The Inner Game of Life: Kamal Ravikant on Love, Pain, and True Success with Joe Polish

What's your goal? To raise money or to make money? Literally he thought that he was like, make money? Of course I was like, well, these two in your case are opposites. The moment you raise money venture, it becomes a binary game. You either exit or you go to zero. You could be making $10 million cash a month on a venture based business, but you can't pull it out. You're just pulling a salary. A CEO salary.

How do you hone your discernment for when to be patient versus when to be impatient?

Oh man, you have no choice, you know, because it's not. I'm investing in the public markets. I'm investing in like early, early, early crazy guys and crazy ideas. And here's a check, you know, go. You just learn over time to be patient. Imagine being an Uber when it was valued at $6 million, right? But a 25k check that returns something like 20 something million dollars. And it's like, you know, I had to bet on the power of my mind.

How can you be a domino for someone else? The Joe Polish Show. Any problem in the world can be solved at the right genius network. What is often not said about you and intros and who you are that most people would never think to know about who you actually are? Who's Kamal Ravikant from your perspective, the.

Army park surprises people. You know the long hair hippie from San Francisco. Right. But something I'm very. Oh, sorry. Can you hear me?

Yeah, just talk.

Oh, sorry. Okay.

Project as loud as you can and then back there it may turn it up a little bit more.

A lot of people are surprised about the fact that I was in the U.S. army, you know, just like, you know, tech person, long hair, writes a book about love, you know. But I think that's one of the reasons, that's one of the things that makes me the guy who can write these kind of books. Right, right. From, from the life I've led. The other thing people, well actually a lot of people don't know but then they, when they find out they're like, ah, my brother is like one of the very well known guy in tech naval and very, very proud of him. I would say he's probably one of the top investors and builders in Silicon Valley and you know, someone I love and he's my brother and I admire which is a beautiful gift to have a brother you love and admire. Yeah.

What is your family like? Parents?

You know, it's not the. I remember I was in New York once and I had this investor tell me oh, youtub born with your silver spoon in your mouth. And I started laughing so hard. Single mom raised us, minimum wage, cleaning houses, doing anything she could. We were in the streets at one point. You know, we grew up in Jamaica, Queens, where rap came from. And rap did not come from, you know, nice, happy, happy place. Right. It came from a place that was hard. Right. And we grew up in that. We were two, you know, geeky little Indian kids who got picked on. And, you know, our refuge was books and, you know, childhood, like that really motivates you to get the hell out. And I got out by joining the army. He got out by going to school, and I went to school afterwards. But you get out and you never want to return to that. So it wasn't what people. People expect. It was very rough. Both he and I don't, you know, like, do you remember one good day? Not really. Like, we just kind of blanked the whole thing out.

Yeah.

You know, and. But we did have a loving mother who sacrificed a lot. And so that was a great model of love, you know, and we both kind of went off on our own. And then I actually, to his credit, followed him to Silicon Valley and found the perfect place for me. I was talking with Dan earlier. I moved out there in the dot com. Boom. Right. So everything was fresh. New people are building things that never been built before. And for someone like myself who always had trouble just doing one thing, you know, I had found my home. I could be doing 10 things at one time, and that was actually what they wanted. Right. So I found my calling. Like, this is where I belonged to. So. But yeah, it came from the child that we came from was one we ran away from.

Yeah.

You know, I've written a little bit about it in the book and near the end, and I don't, you know, and it was. It was very interesting. I was. I don't need anyone in the world to know what I went through as a child. Right. I worked my way through it, and I'm on the other side. And, you know, I'm a powerful person because of it. And that's why I shared it, because I would get emails from readers saying, okay, I get it, you're doing great. But I went through this, but I went through that, but this, but that. And what I wanted people to understand is you're not the only one. You think you went through this. Oh, let me show you. You think in the end it's like, look, it doesn't matter. We all. It's the human condition.

Well, I've given this book to a lot of people. I read it, I must have read it when it first came out.

Then the original, the self published version.

No, no, no, thank you. And I'm going to try to find you leave because I have it completely highlighted, all underlined, all kinds of stuff. And when I first started reading it it's like, okay, is this like just supposed to be a deep affirmation to love yourself, like your life depends on it. But the more you get in the book you realize like you really take this seriously. Right? And it's a fascinating book and it's got. How many reviews does this thing have on Amazon, Gina?

12,050.

12,050. Almost all five stars. And people just like literally so many comments about how this book has absolutely changed their. So I think you guys will get a. It's a short read and it's really powerful. But let me go into the investing stuff because you got a bunch of very successful, wealthy in some cases entrepreneurs here and in genius network and you see the best investors, I mean you're friends with like people that have just created these incredible companies. So the question I have here is you've explored both the tech startup world and spiritual practices like meditation. How do you balance these seemly opposing worlds? And what lessons from your journeys, your spiritual journeys have most impacted your business decisions? Because both you and naval are very interesting. You're like philosophers about stuff. It's not just like hey, here's the next trend, here's how to view an investment and fund something. But there's like this whole other angle.

