The Startup Ideas Podcast - Common Traits of Legends with Ndamukong Suh

Episode Date: April 7, 2022

In this episode we dive deep on the Terra LUNA Ponzi debate, then bring in guest Ndamukong Suh to pick his brain on lessons from his multifaceted career. Ndamukong began his career as a Nebraska football player and has gone on to play in the NFL, where he is one of the highest-paid defensive players in NFL history. He is also an investor, engineer, developer, entrepreneur, and father. Known for his aggressive style of play, Ndamukong explains his relationships with his competitors and how his personality changes off the field. We also cover his story of befriending Warren Buffet, his meditation and mindfulness practices, and the importance of respect.►► Want more community? Learn more here: http://trwih.comTHIS EPISODENdamukong Suh: https://twitter.com/NdamukongSuhSahil Bloom: https://twitter.com/SahilBloomGreg Isenberg: https://twitter.com/gregisenbergProduction & Marketing Team: https://penname.co/FIND US ON SOCIALTwitter: https://twitter.com/_trwihInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/_trwihTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@_trwihWeb: https://trwih.comSpotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6aB0v6amo3a8hgTCjlTlvhApple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/where-it-happens/id1593424985Suh and Buffet Arm Wrestling: https://thesource.com/2015/05/04/warren-buffett-beats-ndamukong-suh-in-a-arm-wrestling-match/SPECIAL THANKS TO OUR SPONSORS►► This episode is brought to you by LEX. We’re always looking for breakthrough businesses. And, our audience has repeatedly asked how they can invest in commercial real estate. Lex is the easy answer. LEX turns individual buildings into public stocks via IPO, so you can invest, trade, and manage your own portfolio of high-quality commercial real estate. It’s so simple to get started today.Sign up for free at https://www.lex-markets.com/room and get a $50 bonus exclusively for our audience when you deposit at least $500. It’s a no-brainer.►► This episode is also brought to you by Outer. Spring is in the air in both NYC and Miami, and we can’t get enough of our Outer outdoor furniture. Their furniture looks incredible and is durable. Personally, we love the Outdoor Loveseat.Right now for our audience exclusively they are offering $300 off any product + free shipping until May 1. This is one of the most generous offers of any sponsor we’ve had. Did we mention they have a 2-week free trial? Go to https://www.liveouter.com/room to get the deal.

What's up, man? How you doing? Wow. Look at that hair. Holy shit. You look amazing. I heard we have a big guest coming on later, like a tall and big guest, so I figured I could use a couple extra inches.

Yeah, I mean, that's like, you must be six and nine with that hair right now. That is good, tall hair. It's got a little bit of it like a Jimmy Neutron, Johnny Bravo vibe to it. Someone on my team actually was saying how in, in, in, remote culture, because you don't know how tall everyone is, everyone's constantly thinking about, like, how tall is everybody? Have you had the incident yet? I've had this several times in the remote world where, like, you meet someone and they're dramatically different height than you expected. Like, the little differences, you don't notice that much, but the ones where, like, someone you assumed was kind of short, ends up being super tall or the other way. It's really, it's actually throws you off in your first, in your first in person interaction with them.

Yeah, I actually think that's like a fun blog to create, like people who sound tall, but in reality are really short and vice versa. It's kind of me. Like there's something kind of underlying meat. Like there's a, there's this friend of ours who I think you might know, Syeva, who I think Sean Puri originally introduced me to. He's amazing. He's like an amazing investor, business builder, great, great guy. and we had zoomed and, you know, we, like, vibed. I really liked him a lot.

And then we planned to meet up. And we met up, like, a few days later in person. And the dude's like, like, 6, 7 or something, like 6, 6. And I felt like it changed the entire power dynamic of our relationship. Not that I felt like I was, like, the dominant one or anything over the Zoom, but it definitely, like, I saw him. And it was like, he bear hugged me. And I was, like, this tiny little human.

And I'm, like, 6'2 or something. And I was, like, this little mini human in his arms when he hugged me. And I was just like, this was so far. And he says he constantly gets it, but it was so far off what I had expected that it was pretty hilarious. Well, it sounds like a humbling experience. Definitely one that I wasn't expecting. Dude, we have a lot to cover today. And we have an amazing guest who I'm really excited to have on.

It's taken a while to get him on in large part because he was playing in the Super Bowl. So I'm looking forward to having that discussion. have Endama Kong Siu coming on to chat, everything from, you know, life lessons learned from sports to reinvention to Web 3 and Solana, which I've seen him write a whole bunch about. So pretty excited to dive into that. We've got him coming on in a little bit. But there was something in the news over the last couple days that I wanted to talk about with you because I just thought it was a really interesting, really interesting kind of like story and Web 3. case that was happening. So maybe we can start there and then I know you've got a couple other things

as well. Cool. Let's let's go. Ninety three percent of your life has spent indoors, but so many of our best moments are outdoors. That's why I'm so excited to share with you outer. Outer makes the world's most beautiful, comfortable, and durable outdoor furniture. When I moved to New York last year and got a new place, one of my priorities was finding an outdoor workspace. Outer's products have provided me with that game-changing experience. I now have outdoor furniture that's durable, that has modular designs. It has life-proof material that withstands the weather

and the fluctuations that New York often brings. They have a patented built-in outer shell cover to keep your furniture dry from rain and dew. It's the, how did no one think of this before product for me on the outdoor furniture front. I've absolutely loved it, and I know you will too. See the difference at liveouter.com

slash room. And now through May 1st, you'll get $300 off plus free shipping. Again, that's live outer o-u-t-e-r dot com slash room and get $300 off plus free shipping. Only available to our podcast listeners. You're going to absolutely love it. Interested in investing in commercial real estate, but not sure where to start? Me too. Well, Lex has created a new way for you to invest in real estate. Lex turns individual buildings into public stocks via IPO so you can invest, trade, and manage your own portfolio of high-quality commercial real estate. Any U.S. investor can open a Lex account, browse opportunities in various asset classes such as multifamily and office buildings, and buy shares of these individual buildings. Lex opens up direct and tax advantage ownership in an asset class that has previously been inaccessible to most investors. Get started today and explore Lex's live assets in New York City and an upcoming IPO in Seattle.

