The Pomp Podcast - #463 Griffin Johnson on Building Generational Wealth

Episode Date: January 5, 2021

Griffin Johnson is one of the most famous TikTok stars on the planet. He recently has begun spending more time investing, along with creating companies and products.  In this conversation, we discus...s how Griffin built his audience, why he is interested in investing, how he makes money, the Gruen Gang, and how Griffin wants his career to play out.  ======================= BlockFi provides financial products for crypto investors. Products include high-yield interest accounts, USD loans, and no fee trading. To start earning today visit: http://www.blockfi.com/Pomp ======================= Choice is a new self-directed IRA product that I'm really excited about. If you are listening to this, you are likely part of the 7.1 million bitcoin owners who have retirement accounts with dollars in them, but not bitcoin. I was in that situation too. Now you can actually buy real Bitcoin in your retirement account. I'm talking about owning your private keys and using tax-advantaged dollars to do it too. Absolute game changer. https://www.retirewithchoice.com/pomp ======================= The Rodman Law Group is dedicated to helping entrepreneurs realize their vision by helping them operate defensibly in sectors where laws and regulations haven’t caught up to the realities of the industry. The Rodman Law Group’s legal expertise combined with its understanding of blockchain technology makes it the ideal legal service provider for the industry. http://www.therodmanlawgroup.com/pomp

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Starting point is 00:00:00 what's up everyone this is anthony pompliano most of you know me as pomp you're listening to the pomp podcast simply the best podcast out there let's kick this thing off griffin johnson is one of the most famous tic-tac stars on the planet he recently has begun spending more time investing along with creating companies and products in this conversation we discuss how griffin built his audience why he is interested in investing how he makes money the gruen gang and how Griffin wants his career to play out. I really enjoyed this conversation with Griffin, and I hope you do as well. Before we get into this episode, though, I want to quickly talk about our sponsors.
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Starting point is 00:03:03 So if you need a great lawyer, go check out the Rodman Law Group, therodmanlawgroup.com slash pomp, therodmanlawgroup.com slash pomp. All right, let's get in this episode with Griffin. I hope you guys enjoy this one. Anthony Pompliano is a partner at Morgan Creek Digital. All opinions expressed by Pomp or his guests on this podcast are solely their opinions and do not reflect the opinions of Morgan Creek Digital or Morgan Creek Capital Management. You should not treat any opinion expressed by Pomp as a specific inducement to make a particular investment or follow a particular strategy, but only as an expression of his opinion. This podcast is for informational purposes only. all right guys bang bang got a special treat i've got griffin johnson here what's going on man
Starting point is 00:03:53 dude i uh i know i've seen you a lot around with bryce and doing uh you guys this thing on your podcast i actually thought about wearing a wife beater um you know i figured that might bring our chemistry up a little bit because you're used to it with bryce but uh yeah dude i'm excited to be here man listen you're don't lie to the people when we first started you were gonna do without a shirt on. And I said, Hey, you can do that if you want, but it, uh, it passes with my audience, but you know, um, a lot of these guys here, they either a, their kids know me and they think I'm a doofus or B they have no clue who I am. So, you know, I figured I, I'm a, I should probably present myself a little better. All right. Let's go through your background. Uh,
Starting point is 00:04:36 you have one of the largest followings on Tik TOK today, but where'd you grow up and kind of, how did you get into creating content on the internet? Yeah. So, you know, I grew up, um, right on the border of, uh, Indiana and Illinois, um, pretty much central, but considered South doesn't really matter. But, uh, yeah, I didn't grow up with, uh, you know, a lot of money. My dad is, uh, he works in a factory and my mom ended up going back to school for nursing. So I always had to hustle, which kind of brought in my entrepreneur,
Starting point is 00:05:07 my entrepreneurship and uh i went into college and i was in nursing school at the time and you know i played sports and baseball of that jazz but uh my second semester my sophomore year i uh i was in a class all girls nursing you know how it goes and they all do the social media stuff and i was never really into it posted maybe twice a year on instagram total bro thought it was stupid, laughed at all the social media creators and YouTubers that the girls would drool over. And a bunch of girls in my class were making TikToks and I was in them and they would do well because I'm in my scrubs. And they're like, Oh, who's the nurse guy? Who's the nurse guy? And I was growing on Instagram like crazy. And I was like, what is going on? And I guess they