Yeah, it's interesting. We were doing this before it was the thing to do in tech. Now everyone's going on vipassana retreats and so forth which I think is great. The more mentally healthy you are, the better you're gonna be. And as extension, whatever you build, you know your company is a reflection of you if you're the founder. That's what I found. So I'm also someone like who at one point burned out really badly, you know. Cause I didn't, wasn't doing it, didn't know any of this. I was doing the classic grind, you know. Like my training was in the dot com days where we were proud of the fact on the weekends we'd be working and sleeping under our desk so we could get back and you know, we were proud of that grind and that was my training for years and years and years. And you realize, you look back at you know, that's it's, it's Good in spurts. You do it for three, four years in a, you know, non stop, you know, it's not good for you, it's not good for your company, it's not good for your employees, especially if you want to have relationships of any sorts. Right. So honestly I think it's been, it's whatever I've, whenever I've gone down this path of, for me, you know, people use the word spiritual I use. For me it's just working on my mind, working on my inner self. Someone told me a long time ago and I think there's this one thing and that really changed everything for me as when I started looking at life this way and everything he said, you know, Kamal, life is from the inside out. Stop focusing on the outside, just inside out, inside out. And that's how it's going to, you're going to be the affector of life and not at the effect of life. And that's kind of like what this is about, how to be the, the inside out journey, but through love. And it's something I've been forced to apply whether I want to or not again and again. And it's proven to be true. Just how, you know, we're all stuck in our heads. The game, it's an internal game. My brother's very well known for the saying it's a one player game. I think he's very noble and he's right, you know, it's a one player game in here and so making it the best inside. What's interesting is, you know, makes the outside better and you also. It's a much more pleasant journey and I think any big success I've had in the last decade has come from that. You know, I don't know how, I mean, this may sound a little woo woo, but the more I work on my inner self, the more I just am centered and present and loving of myself. That's how life is to me. I've seen it so many times and I'm sure everyone has like when we're being a certain way, life reflects that and vice versa by the way, and very nastily sometimes. Right.

Well, you know, years ago Chris Rock had, I don't know if it was, which one was it in vigor and black or something. He's like, you know, if you, if you're a crackhead, you're, you're hanging out with other crackheads. It's not like you're getting up at five in the morning, putting on a three piece suit or whatever. You're just you're hanging out with other crackheads. So your, your lifestyle is going to support whatever the hell it is you got going on. And you've been to all spectrums of that and witnessed it. Which is actually a question I have for you about what you see as traits of success and traits of absolute, you know, failure and self destruction. Because, you know, a lot of people that make, I mean, millions, like, I mean, you know, quite a few billionaires and whatnot. And I'd be curious to hear the, the traits of what you've seen being the lifestyle choices.

And I mean, it funds the gamut, right?

Yeah, totally.

There's, as we all know this, there's. There's people are stupidly rich and stupidly miserable, you know, and also stupidly rich and happy, you know, and the only difference out there is one works on that part of their life, the other doesn't. Yeah, it has to become an active. Almost like, you know, I work on my health, I work on my fitness, I eat a certain way, you know, I work in my mind. You know, that's something that I learned the hard way is like, that's something I just put last. I didn't even think of it as something I need to work on. And it's not just meditation. Meditation is just the beginning. It's just, it's more down to. I mean, this may sound a little too extreme, but down to, like, I am responsible for every thought I have and I work on that and I fail miserably every day, but it's something I work on. Like, I am responsible for. Is this thought bringing me pain? Or is this thought making me feel good and move forward? Literally, at times, I'll literally stop and like, I'll be ruminating my head and I'll stop myself and ask that and I know the answer and I'll shift it. I'll shift to, hey, let's go to like, my dreams, feeling them come true, my visions, you know, like, go to that. It's a choice, you know, down to that level. It's like, I am responsible. And if I am responsible, how can I be better and better and better? And it's a. There is no mastery. Every day you wake up with that monkey mind, you know, and then you're at it again. You're at it again. But that's a personal journey I've been on. And I think it's probably the most important journey I'm on.

How do you pull yourself out of states of misery?