Sign up for free at Lex dash markets.com slash room and get a $50 bonus when you deposit at least $500. So did you see this Luna, Terra bet that just happened the other day? I did see it, but for the listeners, maybe explain the craziness that. that occurred. Okay. So, you know, just to set the stage on it, Terra is a stable coin, UST is the ticker, Luna is the token that backs it. You know, when people talk about currency, like cryptocurrencies, it's a little bit of a misnomer because no one really uses Bitcoin or Ethereum as a, as a currency today. Maybe in the future they will. But right now, both because of how tax authorities treat it and because of volatility, you wouldn't really want to pay for things in it. You know,

you have the situation like the pizza, the Bitcoin pizza story of the guy that used Bitcoin to buy a pizza. Now that would be worth, you know, whatever, $100 million, some absurdity. So people don't really use a lot of cryptocurrencies as currency. Stablecoins are kind of the solution to that. U.S.T. Terra is one of the biggest stable coins. One of the most widely used in a lot of, like in Korea, I know a lot of e-commerce stores actually accepted as payment because it's a lot of lower fee than what their credit card transactions cost. The feature here is that one UST can be swapped for $1 worth of Luna. And that's kind of the swap mechanism between the two, which as a feature maintains the

stability of UST, which should be sitting right at a dollar because if it drops below a dollar, someone is going to come in and buy it as a way to get arbitrage. They'll buy it at 98 cents and swap it for a dollar. worth of Luna. And when that happens, it buoys the demand on UST and brings it back to a dollar. So it creates this kind of price stability mechanism. But there's been this ongoing debate about Luna and about Terra that it's a Ponzi scheme. Basically, that it's like this massive rugpole waiting to happen. And it's in large part around this whole like yield protocol and the overall supply and demand function within it. So you have this thing called Anchor where basically they're offering 20 plus percent

yields on your Luna. You can put it into the protocol and generate this amazing yield. That leads to a lot of people that are scrambling to put money into this and lock it up. And it's a little bit unclear where the yield is actually coming from. And so bears out in the market have consistently been saying that Terra is this massive rugpole waiting to happen, Luna and Terra both, and that it's like the BitConnect of this crypto Bull Run. BitConnect was like this famous rugpole from back in 2017, which I actually got rug pulled in and lost $10,000, I think, thanks to a friend who got me into that. So I've been paying attention to this because I think it's interesting to follow. But maybe you can explain, too, what you saw with this bet that just went down and we can chat about it in that context.

Yeah, I mean, well, so a couple of things I just want to clarify. So why people use, so Tara is the blockchain. chain. And then UST and Luna are essentially the coins. The reason why people use it is, as many of you know, processors, Visa will take 2 to 3%. Terra takes 1%. So that's the big value add. And the other big value add, as you mentioned, is the whole stable coin sort of thing. Yeah, and there are real people using it. Like I had read, you know, a bunch of e-commerce stores in Korea, which I mentioned actually accept UST because of the fee being different. People, you know, around the world are using it for transactions. Like there's actually a real life, real world and crypto world use

case for the for the tokens. And there's a ton of, there's a ton of people in the crypto community just very excited about Luna. Our friend Jean-Pourri writes about it a lot on his, on his email, the Milk Road. I first basically heard about it when my friend Phil Toronto sent me a video in the morning on a Saturday morning and he wrote, Greg, I think you should get into Luna. You should buy some Luna. This is financial advice. And I was the end of the video. And I was like, what is he talking about? And he sent me this whole deck about why Luna is so captivating. And I think that's kind of vibe that you get from a lot of people in the crypto community is, you know, this is the future. So yeah, Sal, maybe you want to pull up the tweets back and forth.

Yeah. So it's like this raging debate, though, to your point, there's a lot of people that are super excited about it, including some like big Silicon Valley venture firms that have backed, that have backed Tara and Luna and that have put funds into the company to kind of continue to grow it as they continue to create real world use cases. And then on the bear side, there's these people that are saying it's one of the biggest rug pulls of all time and that it's a total Ponzi scheme waiting to collapse. So what I saw was that in the last couple of days, there was a really funny back and forth that got created on Twitter. An account called Algod trading, Sensei Algod, tweeted, Luna is the bit connect of this bull run, printing 20% APY out

their asses. Once APY drops and demand goes down, Luna will also spiral having to bail out billions of UST. And then he upped the ante basically saying, I will be willing to bet a million, a million dollars to anyone who is willing to take the bet with me that Luna is going to be worth less a year from now than it is today. And this sparked something really interesting where one of the founders of Tara, Doe Kwan, whose stable Kwan on Twitter, came in and said, basically, okay, I'm in. He said, cool, I'm in. And then he said that he actually would rather bet 90% of Sensei Al God's net worth rather than a million dollars, but that he was willing to accept the million dollar bet. So they actually made the bet. Each one of them sent a million

dollars to Kobe, who's a big Twitter crypto influencers wallet. And basically created a $2 million dollar escrow that is going to pay out one year from now, depending on where the price is. I think it's if it's below or above $89 right around where it's currently trading. Someone else, another anonymous crypto account actually got in on the action and came in with a $10 million bet and said he wanted to make the same bet as Sensei Algod, but with $10 million. And Duquan met that bet as well. And so then another $20 million got sent into the same account as, as the first one. So now there's $22 million of cash riding on the price of Luna. So what did you think

