David Senra: The Hard Way Is The Right Way - [Glue Guys, EP.10]

Now when I say Munger had an ego, he knew, like I can show you my notes from when I had dinner with him, right? He said one of the funniest things. He said that he always believed that he was smarter than everybody else. If he could do life over, he'd still believe that, but he wouldn't just show it as much. But they talk about, they're like, people have asked him like, why'd you take a secondary, like why'd you subjugate yourself to Warren? Because he understood that Warren is probably a once in a hundred year, maybe once in like 500 year level fucking talent. And you have the opportunity to partner with him and you won't because you're ego gets in the way because you have to be the main guy, then you're probably not that smart anyways.

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Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey. Welcome to Glue Guys. We're your hosts, Shane Battier, Ravi Gupta.

And Alex Smith, and we're bringing you behind the scenes of the locker rooms, the boardrooms, and the living rooms that taught us everything we know about what it takes to be great leaders and even better teammates and friends.

We Hope the conversation helps you bring more ambition and more joy to your own work life and relationships. It certainly has for us.

So we got David Sander in the house. He's the one who's surrounded by these books, which is appropriate because he is the host of Founders Podcast, which is fucking amazing. There have been over 350 episodes over the last eight years. If I'm not David, do I have these stats right?

Just. Yeah, I just hit eight. I started at September 2016. So eight years. Almost eight years. Exactly.

I really like the contrast between Shane's background and Senra's, though, too, of just, like, surrounded by books, just absolutely crushing the game. Professional podcaster and then amateur hour. You know, baddie A in the closet.

I don't have a rug in my house. I just moved to Charlotte. I don't have a rug. I think we lost all our rugs. And so this is the most padded room we have. And it's real. You know, this is about being real, you know, glue guys. This is not fancy. It's not luxury. This is real.

You, you, you.

You work where you are. You start where you are. Start where you are.

Oh, I like that. And David has probably one of the more unique approaches I've ever seen, which is there's just so much content that goes into every single episode. There's so much work, there's so much effort. And what comes out is just this incredibly passionate tale of what makes history's greatest entrepreneurs, what made them great. And we listen to him all the time. And David, in addition to that, is probably one of the most fun friends to have on text because he has the best gift game of anybody I know. Just, like, always sending Kobe gifts or Jordan gifts or Drake gifts just, like, every time. And just so much passion, so much enthusiasm, lots of F bombs.

The thing that I'm blown away with, you do it by yourself. Like, it's amazing.

I don't even let. I don't let anybody edit it either. Like, nobody touches it. I pick the books, I do the reading. I obviously make it. I edit it. I, like, upload it. Like, everything. I actually think that's really important. I know. Like, I've got all this advice and from people I love and respect, and they're like, you're fucking wasting your time. Like, it's not a good use of your time. I actually think it's, like, what makes I. Let me back up and, like, talk about, like, why podcasting to me is, like, an absolute miracle and why I'm absolutely obsessed with it. And I really don't want to think about anything else or do anything else. I do think it's a legitimate miracle. I think it's a printing press for the spoken word. And I think, you know, people think of a podcast, like, just like, one person sitting around talking to another, and it's like, no, it's a medium. It can be whatever you want it to be. It could be you're completely fucking obsessed with the history of entrepreneurship, and you can sit in a room by yourself for eight years, read, you know, 100,000 pages and make 400 hours of content to distill all the lessons that you learned. Right? And one thing that I think is important in this is, like, I look at founders as, like, one giant conversation. So I was in a group chat with a bunch of other podcasters, and actually Patrick is in there. And I consider Patrick, like, the best interviewer in the world. Like, the way he is.

By the way, David, are we gonna get invited into there now that we're podcasters? You know, the three of us, does it feel like we're gonna get into this group chat?

The idea that there's easy, easy, easy.

Let's. Let's earn success.

And he asked the questions, like, if you could. Like, if you had to be just defined by one single episode in your entire body of work, what would it be? And everybody else could answer. And I was like, I think I was kind of annoying. I don't really think about, like, that. He's like, just answer the question. I was like, I think about founders as, like, one giant conversation in the history of entrepreneurship. And I just updated every week, and, like, I hope to have this conversation, you know, till I die. And so to the point about, like, why I don't let any. Like, I insist on doing everything myself is because it's just like, I mean, Shane, did somebody else shoot you your free throws in practice? Some. Somebody. Those corner threes is like, you have to do the work yourself. I'm not trying to take the easiest or the fastest way out. Like, I think the hard way is the right way. And when I go back and by the time I publish an episode, you know, between the reading, the researching the highlights, the listening to it back, the editing, inputting all that into the database where I keep all my notes and highlights, it's like, I've gone over that material like, five or six times. So therefore, a year from now, I could be reading another book and be like, oh, shit, this thing on Kobe is very similar to, you know, this thing on James J. Hill or the founder of Whole Foods or Elon or any of them else. So I think that's actually like an overlooked point that, like, taking that shortcut may save you time that week, but it's going to cost you five years from now.

I'm struck by just your, your history and the, you've been very vocal about the, the role models or lack thereof, growing up with, with your family history. But to look to history as sort of your, your, your role models, I mean, that's, that's an amazing, amazing, amazing perspective that I want to, you know, hear, hear more about.

So it is kind of funny because, like, we kind of all reveal things, like people can observe things about us that we don't even understand, even though we've that had that lived experience entire life. So there's this guy named Jeremy Gaffon who, who did one of the best. I think it was the most viral episode of the Best, like the best last year. It's called Special Situations in Private Markets. And he's become a good friend of mine. And we were just, we were walking around Miami beach and we stopped to get like coffee or something. And he goes, it's pretty obvious what you're doing. What do you mean? He's just like, you have like this obsessive, almost borderline psychopathic personality. He's like, you never have a mentor. So founders are just like this psycho. He's like, if, if, if you had a obsessive psychopathic tendencies, right? And you never had a mentor, it's like. And you want to search for one, you would search for it the way that you're doing it. And I was like, I've never felt more like I didn't even understand that about myself. This is actually really important because I have a mug that I drink like all. I take espresso all, all day long as you could.

That's a shocking revelation, David. Yeah, I can't believe that.

And it's a bunch of quotes from Warren Buffett. And he says like one of the most important things in life is something like picking the right heroes. And I'm understanding this now because I'm doing this two week series on this guy named Li Lu, right? And Li Lu is. They call him like the Chinese Warren Buffett. That's how Charlie Monger describes him. And he had probably one of the most horrific childhoods you could ever imagine. Grows up unbelievably poor in, in communist China, has to escape because the government's trying to capture him and kill him. Comes To America. This is how remarkable this guy is. And I won't like, do the whole episode for you guys because this episode would be like four hours long. But he comes to America in like early 20s, teaches himself English in a summer, enrolls at Columbia University. He's one of the first people in Columbia University here history to get three degrees simultaneously. A degree in economics, mba, JD okay, he takes the. The float. He uses his student loan. He has no fucking money. He uses the student loan payments as float. By the time he graduates Columbia, he go, he has a million dollars, right? It's like 97, 2003, he meets Charlie Munger. Charlie Munger's like, this guy's a fucking genius. Charlie munger said in 95 years he let one outsider run Munger family money. And it's lilu. And so anyways, I just did his childhood. And now the second part is like, what did he. What is he? How does he think about business building and investing? That's all the research I'm doing today and this entire week. And what's remarkable is it's going to tie back to what your question was, Shane. It's like you realize the guy considered Munger and Buffett a hero. And how many millions of people study Munger and Buffett? And then they say they, they study them and they say they admire them, but they don't fucking imitate them. It's like learning is not memorizing information. Learning is changing your behavior. And when I'm studying Lee and what he does and then you hear what it comes out of his mouth, it's like all he did was like, oh, Munger and Buffett, those guys are good heroes. They have good ideas. I'll just copy that. It's incredible.

Well, the thing that you're talking about though, dude too, is like what you just said on you controlling every part of it is like, okay, cool. So you're obsessive about control. You also are like, basically vertically integrating, right? Think about some of the founders that you appreciate and think about some of those things that you talk about. Like, I'm going to control every step of the supply chain. I'm going to go do each part. That's what you're doing, you know, like, you're just like not letting somebody else do any of that. And I think that, like, that's probably an inherent lesson from some of the people that you admire too.

If I had to guess 100%, like, there's a great line. I can't remember if it was Sam Walton. It Might have been Elon. Do they all do this though? From Rockefeller to Carnegie to anybody. It's like you want to control much of your business as possible because you don't want to have to worry about what's going on in other guy's shop.

Yes, yes.

Yeah.

Well, you take one of the books and show the way you highlight it or the, the yellow notes.

Okay.

I love that.

One of my favorite entrepreneurs, right? And I like get offended. Charlie Munger and Warren Buffett has this line, have this line where it says, like, you know, if you took the top. The records of the top 100 business school graduates, right? You combine them all together, they still wouldn't the pale comparison to Henry Singleton saying basically they thought it was a crime that business schools didn't study Henry Singleton. He's so good. And like, when I went back and you know, read Henry Singleton, you realize, oh, I thought these were ideas from Buffett and Munger. They're actually hen Singleton's ideas that they applied. I feel that way about Estee Lauder. So this is a very hard to find book. It's out of print. It's published in 1985. So they look like this.