It depends. I'll give you a very Personal example. So in 2019, I had this really severe trauma. I had a surgery. It got really badly botched. He moved the artery too much and it. It stretched inside. So when I'm getting up in the recovery room and walking, what happens? Artery would just. It burst. And a burst artery is a one way street. And immediately, like in my groin, it just ballooned up and like with blood and then burst and it was spraying blood everywhere. And I basically bled out. And at first they wouldn't pay attention to me because I've never felt so much pain in my life. Like, it felt like someone hit me with a baseball bat in my groin. And I was like. I couldn't even make noises. I was like, it was shock. But then once I started spraying blood, they gave me attention. It's like you start spraying blood in the hospital, all of a sudden they start saying, okay. And then it was just mayhem, complete mayhem. And they wheeled me on or slashed me open, you know, and you know, to fix to cat, to clamp it, to fix it. In the process, a lot more damage because it was, you know, literally slashy open. And so I went through two years of just being severe pain from that. It was just to give you an example, when I go to the hospital, they inject me with fentanyl. You know, they don't do that normally in hospitals. Right. That's the kind of pain I would end up in. Right. And. And so I had this one. I met this one surgeon in the process who was the professor of that guy. And he said, you know, like, I feel kind of almost responsible because he was my student, like all these decades ago. I'm gonna fix you. And so we had this one more surgery to fit. He's like. Because I was like, I can't live like this. I'm just living like this life, this physically broken.

I remember talking with you during that time for just a couple of times. And yeah, you were not in good shape.

Yeah, I mean, I was doing all this work just to stay afloat. Mm. That's what it did for me, like the inner work. Right. And so we did the surgery. And the surgery supposedly should have taken about 30 minutes, end up taking about two and a half hours, because inside was a complete mess. Like, organs stuck everywhere. It was a mess. And so what happened was after the surgery, ended up getting an infection, and because I was open like five times longer because you have to go and clean all this up. Right. And so I end up back in the hospital and now I've gone septic And I'm just literally leaking pusa everywhere, like, out of everywhere. It was in severe pain. It's very, very painful. I had no idea. And so then they had the head of infectious disease. This was in San Diego, from San Diego Common. They had me on all these IV antibiotics and oral antibiotics and morphine and everything, right? And it's not getting better. And the poor surgeon, he kept on coming to me. He's like, look, I'm gonna have to open you up again, go in and clean you out. And I was like, can you promise me that this next surgery, like, surgery got me here, won't do anything? He's like, to his credit, and I love that man before, he said, I can't. I said, so I refuse. And he's like, look, you'll die. Like, no one in medical history has ever gone, like, as bad as you are. We're just basically keeping you certain level where every day your bed is just soaked in pus, like, you will at some point die without. And I refused. Unfortunately, in this country, you could refuse, right? He would come and beg, and I would say, no. I remember saying, I'd rather jump out that window. I was in this little shitty little hospital room in this hotel. Not hotel, in this house, in this hospital, right? It was during COVID And they were like, they won't let me open the windows because I was trying to explain to them how fresh air works. But they were like, no, Covid. And they wouldn't open the windows. It was that crazy time, remember? Remember that? When nothing made sense. And. And I remember that. I'm like, look, but. But air, you know, like, anyway. Wow. And. And so what I did was. I remember one day, like, it was my birthday. It was my 50th birthday. I was in the hospital bed, right, Leaking. My brother came to see me, and my buddy Brian Norgart came, and they left. And I was just like. They left. And I was like, you know, at some point in a hospital bed, when you're telling, hey, you've already been through so much, and they're saying, hey, you're probably going to die, right? You have very honest conversations with yourself. And I really had this one moment, like, what do I really believe in? And I asked myself, okay, I know what life is from doing this kind of work, inner work, okay? What do I really believe? And I'll just tell you what I believe. I believe that this whole thing is consciousness. It's experiencing itself. And some people call it God, whatever you want to call it, just this whole experience. Is consciousness experiencing itself? Well, then I better bet on it. And so I'm a part of that consciousness. So if I'm a part of that consciousness and experience self, then I'm going to experience something else. So through that, in that hospital, in that severe pain and on morphine, like it drugged out of my mind, right, I would actually sit there and do this inner work, and I would visualize myself until I was no longer in the hospital room, but I was actually in Manhattan beach, on the beach over there, doing. I like, doing. Love doing Olympic rings, but they require a strong level of strength to do certain moves. And doing that on the beach and feeling great and feeling healthy. No, no more. No extra surgery scars. I would just visualize that. And then I would do this, and I would just make myself feel healthy, like feel healed and being there. And that's how I would. And then I would pass out, and then, you know, wake up and then you're in pain, and you ask for the nurse to come and more pain meds. And so I'm not saying I was doing it all the time, but to the best of my ability, right? I just, like, decided I'm going to bet on what I believe in. I am. This is life. This is what life is, and I'm going to influence it because I'm a part of that. I'm a part of reality itself. Four months later, I'm in Manhattan beach doing rings, watching the sunset, hanging upside down from the rings, and I completely forgot. I was like, oh, my God, this is what I was literally visualizing every day in the hospital. And that doctor, you know, still calls me the first miracle of his career. Wow. Wow. And it's like, you know, I had to bet on the power of my mind, the power of my. What I really believed in.

