like, I was having conversation with two founders about this last night. The good thing is, is like, we have some ideas. Obviously, like, we'll share that when time comes. But like, I have all these really smart, successful people that like the podcast that want to help. you know, like Andrew and Chris Satiny. I just met with their EIR.

I think they have more than one, but I just had a conversation with their EIR. Patrick's trying to help me. The guy that connect me with Sam Zell, he's got like $20 billion of assets under management. He's just like, well, we can fucking buy a company. We can do whatever you want, you know? He's also has the best business with some companies

to scale up podcasting, so he understands power. And he just likes the product. So the point being is like, that's where I'm going, but I'm not doing it for money. I'm doing it because I'm completely obsessed with podcasting. I think it's a miracle. Like when I say I start talking shit about podcasts, I'm like podcasting is fucking, to me, it's like the printing press for the spoken word.

It's like as big a revolution as Gutenberg's fucking printing press. And it's just like, it's on-demand audio that you can educate yourself anytime you want all over the world. That's fucking crazy. They didn't exist when you and I were kids. It didn't exist. I had to fucking, I remember like being obsessed with talk radio and just having to listen to whatever was on the three or four dials at the time it was on. And then they go from that to like streaming it in the browser. I remember when that happened.

I was a fucking grown man. like, oh, this is amazing. And then when my friend Eric's like, oh, no, you can listen to Joe's podcast anytime you want. I'm like, what the fuck did you just say? What the fuck did you just say? That's crazy. And think about that.

Like, if somebody, like, this is a young kid. So me and you both know Michael Seekin. Who's Michael Seekin? Oh, oh, oh, yeah. Dude, he's in my phone as Michael Future. And I never referred to him as Seekin, his last name. Never. I was like, Seekin.

I don't know. I don't know if I'm pronouncing it correctly. Dude, he's at my house. He's at my house like twice a week, and I just call him Michael Future. It's crazy. I love how arrogant he is. I had a guy in my wedding, and I barely even knew how to say it. I didn't even know his last day.

I just called him Siva Russia. I love Michael's confidence. And my point being is like, imagine being, you know, 20, 20, because he would call DM both me and you. And he's really good at it. He sent me a DM. He's like, hey, I love your podcast. It took an idea that I got for your podcast, made a video about it, and it got 10 million views.

Can we talk? I go, you did what? What the fuck? Are you talking about? That's an impossible message not to. Dude, I always talk. He's at my house all the time. And like, I'm not old.

I'm 33. But he's 23. I mean, he's whatever. He's first. He's college. Yeah, young. And he'll come over. And me and me and Sarah will be like, Michael, just tell me what are the young kids doing

nowadays? And he'll literally just sit there for two hours and just tell Sarah and I like all these. phrases and words and I'm just, I'll just listen. I don't even say a thing. I just say, just talk. Just tell me, like, what's up with young people? And he's like, he'll just tell me. And I'll ask him about his dating life. He just talk. And so I always try to, this sounds always weird whenever I say this. I always try to surround myself with young, like, younger people. And I'm like, just tell me. I just want to listen. Just tell me what's going on. And he always does that to me. He's like, you, you treat it out in one time. He says, I'm like, oh,

what are you going to be doing 10 years? I'm going to be landing my helicopter on your lawn or something. But like, I love his confidence. Because like, you at the one time he said, he goes, got some really bad news today, just got back from the chiropractor. They said that the chip on my shoulder is permanent. He actually gave me a really good book recommendation. He texted me yesterday that I never had found. It's like all these like, um, I, which one was it? The ones that, um, I'm obsessed with the history of the American West and like all that

personality type that's like, oh, no, fuck the East Coast. I'm going to go across and do this crazy journey. It was the one written by, uh, Philip Antchwitz or Antoine, the guy who owns, um, The biggest ticketing company in the world or something it's called like A-W-E, whatever it is. It's like one that everyone knows. I think they own Ticketmaster, I think. Something like that. He says,

they're the Lakers and the Cuchella. He says, I don't know if that's true, but it's called out where the West begins. Yeah, and they own Coachella. Anyway, this guy, Philip, a lot of people don't know this. It only has 10 reviews on Amazon, this 80-year-old $20 billion guy. He has a book about the West. Yeah. And I already ordered it.