Yeah.

And essentially all I do is like, I just sit there and I go through and I kind of highlight anything that I think is interesting and then just jot down whatever I think. And sometimes it's like summarizing what's on the page. Sometimes like, oh, this is like episode 192, or this is like Claude Hopkins said this, or whatever the case is, referencing the past people. And then I just go over, read them over and over again. I spent a day usually before I record going over and saying, now that I finished the book and I know how the story ends, is this still relevant? Because the whole idea is, is the people that I want listening to the podcast are entrepreneurs. These are like, I know executives listen, I know investors listen. I know you know all people, truck drivers listen, college students listen. But it's always and forever will be heavily focused on entrepreneurs. The time. Entrepreneurs are usually not limited by capital, Right. They're limited by time. So therefore it's like I never want to waste a single minute of your time. So the value prop that I describe founders is like I take 40 year career, 40 hours of reading and distill it down to 45 minutes. Because most of you psychos don't listen to podcasts on one x like I do. It's like one five and everything else.

Yeah, yeah.

And so that's where it's like a lot of the editing in the beginning was I used to put it into the microphone and edit in the software after. Now it's like I know what's actually important. I'm using my taste and saying this, I can eliminate this part.

Who have you not been impressed with? You've read a lot of stories. You know, is there anybody you started, you're like, you know what this is Charlton? Or I'm not impressed. Or like, you know, the, you know what I thought about these folks before I read this doesn't really sync up.

So keep in mind like the whole premise of founders is somewhat absurd in the sense that like I'm only studying people that have biographies written about their life. So that means like these people were so good at their job, somebody wrote a book about their life. Like that is the tiny. That's the smallest percentage of. The smallest percentage of any humans that have ever existed. Now there's. Most of them are, I would argue are cautionary tales, right? Especially because I think it's very important to us. Like I, I called our mutual friend Sam Hinkey today, right? And I was like, all right, I'm recording with Robbie. Like I like and we've spent time together, we talk. I was like, what should I bring up, right? And he's gonna hate that I name dropped him. But I told him I was like, I'm name dropping him today. There's nothing you can do about it. You're right.

He, he's like twitching right now, but.

He says, you have this great, you have this great line that now I'm gonna steal. And I'll probably at the very beginning attribute it to my friend Robbie. And then eventually I'll just say I came up with the idea. But it says that you have infinite time for the like family and friends, like the important and like no time for bullshit. So I, because of like obviously like I have vast like discussed for both sides of my family tree and a lot of things that, that they did to their kids and everything going back multiple generations. And so like I have a 12 year old daughter and a 4 year old son. It's just like I don't like, I want to be the, the I have a very simple mission in life is like I want to help people learn from history, great entrepreneurs. I want to be the best person in the world doing that. Okay? So it's going to. Everything that's not my. That and my family and friends like has to be eliminated. And what happens is there's vast majority of Time. It's like, if you were such a successful entrepreneur that they wrote a biography about you, you weren't a good family. Like, you're not like, oh, I'm a balanced person. These are not balanced people. And so the person that disgusts me the most also did me a wonderful service. And everybody that reads his book, a wonderful service. His name is Larry Miller. It's episode 168 of Founders. He wrote a book book called Driven, an autobiography. And he essentially is writing it as he's dying. He's the richest entrepreneur.

Is this the Jazz owner?

Exactly. He's the richest entrepreneur in Utah. He owns 93 different businesses. The average Utah citizen could not go a week without giving one of his businesses a dollar. You know, he owns a Utah Jazz, owns car dealerships, movie theaters, all kinds of stuff. Writing the book lives in a 30,000 square foot mansion overlooking on a mountain in Utah. And he essentially says, my life is a cautionary tale. And he's like, he has, he had real fucked up childhood and crazy stuff. He was a juvenile delinquent. But the service that he did, now that he knew he was dying and when, I mean that he knew he was dying, it's like they were literally like throughout the book, they're chopping off different parts of his body. Like, there goes your fucking foot, there goes your fingers. It's grotesque. And his whole point was just like my eyes were opened and I worked until my eyes closed at night. He's like, I was a bad husband. I didn't know my kids and I didn't even have fun. I didn't even have fun. And so he literally says, my life is cautionary tale. That last chapter, he's writing this with a fucking co author. The last chapter. He dies in the middle of the book. Why? Before it's completed. And the saddest thing that ever happens is the, the co author is now talking to his wife and she's like, well, you know, we can say we miss him, but it's not like he was here anyways when he was. Oh, wow. So that would be my answer.

On that note, David, I can't help, like, I've listened to obviously a ton of your, your podcasts and fascinated by all these, these, you know, larger than life figures and founders. There's a trade off for all of them. They're all some level of obsessive, right? And we've talked about this constantly that I think to do anything great kind of requires some level of that. And I'm so often for me it brings up to mind the. The head coach, right? In sports, especially, like, for football, I mean, like, it's a grind. It is a level of commitment to do it well. And these guys do it their entire life, right? Like, especially the guys I played for. And I. And I do correlate when I listen to so many of your founders. Like, I'm like, that's. That's a football coach talking. Like, you know, like, I. I listen to James Dyson and it, like, when you were going through that stuff, it just reminds me of Jim Harbaugh, like, the. The David Ogilvy. What's the name of his manifesto?

He's done a few. But the. The pursuit. Eternal pursuit of unhappiness.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I'm like, dude, that. It's like Andy Reed's. It's all over the facility. Like, the same things. Like, we're, you know, we're going to be fearless. Like, we're going to live on the courage side anyway. Like, who. I feel like there's a little bit of that cautionary tale tied into everybody, right? A lot of these founders that have done and built amazing things. Who's done it the best in your mind? Who's found the balance?

There's three that I would say out of the ones I've covered. Number one is episode 222. It's Ed Thorpe, I think.

Hey, David, before you answer, this, is your recollection like, this for everything or just for your podcast? Because the fact that you can go like, oh, yeah, like this number episode is fucking crazy. But I'm just trying to figure out, is this just this, or is this the way you are on everything?

I mean, my wife's in the other room. I can go grab her. People are like, david has a great memory. She's like, no, he doesn't.

That was my guess.

Join the club.

Just this.

Yeah.

Yeah. So, no, it's. This is what I'm actually scared of. So don't let me. Alex, don't let me, like, not answer your question, but, like, the biggest. No, no, no. The biggest fear that I have is that, like. And so if you think about, like, the two people I talk to a lot and that I trust and I consider advisors and have been unbelievably helpful for me because, like, I did the podcast for five and a half years, no one gave a fuck. Like, no one listened. And it's Sam, Hanke and Patrick, right? We're intensely loyal to both of them. And I had this conversation with them, and they tell me that I don't have a good understanding of myself where, like, I am very concerned that of my obsessive behavior and my ruthless, competitive drive that I have that it's. Alex just nailed the difference between James Dyson and Bill Belichick and Michael Jordan and Larry Ellison. And it's just like the same personality type. The Napoleon, Alexander the Great. It's like the same. The best description founders I ever heard is like, oh, it's church for entrepreneurs. And I grew up in, like, a fundamentalist Christian church. And I think that's one of the best descriptions because it's not like the. Every Sunday, you know, the. The preacher's like, okay, guys, we went over the Bible last week. We're going to go on, move on to, like, the next book, right? It's like at some point people realize David's just telling the different stories about the same personality type over.

I think that's also, like, not to interrupt, but that's also what's fascinating, I think, for people is that isn't just like, if you're building a business, right? Like, I know you and you obviously even cover it like, it's founders, but you got. I mean, you have football, you do have Bill Walsh on there, and you've got directors on there, and you have people that aren't necessarily, like a traditional founder. And I do think these things transcend that industry. And for me, it's. If you. I kind of take away, like, if you want to go do anything, great. These are some great examples, right, of people that have gone and done that. The thing that hits home for me, and I actually want your personal view on this. I guess as I come around on this question is like, you battle that. That work, life balance, right? And I guess you even personally, like, with. You founded your own podcast, right? And you, I'm sure, battle that same thing. Who has done it and how. What's your. What's your view on that? Right? Like, yeah, I want to go do this thing. Great. I'm obsessed about it. It drives me. But also, right. I. I do have a family.