You know, it's really interesting because, you know, Steven Kotler, who I'm going to interview tomorrow, you know, he had Lyme disease, and he was completely at the point where he was suicidal. And he had some friend come over and literally would not leave until he went surfing with her. And they dragged him out. They had to carry him out to a surfboard, put him on the surf. And he literally, in that moment, he, you know, he just popped up and put him into a flow state, and he healed himself from Lyme when he was completely, you know, like, I think it was like two years. You're, like, pretty much just couldn't function. Had like 10 minutes a day where he could even think. And the rest of it, he's Just like completely. It's something interesting about what you. What you need to connect with. I mean, even, you know, listening to James talk about, you know, talk about what you tap into. What do you think you tapped into?

What I bet on, you know, honestly, in the end, like, I know what I did, so that worked. And what was it? I went back within rather than focusing. Because, God, let me tell you, there were moments I was miserable, you know, I was miserable. It was just like, you know, it was just a shitty way to go. And that was my choice. No more surgery. I was just gonna be done with all of this. I literally. That was my choice, right? But then there were times where I was like focusing on the inner self. On the inner self. So that's. For me, that's what it was. You know, I really do have come to believe life is an inner game, you know, as within. So without.

I have a friend who spent eight years homeless being a heroin addiction. And when she had finally gotten into meetings and gotten off the streets and gotten sober, she had a sponsor that said, make sure you get a black dress because you're going to go to a lot of funerals. And she's like, I didn't know what they meant at the time, but when you're so down and out and you happen to know the people that you are on the streets with and you end up getting clean, you will just start to watch them die. Many will die. And she said to me, she goes, I've never been able to figure it out, what it is, why some people just don't pull out of it and other people do. Like, what is it about the human spirit? What is it about, you know, why did I happen to make it? Because she's like, in. My sponsor was right. He's like, I've been to a lot of funerals and a lot of people I was on the streets with, they have died and most don't survive. And it's. It's just so. I'm always fascinated by, you know, these conversations about what is it that inside us that if you can evoke it in different people have their, you know, their. Their spiritual beliefs or their methodologies, but it's. It's always interesting to.

That's a great question, man. That's a great question. You know, I don't know the answer to that. One thing I've learned though, like when I wrote the. So I originally self published this book and it became. And I'm not a marketer. Joe will tell you, I'm like, the Word. If I was, I'd be the worst marketer. I'm the anti marketer. You know, like I stay away from that. And, and it's really true. And when I wrote the self published version of this, it took off and became viral hit and became one of Amazon success stories. And then I sold to HarperCollins, who published this version.

Yeah, originally started out with you just sharing it with friends.

Sharing with friends. I literally put it out and it was to share the story with friends. Because I knew what really worked for me mentally, internally, this practice that I had done, this loving yourself practice come up with. And also I was terrified. I thought I was gonna be the biggest laughingstock of Silicon Valley. Been ridden out backwards on a donkey. You'll never work in this town again. Look at this fool loving himself. You know, this is like 2011, 2012. That was not. And it took off. And you know, I've had so many people even back then come to me at events and I've had Fortune 100 CEOs come up to me or, you know, or like girl, like 16 year old girls in Ukraine write to me like, this book saved my life. This book changed my life. And what was it? It was just me sharing how I pulled myself out. Yeah, right. So I think part of the thing I've thought about this maybe, you know, like one thing I've learned is my job with this was when I was doing the extended version was like, look to give anyone who's going through a hard time, give them that lifeline, you know, the lifeline of my experience and my lesson. That's really, really important. You know, like when we do that, we don't know the impact, it goes way, way beyond us, you know, So I don't have an answer, but it's a hell of a question, man. It's like that classic, you know, Gone with the Wind, where at the end she goes, as God is my witness, I'll never go hungry again. Some people have that at that moment, some people just curl up and you know, now if you can give them a lifeline in that moment.

And I think the conversations, the immersion and thinking about builds, I think, call it strength, call it perseverance, call it hope. I mean, there's a lot of different ways, but I think feeding your mind, how you feed your mind has everything to do with how you feed not only, you know, your family, how you feed everyone, you know, and so let's do this because here's what I'd like to also do. Q and A and Those of you that don't know his background, he's very successful with investing. Meets many success companies before they ever became successful companies. I'd love for you to have any questions related to investing in Criterion standards. By all means, ask him.

So.

How do you hone your discernment for when to be patient versus when to be impatient?

Investing?

Yeah.

