My First Million - Recapping the Mr Beast Joe Rogan Interview, The Billionaire Who Owns the Sports Jersey Market, Betting on Yourself, and More

Episode Date: March 15, 2022

Sam Parr (@TheSamParr) and Shaan Puri (@ShaanVP) recap Mr. Beast's interview on Joe Rogan, talk about people who find their passion early in life, discuss Michael Rubin and how he has taken over the sports jersey market, and more. ----- Links: * Fanatics - https://www.fanatics.com/ * Mr Beast on Joe Rogan - https://open.spotify.com/episode/5lokpznqvSrJO3gButgQvs?si=b931061285fd4e84 * Whatnot - https://whatnot.com/ * Do you love MFM and want to see Sam and Shaan's smiling faces? Subscribe to our Youtube channel. * Want more insights like MFM? Check out Shaan's newsletter. ----- Show Notes: (01:35) - Recapping the drunk ideas episode (3:00) - Mr Beast on Rogan (6:55) - Betting on yourself (13:00) - Michael Rubin and Fanatics (19:45) - Growing your market (22:05) - Whatnot ----- 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

But I thought his approach was smart and one that people should take, which is he goes, right now there's like 5 million people who collect sports cards. My question when we bought tops was, how do we get 50 million or 500 million people to collect? And like, that's the only game I want to play, is expanding the total size of this market from 5 million people who do this thing to 50 million people who do this thing. 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 day. Dude, I listened back to our last episode, the drunken episode. This is good. We were funny. People liked it. I've heard that. What did you think was fun?

Here's so. I listened to the whole episode. Imagine how good it must have been for me to sit through with a cringe of my own voice. Well, for people listening, people will usually message Sean and I together, but sometimes separate. And they say, I liked this episode. and the response that we always have is why what did you like about it what part we fish we fish hard for that compliment well no I mean it's not rude I do

I like what I did we need to do more what was funny um I think I literally came across as sort of like giggly drunk the whole episode I was already I just felt like I was having a good time like watching myself have a good time made me have more fun and the second was y'all's reactions were really good. So I'd pitch a kind of hairbrained idea. And then your reaction was on point. And then Ben came in with not like, you know, reasonable calm Ben. Ben was like, that is a terrible idea.

Or he was like, no, Sam, you're dead wrong. This is a great idea. Imagine crawling onto this big ass bed and like blah, blah, blah. You know, he like really played into it. So I think it just had good energy and good vibes. That's good. Yeah, we had people reach out to us about it. So that's good. So I'm going to try to maintain that. Dude, right before this, I was watching, you saw Mr. Beast went on Joe Rogan.

I don't know if you caught the episode at all. I didn't, just a couple of the clips where they said like, what do you do at your money? And he's like, not much. He goes, I used to have a roommate up until recently and we split our place for $700. But I got a fancier place because someone broke into my house. So I needed like some security, but it's still like pretty normal of a house. Yeah, I didn't see that. So I've only seen one clip.

And it was basically the clip of like, how did you make it on YouTube? It's a great clip, right? Like it's a. What's he say? So you guys. goes, so he's 23 now. And he goes, I started doing this when I was 11. And Joe's like, what? He's like, yeah, he's like, I came home and I, he's like, I started to do this when I was 11. And he's like, I sucked obviously at the beginning. He's like, so he's like, he's like, look at me

now. I don't look cool now. Like, imagine me at like 12. Like I was like, you know, pimply, you know, pimply face, scrawny, awkward, mumbly kind of guy. And like, here I am trying to like make videos and he's like back then also YouTube really there wasn't a thing like YouTubers wasn't like a thing 12 13 years ago you know so it's like he's like yeah I just was doing it because I liked it he goes I hated school he's I never He's like in high school I just never even brought a book home like I just like I remember doing zero studying my parents got so mad at me he's like and then like when I turned 18 um he's like he's like basically it went in three phases he goes from 11 to 13 I was trying to make videos

but I was like super embarrassed because they were so bad. And Joe was like, do they still exist? He goes, no, I deleted my channel when I turned 13 because like I got like, I don't know, like bullied in school a little bit. I felt embarrassed. So I deleted all those videos, but I like started fresh again at 13 and like, whatever, kept going. He's like, so then from 13 to like 17 or 18, I was just trying to make like videos all

the time because my first video randomly got like 20,000 views. He's like, that was the best thing that ever happened to me. I got like this instant hit and I was hooked. And then like, it didn't happen again for a while. like that first one, which was about like, he like hacked some video game. Like here's that I beat this level in a video game or whatever. He's like some obscure game and it just like, people wanted to know how to do that hack. So that's how I got popular right away.