Starting point is 00:05:55 were putting my handle on there. And it wasn't until I saw a girl literally as we were studying for an exam went live on tiktok and made like 100 bucks i was like are you kidding me so i tried it out posted a video it blew up i woke up the next day with like 20 000 followers um what was the video it was just me and my scrubs and i was in class sitting there and said got my phone taken away for this and it was just me sitting there got like a hundred thousand likes blew up and i was like, all right. And from then on, I just saw the easy money. I didn't have an actual idea of being a content creator, social media kid, whatever you want to call it. But yeah, I just, I literally just wanted the revenue from the streams because I was a broke college kid. I worked in a factory
Starting point is 00:06:47 every summer to have enough money to get through the school year. Cause I couldn't work because of my school and nursing and stuff. So yeah, that was my whole goal was to just keep making videos. And I was trying to grow my followers to, uh, get that revenue off the streams. And three months later, I think I had a hundred something K went to, uh, one of the social media events because I met some kids and they, um, you know, one of them is Anthony that lives with me now. And, uh, yeah, I just went on tour, met the boys after that, met Bryce, who made the sway house. And, uh, that's the short form for basically how I got here. Yeah. And so when you talk about, uh, making money off the streams, most people listen to
Starting point is 00:07:27 going to have no clue what that means. So explain how people get paid for the actual streams. So how it is, there's a For You page. So if your video is going viral, it gets on the For You page. And then a live stream is, there's a live feature on TikTok itself on the platform, just like an Instagram Live. You just click a button, you go live, people can join in. And basically, if your video especially is on the For You page, people will see that you're live, they can click in or just your fans and um basically it's just a donation system so there's like different levels like a dollar two dollars five ten fifteen twenty fifty um and people can send you money and then you basically give incentives like you know i'll
Starting point is 00:08:11 put you in a drawing for my merge or you can literally just sit there and do nothing and people will actually donate just to like you know laugh and enjoy the content but um yeah and then then TikTok holds it in their bank for a couple of days. Um, you know, and people, you can only draw out a thousand dollars. So basically TikTok makes bank off of interest just by having it there. So it's, it's, that's kind of why they do it and how it works for the creator. When you go live right now, how much money would you make?
Starting point is 00:08:43 Um, depending on the time, obviously, uh, my standard is usually 20 minutes and I'll make anywhere from like, you know, 1500 to two grand you realize that's ridiculous right yeah it's absolutely insane uh but i actually quit doing it as i became more successful just because like in the beginning i needed it now i kind of leave it for the other creators that you know need that because it really helped my career and helped me out a lot and just in life in general so i don't really do it anymore um some people say you should i feel kind of dirty you know being successful and having my other streams and, uh, revenue and still taking money from, you know, 12 to 10 to 16 year old
Starting point is 00:09:28 girls that are probably using their dad's, um, credit cards. So I kind of quit doing it, but it's definitely a really good way to make money. Do you feel bad taking it from the girls or from their dads? Um, both for one, I feel bad for the girls, um, mainly because I'm not really that cool. So why are you sending me money to sit there? And then I also feel bad for the dads because they're going to work just so their daughter can pay some douchebag on the internet to talk to the camera. So it goes both ways. That's fair. So I've talked to Bryce about it, but I know most people in the audience won't understand how you guys are making money outside of just those streams. So let's just walk through the world of Griffin in terms of
Starting point is 00:10:13 what else do you do with your time? So maybe let's go through a day. So what time do you wake up? What do you do all day? And then how do you make money? So I call this early cause it's early in social media, but I'm usually up like awake at like eight 30 out of bed, ready for the day at nine, which is early in our world. Probably not for people listening to this. They're probably like, wow, you're lazy. But yeah, that's kind of how this industry works is later. A lot of kids don't wake up until noon. So, um, start calls at 10, which is, um, you know, usually later on the East coast time. So sometimes I wake up earlier, seven off calls at seven. Sometimes if they're foreign, I've had calls at like midnight, um, which is all Western time, obviously. But, uh,
