My First Million - The Total Man Lifestyle Explained & Two Of The Best NBA Players' Backstories

Episode Date: June 8, 2023

Episode 463: Shaan Puri (@ShaanVP) and Sam Parr (@TheSamParr) talk about the Total Man Lifestyle, how to make money on OnlyFans, the backstory of two NBA Finals players, and more. Want to see more MFM? Subscribe to the MFM YouTube channel here. Check Out Shaan's Stuff: * Power Writing Course * Daily Newsletter Check Out Sam's Stuff: * Hampton * Ideation Bootcamp * Copy That ----- Show Notes: (05:00) - Andrew Tate and The Total Man Lifestyle (22:50) - How to Deal With Woke (35:00) - How people actually make money on OnlyFans (42:55) - Pinkertons and Private Security (52:15) - Jimmy Butler's Backstory (55:10) - Nikola Jokic's Backstory (01:00:45) - FloSports and Minor Sports ------ Links: * The Light Phone * DuckDuckGo * Andy Frisella * Pinkerton * Deep Sentinel * Bannerman * FloSports * Do you love MFM and want to see Sam and Shaan's smiling faces? Subscribe to our Youtube channel. ------ 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

What else is traits of the total man? The total man does not get caught up in BS drama. The total man does not act like a woozy. So when things, you know, like David Goggins is like, I broke my foot. Good. I'm finishing this 100 mile run. And the stories they collect and pride themselves on are not about lifestyle balance,

are not about, like someone came over to my house the other day and she said this to my wife. She goes, it's okay to not be okay. and I go, Total Man would never say it's okay to not be okay. This is your lifestyle. 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 look. You're turning into Sasha Fierce with that? Trying to calm down. All right. We're live.

I don't know who Sasha Fierce is. I bet she's amazing. It's Beyonce. When she goes on stage, she has a stage character. She calls Sasha Fierce. She gets into that mode. So no matter how she was before going on stage,

she's like, that wasn't, I'm a new person now, and I'm doing my thing that I do with this. It's hard. That's you, when you drink your Topochiko, you take a big swig of that, and you become Sam Fierce. Where do you want to go from here? You drive.

I got a couple things that I want to talk to you about. So I think this episode is not going to be for the faint of heart. I think it's not going to be for the sensitive. I want to talk to you about a concept that I've seen, Two concepts that I've seen. The title of this episode is going to be, I'm not racist, but.

It's not illegal, right? Like, I'm not trying to be sexist, but that's what this episode is going to go. Okay, so let me tell you something. So I'm doing this,

um, um, workshop that is clearly not a webinar today, right after this with, uh, our boy, Nick Huber. And,

um, how many people signed up? Can you say? Yes. So you guess how many people have signed up for a webinar? Hundreds? 5,000 people have signed up for this. No shit, really.

Your boy pulls weight, I think, is one conclusion. But the second conclusion is I saw, I got to see up close to personal how Nick marketed this thing. So Nick does something I call mob marketing. He basically angers the mob. Nick Huber. And he's on Twitter, he's at sweaty startup. and he's got a big following, a couple hundred thousand followers,

and some people love him, and a lot of people hate him. He's one of our only friends. Like, we have this group chat of people who all got big on Twitter. He's the only one of us, I think,

that gets like death threats on a daily basis. Dude, his home address gets posted all the time. People will post his home address. They'll post pictures of his wife, they'll talk about how he's evil. They'll post on LinkedIn,

separately, not even tagging him the next day, being like, I couldn't sleep at night, just thinking about how much this bothered me. what this guy said. And he'll say things that definitely ruffle feathers. He does it, I would say, it's some overlap.

I can't decide. You know, it's hard to get into the mind of like, you know, the Joker in Batman. What's an example post? It's like so he'll be like, I've never met someone who has purple hair and also has their life together. He's like, I'm not saying it doesn't exist, but I'm over eight. And so it's like, some people think it's funny. Some people are secretly kind of nod along, but they'll stay quiet about it.

And then a bunch of people are like, dude, what are you saying here? And they're offended or they're like offended on behalf of somebody else. And then he'll do that again. He'll be like, you know, he'll say,

I run my company. I have, you know, 20 people that are making $5 an hour in the Philippines. And it's the best decision I made. Hiring my international staff has been, you know, an absolute game changer.

I'm never hiring entitled Americans who care about A, B, and C again. you know, whatever. And then people are like, you're anti-American? And then they're like, wait, $5 an hour in the Philippines, do you feel good taking advantage of this labor?

And he's like, well, you know, I'm paying them double what they were making before this. Otherwise they wouldn't take this job. I'm not forcing anyone into anything, but okay, if you want to protect

these people who like this job, okay, sure. But the point is, is he posts up that he knows. He knows Ruffles Feathers. He takes a very, polarizing approach to it. And I would say in our world, in the business world, this is not common.

Elon kind of does it, but not really. And he's the only one I can think of that's like, maybe there's a bunch of other examples. But on the business side, it's not that common. And the political side, you see it, right? Trump on the political side of Jesus. Trump did it before. He was doing it as a business person. Well, I think it was, I don't know, maybe his whole business career was kind of pre-social media.

So it's hard to say, right? Like, I think he always was this guy, but, you know, when you do it in dinner parties, it's very different than doing it out loud on Twitter where anybody anywhere in the world can follow you and hate you. Tucker Carlson is like this. All of the like media pundits that get really big, like Hannity and whatever, they take a very polarizing view on things, Ben Shapiro, right? And then you have Andrew Tate.

And this kind of leads me into a, so first I kind of noticed this mob marketing tactic. I was like, this is very effective. I don't know if I would want to do it. it sounds like it, you know, is a lot of like kind of firefighting. And I've been able to make it work without doing it. So I don't really intend to go do this. But it is one tactic that does work. The other thing that I've noticed with this is it ties of this idea I call Total Man.

I think Total Man is a new lifestyle that is popping up. And I'd like to tell you about it. So here's the idea with Total Man. Is this a trademark phrase? I tried to buy the domain. It's taken. I'd like to own this domain. And I think that this is going to be,

it's either already is or going to be the next big kind of lifestyle brand trend. Whoever owns this Total Man thing. I think Andrew Tate kind of did it. So I'm a little bit late to the game here. But basically, if you look at the following individuals, David Gagins, Joe Rogan, Jacko Willing,

Andrew Tate, Donald Trump, even Nick Huber to an extent. They all subscribe to, this like total man lifestyle. What is the total man lifestyle? So here, did I get, did I get left off that bullet point list?

You, you're like half of them. Like I think you, I think you definitely, you're not total man, you're half man, but you might be, 2% milk.

Yeah, you might be trying to get to that, to that level. Okay, so here's, so my trainer even said this. He's like, he's like,

I'm just trying to live the quality, like I want to be a quality man. And I want to have this lifestyle. I thought, quality man, that's a good phrase. I said, let me just sharpen that a little bit.

Total man. I said, what do you mean by that? He goes, he's like, I just want to have my finances like set. I want to have, I want to be wealthy. I want to, I want to be fit. Like, I don't want to be out of shape. I don't think it's cool to be out of shape. I'm going to push myself to be in phenomenal shape.