There's three. The people that know me really well, that I can, like, you know, seek their advice and, like, genuine friendship is like, Patrick and Sam. And they say that I don't have an accurate read on myself in the sense that, like, I am worried. I have a, like, remarkable family. Like, I'm happily married. I have great, two great healthy kids. This is like, I am worried that my obsession with the podcast and what I'm making is, like, going to Cause me eventually to like, burn everything down in sacrifice of that goal. Why? Has nothing really to do with me. It's that I consider every single person I've said in the podcast smarter and more productive than me. And you have the remarkable thing about reading biographies. I don't give a fuck if you don't listen to founders, but I do care that you, that you read biographies, if I can be an evangelist for reading biographies. Because what you're going to see is you're going to see some of the smartest, most productive people to ever live make mistake after mistake, bad decision after bad decision. Like, we are imperfect. All of us are imperfect human beings. And so it'd be so arrogant for me to think, oh yeah, that guy did that. But it won't happen to me. It's like, no, he was like, very. I'm more similar to him. Like, I see my. The point of story, the wonderful thing about stories and why it's so powerful to human history is like, when you're thinking reading a biography or watching a movie, you're not thinking about the character, you're thinking about yourself and how you relate to them. So to answer your question, like, I consider episode 222, Ed Thorpe. I say, I think in the parentheses, my personal blueprint. But I fall short of his ex, of his example all the time. And the reason I would say him is because Ed Thorpe's stories remarkable. If you're looking for an audiobook to read or to listen to next, I would get his autobiography called A Man for All Markets. Ed Thorpe, highly likely the first inventor of the quantitative hedge fund, became unbelievably wealthy, but stopped when he realized. He stopped once he had more money he could ever spend in life, which is where a lot of people make the mistake. They start, they keep trading time for more money that they'll overspend in expense of spending time with family and friends, taking yourself. So if you look at him now, he just gave a talk. And Tim, he was on Tim Ferriss's show last year, too. I show that YouTube video and I was like, how old is this guy? And they're like 65. I was like, he's 93. So the reason I think he mastered life is one, he was, you know, he built a business successful doing something he was genuinely interested in. He was a good husband, he was a good father. His kids are in, in the book talking about how great he is. His wife's in the book talking about how great. Like that he was a good father. He Took care of his health. You know, he got really involved in fitness early on and dedicated time making sure that was a discipline every day. And then he had fun. He had fun. He actually enjoyed life. He's the opposite of Larry Miller. Larry Miller's like, I wake up every day and I'm fucking, you know, sad and depressed. So what I mean by have fun. He's also like Ed Thorpe's like financial history. Forrest Gump, you know, Forrest Gump shows up in like every important historical thing, right? So like Ed Thorpe, first founder, first quantitative hedge fund. He was the first LP in Citadel. A 19 year old Ken Griffin goes to his house and Ed gives him all the files to what they were doing because he had shut down his hedge fund at that point. At Ed's hedge fund, he meets a 38 year old, he has dinner with a 38 year old Warren Buffett, I think at Dwarf's 36 at the time, something like that. And he leaves the, the dinner, turns to his wife, he goes, that guy's gonna be the richest man in the world one day. He builds the world's first quantitative, or excuse me, the world's first wearable computer with Claude Shannon, the inventor of information theory for fun. If you ever know that people talk about blackjack, strategy of counting cards and how to like tilt the odds in your favorite. Ed Thorpe is, he's a math, he's a genius mathematician. He, he came up with the 01 and like that counting card technique, wrote a book about it called Beat the dealer in the 1960s and it sold like millions of copies. He's just like, how is this his autobiography? Reads like a thriller and yet he still is like a great father, you know, great husband, built wealth, created jobs, took care of his health and had fun. Like what? There's nothing else. There's nothing else.

Was it something in his process or something in his motivation, you think that separates him? Like why was he able to enjoy the journey as opposed to, you know.

I think a lot of it has to do with temperament and rationality, which I don't think is, is common in human nature. But it's funny that I've done, I think two episodes, maybe three episodes on him and I just read the. I think rereading books is very important. I. This idea where, you know, like you just read it once and like, oh, I got it. It's like, no, like the words on the, the pages don't change, but you've changed as a man totally.

There's that old proverb, it's not the same river. Not the same man. Right?

Yeah. It's like the fact that people, like, pick your heroes. You don't need five of them. Six of them, whatever. And then reread it over and over again. Me and Hinky were talking today is like, half our conversation was about the lessons we learned from Charlie Munger. You know, it's just like I go back to Monger over and over and over and over again. So one, I think he was just his temperament, his rational, he's disciplined. These are not common traits in human history. But the first time I ever did a podcast on him, some. A lot of people obviously will listen to the podcast first and they'll read the book. And I got a message. You're like, hey, you left something out of the podcast. I'm like, yeah, no shit. These aren't like. I cannot summarize the whole fucking story.

It's not a book report.

Yeah, but the guy goes, you left out the fact that he's an absolute genius. I was like, of course. Like, that should be implied, that he was a genius. So he was just very, very intelligent and could actually apply his intelligence and to not just, how am I going to be the richest person in the cemetery? Is that my goal? No, the point of building businesses and being good at what you do is to have a good life. All of that. The good life is the first thing.

Have you seen the naval quote on this, David?

The definition of intelligence?

Yeah, it's just like, the real test of intelligence is like, do you have a good life or not? It's not all the rest of this bullshit that people try to do.

And the second part, do you have a good. Were you smart enough to get what you want out of life? Is the quote. So this is what I meant about. I love. I love a lot of your lines. And I say, my friend Robbie said this, and then eventually it's just like, I said it. So now I go, I said, I swear to God, I'm embarrassed at this. A couple nights ago, I was like. I was having dinner with three founders. Like, you know what the only definite My definition of intelligence is? I quoted naval and didn't even take it. I was like, were you smart? Did you get. The only true definition of intelligence is did you get what you want out of your life, part one and part two? Were you smart enough to figure out what mattered anyways, related to what you.

Said on Ed Thorpe? I actually think. And this is a separate topic, but I actually think you can make a pretty coherent Argument that above a certain amount of money, it's not just that it's diminishing returns, that it's negative utility, right? Because all of a sudden, like, you know, people are thinking about, what do you do with the money? What do you do with the money? They think about, what the fuck do they do with their kids? Like, there's actually, I think there's like some intellect of like, it's not just that you get diminishing returns from the incremental dollar above a certain amount. I actually think that it's negative. You know, net.

This is what I hope. And for some people, I agree completely. And so, like, what I realized through, like doing this podcast for eight years is like, there's a. Actually a very small percentage of people that can actually learn from the experience of other people. Most people have to have the lived experience. I think so far, knock on wood. Thankfully, I might be. I think I'm capable of learning from other people's experience. So, like, because one of the most impactful things that ever happened to me wasn't even reading a book. It was having a two hour conversation with Sam Zell before he died, okay? And it's exact. This is exactly what he told me. And so I. This is how crazy podcasts are. I truly think we appreciate Miracle.

Yeah.

So, because this is. Think about how fucking crazy it is. This weird guy with a giant head sits in a room by himself reading biographies, talking to. I'm talking to myself in a hundred dollar microphone for like five years, right? I do. I read Sam Zell's autobiography. You know, Sam Zell's, when he was alive, one of the best investors, dealmakers, entrepreneurs ever sells. Sells a company, what, BlackRock, Blackstone, one of them. For like $38 billion. I make a podcast on his autobiography. He here, he listens to it, loves it. Starts ripping through my episodes. And then he's like, how can I meet David? And so I get this like, message, like, Sam Zell wants it from a, like a, like a, like a newly created Twitter account. And it's like, Sam Zell wants to have lunch with you. Would you have a lunch with him? I was like, yeah, sure. Yeah, okay, sure. He wants to have lunch with like, what the are you talking about? And it wound up being one of Sam's best friends and mentee for like 25 years. My friend Rick, who now me and him are good friends as a result of this. And we spent a bunch of time together, but we had a two hour conversation, right? And one thing, there's a couple things here, and sorry if I'm, like, monologuing, but.

No, this is great.

This is really fucking important. And we talked about before, like, we were having technical issues, and, like, Shane was, like, fucking cursing and, like, mad, and I was like, dude, bring the emotion to the podcast. Like, authenticity. Podcasts don't work if they're not authentic. Like, you cannot, hopefully, you guys do this for 10, 20, 30 years. You can't play an act for that long. You have to be who you are, you know? And so Sam, you know, I read his biography, I watch all his videos, and, like, you see him on cnbc and the gravelly voice, and, like, he fucking shows up. And I turn around, like, this guy's a multi. Like, you know, fuck, probably got $10 million or some crazy shit. I turn around, and no entourage. It's just fucking. Sam's all by himself walking through the restaurant. So we sit down, right? And immediately, like, you realize, like, I've heard a bunch of your podcasts. You talk about, like, having, as professional athletes now, you have to transition to the next stage because your body eventually just doesn't cooperate with you anymore, right? The great thing about the game that we're all playing now is, like, this actually compounds. You should be better at 81 than you are today. And so we go back to this diminishing return. So Sam just gives me wonderful advice, and it's like, dude, I think about the guy all the time. Like, legitimately, I have, like, a little sims on my shoulder. Like, what would he do? And his whole thing was. He's like, listen, I know all the rich people. He's like, all these rich guys, he's like, they're miserable. They. They're not. They're. They're. He's like, do not do that. So he's like, they all make the same mistake. He's like, david, you're gonna make a lot of money. Like, because he. He saw the potential of the podcast and everything else, and he's like, do not make the mistake. Most people do. He goes, they just. They make more money, and they buy slightly nicer versions of the same. And he's like, the difference between a $10 million house and a 20 million house is negligible. He's like, I have my place in Chicago, and I have my compound in Malibu. That's his line, not mine. There's a funny same Zel story. He's like, he wanted to show me pictures of his house in Malibu. So he hands me his phone. I'm thinking, it's gonna be pictures of his house in Malibu. It was a Google image search that says Sam Zell, Malibu. I was like, all right, that's a flex, bro. That's a flex. So what he told me, he's like, listen, he goes, I have those two places. He goes, I rent everything else, right? He's like, the things that you own start to own you. He's like, I go for freedom. And he goes, there's only one true luxury in life. And he goes, that's the private jet. He goes, try to get to private jet money. Other than that. He's like, that's it. Use money to have fun, to have. Like to, like, do things you want to do. You know, buy the business you want, invest, make the investments you want, do whatever that is case and. And provide good experiences for your family. But don't chase the number. The number's irrelevant.

