Grant Cardone Just Bought A $60M Malibu House... Is He Legit?

And I was reading an article in the New York Times and it was about, um, these Malibu homes and how like the, these crazy rich guys are coming in and buying these homes. And Grant Cardone was one of the features and they didn't feature him as Grant Cardone. They're like, another local buyer is motivational speaker and real estate entrepreneur Grant Cardone. And they, you know, he was just like a guy they were interviewing, not like this internet. And he recently bought a house in Malibu. I think it was for $60 million. And he was like, I'm going to spend another— I forget— tens of millions of dollars renovating it. And that's one of those things that when you see people, what they spend on their personal real estate, you know, I mean, it's, it's hard to fake that. And I'm just thinking, who would have thought that those things that he's selling would make that much wealth? I have a question. When was the last time that you have flown?

I just flew last week. Oh no, sorry, not last week, last month. Hawaii.

Where? Hawaii? How about before that?

Uh, yeah, I don't know, when we went to Austin, Miami, something like that.

So like once a year at this point, or once every 6 months?

Yeah, yeah, I'm not flying a ton right now.

Um, when you flew to Hawaii, did you fly first class or coach?

Yeah, first.

So I, uh, I went to Idaho this weekend with Ben, Podcast Ben, and I spoke at an event, which we have to talk about ConvertKit's new thing. And I don't like to travel. You don't like to travel. Uh, and this was work-related. So like they wanted me to speak at a conference and whenever they want me to speak at a conference, I say, yeah, that's cool. I'll come and speak, but you have to pay for a first-class flight for me and Sarah, my wife. I'm like, that's a fair trade. You don't, don't pay me to come. Cause I like you, but like, I do want you to pay for my flight and it has to be first class. Cause I don't like flying coach. Well, my flights got screwed up for some reason both ways, and I had to fly like middle seat, like back row, because like basically the flight got canceled and they like fit me on these like last ones. And I was flying on this and I started thinking, do you know that stereotype, a story of this like rich billionaire? And they say like, oh yeah, you know, even though he was a billionaire, he still flew coach and like nothing changed. Like, I think the IKEA guy's famous for that. Nothing changed.

And I think that is, uh, Amazon, all their desks were old doors, which I tried to— dude, I did that.

I did that to be cute at our office. It cost more to do that. A door—

is it a door expensive? Like, also, did you— I bought the shittiest door.

It was like, yeah, I bought like the shittiest door and it was like $80. And then we bought cinder blocks and it was like a pain in the ass. I'm like, dude, This thing's on IKEA for $25. This is way better. Also, doors aren't flat.

Doors have like little indents in them.

That's a stupid story. It's like maybe like they had a door while they like folded t-shirts on that door like for a day while they waited for the real supplies to come. Uh, this whole like flying coach as a rich person thing, and I'm not talking about like rich, like, uh, millions or tens of millions. I'm talking like when you hear billionaires or hundreds of millions of dollars people say this. I think that is total nonsense. And I tweeted that. I'm like, this is— that is just a lie. Any rich person that I'm talking, like, real rich, who says they do that, they're lying. And I want to see proof if that's true. And I had a bunch of really, really rich people holler at me and tell me they do it. And so, do you know who Palmer Luckey is? So Palmer Luckey started, uh, he created Oculus, which he sold for— is in the ballpark of billions of dollars. And he has a new company worth tens of billions. So if he's not a billion, he's like He's like right there, basically. He tweeted back.

He's definitely a billionaire. That guy's definitely a billionaire, dude.

He tweeted back to me and he said, I only fly coach. And then I had another— I had— yeah, and I think that's crazy. I had other— some other people DM me, they go— and who I know took companies public, and they're like, I'm worth hundreds of millions and I'll— I fly first class no matter what internationally, but like, I have no problem taking Southwest if it's like a short flight. And I understand that argument if it's like an hour, but if you're going from New York to LA or something, anything above 3 hours, I don't believe it. I think they're lying. I just think they're full of it. I asked Dharmesh on HubSpot. I'm like, do you do this? He goes, no, that, that's a ridiculous thing. Of course I don't do that. And he like had this—

all he could say is, if you're like us at the Buy First Million podcast where we are cultivating that trillionaire mindset, that multi-trillionaire hashtag mindset, hashtag grindset, you have to, even before you have, you have multi-trillions, you better be flying private. You better fly private when you can't afford coach. 'Cause if you can't afford your future, can you afford your present? And that's how I feel.

