A look inside how we actually run My First Million

Okay, so this was supposed to be private, but we decided to do it in public as any good influencer would do. We said, hey, why do this if we're not going to have the camera on? So I guess the setup here is me and Sam are on camera, but you'll also see Ari and Cassie, doppelgangers. And Cassie's the new— she's the new girl on the team. And she came on and we were supposed to do kind of like a strategy meeting of like, oh, what are we— you're here to help with the podcast. What are we trying to do again? What's the strategy? And we said, why don't we actually just record it and we'll just do it live and see what comes out of this session. So that's what I'm here to do. Sam, did I— Is that what you are expecting here?

Yes. And we all filled out something in advance. You are the only one who did not submit yours already.

Well, okay. Yeah, that's right. I did. But I'm like the, I'm like the co-later. Okay. So I, what I, what I like to do in these situations, and I think anybody should steal this. I stole this from Amazon when we got acquired there. I learned this method, which is you send a little bit of pre-work in advance and it makes the meetings so much more interesting and so much more valuable because there's— some people are fantastic at thinking on the spot and coming up with insightful, accurate, true, honest things on the spot in front of a large group of people. But that's like 1% of people. Most people don't think very well that way. And so if you actually want to get to the right answer, a really good thing to do is to send out some questions or have people write in advance what they're thinking. And then one person's like the gatherer. You gather all the materials together and then you use that to have a good discussion. And so I asked you guys 10 or so questions and there were questions like, what's working really well with the podcast right now? What's not working? What's your biggest pet peeve? What's something we're just stupid for not doing right now? Right? Like just very simple questions. And so I gathered all that and we're not going to use all of it, but I wanted to share some of the most interesting findings. Can I— can we just start with the most interesting findings? The first one is Sam, you had a bit on, um, almost like the virtue of selfishness. You were basically like, I want to do the selfish thing. And with the podcast, because there's one way to look at this, which is it's all about what should we be doing to be more successful? How do we make this external thing work? And you were just like, you said, I want to do the selfish thing and have fun and learn and improve myself. I think others will enjoy that a lot more than us trying to appeal to them in an inauthentic way. And it reminded me of the Rick Rubin quote of the best way to serve your audience is to ignore them completely.

I actually think I was like nervous to even put that on there because I'm like, oh, we're going to do a podcast on this and I'm just going to go tell the audience to eff themselves. I just think that— so originally you started this podcast, then I came on and for the first 3 years, I don't think you and I ever looked at the data and I couldn't even tell you a bunch of the numbers. Frankly, I still don't really look at the numbers, but every once in a while I get drawn and sucked into this thing where I look at the YouTube numbers because those are the most public. And I start thinking in headlines and I start thinking in what can get the highest click-through rates. And then occasionally I suggest we do some of those episodes and we do do some of those episodes. And I notice the night before I get the Sunday Scaries on a Tuesday night because we record on Wednesdays. I notice that I dislike those the most. And then I notice there are so many times like when you will tell me a story or we will have a guest like Graham Weaver, who I think Graham Weaver is popular, so it's maybe not the best example, or Sarah Moore, who you did a podcast with. Where we do these podcasts and I leave with more energy than I came in on. And almost always that happens when it's not data-driven and it's simply what am I curious about? Or if I read a book and I'm like, I'm so excited to tell Sean about this, or Sean goes and does something and he goes and visits Austin and I just want to hear his opinion of who he met and what was cool about it. I am more excited and energized at the end of those than I am the things where I've done based off of a headline that I think will be popular.

Right. That's so true. And I think we should actually set the stage. Well, I forgot to do this. Set the stage on where we're at. So for those who don't know, started this podcast 6 years ago. We're 822 episodes in. I think we've done something like 115 million downloads of the podcast and the entire podcast is based off of a shtick, which is 4 words. It's an empire built on 4 words: "Dude, have you seen this?" And, and that's, that's it. And then it's basically Sam saying that to me, and I'm like, "No, what is it?" And he tells me something that makes me— that kind of gets me excited, blows my mind. And then I try to do the same for them. And it's a, a giving contest where me and you sit here and we try to do that. That's how I see it.

6 years into having a podcast, we are basically a media company. We have never— we have never had a social media person. I didn't even know that we had like social media.

You don't know how many times somebody from HubSpot has asked me like, hey, does anybody have the Twitter login? Hey, can you, can you, can, like, Cassie yesterday was asking, she was like, hey, there's like a LinkedIn page. Yeah. Do you know who made that? I was like, I have no idea. I didn't even know it existed. We've got like an Instagram account that for years nobody had the password to. We had to like request to like reset. Yeah, we're, we're pretty comically, like cartoonishly bad at some of these things.

Hey, so when I was prepping for this meeting, I put all of our MFM numbers, our competitors, our goals into a Claude prompt, and it gave me a 60-day action plan for growing our channels. I want to give it away to you as well. So if you head to the show notes below, drop your email, we'll send you the prompt that you can use to grow your platforms as well.

Sean, what do you want to do? Are there any new initiatives that you want to do this year in the next 12 months? And is there anything that you want to do you don't want to do?