about all this, Greg? And where is your head on it? Well, so, you know, I hope I'm pronouncing this right, Duquan. It was a reminder to me how legendary of a founder, like he's putting his money where his mouth is. And he's got this reputation of really being a baller like that. I don't know if you saw him, you know, maybe it was five or six months ago. He was on CNBC or something. And it was around the reg did you see that video where he was on i haven't seen it now i got to pull it up he was basically like um they they were like so there's like a bunch of like u.s regulations that are you know potentially going to outlaw like your business like how do you feel about that and he looked at them and like we can put the video on the show notes but he looked at them and he was like

yeah i don't really care i like i don't really care about the us basically was that was the like paraphrasing he was like it's just not not that interesting like the world is more than just the u.s like for this to work like i don't need it to work in the u.s and then there was this like awkward silence between the interviewer like and she was like uh so i mean the fact that he's putting his money where his mouth is was really cool that was one kind of takeaway the second takeaway is like i don't know is this a sign of like the top even though we're kind of like going down where people are betting 20 plus million dollars with strangers on the internet seems wild. Yeah, I have so many thoughts on this.

So first off, I need to look up that video because it sounds hilarious. And I love awkward interview stuff where like an interviewer gets caught off guard by someone's response. But my couple of thoughts on it, number one, you know, as an investor, it's funny because people get really offended. investors get really offended when someone wants to take the other side of the trade. But by definition, in order for there to be alpha, like in order for there to be significant upside to a bet, there has to be someone that is betting the other direction on it. Like for every startup we go and invest in, you know, at a $20 million seed valuation,

there has to be people that think that that is going nowhere, thinks that it's a bad idea by definition in order for there to be upside. And so like I personally just think at every point in time, there should be a balanced trade. Otherwise, it would just go perpetually up. And it would only go up to the right and the price would go through the roof. And there would be no returns to be had in that investment. So on the surface level, I don't really worry about this kind of thing. Like when people are really bullish on Luna and they see this, you have to believe that there are people on the other side of the trade. That's actually why you're going to generate. You know, if you think there's a 10x return in Luna,

that's actually the reason why, because there's still people that don't believe and they're being told it's off. The other side of me says, it kind of does look like a Ponzi scheme. Like if you're looking at it from the outside, outside in, I could see the case where you would think this looks, you know, suspect because basically there's this massive way above regular market, APY, getting printed and the yield being generated is significant. There's this swap mechanism where if suddenly that yield starts to drop or if they're not able to maintain it, if people start selling rather than buying Luna, and if you have a bunch of people swapping, it does create this market spiral, right? Like there is a real risk of something like that happening. And so while I don't

think it's like, you know, a Ponzi scheme in the context of like a Bernie Madoff where you actually had someone that never went in with a desire to build something, I can see why people would worry about that kind of downward spiral that could happen if, if you start to have kind of significant downward momentum. It is, you know, the, if you're Luna and if you're Tara, if you're Doquan, your bullish case is that you're going to keep building real world use cases of this. And if people keep needing the stable coin and keep buying the stable coin to use on real world use cases, not just on anchor where they can generate yield, that creates significant demand, right? To go from here to where it's a widely used currency in the future, that's a massive surge of demand and

you basically never have to worry about it. So his bullishness, I imagine, is driven by that idea, that they can continue to drive real world, real world use cases that will lead to, you know, significant long-term demand momentum. Yeah, I think, so have you looked at Olympus Dow? No. Olympus Dow was very popular maybe four to six months ago because it gave 1100% APY. And then there was also a fork of Olympus Dow, which was called Climate Dow, which I believe, was backed, I think, in large part by Adam Newman, formerly of rework.

And that's basically Olympus Dow version, which is supposed to like, you know, remove carbon or buy carbon credits. And that had like 40,000 API. And recently these, you know, both Olympus and client oh i know olympus for sure has gone down because i bought some has gone down like 80 or so percent maybe more um and it's generally i generally uh think of these things as like if it seems too good to be true it probably is um and like the whole money from nothing thing i actually think is what gives a lot of people the hebi-jibs about the crypto and web three world is that you're like what do you mean 40,000 percent or 2,000 or whatever when like my savior his account is generating, you know, 0.01%.

It like something doesn't compute. And even for me, intellectually, I'm just like from where. It's just, is it just coming from new demand? Because that's the definition of a Ponzi scheme. Like new money that's coming in is paying me my return. That's what BitConnect was doing from what I understand. And that's how I lost money on it. And so now I feel like because of that instance for me personally, I'm like, ultra

on guard for these feels too good to be true mechanisms around, uh, around crypto stuff. I think, you know, if you're listening to this and you're trying to figure out, hey, is this Olympus Dow or is this Terra thing legit or not, the way to think about it is it's okay to actually incentivize an early stage of a network. So it's, you know, if you think of PayPal, like, you know, we often forget, but PayPal started off like sign up to this. There's like $5 or $10 or $15 in your account. Like it was incentivized.