I just thought it was the most ridiculous thing when I was sitting in this seat. I was just like, my back was sore and it was just terribly uncomfortable and it took forever to get off the flight.

Just the vibe of the peasants that you're sitting next to is awful.

It sucked. And I don't have a problem doing it. I mean, I will do it, but I'm just saying, if I could like If I'm worth hundreds of millions of dollars, what's the difference between $1,500 and $500 ticket? And anyone who lies and says otherwise, I think they're an idiot and they're lying.

Yeah, so some people were like, oh, Bill Gates— I read that thread because it's pretty interesting. They gave you a ton of examples. They like slammed you with examples of it happening. And I think the main—

they just told me fake stories.

Well, yeah, so that's the thing. I think the, you know, the main thing that they were saying was like 'X person used to do this,' which is either simply just their PR team being like, 'Hey Bill, we need you to do a coach flight here, and whatever, we'll keep your private jet and Epstein's jet off the radar just so we can have this measure of austerity here.' And so I'm pretty sure it— and because it works, by the way, the fact that so many people posted articles of billionaire flies coach, it's like, dude, that's not news, by the way. But the fact that it's newsworthy is like more proof that this is likely a PR stunt because I've done it too. I've been like, oh, you know, Bill, you know, Warren Buffett, you know, still drives an old beat-up, you know, '83, you know, Camry. And like, oh, Sam Bankman-Fried, he's the newest young billionaire. And did you know that he only eats bananas and sleeps on a beanbag? And, you know, like, these stories work. They're like worth telling, which makes me think this is like a PR scheme. But the other interpretation was they did it so that they could like tell the company, hey, from the top down, we're all being frugal. We're not wasteful. So like, you know, Mr., you know, senior director of business development is not like, you know, flying first, you know, to every conference.

I understand that, but it's like, dude, you and your 3 kids are taking your vacation to France and you're going to fly coach on Spirit Airlines. Yeah. Nah, that ain't, that ain't, that ain't going to happen. Like, you're lying. You're lying. It's an absolute lie.

And I was sitting back there— Show me your Ryanair receipts if you're really doing this. Like, show me your Spirit Airlines frequent flyer miles history if you expect me to believe this. Like, dude, I've sat in Spirit Air and I've had the pilot come out mid-flight and rearrange the seating because someone was too fat and had to like, hey, we need to do a two-for-one trade. You need to get to the left side of the plane and then two of y'all need to move to the right. We need better balance. Like, that's— I've literally— unless you've done that, you don't have that trillionaire energy.

Yeah, dude, I've done that on pontoon boats, like where you have like, where you have people in the back, you're like, hey, you guys got to switch seats, uh, this boat's going a little sideways. But I've never done that on a plane.

I didn't even think it was real. I thought the pilot was joking and it wasn't a joke. They literally were like, we need to rebalance. I was like, Jesus Christ.

Let me tell you about one more interesting thing, another rich guy thing. So you know who Grant Cardone is?

Of course. I know Grant, met Grant.

So, so I'm not going to like even comment on if I like him or not, but I will.

I like him.

Okay. That's cool. I don't entirely dislike him. I don't dislike him. I don't really like, I don't like everything he does and I like a lot of what he does. Um, and, but I kind of pegged him as this guy that was kind of like in the internet marketing world, just selling like, talking like cheap books and cheap courses.

And if you're so rich, why are you selling a course? Right.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

A question I've asked myself many times also.

Yes.

Speaking of, and it's like course available July 11th, Power Writing. Sign up today. Go to maven.com and sign up, baby. Mark it down. Daddy needs a new course.