I think most of the things are things I don't want to do. Um, meaning I could come up with a list of like 30 possible things, but I think the real question is like, what are the 1 or 2 things that might actually change things for the better? You know, the one I wrote right now is I think our core product is actually pretty good. I think I, you know, I would like listening to this podcast and that's a good test. I don't know if I would listen to the podcast by default because I might not even know it exists or know what what's in it, you know, what would hook me in to doing it in the first place? And ironically, like, some of the things that would hook me in might be like a bigger name guest that I— oh, I'm curious to hear what this person has to say about this, or, oh, there's an interview with this person, I haven't seen what that person's saying, or the topic they say is going to be interesting. But that isn't exactly what the main podcast is, or it doesn't give me like a feel for what— the next episode might be totally different than what that one was, for example. It seems like the main way that podcasts work today is you have the loyal listeners and then you have the samplers. And the samplers are basically clips that you put in places where people already are that give somebody a bite-sized taste of what the real podcast is like. So for example, I love this podcast Basement Yard. I've never even listened to a full episode of it, but I've watched probably 200 clips. And if you tell me, what do you think about that podcast? Oh my God, I love those guys. That podcast is amazing. Never even listened to it, right? But I've listened to so many clips that I feel like I know those guys. I feel like I know the show. And every one of the clips gives me the same feeling, most importantly, right? Like, it's not like one is a really deep intellectual thing and the other one's funny. No, every clip is hilarious. I think those guys are hilarious. They seem super likable. Those guys are awesome. And that show is funny. If I ever wanted a funny show, like, that's where I would go. And so I don't think we're doing a good job of giving out the samples of what's in MFM to give people that frame breaker, give people that, that, that inspiration, or give people that story or the banter or whatever in a good enough way where people already are. So on, on, I think a lot of our community is on X, for example, and, and, and they can do amazing things. Like I was on Chris Burrus'—

Okay, but what do you want? Do you want 10 or 20 clips a day? Which is fine. That, that sounds like a combative—

I don't think that's, that's probably too high. Let's take a normal episode in an hour. The challenge would be how do you take 3 to 4 moments from that podcast that are like MFM in a shot version and give that to people and architect those clips in a way that, that you, we, me and you would want to share because, oh yeah, that was, that was a great bit that we talked about. It's edited tightly enough where people would understand what it is right away and they would be hooked and they would get the payoff. And if we do that and we share it where people already are consistently, I think that's the number one thing that we don't do a good job of. That seems to be the smart thing that every other podcaster does. Like, I was on Chris Williamson's podcast. We did an episode. I thought the episode was fine. Like, good. You know, if you looked at his YouTube channel, it wasn't like a 10x outlier. It was probably on the lower side of his normal episodes. But for 3 weeks, his team has just been clipping from that episode. Little stories, little nuggets. From that episode. He put one up on, on X, and Elon replied to the some story I told on there. That same thing could have happened maybe 20 times from MFM, and it doesn't happen. And you just don't— it's like the dog's not barking. We don't know what we're missing because it's not obvious. It's invisible to us.

Okay, that sounds good. That's a great idea.

Awesome clips posted on social media where people already are. Instagram. Yep. Uh, TikTok and an X. And LinkedIn, sure.

Is this the My First Million first?

The fire alarm going off?

Wow, he was pretty quick to act there. The dad instincts kicked in. How do we go viral? What if Sam's apartment catches fire during the episode?

I think we should make this more meeting-like.

What do you think, Sean?

You're saying it's boring as an episode, or what are you saying?

You're so different in strategy meetings.

I'm being different now?

You're being— you're being podcast Sean.

I wasn't aware of that, but you're probably right. What's the main difference?

You're more, um, you're not harsher, but you're just more like blunt.

And do more—

wait, hang on, hang on.

This is— you're more of a dick.

Leave this in too. Okay.

Um, Yeah, just make it more how we talk when we're talking.

And make it a bit fun. All right, can you do an impression of how I am off, off podcast when we're doing strategy, like whenever we're talking about what we should do or not do?

All right, what's not working?

Why are we doing this? This is stupid.

Dude, someone, someone, uh, Sean doesn't suck.

Yeah, we're doing 3 things. Like, why are we doing that?

Yeah.

Sean chastised someone on the team and he gave his answer. He goes, that's a stupid answer. Give a better answer.

Okay.

But his, his last point is good. Basically, we do need more clips. We need them to be on X and we need to be on Instagram. You know, it's one of the things that we grew most from was when we made this bounty where we just said we're going to give $5,000 to the person who clips the most that we like. And we got 20 million impressions in one month, the first month, which interestingly, there's all these like things called clipper armies now.

Yeah, that was like doing that.

That was like one of the first examples of doing that. We didn't even know what we were doing and it was incredibly successful.

We stumbled ass-backwards into that where we were just like, hey, what if we— honestly, by the way, the reason we did that, we didn't trust ourselves to be doing a good job of this. It's like, I don't think our own team is going to do a good job of this. How about the crowd? Anybody who does this will give you a prize. And two very interesting things happened. First, it was awesome. We got so much spread from it. The second, the guy who had the most viral clips, ended up creating a company doing short-form content, sold it to Morning Brew, and like, you know, had a sort of successful business come out of the whole thing. And then, by the way, in hilarious news, we then immediately stopped doing what was working, forgot about it, and haven't talked about it since, since then. Yeah.