And, you know, I found some other characteristics that he didn't say these. But basically somebody who's unapologetic. So you see this with Nick. When the Bob comes at him, he never apologizes or backs down. He pushes back again. Trump does the same thing, Ander Tate does the same thing. They doubled down instead of backpedaling. So they're unapologetic.

Why? Because they live by a code. I think you do that too. They live by a code. It's an internal code. And the internal code can be a little bit flawed. Like Andrew Tate says some wild stuff. But the fact that they have a code is actually quite admirable.

I think people are attracted to somebody with a code because they themselves don't have a code. And so it's sort of like life is easier when you just around people who live by their code. what else is traits of the total man? The total man does not get caught up in BS drama. The total man does not act like a woozy. So when things, like David Goggins is like, I broke my foot,

good, I'm finishing this 100 mile run. And the stories they collect and pride themselves on are not about lifestyle balance, are not about, like someone came over to my house the other day and she said this to my wife, she goes,

it's okay to not be okay. and I go, total man would never say it's okay to not be okay. This is your lifestyles, right? I think there's one lifestyle. And so let me keep going. He knows what he wants out of life and then he has it. So it doesn't matter if what you want is a Bugatti and, you know, three model girlfriends. What matters is that you wanted it and you sort of whatever, quote, quote, manifested it.

I think that's another trait of these people that do this total man lifestyle. And lastly, they have strong hobbies. Joe Rogan goes bow hunting. You know, Gagins does pull-ups for fun. These people have strong hobbies. And lastly, they are charismatic and they care about being charismatic. So to me, I think that you're going to see a bunch of mega influencers and a bunch of brands being built.

Like in the same way that there's like right-wing, conservative, like that became a lifestyle and an identity and then a bunch of brands got built for that population, I think you're going to see a bunch of people you're already seeing it with Andrew Tate and others David Gagins and others that are trying to do this total man lifestyle and then build a bunch of products for other guys who want to be in this

want to be a part of this religion and I think about this. And this isn't anything new. I'm reading like the biography of Arnold Schwarzenegger right now and but you know he like something somebody in the church of the Total Man would do is go read Arnold Schwarzenegger biography for fun. Yeah, well he's an eclectic person

But he was selling workout plans and things like that because people are like, oh, you're on the, he would, he would do these photo shoots in fitness magazines of him holding a surfboard on the beach in L.A. And he, in the biography, he's like, I've never surfed in my life. Like, I could barely swim. Look at me. Like, have you seen a bulldog swim? Like, it doesn't happen a lot. And like, he's like, you know, I don't really, like, I'm not like that. But people wanted to look like him. They wanted to be around these hot girls. They wanted to live in L.A. and he would sell these planes. So, of course, that isn't anything new. We're just seeing a different generation. Here's what I think is new. I have this belief that like almost everything that becomes a big friend is in response to the world being a certain status quo in the other way.

It's a pendulum that swings. And so you had an era where it was like, the world was very conventional and traditional and blah, blah, blah. And then you start to see a bunch of unconventional, untraditional things. And this is people having different genders and pronouns and purple hair and all, all this stuff. And you see a big movement in that direction.

And then you see, like, I would say therapy and empathy and all these words have never been more popular amongst men and women. And I think in response to that, I think there's an undercurrent of people who feel like it's all too soft. The world's getting too soft. We need hard men. We need the total man.

And so here's how I know it works. everything I described is the opposite of toxic masculinity. It is basically being a man became something that got labeled as toxic masculinity. And now I think there's a bunch of people trying to take that back and be like, hell no, we embrace masculinity. And so that's what I see happening is people basically flipping that on its head and be like, I'm not going to apologize for being manly. In fact, I'm going to double down on it.

And then there's this wave of people who have been, craving something like that. I'll give you the example. I remember when Snapchat came out, and I underestimated Snapchat at first. I thought, oh, disappearing photos for kids. Is this just for, you know, bleep picks? Like, you know, what is this?

Is this going to be a real deal? What I underestimated was that Snapchat was the response. The pendulum had swung. When Snapchat came out, Facebook was basically at the peak of its powers. Or it had like sort of like, was Facebook and Instagram were like at the top. and what Facebook and Instagram were every photo is public,

every photo is permanent, every photo looks good and just trying to make you look cool. And what was Snapchat? It was the exact opposite. It was every photo is private. Every photo is impermanent. And because of that,

you get to be silly, you get to let your hair down, you get to just send goofy pictures instead of pictures that make you look cool. And so to me, the need for a product like Snapchat only came out because the world had got so Instagramified,

so Facebookified, where everything was public, permanent, and pretty. And so I think that you see this. Anytime you notice that the world goes in one direction, you could sort of anticipate that two or three years later, the counterculture response is going to be there. The opposite is going to become popular.

And so this is like a way for me to get like, when I think about how to be ahead of the curve on trends, I start to think about what feels dominant today? And in three years, what would be the opposite? Because I think there's going to be an emergence of that counterculture. What do you think of this? Am I just doing fake astrology there trying to piece things together?

No, your theory, I think, is exactly right. You know, there's been things that I've been interested in. Have you heard of the light phone? It's L-I-T-E phone. I looked into buying one because I believe that. Why? Because we're so, well, I guess explain it what it is, but it's like we're so heavy. So the light phone is, it's like a $300 phone, but it has the screen of a Kindle.

So no colors. And I think you can only download. I think you can only do spot. I think it's just Spotify. I think it's just Google Maps and then phone calling. And you might be able to text, but you can only text like a Nokia. So you have to type in like, yeah, in order to do C, you got to hit one three times. And it came out like maybe 10 years ago at this point, eight years ago.

And it didn't really hit right away. But it's getting more and more and more popular. Another one that I've been preaching about forever. And that hasn't entirely taken off yet is Duck, Duck, Doe. So duck, duck go is a search engine. It's just like Google, but you can't be tracked. And so if you Google duck, duck go internet searches, they actually have a graph. And you can see the number of searches per day.

It's growing exponentially. Yeah. So your theory, I think, is totally right. Anybody who's in fashion or whatever is going to know this. They can be like, yeah, duh. Like, when everything goes to skinny jeans, guess what's coming back next? Which is, true. And whatever, the lewd, you know, the baggy stuff, the high-waisted loose stuff.

whatever. But you have an issue. Here's a, here's a flaw with this previs, this particular one. It's not a flaw. You're stuck in this California bubble man. You got to, you got to come to where I'm from in Missouri. I think like, you know, this is, this has been gaining momentum now for a little while. I think the difference is is that, um, California types, you know, the people, like, if, if, if, if I'm from like a place that's generally right of center, now the left of center people, I think are also craving a bit more than before. Before, it was like kind of cringy guys.

And then they start evolving a little bit to being a little bit more holistic. And so, for example, do you know who Andy Fressela is? Yes. So he's in our world and that technically we compete against him in the podcast charts, but I had no idea who he was.

But he was the, he's the number one business podcast typically in the charts each week. And he talks a ton about like politics. and stuff, and I believe he's right of center, but that's mostly a stereotype of just the way he looks and some of the phrasing that he uses. His podcast used to be called the MFN CEO.