Or he's like, that's how that video got popular. And then I got, I wanted to chase that, that feeling again. So he's like, I wasn't making any money. He's like, finally I got to the point where I was making a dollar a day. And he's like, yes. And he's like, so I saved up for like a few months and I bought a microphone. And I was like, yeah, like now I sound good. Like, here we go.

And he's like, I just kept doing that. I kept like making a couple bucks, saving it, and then like buy a camera or buy like, you know, like a better computer so I can like edit the videos or screen record or whatever. And so he just kept doing that for like six years. He's like, my whole goal was that by the time I graduate from high school, can I like just make enough money doing this because I don't want to do anything else? What was his number? So it did not happen.

He's like, by the time I, he's like, by the time I graduated high school, I was making like $400 a month or something like that. And he's like, you know, it's the 300, 400 bucks. He's like, so my mom gave me this ultimatum. She was like, you're moving out or you're like going to community college. Like you're not going to do this video thing. And so he's like, uh, fuck, okay. He's like, I didn't want to go to community college.

He's like, it's like the worst thing in the world, just sitting there listening of this lecture. Like it's not what I wanted to do. He's like, so I started skipping. He's like, every day I would just go to my car. And instead of going to community college, I would just edit videos in my car. He's like, I do that all day and I come home and my mom thought I went to school. He's like, and he's like, that created a clock.

because now she was going to find out. By the end of this semester, I had zeros as my grades. Like, she was going to know that I did not go to community college. So I had to like, I bought myself like one semester more of time. He's like, and in that time, I pulled it off. Like I got to the point where I could like self-sustain. I just moved out. And then I could like do this like full time moving on my own.

It's like, and so that's kind of like the progression of how I did it. And I was like, how awesome is that? How awesome is that? Exactly. Like a bet on yourself story. where burn the bridge behind you, right? So, you know, we say burn the bridges. I don't know why we say that.

It's burn the boats. Like if you want to take the island, you got to burn the boats. And so he burned the boats when he did that. And knew what he wanted to do, right? Because, like, school's great, but school's not for everybody. If you, if you kind of know what you want to do,

you're much better off, I think, competing in the free market on that thing than, like, competing for your teachers, like love and affection, you know, with writing the essay they want a grade as an A plus, right? Like writing the thing they want you to write about in the format they want you to write in a way that will get them to give you the grade, right?

Like that's like not a real market. Whereas you make videos on YouTube, you're competing in like a real market or you want to be an athlete. Yeah, it's just that most people think that they're like going to do something for life and they aren't willing to or they don't actually want to. I think the rarity here is not,

is someone 18 incapable. it's do they actually love what they're saying they love enough that they're willing to dedicate 10 or 20 years to it right yeah like yeah you know what I mean are you actually do you actually have a thing you love most people do not my I remember my sister when she was going to college my dad was like all right well like what do you want to major in she's like I don't know he's like well what's your favorite subject like what do you love to study she's like lunch like you know I just like I'm not I don't mean against any of them but like do any of them make me happy not really so what now what and like I think that's all those people's careers

go. It's like, all right, well, I don't hate it, but I don't love it, but now what? What am I supposed to pay? Yeah, yeah. So I think that's the rarity here is that he actually, that he liked something enough. But anyway, that's a good story. I'll have to go and watch this podcast. We need a- I also shout out. There's one more that's like that that I think you'll appreciate. There's a guy who's visiting, a kid who's visiting, basically my brother-in-law's nephew. This kid named Sebastian. And he's in town visiting. I haven't seen him in like seven years. So I was like, oh, Sebastian, like, oh, you've, you hit puberty.

You kind of grew up. He's like, he's like, he's like a kid, right? He's still small, but like, he's like ripped. And from the age of, like, I met him when he was maybe five. And back when he was five, he was so into, like, wrestling and, like, UFC at MMA. And he would like, he knew every wrestler's promos, songs, moves, everything. Like, I think a lot of kids do. But he could, like, do he would, like, practice them.