Oh, man, you have no choice. Because it's not. I'm investing in the public markets. I'm investing in early, early, early crazy guys and crazy ideas. And here's a check, you know, go and then you go from that to $8 billion exit takes a long time. You just learn over time to be patient. It's, you know, investing is very interesting. At least VC tech investing is very interesting. If you. The funds that do it right historically, like your fund invests between. You know, you raise up capital, you invest in three to four years and then you do the next one and the next one. Those three to four years, your number one hit from that fund will make you more money than all the other hits combined. That's how outsized our returns are. Imagine, you know, I personally know this, like, but, you know, imagine being an Uber when it was valued at $6 million, right? But a 25k check, that returns something like 20 something million dollars by the time they IPO, right? So, like, that one will make up for all the base hits and doubles, even a lot of the other home runs. So it's.

That's kind of what. So I interviewed Lance Armstrong here like a few months ago, and he. I think it was his Uber investment.

That he was an Uber too.

Oh, God. Yeah. I think he's. It probably made him, I don't know, $150 million.

I. Who got him in? Sherman got him in. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Sherman got all these, like, celebrities in and then they were promoting Uber. He did the A round.

Yeah.

So Sherman's a billionaire.

Yeah, yeah. So it's like your point is. Is that one right one.

Yeah. So you have to be patient in that game. It's because you have no control. You know, it's different than invest in this investing of like, you're angels, you're friendly, you're helpful, you're not a shark. Shark tank is not what actual investing is. Like, you don't take 50%. If you take 50% of anyone's company, they have no incentive to work hard. Let me think about that. I'd rather have a tiny piece of a $10 billion company than 50% of a $10 million company. You know, and I go for my world, I go for the big hits. So you get small amounts, you help, you help. And then eventually they get too big. They don't even care about Journey calls anymore, which is great because they're getting big now. Too big for you, you want a piece of it, you don't care.

Right.

And the hard part is actually telling your investors your LPs to be patient, unless they're professional investors themselves. But then when the returns come, they're fun.

You know, it's funny. So I was just with Damon a couple of days ago. Mike, he was sitting in last week. Damon was at Shareeze getting ibu. And he told me, the first year in Shark Tank, every single shark lost money. Part of the deal that they had with all the sharks was you literally had to invest a certain amount of money to even stay as a guest on Shark Tank. So they, like, you had to invest the money. Even if you, like, every deal that was presented was a shitty deal, you still had to invest some of them because that's how they needed Mark Barnett the way to make the show work. And he said in the beginning they had no good criteria on how to bring certain companies, on how to select. So they, like almost every. Well, every investor they said that invested in Shark Tank lost more money than they brought in from all the investments until it took a while for them to even figure out, like, a winning formula. So then you see most of the sharks that have gone out and built personality brands around the PR of being on Shark Tank. But the fascinating thing of it is, like, how we now fetishize entrepreneurship, which I think is a bit of a mixed bag because I don't think everyone's built to be a business owner entrepreneur. And so if you see. But just the voyeurism of Shark Tank is quite telling about how many people dream of having their own thing, or at least feel like how they're working and where they're working. And the whole concept of work is, like, awful. And I wish I could have what that person has and how many people are pursuing it. So it's very fascinating.

Very successful entrepreneur was one of my first LPs. My first friend told me, yeah, building my company was just eating one shit sandwich after another. He's like, well, you just eat bigger and bigger sandwiches, right? And he's very successful. Very smart. People don't hear about that part, right?

No. I always like saying to young entrepreneurs, if I would have known being successful is this much work, I would have stuck with being a Loser. Because it's like, how much you just don't even know that you don't know. Well, so what is the criteria of a successful company, a successful investment? What do you look for? Because in a lot of ways, Dan talks about guesses and bets. Like, almost everything is guesses and bets. You're gonna go bet on the bathroom right now. Go for it. So what do you look for?

You know, funny enough that all my best investments have been on people. Always. Yep.

So you look for the person.

It's the founders.

Yeah, that's what my buddy Rick Sapio, who has pancreatic cancer, he's gonna come back to the annual event this year. I mean, the guy's been through a year of absolute hell. And he's invested. You know, they've looked at, I mean, many, like, I think over 12,000 deals over, like the last 25 years. They've invested in 150 of them. And what he said is that it's always the person. Like, just the number one criteria for him is, will that. Does that person have what it takes?

You also have to bet on, can this person build a great team? Can they get another bunch of crazy, incredible people around them and that execute? You know, that's that part actually. Sometimes people fail on. So you got to look at that. Can they bring in. Do they have that kind of personality or are they bringing on a partner who can build that? You know, so that's really important. Third one was. And then really smart investors were starting to come in as well. And that's one of my criteria is I always like to be the dumbest investor in that round. I really, really do. Like, so it has to, like, if I'm investing in a company, I have to know some of the other investors in that round and personally know their records, not what you see online, their real record. Know why some people invest in different things for all sorts of reasons. Right. So if I know their real record and they care about this, it's almost like I look at other investors and really good ones as door openers. Like, who else is going to be opening doors for this company? Who else is going to be helping this founder? You know, not just me. And often the best ones, they never call you ever again. They don't need you. Right. The ones that call you, a lot of ones that you end up, like, not really doing well with. It's pretty funny.