So my opinion is we should, A, on our internal team, we should post way more on all platforms, and B, we should do another one of those things. And we can either do the exact same thing or we could just pay a CPM. So for example, if you have a video that gets 100,000 views, you get— I don't know what the going rates are, but I think it's cheap. I think it's like $1 per 1,000 views, something like that. But basically it's like, all right, you got it, you got 100,000 views, you get a grand, or I can't do the math, but you guys understand what I'm saying.

So Ari told me that I should be more blunt and direct as I am in not this podcast format. So I'll do that. Cassie, welcome to the team. You have lots of good ideas. About community and this and that. Here's what we want to do in the next 90 days. I need you to raise a Clipper Army, get this shit going, and we should, you know, you have 24 hours to basically set a target that makes sense. Like you pick, you pick your goal. But what we fundamentally are trying to do is copy a working playbook that, you know, has worked for everyone from Andrew Tate to, you know, whoever else, you know, on the, on the clipping side. And we want to use money to incentivize these like 16 to 22-year-old kids who are just awesome at editing and making clips to post clips about our stuff on social, not on our own brand account necessarily. We'll take the best and we'll put it there, but we want to, um, set a very aggressive stretch goal and aggressively raise this army of clippers. And we'll do that for 90 days and then we'll check in and at the end of the 90 days and decide whether we continue or not. But you could be basically stupidly aggressive for 90 days so we get a clear answer. Versus tiptoeing into it. And then we won't really know in 90 days 'cause oh, we're, we just, we're just getting started. We haven't really found out yet. Like go, go all out, spend more money than you think you need. Um, be a little bit looser with the controls about it and go, you know, go for more scale. Uh, and let's see what happens.

Okay. So in my opinion, let's make a list of only like one or two things.

Big Rock One. Clipper Army.

Um, uh, okay. Let me, let me give you a couple. Um, one thing that I don't know 100%, Sean, if I want to do it, but we should consider it. We've been talking about events for forever. I think I would be open to like a 2 or 3 venue tour. I would want it to make— I would have to figure out if family can come or not and if we can make that happen. But I would be open. But the shtick that we have needs to be easy because— and I don't mean easy like in a lazy way, but easy where we could kick ass at it because performing in front of 2,000 people like we have before, it's kind of hard to make it entertaining. And I've been to a lot of live podcast tapings with a lot of people. Almost all of them suck. And so we would have to like really hone in on a format. So I would say I would be open to an event, but let me give you a few more ideas.

Wait, hang on. Before we do that, let's stick to events. Like, what would Sean— what would you do if you could— if it was worth driving an hour for, what would you do?

I think here's what— here's my interest in an event. I don't want to do an event for money. I don't want to do an event for the ego hit. I got that.

You know, just for the record, you would like to get paid for it.

Sure, sure. Making money is fine, but that wouldn't be the motivation to do it. Same thing with like, it's awesome to walk into like a theater or an arena or whatever the thing is and be like, wow, all these people are here for us. This is awesome. And like, there's a line of people trying to take selfies and like showing my wife like, look, it's real. Like, this is a thing. And like, yeah, like, you know, my kids, do you— is this— am I cool to you yet? And they're like, no, can we go? So that wouldn't be the main motivation. My only motivation with an event is I want to know who the top 1% of MFM listeners are. And this is an extremely selfish request, which is over time, actually not through me, but through my business partner Ben Levy. People go to Ben and they're just like, dude, I love MFM. And so he'll be like, oh, you know, the founder of that really cool thing we eat, that place we go, that product we use. Yeah, he loves MFM. And then I get to meet him in Texas. I'm like, I'm like, it's insane that we don't know who the most interesting listeners are. That's who I want to do the event with and for. And just purely out of selfishness, because I want to meet them. And also it'd be cool, I think, if they met each other. And I think that would just be the fun version of doing an event that I'm most interested in. So if we could figure out what I call the MFM 1% event, that's what I want to do.

Okay, got it. So 1% means like a 1%er in that most interesting. So that means curated. Curated. That means, okay, so you're thinking like 100 or hundreds or dozens.

100, 150 curated people and let's make it an awesome retreat, hangout, whatever. Let's invite some friends of the pod who are guests. Like, let's get Andrew and Steph Smith. Let's get other people that they, they would also want to meet. But again, like, if you, if you curate it, to me, that's a room I want to be in because I know I would have a fun time. I would go meet I could in one day meet a bunch of awesome people who are like-minded, who are fans of the show. That would be the no stress versus get on stage, like travel somewhere already bad, get on stage, have to perform like some live show for what? You know, I'm not sure what I— what do I want out of that? I don't really want anything out of that. Here's another version that I find interesting. So I like always brainstorming, like, what's the opposite? So what's the opposite of the live tour, the big show? And my brain went to Tiny Desk. So, you know, like the NPR Tiny Desk series that they created on YouTube, like the vibe is immaculate. It's cool because it's kind of small and intimate rather than mega, mega. And you get to see the artist cook. And so I've actually would be curious, like if we did our version of Tiny Desk. So, so you've seen like Hormozy does a lot of these where he's, he's doing his like workshops and somebody stands up and says, I have this problem, I'm this guy, you know, here's my business, here's what I do, blah, blah, blah. And he's supposed to give them the right answer as the kind of guru on the stage. And it's, it's good, but it's very like a bit sterile, right? Like the vibe of it is like we're in a cold conference room and, you know, we're here for, for some, some tactics. Whereas TinyDesk has like a different aura to it, a different vibe to it. And so I would— if we had a cool venue that was like almost like compact and we had 20 people who are, you know, entrepreneurs, wantrepreneurs, whatever, people who listen to the podcast who are entrepreneurial, and then we just kind of spit spitball with them. Like, I think both me and you are pretty good at doing this with people. Like, I've done this at a couple of events where I got paid to go do this talk and I threw, I just on the drive there, I just threw out my deck and I was like, you know what I'm gonna do? I'm just gonna stand up and be like, who's got a business? You're here for, you're here to get better and improve your business, but you want some value out of this. Tell me what you're doing. Tell me your biggest problem. Let me try to help you right here on the spot. And I did that with like 20 people and I felt like a magician because you get to do a magic trick of like, They're stuck and you get them unstuck.