Starting point is 00:11:00 yeah, so I wake up call start at 10. I'm usually at Bryce's house, the best zone house where he records, um, by like nine, nine, like nine 15, nine 20. And then, uh, we sit down, we have our every day scheduled out on a Google calendar. Um, it's usually consists of anywhere from like four to eight calls. Um, usually at least one sit down meeting a day where someone comes in, or we got dinner, especially before everything got locked down. Um, and then every day around like 11 to noon is just a time blocked out for filming Tik TOKs and getting all your content posting on Instagram, whatever it is. And then, um, on Mondays and Thursdays now they are basically like designated film days for YouTube podcasts. You know, you and Bryce do Tuesdays because that
Starting point is 00:11:52 fits you better. Um, but for me, obviously I wouldn't do it the same day. So yeah, it's, it's very structured. I think people think we kind of just sit on our ass and like, um just go with the flow and like post tick tocks all day definitely not it um you know it's it's very structured and we that's how we get into all these investments and you know we've really pivoted out from being these heads that got their water and power shut off to now angel investors and um i actually just became a consultant advisor for rec global which is one of the biggest esports teams in the entire world um as well as you know we got triller and and some other things working in the mix so yeah it's um basically calls content um and obviously
Starting point is 00:12:37 you know trips and stuff come up but that's the normal day yeah and uh i'm not just saying it to you obviously people know that uh i've spent all this time with bryce but like you guys do work your asses off and i agree with you that most people don't realize uh kind of how structured it is i remember the first time he told me about like the content days and i was like what do you mean you block off two days he's like yeah like that's all we do is we just you know ideate you know film edit like do all this kind of stuff and when you look at the content uh output that you guys do like you have to dedicate a lot of time to it it just takes the time um when you're doing all this stuff where does the money come from so uh are you getting paid brand deals are you
Starting point is 00:13:16 doing you know youtube revenue merchandise like where do you kind of think of your income from coming from? Right. So this is like a really, really highly asked question and it always changes a little bit because things come up and you know, but I would say it's very, very dynamic and depends on the creator. So this isn't for like, you know, Bryce has different answers than I do, but, um, I will give you the basis. So a lot of creators, they have, um, YouTube. So Google AdSense, you get paid, you, you get basically a CPM. I don't know if people know how that works, but, um, per thousand views, um, usually get a set dollar amount that's given to you by YouTube six, seven, it's usually in that six, seven range. Um, so there's that it comes in every
Starting point is 00:14:04 month. You get paid once a month by that. Um, you obviously can do your, a lot of people do the TikTok live streams or, um, you know, now there's a feature on Instagram. You can do that, which is really good money. I mean, if you're making a thousand dollars a day, you can make you know, 30 grand a month off of just that. Uh, obviously you got brand deals. So those for anyone that doesn't know what a brand deal is, um, you can get paid from anything from using a sound on Tik TOK to doing, uh, you know, a promotion on an Instagram feed post where you shout out whatever company and tag them. Um, those are usually pretty nice and pay well. And, uh, how much do those pay? Like, or how do you think about, you know, if somebody came to
Starting point is 00:14:44 you and said, Hey, I want you to do this. How do you think about pricing it? So for me, it, it, it comes into a lot of things. Is it static? Which means, you know, it doesn't, are you keeping it up forever? Um, is it a couple of days? And then I know you've probably seen these before. You have to follow like everyone, someone's following or whatever. Those are super like non-organic and they look literally ridiculous on your page. So I try to steer away, but if you know, the money's right, obviously, um, someone asked me to do those, it's going to be more,
Starting point is 00:15:12 I would say for let's just say midline of all the sway boys 500 000 likes uh, you should probably get about You know 50k for a post I would say is like a rough number depending on what they want um, and for someone that gets 500 000 likes that's obviously like 2 million Um, you know people engaged with it at least minimum, you know 1.8 to 2 million so if you think about it social media creators are kind of um, underpaid in the eyeball sense for like, you know, marketing on like TV. I don't, I can't name a single show really on any more on TV that gets 2 million eyeballs at once. So, um, so yeah.