Great analog. On top of that, they created real, real value. So I think, you know, fast forward to today, the question with the Terra blockchain and Luna is are these, you know, short-term incentives going to bootstrap the network, aka get a lot of people into this ecosystem? But is there actual real value in the ecosystem, like, i.e., are there real, like, web three applications, crypto applications that are being built on top of, on top of Terra? that they can basically wean themselves off of the incentives and it could be a self,

you know, self-fulfilling flywheel. That's the question. With Olympus Dow, like it was like a straight up like, hey, like give us money and we're going to get, you know, and none of this is financial advice, but it was basically like give us money and we're going to give you this huge API. But there wasn't a huge ecosystem built around it versus the interesting thing with Luna and Terra is there is real world applications as you're saying. thing. Yeah, that's a brilliant analog, actually, you know, the one you drew around PayPal, and I think you could apply that to any Web2 company that's been built in the last 10 years, right? Like Uber at the very beginning was offering kind of teaser rates, DoorDash. You were basically

buying things for under the price of what it costs the restaurants to make because they were incentivizing early usage. And you knew that it was eventually going to go away, but those companies were doing it in order to create a bunch of demand, acquire a bunch of customers who then get hooked on whatever it is. And so to your point, I think for all of these companies that are doing it in some way, shape, or form in the crypto world, is there a real world application being built that is going to sustain and that is going to be, you know, have a network effect to it where it actually creates meaningful long-term value expansion over time. I think that's a great way to think about it.

Actually, you put it very well there. I remember taking an Uber from Santa Monica in L.A. to Venice in L.A., which is like three miles or four miles or five miles. and it was a $3.50 Uber ride, and it was like in a Mercedes. And I was like, there's no way that this makes sense for the driver. And it was just the VCs subsidizing. Yeah.

100%. 100%. And in this case, it's interesting because there it was the VC subsidizing it. Here, it's not clear who's subsidizing it. Like, is it early users subsidizing these returns? And then you're like, they're benefiting from it in the appreciation of, of the Luna price from new users that are coming in. It's like a much more circular mechanism,

which is what, at least for me, intellectually, it's where I get a little more challenged with it. But I think coming back to is there real world application being built that can create real meaningful value for all new users that are coming in, is the right way to think about it. It's the same with the Play to Earn games, which we've talked about in the past. A lot of them look on the surface when you apply an analog mindset to them.

they look like a Ponzi scheme because you have that same dynamic. But is there an actual game being built and a game experience in a world being built that is creating real value for the users? Because if you go create an ecosystem like a Fortnite where people just love playing whether or not they're making money from it, that's a meaningful long-term value appreciation. So I think that is a good frame of reference. It's a great framework, great mental model for thinking about these in future more broadly than just this one.

So to close a loop on on Terra, Luna, where are you on it? Which side of the bet would you take? And that none of this is financial advice to your point, but which side of the bet would you take? I mean, it's hard to bet. Just, you know, we were going back and forth on Twitter today where I tweeted about how Facebook groups, you know, is kind of an unsung hero. And they've got almost two billion active users. And I'm kind of bullish at these prices of Facebook.

And you responded, do you remember you respond? Do you remember you responded about Zuck? Yeah, I said Zuck is a wartime general, and I wouldn't bet against him. And that's kind of my take with Duke Kwan. Like, he's a wartime general, hard to bet against him. So I'm on the Luna side. Yeah, I am a small holder of Luna. And I guess I would take that side too.

I do think they're building, at least from the diligence I've done on it, personally, I do feel like they're building something real. I also, one of their major investors is someone I'm very close with, who I think extremely highly of the crypto fund that invested. And I've had conversations with them. And I just, I believe in the long term vision of what they're trying to build. Do I think they're going to be bumps along the road, though? And that it's going to be, you know, rocky along the way? Absolutely.

So I actually don't know where I would land on the bet for one year from now. But 10 years from now, I like, I like the Du Kwan side of it. I wish, I wish they didn't do 12 months. And they did 10 years. Because I think, you know, and we've talked about this in the past where like we look at investing in crypto as like angel investments, like seed stage series A angel investments where we don't see our return in seven to 10 years. And that's how you kind of have to think about this. Yeah. Well, let's bring our guest in and transition a little bit here because I know he's in the waiting room.

And I don't want to keep him waiting because I'm nervous about what would happen if I did. So let's go ahead and bring Endomaconsu into the chat. Interested in investing in commercial real estate, but not sure where to start? Me too. Well, Lex has created a new way for you to invest in real estate. Lex turns individual buildings into public stocks via IPO so you can invest, trade, and manage your own portfolio of high-quality commercial real estate. Any U.S. investor can open a Lex account, browse opportunities in various asset

classes such as multifamily and office buildings and buy shares of these individual buildings. Lex opens up direct and tax advantage ownership in an asset class that has previously been inaccessible to most investors. Get started today and explore Lex's live assets in New York City and an upcoming IPO in Seattle. Sign up for free at Lex dash markets.com slash room and get a $50 bonus when you deposit at least $500. $900. 93% of your life has spent indoors. But so many of our best moments are outdoors. That's why I'm so excited to share with you outer. Outer makes the world's most beautiful, comfortable, and durable outdoor furniture. When I moved to New York last year and got a new place, one of my priorities was

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Again, that's live outer o-u-t-e-r-com slash room and get $300 off plus free shipping, only available to our podcast listeners. You're going to absolutely love it. Welcome to the show. We are so happy to have you and so grateful for your time. Let's just dive right into it, man. I mean, you're a pretty remarkable person. you are a savant, I suppose, in a number of areas now. And I think the two of us, Greg and I have gotten to know you through Twitter over the last year,

but most people have known you for a long time due to your exploits on the football field. So we'd love to just kick off with a little bit of like your lessons learned from your experience competing at such a high level as an athlete. What is that taught you? What are the lessons you've brought from that that are now playing out in your life as a businessman as an investor as a father. Yeah, I would say, well, first or foremost, it's great to talk to you guys. It's been always something that I know we've been trying to set up for a long time and finally getting to it. So my apologies there, especially during the season. But overall, for myself

in the correlation between sports and business has really been quite similar. I came into the sport of football pretty, pretty green and found a passion in it. And I was bigger and stronger than most of the kids when I was younger. So I had that going for me. But just having the curiosity and the want to to learn the game, understand the game, and really find a way that change it to where my particular play is now seen as something that is of greatness. And for me, that's just a lot of hard work, determination,

finding the right team, which is a little bit of luck or a lot of luck. I got an amazing performance director. I got amazing physical therapists and natural past and people that have helped me along the way. And I think that's where it's been able to be in the same way for me in the business side of the world. I'm super curious. I always loved real estate. My dad and both my mom and dad were into real estate as a young kid. My main job was to cut lawns and make sure I cleaned up all the trash around it.