Which talk are you referring to? The Mercury one?

The Mercury one. Yeah.

Because I watched it. That was good. Okay.

So me and you doing that together, I think would be pretty fire.

Yeah, I agree. That could be cool. We could have like a cool set.

We do one in New York, we do one in San Francisco, we do one in wherever else, and we take our family, we hang, and, you know, it's, it's like a curated event. But that becomes the trick is the live event is an experience, but really it's the content you create off that, meaning like you shit like what Hormozy is doing is pretty smart, right? Like he chops that up into 1,000 question and answer clips where somebody has a problem and then he helps them solve it and then they're like, wow, thank you so much. Like, oh my God, yeah, you're right. That becomes like good clip content. And so I think for us we could do that and I think it would be very—

interested—

pretty easy for us to do. Much easier than like going on stage and like performing comedy or essentially like live entertainment.

I'm more interested in that than like hanging out with really successful people. Like, for some reason, I don't love like hanging out with like, like ballers in these type of settings because, A, I don't feel like Googling everyone in advance to see if they're on the Epstein list. But also it just feels like a— it just feels like a pissing match. And I just like being with like the nobodies. But yeah, I'm interested in that.

Okay. Bernie Sanders of business over here. I'm like, who's the guy? Mitt Romney, who was like, I don't like poor people. Okay, so maybe we do different events. You do the everybody event in venue A, and I'll be with all the cool, successful people in venue B. It'd be great. It's something for everyone.

Something I want to do less of. A few things I want to do less of. Do you like doing solo episodes? I hate doing solo episodes. I hate recording too and like looking at a bare screen. Do you?

I don't mind it. Sometimes I like to teach if I have something, but, um, well, there's two types of solo. One is solo just talking to the camera. The other is like when there's a guest in New York and it makes sense for you to hang out with them in person and do the in-person pod and I'm not there or vice versa.

I do not like those either. I find those to be way less fun because I'm like, oh, okay, this feels a little bit like work. But when we do them together, it feels more fun. It feels way more fun because it feels like— because it's sort of like whenever you're around brothers and they egg each other on. I love the egg each other on mentality. I don't love solo interviews, or occasionally if it's someone who I know that you don't like or you don't care about their topic, but it's super interesting to me. I'm like, all right, I would like the solo time just to go really deep on this one thing. But in general, I prefer duo versus solo. For both interviews and talking about stuff.

Me too. The only caveat would be there is something cool about in-person. You pick up so much more than just doing a remote podcast where they pop on, they pop off at the end of the hour, and there's not a lot in between. So I think hanging out in person is pretty cool. And I think the production value I do like, I, I prefer to watch podcasts that are like that when people are together versus when they're doing a Zoom And then lastly, like sometimes, you know, I like you, you were pretty sacred about like what times you were going to record. Whereas I'm like, you know, Ari, if you ask me like, hey, this person wants to record on the moon at 2 AM, I'm like, yeah, that's cool. Like, right. Like, have I ever said no? I'm basically like, yeah, sure. What does it matter to me if it's 9 AM or 9 PM? Like, I don't really care. Whereas I think Sam, for you, you're like, that throws my whole day off. I have a more structured day. So I think that's the only other times where we, where we do solo is where you can't make it.

What do you guys feel about newsletter? I know. Sean, you, you both Sean and Sam have experience in this realm, but curious what your thoughts are on a branded newsletter too.

There has to be some type of way. Yes. Interesting. There has to be some type of way where it never becomes— where it doesn't become a liability and it only becomes an asset, or at least is a liability a small amount of times. Because the problem with— because neither of us have time to write it. The problem with saying yes to that is that you're going to say something dumb. You're going to say something, it doesn't fit our taste, or it's just going to be factually incorrect. And if one of those three things happens and it hurts our reputation, to me, I go, never do it again. And so as long as we could de-risk it, which it will never be 100%, but as long as there's some type of trust there, it is interesting. But that's a huge thing to solve for, right?

Yeah. Well, what, what to you guys would be interesting to like, what would you read or what newsletters do you currently read that you're like, hey, this is something we'd want to pull from or at least get inspired by.

Takeaways from our episodes. Like, I want that.

Yeah, exactly.

Just like, I don't want to watch, listen to everything. Like, there's so many episodes that we have done where I'm like, I need a reminder of that. We have 850. Just pull out like cool learnings.

