My First Million - How this dumb doll makes $2M per day

Episode Date: July 9, 2025

Want Sam's Playbook to Uncover Billion-Dollar Business Opportunities? Get it here: https://mfmpod.link/rve Episode 724: Sam Parr ( https://x.com/theSamParr ) and Shaan Puri ( https://x.com/ShaanVP ) break down $1B+ product crazes and why they worked. If you want to help those on the inside, donate to The Last Mile (https://thelastmile.org/donate) and Inside Circle (https://insidecircle.org/) — Show Notes: (0:00) Labubu (3:19) The "gotcha" mechanic (10:53) The lipstick effect (12:53) The lalapalooza effect (15:17) $1B+ crazes (20:48) Tony's Chocolonely (31:10) Sam goes to prison (37:18) The Larry story (41:26) Shaan joins a prison gang (51:15) Sam vows to quit the internet and money (54:52) Pomp's SPAC — Links: • Pop Mart - https://www.popmart.com/us • Tony’s Chocolonely - https://tonyschocolonely.com/ — Check Out Shaan's Stuff: • Shaan's weekly email - https://www.shaanpuri.com • Visit https://www.somewhere.com/mfm to hire worldwide talent like Shaan and get $500 off for being an MFM listener. Hire developers, assistants, marketing pros, sales teams and more for 80% less than US equivalents. • Mercury - Need a bank for your company? Go check out Mercury (mercury.com). Shaan uses it for all of his companies! Mercury is a financial technology company, not an FDIC-insured bank. Banking services provided by Choice Financial Group, Column, N.A., and Evolve Bank & Trust, Members FDIC — Check Out Sam's Stuff: • Hampton - https://www.joinhampton.com/ • Ideation Bootcamp - https://www.ideationbootcamp.co/ • Copy That - https://copythat.com • Hampton Wealth Survey - https://joinhampton.com/wealth • Sam’s List - http://samslist.co/ My First Million is a HubSpot Original Podcast // Brought to you by HubSpot Media // Production by Arie Desormeaux // Editing by Ezra Bakker Trupiano

The stock has grown in the last year from a $7 billion company to now a $44 billion company. 44 billion. Okay. You know what I mean? That's what Elon bought X for. This guy selling Labibu's. It's insane.

It's crazy. 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. All right. Dude, Sam, do you know what one of these are? Oh my gosh. Ramon will not quit.

talking to me about these things. Okay, so those, all right, so for the listener, Sean's showing me, what am I holding up? They look like dolls, basically in the same vein as a troll, but I have gotten text from my friend, our friend, Ramon, who says, have you heard of this thing? It's worth, and he says the number, and I'm like, oh, it must have been a typo. So what's the deal with these things? Do you know what they're called? I don't, super or something? No, this, this is a Labibu.

All right, Sam, get yourself educated. This is a Lubbubu doll, okay? Does it have a Prada sign on it? Yeah, that's part of the stick here. Okay, so what's the story with these things? This is basically the most viral toy in the world. It's one of the biggest crazes since, you know, Bidi-Bavis and things like that.

And so the story behind this thing is pretty crazy. I just wanted to tell you some of the things that I know about it. Of course, my wife put me on to this months ago, and I just ignored it as the stock of this company is up like seven hours. in a year because this thing is going crazy. Chinese company, right? Chinese company, yeah. So this is made by...

These dolls are produced by a Chinese company called Popmark. And the maker for this guy, Wang Ning, he is now the 10th richest man in China. And he's adding like a billion dollars to his net worth in the last few months. But he's like 30, right? Or like he's... He's really young. Like, dude, look at this picture of him.

Yeah, but Chinese guys always look really young until they don't. Until they don't. Yeah, haven't you? ever heard like all of my Asian friends. They're like, we always look young and then we fall off a cliff. All right. Can you see this guy? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, he could be 12 or 50. I don't know. Yeah. So this guy is behind this company, Pop Mart. But it's kind of fascinating what's going on with this craze, right? Like, it's really taken over. So somebody gave these to my kids as like a gift. And I didn't really understand the significance of it. I was like, oh, cool. Thanks. I didn't realize

that we were just gifted like a really important thing. This is like one of the more valuable items in my house right now. Like these things sell for thousands of dollars. The top ones can sell for six figures. That's how crazy the craziest for this. Okay. So tell me the story because this is, this sounds like a good,

good stock to short because that's typically how these like collectibles kind of tend to go. Yes, I agree with you. We'll get to that. All right. So the story of the LabuBoo Dolls is there's a guy who's an artist around 2015. he's in the Netherlands. He gets inspired to create a kind of like a toy world,

so like a character world based on where he's at in the Netherlands. And he designs these dolls. These kind of like look at their teeth, like the little like gremlin looking doll. And there's hope for us, okay? Because the experts are describing this as ugly cute. And it's succeeded because it's ugly cute. And I just thought like our podcast,

I just feel like that just gave us like some wind in our sales for what we could do as well on YouTube. It's worse for us because we're not particularly ugly, but we're not particularly good looking. Is there like a cute? What the kids call mid. Yeah. All right. So he creates season 2015.

Not a lot happens from there, but in 2019, so four years later, he partners with this company Pop Mart. And Pop Mart was started about a decade ago because this guy Wang Ning had this insight, which is he thought that this adult trend. We talked about this before because you're into Legos. So he's like this adult trend, this like kids, toys for adults. Like mini. Yeah. And so he creates this store.

And the store really takes advantage of this like style, this business mechanic called blind boxes, which I don't know if you've seen, uh, LOL dolls or mini brands where you buy the box, but you don't know what's inside. Similar to like Pokemon card packs. You buy the pack. You don't know what cards are inside. And so this mechanic, which I think they call like the gotcha. mechanic creates a lot more spending, right? People will keep buying because it's a little bit like a treasure hunt and you want to see what you can find, what you can get. And this used to be a scam. Like I remember Logan Paul or Jake Paul was sponsored or did business with a company called

Mystery Box. And that was like a rage, like a very trendy thing for like three months. Do you remember that? Like 10 years ago. These loot boxes are in games and people know that, okay, this is kind of not, it's not a scam per se, but it's basically manipulative, right? It gets people to buy a lot more. People get addicted to this thing. And especially when you're targeting kids, which is why Logan Paul and those guys got in trouble was, hey, this is targeting kids. The beauty of this is it's not targeting kids. So the way these blew up is through celebrities. Wait, can I ask the question about the company, Popmark. So he had a, Pop Mart. He had just a, it was a toy company for a long time? What was the origin? So the story is 2010. He opens up a small designer store in Beijing and he's trying to build it off

this kiddle collectibles brand. He starts selling blind boxes. This, Labibu is not in play at this point. There's other blind boxes that he's trying to sell. And in 10 years, they grow from one store to, you know, 300 plus stores, 2,000 vending machines where you could just, like, it's just, you know, you just buy one of these boxes right, right out of a machine. It ends up going public in 2020. Stock doubles on the first day.

This stock has grown in the last year from a $7 billion company to now a $44 billion company. 44 billion. That's what Elon bought X for. So that's so insane. So before it became, when it was just a four or seven, I think you said, billion dollar company, they just sold like dolls that people liked. And so which a $7 billion toy company is, that's already a mega success.