But David, that was an autobiography, correct? Like, yes. Would you say that some of your favorites have actually come from the founders themselves? Like the.

Oh, the autobiographies are always better.

Yeah.

Do they always have a ghostwriter or do they just fucking go like, what, what, what, what is the. The nature of the autobiography?

Okay, so you can't see my entire bookshelf, but part of my organization is that all of the books behind me or organized by episode number, because if not, I wouldn't be able to find them. And so, like, look, I was thinking Les Schwab, so I can find it like that, right? Which you just saw. Like, so Les Schwab is one of Charlie Munger and Warren Buffett's favorite founders. And the funny. Look, look what the book looks like when I'm done, right? And the funny thing is he. He's hilarious because he's like this old school, like, you know, kind of like redneck kind of guy. And he goes, I wrote this in November and December of 1985. I did write this 100% with my 40 year old typewriter. I did not have a ghostwriter. I wanted it in my own words. So his whole point, no, but this is how gangster this guy is. So he goes, the reason this is why he's writing the book. It was just for employees originally. And they got so popular, cult, like following. They. They published it. And he's like, you know, I'm writing this to pass all my theories on business for, you know, after I'm dead for Les Schwab. He goes, should we. This is. You're gonna love this guy. Immediately. Should we fail? Because the name of the company is LE Schwab. It's named after him. Les Schwab Tires. He said, should we fail to follow these policies towards customers, employees, I would prefer that my name be taken off the business.

Dude, that is amazing. That is amazing.

So, David, you talk about.

A lot.

Of the mature people who write books and have books written about them. You know, I think for. For Alex and I and our Ravi, you know, we have all climbed this huge mountain before age 40. And I never forget conversation I had with David Rubenstein. And he said, look, like I was. I'd retired and sticking about what's next. He's like, you gotta understand, like, you've won the first third of life, right? You won. You won it all right, hands down. You know, what are you gonna do the next third of your life? And then what are you gonna do the next. The last third of your life? And you know, that me up. I hadn't thought about it like that. And so transition's been a topic that we've talked about a lot and always finding what's next. Look, there's nothing like, you know, playing in the NBA finals. There's nothing like playing, you know, for a Super Bowl. There's not. There's nothing like it. I'm sorry, nothing. And if it's out there, we haven't found it yet. So what lessons can you give to us historically to draw upon of people who've had young success and have found out how to win that second third, that last third in a different way.

I heard you guys talk about this before. I don't think you use this word, but you have to pick a new mission. You see this a lot in the military, where I read a bunch of biographies of people in the military. It's the best job in the world. There's nothing like combat, which sounds crazy to know civilians like us. Like, no, I could go without being shot at. Like, thank you very much. But there's such a high, like, suicide rate because they come down and there's like this. Such this huge, drastic fall. There's this. There's this podcast called Jocko Podcast, which talks about this a lot. And the advice that they give is like, you got to get your next mission. He's like, yeah, he was a commander in Navy seals for like 20 years now. He's a very successful entrepreneur. World class podcast or everything else. But he still says, like, that's like, if I could go back, I would still do that. So I don't think there is a solution to those things other than I don't like thinking about, like, I wouldn't, like, sit in your house and, like, you know, like, stare at all your memorabilia and stuff. Like, I become friends with a Rod who's been very nice to me and a good. And listens to podcasts and, like, you go to his house and it's just like, he, like, he doesn't have a. We talked about this. He doesn't have, like, this. He's not sitting in the room, like, look all these. Look at everything I've done now. He's just like, I'm focused on building my business. Like, blinders. Look forward. It's great to be proud of what you did and, like, you know, celebrate that, take the lessons from it. But if you sit there and, like, the past is the past. Nothing you do, this is like, all you have is this single moment. We haven't talked about Kobe or Michael, which obviously Michael Jordan. We should, but it's like, that's one of the main lessons of Michael Jordan's biography. And what he learned, he talks about in the Last Dance. Talked about it from Phil Jackson. It's like, stay in the moment, man. My thing is, like, I'm gonna be able to podcast until I don't have a voice. So, like, they're gonna have to pry the microphone for my cold, dead hand, right? So I don't actually have, like, good advice for it because it's like, I can do this forever now. I might have some kind of dementia or be like, you know, dumber when. As I get older, whatever the case is, it's just like, it might not be as good, but I'd still be able to do it. And so I do empathize with that point because it's like, I. We. I think about this all the time. It's like, imagine being, you know, world class at what you're doing. I'm going to do a bunch of podcasts on these. These tennis players and eventually. And I just watched the. The first season, the first episode of the Serena Williams documentary, and it shows her when they were really young and Venus. And I don't, you know, follow any professional sports right now except ufc, because I'm too, like, focused. And UFC only requires one, you know, one night a month to stay up to. To date with the sport. And. But I didn't know that. I knew Serena retired, but I didn't know Venus Williams was playing. And I was like. And a friend of mine who's into tennis, so I'm watching the documentary with. I was like, oh, how's she doing? It's like, not good. And we talked about that that night. This is like two weeks ago. I was like, imagine that. Like, you want to do it. You have the skill, you have the mentality, you have everything else, but your body just doesn't cooperate. Like, that would be terrifying to me.

David, you know what I would add to that, and I love your thoughts, but like, Shane, as much as, like, finding your next mission, don't you think it's finding your next team? Like, I feel like that going back to the military thing and then team sports is obviously a, you know, big, giant rung under that. But, like, the guys miss the. The team environment, right? Like, you miss the accountability to the group, the responsibility that comes with that, like, obviously all. And I think that's what makes that journey. It certainly is what I. I know I was drawn to team sports about, right? Like, doing it together as a team. I'm fascinated by. And Shane and I get into this both times. Like, is it the leadership or is it like, you know, for us glue guys, Is it the guys in the locker room that make it work, right? Like, who wins the championships? And certainly probably a mix of both. But there's a big aspect of your founders that are like these larger than life, again, characters and, you know, people in history. But, like, they did build at some point.

They all built. They all built.

They built teams.

This is humans. They have a. Like, they need to latch onto something, right? Like, symbolism is huge in human nature. And so, like, I've heard a bunch of Steve Jobs said this. Elon Musk says, like, I get there. Like, I get too much personal credit, right? Because as humans, we want to relate to other people, right? It's not like, oh, I love Tesla. Even if you like Tesla, it's like, I love Elon. You want the person behind it. And that's what makes, you know, founders so such powerful and effective people. Because they are. They're people that have access to. They have leverage for their decision making. And they're building organizations that are large themselves, but every single one of them, like we'll tell you, like the mo. One of the most important skills may be, the most important skill for a founder to have is recruiting. What's recruiting? It's building the right. It's selecting the right people around you and then building the team. So it's like, yeah, I can do 10 episodes on Steve Jobs, but what's not stated other than his priority of like, finding the smartest people to work with and the highest quality People, Right. They're not. You're. That's just how human memories. You can't list a 10,000 people that worked for him. You know, maybe you could have other people like, Johnny. I was going to be in there. Tim Cook's going to be in there. Other people like that, you know, Wozniak at the very beginning. Don Valentine's early in there. Like, there's all these other supporting characters, but it's just human nature to just latch on and give all the. In the NFL, you're a quarterback. Like, why is a quarterback. Why is the quarterback, well, more well known than the center, like. Or whatever the case is, like, I can't name us.

I actually think that's like, the perfect analogy. Right. And you've talked about the offense as, like, a ballet, but, you know, the quarterback, the blame and the credit. Right. Often goes to the quarterback. But it's actually, like, a pretty good analogy, which is, like, there's no way it works without, you know, all 11.

The reason I started listening to your podcast, other than the fact that we're going to be on the same network, and. And I'm genuinely interested. No one's covering the glue guys. No one's talking about that. That's actually really important. And then how many glue guys are there and how. And glue women, right. In organizations, millions, tens of hundreds of millions. Like, the people that could benefit from you guys sharing your stories about these usually overlooked people is way larger than people can benefit from the stories I tell. So I think it's a really important work.

You know, we would all love to be the superstar. Well, Alex was a superstar Pro bowl quarterback. You know, we'd all. We all like to take. Take the last shot and average 30 a game. You know, it takes a lot of hard work to be in the middle, but still have an impact, you know. You know, our stories are interesting because it's out of necessity and it's out of love and it's out of, you know, ultimate competitiveness, which I think, you know, we talked to folks about this podcast, and I do a lot of corporate speaking around the countries to an unusually large amount of CPAs and bookkeepers.