That's actually a good point if I think back. Yeah, you're right.

So really, for me, it's like the founder you know, it's also the market obviously, like is this, is this. If it's a small market, it's not worth owning. Is not worth it. We're going for the big bets because a lot of these bets fail. You know, that's the venture game. A lot of these fail. And it's okay. Those hits more than wake up because the returns are so outsized. In tech, it's a very interesting industry. We can have these massive outsized returns so fast. I mean, all of us are here because of tech, because of what's been built, you know. Where's Mike? He was talking about Perplexity, right? Yep. I'm an investor in Perplexity. I would love hearing you talk about it. Right. Like, I mean, like all these things, right? Yeah, like, I mean, so it's like so much fun actually. You are too, because you're in the fun. Yeah. So it's, it's. Yeah. So I was like the founder, the team, can they build a team? Who are the door openers to bring along? Right. And the market, is the market massive. Like AI, you know, it's a lot of. I've made some bunch of bets on AI and I fully expect a chunk of them to zero out. It's like the dot com boom for a new technology. X percent will zero out and that's perfectly fine because the winner in the space or the top few minutes of the space will be worth an insane amount. So that's the game there.

Well, I was going to ask you about AI. How do you see it impacting? I was going to say in the next decade, but shit, like the next year.

Yeah, it's hard to keep up with like the next month.

Right.

You know, it's actually interesting. You look at these companies coming out with AI for X solution, AI for Y solution. But you also realize like, hey, ChatGPT's next rollout will make you irrelevant.

Right.

So you got to say, okay, who's going to be not going to be made irrelevant by just Google releasing the new feature or you know, Gemini or Facebook and you know, Amazon, all these big players in there. So you have to look at that. You know what's interesting with AI is also like hardware. You know, we're investors in a great hardware company. It's the opportunity, I think is also in the picks and shovels that a lot of people are focusing on. Right. You know, data centers, chips, so forth. What's going to be needed is insane. What they. What isn't Microsoft now getting nuclear power?

Three miles Island.

Yeah. For the data center, like, this is the future. They need that level of power for these, which is a trip. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But it's going to be. It's remarkable. It's going to be bigger seismic shift than the Internet was. So. And it's going to happen fast. It's going to happen, happen, happen, and then bam. You know, like, you don't know what just happened, so.

Well, this is like. Like a basic. It sounds like a stupid question, and it probably is. And I'm also curious to ask you, if someone just came to you and said, I have a million dollars, I have to invest it, what would you look at? How do I think about it? What do I do? And they were literally looking at you to, like, guide and direct them.

And that's public or private?

It doesn't matter. They have a million bucks.

Well, look, private. Here's the problem with private. Plenty of people will come to you and take your money. Say, I got. My cousin's got a company, my grandmother's sisters, uncles, endless people. Yeah. Those are not the people you want to give your money to. The people you want to give your money to is the one who don't want your money. Because all the top, best people in the world are throwing the money at them because they want to be the best door openers, want to be a part of that. So the name of the game is deal flow. Just like with Shark Tank, they didn't have. They had really poor deal flow in the beginning.

Yes.

So it got better over time because their brand built and now you start.

Getting better deals and now they even do it to where if people don't get funded, they still have to agree to give a piece of their company to the show in order to even go on in the first place. I think I can't 100% qualify that, but I think that's the case.

So I would tell that person to, like, unless you have like, for example, if I want to invest in the oil and gas business, right, let's say fracking is going to take off again, whatever. I would literally go and spend work. Like, literally spend six months working on an oil field, learning from the ground up and then, like, then going and meeting executives and seeing from the ground up. You have to understand something inside out before you start putting money into it. Otherwise the wrong. You'll give it to the wrong people.

That's a really insightful thing that you just said, because that's the point about being patient and actually learning something and knowing your shit, which is not Gambling. I mean, what you just said, what you just said is quite involved. Go and spend six hours.

I would literally work in oil field. Yeah, I would. Because to invest in oil, you have to understand from the very basics, right? To invest in tech, you have to understand from the very basics or even to understand deal flow, because a lot of people will spout a lot of big words at you. I get that all day long. And AI is evolving so fast. I have to go to smart people and ask them, okay, is this real or not or is this legit?

Who do you go to for advice?