So they sold other people's stuff. That was over four years. But yeah, yeah, they're selling collectibles of different brands, different IP. And this is one of the IP that they have. And this doll alone, like these, these Lububoos did like 700 million last year. So they're like now like almost, it's getting close to about half of the revenue of the company overall because the trend has exploded. And then they connect with this with this artist. And so that brings us to where we are now.

Yeah. So the question is how did this explode? Where does a, the thing that fascinated me is like, where does a trend like this even come from? How does this happen? Because it's totally irrational, right? Like, why this doll? Why not another doll? Is it the teeth?

Is it the outfit? Is it what? What is it behind it? So there's some, I guess, learnings to have. have from this about like the psychology of a winning product. So I just want to tell you a little story about how this happens. So check this out. Exhibit A, 2023. Okay. So this is a photo that you clearly can tell. It's just Rihanna, like getting coffee or leaving a hotel. She's going to an airport. And she just looks like she's, it's not sponsored.

She's just being a lady. And she has one of the toy bebops or boo-boos or whatever they're called, hanging off of her book bag. book bag. It's a first. It's a little of a top purse. Okay. It looks like a book bag. Okay.

So she's spotted with it. Hmm. Interesting. At the same time, another trend is happening in Thailand. In Thailand, people are starting to see these Labibu's for whatever reason as possible good luck charms. In Thailand, people are quite religious. And they started to view these as like almost like a spiritual, like a little guardian that they could have with them. And so that rumor starts to spread.

And then what happens is, do you know the band Black Pink? Do you ever hear of this band? No. It's like a Korean pop band. This is one of the most popular pop bands in the world. So it's a girl band like Spice Girls. Oh, I know it.

Yeah, I like those guys. I see their music videos. They're very eye-catching. Yeah, I know what you're talking about. Well, it's just like, it's a sensation. You'll go on YouTube and you're like, what is this thing with a billion views on YouTube? It's sort of like the sensation of like the BTS.

thing. Yeah, exactly. Okay, so, okay, so this is right here. This is now we're talking about Black Pink. So Lisa from Black Pink goes to Thailand to visit her friend. Her friend says, hey, what do you want to do today? They decide, let's go shopping. She thinks, okay, we're going to go shopping, clothes, bags, what are we going to go buy? But no, she wants to go to Pop Mart. And she says, I don't know what Pop Mart is, but they go to a Pop Mart store. At the Pop Mart store, the friend really wants a labubu. And Lisa says, honestly, not into it. I don't get it. Don't care about it. But the friend gets super disappointed because they're all sold out. And the lady at the store is like, listen, it's impossible. You're not going to get one. And that little memetic monster inside Lisa

starts to roar, the one in her stomach. And she's like, you know what? If I can't have it, I must have it. And she decides, actually, I think I do like labibos. And I think I do want to go get lo-boos. And she starts to collect these. Now, she starts getting obsessed with pop mark. She goes. She applies my boxes. And she starts collecting these. This becomes her de-stress type of thing she does from the stressful life of being a world-famous pop star. Yeah. Now, she gets caught having a laboo. Why? Because she posts it on her Instagram. So now we're, fast forward 2024. This is the photo that created the craze. It went from just like, you know, how a hurricane starts. and there's like some sweeping winds,

maybe a casual storm, a casual rainstorm, and then comes the hurricane. And this Instagram story started the hurricane. And it's her hugging her luboooooo- Can I say something? I kind of get it. That looks pretty cool.

It looks pretty... This one did it for you, too, this photo? Yeah, it's like an old white guy in overalls. It's kind of what it looks like. It looks like a farmer. Yeah, this does look like a Midwest farmer, actually. This guy, I kind of like, And it's big.

It's about two feet tall. I kind of think that's neat. I understand that. This is a big one, yeah. So they come in different sizes. The one that sold for over 100,000, that was a human-sized one. Okay.

Okay, so this is the stock since that photo was taken. And you can see the stock is up 7X since then, as it's just been crushing. And so the Lubu Kray starts. And what, you know, what's interesting about this is why, okay, so celebrities started posting about it. That's it. Okay, I get that.

But what else? So here's some of the, the other things that I found kind of interesting from a, I don't know, behavioral psychology point of view. The first is the lipstick effect. Have you ever heard of the lipstick effect? I don't think so. So there's an economic theory that basically says that whenever people are under financial pressure, so maybe the economy is a little bit choppy, maybe there's, you know, there's inflation, there's wage pressure, whatever it is. People will opt, people think that you'll stop spending. But what actually happens is you shift the spending.

And so instead of buying a new bag, you'll just buy some lipstick. They'll buy a new lipstick. And so lipstick sales will explode at a time during economic pressure because you take away from bigger luxury purchases and they go into smaller luxury purchases. So instead of a $200 outfit or a bag, you're going to buy a $20 item instead. And so people think that this is part of what's behind Labibu, which is that this thing initially started where these are like a $20, $25. box that you buy and you get a loo-boo-boo. But the thing with these, the smart thing of these is, I showed you the doll,

this is the most important part. This little ring, because most stuffed animals, you just keep them at home. So there's no virality to it, right? You just have it at the comfort of your own home. Nobody sees it. You don't get to show it off. It's not a status symbol.

By just having the bag clip attached to these things, they suddenly became like luxury accessories. And so that's why Rihanna had it attached to her bag, and this black pink lady had hit hers, and then David Beckham is posting that, and Kim Kardashian posts that she has 10 of them, and she starts clipping them to her bags. It becomes this add-on to your luxury bag,

this cute little add-on that you could put on your bag. And then each one of these has an outfit. So I can take this off, and I can buy new clothes for this, and I can upgrade my Labibu. So now you have all... Can you spell Labibu? L-A-B-U-B-U.

Oh, okay, I see it. By the way, Labibu is actually only one of the characters, but that's just what it became called. The character structure called The Monsters, but nobody, that didn't stick. Oh my gosh. I'm on their website. I think it's kind of cool.

Yeah, I'm in. And so what I think is interesting here is that you have this kind of what Charlie Marker calls the Lollapalooza effect. So maybe you have the lipstick effect causing people to look for little luxuries. Then you have the kidult effect where you have adults looking for,

you know, maybe comfort and pleasure, because that's another economic theory here, which is that when adults face stress from work and global events like wars and whatnot, they find emotional relief in collecting toys and things that connect with their childhood. So you have that effect kicking in. You have the lipstick effect kicking in.

You have the status symbol effect of this where you can attach this to your bag. You have the ugly cute effect, which we are just crushing with right now. And so all these come together to create the phenomenon that is Laboooooooo. Great, great, great, great job. Good, fine.

I've been hearing about this, but I didn't exactly dive deep. So that's cool that you did this. This is not sustainable. And this is definitely going to go away in the next five years. But let's get it while the kitten's good. All right. So I've built a few companies that have made a few million dollars a year. And I've built two companies that have made tens of millions of dollars a year.