Yeah, I think basically if it's here's what we just did, here's who's coming up, and of the just did, you know, here's like the 3 or 4 most interesting stories just in plain speak. Like, oh, you know, he shared the numbers of how fast they grew. It turns out year 1 was this, year 2 was this, year 3 was this. No gatekeeping. Like, just here's the best stuff. If you don't have time, like, great, here's this, here's a quick summary. But like, that would make me want to go listen or watch an episode. And then if I knew, oh, Thursday they have this person coming on, that's cool. And then if there was like a little, just kind of bullet point section where we can be like, oh yeah, like, check this out, Sam, uh, went viral for this. We're doing this thing. Uh, check out this product we bought. Like, you know, whatever. I'm, I'm cool with like a little bit of extra so it's not purely an AI summary. Of like the episode. I think that would be great. And I would be happy to like do the work on this and not write it myself. But like Diego, who's my head of content, was my lead writer for Milk Road. So like, you know, I basically trained him how to write my style. He did it for 2 years for Milk Road and was excellent. You know, he's really, really good at this. That's a lift that like I think I could have Diego take on that would be worth it if we could drive enough people to it. I think right now there's this conflict, which is We tell people, hey, go to HubSpot to go get this like offer. So then that's where they would go. So this would need to become the main place we're directing people to. And I think, by the way, like way more people would subscribe because they would know like, oh, I'm just going to be getting value from this all the time. That's, that's great. Idea that again, don't know if we want to do. Um, have you guys seen, or Sam, do you remember when they were doing those like river community meetup type things?

Yes.

So like, that was kind of cool for a little bit. People were going, and the reason I say it was cool is because when I met people who liked the podcast, they told me like, oh, I'm part of the MFM Denver meetup. I'm like, what? And they're like, yeah, we meet up once a month and it's like 9 of us and whatever, 19 of us, whatever the number is. It's not like a huge group, but they all got to know each other and like we were the common like glue or bond. Well, that platform has pivoted to becoming like a supper club, like a dinner club. And so it's like a decentralized way to just have like fans of the show opt in to going and getting dinner with like 6 other people who also like the show. And, you know, this selfishly does nothing for us in terms of like, I'm not, you know, there's no growth hack, it's not money, it's not any of those things. We're not even going to be there. It's kind of the, the Barbell approach, right? There's some things that I want to get I want to do things that reach everybody. And it's like, what are the things that would just change somebody's life? Because they would meet a co-founder, they would make a great connection, or they would find like friends in their city that they don't otherwise have that are like the unique level of business dork that they are. And so I don't know if we should do this. There's like a lot of liability of like, we're, we're not in our heads. We're like, oh, this is just, you opt in and you, it's not our experience. But I think fundamentally they'll attribute the experience to us. That's the downside. But the upside would be, I think this would be really cool for people to meet other awesome people in their city, and that would be good karma for the world. What do you guys think of this?

We can call it just the other 99%, you know? I love this idea, personally.

I think it's pretty cool. I think it's pretty cool. I didn't— I loved it, and then you were like, oh yeah, it is not out of our— it is out of our control, and yet they'll blame us if it sucks. I, I, what I would be on board with is if we just said newsletter, clips, and meetups. If we just did those 3 things for the next 6 months, I'd probably be fine with that.

Yeah, I, I love this idea. It would be cool too. What if you guys like showed up to one every once in a while and surprised? I did the, the dinner groups.

Yeah, I have. I've showed up every once in a while.

It's great content too. I know it's a little different, but the VaynerX team was doing this with GaryVee for a bit where they were doing these branded dinners in different cities and capturing content and just having these really organic conversations. And people loved it.

Dude, what Vayner does is hilarious. One time, Gary Vaynerchuk, his handle, he DM'd me, goes, hey Sam, haven't talked to you in forever, which we are friendly but not like buddies. But he was like, you want to come to dinner with me? And I was like, yeah, that sounds cool. And I show up and there's like 50 other people there and I was like, where's Gary? And they're like, oh, well, he doesn't actually come to these. It's just me, Nick. I host them on his behalf.

Oh my God.

I was like, really? So that's pretty funny.

But yeah, well, we won't do that.

We won't do that.

Yeah, that sounds cool. Basically. And the last thing I think that we should focus on guest-wise, Sean, is I think that we should— I think we don't aim high enough. I think that our guests should probably be super mega popular people and we get them to talk about new stuff that they've not talked about, like ideas or someone no one knows. So like my mother-in-law, like Sarah Moore, like a bunch of different people. But it should be almost a little barbelly where we should— because I don't think we've done a good job of going after the 1 out of 10, like popular person. And I don't like having those people just because they're popular, but I do like having them and if they talk about something new. And then also I loved, I've loved having someone who I like, this was a nobody and they were the most insightful person we've, I've ever talked to.

So is the thing you're saying we should aim higher or are you saying, hey, we do a lot of these ones in the middle and let's stop doing those. Is that what you're saying? Like, are you just saying, hey, let's invest more on the ends or are you saying let's avoid the middle?

I'm mostly saying the first thing that you just said.

Yeah, another one of those memorable episodes was when Sean brought his former— I think he's your former chief of staff.

Who, Sean?

Yeah, when he was like 22.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And that felt like, yeah, it was like, uh, totally unique. Like no other podcast was going to have him on.

It's like Theo Von bringing on like the Amish kid.