But as I got to understand all the different nuances that went into kind of creating these different opportunities, for us to go play soccer, travel soccer, travel, basketball, all these different pieces. That's where our supplemental income came from because my mom was just a teacher and my dad was self-employed. So those were the different pieces that allowed me to say, all right, it's okay to be curious and it's okay to push yourself and not just be coined as just an athlete. And that's something I pride myself on all the time. I never want to be just an athlete. And I really want to be more successful off the field than I was on the field. How did you end up at Nebraska?

I've been wanting to ask you this for a while because I realized you grew up in Oregon, right? And it's a long way from home and it's a very different climate, very different environment. Obviously a phenomenal football program. But I'm just curious, like what led to you making that jump going far away from family, from friends, you know, out of the comfort of your hometown? Yeah, truthfully, it was just kind of being curious and taking that leap of faith and understanding art. one, everybody in Portland and went to my high school, they either went to Oregon, Oregon State. And I really wanted to go to Oregon State. But I said to myself, man, do I really want to just see half my classmates that I just left high school with and then meet some new people that

decided to come to Oregon State? And I was like, no, not really. And then my sister, who's older than me, went to Mississippi State. She decided to go all the way to the south. And so a coach at the time was her boyfriends at the time, defensive line coach. And my sister was like, you should recruit my little brother. I think he's going to be good. And he started to recruit me. And he ended up leaving Mississippi State and going to Nebraska. And I always heard of Nebraska and Oklahoma, that big Thanksgiving game and all this different stuff. And then being able to say, all right, Bill Callahan, got a great coach, got a good relationship, can play football

earlier, play early. And it's a major organization and really conference and school. that I could play in and play early. And so that was really my excitement on the football side of things. And then I can also knock out my engineering degree, which they were a top five program when I was there. I think they're still probably top 10 in the engineering side of things of construction management. So it was a win-win situation.

And it was probably one of the best decisions I've ever made in my life. And it led to a lot of interesting things in your life that probably were a little bit unexpected as well. I mean, the football side of things, I've talked to Greg about this. Greg's not as much of a football fan as I probably was, but I've talked to him about your performance in the championship game back in college, which I still regard, I think, is the best defensive performance I've ever seen. That was more expected. I would say the unexpected and the interesting thing is something I've read recently, which is your relationship that was kind of

sparked out of your time at Nebraska with a very famous investor, Warren Buffett. And I'd love to just hear more about that. I mean, it's an example to both of us. of like this engineered serendipity idea. We recently had Matt Mullenweg, the founder of WordPress on, and Greg, and he were telling and exchanging stories of that concept of like manufacturing luck. You made this jump to Nebraska. You were there. Omaha is obviously where, you know, Buffett's kind of hometown and what he's built.

And you ended up sparking a relationship through that with him that has played out through your life. Can you talk a little bit about that relationship and what you've learned there? Yeah, it's been an amazing relationship. and one that I had never at a young age fathom I would be able to earn and really have. And so it started back in my senior year. And he and Mr. Buffett came to my senior, my last game. He was our honorary captain.

And so I met him in the locker room. And the front office guys were like, hey, do you want to meet Warren Buffett? And do you even know he was? And I was like, of course I knew who he is. And I mean, I'd love to meet him. I'm getting ready to go beat up on Oklahoma, but why not? So we met briefly, and then later on that spring, I was preparing to go off and train for the combine. And a friend of mine said, man, you should really reach out to Warren Buff to see if he would be a mentor of yours or just even just get a meeting.

And so I reached out to Tom Marlesbord, who was our AD at the time. And I knew they were super close. And that's why he came down and was honorary captain. And he said, I'm happy to make and put in the call, but trust me, I can't promise you whether or not he'll meet with you. And I said, no problem. I totally understand. I can't imagine he's super, super busy all the time. So he did it.

And then all of a sudden, I got a call back in an email and say, he'd love to meet with me. And I went and sat up probably about three hours before our meeting in his office, just waiting. And I wanted to be on time, want to be more than ahead of on time. and really sat down and had an amazing conversation. We talked for at least two, three hours, and it was like talking to my dad, which was amazing. Ever since then, our relationship has continued to blossom and usually try and get a hold of them or talk to him on a quarterly basis and obviously participate and go to different events

that he has and that I'm invited to, especially around Berkshire weekend. Go ahead. Yeah, I have a question around meeting your heroes. and pinch me moments. You know, I'm sure you've, you know, you've been in a lot of, you know, situations where, you know, you meet your hero and you have this opportunity to spend two, three, four hours with that person. Could you share a little bit about how that feels? Yeah. I would probably say, obviously, you're warning as somebody I've always looked up to in a,

known about and seen a success. Another person that I would definitely put in that category were two people. One is Michael Jordan, and then two is Barack Obama. And Barack Obama was probably the most like eye opening of saying, I've kind of made it. And I've never looked at myself that I've ever made it and think that I'm some sort of celebrity. But when he gets off of Air Force One, and I'm sitting in Portland, Oregon, because I was a buddy of mine as a federal agent, and he said, hey, potentially you could meet Obama. He's coming to Portland. I'm doing some of the security detail, and we can have friends and family come in, and sometimes he stops, sometimes he doesn't. And he stopped, and I'm right at the front of the rail. And he's like, and Domkinson, Sue, like, what are you doing

in Portland, Oregon? And I was like, man, aren't you supposed to be training somewhere right now? And I was like, man, I'm from here. And born or raised. And we just had two, three minute conversation just talking about a bunch of different things. And he was like, man, we definitely have to stay connected. I love the things that you've been doing and seeing that you've been working on, especially on my philanthropic endeavors. And so that was probably one of the most eye-opening and surprising pieces that I'm saying, like meeting a heroistic, a heroistic person.