And so I have a little bit of experience launching, building, creating new things. and I actually don't come up with a lot of original ideas. Instead, what I'm really, really good at, what my skill set is is researching different ideas, different gaps in the market in reverse engineering companies. And I didn't invent this, by the way. We had this guy, Brad Jacobs, we talked about him on the podcast. He started like four or five different publicly traded companies

where tens of billions of dollars each. He actually is the one who I learned how to do this from. And so with the team at HubSpot, we put together all of my research tactics, frameworks, techniques, on spotting different opportunities in the market, reverse engineering companies, and figuring out exactly where opportunities are versus just coming up with a random silly idea

and throwing it against the wall and hoping that it sticks. And so if you want to see my framework, you can check it out. The link is below in the YouTube description. So I started thinking, how do I make money on this? All right, so the first way I should have made money on this was when my wife started telling me about this,

which was, I don't know, six to eight months ago, I should have either brought the stock. I should have looked, I didn't even think it was going to be a stock. I just thought it was like a stuffed animal. I didn't even think it was a public company. Should have bought the stock or, you know, you could have tried to collect and flip. Okay, that's too much effort.

So what's the play here? So I went and looked up. I asked AI, I said, tell me the last five toy crazes as crazy as Laboooooooo over the last 50 years and compare them. What were some of the other ones? So it would have been cabbage cabbage patch was the first one that it came up with. Beanie Babies. Beanie Babies was the second. I think trolls were popular for a minute, but I don't know if they were a craze.

it gave me Pokemon, Pokemon cards, which had two bumps. There was the one when we were kids where buying a collective packs reached about the same revenue, about $2 billion a year. And then it died down for about 20 years. And then recently with like kind of Logan Paul started collecting them again,

they had another peak. And it had $1.6 billion and it sales on the cards recently. So Pokemon. And then the last one I gave me, which was I thought kind of interesting as AI, but actually is a good point. because I was thinking maybe Furbys or Tomogachis, I didn't know what it was going to give me.

Those were smaller. It gave me Stanley Cups, which actually makes total sense because it's the same thing. It's the exact same thing. And so it gave me those. And the funny thing about these is on the scale, Labibu is actually still small. So this doll did about 700 million.

Those all at their peak were kind of like $1.6 to $2 billion in sales. So I actually expect that over the next year, this thing goes even the star kind of goes viral nova it burns out and it hits a $2 billion or $3 billion in revenue and then it's going to crash

because the funny thing with all of these is they all had about a two to three year peak tops and so I think the actual play if you want to make money on this thing is to short pop mart stock starting around

you know end of 2026 and you know maybe through 2027 now shorting is dangerous because you can lose your shirt because Shorty has sort of asymmetric downside. But if you, I think if you were a betting man, the odds are that, you know, by 2027, this thing is not a $44 billion company anymore. What was the name? Okay, so you had a friend, Michael, Michael Smith, Michael Acton Smith. He had a,

the guy who created Calm.com, before he created Calm.com, the meditation app, he actually had a toy, a stuffed animal toy company called like Minow Monsters or something. Yeah. that's right. What was the name of this? So his company was called Mind Candy and it was Moshi Monsters. Monsors was a mobile game. Moshi Monsters was his. If I remember correctly, this is all 15 years ago, so it's hard to remember everything, but he raised lots of money as a technology company almost, or at least from tech PCs. And he was like, I'm going to build a massive toy business.

And I remember reading at the time, this is insane. You're stupid. But now that I think about it, there's been many examples of where that is not stupid. And this is yet another one of them, where you could actually build a really cool IP toy company. And he was, sounds like he was on the right track. It didn't work out. It was big in the UK. So in the UK, it was like, I don't know, one out of every three kids is playing Moshe Monsters. It was like insane.

It was like 90 million users globally. And I remember meeting him, I think it was still during the kind of like, it was kind of like the tail end of the peak. So it was big. But it was, it had stopped. exploding and he was like, that's okay. We're going to try to turn this into a thing. And he was telling me they're making Moshe's shampoo and bodywash. And, you know, it's going into every category. But unfortunately, that one didn't work out. We have to get Michael on by the way. I was going to say that. We have to get Michael in the pie because have you met him. He's one of the coolest guys. I've met. He's such a nice guy, first of all, like total genuine good dude. Super creative. Really creative genius. And then also like, right. a rock star kind of like when you meet him you're like oh i'm talking to russell brands like you know cooler but cooler brother you should everyone should google him his name's michael actin smith and i remember back at 14 or 13 or 12 where i mean i'm still interested in this but i was like i want to be like

i was like looking for a person i wanted to be like and it was like him he would be like there was like photos of him like holding hands with like pairs hilton or like he was like if you google like michael acton smith like he but they're not even dating that's the best part Just hold their hands. He had like paparazzi photos of him because he had this like tech angle, even though it wasn't exactly in tech. But if you guys Google him and see what he looks like it. He'll understand. The Daily Telegraph described him as a rock star version of Willy Wonka.

That's his Wikipedia page. It's great. This guy was so cool. And now he has since started calm, which I have no idea how big it is, but it's hundreds or hundreds of millions or billions. A multi-billion dollar company. He's the man. This guy's absolutely the man. And he's been the man for 20 years.

He has. He is amazing. Okay, I'm going to call him after this and be like, I will fly to you. Let's do it episode because... Where's he even live now? I think he was in the UK. He was kind of back and forth between like, you know, U.S. and the UK. I think he's in the UK now. He's just like a rich guy now. He just like does what he wants. Well, I think he always did what he wants. That's why he was our hero. That's the difference between that. I don't think of anything to do a big rich. That's the difference between guys like me and guys like him, I guess. Like he...

Yeah, exactly. We chased money and money chased him. Yeah. He didn't run very fast. This guy is the man. Cutting your sales cycle in half sounds pretty impossible, but that's exactly what Sandler training did with HubSpot.

They use Breeze, HubSpot's AI tools to tailor every customer interaction without losing their personal touch. And the results were incredible. Click-through rates jumped 25%. Qualified leads quadrupled. And people spent, three times longer on their landing pages.

Go to HubSpot.com to see how Breeze can help your business grow. Okay, I have another one for you. Can I give you another one? So we did kids' toys. I have another one. You might know the story of this one. Have you ever had one of these before?

Okay, what's this? Oh, I'm holding up. No, it looks like, boy, is that bubble go? A box of Tony's Chocoloni. Hell yeah, brother. I love Tony's Chocoloni. Did they have something that have pop rocks in them? I love.

I've been saying it wrong for a long time. It's not Tony's Chocoloni. It's Tony's Chocalone. Do you know that? I just call it Tonys. I love Tonys. I have always bought them. And then when we hung out with Mr. Beas, he told us the backstory.

I didn't realize how amazing they were. I love Tonys. Yeah, yeah. And their backstory is even better than I thought. Because when we were hanging out with Jimmy, he was like, oh, yeah, I am, you know, he for feastables really wanted to get feastables to have a supply chain that had no child labor. He's like, you know, most of the cocoa farms in Africa have child labor, all the big chocolate brands, you know, Hershey's, etc. They all buy from them. When I learned that, that was effed up. I went over there and we try and we've basically been spending, you know, a couple of years now trying to fix the supply chain so that that doesn't have to be the case.

He was like every company. I don't like this or that thing about them, but there's one company that I really admire that seems to be doing something well. And I think that's how he like phrased it. And he said, Tony's is the one. They do things right. It's basically what he said. And he actually called the founders of this and learned from them of like, okay, what do I need to do? Which is cool because they were the ones who initially made the push. But do you know the backstory of why they made the push into doing this? Wasn't it started by an actor or a famous person in Holland or something like that? A journalist. Okay, it was like a non-business person who started it.