Yeah, yeah, the Amish kid was my favorite episode. I love the Amish kid. So I would like to go a little bit higher and lower, you know, like I think I take a lot of pride that I am like this and our podcast is like this where I enjoy hanging out with the, with, you know, world leaders and movers and shakers. And also I enjoy equally enjoy hanging out with someone who has done something not impressive at all, but is very insightful and has some wisdom that I want to learn from. And interesting related to that, what I have noticed, I have found I've get the most joy out of is when we have old people. I don't know a better way to say that, but I love having old people on. I'm talking like 70-year-plus. I have loved learning from those types of people.

I like it. We've done so many different episode types. Is there one type we should be doing a lot more of? Is there one type we should be doing less of? Is there a new type you're itching to do? Like, does anyone have ideas on content types that we want to double down abandon or try.

For some reason, I'm— I think I'm a— I think I'm a much softer person than you. And I like— I, I enjoy some sometimes less hard-hitting stuff. But let's just say we talked about like raising children or like finding your passion or finding happiness, which is like Arthur Brooks or parenting, which I don't think we've ever talked about here. Does that stuff interest you, Sean, on learning those things?

For sure.

For sure. I think we should do more of those because when we had Graham Weaver on.

We do pretty much none of that, right?

We do. Well, we only do it when it's inadvertent. But Graham Weaver was a good example of that, where to me, he's an inspirational guy who has all these cool ways to live a wonderful life. And it just so happens to be that he was really successful at business. But I think that we could for sure have some of these. I don't know what else to describe it, but like, I have listened to Arthur Brooks. You know who that is?

Yeah.

Like, I would love to talk to people like that. But also there's like a variety of people in that category. Some of them are totally unknown. But like they've done some cool research paper or some like data-driven way to like raise better children or be happier or find your passion or die thinking I lived a full life and I'm happy. Like things like that.

Right. Okay. Down for that for sure.

A format I love is you guys are constantly consuming interesting things. Sean, not so much books for you, but we're working.

We're working on that. Hey, hey, hey.

And then you're—

Turned a new leaf.

You're also everywhere.

Yeah, but you haven't turned over your pages.

He just debunked.

And you're professional explainers. And it's like, basically, like, if my best friend can explain, like, this book he or she has read in, like, 20 minutes, like, that's way more— that's just a much more fun way of getting the information.

Sam, I wanted to hear what you thought about this because you read a lot. You read a lot more than me. You read different stuff than me, so I don't know exactly how this works. I'm not trying to create a book club, but I do want to find excuses where the reading I'm doing coincides with my MFM prep, right? Like two for one. And so is there a format where we could both like either— whether we read the same book and we break it down, or we each bring a book and like I tell you what you would get out of it. Like I basically tell you what's in it, you tell me what's in this, and we kind of like rate it ourselves. And so we know which books to skip, which books to definitely go go check out. Are you interested in that?

Yeah, I think it should be quarterly. So like the things that shaped my quarter, like I'm reading over, like I'm reading this Maverick. I almost am finished with this. It's about a Brazilian business guy who like runs his business via democracy, which is strange.

Didn't hook me right away. Did that one hook you?

No, but because I've only—

But it's highly recommended. So I just, it's in that weird category of like, it's probably good, but I don't like it.

I'm still judging my opinion on it. I just finished Barack Obama's biography. The biggest takeaway is that he seems like a nice guy, but total psychopath, just like every other president. He was like, really telling— he was telling Michelle like, hey, I'm going to run for president. And she was like, honey, please don't do this. We're happy. I don't want this. And he goes, you're going to not only go along with it, but I'm putting you on stage and you're going to start traveling and you're going to campaign for me. And she was like, please don't do this. And he goes, look, Michelle. And then he turns it on. And he goes, for every young brown kid out there, I could be the beacon of hope. I can let them know that they can do anything they set their mind to. And she was like, you fucking fine. That was my big takeaway, that story. That was my favorite part from this book. And then I'm reading An Informal Guide to Workwear, which is a style of clothing. So long story short, I love reading lots of books and I could for sure come with stories once a quarter on books that I— and like what the big stories and takeaways are that I've learned.

Patrick O'Shaughnessy does this great thing at the end of every episode where you ask them, what's the kindest thing anyone's ever done to you? And it's like this softening question for every successful person where they give a—

I love that question—

heartfelt story. Like, either we steal that exact question or we come up with our version of those questions. I think one, like, tradition or ritual question would be great and like such a small thing but would add to what we do. Diary of a CEO, he did a similar thing where at the end of every episode he would have the guest write a question for the next guest, and then he would tell them, hey, we have a guest, you know, Barack Obama was here last week and he wrote this question for you. And it's just like this cool mechanic. So I think one ritualistic question would be awesome. So like Ari, I don't know if you have ideas, but like, I kind of want to like put that in your court and I feel like you might help us come up with something there. The other one I was thinking about, like acquired but for everyman businesses. So I get really into studying the backstories of random products that I see, right? Little businesses. So it's like, you know, that sauce, Bitchin' Sauce, that's like in Whole Foods. It's like a, whatever, it's just some sauce brand called Bitchin' Sauce. It's like, you know, there's gotta be a story behind some sauce called Bitchin' Sauce that ended up on the shelf of a Whole Foods in the last 5 years. Part of me is like, would it be interesting if we picked these like businesses that are in, everybody knows them, but you don't know the story of them. You don't know how they really took off. And we, we already do this during episodes where it's like, oh dude, I— do you know the real story behind like the Stanley mug? It used to be for construction workers and then like it died pretty much. And then these moms in Utah picked it up and it was all about like moms staying hydrated and it became this status symbol and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And like the guy who used to run Crocs now runs Stanley and he's using the Crocs playbook there, right? Like there's like interesting stuff there. And so I wonder if we did a like kind of the Acquired thing where we both pick a business to nerd out on. It's just that one business. It's kind of like How I Built This, but it's just Sam and John riffing on what we thought was cool from the story for recognizable everyday businesses that we think have cool backstories.