Right. And then I started listening to him, and I'm like, oh, you're way more eclectic than I originally judged you for, and you're actually really interesting. And I think that that's what's happening is that there's people who don't entirely fit into the previous bubble of whatever I would stereotype these guys as being,

which is like lower IQ, big-ass meatheads. And it's like, oh, no, you're actually, way more thoughtful than I thought. Totally. Yeah, I think that's totally true. So yeah, I think this I'm keeping an eye on this and I think that they've been very successful. David Goggins is kind of like

stunningly popular now. And same thing with Andrew Tate. Well, so is Jocko. Do you see Andrew Tate came out of prison and did an interview? Do you see this interview on BBC? It ended. It ended. Mid-interviewed, didn't it? Well, there's the full thing got posted on like Rumble or something like that.

What happened? Yeah, no, I didn't watch it. I mean, it's kind of a headache. The thing about him is, like, he started out, like, if you listen to his messages, like, maybe 70% is, like, good. Like, you know, a man is someone who's exercises, they get what they want. But then, like, there's like 30% where I'm like, oh, bro, like, I don't want to be associated with that. Like, that you cross the line there. But, yeah, some of the stuff he says is awesome.

So, for example, yeah, the BBC, so it's a woman, she comes into his home, and she's interviewing him. And she goes, you. are, you know, how can you say these things that are, you know, toxic and dangerous and whatever? You've been named by the UK commission committee of whatever as the most dangerous man in the United Kingdom. He's like, dangerous man in the United Kingdom. He's like, he's like, what am I preaching that that is so dangerous? He's like, I don't, I'm Muslim.

I don't drink. I don't do drugs. I tell people, don't drink, don't do drugs. I say work out. I say work hard. Get rich. and build yourself into a quality individual

who lives by a code and he's like that's what I preach what is dangerous about that and she's like well you said on an interview that if your wife does only fans

you're entitled to have her earnings or whatever or like that if your wife is your wife that she is your property as a man or whatever and he's like did you listen to the actual interview

and she's like you said that that's what you said he goes yes but what's the context of the interview the context interview is are the context of the podcast is me and several women are on a podcast we're joking around because one woman says

if my man owns a car and I'm dating him, that's my car. I own that property too. And then he countered as a joke. He's like, I basically as a joke countered if I'm dating a girl and she has an only fan then I get half of that too. And he's like, well, the same logic, right?

And he's like, so that's what I said. And she's like, so are you saying it's a joke? He's like, yeah, I'm saying you're taking it completely out of context and he's like, you know, he's kind of like trying to defend himself. They're arguing back and forth. And he's like, he asked her a question. And she's like, no, I'm asking the questions here. He goes, no, no, you're in my house. I invited you here. I'm doing you the favor. You know, you're begging me for interviews. And I let you in here. We are equals. You do not hold any authority over me. We're equals. If I ask you a question,

you can choose to answer. If you ask me a question, I don't have to answer either. You know, that's how this is going to, it's a conversation. And she like was like rejecting that premise. And then you hear their handlers in the background that are all like, getting really nervous about how the whole thing's going because it's like going off the rails. The BBC handler or the tape handler? Both. Both. He has them. Yeah, he has people who were like, you know, I wouldn't say maybe handler is not the right word, but like, you know, he has this like kind of whatever, PR type people that were like,

he's answered the question already. Like, why? Like, you repeated the same question six times. Like, just move on to the next thing. Like, where you're stuck here. Like, he's answered it. He's not going to answer it any differently. He's answered it five times now. Just move on to the next question. And so they were like, you could hear these voices in the background in the unedited version. Like even they take a break. They're like, how are we got to, the camera died. We got to reset the batteries.

Hold on. And then you could see what happens in the break. She like immediately is like, no, this doesn't make eye contact. She's like looking at her notes only. And they go like, good interview. And his answer was like, we don't have to do this. It's fine. It's fine.

This is good actually. I want people to see how this goes. He's like, I want people to see her. Like, you know, how the mainstream media, how they don't, they don't do their reasons. They lie. He's got his like spiel. But during the break, there's like maximum tension.

It's like that's actually probably the most interesting part of the whole interview. So I, I'm not, I'm, me personally, I'm not convinced I'm willing to sign up for that. I don't want to, I'm not, I don't want to deal with that headache. Agreed. I'm willing to make sacrifices to some parts, not of my code. It's just that my code is like not that hardcore. Maybe it's the right way to put it. But I've met a lot of people who run companies that you know that are worth hundreds of

millions and some that are actually worth billions. And I'll see them like do certain things that are common now about like, uh, like they use phrases like bring your whole self to work, which is like kind of like a funny controversial statement to some people because some people like, no, just bring your work self to work. Like we don't, we don't need. I think it's always funny to us. Yeah. Or no, there's like a crew. And then there's like, they'll do like certain things that are typically like, that you see a lot of better categories as woke. And I'm like, dude, I know you don't believe that. And I see them say, they'll say things privately like, yeah, but I want to win.

And this is the game I have to play in order to like hire all these people. And I don't know how I feel about that. When I hear about that, I'm like, I had a funny experience with this. So when we got acquired by Twitch, now in a 2000 person organization and Twitch, literally I think, you know, 5% of the staff has like, you know, purple hair.

Like, and I don't mean that as a knock. I just mean like, we're in San Francisco. We are the stereotype of when people talk about like, kind of like left leaning social media companies like people think this about Twitter or Facebook I would say Twitch is probably more like that than in terms of the staff

so I'm in a meeting and I joined like three minutes late as I do as you know that I that said to be three minutes late every time and there's a presentation on the screen I don't really understand what's going on I'm like what is this presentation about and I'm I slack somebody and they're like

oh it's like a you know just kind of like updating our copywriting whatever I'm like oh copywriting I love copyrighting. What are we talking about? And it was talking about, like, how we use genders from now on. It's like, we only say they. And then they were talking about women. They're like, we don't say women.

We say, and they spell this word, W-O-M-X-N. And I was like, how do you even say that? What is that? Or is it just women? Like, what do you say for that? And like, this is now how we say this? And I was like, what does that mean? Sorry, dumb question.

But like, what is it? Who is offended and what does this mean? And it was like, oh, this is inclusive of like people who were maybe not biologically born women, but now are women. And so this is like the inclusive term. And I was like, so I was like, how do you say this? And like all of a sudden I could see, I could feel like a bunch of heat on me. Like, why are you asking all these questions? And like, there's kind of an undercurrent in the way I'm asking the questions, which is sort of like, is, are you sure?

Like, that's kind of all I was. I was like, wow, this is overnight. We're just changing. Like, this is, we don't say that. And now we say this. Like, this is a pretty big change, no? And so I'm hearing this and I'm like, okay, I guess, you know, that's cool. And then they, the funny thing is the company that tweeted out for International Women's Day,

they tweeted out International Womaxon's Day or whatever, right? Like they tweeted out like that. And then they got tons of blowback from the transgender, like the LGBT community being like, don't use that phrase. Just call us women. Why are you trying to make us seem different? And I was like, oh my God, they're back. Like their attempt to, to like, you know, placate actually back.

fired. And I was like, wow, this is really, like, there's a bunch of landmines. Like, you don't even know. But then what of the executive, were you like, hey, executive team, what do you think? You can't ask that. But I was like, I said it in a different way. I said, we were talking about like, you know, questions. I was like, Amazon has this thing where when you are doing your yearly planning, one of their questions is, what are the dogs that are not barking yet? And it's from this old Sherlock home story of like a crime occurs in a house, there's a break in. And there's no clues. And Sherlock can't figure it out. And he figures it out. because he's like, well, the dog was here, right?