And they started it. It's one of these cool stories where they didn't so much care about chocolate. They cared about like helping the earth or human rights or something. And we're just so happened to be doing it via chocolate. It was something like a story like that, wasn't it? So the story is these, I think there was two Dutch journalists, but these two just journalists, they're covering the chocolate industry on their TV show. And they hear about, you know, that the chocolate companies are all the chocolate,

all the cocoa comes from West Africa and that there's a lot of child slavery and child labor. So two separate things, right? Slavery and then child labor happening on the farms there. So they want to go. and investigate. So they go down there. They investigate. They find that it's true.

And they put, you know, they put out a story to try to help. And I think the exact story is that at one point, all the big chocolate company signed like a treaty. They signed like a pact to say, we're going to stop this. And I guess like years later, they had gone back and they had gone to investigate. And it was like the exact same situation. They saw that kind of nothing had really changed. And so these guys are pretty disheartened by it. So they decide, like, this is where the story gets crazy.

Because a normal person, even a normal, a great journalist, would just report the story, maybe use some choice language when they talk about it. And then they would shake their finger at them and move on. But these journalists went and did like, you know, took the exit off of High Agency Avenue and we're like, no, no, watch this. And so the guys, they come back and they decide to do a publicity stunt. So he eats the chocolate and he calls the police. And the police come and they're like, what are you doing? And he goes, I'm eating chocolate that was made with slave labor and child labor.

And they're like, that's what? That's not a, you're eating chocolate. That's not a crime. He goes, no, no, no, actually, according to statute, blah, blah, blah, blah, knowingly consuming this product, knowing what I know that this is the product of child labor and slave labor, that's actually illegal. Arrest me, boys. And so they lock them up, they take them to jail.

and that becomes this viral sort of news stunt that brings even more attention to this. Now, prosecutors end up dismissing the case because they're like, we're not going to prosecute this, but they decide to go in and create their own ethically made chocolate brand, and they decide to call it Tony's Chocco lonely because they're like, the guy's, the guy's name is Tune, but that's this Dutch name, but the like Americanized, westernized version of Tone, I guess is his name, would be Tony. So they goes, Tonys, and instead of, and he said, It's going to be very lonely to build a chocolate company that's actually trying to be, like, ethically sourced.

So we call it Tony's chocolate lonely, okay? Great. And that's how they felt in their fight against the cocoa industry. And it becomes a hit pretty much right away. They sell 20,000 bars in two days because of the public, like, resonance with their story. And it becomes the best-selling chocolate brand in their market, which is the Netherlands. They get like 20% share in the Netherlands. It passes up Mars and Nestle.

other competitors there. And then they start expanding. And they keep expanding. And then they start finding like-minded brands. I don't know if you know about Ben and Jerry's, but Ben and Jerry's is also one of these very sort of like strong, ethical, moral. Yeah, opinion-driven. They stick to what they want to do.

Good people, corporations. I actually saw Ben or Jerry. I forgot which one talk at an event I was at like 15 years ago. And I remember being pretty blown away by the like how genuine it was for them and how the extent that they had gone. Right. So, for example, I don't know if it's like, they have this one flavor that's like their brownie flavor. I forgot it.

Like, you know, I'm so fucking fit now. I can't even remember the name, dude. It's insane. It's chocolate fudge brown. Something, something fat people eat. So that's so my past. I just can't even remember. You're like, I barely remember how that felt last week.

By the way, meanwhile, I'm holding up this Tony Zach lonely. Three bars are missing from this pack. Blame it on the kids. My wife gets pissed off at me because whenever we bring a treat to like a friend's house, we bring dessert, they cook dinner. And like, it's like already open. She's like, what the hell? You can't like give like a pack of ice cream when there's like one. I'm like, why not? We're going to open it anyway, like half an hour. Why can I open it now? That's sort of what. That's sort of what happened.

Exactly. She's like I'm a, she always compares me to like a, she always compares me to like a, looking in the cabinets for honey and I get my fingers stuck in the jar. My brother-in-law is like this. My brother-in-law, Aaron. He's one of these people that like, you know, doesn't eat a ton in general. Like, food's not a big, he's not a big foodie. Yeah.

But if you leave like a snack, he's like a bear. Like, if you leave a treat in their house, it's gone by the morning. And you're like, did you wake up? And so, like, he'll eat the whole bag, right? Of anything. And so my sister calls it, like, with Oreos. Like, we got a pack of Oreos, right? And she's like, oh, my God, Aaron's doing a line right now.

I was like, what? And doing a line to her, you eat the entire row of Oreos. Like, he did a whole line. And I just thought that was so funny. Aaron likes to party. Exactly. We got to have it back on. Brother Aaron, the OGs, the real OGs now.

He used to see, he had two guest cameo experiences, like way back in the first 30 episodes. It was hilarious. Anyways, chocolate company. So Tony's chocolate lonely. What did they do? Or Ben and Jerry's, finish the Benigeries thing. They opened up a factory, I think, somewhere like in upstate New York or something like this. And they, they, it was after they met, um, what's it called when you get out of jail and like,

you're in a program, but you like don't want to go recidivism. Like they wanted to reduce recidivism. Like people go back, end up back in jail. Which is traditionally incredibly high. It's really high. And one of the big drivers of why do people who after a long sentence get out and go back? It's not because they're like kind of morally corrupt at their core. It's like they couldn't get a job and then they didn't have money. And they did their social life. And previous friends were losers or They left prison without knowing in one but only had $50. Exactly. And so one way to decrease recidivism is if people can get a job, but nobody wants to give them a job.

So they created a whole factory. Their brownie factory is all brownies made by ex-cons, basically, the Ben and Jerry's flavor. They, like, wanted to, they met some guys who had a good recipe and they, like, built a factory around them, essentially. So they're do-goaters. So Tony Schock-Lone, to break into the U.S. starts partnering with Ben and Jerry's. And the revenue was just grown and grown and grown. And so, like, last year, I think they did 200 million in revenue. And they made this, like, a legit chocolate company that started with two journalists just basically trying to make a stand against the man.

How cool is that? This is awesome. This is so cool. Do they run the company now? No. So they're out now. There's, like, a CEO. It's just kind of run by, like, you know, normal suits, basically at this point.

And they get some flack because, like, their supply chain is still not perfect, but they're very transparent about it. So the crazy thing is, like, they'll report that they had, like, you know, 11 issues this year of, like, child labor discovered in their supply chain. And people are like, see, you're not totally free. And they're like, what? We're trying to, like, we're trying to be transparent and say, you know, we're way less than anybody else. But we're also honest about this and we're reporting it so that we can keep improving this. but they get some flack as like, you know,

I guess like skeptics say that maybe they're just greenwashing at this point since the founder's left. And even I think the founder has sort of alluded to like, it's not the same since we left. I don't know the exact story. It's like,

I'm trying to read these like Dutch translations of articles and decided that like I'd rather just eat the chocolate and chill. So I'm not sure the exact story, but I think there's maybe a little controversy around that. Yeah, I've known about this brand for a while. And this, and I didn't know the, I only knew what Jimmy had said,

which wasn't in, this depth, but it makes me like them way more. The product's awesome. I mean, I love the brand. They all said, and I eat the shit out of them. I mean, it's, it messes me up, but that's cool. Maybe you could be the influencer that blows them up even more. Sam Parr, I eat the shit out of them. It's just like, most of my like guilty evenings start with a bar of Tony's. Like, and the problem with that. Jore of honey. How much time we got. The, the issue.

is they would sell their candy. It used to come in like the extra king size. It was a huge bar. They only sell in bulk. By the way, did I ever tell you about the time? We were talking about recidivism. This is not entirely related to business, but I think you'll get a kick out of this.