That's such an amazing story. Salada, I actually eat at the restaurant, Carbone, which is like, like an Italian restaurant and I went with my family one and, you know, at the table next to us was Michael Jordan. And yes, I might not be a huge sports fan, but I'm a big enough sportsman to recognize greatness and to recognize what, you know, the elite person is. So I've got the utmost of respect for MJ. And I did remember I was eating this spicy rigatoni and he was eating this spicy ricketoni and he was

eating the spicy rigatoni. And the pinch me moment for me was here next to me is the greatest, you know, one of the greatest people in history. And he is eating the same noodles I am eating. And the unlock for me was, you know, I always kind of put these people on a pedal stool. But in fact, they have the same, you know, they're very similar. And especially when you get to know a lot of these people, they have insecurities. They, they don't have, you know, they're not super, 100% super human in a lot of senses. Do you agree with that? Do you disagree with that?

No, 100% I agree with that. And I think Jordan and being around him as much as I had been around him and being able to spend time with him, he appreciates when you talk to him as a normal person and you don't put him on this huge pedal stool. He just wants to have interactions with you as a normal human being versus like, oh my God, this and this and this and making it really awkward. And I think that's where like at any at any particular point in time when you come around somebody who has some sort of celebrity and as well known, it's when you treat them no different than you would treat your best friend and talking to them. And that's what they really appreciate versus it kind of being something else

outside of the box. And obviously you want to respect their space and time, especially when they're eating and then with their families and whatnot. But just keeping a cordial and kind of like that high and by and or just like normal conversation like I really appreciate what you've done in the past and so forth and so on like that's where I've had my best interactions with people and I know I'm a little bit jaded because people don't always kind of look at me as a everyday person but that's how I look at it it is a great point that you're both making of you know these people are people that you put on these pedestals that are the most successful people in whatever field right we're talking about athletics in the context of you or Michael Jordan or, you know, others in politics with Barack Obama

and business with Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos. A lot of these people are actually common people that have uncommon focus, uncommon drive, uncommon resolve, determination. There's like something that is uncommon about them. But at the end of the day, they're just people. And it is a big unlock for young folks. You know, Greg, it sounds like you had, you know, a moment of feeling like, oh, wow, you know, there's someone sitting here that is, they're just like me. And I can go and accomplish great things because if I have, you know, and develop that same level of uncommon focus or resolve, whatever it might be, maybe I can go accomplish great things too. There might not be something that is uniquely different about those people that I've put on this pedestal my whole life. So I do think it's quite a liberating,

um, liberating feeling when you, when you realize that. Yeah. And the one thing I would add to that is just saying, like the biggest thing for me to take away from it is just saying, all right, I really just look at them as an everyday person and I want to learn from you. And the best things about athletes and why they've been able to reach such great heights and really even people, like you said, they think differently and they have different abilities to focus differently, it's the ability to compensate. That's what really makes people the elite. they're able to compensate at different levels and higher levels that not the everyday person may be able to do that, which allows them to reach other heights. What do you mean by compensate there? So compensating, like, for example, you, somebody may have, like, there's a professional athlete that I know that has, like, some of the worst eyes I've ever seen in, like, testing. and the ability to compensate for that is what makes him elite.

And he's able to focus in on these other areas and be more in tune to other parts of his body. And that allows him to reach those different heights. So that's where I'm saying that overcompensation, and that's what makes athletes in people that we see as special, they're able to compensate in other areas to take them past their inabilities. Because most people That's a fascinating. Yeah, most people who couldn't compensate, they usually are,

they just see it as a barrier and that's what it is and then I just kind of go on with my life. No, most folks are like, all right, this is something I'm struggling with, but let me find a way to get over that hurdle and overcompensate somewhere else so I can get ahead.

Yeah, said another way, it's like these people have figured out what their actual unique advantage and edge is. and they relentlessly exploit that. And rather than worrying about the things that they're deficient at, that they're not as good at, you know, the challenges they have, etc.,

they sort of leave those and they just go and relentlessly and ruthlessly exploit their unique edge. And whether that applies to business and people who have figured that out in business or athletics, wherever it is, you can go do that. But you have to be strategic in figuring out what your edge is. And then you have to be strategic in kind of setting the taste. so that you can go and exploit that in a, you know, in a deliberate manner on the field or whatever your field is, as it were. I'm a Boston guy, so I have to ask you about this. I grew up in

Boston and cheering for the Patriots and Tom Brady just recently announced his unretirement. I guess he got sick of NFTs and everything he was doing on that front. Maybe he's still doing it on the side, but he's coming back to play another year. You know, you're someone now, you know, we've heard, Warren Buffett, you have a relationship with, you know, you've been around Michael Jordan, around Barack Obama, around Tom Brady, obviously, over the last couple of seasons. What did you learn about Tom Brady, about how he goes about his business on a daily basis? And how does that play through as a leader? Tom is very methodical and very detail-oriented.