He was, like, good at them. He could, like, do an impression of Stone Cold Steve Austin or the rock or these guys. And then with fighting, he was like, got really into jihit-jitsu early on and got good at it. To the point where he was like, by the age of, I want to say eight or nine, he was like, mom, like, this is what I'm going to do. I'm going to do fighting. Like, I'm going to be a fighter. So let's just like do that.

How do I go train like five hours a day? Because that's what I want to do. And so from the age of like, he was already doing it when he was like a young kid. But I think from the age of like eight, nine or ten, somewhere there, he started training. like a professional. He homeschooled himself. So he's like, okay, I don't need to go to school anymore. Like, I'm going to do this. I'll homeschool to like, you know, continue passing these like grades or whatever. But like my real school is I spend five hours a day in this gym and I get good at this. So he's now like one of the so he's 17 now. He's got his first amateur fight this year.

He's one of the best jihitsu players in the world. He's going to ADCC. He's like the best in the, he's already the best in the state of Texas. He's one of the number one or number two nationally. and now he's going to go to the international competition see if he can win that like the world championships at age 17 he's been training all his striking he's doing his first amateur fight

and this kid is so focused so driven so determined and like it's just kind of amazing to see like what a good kid he comes from like you know like single mom household and like you know but is he doing

an MMA one with striking or just JJJitsu no no he's doing MMA now so he's like I love it all he's like Jiu Jitsu I'm already the best he's like my striking

is coming along. He's like, I want them to want to take me down because my striking is that good. He just talks like, dude, when I was 17, I didn't have a clue. I didn't have a clue about a clue. And so when I saw that, I was like, that's special. And it's just like, just the way I idolize kind of like the billy of the week. Like I appreciate greatness when it's accomplished. I even, I like it even better when it's the raw talent that's just turning into a diamond. Sebastian, I think it's like, I think it's like Oliverers or I don't know how you say his last name. It's like a Hispanic last name. I'll send it to you. Is he, is he Indian?

No, he's Hispanic. I'll watch his videos and, um, jih Tjitsu is normally very boring. He's so athletic that his jihitsu looks fun. And he's like a showman. Like he comes out and the crowd has already heard about him. They've seen him on Instagram. Like the announcers know that he's like more acrobatic with the way he does things. And so he's got like an aura about him already.

It's pretty dope to watch. Like, this guy's going to be in the UFC. And it's crazy. I've seen him since he was like eight or nine years old doing this. What's he weigh? He's a fly weight. So he's very, he's very small.

He's like maybe five, six, 125 pounds. Like that sort of thing. But maybe he'll fill out. I guess he's, he worked out with us. And like it was like he put us all to shame. It was embarrassing.

He was stronger than you. Yeah. He's like a dominant athlete. Like it's like, okay, we're going to do this hip raise, you know, thing.

And it's like, his explodes. It doesn't raise. Yeah, but like size matters. So like, even a like a like a like a like a not strong 200 pound person can is stronger than a really strong 130 you know brother Aaron as he's known on the pod right so yeah he's like a crazy man a little he's six

four he's six three six four he's two hundred pounds and he's been training jizu for maybe four or five years now and he's like whatever he's like a blue belt or whatever they rolled and he got tapped like 15 times in the same he got embarrassed by a 125 pounder right he's like it wasn't close he's like i can't but i couldn't believe it like i thought the size and strength would just let me kind of mall a little bit, and he's like, no. Dude, I'm going to Google him after this. I want to see what he looks like. All right, you have a lot of stuff.

I actually didn't research much at all because last time you said, I've got so much. Yeah, well, I might have been talking out my ass there, but we'll do it anyways. So I'll start with a couple of business things, and then we'll go from there. So did you see like what Michael, the guy Michael Rubin did? So we talked about him a little bit. to be honest, I don't entirely understand what his business Fanatics does, but I know that, like, he's got three different companies right now. One of them was worth like 50 billion. Another one's worth like a billion. Another one's worth like five or 10 billion. Like it's just like,

it's like there's fanatics and there's like three spinoffs of it. Yeah, exactly. So I don't have like a ton of, you know, kind of like research on him or whatever. But basically fanatics itself is worth over $10 billion. And what Fanatics does is they basically, are a merch company, but for sports. And so what they do is you want to go buy a Steph Curry jersey, whether you buy it in the NBA shop, the Warrior Shop, or you just Google Steph Curry jersey and you land on Fanatics.com, it's Fanatics that's printing, they're actually like printing the jerseys