So surely the neighbor heard the dog. And they're like, no, the dog didn't bark. And he's like, ah, that's it. That's the clue, Watson. And he's like, what? He's like, if the dog didn't bark, it's because he knows who the intruder was, that means this was an inside job.

And so he figures out who it was because there was the dog not barking. So they have this thing in Amazon, which is when you're doing your annual planning, they say, what are your dogs not barking? Basically, like, what are you not hearing that is actually telling you something? Or it's a different way of saying, like, what is something, what is something that's not being said out loud, but could signal something that's worth talking about. And

so I said, I go, I think we should decide how woke we're going to be. And like, where, like, is there a line and what does that mean? And who do we want to, like, we should say it out loud, what we want to be. And then literally, like, my slack just blew up of, like, DMs being like, like, abort, don't

don't say this. Like, don't bring this up. Like, what are you saying, dude? Like, this is like, you know, a suicide mission and one girl goes, she goes, she goes, I didn't appreciate that. We don't use the word woke anymore. And I go, I go, we who, like, there's a company policy. You can't use the word woke.

I was like, I didn't even mean it as an insult. Like I thought it's just like a, yeah, because at the time it really wasn't. This was many years. This is like four years ago or five years ago now. Woke was, woke became a little bit more drugged, right? Over time. At first it was stay woke. It was like a, the kids were saying it as like, yo, if you're not, you're not like

awake to what's really going on. Dude, I think Twitter had T-shirts that said stay well. Yeah, it was like a positive thing and then it turned into a criticism later. So it was somewhere in the middle of that. And I was like, we should decide a woke. And she's like, we don't use the work woke anymore. So I appreciate if you don't do that. I get, who's we?

Is there a committee that decides what words we can say? Like, that sounds pretty non-woke to me. And she links me like a Vox article. I'm like, oh, you read this Vox article? You decided that I can't say this? And I was like, oh, this is just too much for me. And I was like, there's only one piece of advice that I needed. There was a piece of advice.

I got on this podcast from a guy very early on, Daniel Gross, he's a super smart guy. He got acquired by Apple. And I go, what was that like in that acquisition? You were there for three years. What was the best advice you got about navigating that?

And he goes, don't give yourself brain damage. And I go, what? He goes, yeah, when you get acquired, there's a really tempting thing as an entrepreneur to like,

I'm going to, I see things that are wrong in this organization or that I want to be a challenger voice and not just like another, another person who just follows, you know, the company line. And I'm going to challenge you, know, maybe our innovation cycle or our policies or anything.

I'm going to be the one who brings change. He goes, it's just brain damage. Don't, don't try it. And I was like, oh, I'm doing it. I'm giving myself brain damage. How'd the woke story end? It ended with that one person telling me that we can't say these words anymore, which was backed up by nothing.

And I was like, oh, cool. So you read this article. And so you decided that I am not allowed to ask this question. Again, got you. Just clarifying. Great. Thank you, you know, whatever head of. important thing inside the company.

Like, yeah, I'm glad that you're, I'm glad this is how this works. And you know, what do you think without calling out, well, Emmett is the CEO and he seemed, I don't know him, but it seems like an awesome guy. I don't know if you can answer this without calling him out, but what do you think he thinks or someone like him?

Can I say someone like him? Someone in his position with his name and face. What would they say? Yeah. I don't know. I can't speak for him, but I guess my impression of it was basically I think he's mostly shielded from this stuff. So, like, I don't think most of this gets to his plate.

And that by the time it does, he's a total man. He doesn't care about drama. I think he's like a renaissance man. He's a little different. I think two things. I think one, I think he's mostly just like,

he, I think he's gotten a lot of CEO coaching to where he doesn't let his first reaction be his response. So like something comes up and now instead of reacting, he responds and he usually responds with the question. And he'll just ask them tons of questions. And he's like, I'm in the spirit of literally understanding what you're saying and trying to figure this out. Tell me what does that word mean? Like, and they'll be like, it just, I mean, it means, inclusive means.

And he's like, well, like, no. Like, can you please like use an example or can you like from, can you explain that from like, you know, base principles? Like, what are you talking about? What are the boundary lines? Like, let's make sure we're all talking about the. same thing. And he does kind of like a Socratic method where he would, he would end up just like fatiguing out anybody who wanted to bring

something up. And he would get his understanding of it and to decide is this important or not. But I think most people are sort of intimidated by him. And then in the process of trying to debate him on something would sort of like, nobody could really, a very few people in the company could really hold up to any debate or any scrutiny from him in a conversation. I saw it just many, many times.

And he was trying to dial that down because he knows that that's like, you know, already he's in a position of authority. Plus, he's like a, you know, world class, you know, debater who's got this, like, wide breadth of knowledge to, like, pull from. So he already knows. He's like, you know, if he does that, he's just going to shut people down. So he tries not to do that. But I saw, you know, most people didn't want to bring it up to him.

Dude, I just avoid all of this, this shit. Like, I can't stand this stuff. And it's just, I just don't care is really what I guarantee it's the worst part of the job for Zuckerberg or an M-Aid or anybody who runs these networks. The 1% of trust in safety or angry people that's constantly angry about something, that's got to be the worst part of the job. That's not why they created these networks is to be public policymaker in their own kingdom. But it is amazing how they get around it.

Because I could tell Zuck doesn't care about that stuff, but he still plays the game. And Zuck's a man. He's never had a controversy. He's never done anything. A lot of these guys haven't. like they've done pretty good with navigating some of these topics. And I'm amazed that they don't react by saying, oh, you guys want to form this union or you want to like protest over this.

You're all fired. Like this is a machine, you know, we don't need this. We don't need this. This is a machine. Well, that happened to the mailchip guy, right? Like, didn't he he say something in an email, which is like, you know, let's not do it this way and then he got fired from his own company? What happened?

I don't, I don't know. What happened? He was, he wrote an email to the staff about a trend he noticed in the which was new hires had to introduce themselves using their preferred pronouns. He says, this is completely unnecessary for a woman who is clearly a woman to tell us that her pronouns are she and her, and a man who's clearly a man to tell us that his pronouns are he and him. He understands that the practice is rooted in kindness,

but he says in the long run, this approach does more harm than good, because you're forcing people to behave a certain way, and that's the opposite of inclusion. And then, and so then, he says first there's a tiny number of people at well he says peeps so you know already

that's a fireable offense tiny number of peeps at Mailchimp who would consider themselves transgender forcing either with orders or guilt the other 1,390 other peeps to adopt a new communication time that immunity has never had to use in our 300,000 year existence and our 150,000 years of spoken language

in order to make things slightly more comfortable for an extremely small group of peeps is completely illogical So then he got fired. It was probably for the peepsing, to be honest. Like into it, whoever bought the company was like, look, Ben, we need to talk. Yeah. He's like, but I didn't mean to hurt the, the trans people.

He goes, what? No, look, we need to talk about this peep. Yeah. He stepped down as CEO shortly after and voluntarily. And then also somebody came out. I was like, by the way, there's no policy that says they have to do that. He's like shit. We, one time at The Hustle, we wrote an article on Sasha Gray.