Did I tell you about the time? Do you know that I've been to like, I think we've talked about this. I've been to San Quentin a few times in Indiana State Prison. You've mentioned that you did, but I don't know the exact story. What's the story?

I have to tell you the background of this. So I've gone to, I have a friend who I'm going to, this is the story. It's going to be at him. But, I've been to Indiana State Prison a couple times or once. I went to Santa Quentin a few times. One time I went to Indiana State Prison.

So we go because my friend has this charity called The Last Mile. And the idea is like when you commit a crime, particularly murder, you're not always sentenced to life. You're never going to get out. And it's better for that person if they get out and have a job. It's better for society if they get out and get a job. And it's better for the taxpayer if they get out and get a job because you don't want them to go back to prison because that's bad for everyone. And so we are all incentivized. It's totally bipartisan to get this person to be trained and to get a job.

And so this company, the last mile, started by my friend Chris. They help you learn. I think when I went, I think they were learning WordPress. I don't know what they learned now, but this was a while ago. They were learning WordPress or they were learning like some front in development so you can get a job at like an eBay or like a huge comp coding now. Yeah, I don't know what they do now. Yeah.

They have like some like weird like hot or not app. You're just minting NFTs. Yeah. I don't know what these guys are doing. But my friend Chris started it and he was a prominent venture capitalist. He helped. He was the first investor in Wish. He was an early investor in Snap.

He did boom. He did all these other like cool startups. And for some reason, one day he went and volunteered at San Quentin at a prison. And he was like, I think this is my life's mission to like help reduce recidivism. Meaning when you get out of prison and you don't go back. And so he created this thing called the Last Mile. They now have hundreds of employees. They've had thousands of people who have gone through their program.

And up until recently, he told me this stat a couple years ago. So I don't want to jinx someone. I don't know the update. But of the thousand or 2,000 people who graduated, not one had ever been back to prison. And that's like a huge thing. And so it's really interesting that this tech person has, like, he quit. So he doesn't invest anymore. This is all he does.

And I talked to another guy, Mike Novagrats. He was on the pod two weeks ago. And that's his thing now, too, is reducing recidivism. So reducing the rate that you go back to prison. But I know a bunch of people who have given up their careers to go pursue this. I'm on their website right now. Pretty crazy stats. So it says, since the 70s, the prison population of the U.S.

has increased by 700 percent, which is not what you would expect. That's not just like, oh, that makes sense. It should grow every year. No, no, no, the prison population should not necessarily grow at that rate. It says that every person in prison has an annual cost to the American taxpayer of $70,000, which means we pay about $50 billion a year is spent on state and federal prisons. Isn't that crazy? That's amazing, right?

The last miles, participants in the last mile who go through their, I guess it's like an education program as they get out, have a 75% employment rate when they come out, which is good. I wonder what the non, I wonder what the baseline is. It's got to be half that or less. Well, so basically what happens. And I talked to some of these guys when they were in there. They were like, look, when I got out, I had been in for 10 or 15 years. I was a thug.

Like, I didn't want to associate with my old people. And like, my family had either died or wasn't around. And they basically gave me a bus ticket and 50 bucks. And I was like, sir, where do I go? I'm not sure where I go to right now. What do I do? And so they're like, that's why I came back here as I just started going back to how I used to behave.

By the way, why does he have? have a, this guy, Chris looks awesome, Chris Redlitz. Why does he have a serious radio show? Does that get broadcasted into, in the prisons in some way? Or like, is that just an external thing? Both. So he had, so Chris is interesting. So we had Michael Harris on the pod. Michael, Harry O is his nickname. Harry O's the founder of Death Row Records. Chris is kind of, he, I joke, he's an OG. He's an original gangster. So he knows all of these guys. So he's friends with Dr. Dre, Snoop, the founders of Death Row, all these cool guys. And they all have this like blend of hip hop, but also like crime, like interests. And so he decided to have a show with Sirius,

where he would get some of these cool guys on the radio show and they would talk about what his issue is. But also it was like wrapped up in like kind of cool stories because it's kind of like hip hop and like celebrity. And so he had a show for Sirius where he would talk about it. Dude, this guy's living the dream. Got rich. decided to do good in the world. Has a great podcast. The triple thread. He's cool.

And so I became really close with him. He invested in my company when I was a 25-year-old or 26-year-old in San Francisco. Very coincidentally, we both moved to this small town in Westport, Connecticut, together, and we hang out all the time. And his wife, her name's Beverly. She's a 95-pound woman. And I've been to San Quentin. And we were walking on the yard with these guys doing like,

bench press and sit-ups and whatever. And I walked with this little lady through the yard and the Red Sea parted. And she just walked through it. She's like, Tyrone, how are you? And she would go, Miss Bev, nice to see you. It was the craziest thing that I've ever seen. It was like, I'm telling you, she, like, ran this prison yard. She was the only woman there. And it was the craziest thing I've ever seen. And they have a joke that says, if it glow, you may go. When you walk in to San Quentin, they stamp your hand. And so when you live, leave, you have to show them your stamp underneath, underneath a black light in order to get out. And they would do jokes where she would wink at the guy when I'm walking in and he didn't actually

stamp me. He just pretended. And I would go to scam my hand to leave and my hand didn't glow. And they're like, sir, you cannot leave. We have to get this figured out. And I was like, I'm not saying here. So, like, they would pull like tricks on you. Like when you go and see this place, it was wild. But Chris and Bev are two people when I think of how to live life. It's them. That's the way. to go. That's dope. Can I tell you a related story? So my buddy Trevor was writing a book and he did this great, a very smart move, which I never really heard anybody else do, but I thought it was a good idea. He goes, hey man, check your email. I check my email and there's like a plane ticket. And it's a plane ticket to go see him. And he's like, I'm going to do, I want to write this book and I want

it to be great. And I could sit here and brainstorm this on my own, but I really want to do something and then I'm calling a bookstorm. And he basically decided to fly out the five kind of smartest, most interesting people he knew to hang out with him for a day and just help him flesh out and brainstorm the book together. And he's like, I will owe you one for life, but I just really respect you to trust you and I really want your help with this because I'm trying to make this great. I go. And in the room is basically my buddy Trevor, his brother. And then there's the head of like the women's volleyball, the U.S. women's volleyball team, which is like,

way outperformed in the Olympics and won like a bunch of gold. And there was one other person. And then there was this guy, Larry. I'm like, oh, I'm a professional brainstormer. This is literally what I do. I'm like, just ready to rock and roll. But I'm just blown away by this guy Larry. Every time this guy, Larry opens his mouth, he says something that's super wise, super smart, on the nose.

Just a few words, but he's always on point. And so after about an hour, the brainstorm around the book, I was like, dude, I got to ask. Larry, I missed the intro. What's your story? dude, because you're incredible. And Larry tells the story where Larry's like, you know, I, my name's Larry, blah, blah, blah. And he goes, I was incarcerated for the past 22 years. Wow.