That sounds great. I just think that we do that.

I don't think we do it in a way that would be a standalone package.

So what would the standalone pack—

uh, I guess the package would be like the title and thumbnail basically make you a promise that like you're going to learn this. And then we both have studied it enough versus today, typically one of us knows a lot more about it than the other, which is okay. It's okay to do that. But like, uh, and then we start the episode and we end the episode and we've delivered on that promise that like, you're going to hear about this thing and we're going to tell you the story, the ups, the downs, the, how they, how they, how they made it happen. Um, the coolest stuff from this brand.

Okay. Yeah, I think that's great. I just, I don't know how to make it. Actionable, but that sounds awesome. Like, what do you want to do for that?

I think maybe for now we just put our, put it on our radar so that the next time you or I think of a business like that, or we see one, or we start to hear the backstory of it, we say, hey, hey, let's try that thing. And then we like use the, the authentic, uh, interest in that thing that like in the moment before it perishes. And we decide to like try this like a focused episode on that one thing.

And it's like, what can we call it? So we, so we like What can we reference this?

So CNBC does this thing on YouTube that's called like Make It. It's like their Make It series.

I love it, dude. I love it.

And they do an amazing job of these, right? So like, they're— they'll do one on like, what's a, what's a popular one they did? Like they did one on the Yeezys and it's like the story of how Kanye built Yeezy, right? And it's like, all right, so that's like Yeezy. I'm, you know, maybe I see somebody wearing the slides. I'm like, what the hell was the actual story? And by the way, I think I actually recently heard there's a very interesting story about this. There was a guy who built, who built or bought the factory first and had this game plan and then went to Kanye and then like, you know, figured it out from there. I don't know the full story, but like, sounds like there was something interesting there that it didn't start from Kanye. It actually started from some guy who bought a shoe factory. Yeah. So, okay. Well, I don't know, maybe we, so we, maybe we can as code name for ourselves, call it these like, make it like a Make It style episode.

Do you want to do, do you like when we do screen shares?

Yes, in theory. Like, I love to see when somebody pops up on a screen share. It's sort of exciting, like somebody took their shirt off or something.

I want to do more artifact episodes or something like that where they like share their screen. It could be— this would only work if the person was particularly interesting, but it could be like if we're talking about someone's day, it's like, show me your calendar right now. Or if we're talking about a question that you ask or you asked once and I stole it. Is how do you invest your money of like, show me, let's do a pie chart right now.

We should do that with guests before in the pre-prep. We should have them send us a screenshot of their calendar. Maybe they're like home screen of their phone, like what apps they have on their phone.

Yes.

Yes. And like maybe—

or what Chrome plugins they use. Like, for example, no, I'm being serious. I love looking at people's Chrome plugins or I love looking like, is their desktop clean or dirty? And like, how do they organize it?

Right?

Like, I love, like, they can just like, tell me how you organize your workflows. It could be from Chrome plugins to the website that you, that, that, that you use on a regular basis. I love that stuff because I'm just looking for— I hate using this word, but every bit of alpha. So it's like, oh, you use this, like you, Sean, use a Chrome plugin or used to where it reminds you of your goals. And I'm like, show me that.

Yeah, I like it. I also just think even if it's not like alpha, it's just like takes them out of whatever routine they were in. And we get— we're going to find something personal that nobody's ever asked them about or said, you know, something that's idiosyncratic to them, right? Like how they, how they roll. You know, if you— if I see somebody's desk, I learn a lot, you know what I mean? Like, I remember sitting in Mohnish's house and I'm doing the episode with him, and on his desk he's got this name, this like this sign that says, trouble is opportunity. And it's like, wow, there's got to be a story behind that. That didn't just land there by default. That's a philosophy. That's a story that's important to you. If you look at Warren Buffett's desk, he has a box called the too hard pile. It's like, what's that one? What is the too hard pile? And then, you know, you wouldn't otherwise know those things. I think if we can get like, whether it's their calendar or their desk or their iPhone home screen, something like that, I think will unlock a different angle with guests than anybody else is doing.

And then the last thing that I want to bring up there we have— this has only happened a handful of times, but one thing that we have to try to do, and I think Ari, this is going to fall on you, is making sure— so whenever we have someone on who has a checkered past, for example, Martin Shkreli, I do feel a sense of responsibility that we have to ask him about his behavior. And with him it was okay, but there's been times where I didn't know someone had a checkered past and I'm like, uh, I don't feel like becoming a show that confronts people. I don't want that energy right now. But it's like, I both— I feel if we have that person on, I'm like, oh, I have— we have to mention it. And also, I don't want to.