Sasha Gray used to be like this famous porn star. And we wrote about how she was trying to change her image around to not be that. And every single night at like midnight our time, I would get all this traffic from Japan. Because I guess that was morning time in Japan. It was all people searching for Sasha Gray. And they were fighting our article. Yeah. And I found out that she had hired this company called.

like Reputation.com to like boost that article so it showed up first. So we're getting all these people searching Sasha Gray XXX and they didn't get what they wanted to, but whatever. You're like photos at the bottom of this blog post. It's photos inside our newsletter if you subscribe. Dude, I didn't realize, I guess I realized it, but someone posted this infographic on Twitter of the biggest websites and it was like Google was just like the largest, it was like bigger than everything combined. But then like, like, I think four of the top 10 were porn sites. And it's wild.

I mean, imagine working at one of those companies. Can you imagine that? What would that be like just sitting in the office? I've imagined it many times. So I've been, I can't talk about these, but I've been, I've had very interesting conversations with a few people that own only fans-based businesses recently. And they're absolutely crushing it to the point where I can't talk about it because I would be kind of like, It's like,

do you mean, do you mean the stars or like the ancillary things? Most, I'm talking about the ancillary things right now, but they're all crushing it. The platform is crushing it. The stars are crushing it. And the cottage businesses that get built around this to help this,

to be a part of that ecosystem. But they're doing so well that I sort of, if I talked about them, I would be coming between them and like millions of dollars. A lot of people would want to compete with the strategies that they're doing. But I will say one thing that I have, to learn that was pretty interesting. So I always assumed that OnlyFans was popular because you're sending like, I don't

know, nude picks or videos to guys and that's like the thing. That's what they're paying for. And I was always a little curious. I was like, porn's like free on the internet. Why would you pay for this? And I go, there must be something. I don't know. And I just kind of wrote it off as that.

Do you know why they make so much money? Do you know what the actual moneymaker is inside of an OnlyFans account when these girls say that they're making like a million dollars a month? you know what actually drives that? I've never, I've never subscribed to one. I guess you probably have subscribed to a few now that you're like researching it, but I've never subscribed to one.

You know, I'm a married man and I did not do that. But you didn't need to because I talk to the people who like run, they like run the accounts or whatever. Like what a lot of people don't realize is that a lot of these accounts are just, they're bought. So like a girl has a public persona. She does an only fan.

She kind of gets exhausted running the thing because it's like a lot and it's like emotionally exhausting dealing with all these guys. and whatever. So somebody comes, a purchase her and says, we'll buy your account for, you know, I'll give you $200,000 right now

for your OnlyFans account. And then I'll give you, you know, X percent of the profits. And I'll run it. You just have to put pictures in a Dropbox folder. And you give me good content, and I will give you money.

And that's how it goes. And then, and so what actually people, so I was like, why do people pay for these pictures and videos? Like, again, porn's free. That's like one of the rules of the internet is porn is,

free. So what do people really want? And it turns out that they want like the girlfriend experience. And so they're not through the content, but through the chatting and that the chatting has all kinds of weird things like. Is it one group chat or individuals? No, individuals. And so they hire farms of chatters. So basically what Only fans is built off of like a lot of the money is made through is giant like customer support, you know, uh, call centers, uh, essentially in the Philippines talking to, you know, it's basically like dudes in the Philippines, talking to dudes in the U.S. pretending to be the girl. And so they, it's just like they have this army of chatters that will chat with these guys and tease them and flirt with them and then

upsell them. And boom, to ching got the sale there. And they're like salespeople. They got to they get commissions and all this stuff. It's insane. And what how within that, Okay, so one of the highest ticket items. What's the, you know, if this was the, the county fair, what's that top stuff, stuffed animal at the top? And it's basically like, the number one is pretend to be my girlfriend for like, you know, a month. And it's like, text me as if you're my girlfriend. And it's like, that's the, that's like the top prize. But there's other weird stuff underneath.

So weird that I can't even say this is a family show. And so I can't even say some of the weird stuff that they want. But it's not what you would think. It's not like super. Is it just like sending pictures back and forth? Like I'll give you one example. One example is the guy who's the customer

sending pictures to the only fan's person asking for their opinion or rating of them. And that's like a service that they pay for. And so there's stuff. And I guess like the two things stood out. One is it's like the free market at work, baby. It's like you can really see what humans are all about when you talk to this, to these people.

Because it's like, man, people are into all kinds of crazy stuff. These are like their real desires. And these are desires. They wouldn't admit. And I bet a bunch of these people are, you know, they're the person, they're doctors and they're the CEOs and they're other people. Like, you know, human desires got revealed.

They were always there and they got revealed because Onlyfans gave a better avenue to realize those desires, which is kind of crazy to me. The second thing is, I think it's wild how much money is being made in this space. and my reaction to it is not kind of like, like I think you were asking what's your reaction to. No, my question is not, who cares it of it exists? My question is you getting involved into it. How does it make you feel and how does it make your wife feel?

And are you like- Well, I'm not involved in it. Well, okay, you're contemplating. I'm learning. I'm talking to these people because I find it fascinating. I have contemplated investing in some of these because I would not want to operate this, this. But yo, if you're, if you're already down there in the sewer, let me know if you got something.

I'll hand it up here. You know, like I will provide resource. Dude, you realize how that's so hypocritical. Why is it hypocritical? I'm saying I don't personally, I would not personally enjoy operating this. I also would not like operating a deli or an ice cream shop or whatever, but I'll go, I'll go eat a scoop. What's the problem with that? If they need resources, they need capital or they need advice, I'll give them those things. I don't want to operate. So to me, that's fine. my wife It's also hypocritical of me by the way if I consume porn and to also

shit on it so I'm not acting like I'm whole I'm not acting as though I'm holier than now but it is a conundrum I told my wife by the way I was like hey and think about this and she just goes okay don't tell me but if it makes funny that's fine yeah I would also say that it's really funny

I find it like amusing the way that the ecosystem works where it's like what you think it is is some woman with an account who's putting up content and guys want that and then she's chatting with them and it's like actually this like whole other thing there's agencies that control the accounts the agencies are 90% dudes the chatters are like you know these call centers in india and the philippines and um i find it amusing I'm like that's hilarious that that's what this like that that's how this like evolved and I find that dude I always I always get their Reels on Instagram at night in bed.

So like I try not to keep my phone. So I like if I'm scrolling on my phone at like 10 p.m. It's normally like ripped guys and dogs in the day. And then even in the evening, it's hot girls that pop up on my real or you know, like when you're scrolling through your Instagram. Right. And I'm like, wait, what is this? And then you click on their profile and it links to a link tree, which goes to.

Well, the funny thing is you see it because what they, one of their main growth tactics is they pay meme accounts. So accounts that just post funny jokes. 99% of the time. The way that those accounts make money is only fans people will pay a lot of money to get posted one time at night on those accounts and then you can delete it in the morning

and that's how they grow their own social followings. And so through these meme distribution channels and so that's a funny part of it. But anyways, I don't even know. Didn't plan to talk about this one, but that's a funny little tangent. So, all right, listen, I don't know if this actually is going to interest you,

but I'm going to try to make this interest you because anything that uses the H word, history, you're not into. Right? But the total man should understand history. Yeah, he actually, listen. He actually has been alive through all of history. It's like a Tosecchi's man.