And I think he had just gotten out. I don't know how long it had been, maybe a year or two, something like that. And he goes, yeah, from the age 18, he's now 40. He's like, at age 18, I was arrested and I was, I was in for, whatever, 22 plus years. And I was like, Larry, no offense, but you just got out a couple years ago. How are you so smart? How do you know all this stuff? He would have these amazing polls where whatever we were talking about,

he would reference this thing in this book and this quote, he could just recite by memory. So Larry, I'm like, Larry, how do you know all this? And he goes, I was incarcerated at age 18. They lock you up and throw away the key, right? Like, you're basically like the lowest man on the totem pole for society. They don't, nobody invests in you at that point. You're a sunk cost.

And so he's like, I was, you know, getting in trouble. And it was a rough place. And it was not a good time. and he's like, I made a decision. I'm no longer in prison. I'm in university. And he's like, so every day I just studied. I just decided to go to university for the past 20 years.

He's like, I decided to read all the books and learn and write and better myself. And he's like, I would literally change what I saw. I would walk in the prison yard and I wouldn't see the barbed wire. He's like, I saw roses. He's like, I literally just brainwashed myself that I am not in prison. I am in university. and I carried myself like that and I acted like that.

He made the most of what was, you know, otherwise a very bad situation. I just remember being so blown away and inspired by this guy Larry when I heard that, heard that story because I was like, you know,

if Larry can do that at a life sentence in prison, this sounds stupid, but like, then I can be born in a line at Starbucks for it out or, you know, whatever. Like,

you can change where you are. You don't have to be in the situation that it looks like you're in. Like, you can literally just decide. No, no. I'm in university right.

now. No, no, I'm in a spa right now. No, I'm in the brainstorming session right now. I mean, I am where I want to be about that. That's so cool. Yeah, it's really challenging because on one hand, for some reason, you start, you feel like sad for someone, like, because you meet someone, like a lot of the guys I met, they, I think they kind of had a tone for their sins a little bit where like they've changed, but you're like, oh, I feel so bad for you. Like, that sucks. You deserve this. And then you, like, learn about what they did. And you're like, ah, actually, no, like, consequences exist for a reason. Like, that sounds fair to me. And it creates like a, whenever I've done these things with these guys, I get so many mixed emotions.

It's a very challenging thing. It's a very hard thing to be part of too. But it is a no-brainer, right? You want someone to like not go back. So you guys know this, but I have a company called Hampton. Joinhampton.com. It's a vetted community for founders and CEOs. Well, we have this member named Levon, and Levan saw a bunch of members talking about the same problem within Hampton, which is that they spent hours manually moving data into a PDF. It's a team. tedious, it's annoying, and it's a waste of time. And so, Levan, like any great entrepreneur, he built a solution, and that solution is called Moku. Moku uses AI to automatically transfer data from any document into a PDF. And so if you need to turn a supplier invoice into a customer

quote or move info from an application into a contract, you just put a file into Moku and it auto fills the output PDF in seconds. And a little backstory for all the tech nerds out there. Levan built the entire web app without using a line of code. He used something called Bubbleio. They've added AI tools that can generate an entire app from one prompt. It's pretty amazing and it means you can build tools like Moku very fast without knowing how to code. And so if you're tired of copying and pasting between documents or paying people to do that for you, check out Moku.aI. M-O-L-K-U dot AI. All right, back to the pod.

Did I tell you my embarrassing prison story? No, but that sounds so awesome. This can go so many ways. I go with this. What are you making dad jokes at your first day in? So I moved to Silicon Valley and I'm working with this guy, Michael Birch. And Michael Birch is this wonderful guy. Michael's built a successful career in Silicon Valley.

He's basically like a billionaire. So one day he messages me like pack a bag with enough clothes for a day, I go two days and meet me like at like whatever. Like meet me at like 8 a.m. at this spot. You're not going to work today. I'm like, all right. I don't know what's going to happen. I go.

And we started driving. You had no idea where you were going? I think he tells me on the drive that we're going to, he's a part of this group called the Inside Circle. And Inside Circle was where they take guys from the outside to go meet guys on the inside. And it was at the prison, a Folsom. What was it called a Folsom prison?

Yeah, Folsom. And so we go drive there. It's a maximum security prison. And I'm basically just a huge was. Right. So I don't know what I'm getting into. I don't know what. I didn't actually sign up for that.

Michael's just kind of like, trust me, you'll like this is good. You should do this. I still don't really understand what we're doing. I think it's like a, you know, like, dare where they like scare you? They like take you in. You're like, scared straight.

Like, you're like, I thought it was scared straight. I thought we're just going to observe from like behind this, like really thick glass. I'm like, oh, cool. We're going to go like watch. And I'm going to be like, wow, I learned so much today from observing. It tapping on the glass.

And then they open the door and they're like, all right, guys, come on in. I'm like, what? And so we go. in and they're like, all right, uh, you know, pick a buddy, pick a, pick a partner. And so I'm like, uh, and I like, pick this guy. And, and the program starts. It basically, it's like a men's group. So you sit in a circle, you talk about your feelings. Oh, and by the way, when I walk in, immediately my eyes are drawn to one person because it was so obvious to me, like this was the

hardest guy in the prison. Somehow this guy had sunglasses. And I don't know why he was allowed to have sunglasses. He had a he had a cane, which I thought like you're not allowed to have like a like a something that could be like a weapon. But he's got a cane and he's got sunglasses but he's not blind by the way. He has the sunglasses like up on his head

sometimes. Why are a black guy? Black guy. And he had like an entourage. Like he had like two guys with him who were really big and like but they deferred to him and he was kind of older and I was just like, I don't know who this guy is but I've seen enough shows and movies. To know that this guy is somebody here. And maybe somebody on the outside

I don't know, but he's somebody in here. Anyway so he's in. He's in. my group and his two like entourage guys. So we get in the circle and I'm like, okay, I don't know what I'm supposed to do. Am I giving advice? Is this a mentorship test? What is this? And it's like, no, no, you're here to talk about, you know, it's a, this is a safe space, unpack your feelings. I'm like, oh, God. And so first guy starts and he starts talking about how he's feeling pissed off. He's feeling pissed off. He's feeling pissed off because like, I mean, crazy story, but like he's locked up in here and his sister outside is having, she's being abused by her boyfriend. He just wants to kill this guy,

but he's on the inside. He can't get to this guy. He feels powerless. And he's sharing this heavy emotional real life problem. Yeah. Like a grade A real life problem. And I'm, I, of course, because I'm horrible, I stop listening. I'm just like panicked thinking of what am I going to say? You know when you're like supposed to be listening, but you just actually just planning what you're supposed to say? I start doing that. Because I'm like, Everybody going to like retell a fake movie so you sound hard. Yeah, so I'm like, my startup doesn't have product where it fit. It's just really grinding my gear.

What the hell am I going to say? I don't have real world problems, right? Like, my life's pretty good. And we're going around the circle, and it's just one crazy, like, real problem after another. And then it's getting to me. And I'm just like, what am I going to say? And so I'm like, all right, I guess I go deep in the bag. I'm like, all right, I do have, there is something that's like pretty heavy.