My brother. And then people are experts in their domains. Like, I have friends who are really great in crypto. Very, very successful in crypto. Been through the various cycles. So any crypto deals, I always like involve them in it AI, you know, through some really young AI founders than other investors I know. But like, obviously, like, you know, my brother, everybody tries to get my brother advice, and I have direct access, so why not, right? You know, and you know, one of the best pieces of advice he gave me, he said when he started an angel investing, and he's got a hell of a record like Seed and Uber Seed in Twitter. Seed, and you name it Seed. Seed means the first round, the cheapest round, right. He said before he started investing, I think he met at least 100 or 1,000 entrepreneurs raising money. And it's not that he didn't waste their time. You know, he would always like, be. He's very known, he's very good at business and very known for being. Anyone meets him, being very helpful. But after about that number, let's say it was 100 or 1,000, it's one of those, knowing him, probably a thousand, right? Yeah. And after you've had all those meetings, you start to. You get patent recognition, you get to sense of what's bullshit, what's not, what is a chance, what's not. If you see 10 of the same thing, then you start to think, okay, which one would be the right team? This. Right. And then also by the time you get to that later number, bunch of them have gotten funded. You can look back and see who's succeeding or not. He said, then you write your first check, right? It's a patience game, you know, it's not gambling. Look, I really like that methodology. Like, I will pass some good deals all day long if they don't meet one of my criteria. And I'm okay with passing a home run here and there because there's plenty to come along the way, right? You know, you have to have that kind of discipline in the game.

Well, so one of my questions is, what's the worst way in which you've wasted a lot of time in life? Or, you know, honestly, it could be life or investing or business, but. Yeah, I mean, what, What?

That's a great question. Worst way I've wasted a lot of my time.

What's the worst way in which you waste a lot of your time?

Social media. Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean, look, I could agree with that. I mean, really, let's be honest. Like, anytime I read a book, I feel. I don't feel like I wasted my life. Anytime I spent an hour on social media, I feel like it's wasted my life. But I still do it.

Yeah. You know, because we're drawn to it. It's like. It's a dopamine cash register. Well, this. It reminds me of this. So this is probably, I don't know, maybe 2012 or 2013. In this room, we're doing an I Love Marketing meetup group because we used to do these monthly I Love marketing meetup groups. I had a guy who worked for me named Kevin who would host them, and then I would pop into some of them. And at the time, you know, Facebook advertising was relatively new and stuff. And we had. It was a full room. It was probably like 50 people in the room. And I said, you know, how many of you are running ads on Facebook? Because we were having a conversation about advertising on social media, and there were like three people. The rest of them, like, didn't do any advertising, but they spent a lot of time on Facebook. And at the time, it was like the majority of people were spending at least an hour a day on Facebook because that was when, like, the heyday of Facebook was so exciting and stuff. And I said, I go, wow. I go, so you're not using Facebook. Facebook is using you. And it made me think about how often do I use social media or does social media use me? You know, because there's like, what are you doing it for? Like, you got Pompa over here.

Right.

So he's got. You built a hell of a following. How big is your. Your Instagram right now?

Yeah, I mean, I've only really been doing it for six months and 1.2 million.

How about Tick Tock? You doing Tick Tock?

Yeah, they. I didn't know those numbers, but they put that content over on this platform. Yeah, we've spent a hundred thousand a day on ads a day.

100,000 a day on ads on ads.

We have organic. And of course we have paid. Yeah, but yeah, we're using social media.

No, you are using it, you're not being used by it. I mean, he's got a hundred million dollar plus company, so it's like. Yeah, but it's. How have you. How much of your personal time do you get caught into just looking at.

More now than ever. I hate social media. But now, because you want to get ideas, you want to see what other people write. So it pulls you in.

Yeah.

And then it becomes a little addiction.

Yeah, right.

And then it feeds the addiction.

He's always sending me golf swing tips.

Yeah.

Exactly.

I get sucked in like crazy. I was at the gym the other day and I noticed, like in between every set, I was like, just on my phone, just get dopamine hits.

And I was like, I couldn't die.

I'm done for the rest of the day.

You know, it's hard to do.

It's like I catch myself, I'd open my phone and use like, it's like a default reaction, like a neural pathway that you built up over time where it's just, boom, Instagram starts scrolling and now you suck back in and you can go for hours without even noticing.

You know what's interesting? And maybe this is a bit of a conversation for. I don't want to go too. On too much of a tangent. I'll just say so. I have a friend named Angela Ferrari who's a singer. And when I had first met her, I don't know, it was several years ago, my friend Amber, you know, we had a gathering at my house after like a JJ Virgin event, and she came over and sang to a big. She's like this great singer. And I had told her a little over a year ago that I had learned that if you put your phone on black and white versus color, there's less of a draw. There's something about the color that even, like, it's more addictive. It's more. And so I had turned my phone on black and white, and I had been having lunch with her and shared this with her. She's like, wow, I'm gonna actually do that. And you have to go into accessibility. I mean, it's hard to do. They don't make it freaking easy because they know this actually works. So they want to make it really. You can't just swipe down and turn black and white, which is these evil fricking tech companies. But ultimately. So she. She does this. And then I. The last time I had. I don't know, it was like lunch or breakfast with her after a yoga class. She basically says, like, why is your phone on color? I've had mine on black and white ever since you told me this, and it's just totally changed my life and I had completely forgotten. So I had on black and white. Then I turned it back because it's so much more exciting to have it in color. But these, the point is, like, these. These things that draw us in and how we have to insulate ourselves from the current modern world. And so it's, I guess in a lot of ways it's people like you that are funding these companies and they're taking over.