Yeah, there's a responsibility. And then also, this is not what I want to be doing.

So you want me to pop in in the recording and confront them?

What were you asking Ari there? What was the request to Ari?

Oh, like somehow you have to like just make sure that there's nothing like crazy. That you are aware. That we, that we are aware. Like, for example, we had the guy who dealt in with, um, uh, the guy in Italy, Thomas, and his story was amazing. And then out of nowhere, we found out that he was— got in trouble for fraud.

And I'm like, you looked up the headline like mid-recording and you were just like, it's not good.

Oh, I was like, uh, I have to call this out.

I don't want to. I don't want to. We were getting along so well, but you have to, you have to say something. And I just want to minimize that amount or it has to be worth it. Where, like, I think Martin Shkreli is worth it. I think he's an interesting person and he's done stuff I don't like. And we will say you have done stuff we don't like and also you're interesting. So it just has to be worth it.

Yeah, because I don't think the answer is we don't have anyone on who has—

No, that's not what I'm saying.

Liability.

It's just like you have to mention it or ask about it and we have to make sure that that is the— it's worth it. Yeah.

I just don't know what the solution you're suggesting really is. Like, what do you want to change? Is there a change you want or you just want us to know how you feel? Because that's also okay.

Well, a little bit is, yeah, I'm covering my ass. No, it's mostly just like Ari, just like in the way, in the same way that Ari protects us. Like, for example, she'll be like, hey, you said something here and that came off really bad. You like, like one time I made fun of Simone Biles or something and she was like, that joke didn't land.

Like when you said John Morgan was smoking weed, which I don't think he said.

He did. He did. Yeah, he did say that. I'm going to double check that.

He did say it.

By the way, it's really funny.

Of the time, or he's like, hey, yeah, that part, we should take that out, right? And Sam's like, what? No, that was awesome.

Leave it in.

You almost never strike it. And I'm like, dude, are you sure? That was fine. That was funny.

I guess, I don't know, just like keep an eye out is all I'm saying. I don't think I have anything else to say, but basically like Sean, the takeaway for me is like newsletters, cool. I'm on board. Clips, on board. Meetups, on board. And talking about like happiness and parenting and some of that other stuff we're open to. Yeah.

So I think if we were going to say what are the 3 we're going to do, here's the rocks I see. Kassie's going to raise a Clipper army. And Kassie, I'm specifically saying this to you as a challenge, which is like you're joining the team, you're here to kick butt. This is the butt we want kicked. And to the extent that we learn how much of a butt kicker you are, will be— you'll be judged on how good you do at doing this one thing. Even if you did 5 other really fantastic, wonderful other things. This is the thing we're asking you to do because we think this is the biggest thing and is it's not easy either to do this. Like, this takes some figuring out. This takes some cleverness. This takes some, like, you know, you're going to have to, I don't know, get in some Discords and, you know, go have some conversations with people to figure out how the hell this all, all this stuff works. So that's the Clipper Army. That's number one. Then in terms of guests, I think Sam, you brought up like, go higher, go unknown, and go into the areas of life that we are, are important to us, but we traditionally haven't done on the podcast, which is sometimes it's kids, like, you know, raising kids. It's happiness. It's like, you know, whatever topics that are about the human condition.

Did I miss anything? Yeah. Like, is there anything, Sean, that you want to add to that?

I think there's probably just going to be some others that come up when they come up. Like, I would say actually investing has fall— investing probably started in that category, right? Like we were talking about business ideas and whatnot. And then like you and I both also want to become smarter as investors. So we started asking questions there. Well, now we're dads. We want to get better at that. And like, not in the boring sort of cliché way, but like, what's the non-obvious stuff that matters? By the way, I also think we should ask our guests who've got kids, like, what's something parenting-wise you do that's pretty, like, atypical or non-traditional that you believe in? For example, a bunch of entrepreneurs I know have told me the same exact thing, which is they take a one-on-one trip with each kid, um, when they become like 6, 7, 8 years old, and that becomes like a sacred, like, core memory with them and that kid. And it's a totally different dynamic because you're always with the full group and the dynamic changes when you go one-on-one. I've heard that like 7 times. Okay, I got to be a dummy at some point not to just go do that. Um, if they all keep saying it, but you know, you wouldn't know otherwise unless you ask that question. Let's pair, let's add a third one, a third, third rock, which is these like guest prep other angles. So we talked about asking them for their, their, their screenshots of their, their, their space, their desk, their computer, whatever. As well as like asking them questions, you know, maybe our version of the, what's the kindest thing anyone has ever done to you? Like a great closer question that we can just do ritualistically and build a tradition off that. I would say for now, we don't also try to add meetups. Like, I think we should do this and like spend 90 days like actually doing these things and then come up for air. And if we've actually done these well, then we've earned the right to go try new, more things.

Awesome.

Uh, no comment. I think yes, I think that was great.

Okay, great. Thanks for agreeing to do that in public, guys. And for people who listen to that, I don't know, hopefully that was interesting for you guys. We thought we would do it in public. Maybe you get to see how the sausage is made a little bit. All right, Sam, send them away.

All right. God bless. That's the pod. Wait, no. What did I say last time?

God bless.

Oh, you are a blessing.

You're a blessing.