I was thinking about that. I'm like, all right, if, if this is this course guy and he has this like, uh, he's wearing all these nice suits, like, is that legit? Is that real? And I was reading an article in the New York Times. And it was about, um, these Malibu homes and how like the, these crazy rich guys are coming in and buying these homes. And Grant Cardone was one of the features and they didn't feature him as Grant Cardone. They're like, another local buyer is motivational speaker and real estate entrepreneur Grant Cardone. And it, you know, he was just like a guy they were interviewing, not like this internet. And he recently bought a house in Malibu. I think it was for $60 million. And he was like, I'm going to spend another, I forget, tens of millions of dollars renovating it. And that's one of those things that when you see people, what they spend on their personal real estate, you know, I mean, it's, it's hard to fake that. And I'm just thinking, who would have thought that those things that he's selling would make that much wealth? That's pretty, that's pretty crazy, isn't it?

You know what's even crazier? So the one time I talked to Grant Cardone for an extended period of time, like we had like, I don't know, a 40-minute conversation. 20 minutes of it was on why buying a house is so stupid and why he rents everything. And he was going off, like, people were like, oh, your penthouse is rented that you're in. He's like, yeah, bro, your house is not an asset. Why would I buy a house? And he was like, I, he's like, I buy real estate that pays me, brother. And he's like, you know, um, yeah, I rent this penthouse. I always rent. I rent everything. I want to be able to move. I want to live in the place I like. And I take my money and I put it to work. You see that over there? That's my money working. And he's like a big-time showman, right? Yeah. And so what is it, like dollar bills, like digging holes? I don't like—

what's he pointing at?

He's like, hold on, brother, I can't hear you. I got something in my ear. It's a voice. It's asking me one question. Who's got my money? And that's what I got to ask every morning. I wake up and I look to the heavens and I say, Who's got my money? And then I go and I get that money from them. And I was like, whoa, this is incredible.

Wait, where'd you, where'd you hang out with him for 45 minutes?

So he used to use Blab, the same product that where I met Martin Shkreli. I, it attracted a whole bunch of grifters and, uh, and Grant Cardone was there and I was like, all right, who's the, I would go into all the rooms that had a big following. I was like, okay, this guy's driving a bunch of, uh, growth and engagement. You're a power user. Who are you? And sure enough, like, you know, it was, it was often, you know, people who are, are, you know, somewhat controversial. That's who people like to watch livestream. And so Grant would go on there and he would do his 10X meetups and you would just see people come in. They'd be like, uh, I gotta keep doing my impression. It was so, if you haven't gone into this world, by the way, you need to spend 3 hours and I need you to watch.

I love watching his videos. He's got great videos.