They say, yeah, yeah, that's me, that's me.

And so, like, I'm more convinced, like, that's the every. Every person's story of, like, yeah, I'm fighting like hell and I want to win.

Yeah, but I think that's incomplete. And, like, look, I'll tell you guys, like, definitely feel one, one or two things. Alex is too Humble to say this, but, like, I think a big part of this is like, I think the whole glue guy moniker of being like just the person in the middle or the person at the bottom is bullshit. I think the whole point is, like, you can be a connector no matter what position you're in. Like, look, man, in some companies I've been like low level to mid level. Some companies I've been high level. I, I take pride in the idea that you can be that no matter where. Just like you've talked about Shane. So like, I don't want it to be just for people that are like, not, you know, senior or leaders in their organization. Frankly, I think that, you know, founders that are going to build something of consequence, I think they have to be glue guys on them in their own right. And I actually genuinely believe that.

And again, like, think about like, is Munger taking the last shot? No, that's Buffett. Right? But like, Munger's a legit genius. So, like, this is not like hinky. We're talking about the. It takes a certain level of self awareness and a lack of ego. Now when I say Munger had an ego, he knew, like, I can show you my notes for when I had dinner with him, right? He said one of the funniest things. He said that he always believed that he was smarter than everybody else. If he could do life over, he'd still believe that, but he wouldn't just show it as much. But they talk about, they're like, people have asked them, like, why did you take a secondary, like, why'd you subjugate yourself to Warren? He's just like, his answer, I don't remember the exact word, but essentially the conversation me and Hinky were having, he's just like. Because he understood that Warren is probably a once in 100 year, maybe once in like 500 year level talent, and you have the opportunity to partner with him and you won't because your ego gets in the way because you have to be the main guy, then you're probably not that smart anyways. And I know I no longer was smart because not only you could see the point of his body work, but when I got to speak to him. So, like, you see all the books behind my head right now, Munger was sitting in front of his bookshelf when I talked to him. And when I find somebody I love, you know this, I read every single book about them. And then they talk about who they love. And so I'll read every book they recommended. And after it was like 10 minutes where I was like, frozen. I was just staring at Munger. I was like, how the did I wind up in Charlie Munger's house? Like, what is happening right now? Once I snapped out of that, I just started lighting him up with questions, right? And a lot of it was based on the books I saw behind him that he had recommended and I had read. And you would, I'd ask him about this book and he would literally, like, pull out what the company did, how much money they made, who were the partners, what was the outcome? And I would ask him. I was like, did you just like, did you reread that recently? He's like, I haven't read in 15 years. And then I pull the book. He let me go through his library and I pull the book off and I showed you Munger's the opposite of me. Where like, I need notes and highlights and memory and reminders. There's nothing in there. It's in his fucking head. That is a legit genius. And he's telling you he was in this situation. He's a glue guy for Berkshire. He's just like, that guy is talented. I'm going to support him in any way possible. One, they had a great relationship, but also because it's like, it's the best choice he can make for his own career.

I never thought about like, that, but he is the fucking quintessential glue guy. And that's the whole like, thing that I'll tell you, like, ego wise, like, I don't want it to be that, like, oh, you're only a glue guy if you're like, you know, stuck in the middle of the org, like. No, that's the whole point. The whole point is your responsibility is to make your team win, right? And wherever part you're in, go make that happen. And if you don't do that, then you suck at your job. It's that simple. You have to go and, like, make the team win. Do whatever you have to do. And this dude picked the hardest game, right? Public market investing, there's no pick the hardest game. And he decided to do it with the best guy and he decided to help them win. Like, yeah, blue guy.

Exactly.

Shane, you going to talk about Kobe? I feel like I kind of want to tune in just to hear you and Senra talk about you and Kobe.

Well, I loved your episode on Jordan and Kobe. I had the pleasure of playing against both. All right. I caught Michael as a wizard. I know a lot of Bulls fans don't remember that. I know, it happened.

We just talked about not looking back.

And he still gave us like 40. Okay? I was on a bad Memphis Grizzly. We were bad. We're really, really bad. You can go on YouTube and see the clips. Like, Jordan gave Baddy a 40.

Were you guarding him, Shane?

That's the bullshit. That's the bullshit thing on, on YouTube it says I was guarding him. If you go to the clips, it was Drew Gooden, who's another light skinned brother like me. So it looks like me, but it wasn't me.

There we go.

But it wasn't me. He gave me a couple droppers, okay? But it wasn't me, okay?

But my image of him and the Wizards, by the way, is just nothing but fadeaway jumpers. Just mid range fade away jumpers.

He's still at the swag. Look, look, everybody's got a picture of them against Mike, you know, in that era. And you know, I got mine and someone gave me a blurry picture from the pyramid. I grew up playing in the pyramid, you know, it's a blurry pitcher, upper deck, and Jordan's in his perfect Jordan fadeaway. And I'm contesting, you know, and I'm like, it gives me chills every time I see it. So look, I'm from Detroit, so, you know, I believe in the Jordan rules. So Ravi and I, you know, Robbie obviously grew up on Jordan and his opinions are different than mine, you know, so I GRE going to the, the palace of Auburn Hills and, and seeing that the, the Pistons beat the shit out of Jordan because that's the only way we could stop them, you know, and once, you know, I learned a lot from Jordan and just that era of, of 80s 90s basketball, and I don't know if it's as prevalent today. You have to beat the best to be the best, right? And, and so my, my childhood was, you know, watching the Lakers and the Celtics, you know, battle it out. All right, The Pistons could never beat the Celtics, you know, the Celtics, right? You know, DJ steals that, passes the bird. I mean, it was, it was like a nightmare. And that, that time we finally beat the Celtics, it was like, aha, aha. You know, and then we beat the Lakers, but Michael could never beat the Pistons. We beat the hell out of them bad boys. Jordan rules. And that moment where the Pistons walked off the floor because they knew it was over. I got it. I got it. You know, and the world was an uproar. That wasn't classy, but like, I got it. They knew, they knew at that time it was over. And you go into the 90s, and like, Carl Malone, Charles Barkley, they could never beat Jordan. And like, as much as they're pissed off, they never won a ring. It was. They never beat Michael.

Right?

And so there's. There's something about when you knock off the champion. And I lived it, you know, playing with the Miami Heat. I lived it at Duke. I lived it many, many times. There's something about beating the best that transcends all championships. Championships are just a byproduct, and they're fun and they're awesome, and. But it's. It's. It's being the best by beating the best. And then, you know, obviously, my battles with Kobe have been well documented. You know, he's a guy who I loved but also hated, and we had the strangest relationship.

Why'd you hate him?

Because he was an asshole. He was. He was like. He was so. He was just. He was so passive aggressive.

He seems to me aggressive aggressive. So that's interesting. What do you mean by passive aggressive?

Passive aggressive. Very passive aggressive to me. So I never had a conversation with Kobe aside the. The arena. Never. Never. Not once. And even though he's my contemporary, he was a month older than me, obviously. He came out of lower Marion and straight out of high school, and I came out of, you know, after four years at Duke. He and I grew up in actually very similar situations. All right? He grew up in the hoity suburbs of Philadelphia. I grew up in the hoity suburbs of Detroit. Right. We went to, you know, private school. Private. I think he went to private school where he went to an area where he was always searching for that street credit. I never got the street credit. And like, I know Kobe identified more as Italian than he did black. No, it's true. You know, in his books, he. He spent his childhood in Italy and was. Was really, really bummed he had to leave Italy to come back to the States. And so he never was that guy that was clamoring for. For street cred of inner city Philadelphia. Right? And that was my. That was my childhood. Like, I grew up in Birmingham, Michigan, and I never got street cred from going downtown Detroit and playing in the Police Athletic League and playing against the brothers.

Right?

And so, like, the only way I knew was, like, beat their ass, and that was Kobe. Only way you're going to respect me, I'm going to beat your ass. And so in a lot of ways, we were so similar, but we were very, very, very different in the way we approached It. And so Kobe, look, was an absolute monster. And my rookie year, here I am, you know, fresh out of Duke, National Player of the Year, three time national Defensive player of the Year, and I get drafted to a bad Memphis Grizzlies team. David, when I got drafted to the Grizz, they had the lowest winning percentage of the four North American pro sports, right? So NHL, NBA, NFL, and, you know, Major League Baseball. It was a bad franchise. We were bad, didn't know how to win. And we played the Lakers when they were rolling. They had Shaq and Kobe and.

What year is this, Shane? This 01, 2001.

Yeah. So this is like they're rolling.

All right.

They win the championship that year. I mean, they're. They're stacked. We go to Staples center and, you know, I got a big ego. Like, I'm going to, you know, I'm going to check Kobe. I can't stop him, but I'm going to do well against them. He hung 50, 56 on me in three quarters.

Three quarters.