So I'm reading this book. It's called like Killers of the Flower Moon. It's basically about the 1920s, Osage Indians. It was Native Americans. They were given this plot of land when they were like, you know, like the government was like, hey, you know, we're taking this shit over. Here's your plot of land. Turns out it sat on on this.

oil, and so they all got rich, and white people take advantage of them and kill them to steal their money. And I was reading this book, and they keep talking about the Pinkertons. Have you heard of the Pinkertons? Never. So they were like, kept talking. I was like, why don't they go to the police? And they're hiring these guys called the Pinkerton. So Pinkertons, it was basically a guy named Alan Pinkerton. He started this company in 1950. And he started it because he was walking through the woods one day, and he saw a bunch of like counterfeiters. And he got curious and he starts watching them. And he starts figuring out what they're doing.

And then he calls the police on them. And they're like, well, we can't really solve this. He goes, give me a few weeks. I'm going. I'll keep an eye on them. And I think I can figure out what they're doing, where they're going. And I'll be your detective. He does that and they get arrested.

And he's like, I love doing this. This is very fun. And so he keeps doing it. And it starts like a small like little mom and pop business where he goes to other people. He goes, hey, do you want me to help you solve this crime? Just pay me a little bit of money. and I'll go and I'll go and do it and we'll report it to the police

and we'll give him all the evidence that they need. So he does this for a handful of years and eventually he works his way up to like the government, American government is paying him money and it gets to the point where his people, this is pre-Secret Service, his people protect Abe Lincoln.

So we didn't have the Secret Service back then. Secret Service was invented after Abe Lincoln got shot. Didn't do a great job, I would say. Yeah. Can't want them all? Turns out. Yeah. Can't let them all.

Get on them all. It turns out. Yeah, that is actually totally true. He's had a bunch of losses. But so he was like, uh, uh, failed to protect the president,

but for some reason, the government still liked him. So they start giving them contracts. So anyway, fast forward to the Pinkertons are still around. And they've done a bunch of controversial shit. So like as they grew, companies like,

uh, Andrew Carnegie, like the Titans of, uh, industry would hire him to basically like when they were, uh, unions that would, go and strike. They would literally sit outside of a gate of a factory and like, like, protest and

then also fight. And so the Pinkerton's at one point killed like 24 of these like protesters. Wow. It was like a huge thing. And so they're like pretty hard for you have a note here that says at their peak they had more agents than the standing American army. Is that true? That's insane. Dude, they had tons of people and their motto was Pinkertons don't sleep. We don't sleep. And their logo was it was an open eye. And so they like, it was just like, we are. We are there all the time. And we will always find out what's going on. You know, I thought that Mighty Ducks Fly Together was the top.

But we don't sleep might be better than Ducks Fly Together. Yeah, we don't sleep. But so this company was created in 1850, I think I said. I was reading about, coincidentally, this other thing going on with like Amazon. Amazon was having some issues with union stuff. And, dude, Amazon, this company still exists. And Amazon hired these Pinkertons. So basically what they do now, so the company was sold in like 2005 or something for like $400 million.

So not a significant amount of money for how long it lasted, but because it kind of peaked in the early 1900s. But they're still hired by- Look at their website. Have you been to their website? No. It just says our story. And there's literally a picture of Abe Lincoln as the Euro image. Do they have a whole name? Talking about owning your failures. These guys love it. Yeah. It just says, whoops.

We've learned from our mistakes. Nobody fails faster than us. Yeah, they think fail fast to hurt. Risk advisory, investigations, protection, embedded SMEs. I don't even know what that is. That sounds. Dude, so listen to what they do. So they basically, they'll hire these guys.

So Pinkerton, like there's like guards. Now I guess I don't know what they wear, like, just balloon jeans and a plaid shirt. And they like go to like, they'll go to Starbucks hired them. And they'll go to the Starbucks to get a coffee, and they'll just try to listen in. And you'll hear like, one guy talking to his coworker, like, hey, we should unionize or, you know, fuck this guy. Let's do this and that. And they go and report it back to like corporate headquarters. Or they'll try to figure out like when Amazon was launching a bunch of stuff.

They'll go and just walk around the office and like, is anyone talking about shit? They shouldn't be talking about. And they like report it. They still exist. Google hires them. Facebook hires them. They still like monitor this stuff. And it's a, it's a,

fascinating that a company has existed since 1850 or whenever it was, and they're still, like, working. And B, I started thinking about, like, private police and security companies. And there hasn't been that many, like, interesting security startup. So one of them that I actually invested in,

it's called Deep Sentinel. Do you know what Deep Sentinel is? It's the security thing where you're like, it's a security camera where it'll talk. It'll like, there's like a human watching on the other side. Deep Sentinel's whole thing, like they make a joke. They go, rings awesome for watching your shit get stolen.

And like I have Deep Sentinels at my house. And like one time a drunk guy came up to my front door thinking that I was, we were his Airbnb. And like the camera like catches him and he says, hey, sir, what are you doing here? And they call the police. So I walked down at like 3 a.m. And I see the cops in my house, like taking away this guy. And so anyway, that's kind of cool. Another one is called Banner Man.

Have you heard of Banner Man? I haven't heard of this. It's like bodyguards, right? Dude, we used to do it all the time. So it was a company that went through White Combinator and when you host conferences, well, I don't know. I'm trying to figure out.

The site's still up. But basically, when you host a conference, by law as well as like practicality, like you need it, you have to hire security, you need security guards. And we would use Bannerman and we would hire like, and they have like a menu.

It's like armed gar, $200 an hour. Non-armed gar, $150, just a huge, scary looking guy, $100 an hour. Like you could like hire them. by the hour, and it was so easy. It was like Uber for security. It was awesome. But there hasn't been that much new startups, like in this space.

By the way, here's the pricing. Unarmed guard, $59 an hour, armed guard $90 an hour, off-duty police, $145 an hour, and they're armed. That's it. That's it. So I just get a big scary guy to walk with me for 50 bucks or 80 bucks an hour, whatever it was. I'll do it for free. The wrong type of scary. So anyway, I'm just like interested in this space. And I thought like the Pinkerton thing, it was wow that this shit still exists.

You know how much they sold for? Is that or do you know anything about their revenues or anything? Like this is a crazy business. No, and I've looked everywhere. And the founder, he says on his LinkedIn, he goes, I don't use LinkedIn anymore. That's like what it said on his profile. So I founders alive. Yeah, his name's Johnny Chin.

How is he alive? 1850. Oh. Oh, I thought you were talking about fucking Bannerman. No, Pinkerton. No, that dude, for sure, dad. How much does it cost? I don't.

Well, you said they sold to somebody, right? Oh, $400 million in 1999. $400 million. But it's pretty fascinating that it lasted that long. It got sold. So basically, and I was doing even further research on this, like there's this like the security industry. It appears as though it's like a handful of big players and then tons of mom and pops.

but the handful of big players, there's like three of them, and they each do like $10 billion a year in revenue. And what they do is they just acquire tons of like mom and pop businesses. And so now the biggest ones, you'll probably recognize a lot of their t-shirts because they'll see them at like concerts and shit like that. But then there's a bunch of private ones. I'd hear of Blackwater.