And I have a lot of respect for that because I'm wired that same way. he's found what's been able to work for him and seeing the guys that he has around him that helps him reach his heights. He obviously has a tremendous amount of trust in them, but also he's not afraid to put in that work each and every single day. And so those are the different pieces that I see that influences a team and allows them to infiltrate quality locker rooms, quality habits, and being one of the first guys in, one of the last guys out. that is something that you force upon other people, especially if they want to win. And obviously, you weed out the folks that don't want to be in that particular space and going an extra mile. And I think for me, being able to see that at his particular age and where he could easily say, like, when I've been successful all my, all my career and have done this, like I can kind of take a backseat and let you guys do the work.

He's probably one of the most hardworking people and competitive people that I've been around. We still compete and have competed on the practice field. And I mean, I enjoyed playing against him, but I'd much rather have him be on my team. Beyond like hardworking, ambitious, how important is, you know, meditation, mindfulness to people like yourself, the Brady's, the Michael Jordans? And I asked because I had a session, a meditation, session with someone named Kenji Summers this week. Kenji told me that he learned all his Zen practice from the person who taught Michael Jordan, was Michael Jordan and Kobe's guy, Zen guy. And it got me thinking that I bet a lot more professional athletes and just like elite people

in general have like a Zen coach than they talk about. Have you heard a lot of athletes doing this sort of thing? Yeah, there's no doubt about that. And I've actually had a sports psychologist that I've worked with in the past. And I think it's an amazing thing for somebody to do, not only to just talk about the different things that you're going through, not only in the locker room on the day-to-day basis of playing, working through in your games, and finding ways to ultimately create a routine that allows you to perform at the highest. I think that's the biggest thing that I took from the time that I work with my guy.

And then obviously where I'm at now, where I don't necessarily need him, but I've been able to keep those same principles and work through those different pieces as I'm older. And I can kind of self-monitor my things and see how I want to work through those. It's kind of a simple case of a DB saying, all right, you got to forget about that last pass that was just thrown on you and move on to the next one. but let's revisit it when we get on the sideline and understand what mistakes we've made. And I think additionally for me, like one of the things I love being able to do is saying, all right, I go into the season.

I understand where our schedule is. I understand where our breaks are and where we have different pieces and where I can find times to find additional gains. And then also mapping out how I'll prepare for a Monday night game or Thursday night game, a Sunday night game, a one o'clock game or a four o'clock game. There's so many different tools and setups that I have getting ready for each and every single different nuance as I'm going to season. And that's where I think being sharp in your mental state and being prepared, when something's

thrown at you that's you're not expecting, whether it's in game or out of game or throughout the week, it allows you to stay that much more sharper because your mental focus was already dialed in. So when something else got thrown into your way, it's easy. easy to navigate through that particular piece. I had a founder describe it to me recently, like the power of meditation for founders, for business people, as reducing the amplitude, like meditational as you reduce the amplitude.

And he was talking about it, you know, in the context of a wave, like you have, you know, a big amplitude. It's like these wild swings from high to low and you have these high, high, high moments, and then these super low lows. And that meditation has allowed him to reduce the amplitude so that he never gets too high, he never gets too low around things, he's able to keep that even keel. So important for athletes. I mean, I remember it from back in my baseball days.

Like, you give up a home run. You have to forget about it and get the next guy out. Because otherwise, you're shit out of luck. You're going to be dead. I think it's a really, really powerful concept and a great takeaway that a lot of athletes are doing that. Talk a little bit about competitiveness and what it means to you and what it's meant to you during your career.

I mean, you're somebody who, for a lot of your career, you know, you were known as like a mean guy on the field. And now I haven't gotten to know you personally and seeing the way that you write and how eloquently you share and educate on Twitter, it just strikes me that like my perception of you from what I knew on the field 10 years ago is very different from the person, you know, I think you really are, you know, off the field. So talk a little bit about competitiveness, competing and what that's meant to you during your career. Yeah.

For me and my career and being super competitive at, everything I do, whether it's playing spike ball in the offseason with my training mates or going and playing tag, all these different pieces are playing on the football field. Like, I want to win at all times. And I think people fail to realize that for me to be successful at my job, it's to piss you off if you're a fan of that offense. So you being a Boston fan and a Patriot fan, like, I'm supposed to make you upset because I keep hitting your quarterback I keep knocking down your running back. I'm in the back field all the time.

And I'm not supposed to be a well-liked guy. And I embrace that. I actually enjoy playing on the road and hear people booing and saying, like, man, we hate you. Like going to Raider Stadium back in the day and then throwing stuff and doing all that. That riled me up. Like, let's go. Like, I'm going to get after your quarterback and we're going to go have some fun. And you're going to have to say, oh, I'm sorry.

like, yeah, we lost, we can't talk, we can't talk any more trash. So I think people fail to to really realize those different pieces. And like, that's where my mindset is most of the time when I'm on the football field. But when I'm off the football field, like, I'm normally an introvert, keep to myself, hang with my close family and friends. And obviously, I've grown out of that to a lot of respects to get to know people and being curious and understanding the world. And obviously the platform of the NFL has opened up a ton of doors. But I'm not the same person that I'm on the football field and when I'm off the field. Yeah, it's like this idea that I think you've taught me of like, if I'm competing against you,

you're actually not supposed to like me. You're going to hate your life during that day when I'm competing against you. I thought it was so funny this past year. I think it was in the NFC championship game when you guys are playing the Rams. And early in the game, you know, Matthew Stafford, who was previously, your teammate, I'm sure loved, you know, playing with you because, you know, he had you on his side attacking the other team. You had kind of an interaction with him at the beginning of the game. And it was like this fiery interaction and moment. It was that exact example of like, you might

have liked me when we were teammates. Now we're competing against each other. You're going to have a tough day. You're not going to like playing against me today. I love that. I mean, like it really fired me up watching it. But it was a very specific example of that exact thing. Like I'm going to, I'm out here to compete. I'm not out of here to make friends. There's no doubt about that. I mean, between the white lines, unless you're wearing the same color jersey as me, we are not friends. And I've had plenty of friends that are quarterbacks as well as running backs that I've had to hit and have enjoyed hitting them and taking them down. Like one of the best ones is my boy, Stephen Jackson, when he was still playing in the league, like, I got interception and he tried to take me out.