They're beating us so bad. Phil didn't play him in the fourth quarter, right? And I'm just like, holy shit. Like, like. And we're bad. We're a bad team. I have no helps that defense. Like, no one's helping me. No one's coming over to take a charge. Black shots. I'm just getting roasted. And I'm just like, man, I got. I got to figure this gu. Because I plan on being here for a while. He's going to be here for a while. So, like, man, this can't happen again. It was embarrassing. It was embarrassing. And, you know, he was my. He was my favorite matchup and my. My most horrifying matchup. There's. There's nothing I will ever feel to this day like getting on that bus at the Marina Del Rey Ritz and riding to the Staples center saying, man, I got a monster tonight. You know, I got a monster. I got a monster. There's no way around it. I gotta stop. So we talk about, like. We talk about, like, competition and want to. Want to be the best in the world. Wanted to beat the best in the world. Like, that was it for me, man. Like, he was my. He was my Moby Dick and. Or I was his Ahab, or he was my Ahab and I was his movie. I don't know what the alliteration is there, but for me, Kobe represents the pinnacle in competition and in greatness. And there's no other player that brought the most out of me than Co.

I'm just letting it sit there for a second chain. When David was talking about how, like, I forget in what context we were like, oh, in his own podcast thing of, like, the hard way is the right way. Like, this is it. Like, this is. I want to do it that way. When you talk about the Kobe time, was that a matchup that, like, all in. Was that kind of, like, what kept you going during the season? Was it ever mundane when you weren't going up against him? You know what I'm saying? Or did you look forward to it, or did you dread it?

No, I didn't look forward to it. Like, he was the best. It was great. When it was over, it was like getting your annual physical. It was like getting a colonoscopy.

It was like, okay, that's the best thing. And, like, could you imagine? Like, that's one of the highest compliments you. You. For sure. For sure you could give a competitor. It's like going against you is like wrestling Grizzlies is the way Buffett says going against Rose Blumpkin was. It's just like, I'd rather wrestle Grizzlies than go against her. He's like, it's like getting a colonoscopy.

Getting a colonoscopy with a clean bill. You live afterwards. But it wasn't fun. But it wasn't fun. And so. So David. So when I say he was super passive aggressive, like, all the stories that you've read about him, he was aggressive. Aggressive. But with. With me, like, he. And he was so damn smart. Like, I saw the guys like Reuben Patterson, Raja Bell, Bruce Bowen, they. They poke the bear, right? They. They trip them. They. They talk to him. And, like, you could see Kobe, you know, walk around the court like this and, you know, get. Getting all. Getting all, you know, pulling back his chest. I'm like, I'm not gonna do that.

Like, I'm.

I'm no dummy. Like, I'm a get from Birmingham, Michigan. Am I going to, like, physically confront Kobe? No. And so, like, I took the exact opposite calculated approach. I was like, eeyore, when it came to Kobe, I never once publicly said, you know what? I can guard this guy.

Never.

I was like, man, like, I'm just lucky to be on the same court as Kobe. He's greatness. I'm just. I'm just. I'm just a schlep, right? And so I downplayed any matchup we ever had. And when I got to Houston and sort of learn the ways of analytics and data, thanks to our guy, Sam at least had a fighting chance and was as effective as anybody against him.

What do you think is the best lesson you learned from him?

Relentlessness. You know, it's. Kobe was never satisfied, and that was what was scary about him. If he scored 20, he won a 30, he scored 31 of 40. If you scored 50, he wanted 60.

One of the favorite stories that you guys have told on your podcast so far is, I'm so glad I was listening. And I was like, you brought up when you were giving the talk right before Bezos. Ravi. Right. And I was like, please. You mentioned relentlessness. Right. So we just talked about the fact that I'm just telling the same story, the same personality. It's like, Jeff Bezos, relentless. Kobe Bryant, relentless. And I was listening along, and I'm driving through the Santa Monica mountains. I remember where I was.

I was looking at this.

I was like, please fucking talk about the fact that he owns the domain relentless.com. which then you brought up. But for people that didn't hear the episode, can you just tell that. That brief story, like, how you got like, that is relentless. Like, you give a talk and then you there, you get tapped on the shoulder, said, Mr. Bezos insists that you must leave.

Yeah.

I mean, it's so crazy. Yeah. I mean, these guys, which, by the.

Way, at that point, like, AWS had launched, like, what portion of grocery do you think made up Amazon P. L? Like, you know what I'm saying? Like, it's not like it was.

No, no. Like, I think if I do the math right, it's so ridiculous. Just like you said, Alex, because, like, that's like 2017 for the people that didn't hear.

Can you give the 62nd what happened?

I'm giving this talk at this. At this conference, and, you know, I go, the person after me that's talking is Jeff Bezos, which is so freaking ridiculous. But anyway, I'm, like, pumped to listen to the dude because I've never even been in the same room as Jeff Bezos. I go, I give my talk. And afterwards, the founder. This is at the Khosla Ventures CEO Summit. The founder of Vinod Khosla comes up to me. He's like, hey, man, I'm really sorry. You know, Jeff and his team don't want you in the room for his talk. So it's, like, so ridiculous. And I'm like, in retrospect, I'm sure there was some reason with Amazon Instacart that was specific or whatever, but all I feel is, like, Jeff Bezos, who has no idea who I am, is all of a sudden like, you gotta go, because you work at Instacart.

That's relentless.

That's relentless. And I think to the math, Alex, of what you're saying, like, yeah, Amazon has hundreds of billions of dollars of sales, right? For sure. They have just bought this thing, Whole foods, that is 1.8% of the U.S. grocery market. Like, the thing they bought is 1.8% of the market. Like, not 25%, 50%. And so it's like a small portion of the grocery market. It is a tiny portion of their sales. And he is fucking Jeff Bezos, right? He's got a lot of things going on. He probably had already started Blue Origin by then. Like, he's trying to put Rockets into Mars. Yet still it's like, no, dude, this guy, from this competitor to our little acquisition, he can't stay in the room while I talk. Like, it's absurd.

I think it speaks to the relentlessness. And relentlessness is usually it presents itself or it makes itself known in the details. So, like, everything you just said makes work sense. You got a million other things. He's still paying attention. I guarantee you. Kobe had a million other things. Like, was Kobe not detail oriented? Shane, you played against him.

Absolutely.

Yeah. It's the same fucking personality, I think.

I appreciate this, David. My favorite Kobe story was that the article came out that Michael Lewis wrote, New York Times, Sunday Magazine, the no Stat, All Star. And it sort of chronicled my use of data and why I was, you know, a great glue guy. And no one can explain why the teams I played on had a lot of success. Fantastic article. Still timely many, many years ago. And it got back to me that this really rankled Kobe because he never. He would never, ever, ever admit that anyone could stop him or have any insights on who he was. And it got back to me that he actually had hired someone to do counter analytics on the way that I defended him to see if, like, to see if there. If there was actually smoke. To see if there was actually something that I knew that he didn't know. And that, like, that.

That.

That's Kobe Bryant. That's my favorite story about. About Kobe. And, like, I always thought I'd have this conversation with him, and it hit me really hard when he passed away.

I was devastated. I like, you know, I felt. I read so much about him and I wasn't a Laker fan. Like, I had stopped watching the NBA. So, like, it was like, it was because I felt like I knew him. I felt like I knew him. And yeah, obviously, like, you know, I don't want to go through life people saying I'm an asshole and everything. But I, like, I. Again, we talked earlier about, like, these stories are powerful because they're not stories about other people. They're really stories about ourselves. And so, like, I'm never going to play in the NBA, right? I never like. But I still see myself, like, certain things. And some of them are aspirational. Some of them don't even. Like, I, you know, I don't have those traits, but I desire them because I see them in other people. And yeah, like, because I was really curious. I like what he said. It's like, you don't copy the what, you copy the how, right? And like, and that's the biggest thing. It's like I'm looking for the. The principles and ideas behind how these people built their companies and realized it doesn't matter if you're building a steel company, grocery delivery service, you know, rocket company, whatever. Case is like, there's the same fundamental principles of company building and entrepreneurship that just reappear over and over and over again.

But there's two things that remind me of what you're saying. And Shane, I think you should talk about one of them for sure. The. To me, when you said it hit you hard and then you talked about when he said what he talked about you. I think it was in his book, right? When he, like, what he said about you, I always feel like. Like that to me, is this, like, it's almost like you felt seen, you know, I'm saying, like, for real, like, oh, wait, he actually got it. Like, what did he say in the book about you?

So I had never read his book mama mentality because I had conflicted emotions about Kobe until he passed away. And I opened up his book and he actually dedicated a page to me and it was talking about Kobe stoppers and people who defended him well. And his main point was like, I didn't believe anybody could really guard me. There was a lot made about me sticking my hand in his face.

Look, he's got it. He's got it.

Yeah, yeah, sticking the hand in the face. But something to the fact that my muscle memory was so great that there wasn't a strategy, a technique that could alter me. And if David can find the Kobe says it better than I could say it.

So actually you got it wrong, Shane. He didn't dedicate a page to you. He dedicated two pages to you in the index of the mama mentality, which I have in my hand. I just went to baddie A, there's two. And look at this, look at these pictures. Okay, so I'm gonna cut anything that could. Could reflect poorly on, you know, I'm kidding. So he starts out. This is again, like, I, I think has to do with, like, always projecting strength. Because the first sentence is when someone like Shane Battier face guarded me, it didn't really impact my game. Okay, well, maybe we have numbers that indicate other ways.