The reason I brought up Michael, though, is because, one, I think it's smart to be, like, I think we have an epidemic of people that don't believe in themselves. People think we have an epidemic of arrogance. I believe the complete opposite. It's like, there's so many more people that can create businesses. Because, like, the best description of what a business is came from Richard Branson. I've ever heard came from Richard Branson. He goes, a business is just an idea that makes somebody else's life better.

And if you look at it from there, like, there's limitless opportunity. And so to have the belief that you can do that, something that pops up these books all time is that belief comes before a building. But society wants you to show me that you should have, prove that you should have your confidence deserved. It's like, no, no, you don't actually understand. It's like the belief comes before the ability. And that's why a lot of people were like amongst my entrepreneurial friends.

They watched the Billy McFarland Fire Festival documentary and they were like, yeah, he did the wrong things. But it almost worked. And the reason why like a lot of my entrepreneurial friends were like, forgiving of him was it's like, yeah, but I've been there. I've faked it until I made it type of vibe. Because I remember I did this for my conferences too. I would kind of fib,

I would tell these 15 speakers individually, the other 14 had already confirmed, which they hadn't. And luckily, I got them all to confirm and it worked out. So it didn't end up being a lie. But there's like so many examples where I promised something that wasn't real

where I'm like, oh shit, I hope I can deliver on these things. That happens a lot. The point I was making with Michael, though, is imagine being his age, right? And being able to listen to every single episode of My First Million, every single episode of founders or how to take over the world.

We've got to give Ben a shot out because, I think what he's doing is incredible. And like, for example, it's like, dude, you should just make as many episodes as possible because, like, you have Sam Paul saying your shit is really good, right? Which is fucking incredible. And you have Mr. Beast, literally the biggest creator on the fucking internet saying only listen to one podcast.

So I hope that lights a fire Ben as well. But like just see a bill, like I would kill. I would have fucking killed. That's why I think podcast is a miracle. I don't want to do anything else. Let's say I never launched any businesses to answer to 10-year plan, which I don't see how that's even possible because there's a ton of entrepreneurs I know

that I want to partner on these things. But even if I just made podcasts and I just continue to grow the audience and I just made money on ad revenue, like, whatever. I fucking, that's plenty fine for me. That's the way I like to live my life. Do you ever read, do you ever hear of Chuck Eager?

Chuck, is that the guy who broke the zombie? Yes. So the fucking crazy thing is the miracle books is like you never know like when you're going to read some random sentence that you never fucking know. Everyone loves that guy's book. All business people love his book. So I didn't know who the fuck he was. I kept noticing

this old guy on Twitter in a pilot suit talking hell of shit like unfiltered and I fucking love these people that like really talk who they are. They're authentic. And I read his book. It turns out he fucking, it's sold like five million copies the first year it came out in the 80s. Like it's one of the most successful

autobiographies of all time. Well, he was famous back then when he did that. I think he broke the sound barrier, is that right? Or he broke two or something? He was the first pilot to break the sound barrier and I think he was the first pilot to become ace in a day in World War II. He's like, I love killing Nazis. He says, like, one of my favorite things to do is kill Nazis.

And so, yeah, there's a great line in his book where he's like from this, like, this is what I also love. It's like, great can come from anywhere. He lived in like this rural, what's that area in West Virginia? It's like an Appalachian where there's like a man. So he lived in like the Appalachians completely like isolated

right. And so he describes the way he describes in this book about killing all these Nazis. He shot down five to become an ace on a day. He had to shoot down five enemy planes. And he goes, the Nazis came up into the skies and they met a goddamn West Virginia buzzsaw. It's the way you described himself.

But he gave me another blueprint. Let me see if I can get the quote exactly right. This is the magic of having readwise too because I can just think of something and pull it up immediately. It's like a giant search engine for everything I've read. And he gave me this idea where it's like, it's how you and I should avoid what you just subscribe. You get around all these rich guys.

They never, it's never enough. They don't seem to be enjoying life, which is what's the point of being rich at that point? It seems to be surprising to them that they're not enjoying life because they don't actually like what they do day to day, but they make a down the money. So why the fuck, how the fuck could you take one 30 of your life is going to be spent working, right? You hate what you do. You think how is it possible that you think you're going to get your end of your life from like your life? It's impossible. And so he says, he goes, I wasn't a deep, sophisticated person, but I live by a basic principle. I did only what I enjoy. And here's the part.