Starting point is 00:15:58 Brand deals. What else? Yeah. Um, let's see. I'm trying to think, um, do you have merch? Yeah. Oh yeah. That's a big point. I don't do merch. That's why I didn't, um, come to the top my head, but yeah, merch is definitely, you know, Bryce has his brand and there's a lot of creators that build brands off of themselves that sell well. Why don't you do merch? The reason I don't do merch anymore is because it's a really oversaturated market. Um, think about how many hoodies you have in your closet and how many of them you actually wear. Um, and you know, I have literally, I'm looking at 20 hoodies that are all really cool brand cinnamon to me. They are free, whatever, uh, probably won't ever wear them. Not because they're not cool, but just
Starting point is 00:16:42 because like everyone has a million hoodies and t-shirts nowadays. Uh, and not only that, it's just a really hard market because every single creator, it's like not a creative idea. Every single creator is like, Oh, I got a hundred thousand followers. Oh, here's my merch link, my teespring. Um, so yeah, it's just a market that's like the margins aren't great. You're talking like, you know, you're selling a hoodie for $50. And by the time you pay for shipping everything, you're making like, I don't know, six bucks a hoodie. What's the most ridiculous thing anyone, uh, that, you know, kind of in this influencer content creator world has done for money? Uh, I would say probably, um, only fans.
Starting point is 00:17:31 uh and the reason i say that is like only fans can bring in like a lot of money don't get me wrong but they like they fake like they're putting like an explicit picture on there and they think they're gonna like get everyone and then basically all it does is everyone tries to refund their money and then it takes only fans like that's just one example i've seen people uh fake being in the hospital i've seen people like fake breaking up like it's just crazy stupid shit that i don't even understand so you really can't predict these creator kids because they're literally wild so yeah how do you guys come up with the ideas for the videos like like you bryce josh except like the videos that you guys are producing are uh usually have some level of
Starting point is 00:18:19 entertainment to them and so how do you guys come up with those ideas yeah so um it it does become a routine. Um, honestly, like once you get in this space, you kind of see things and know things that work and you learn from other people and kind of tweak it. So I would say a lot of our ideas come from other people in the past or trends that are working at the time. And then we just literally ramp it up, make it bigger, spice it up, um, add our own twist to it. But a lot of it is just being involved, um, in kind of the space and seeing what other people are doing and what has worked in the past or what's currently working. Um, and obviously sometimes, you know, things just come to you on the fly. It's not like we just sit, I don't think anyone really just sits down for hours and
Starting point is 00:19:05 like thinks of a video. Um, it's just kind of one of those things where you just roll with what's going that week and think about it on the fly. Yeah. When you think of kind of this creator space today, what's like the average kid make, right. Are we talking not, not as much as you think. Okay. So, so help me understand like what, like what's the most somebody makes and what's kind of the average. Okay. So I'm just going to say it's a little bit different. It depends. There's so many factors in social media that kind of mediate how much money you make. So, um, I have 20 million followers across all platforms. If I only did brand deals and I grinded live streams, I'm talking like every day, I would say I'd probably make 500 K in a year.
Starting point is 00:19:51 Okay. Which, you know, that's, that's not shabby, but like you'd think someone with 20 million followers, they're making like $10 million. Um, but that also is because of sway our previous brand. Um, and we're kind of fixing that, but that's also why we pivoted and it forced us to create our own companies and build our own brands. And that's why I'm literally here talking to you right now is because we can't do brand deals. I would say the average, um, for the average creator, let's say 2 million followers on TikTok. And let's say they're completely clean. I'd say they're making maybe like 15, 20K a month. Okay. Now explain, because again, most people aren't going to know all of the, I'll call it the drama or the controversy.
Starting point is 00:20:38 When you're talking about a clean creator versus a non-clean creator and the sway stuff, it helps people understand from a brand's perspective, why are they unwilling to either work with you guys or pay you less compared to a quote unquote clean creator? Right. So someone that's clean is like, you know, I wouldn't even say cussing. Like those are like extreme Disney kids. Um, but it's like, you know, with sway, we've, we've drank on camera, um, vaped on camera, you know, whatever, um, been drunk on camera. And obviously there's been fights and, you know, the boys got in trouble in the past, um, some legal trouble and stuff. So that's like, that's really extreme bad. Um, the party, the party, the party with the power. Um, I don't even think that got as much negative backlash as people think. Um, people are obviously, it's the only thing that people that I talk to when they're like, Oh, who are these guys? And I'll be, you know, I'll try to explain it or whatever. And then somebody in the group will always be like, Oh, that's the kid who got the power shut off, right? That's the group power shut off. And I'm like, yeah, they don't care that it got shut off. Right.