I don't know.

I believe that I could shoot through it. The basket was. Wasn't moving, so muscle memory just kicked to work. I didn't seem to. I didn't have see the rim to make a bucket. Shane as a whole, was a solid defensive player. He was smart, too. Smart enough to understand that talking trash riled me up. Shane, as a counter to that, would tell people he couldn't guard me. This is what you were just saying. By doing that, Shane thought he was going to take the bite out of my game, take the edge off. But I saw through that tactic, understood his premeditated modest, which is really smart, and attacked him because it's safe to say I had a lot of fun playing against them. So that's a pretty, like.

I mean, that's pretty good. That's what I was saying about, like, feeling seen, right? Of, like, you're doing that. He sees you doing that, he's angry because you think you can fool him. I mean, how cool is that?

I describe that as the metagame. It's a game above the game that no one else knows you're playing except you and someone else. And so, like, in all the people you study, any other examples of people talking about the metagame that they reflect on and say, you know what? This company, this person, this was my Ahab, my Moby Dick.

What I really think this is is like, if you could take everything that I've learned in this eight years of this intense study and had to distill it down to one word, it's like focus. And what I feel. This is another line from Charlie Munger that I feel like I just say as myself is like, like the distracted. Don't beat the focus, right? It's like everybody's multitasking. They're doing a million different things where, like, Kobe is just focused on one thing. So it's like he even picked up that, like, your modesty was false, whereas.

Like, it wasn't like, well, I love that he's, like, taking himself there, right? Like, here he probably got read some press clipping and Shane's being modest and like, actually probably giving him love. But he. He's, to your point, like a focus in, like, to get the edge he's taking himself. He's like that guy trying to. He's trying to make me soft. He's trying to soften me up for tonight. And I want to, you know, like, Shane's like, Shay's like, complimenting him and. And he's working himself. Yeah, he's like that. This guy's trying to make me, you know, like, not have an edge. I'm bringing it.

This is something like, let me see if I can pull it up. Because this is something I try to preach is just like, you know, to like, in many cases, my podcast is like a podcast about hedgehogs, right? So there's this great post. It's like difference between hedgehogs and foxes. Foxes know a little bit about a lot of things. Hedgehogs know a lot about a single thing. And those are the only people I'm interested in spending time with. They're only the interest in spending or studying. It's only what I'm interested. It's not like I'm telling you, hey, I'm gonna be really great at podcasting and like, you know, tennis or some other. It's just like, focus because of this. It's like every minute that I'm spending doing something else takes away from getting at that. What you just called, like, the meta level, the deep understanding. And what I realized, because I got to speak to these people in person, it's like spending time with Charlie Munger and Sam Zell, right? It's like the books come alive. And so what I realized when I Sam Zell, too, is like, by the time I met him, he had 61 years of experience as an entrepreneur. That guy, everybody is around him that told. It's like you'd bring him a deal and, you know, you think there's like three pages of what's really important. It's like that one thing right there that's he like it. They hack away at the unessential and they focus on what is really important. What I love about Munger is he was describing, like, why would you give money to Lilu? 95 years. You're 95 years old when he's giving this talk. You only gave money to him. And his whole point is like, what people miss about studying, Buffett and Munger is that they make all their decisions based on opportunity cost, but they really actually account for our opportunity cost. They don't just say, I, you know, I make decisions based on opportunity costs. And so they're like, for me to give money to something else, they have to be better than lilo. And how many better. How many people are better than lilu? No one. And so as a result, it. This drastically simplifies my life. And I think that's the really important point is just, like, stop looking around. One of my favorite tweets I've ever come across was this. I don't even know where whatever happened or who the person that. That tweeted this, but his mentor had died. And he said, the best advice my mentor ever gave me because he's a young man trying to, like, build businesses, right? Young kid. And he's like, rabbit eye kids. Stop looking around and focus. And I think that when I get around, you see it in the books. When I get around, you know, these older entrepreneurs is just like, they focus. You are way too distracted. You're going to. You're going to multitask. You're going to try to do five things, and the person like Kobe is just doing one is going to win, dude.

It's also so much more fun to just be focused on something, you know what I'm saying? You know, I'm like, a zealot on this. I'm so happy that that is, like, a takeaway from your work, dude. Because, like, it's just more fun to actually care about one thing and to have your entire self. And Alex, you talk about all the time, like, being all in. How the fuck are you all in if you're distracted and hedged and worried about five things at once? Like, it's not. It's not a thing. And so it's like the worst combination. It's less effective and it's less fun, you know, 100%.

I want to go back to something you guys said because I actually think it's really important. You brought up Shane. You were talking about Jordan Rules, and we got to get to Coach K stories because I'm like, a sucker. Like, every time you guys mention Coach K on, like, Blue Guys, I'm like, on the edge of my seat. I wonder if there's any good biographies.

I was just going to say, is there a book? And again, I said this earlier, but, like, when I listen to all these founders podcasts, like, I'm like, there's so many great coaches that I feel fit this bill and are like, have great stories and lessons. And I know you did. Bill Walsh, have you Done any other coaches.

Like, so I have Bill Belichick. You know, keep in mind the bookshelf behind me holds like almost like 800 books. I've only done 350 and I have bookshelves everywhere else. So, like, I have my, my queue of unread books, but could be potential episodes is running like three to four hundred books right now. But I have Bill Belichick, I have Pat Riley. Because again, this goes back to. This goes back to. Again, reading biographies and hopefully listening to founders is like, so you could see yourself in these stories, right? And I was watching. I've always been a huge Pat Riley fan. And I was watching this interview he gave many years ago with this guy named Dan Leitard, who's a. Who's a. Started out as a local Miami media guy, I think now, you know, nationally, has big podcast, everything else. And he was talking about, he's like, you know, this is a couple years ago. He's like, why you're in your 70s, like, why do you want to. Like, why are you still working? Like, why are you doing everything? And you know, Shane, you can speak to this. He has an intense desire, ruthless competitive drive. And, and what I loved. And when I saw this, I perked up. I was like, I had one sentence made me realize I have to do an episode on Pat Riley. Because Dan's like, why? Why is it like that? He goes, he's just. Because it is. Because I came out of the womb like this and I'm like, that's exactly how I feel, you know, because people always telling me like, you know, like, I love what you do, which is, I love the podcast. Why don't you do Y? It's like, oh, so let me get it straight. You love. I do X, take time with X and do Y. It's just like, are they like, take a break or you're gonna get burned out? I was like, I'm not gonna get burned out because I'm not a. Like, what are you talking about? I read books for a living. Like, this is. And I've been reading non stop since I was like, I don't know, 4, 5, 6 years old. This is like, every time when Sam, we talked to today, it's like, how you doing? My answer to that question is the same every time. Better than I deserve. If you went back to 8 year old David and be like, how did we do? Like, what, what's it like? You know, multiple decades in the future, it's like, dude, my job is reading books. My job is Reading books. And then like, you know, you know, I built a very valuable, you know, media property around it. I get to meet the world. Meet and spend time with world class entrepreneurs is like, what the fuck are you talking about? Burnout? Like, I want more, not less. And so when I see Pat Riley and I've been like that my whole life is like, I came out of the womb like this. I was like, yes. So yeah, to answer your question, like, I want to do Coach K. Pat Riley. I got Bill Belichick, I got Phil Jackson. You mentioned Larry. I got Larry Bird has to come the best.

I can't wait for these. Oh, my God.

I'd be collecting Larry Bird shit talking stories for like years. Like, years. So I want to go back to one thing before we go to Coach Kate, because I do want. Well, let me just tell the Coach K. You guys saw the redeemed. Redeemed team documentary. My favorite thing. Because this drives me too, Jeff. Jeff Bezos has this great line where he's just like, in his shareholders. He's like, we're trying to accomplish great things that we can tell our grandchildren about. Such things are not meant to be easy. If you want the easy route, you're not fucking at Amazon, then get out of here. And Coach K had a very similar statement right before they played. And he's just like, you know, pretty many decades in the future, you're going to have your grandkids on your lap. You're going to tell your grandson that you lost this fucking Argentina team. And he goes, you should be like, you're going to have to kill me. And he said something like, you're going to have to fucking kill me. And I think the best entrepreneurs, the best coaches, the best athletes, that's just like, you're going to have to. You want to stop me? You're going to fucking have to kill me. And like, it sounds so. People make fun of me because it's like, oh, you're applying to podcasting.

It's a little.