I don't really talk about this normally, but like, I guess, thank God I have this because this is the time and place to unpack this story. And so I start unpacking this story. And in my mind, and also I'm like, I'm talking kind of slower and dramatically because I'm like, let me really hammed this up a little bit. Like, let me not, let me not be me and laugh during this. Let me, you know, try to be serious here. And I think I'm doing a great job.

And the guy with the glasses just midway through is like, man, I don't believe none of that shit. And I'm like, no. And I immediately, I'm like, no, it's true. He goes, I know it's true. And I'm like, so what? Just to clarify, you said, still, are we cool? What's going on? And he was like, man, that ain't your truth, though.

And so he's like, it's true, but that ain't your truth. And I'm like, what is this puzzle? What is this riddle? I don't know what this means. and then creates this really intense moment where I had to stand up

and he's like they're like all right it's time to do the work I'm like what and stand up like we're going to be beat up and so

he's like he's like what's your truth and I'm like what I just feel and I'm like I'm like no but that is a real situation

that has happened to me and they were like no what's your truth and I was like all right, the truth is I'm just trying to say what I think you guys want me to say because I just want you to like me

and I put it at the guy I'm like I just want you to not hate me and he looks at me he just stares at me he stands up and gets in my face he goes, that's no truth

and he gives me a big hug and then we sat down and then for the next hour I was like I don't know what the hell just happened but I think I'm in a prison gang and this is awesome I think I'm accepted

this felt amazing that's called a breakthrough Yeah, I had a breakthrough. That was my embarrassing for the story. That's great. How did it end? Did you exchange information? What do you do?

Dude, have you ever taken ecstasy? I haven't, but I assumed that's what it felt like. Because for the rest of the time, I was just like, the weight of the world was off my shoulders, and I just enjoyed myself enough. And I realized, like, oh, I could just be my insecure, neurotic self, and that's fine here. Okay, cool, I don't have to pretend.

Great. And then they were like, cool, he ain't pretending anymore. We like this guy. Whatever you say now, we don't really care, but we just know that you're not pandering to us. What value do these guys get? What a lesson learned? What value do these guys get? Well, I think, you know, they live a pretty hard life.

No, I think it's just in general. They live a pretty hard life. And they go to this meeting every week. So they have this kind of like two hours a week where they get to go and kind of like, as they would say, like take the mask off, put the armor down. In fact, like, it would be a mix of like the Hispanic guys, the white guys and the black guys. black guys in this session, but then they would openly say, like, yeah, but like, his friend, like, shanked

my friend, and so it's on, but here it's not on, but as soon as we get out, it's on again. And I was like, this is like a pretty bizarre dynamic, but they all agreed, like, all right, when we're here, it's whatever, but when we're out there, it is what it is. That's the way, that's just the way it's on. I remember me like, that's insane. Um,

but, you know, understandable in a way. So they have this as a space where they can, like, delode kind of emotionally mentally, which is important and feel like, human being and be able to like express themselves. I think it's a pretty dehumanizing feeling, right? When you're again locked up, throw away the key and, you know, anybody who comes in,

they just see you as your label, right? But like in that environment for those three hours that we were there, you know, nobody was, there was no status. Nobody was better than anybody else. Or like, yeah, there was us, but I was worse than everybody else. I guess it's probably the more accurate way of saying it. But like, there was no, they got to like be treated well and be held and be just talk to one man to another man.

At least, again, these are my, this is like my interpretation. I'm sure that people who do this more have a more sophisticated way and a better way of saying it. By the way, now that we're talking about this, and we can wrap up, but Jack Smith, I forgot. This is his big philanthropic cause as well. So Jack Smith, if you ask him what he's doing on a regular basis for a long time, I would say, what are you doing? He's like, oh, I'm pen pals with like people who are locked up and I have a system where they can order any book and I'll get it for them. Isn't he giving books? Isn't it a book program? Yeah, where he created a website. I forget how he did it.

but where they can order a book and he'll buy them any single book that they want. Dude, most generic name, Jack Smith, you can't find anything when you Google for Jack Smith. Yeah. Okay, well, maybe we do this. So there's the last mile, which you could donate to.

So go to last mile, the last mile.org, you can donate there. There's Inside Circle Foundation where you could donate there. So maybe we do a little good. So if there's anybody who's listened to this inspired either to start your own thing or to attend one of these

or to donate, go do it, man, because it's a scene at first hand, does a lot of good, and I think doesn't get the type of attention that it would ever want. By the way, the Inside Circle guys, they also made like a movie, a documentary about the program. And Chris Redlitz is the guy who I, who's kind of my mentor and someone I look up to, and you can find him on Twitter. He's super low-key, but he's been the seed investor of like probably five to ten different unicorns,

hugely successful. And now it has dedicated his life to this. So just DM them if you want to do whatever. He's pretty open-minded. Do you think you're going to do something like this, by the way? Yeah, I haven't found my cause for a long. Do you have like a career arc in mind where you're like, cool, I achieve, I climb success mountain and then I, you know, parachute over to like, you know, save the world.

I told Sarah that at the age of 40, I'm going to stop the getting of money. So I said, by 40, I will no longer pursue any money. and we will have a cause and that's what we will dedicate ourselves to. That's what I... You've also told me that you're going to disappear off the internet. I think this is badass and you should talk more about this. I said at the age of 40,

yeah, I want to get off the internet and I want to not pursue any money-making things ever again. I don't want it to like ruin my perspective and just be a shallow capitalist and only care about that and just delete the internet and just focus on like doing something good. That's what that's the current,

that's the current plan. How old are you now? I turned 36 a month ago. So I'm 36. Four years away, dude. Do you think that's a crazy plan? Of course it's a crazy plan, but it's a pretty cool plan. I think it sounds pretty cool. I said by 40. I mean, what's your level of seriousness about this? Is this like that's what's happening or like I'm just testing this out, seeing how these words sound in my mouth? No, I just think that I think that I think if you only pursue making mind. I think that you become a very shallow person. I think that there's more to life. I think that there's been so many times where I've seen something inspiring and beautiful.

And in my head, I think, oh, then we can do this and turn it into this. And then, like, optimize by doing this. As opposed to saying, this is beautiful. This is wonderful. I want to experience. Let's keep it small. And so I want to, like, force myself to appreciate that.

One of my heroes is this guy named Felix Dennis. He wrote the book, How to Get Rich. Felix Dennis was a publisher in England where he founded a bunch of companies, a bunch of publishing companies, eventually was one. worth six or seven hundred million dollars and he wrote that he was diagnosed with cancer something like at the age of 60 and then at the age of like 61 while he was like learning about his cancer or something

he got into poetry and he was like I'm obsessed with writing poetry why on earth did I not discover this sooner and he quit business partially because he was dying and because he fell in love with poetry and he wrote in his book that if I could do it all over again I would have quit at the age of 40 because I had enough and I would have pursued poetry because that was my calling and I always found that to be amazing because I think that oftentimes when we're doing what we're doing every single day, we get caught into the make more, do more, optimize more when it's like, kind of I want to be in the present and I want to enjoy the things that I want to enjoy regardless if they make money. Because how many hobbies have you had where you're like, well, I would only do it

if I could like, oh, I want to like buy these toys and like maybe I could buy like 10 of them and turn to a money making thing. Now what you're doing is actually pretty cool, but you still have a capitalistic mindset to it. You are playing the people. piano and you are live streaming it, which I think is amazing. But in my head, I'm like, I want to do that too. It's like, well, I only want to do that because I want people to see me learning a hobby. Do you know what I mean? And I like, that's like tainting the thing. Well, I only live streamed it once. No, I'm not criticizing you. I'm criticizing I was inspired to do it because I want glory. Do you know what I mean? Yeah, yeah. And well, I, I learned pretty quickly when I started playing the piano that

nobody gives a shit if you could play the piano, by the way. It's not like a thing. It's not like a thing. Like, if somebody plays the piano well, it's like, oh, cool, you can play the piano well. They don't want to listen to even one song. Nobody wants to listen to somebody play a five-minute song on the piano. That's a very, like, clear thing to me since learning to play piano, but it doesn't matter because playing the, playing a five-minute song is incredibly fun. In fact, I was, I sent Ben a text message. I'm going to read you this text message because I think it's very relevant to what we're talking about. So Pomp did a SPAC recently. Did you see this? Yeah, I saw it, but I don't entirely know what that means, but yeah. So our friend, um,