Starting point is 00:21:46 Cause they understand that young kids are going to party, whatever. But that's like the one moment where I think you guys like definitely arrived more than you thought you did. Well, like the thing is, I honestly think it's kind of, I get it from a brand perspective because it's like, if we work with sway, what are they going to do? Like, are they going to get a fight? Are they going to tarnish our name? Um, but honestly, if I, and this isn't being like prejudice at all, this is just like,
Starting point is 00:22:12 if I were a brand and I wasn't like Disney PG obviously, and didn't have like that. Um, one thing that I that I've seen is a lot of those clean creators do not convert at all because brands think that they are paying to get all of these views and all these fans. But in reality, all of their followers just follow their content. They could give a crap less like they'll have 20 million on Tik TOK and they'll get 50 000 likes on instagram i get more than that on my backup account my third backup account
Starting point is 00:22:45 my dog gets more likes than that on it's like it's crazy because you know i i get it in a sense but at the same time it's like people don't conversion it's conversion it's like what are you gonna pay for for people to see it like okay i guess that i mean that is a strategy but it's just crazy to me. And I don't think a lot of people understand the actual dynamics of social media and how many things you have to look at when you're doing a brand deal or you're working with a kid that is in the social media space. All right. Before we get into the business and investing stuff, how old are you? I'm 21. All right. As 21, you're rich and famous, for all intents and purposes. I got to imagine that you get hit up by all kinds of ridiculous
Starting point is 00:23:35 crazy people all kinds of girls dming you etc what is your life like like well if you talked like a friend from home that you grew up with who like doesn't understand how this all happened how do you explain to them your life compared to you know three years ago four years ago yeah so um you know i would humbly say that i'm pretty rooted from my from my hometown i'm still friends with a bunch of, you know, so, uh, I think most creators, you know, have drifted a lot from, you know, from where they started and I've definitely changed in my ways. I would say the biggest pivot is, um, me actually thinking about others using me. Cause I'm from a small town, you know, farm. I worked in factories. It's like, if someone needs help, you're there. It's like,
Starting point is 00:24:23 yo, my cow's out. Can you come? It's not like, yo, are you trying to use me? It's like a community of people that are like, that help each other. I'm like, you know, there's guys that would plow my driveway, um, when it's snow or like whatever, and you don't have to pay them. You just like get them back later. Uh, so one of the biggest things is, is how ruthless people are. Um, and I struggle with this really bad because I'm such a helpful person. Um, I want to help people and, you know, do my best to be a respectful dude, uh, really learned fast that that doesn't work in LA. People don't give a shit. Um, there's not a lot of morals. So that's a really big, uh, struggle with me. And I feel like, you know, a lot of common people,
Starting point is 00:25:10 and especially if they're from the South or Midwest can definitely, um, relate to that. Cause I never saw any business growing up. There was no really businesses. My dad didn't know anything about business or anyone in my family for that matter. So, uh, that was a really big struggle that I had. And then obviously there's the parties, the girls, the temptations, you know, growing up, it was like, yo, bonfire in the cornfield, like let's go Saturday boy, bush light. You know, it wasn't like anything crazy. Now you got like, you go on my DMS, I get a thousand DMS a day from all these like models and girls with their
Starting point is 00:25:45 asses out and everything. Are you responding? I used to, I really did. Uh, when we were in our old sway house and really on our bullshit, I would go through and respond. Of course I was trying to talk to girls. Um, luckily ended up getting a girlfriend and slowed down for a really long time. And then afterwards, uh, you know, there was a bunch of drama and I ended up, you know,
Starting point is 00:26:08 Snapchatting your girl and after that whole drama went down and I got cooked on the internet, like genuinely no shit. I learned my lesson. I barely even look at my DMS anymore, but it is absolutely crazy because sometimes I catch myself talking. It's like, dude, I hate when girls like just send me their asses and I can't respond. And my friends are like, that's never happened to me, dude. Like, um, so yeah, that's, that's definitely a thing. And then the last thing I would say is just, um, always being aware in public so um i'm just gonna be straight up my lingo from being in indiana like you know i was really insensitive to a lot of things that here in la are like really big problems so that was