I wouldn't let anyone derail me by promises of power or money into doing things that weren't interesting to me. And so it took me years. Isn't that funny how that's like business people say it, pilots say it, it doesn't matter. Like people, a lot of people who I talk to the, They ask me what my pot is if it's all about business. I'm like, not really because, like, I don't give a shit if you're an artist. As long as you're, like, kick an ass and you've, like, defined what success is and you've achieved it. I think that's, I think that's dope. It's all the same personality type just applied to different things.

Like, I could show you this. I don't know if you see on the camera, but like, this is one of my favorite dudes. He's my fucking watch. His name's Ernest Shackleton. I love reading about polar explores. I like reading about athletes. That's the best book I've read in in probably three years. Endurance?

Yeah. Yeah, it's excellent. I love, I'm going to make a shirt. and I might sell it, but I'll just make it for myself with that fucking picture where he's just like covered in snow and looking like shit. And I love the fact that he came up with his own motto by Endurance We Conquer.

It's like, we're just going to win because we're never going to quit. And I think that could be applied to everything that you fucking do, assuming that you like to do it. But yeah, I think Chuck Ears is smart where like so many people buy into this, I feel prestige is a myth, right? Where they're like, I'm going to go do this. I'm going to do Activity X because it'll give me prestige.

And what prestige is is you think other people are thinking about you. And no one is thinking about you. Humans are self-absorbed. That is our human nature. So like think about the person you, I listened to your Ariel Hawani interview. That was awesome, right? I love Ariel Hawani. You're a big fan of his.

How much of your life is spent thinking about, you're a huge fan. You buy all shit. You listen to stuff. Less than two-tenths of one million percent of your life. Right. I wish people understood as how few people are thinking about them. And therefore you wouldn't chase prestige because prestige doesn't act. All that matters is like the people around you, do they, do they think you're a good person?

Do they approve of what you're doing? And then your work, all that really matters is like your own opinion, right? Ben texted me the other day about an idea for his podcast. And I was like, dude, because he's like, he added music. Ben, do you care if I say this? Okay. So Ben added music. He's like, what do you think of it?

And I was like, I don't love it and I don't hate it. I don't care about it at all. I thought your episode was fantastic. It was excellent. I shared it with friends but I was like he's like well the reviews are mixed you go I saw the

I went to the tweets it's like some people like this is great some people are like this is bad exactly fucking exactly all the matters

is what you like if you like the music and they don't then let him go find another fucking podcast listen to you dude his music though on that first

on his on how to think over the world that's the best intro song yeah that that intro song has helped make make his podcast popular

the UFC like that going back to the UFC thing that that connected us too. Like, go why? Like, I know you have. But, like,

everybody out there needs to go talk about manifest cowboy. Connor McGregor is it, he is literally in the documentary. The fact that he had somebody film him when he was flat broke living in his moms, he owed money to every single fucking agency in Ireland. And he's like, I'm going to be the fucking world champion one day.

He's like literally manifesting this shit. Remember when he got the double belts? And he's like, Joe was interviewing him. He's like, I saw this in my mind. He goes, oh, look at that. He's like, I dream. He's like, I literally saw it. and I fucking made it real.

Yeah, that's why people like him. That documentary is fucking incredible. It's because he called his shot. He just ruins it by doing all the other dumb stuff, though. But it certainly, he's, he's, he's, he's a, I have a love, hate relationship with them where it's like, you've got all this amazing stuff. I admire you so much. And I also can't stand some of this other behavior. You know what I mean?

I think that's where your wisdom is. He's like, okay, I sold my company. Like, I'm rich as fuck. You're still, like, you have a massive advantage. Like, you can launch businesses, you work on whatever you work on. But you're realizing this, like, but I also like take care of my health. I want to spend time with my wife. I want to have a family.

I want to, like, be able to, like, have freedom. I've heard you describe, like, what's important to you. And this is like, yeah, that's that's how I feel too. Because, like, it's my issue is like, I'm not impressed by somebody successful for year, five years, 10 years. It's like, I like the people that fucking never fucked it up. And there's a great line of Charlie Munger said. He's like, it's not getting rich that you have to worry about.