and then shipping them out to customers. I get that. I just don't understand how can just like a rookie, like a noob, I mean, he's not a nub anymore. He's been doing this since he was 21. He's probably 55 now. How can just like a guy come in and just like muscle like the person? people who have had those contracts for 20 decades for 20 years. I also had that same exact

question. Now, I know he was kind of like successful before this. I think he had done a, it was called a GSI, I think commerce. And he sold it to eBay for, I forget exactly how much, but he made like 80 or 90, I think. And then it didn't work out at eBay. So he bought back some of the stuff. And he grew that to be big. And then he also spun out a few things. So this company called Shop Runner, which is quite popular. It's basically like Amazon Prime for people who aren't on Amazon. He built that business and a few other things. And so I don't know if he said this.

As like a ski shop when he was 18, I think he said. Yeah, exactly. Ski, sort of a ski business, whatever, then became like kind of apparel logistics. So that's GSI commerce. That's sports.

Again, sports commerce. He sold that to eBay. I think, I don't know if you said the price, $2.4 billion. Yeah, he only walked away with like 80,

which is a lot. But I don't think he, I think he gave up a ton of equity. And he was like in his late 30s at the time. And then, And then, yeah, I don't know how he got the contracts, but he basically just like continued licensing. I don't think he guys exclusive.

So I think he got the licenses to print the stuff. And then over time demonstrated that like they had the best product with the best delivery, with the best quality assurance and all that stuff. And so they ended up being like, we'll just power your shop. Right. We'll be the default one when you go to like the team's websites. Well, he also bought a recently started a cards company that is making cards. And they just, and then he was like, you know what?

let's just buy tops while we're at it. Yeah, exactly. So I don't understand how he's totally just kind of brute force his way into this, it seems. Yeah, so he, exactly. So he bought tops, which is kind of like a pretty interesting move. We've talked about trading cards.

We talked about, you know, like this whole thing. It seems like what they're going to do is they're going to say, all right, we got the licenses from the sports teams. We can get, we know licensing as a business. We can get the licenses for cards as well. We know printing and manufacturing. We can do that with the cards as well. but then also with cards there's like basically it's the same customer it's the same fan so if i buy a

step curry jersey odds are i'm going to be like somewhat interested in like a step curry rookie card and the reason i want to bring him up was not because like i had some like deep insight on his like business plan although i think it's pretty simple which is like we have the sports fan as a customer what do they buy one of the things that they might buy is collectibles okay let me go buy tops and like we'll sell them collectibles but i thought his approach was smart and one that people should take which is he goes, right now there's like five million people who collect sports cards. And so the whole business is like these five million people. And nobody has like taken a like big approach to this.

It's been this like hobbyist kind of underground. And it's like the charm of it. Like if you go to like the annual sports card conference, it's like this in Cincinnati that's like, you know, these hobbyists bring their cardboard boxes and like some special shout out to like, you know, Kentucky Fried Chicken for sponsoring this year's. conference, whatever, right? And like Eric's moms for bringing cookies. Yeah, exactly.

Exactly. Third year running. Thank you, Mrs. Kay. And so they're like, you know, that's the conference right now. So he's like, dude, why is that like that? But like, sneaker con is like this fucking state of the art thing. And CES is like this epic show that's like, you know, like cutting it. So he's like, I'm going to do all that in the trick.

No, he's like, nobody has spent a dollar on marketing collectibles. Like nobody, like, it's like this. hobbyist passion industry, but nobody goes out and markets this thing. He's like, but people have done that for sneakers and other things. So I think what he's going to do. One smart thing. I like this part of a plan was he's basically going to athletes that like to collect in general.

He's going to like make it known that these celebrities, oh, did you know like the whatever, you know, the guy from billions, like the hedge fund manager has like $2 million stuff. He's going to build like a media company on top of this a little bit. Like a media company or it's going to be a slagy. media play and they happen to sell the cards. It's going to be, he's going to make it cool to collect, right? It was just a smart thing. And the reason why, again, like, okay, that's just part of a plan.

The one part I really liked is he goes, there's five million people who collect today. And what anybody else in the space has tried to do is try to get as much, take as much as they can from those five million. My question when we bought tops was, how do we get 50 million or 500 million people to collect? And like, that's the only game I want to play is expanding the total size of this market from 5 million people who do this thing to 50 million people who do this thing.