It's like, no, no, like, this is my love. You don't have to love it. But like, yes, I'm. I take it just as seriously. I want to go back to the Jordan rules thing because, like, that is actually one of, like, the most underrated. It's obviously appears heavy in the Last Dance, and I think they did a good job of telling how important it is, but in the books especially, it's just like, me and Patrick, I just flew to New York to spend a few hours with Patrick. We want to talk about stuff podcasting related. And there's an area that we feel we can improve upon. And we were talking about how to solve this problem and we arrived at the decisions like, the best way to solve the problem is to develop our fucking skills ourselves. Right? And the, the reason the Jordan rules part is so important, because Michael Jordan doesn't come. Michael Jordan, right? Without what you just said going through that roadblock, there is literally pictures I keep on my phone, okay? There's screenshots. You guys know the history of Jordan. Like you can go back and you can see Larry Bird, right, Saying nobody like him point blank. I never seen anybody plays like the way he plays Magic Johnson. Jordan is the most talented player in the NBA by far. This is like six years before he ever won a championship. It was obvious, but he still couldn't break through, right? And so I actually think that's a really important point and it applies to families too. But like the Jordan rules thing, that the main lesson I took apart from there is just like you, the, the reason I say the hard way is the right way and that you have to run towards all pro all. The problem is it's opportunities and work close. That's all problems are. There's just opportunities in workloads. You're going to have to figure it out if you get to work and then what happens? You solve this problem. And now on the other side of that problem, you have a skill set you lacked when Tim Gro or Tim Grover, the guy that wrote the book, when he's just like, what do you do? He's like, he's just, he couldn't withstand the physical punishment, you know, and then they had to change the team and everything else was like, if he, he, he wasn't, couldn't have been Jordan if he didn't overcome that. You don't want to run away from these challenges. You want them because on the other side that you become better and it prepares you for the next challenge because there's always another challenge. The way I think about this is really important. Danny Meyer, the world famous restaurateur, right, he has a great line in his autobiography where he's talking about, he was a young man. He. This is way before Shake Shack this. He was just doing like high end, you know, New York restaurants. And he's fucking depressed because he, he started to expand his company. It's not going well. And he's sitting next to this old school entrepreneur. And this guy's name is Stanley Marcus. He's from the Neiman Marcus family. And Stanley's very patient, and Danny's telling him stories as young man, probably his 20s or 30s, and he's just like, oh, I have all these problems I don't want to do. Is all sad. And he says, basically Stanley called him on his bullshit. He's like, young man, excellence is the capacity to take pain.

That is my favorite founder.

Yes. That is my favorite maxim. I collect maximums for a fucking living. Right. My favorite maximum in the history of entrepreneurship is excellence is a capacity to take pain.

Who said that?

The founder of Four Seasons, Isador Sharp. You know, it's like on his. I think that's episode 186. I might be wrong on that. Maybe 184. So we'll have to check. But it's back in the 180s for sure. And you know that that's one of the best autobiographies you could read, because it's like he says he has a great line in the book. He's like, when we built our first hotel, we didn't know anything about hotels. And then like, his wife talks about the fact that, you know, her biggest contribution to her husband.

184, you sick. Sorry.

But this is. This is a, like, it's a wonderful book for a lot of reasons, but I'm pulling up the highlights of the book right now, and one of my favorite things is because this is actually something we need to talk about, because I think you guys talk about this, like, how the important of the support that you get from your families. I know, Ravi, your dad's your hero. You're the supporter of your wife. You know, Shane, the story you fucking told in an earlier episode about, like, the sacrifices that your parents made. You wouldn't have been in the NBA, like, without the sacrifices that they made. I'm getting goosebumps right now. It's like, those are what I think is going to make your podcast, your guys podcast so powerful is like these personal anecdotes based on this very unique. How many fucking people living, you know, was a quarter? Like, they just don't have the experience of the life experiences you guys have. And then for you to explain how this came to be, I think is like, really important, but something that's not talked about enough. And this is what I realized. Be reading all these biographies is like, for entrepreneurs, you either need a supportive spouse or no spouse. Right? The role of a supportive spouse. Like, I have a very supportive spouse. You know, like, my wife believes in me more than anybody else. And this is not Unique to me. And she, you know her abilities. Like, I trust your judgment. I know you're like this. Anyways, I'm on. I'm along for the rise. Like you change. But Izzy Sharp's wife said something is very fascinating and it talks about how the pain he was in. And she goes, I had the pleasure of watching his mind work in bed before, in the middle of the night. I sometimes find him with his arms crossed behind his head, gazing up at the ceiling and weighing possibilities. Early on, he made some audacious statements that sounded like pipe dreams. He once told me that his aim was to make Four Seasons a worldwide brand synonymous with luxury. Like low. Like Rolls Royce. Sure. I thought with only about 10 hotels, which is what he only had at that time. Hardly likely. But I didn't let on. My most valuable contribution to his success has been my silence. The for an entrepreneur, the outside world's gonna doubt you. Most likely they're not even gonna doubt you're gonna be completely indifferent to you. Right. But like the investors are gonna be skeptical of your plan. Customers are gonna be successful of your plan. Employees are gonna be stuffed over your plan. Maybe even co founders, friends acceptable of your fucking plan. Your spouse can't be. And so what she just said, she's like, I believe in you, I love you. And so you coming home and just like, this isn't gonna fucking work out. Like, your idea is stupid. Like, that's not helpful and that is overlooked. That's a Glue guy esque fucking idea. It was just like, she's a cool guy. Yeah. She's like, I'm. I'm going to sacrifice this because I want to help you win, dude.

David, one thing that I'll tell you on the personal anecdote side, I just, I had never thought about this until you just said it. All of us are surrounded by glue guys in our lives personally. All like if you look at it like the stories that Alex tells on the. What is the kindest thing anyone's ever done for you? He told a story about his wife. Right. And he told a story. And then, you know, Shane, same thing, always talking about Heidi, but then the story about his parents, what they did for them. Avni, Mike, you know, my parents, my kids, these. I am fucking surrounded by people that want me to win in whatever I'm doing and will do anything to help me win with no credit to them whatsoever. Right. Like surrounded, surrounded by these people.

Yeah. It's. It's overlooked and I think should be commented on a lot more.

We're gonna have to do a spouse episode with, you know.

Oh God.

Honestly, that's.

I love.

That's smart on.

Yeah, dude, that one should be in person. And right now you and Shane are splitting the bill. I'm just letting you know from the fines. Like, I'm definitely not participating in the bill for that one.

They. They should host it and let. We should let them just. Just talk about how smart we think we are. And actually they are the reason why we are where we are. That's good copy. That's good copy.

I want to talk about real quick too. Is there anything that you guys learned from like your sports career that you applied like to your family?

Hell yeah. Absolutely. You know, I battle with. This is me personally, like my, my kids play sports. My oldest especially like wants to play football. I, I really battle with. I mean his dad was a. I. I played professional football. Right. Like, I never grew up with that. I grew up with a freedom of, of any kind of expectations. Like I, you know, like, and, and I love that. Like I look back on and we've talked about this like my entire life before I got drafted, I was just so free playing sports. Like there were no expectations for me. And it was amazing to do that. And I didn't specialize in one freaking sport, which all these batshit crazy parents do now. And like I played a bunch of sports, different season came on, I played different sport. Like there was so much freedom in that. And I know how life changed with me when expectations were put on me, like, and I did a lot of it myself. But like again that come with that. And so I'm so conscious as a parent to not do that. Right. And that his hit. Like my kids upbringings is different, right? Like their dad played pro football. Like that was freaking insane. You know, how lucky I was and how many breaks I got to be able to achieve what I did, like, that's not really attainable. But he, you know, he grows up with that potentially. And so how can I combat that as a parent? How do I try to.

But you're not pushing him in that direction.

No, hell no. I'm trying to offset it. That's my point. Like, I'm trying to. I want to get him like be free, Go play sports. Go do what you don't. You don't have to play football. Like, I don't want that weight or pressure at all out there. Constantly fight that. Yes, absolutely.

I learned a lot when I retired. That's why I asked a question about sort of the first, third Second, third, Third, third. Your life, it was really hard for me. I really, really struggled. And luckily, I have an awesome wife who said, shane, I know you like choices. I'm gonna give you three choices. Here's the number to the Marriott. Here's the number to this. Your attorney. Here's the number to this life coach that comes very highly recommended. And I said, heidi, I'll choose door three. And what I learned that I took from my playing days is like, look, it was. It was. It was very easy to be relentless and burn the shifts when it came to my career and just being relentless and uncompromising about my work, about my sleep, about my. My meals, about my nap time. I may have. I had everyone trained around my schedule, right? And what I didn't do a good. A good job of was I did not support the glue people around me the way I probably should have. And I took them for granted, and they gave everything for me to be the best athlete I could be. And, like, I gave everything I could to be a championship team. So I. I probably gave more time and energy to my teammates than I did my own family, right? And so in. In the afterworld, you know, the importance of being just super intentional with my time, my energy, like I was with my teammates and my coaches, to my friends and family now, because when I first got out, I didn't feel like I had that relationship. And that was my. That was my biggest mistake in my entire playing career. And so something I remind myself of often to be very intentional. Fostering relationships, strengthening relationships, and whether it's a call, text, an email, a note, all those things that help me win championships, you know, help me be loved and part of a. Of a team now.

Oh, damn, that's good. That's good. David, this was great. This was. This was awesome. We had such an awesome time, dude. And we, like, appreciate the support. We appreciate the inspiration. You know, you are someone we look up to in this world, and I'm very grateful that you spent time with us, man.

Thank you. Of course, I'm happy to come back anytime. You didn't offer for me to come back, but I'm buying myself.

You have a standing invitation.

Thanks for tuning in to Glue, guys. We're on social media at GlueGuyspodcast and we'll be back next week.