No, that sounds good though. So, dude, this guy, his name's Eric Prince, very controversial guy. I haven't read his book, but I want to. But he was controversial. because he started like a, it was basically a private security company, but they did shit for overseas. So they would like, uh, protect like princes and Saudi Arabia and shit like that. And then also when Iraq and all that shit went down, they would do government contracts.

And so they would eventually like, you know, do army shit. So they would like protect like a convoy and eventually kill a lot of people. And they were like hardcore. And Eric Prince, uh, became a billionaire doing this. And he eventually sold it to private equity for billions of dollars. It's called Blackwater. Very ominous name. I love that name.

There's like a bunch of interesting players in this space, but not that much of these like tech startups. So I think it's really interesting and fascinating industry. I'll give a quick shout out to this genius restaurant. So this guy Joshua Goodfield tweeted this out. There's a restaurant that basically named all of its like the number one, the number two, the number three office supplies. So it'll be like mini dry erase board or like pack of pencils.

Oh, that's hilarious. You can expense all meals from this restaurant. It's called USB Wired Mouse, $5 French fries. Yeah, exactly. I thought that was a genius little marketing hack. So shout out to that. And then, dude, are you watching the NBA Finals? I get a little human interest story for you.

No. But tell me about it. That's pretty crazy. So the two teams that are in, it's Miami Heat and Denver Nuggets. So the best player on both the teams have just like crazy. backstory. So one, this is the guy in the heat,

Jimmy Butler. He, um, have you ever seen the movie the blind side? I love that movie. That's my favorite movie. It's his life.

So the guy got kicked out of his house at like 13 and was just crashing on friends' couches. And then this white woman just took him in. And, um, he just like, yeah, she's,

you know, she didn't have to do that. She just did it. Um, he calls her mom like, you know, her real kids are his brothers and sisters. Like,

that's just like the way it was. And he was not, like, unlike the blind side, with the blind side, it was like, it was pretty clear this guy had like NFL talent. Like he was just like a freak athlete and was huge. And so any coach would kind of tell you that. Not to say that's why she did it, but like it was kind of like possible.

But Jimmy Butler was like, he wasn't like he went to a junior college. Then he transferred to Marquette. Then he barely got into the NBA. And now he's a star. But like it was not obvious. Have you heard? Do you know who the real parents in blindside that,

you know, it's real people? He owns a. Andrew Bullock. He owned a shitload of KFCs and like Long John Silver's and shit. And I googled him. He sold it for $400 million all of his franchises. Good things happen to good people.

Good things happen to good people. And so, Jimmy Butler was... This woman that took him in, single mom also. So single mom with seven kids did this, took him in, basically put a roof over his head, and he ends up grinding his way to the NBA and it doesn't make the thing. He also was doing something really funny. So back when COVID hit, the NBA to keep the season. going, they had to create a bubble. Many sports

had to do this. They created a bubble, which was like a... Didn't they do it at Disneyland? Yeah, they did at Disney World, I think. So they did it in Disney World in Orlando. It was like, you live on campus. Nobody comes in or out. Like, if food gets delivered, it gets delivered in a sealed box 30 feet away and it gets, you know, like, given to you.

And they just like tested everybody daily. And if anybody ever had anything, they got kicked out. And so during that process, Jimmy Butler realizes you know, supply of demand is out of whack. So he starts, he's making coffees. He brought a, he brought a fancy coffee machine and starts making coffees.

And people are like, yo, can I get some coffee? Like the coffee here sucks. I want the good coffee. He's like, yeah, cool, man. It's $100. That's half. He's like, $100. He's like, that's the price. He's like, these are, where else to go? He's like, these are every players who cannot leave this

bubble. And so, and they're like, all right, man, fuck it. And they just start giving them $100 for this coffee. And so he creates this brand, I think it's called Big Face Coffee. And now he's like So during the bubble people want to know what it's like And there's a lot of the guys were like vlogging

So this was like one of the storylines You know Jimmy opened up a coffee shop He's just like you know Killing us on this coffee And he's like y'all I make the best coffee It's best coffee in the world $100 And so now he's like creating a spin-off brand Of actually that that coffee brand

Which is I think kind of cool And who's the other guy That big white guy? The giant white guy said Yokic So he looks mean That guy looks mean I saw he got into it with A small town in Serbia

Somber Serbia. He got into it with some dude on the sidelines too, I saw. Yeah, that's funny. That was the owner of another team. He basically bullied an owner of another team. So this guy's, he's awesome. So he basically, his story is even crazier, I think.

So this guy's born in the middle of nowhere, Serbia. He's got two older brothers. And even though they're really tall, he only likes one sport, horseback riding. So he's, So he just falls in love with horse He's always on the horse track or whatever But because he's so tall

Like when he wasn't with the horses He starts playing basketball And what's interesting Is that nobody would have ever known This guy Except for the fact that There was one team that had a business model And their business model was basically

Let's find prospects That might have like NBA potential We don't care if we win now Well let's just find like big dudes He's got a lot of potential That like might get bought out By the bigger clubs and they're like kind of house flippers.

They're like, let's buy this guy. Let's see if we can turn, like, you know, polish up the asset and let's flip them to a bigger team in Europe. Or let's hold their rights and maybe we get there. Maybe the NBA team have to buy us out. And they had done this with a couple of guys. And so the guy's reading the newspaper one day. And he sees that at some youth basketball game, like, say some eighth grade game,

some kid, you know, had like 25 points and 25 rebounds. And he's like, huh. So he goes and he finds this guy. And he's like, hey, you ever thought about playing pro basketball? He's like, no. And he's like, come with me. So at like, I don't know, age 13, he like leaves his hometown and joins this like team. And they're like, so you're, so then you think the story is he's the best player in the NBA now.

So it's like, he must have been awesome. He's the best now. He's the best player of the world right now. And so it's like, how calls he? He's like seven, seven foot one, something like that. And so they're like, you would think, oh, he must have been dominating in Serbia. And then like, you know, he went to these like, you know, tier four league. Like, you know, he must be awesome.

No, he didn't even play. The coach was like, this kid is so fat. He is just so out of shape. I will not play this guy. And so he's only allowed to go to practice. And they're like, until you can run, like, until you're in shape, it's not going to work.

He's like, what do I do? They're like, well, what's your diet? And the guy was drinking like two gallons of Coke a day. He was addicted to Coke. He just loved drinking Coke. And so they were like, you got to stop that. Like, first of all. And so he stops drinking Coke.

He loses like 30, 40 pounds in the course of like a few months just by changing that one habit. and going and running every day in practice because they won't give him the ball. He just have to run on the side while everybody else practices. And so he's doing that. Finally, he starts playing. He becomes the top player on his team.

As soon as he was able to get in shape, he was the top player on his team. And he gets drafted in the second round. Basically, he's like one of the last picks. The NBA draft, if you go watch the video of like, oh, I want to see when they got drafted. Like you've seen when LeBron gets drafted. He gets on stage.

He shakes the commissioner's hand. He smiles. The light bulbs are flashing. people know this is the start of a star is born. Well was he just like walk up by and they're like here take this hat here just take that one. Even better.

They just cut to a Taco Bell commercial and at the bottom ticker it just said pick number 41, Nicola Yokic and just like he goes across the screen it goes away and it's a cheesy gordita crunch ad. He didn't even have that starting moment because nobody thought this guy would turn into anything. And then he's basically become the best player in the world.