Starting point is 00:26:51 the first one is having a microscope and obviously you know checking my language and checking the things that i do because um obviously i'm not from a culture that thinks about a lot of things like that and uh just making sure like i'm always on my shit like when i'm driving my car you know i got caught one time picking my nose and it's like who really gives a shit you know but at the same time it's like really man and uh that's definitely one of the biggest changes is like even being out with my family when they visit la it's like my family doesn't want to be like seen like that so it's just what do they think what do they think about what do they think about all that uh in my dad's words he said well feller i don't really know what you're doing but it's working
Starting point is 00:27:42 so they don't really have social media my dad has like one of those industrial smartphones it's like works at negative 10 seconds um you know per minute so it's uh and my brother he he's a working guy he's going to trade school for lineman um to be a lineman and my mom like she hears things more obviously because she's a lot more emotional and uh she doesn't really check my socials that much uh but her friends at work she's a nurse now she just recently went to nursing school finished that so her friends you know they gossip and it's like the work room and did you see griffins with this girl you know and she'll text me about it but other than that they don't they don't get worked up um they don't really care that much if i'm
Starting point is 00:28:30 famous or if i'm homeless so yeah i love it uh let's talk about business and investing uh along with the rest of the guys have really kind of uh taking this hard right and sort of angel investing a lot starting companies how do you just think about like why right like why are you interested in this stuff right so like i mentioned briefly earlier you know growing up i hustled Um, just because I didn't have a lot of money. I definitely wasn't like, you know, homeless, but We were just a normal Low middle class middle class family So if I wanted anything or if I wanted anything extra
Starting point is 00:29:06 I would have to work extra hard to get money from the kids that did have money so whatever it was like I used to hustle like Um, you know make sports bets like i'll beat you in this basketball game or it started off kind of like that And, um, you know, as I got into social media stuff, I didn't really understand like how it could be used, but I've always had an interest in business. So, um, you know, just making that pivot out cause we didn't get any brand deals. Like I said, because we were shitheads, um, we had to find an alternative. And then as soon as we started doing things and starting our own brands, it clicked with me. I fell in love and I'm like, wow, this makes sense. If I want to
Starting point is 00:29:54 make money, that's actually going to create generational wealth and set me up so I don't have to work. I had no other choice. So I kind of fell into it, already kind of loved it and had no other choice. Do you enjoy the business building and operating stuff or the investing more or maybe like both? Um, I like aspects of both. I, the reason I don't like, um, that I, well, actually I'm going to change the answer. I do like building more. Um, the thing that scared me away at first was I was afraid to fail. Like I'm a very like textbook, like we're going to make this much money. And then it gives me something to work towards. Um, something that I even had my social media career and definitely with building businesses is i was afraid to like
Starting point is 00:30:46 make something that wouldn't work instead of doing something that i really loved and making it work so um building something is something i haven't done it yet i'm working on it really hard right now and it's really challenging me um investing is cool because you get to meet a lot of people obviously and you know it's kind of one of those things i'm going to do for anything that i can't build or the boys can't build it's and i want to be a part of it i believe in it i just put my money into it so i would say for me they go kind of almost hand in hand because even if i'm not building it um personally or the boys aren't i'm investing in it because i want to help build it with my following which is kind of what i've been doing you know i'm working on a couple investments
Starting point is 00:31:30 that haven't been signed yet and then i have a direct deal where i'm an actual consultant and I'm literally, I can't build a gaming team because I don't have time, but I'm using their resources and using my following to connect the dots. So. Got it. And so what's the conversation been like with founders, right? As people have found out that you're starting to invest, how has that reception been and kind of what those conversations were like? When I first started, it was a lot different than now when I had no investments, it was like, you know, how well do you convert? Like, what can you do for us? Um, you know, and like, they, they just basically, if they, if they talked to me, they wanted the social media following. It's like,
Starting point is 00:32:14 can you get me verified on Twitter? Can you retweet things for me? Like whatever, which is cool. But I was like, I don't really like, that's weird unless I really fuck with you. I'm not going to do that. Um, but now it's definitely converted over to, it's a lot more serious. We kind of have, you know, we're on a lot of cap tables and, you know, um, a lot of people are talking about us now. They're like, are these kids really serious? Are they about it? Are they worth it? And we've kind of proven ourselves, um, you know, and he's doing a lot of cool things. And, um, you know, some of our other investors we've been in, you know, they, they mentioned us all the time and, uh, it's, it's definitely changing slowly from what can you do for us to, you know,