And I was like, yo, I respect you for that because, like, yeah, we're friends and we're super cool off the. field but like it's a whole different ballgame uh when between the white lines we're gonna have to find a clip of that we're gonna put in the show notes a clip of that and then also there's this iconic picture of you arm wrestling warren buffett that i feel like i've seen a few times that we got to throw into the show notes because it's amazing yeah so so so good that was a while ago uh i think we were doing um a segment on cnbc with becky quick that we we had a little fun uh with arm wrestling he always he always challenges me. And I think that was like the third or fourth time that he challenged me to an arm wrestling challenge. So always, always fun times around him. It's good that he keeps coming back

for more after every defeat, relentless mindset, I suppose, for someone like that. I have a question for you to related to competitiveness on the field. Business, which is a form of, is a game, is a sport. when people say business isn't personal, do you agree with that or do you disagree with that? I agree to disagree because I think you have personal relationships and you want to work with people. And I always say I want to be on the same side of the table as my close friends and family. But if we're happened to not be, I'm going, my mindset is. to do what's best and I have the fiduciary responsibility to do that for not only myself and family, but also the investors and people that I work with. And so that's where I think it's not personal,

even though it may be. We have to take kind of that context of saying, or depending on what the situation is, yes, we have a friendship, but I can't give you the friends and family deal when it's not beneficial to the overall best of the company. And so that's where I think it's when you can have that concept. And it really just depends on every particular situation that you're getting into and what the topic may be at hand. Yeah, I feel like the phrase itself came up as like a cop out, right?

Greg, is like, you know, people would say like, oh, it's not personal, it's business, man.

Like, I'm going to screw you over here, but like, hey, it's not personal, it's business. Like, I feel like that's where the phrase came from.

I'm not about screwing people over. Yeah, I know you're not. Yeah. No, there's no part of it. You're an integrity guy, right?

Like you, I mean, I, what I've come to know about you as I've spent more time with you and read all your work and we've interacted a lot, obviously, and we're working together on some things, which is great. You're, I mean, you're of the utmost high integrity that I've seen. And I've come to really admire that about you in particular is just I feel like, you know, what you see is what you get. And you're going to, you're going to kind of play everything above board. And you're a competitor and you want to win, which I love. and so you're going to make decisions that you feel like put you in a position to win. No. But those are the kind of people you want to work with.

No, and I definitely appreciate it. And I think the simple way to put it is that you may not like me, but you respect my decisions at the end of the day. And you'll respect how I my thought process. And it'll be very crystal clear. I want to be super transparent about it at the same time just so you understand like where I'm coming from and why I'm making a particular decision, even though it may not be in favor for something that you want. Yeah. You might be friends with Warren Buffett, but you're probably not going to let him win the arm wrestle. It's not like you're going to like, you know, if the people are listening, I'm kind of like really throwing, you know, his arm down.

You're not going to like do it super hard. It's like, hey, you. I know we have a little bit of an age. Yeah, we have a little bit of an age different in a little bit of size and biceps. A little bit. I'll take it down slow. Yeah. I mean, but even he, like, he's a perfect example of this fact, right? Because he's a very nice, cordial, warm-hearted person. You had this experience with him. But this past week, he did a deal for Allegheny, and he structured the deal. And he said, I'm not paying bankers a dime in this

deal. And he cut the deal price by a certain amount because he said, I'm not paying Goldman Sachs a dime on this transaction. So there, you know, there's a lesson in there, too, right? Like, he's a a businessman, but he is ruthless when he needs to be to drive his fiduciary responsibility and create value for his shareholders. So a lot of lessons to be taken from that type of mentality on life. Before we lose you, I know we're running up right against the end of time. I have to ask, because I've seen now the photos of your two little twin guys. You're a recent father. I'm about to be a first-time father. I've got a little guy due in about a month. Any less than you. Any less or advice for an expecting dad on what you've learned from the experience?

Patience. Make sure you love your wife to death and all the things that she's going through, like just be there as a supporting hand. I think for my wife, I've always seen it at a standpoint of me being really a center. I got to control the traffic. You got to be the protector. I got to do all the different particular pieces for her.

And really just whatever she needs at her back and call. And I mean, our boys are going to be a year on Saturday. So it is a lot of patience and really try and get on a routine as early as you can. I think that's one of the best things. And the kids love it. People say, yes, they control your schedule. And it's true. They definitely control your schedule, especially early on until they start getting to a level where they go down for consistent naps and different things like that.

But they also love that routine. And it's a matter of like, I know in the evenings, like, when, you're a matter of, like, It's five, six o'clock, and we haven't gotten them to get down for dinner and having started a bedtime routine, like they start to let us know, like, it's time to put me down. Like, and if you don't do it, I'm going to, I'm going to do it myself and go yelling and screaming until you help me get it done. I think I've got a lot to learn. Sometimes I think you can't figure these things out from reading a book.

You're getting advice from people. You just got to get into it. It's like a lot of different things in life. So, man, thank you so much for taking the time with us. I know your schedule is crazy with training and everything you're preparing. Good luck with all of the training and contracts and everything that's upcoming this offseason. And happy birthday to your little guys as well. We'll be thinking of all of you this weekend.

No, I appreciate that. And best of luck and obviously having a healthy baby come into this world. That's most important. Thank you, brother. Appreciate it. Thank you so much for the time. And we look forward to having you back on again soon. No question.

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