Yeah, that is true. I mean, look. I mean. Yeah, no, no, that is true. If I could have invested in TikTok early, I would have, you know, like. Yeah, I. No, you're absolutely right. You know, but there were some things I refused to invest in. I remember there was a company that was very hot in Silicon Valley, and it was about. It was a social op and it was really blowing up, and it was a very hot round and I could have gotten it, but it was where people were anonymously posting negative things about other people.

Yeah.

And I was like, I am not gonna be a part of this. People, like, I mean, it was. It looked like it was gonna be a big hit. I am not gonna be part of this.

You know, an interesting story.

In the end, it kind of. Thankfully, it kind of flamed out.

Yeah. I mean, early on, I was offered equity in a gambling company that would have made me quite rich. And they wanted to give me equity if I would get involved and advise. Not even put in money, just advise. And I was like, I'm not going to say it shouldn't be done because I'm not like, moral sandbox. It's an addictive thing. And I didn't see it do any good.

And I just.

I just didn't want to. Didn't want to do it. So are there. Are there certain things that you see that you turn down simply because morally, ethically, you're just like, no, this is not.

Yeah, we've gotten like. And this is with my brother. You've gotten some really amazing opportunities in gambling related stuff. He's like, look, man, it's not worth it. There's plenty of so many ways to make money. Right. Especially in tech. There's so many great opportunities. Like, well, if this. It's the question, you know, like, will I feel good if this goes to zero?

Yeah.

Because a lot of them go to zero. Right, right. If I want to still feel good. If a company went to zero, I backed it. I backed a very interesting experiment. Back to very interesting founder. I'll feel very good about that because I'm moving the ecosystem forward. That's a very simple and very nice filter. I feel good about this. I love that.

No, that's good. Then let's talk about timing, because I was, you know, I think so much of success is literally just timing.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I mean, how do you think about timing?

You know.

Do you have a method of, I guess, picking for timing?

Well, I'll tell you what. When I've seen around me amongst friends the greatest wealth creators, anytime a new thing comes out and they jump in early, like, okay, so I was part of the first.com boom, right. Some people got very rich, some of us got rich and then watch a stock go down to zero and end up paying the IRS money we never made. It was a fun lesson. But after that was like what? It was mobile. Right. The first iPhone came out. So the ones who jumped in early and building mobile apps, well, anything that they realize it's a new platform. Anytime you get a new platform, you can recreate what exists in the old platform. You have Facebook on the old platform. Instagram optimized it for the iPhone. Instagram was a real, was the first real threat to Facebook, which is why they bought it. Right, Right. So you create that, you get rich and then they will also like very simple things. Like the guy who created the Fart app, it was the first million dollar app. Right. So the new platform comes out. If you jump in, you can do the stupidest things. You can literally do the stupidest things or just recopy from the old platform or new platform in a way that is native to the new platform. You can't copy completely over because a new device, new way of interacting with it. There's a camera on this now, so you better use the camera, you know, instagram, so, you know,.com mobile blockchain, AI, you know, the Bitcoin blockchain, you know, and now AI, you know, like people who get in early, whatever they're doing, you start going. And that's where the easiest money and the grids, the really, really the easiest large amount of money is made. Yeah, gotcha. Consistently.

What are you seeing right now that you are most excited about that? You think it would be useful for everyone here to pay attention to, if any. I know that might be a tough question.

I mean, you know what's really interesting but it's not at my wheelhouse. I just did one the mini circle investment. What's happening in health and like peptides, stem cells, gene therapy companies are doing stuff outside of the United States, stuff that is life changing, that if you try to do it in the United States it would be like 10 years with the FDA and hundreds of millions of dollars. These are just like, they've almost become like hackers going outside the system. I don't know if you know, biology is really creating like the whole network state concept outside of Singapore where people can go and do that kind of stuff, you know. And so there's a whole almost like a renaissance happening and not what I not traditional biotech, but like bypassing a lot of traditional biotech which is the hacker mindset. I've invested one company like that. I don't think I will more because it's not my wheelhouse. But that's really interesting especially for anyone who's interested in longevity or you know like there's this game changing stuff happening, but it's all happening outside the U.S. yeah, interesting. Okay. For legal purposes, how can we help.

You in any way? Is there anything that you're, you're doing that we should be aware that we didn't mention or anything? I didn't ask you that I should have.

No, I'm just happy to meet you all. That's awesome. Thank you. Yeah, thank you man.

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