Starting point is 00:32:57 or i guess how can you help us to what can you do for us and help like get us there yeah and do you guys talk internally at the house like if one of you sees a deal you'll bring it back to everyone and kind of say hey look i saw this like i think it's cool what do you guys think or are each of you kind of making decisions on your own without really talking about with each other um everything we do is together i mean literally there's you know josh has a couple things he's done on his own. And I have a couple of things I've done on my own as well as Bryce. Um, but we all know what's going on. It's, it's a team. Um, obviously we're way more powerful as a group than we are just individually. So literally everything we do runs through, you know, the boys and Michael and
Starting point is 00:33:39 whoever the team is, and then me. So, um, definitely just a big group. And we really like to bundle ourselves up and bring as much punch as we can. Uh, you mentioned Michael, Michael Gruen, uh, kind of, I don't even know what, what exactly does Michael consider his title or role to be? Right. Well, that's a good thing. We, that's a good thing to ask because we always get really confused and battle back and forth or what we call him. Um, he started off basically as just being a mentor and he kind of wanted to be an advisor and talent X, which is, you know, him and Josh founded it. And then we all started it from scratch. Um, so he started off wanting to just be an advisor, kind of help us out and guide us in
Starting point is 00:34:20 the right direction ended up. Now he literally helped us build a sway house, does every single deal we do. Like he gets pressed for us. Like he does literally everything, but I would consider him more importantly, um, my business partner. Um, I see myself working with him for a really long time and i truly believe that you know he's a prodigy he can literally make money with the click of his fingers if he wants to so he's doing a fantastic job and he definitely works hard uh but now that we've said nice things about him you've got to tell us what's the funniest michael gruman story you have dude not the it's not a story with him but michael one time did a tiktok with me um at our old house and it's like don't worry about me i'm a thug and it's like i actually
Starting point is 00:35:09 retweeted an edit of it because my fans made an edit of michael um doing the dance and it's like a fan page edit and now they they put hashtag gruen gang under his tweets and stuff and it is so funny because they tag me in edits of him all the time and it's like you know he he he's the guy on instagram that'll post pictures and the only time is when it's with someone like famous or important that he's friends with or has met um so they'll make jokes out of it and they'll be like you know uh you know how we tweet about the business stuff like yo at whoever really interested in what you're doing want to get invested like want to learn from you they'll like take those tweets and then change it and then tweet at him and it's so fun so fun hashtag gruen gang i love
Starting point is 00:35:57 it yeah hashtag gruen gang it's real i'm telling you we better be careful or that literally is gonna become a thing and he's gonna be embarrassed uh it already is it already is i love it before i let you go i always ask everyone the same two questions and you'll get to ask me one uh to finish up what's the most important book you think you've ever read oh goodness um man that's really important or or content doesn't have to necessarily be a book but just like what's the most important piece of youtube video uh podcast book whatever um i think i might actually have it right next to me. Um, let's see, I was going to pull it up, but I don't know exactly where it is, but I have a book and, um, basically it, it digests like a lot of like what Motley
Starting point is 00:36:46 crew and all, all of the old, um, you know, like, um, alternative and punk rock and rock bands did. And it kind of breaks down the meta of like how they, um, you know, built their brands and kind of created that legacy you know oh here it is yeah it's called please kill me um and it's really cool and i think it works for business even and uh i like it because a lot of people think social media creators aren't smart um or you know they don't know what they're doing and it's kind of the same thing with them when you think of a punk rock dude you think of some dude with long hair black nails like screaming into a mic and it's it digests basically how every successful you know rock banding group ever became and there's actually like a system to it um and it really
Starting point is 00:37:33 just inspired me to do that with myself and um build my own brand so let them underestimate you man you guys are way smarter than uh than they think uh second question is more fun aliens are you a believer or non-believer um dude it's like i i i think i'm crazy when i say yes but at the same time it's like there has to be other life forms out there there has to be of course there has to be so i would say um i'm beating around the bush but the answer is yes i think there's probably something out there for sure anyone who's an alien uh like non-believer they're just the trolls on twitter there's a high correlation between trolls on twitter and people who don't believe in aliens yeah well see the thing is when you say alien i don't think it's