Pomp, Anthony, they spacked a company. And the company's goal was to do the kind of Michael Sailer playbook, which is it's a Bitcoin acquisition and finance company. And so what they're doing is they raise, I think, $750 million. They spacked it. It's now public, you know, it's going to be a public company. And they basically bought $750 million worth of Bitcoin. Then they're going to raise debt and buy more Bitcoin. They're going to raise companies or pension funds can own Pomp stock, but they can't own Bitcoin. So this is how they get exposure to it. Is that right? that's one aspect to it. There's others which is like it's levered.

So like, you know, you can, for every dollar you put in, let's say you buy Bitcoin directly, you can buy one dollar of Bitcoin, but like their thing might, they're going to borrow and buy more than a dollar of Bitcoin for every dollar of equity, you know, for example. They also want to eventually turn it into like a full financial services thing. So essentially like a Bitcoin backed bank. I think that's like part of the vision. Anyways, I don't know exactly what they're doing. There's, you know, they're only allowed to say certain things.

but the point is, it's like Pomp, this guy who's very much like us, I think he's the same age, similarly as like, I hang out with Anthony all the time, creator on the internet, good dude, and he's, you know, he's not like some Uber, Uber, Uber genius that's like, but he's like relatable, that's what I'm saying. So he's like, he's like, he's like one of us. And it's clear that, like, you know, this didn't just happen. He's been working on this for, you know, some period of time, maybe six months, maybe a year, maybe two years, you don't know. So he, it's like, oh, wow, pomp raised $750 million. has this public company now.

I think he owns 8% of it I saw from the filing. So like, you know, theoretically, Pomp has like $80 million of value from this, right? Some creators make courses. Pump's going to make like, you know, probably hundreds of millions of dollars from this thing if it goes well. Okay. And that's clearly what he put a lot of energy and focus on and did a great job fundraising for.

And I was texting Ben, I was like, wow, wow, that's incredible. I was like, meanwhile, I've logged 120 hours on the piano in the last six months. I go honestly no regrets though fucking love the piano dude so listen you tweeted out you said I used to think jealousy was a bad thing like a sin and I try to avoid

it but jealousy is a wedding crasher it shows up uninvited and recently I started using jealousy to my advantage jealousy is an incredible signal it tells me at a very primal no logic level what my subconscious wants it's a heat signal for taste

I don't obey the signal but I do observe it and it helps me now and so this sounds very strange but When I saw what Pop was doing, I was like, that's so badass. Congrats to him. But then very weirdly, when I saw you streaming, you played the piano. For some reason, I thought that was oddly one of the cooler things you've done in the last year or two.

And I felt stronger. And I'm like, well, why do I feel that? Why do I think that that is cooler? I don't know why, exactly. But it relates to that tweet where I'm like, what's the signal there that's sending? So anyway, I thought that was really cool. I thought that was significantly cooler. And I said this as well, when you were contemplating making a play or starting a business or something like that.

it's like, I don't know, for some reason, the play is so much cooler. So I think I would pursue those artistic things over the money thing. And this sounds like very trite, you know, like not everyone has the privilege to be able to do that. But I do think that like it's better for your soul that way. Yeah, exactly. I mean, you could already, you know, hear the comments. Oh, it must be nice for you. You don't have to work.

Another version of it is tech bros discover hobbies. There's more to life than money. Also, by the way, both true. Both are both very valid points of view. I don't think it's the important. point of view, but I do think they're valid points of you. I think the important point of view is try to figure out what you actually want to do and then pursue it like in a relentless, sort of unashamed way. And I think it's very cool. When you said that thing, I think you told me,

like in five, seven years, I plan to delete my social media, disappear from the internet. And now you're talking about like, you know, stop pursuing the getting of money. I really hope you stick to that. I don't know if you will, because I think it's a very hard. hard thing to do. It's like, hey, can you turn down? Like, it's like being like, I no longer eat sugar, right? It's like, those people who like, are like, I'm going to stop. I'm going to diet, right? It's hard to stick to a diet. But if you actually did that, you would like shoot up in the rankings of the most badass people I know. You know what I mean? You're already top 10, but you would shoot up. I've got four years to go. I better get all, I better get all of it while

I can. But I do think that that it's also. Give me a percentage. How certain are you, you're going to do that at the age of 40? I just need to know. I'm going to hold. I'm going to told you to this. 60 to 70%. I mean, look, I feel a lot of it has to do with family, too. Like, I feel like when my little

kids start, like, talking and having personalities, I think I would fall in love with them even more. And I just want to, like, be a good example that there's more to life than just the getting of money. Yeah. Yeah, I'm totally washed. Kids are so cute.

I'm just washed up now. I can't do it. I can't do anything, dude. I'm just, I'm hooked. The, the more personalities, she shows the more where I'm like, oh, nothing really matters except our health and being around each other. Right, right. I don't know. Does that stay linear? Like, or does it like, uh, like, does it keep getting hired the more they talk to you? Yeah, it is. But I think, at least for me, like, there's a, uh, there is a cap.

It's not one of these unbounded things. It's not like, I want to spend every waking moment with you. I'm like, yeah, you got like, like, you're too annoying. I'm too tired. This is too much. But it does, I do, I do have like a, uh, it became my favorite thing for like, for like, three hours a day. Like for three hours a day, my kids are my favorite thing in the world. That's three hours a day that my favorite thing used to be working. It used to be, you know, reading. There's other things that were in that spot of like that three hours a day of like voluntary time I could direct towards anything. And now my kids are that, right? Like we just like jump into the pool with them and doing stuff or playing a game or whatever. That's like, it is super, super fun.

But it is capped at like a three to four hours a day. Beyond that, I'm like, like, how dare my wife make me raise my own children? This is too. much. I need to be helped and saved. Who's, who's here who saved me? This is the softest episode we've ever had. All right, we should get off before we start crying. All right, that's it. 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. All right, my friends, I have a new podcast for you guys to check out. It's called content is profit. And it's hosted by Luis and Fonzie Cameo. After years of building content teams and frameworks for companies like Red Bull and Orange Theory Fitness, Luis and Fonzie are on a mission to bridge the gap between content and revenue. In each episode, you're going to hear from top entrepreneurs and creators and you're going to hear them share their secrets and strategies to turn their content into profit. So you can check out content is profit wherever you get your podcast.