How old is he? He's like 27, 28, something like that. he's pretty young still. And he actually wouldn't have even made it to the NBA. Like this team in Barcelona was going to buy him. That was going to be the flip. It was like he goes from the Serbian team to the Barcelona team. And the day,

like the day before he was supposed to sign the contract, like it was already. The lawyer just had to finish one thing. He played in a game and he was so terrible that the team backed out. So he had no choice but, but to go join like the NBA team that had bought his rights or drafted his rights. And he's like, I guess I'll go to the NBA then.

Like, you know, I don't really know if anything's going to come over this, but whatever. And so he goes. And he's this very stoic guy. like in all his interviews, they're like, they have these, the media has all these narratives. They're like,

how is it becoming a new dad helped you become a better basketball player? And they just look at them, be like, what? It doesn't, that's not how that works. He's just like,

he's like, just very matter of fact, like, you know, like the kind of like dagestani guys in the U.C. He's kind of like that, but for basketball.

So he's a fascinating character. It reminds you of this quote that I heard from this VC. I was like, you know, what's, he had this Twitter bio. It's got Nico

Nico, I don't know how you says I was saying, Bon Santos, Bonosatos, I don't know exactly how you said. Oh, from General Catalyst. Yeah, from GC, exactly. The guy, he invested in Snapchat super early on.

And I was like, Nico, why is your bio, why is your bio quote what it is? And his quote was, talent is everywhere, opportunity is not. So talent is evenly distributed, but opportunity is not.

And I was like, what does that mean? He goes, because it's true. He goes, talent is everywhere. but opportunities not evenly distributed. And if I do my job right,

we're going to distribute opportunities to more people who have the talent. And I think about both these guys, the two guys that are starring in the NBA, like, you know, they're kind of like one little bounce of the Plinko chip away from it being a zero.

And instead, they get to be world famous basketball players. It's like, if this guy didn't get discovered while playing in like a youth farm league in Serbia or Jimmy Butler didn't get, you know, adopted by this woman,

like, who knows if they would have ended up actually even getting their shot. And it's like, that's how fragile, like, you know, success and failure can be. Dude, last night, I wouldn't hung out at this,

like, have you heard of flow track? Or flow sports? Sorry, flow sports. Yes. So flow sports started as, it was basically this guy would go, they started out of UT, University of Texas.

This guy would go and film track meets and wrestling meets. Stuff that wasn't going to be broadcasted otherwise. Stuff that wasn't going to be broadcast. And he was just like, he was a track of field athlete, and I think they had, friends that were wrestlers. And he's like, but, you know, I'm, I'm a fan of running and, like,

people love that shit, but it's just not on TV. So he starts filming this. And then he puts it online and he forms a company and people start buying it and paying like a hundred bucks a year to watch this stuff. And it's been around for 13 years now. And now they do over a hundred million in revenue. And I was like, what's the fastest growing segment? And he said, uh, uh, motorsports. And I was like, oh, like NASCAR and shit. He's like, no, it's like these, like, it's like the pre-Nascar. So it's like with 18 year old kids, they do this thing called dirt track. So it's like, uh, um, it's like, um, like it looks like a buggy kind of and they're like,

he's like, it's grassroots. But he didn't say it, but it's like redneck shit. And he's like, that's our fastest growing segment. But we have like 18 sports, I think. They have wrestling, grappling, running across country, track and field, whatever, all this stuff. And so I went and hung out at their office because they had a little party. And I was with like three different guys who had won gold medals in the Olympics.

One guy in the decathlon, one guy in the mile and some other guys. And first of all, here's what was interesting. One of the, a bunch of the Olympians, I was like, hey, do you still run? You know, they're like maybe 40 now. And like, you still run and they're like, not a chance. Like, it was my job. And like, I don't want to do that at all anymore. Like I'll exercise and go for walks and I'll lift weights, but I don't want to like run like I used to run. I'm done with that. And the second thing was interesting is like, dude, these guys are all freaks. Like one guy, his name's Trey Hardy. You can look him up. His body is crazy. And they are freaks of nature. But it's cool being around people like that who are. A, the best in the world at something. Like, they are literally, if they won a gold medal, at that point, they were the best in the world at what they do. And it's so fascinating to, like, hear the stories. Like, they would tell stories.

They were like, dude, that guy, we used to go to the hotel, and he'd be wearing flip-flops, and he'd be like, hey, I bet you could touch the ceiling. And the ceiling was 15 feet high. And he would just jump and just touch the ceiling. And they were like, we just would see little, like, things like that. This guy would do shit all the time. Or he'd be like, watch this.

I bet I can backflip, but he would backflip, but he would jump so high in the air. And we would just see these, like, freakish stuff all the time. And so I was thinking, would you give up any of the success that you've had so far in order to be a broke but Olympic medal winner or, like, the best athlete or whatever in the world? Because I was thinking about that, and I think I would. No chance on the gold medal. Well, best athlete in the world.

Yes, I would do that. But there's a lot of sports where you could, like, be the best, like, NCAA wrestler, best like normal wrestler overall athlete no no no if it's I'm the fastest miler or NCAA

you know national champion or whatever no chance I've said this before the Olympics are for suckers oh you are so crazy because I'm hanging out with these guys and I'm like

congrats you're the best bobsledder the world has ever seen you've dedicated your entire life to this absolutely arbitrary thing that got you nobody that got you no skills beyond this I'm just joking

I'm so I so disagree because they were asking me advice on business shit and I'm like hey just so you know I'm like the 100,000 most successful person in America maybe like that's what I want to do I want to play a game where the 100,000th person

wins and has an awesome life not where I have to be the best person in the world and even then I got to start over at age 27 and create a new career because I'm done with the thing and my joints don't work anymore. These guys had shaved arms and shave legs. I was just staring at those cap muscles.

And I was like, dude, I could see every vein of your forum. That's so awesome. I would kill to have that. I want some of that vascularity. Like, look at that vein pop. Like, I just love that. That was cool. His business advice was great.

But then he said he wants to put butter on my chest. I didn't understand that. Look, they kind of saying I had a really nice ball cast at the top of my leg. Like, dude, their cap muscles were just, so solid. A little tennis ball was stuck in there. I just saw that. I'm like, so I remember I was thinking of this one guy. I told Sarah after, I was like, dude, I bet that guy's wife is so hot.

Like, she just, she's like. You said to your wife. Dude, they're so lucky. And then she's like, well, he worked hard. And I was like, no, the wife. That wife is so lucky. Can you believe that she gets to see that bond? Like, I was just thinking about that shit.

man. I just love these Olympians, man. I don't give it all left just to be a gold medal and in the high jump. So I don't know where we go from here. This is the total man episode. It ends up with Sam loving men. Dude, I do. Like, I can't.

You just see a guy with, like, you know, like some sick calf muscles. You've got to admire it, you know? Yeah, I guess you do. You don't do that? Yeah, definitely not the way you do. Like, there's been several people that come on this podcast, and I'm like, I'm pretty sure Sam's just imagining them without their shirt on right back. I feel like Sam does that.

Like, pretty pretty funny. Yeah. You have some sick pecks, bro. How did you get some of those things? Yeah, if I see a guy with big pecks, I just want to ask them a bunch of questions. I don't know where we go from here. That's a fine. Yeah.

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.