And I just thought like that's a really powerful mental model for how you build businesses. And I've talked about this before. That's the same framework as the one that the guy from Slack did when he created Slack. He's like, yeah, there's work chat tools

and some people use them. He's like, the reality is eight out of the 10 customers that we talk to, companies that we talk to, they don't use a live chat tool. They use email. So he goes, his memo was called,

we don't sell saddles here, right? Because he's like, if we just go to the existing people who like horseback riding, they probably already have a saddle. We try to convince them to switch because we got a better saddle. They're kind of familiar with their ways. We're always going to be in this tiny niche. But if we sell the dream of horseback riding and show people how fun it is to go horseback riding, we increase the size of the overall market.

And then when they say, oh, wow, I love this thing, but my butt hurts. We'll say, great, we have a saddle for you. And so that's like just like a general approach to business that I think more people should take is increasing the size of the number of people who even want your category before saying pick me. Have you?

I agree. That's a really good insight. And an example of that is, have you seen, so Kevin Rose, this tech guy for years, Kevin Rose, for some reason,

after, I forget where he was. He was either, I think he was at Google leading like their venture arm. He left and he became the, I think he became a part owner and the CEO of this blog

called Hodenki. I think that's a, Hodinky. And I remember hearing about that. And I was like, what? He goes, yeah, it's a blog for watches. And I was like, what do you think? There was a middle step.

So he created a studio, a lab to incubate ideas. And that's why he was even more crazy. He's like, yeah, we're creating this like publication or this thing for watch collectors. And then that got acquired, I think, by either Hodinkie or that was called Houdinke and it got acquired. I'm not sure which one. Yeah, they, this guy already had this blog. Kevin was tinkering with it and they became one.

and he started working on that and I was like, what the heck man? Who gives a shit about watches? Yeah, aren't you like high tech? And like a blog? Like, what are you thinking? And then I started watching some of their YouTube videos and it was either Kevin or the other guy

who started the site and he was sitting with John Mayer and they were talking about their watches. And I sat for like 20 minutes watching this like where John Mayer was like, yeah, this watch is actually special for this reason. And I was like, that's amazing. And they had this show on YouTube where they were doing that. And I'm not a watch guy because I don't want to spend, I don't get joy out of it.

I get more stress out of spending $30,000 for something on my wrist. I kind of get annoyed with it. But I was watching his stuff and I was like, I want to own this. You've turned me into a connoisseur or a wannabe connoisseur. I want to be part of this. Exactly. I want to want this. I don't know how yet.

It's like sushi and wine. There's a whole bunch of these things from like, oh, I kind of like the idea of getting into this hobby, golf, right? Like, I want to want it. Yes. And that's how I felt with him. I could see myself wanting to do this with cards. I, when I was a kid, did you ever call like magic cards?

Not magic, Pokemon for me, but yeah. I did magic. And I don't even remember how to play it. And I remember, like, I was like, just let me look on eBay, see how much some of those are. And I was like, I'm just going to buy some. This is fun. It'll remind me in my childhood.

And I would totally do that with sports cards, even though I don't pay attention to sports now. Just remind me of my childhood. I would buy like a Mark McGuire card or something like that. But, yeah, this is cool. I think that's a really good framework, actually. Have you heard of this startup called What Not? No.

Did go to this. So just go to What Not.com. W.H.A. It's just spelled how it's spelled. What Not. So this startup, so I'm going to let you look at this. This launched in, let's see, What Not. This is slick.

So What Not launched, I think, in the last two years. So it launched in December 2019. guess how much whatnot is valued at right now? 100 million? Over a billion dollars. There's a billion dollar startup you never heard of. What do you do? So if you go into one of these,

I don't know if you've opened up one of the live streams. So it's basically a live streaming site, and all you do is you open up the live stream, and it's somebody who's got a pack of cards, and you could buy the pack, and then they'll open it live and tell you what you got. And so, like, you can open up a Pokemon card pack or, you know, an NBA card pack.

Wait, I'm... I'm going to buy it from him and he's going to open it live for me. For you. And then he'll ship it. And then he'll ship it. Oh, wow. This is sick. So like I have here.

Dude, the traffic is just like going up like crazy. This is really cool. It basically just kind of looks like a TikTok knock off. So I tried to invest in this and these fuckers didn't let me in. But, you know, I should have. Why not? I should have tried harder.

Why not? Exactly. Why not? What did they? What did they say? Well, they were just like, hey, we got like a lot of it. We're oversubscribed. Let me see.