It's staying sane. He's like, it's not part, and this is in a book, it's not normal to human nature to have unlimited resources or be so much richer and then not fuck it up. He says through ladies, leverage, and liquor. It's usually how rich men go broke. That's what I said? Yeah.

It's in his book. He didn't say it in person. But the point of being is like, I think there's a sense of wisdom there where it's like, okay, I already have this. How do I keep building on it? People like Connor and Kanye West, in this example, too. It's like they're gifted at a young age.

And then their superstar success is so disorienting. That, like, again, it's not getting rich as you to worry about. It's staying sane. They weren't able to stay sane. I want to stay sane, dude. I want to get to them in my life. When I'm trying to make decisions, like, when I'm 80 years old, my, like, I knew for a fact, part of the reason I felt comfortable, like jump all in on the podcast,

even though I didn't know if I was going to make a success or not, was that when Jeff Bezos was like, well, I was making a ton of money. It's this hedge fund. I was 30 years old. I had apartment on the Upper West Side. I'm best friends with a billionaire who's like mentoring me. Like he's already set for life, right? But he's like, I knew if I quit now and forego my quarterly bonus and move across the country, Seattle,

I'm trying to sell books on the internet. He's just like, I feel that the internet is a life-changing technology and I want to play a role in that technology. And the 30-year-old self, you can confuse yourself. It's like, oh, it's as prestigious as working at a hedge fund. I'm going to miss out on a couple million dollar bonus, whatever it is. He's like, your 85-year-old self is going to be like, you had a shot to play a role on internet and you didn't do it.

That's how I feel about podcasting. It's just like, I believe it's a miracle. I want to play a role and therefore, like, I want to get to them in my life. I know 80-year-old's like, damn, David, I'm glad you fucking risked it. I'm glad you fucking did that. I'm happy you came on here. You're very fascinating to me. I've listened to dozens of your episodes.

I'm very eager to see what you become. I think it's cool. I didn't know that you're doing it for six years. I know that I've listened to like episode like number 10 as well as like 300. So I guess I should have done the math. But like congratulations on your success. It seems like you're kicking ass. It seems like you're in the groove.

And like it's really cool to see someone like it's really fun to see someone like right when it's happening. And that's like kind of the cool thing about podcasting and like Twitter and all this stuff is like you can catch stuff in the middle. not before and not after, but as it's happening, that's where you are right now. And I appreciate you doing this. Where, what do you promote?

Just founders. I call it founders pod. It's a founders podcast, founders. Twitter, your founders. You're always tweeting good shit. I want to say, thank you for having me on. Like, seriously, I've loved your fucking podcast. I would just say that one thing that podcasters,

like, it's obvious who has the magic. And I've been telling people way before I ever fucking message you. I was like, you need to watch what Sam and Sean are doing. It's clear they have the magic. They have insane chemistry. I remember listening to you guys when you're like, oh, I'm only getting 60,000 downloads an episode, which is still super impressive. And now you guys are fucking blue right past that. It's extremely obvious that you guys are really good at it. I hope you like do a ton of it. I swear, and I know you might not be interested in this, but like there's a massive hole in podcasting for like the Pat, Pat McAfee version of business podcasts. I agree. And I think you, and you and Sean like, dude, there is going to be a business podcast

where you have Pat McAfee gets paid like 30 million a year by whatever his presenting sponsor is, whatever like I forgot what it is. Dan Lovetard

got that $50 million contract from like Drap Kings. You see Spotify gave Alex Cooper 20 million a year. The reported number for Joe Rogan is way bigger than it's reported. But my point being is like

there's a gap in the fucking business podcast space, which I think You and Sean have the best way to, like if you did it every day, just like you did, like your hour show is a perfect length, the research, it feels like you're hanging out with your smart friends and you guys are brainstorming together. There's nothing else that's like what you guys are fucking doing. Hey, Spotify, if you're listening, I'm easy to contact.

Just DM me on Twitter. We can talk. Thanks. I appreciate you inviting me on. That was fucking super cool of you. I appreciate you doing this. And yeah, it means a lot. And, yeah, it was awesome.

That's the pod. That's the pod. I feel like I can rule the world. I know I could be what I want to. I put my all in it like no days off. On a road, let's travel, never looking back.