Starting point is 00:38:20 little green dude flying around in the ufo but yeah all right good clarify that so there's not headlines of griffin johnson believes aliens are flying in ufos yeah there's there's something though all right you could ask me one question to finish up what do you got for me right so um one question i have for you is is do you recommend people um you know buying bitcoin even if it's not a full Bitcoin, obviously, cause it's really expensive, especially right now. Um, do you think it's still worth it? And I know this is another question to add it on top of it. Do you think it's actually going to be worth, I think 314 K by 2025? Uh, I don't know where the 314 K number came from, but, uh, from the, from the twins, I believe it's right around there, right around
Starting point is 00:39:10 that 300 K mark. Okay. So here's how I think about it. Right. So one is, uh, you're right in that you don't have to buy a full Bitcoin, right? So full Bitcoin is like $19,000 right now. Well, you can definitely buy a piece of it. And here's why I think that people should own Bitcoin, right? Is just think 10 years from now, do you think more people are going to be using Bitcoin or less people are going to be using Bitcoin than they are today? Probably more. I would say more, especially as the US dollar depreciates and the government keeps getting a lot more unstable um so you know trust in the dollar keeps going down so it's like what two percent at least every year it depreciates from inflation yeah so if you think of that right just
Starting point is 00:39:53 there's gonna be more people using it right and adopting it in the future than today it's a fixed supply asset so the just naturally supply demand economics the price has to go up in u.s dollar terms over a very very long period of time right i always say very very long period of time because what people get, you know, kind of caught on is they buy something today and whether it goes up or down, they panic, right? If it goes up a bunch, they sell it. If it goes down, they sell it, right? But if you basically just say, hey, look, I'm basically going to dollar cost average in, right? Buy a little bit, you know, every day or every Monday or every month or whatever it is. And I'm just going to accumulate more and more of this and I'm going to hold it for a long period
Starting point is 00:40:29 of time. It'll work out, right? Because of the supply demand kind of economics. But I think having a long time horizon is really important um you know and like right now everyone's buying every stock in the world and bitcoin and all this crazy stuff's happening but you just got to remember it's like the longer term uh time horizon you have the more advantage you have uh yeah that's a that's a good point because i was um i bought my first bitcoin but i was very hesitant because i didn't want to spend i think at the time it was like I bought it like 15, four 30 something. And, uh, I was like, shit, I don't want to pay 15 grand. And then, you know, like a month went, not even a month, like a week and a half went by
Starting point is 00:41:12 and it was already up close to like 19. And I was like, Oh, all right. Well, maybe I should have bought more. Yeah. Um, but I still had onto it. And I think after the election stuff dies down, it'll probably drop again. Um, I'm assuming, but yeah, uh, I'm definitely going to hold onto that for a while. And I think, you know, there's only what, 21 million that you can acquire total in the world. So there's going to be a time whenever it gets really sticky. I love it, man. I would ask where we can send people to find you on the internet, but I don't think that's going to be very hard for most people to find you. Where do you want them to go? Where should they go follow you if they're interested in
Starting point is 00:41:52 all the business and finance stuff i do want to say i just started a linkedin i'm very proud of that i never had one so you know if you guys want to connect you guys can find me on there but just my name um obviously and then uh i guess twitter no one else wants to see me shirtless uh dancing around so if you i i tweet about some investments of course i throw in some stuff for the girls on twitter but um every now and again i'll put some interesting business advice or talk to some cool people on Twitter. So, um, and my Twitter is like, I'm Griffin Johnson, but the I's and L's. So I'm sure you can just type in my name and find it. I love it, man. Listen, thank you so much for doing this. You guys are doing a fantastic job. You know, as I told you guys before, don't, uh,
Starting point is 00:42:36 don't worry about whatever it is saying you guys are, uh, are working hard and making money and, uh, you're investing. So that's literally the dream. Thanks for, uh, thanks for letting me get on here and explain to people that, you know, I'm dumb, but just not as dumb as what they say. All right, man. We'll do it again in the future. Thanks, Pop.

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