And I joined the process a little late in the process. So they were like, let me see how much room we can make. And then it was sort of like, we can't really make any room. You know, like we kind of have people who want all the allocation already. How'd you find him? A buddy mine, Justin had sent it to me as like, hey, I'm really bullish on this one. He invested. And I was like, oh, great.

And I got the end. And I was like, you know, and I saw it. And I was like, I understand this. Dude, I like did a bunch of stuff at Twitch and live streaming. Like, I can help you guys. look at me, I'm such a nice guy and like this was pretty early like the podcast wasn't very big yet

so I didn't have as much of a brand in any way Twitter wasn't that big yet and also I didn't hustle hard enough like I could have hustled harder but it was already like a decent valuation at that point I think it was like a pretty pricey it was a decently pricey round I mean still it's up 10x since they are they young? Are they kids?

No they the guy the founder Grant he had a pretty impressive background I don't remember exactly what it was but like look at this so so I went on I immediately went on whatnot, but whatnot at the time was more for like

magic and Pokemon and things like that. I like sports cards. So there's like other versions that are for sports cards. And so I went on one. And so I did this. So I ended up dropping $700

on these useless cards that I ended up getting. I got nothing good out of my pack. The guy who was opening was just like, oh, you know, like the best one, this one he sent in the frame

is somebody named Ignas Bradseekis on the Knicks. never heard of this guy like you know he literally you know in college he average 14 points a game so like you know I don't know who this guy is

I don't think he plays and that was the best card I got out of it but I dropped 700 bucks because you could just with Apple pay you're like oh I want to buy a diamond pack oh that's how they do it so you're just Apple paying and I'm just clicking

I'm face IDing and just dropping $100 at a time on these packs and it's like such a addiction because it's like dude it could be a Luca card it could be a Yonis card Like you could get one of the big ones in this thing.

And it was so dangerous. I was like, I can't open this app ever again. You know, this is, you know, this is a small divorce bomb that I'm looking at here. I need to like distance myself from this. Do you remember when we talked about this thing? I forgot what it was called. Ben, maybe you can look it up. But basically when you're buying fancy art that costs like millions of dollars,

you want to store it in a free port. That's what it's called. So basically I'm going to, I don't want to sound like too much of an idiot because we talked about this like two years ago, but I think when you're buying art, as long as you keep it in a particular type of country, you don't need to pay sales tax, I guess, on it or something like that. And so people will keep them in certain countries because they're like, I don't want this like $20 million thing. I don't even want it in my house. I just want to store it. Or I'll just store like a lot of my collection. And I wonder, we talked about free ports for like some of these,

for some of these newer collector items. And we talked about that two years ago. I actually think, I would like to see if there's an update if there's anyone that launched anything like this. Yeah, so basically, a Freeport lets you store your art for an unlimited amount of time without taxation, I believe. I think they're like, you don't have to declare it. So like you can sort of put your art there and you don't, because it's like, it's like in limbo, it's like neither here nor there. And so therefore, it's like, we're just, I'm holding it for a friend. Yeah, exactly. And I don't know exactly how it works.

Like, I don't think it's a total free lunch. In fact, I was actually I was literally watching a video about this yesterday and then I like paused a third of the way through because I didn't do something. There's a good video about this on YouTube of a guy explaining like eight minutes how free ports work.

And basically, yeah, it's like a, I think the entire art market is like very money laundery. And even within that, then free ports are like this like extra hack on top of that. But I want to get back. I want to get to the bottom of how free ports work. If you know, I don't think it's that complicated, but I just haven't looked into it.

I don't think it's that complicated either, but I wonder if you, let's say that you bought that $700 pack of cards and there was something that potentially was worth $5,000. Like, if you could just send it to a third party just to hang on to it and then when you're ready, just click a button and sell it, maybe you would want that. Right. And there's this other thing, which is like people, like rich people will donate their art to a museum, take the tax right off, but the museum is like a cottage on their, it's like a part of it's like the west wing of their mansion. It's like they create these like non-profits. Like they're these non-profit museums that exist like on their estate and things like that. Is that really how it works? There's some stuff.

I was in the video he was talking about that or you know, he mentioned that. I don't that's not what a Freeport is necessarily. But I think that's just like yet another thing. Like why do these people buy art for like, you know, $50 million and donate it? And it's like, well, because, you know, X, Y, Z. All right. That's the episode. 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 the road let's travel never looking back