Number one, watch his, uh, watch his Community because you'll be like, wow, this is like the Kool-Aid drinker. So they would come on, they'd be like, Grant, they put up the— Uncle G, Uncle G, what's up, man? What's up, brother? And they'd be doing the 10x, 10x. All right, uh, thank you so much for all the content, man. I was, I was broke and homeless. I used to eat McDonald's wrappers instead of the food, and now I'm— I just had— I, I got a Ruth's Chris, uh, subscription membership, and I just want to say thank you. And I had a question for you, right? So they would do this And then it'd be one after another of, uh, Grant, Grant, 10x, 10x, brother. Um, just wanna thank you before. I was thinking where the sky's the limit and now the sky's the floor. Am I right? Amen, brother. And then, you know, like, and so, and so they were doing this stuff and I was like, wow, these people are like really like, they're, this is, these are the converted, right? And they, so a lot of people really found value in his thing. Um, cuz this wasn't like a recorded testimonial. This is a livestream where random people are calling in And it'd be very hard to like fake this. And they're wearing the hat, they're holding up the books. They're like, they really liked his stuff. And I had never heard of this guy. He's like, in the tech world, you don't, you don't know who this character is, right? Like in your, if you're in real estate, you know, if you're in the motivational self, self-help thing, you know, but he's not even like Ty, like Tai Lopez crossed all boundaries. People like all knew who he was. Uh, Grant Cardone's like, not like that. So that's the first thing you should watch. Second thing is he does these deal breakdowns. Very interesting to watch. So he's sitting at a table and it's like, you know, what's that guy Ramsey, Dave Ramsey, who like you call in and you're like, Dave, I make $80,000 a year and I got student debt. Like, what should I do? And he's like, save your money. And so people do that with Grant. They're like, hey Grant, I got $200,000. I'm looking at a property. The address is 3909, you know, West Boise Street in Idaho, whatever. And then people, and he'll go and he, he basically Googles it and he's got a whiteboard behind him. And he basically is like talking to the guy. He's like, all right, so what are you putting down? All right, what terms are they giving you? And he basically like workshops the deal with them. He like kind of like, uh, sort of like a speed version of underwriting the deal live. And I've actually learned a bunch from it. Like, I'm sure somebody who's like, you know, a real estate master is probably like, oh, this is all just like, this is the Jim Cramer of like real estate here where he's saying things that make it sound smart, but he's actually not considering XYZ. But just from a like if you're a beginner in real estate, which I am, you will learn a bunch and you'll be entertained just in the style that he does things. So I like that.

The last thing he's like, uh, it's like the— he's, he's got like pro wrestling vibes.

Yeah, exactly. And that's why I'm doing the impersonation, because I'm like, why I said I like him, I like him because he's entertaining. Like, I like him because I've learned some stuff and I've been very entertained through the rest. Like, have you seen these videos on YouTube where he just does sales calls for an hour?

I have. I think I— they're so good, I think they're fake.

Yeah, it might be fake because he'll be like, he's always pulling a rabbit out of a hat, and you're like, oh dude, it's like a pickup artist. It's like you watch their video, you're like, oh my God, you know, she was, uh, she was like literally just— she was running, she was getting into her cab, but he said this one thing and she got out of the cab and started talking to him. This guy's amazing. And you're like, wait a minute, maybe he's just like edited like 3 really good ones out of 500 failures, uh, into this video. That's kind of what it feels like. But he's doing an hour of continuous sales calls, and so it might be scripted where the guy on the other line is like, yeah, I'll say yes, just call me. Yeah, we'll play, we'll role play here.

It's like the TV show Pawn Stars. You're telling me like, holy shit, in one day you had a guy come in with like a, like a Civil War gun, a guy who had Napoleon's hat, and another guy that owns a Picasso, all in Las Vegas coming into a pawn shop? That's crazy.

Yeah, it's like, dude, the Undertaker was dead and then he came back to life and won the match. It's like, yeah, yeah, you're falling for a scripted drama, right? Like, so it might be that, but nonetheless, these sales calls are very entertaining to listen to. And like, they're— it's obviously like very Wolf of Wall Street style, like macho sales, but I like to see it because I've never seen anything like that. Like, first of all, I don't do phone sales. That's not like it's not even like in my life. Secondly, I don't know people who are as ridiculous as Grant Cardone and are willing to say things as ridiculous as Grant Cardone. And third, like, this is not a style of communication or salesmanship I've— I think you can read or study or intuit. And so it's just nice to like see it. So anyways, I've, I've, I've gone down these rabbit holes of Grant Cardone and I've come out the other side being like, yeah, he is definitely self-promoting and he's making most of his money, it seems like on the like, the brand and not the, like, meat and bones of his business. But, um, you know, respect. He hustles really hard and he's a good self-promoter and he is smart and, like, you know, he does well. So, you know, I, I don't think that, you know, you're not learning from somebody who's a hack. Uh, like, he's something—

I don't think he's a hack. I don't think he's a hack at all.

I think the criticism isn't that—

well, I think maybe I just don't always agree in his values. But I don't think he's lying.

Right. I think the criticism would not be this guy is dumb or lazy or anything like that. The criticism would be, um, he's just selling you, you know, a bag of dreams basically. And like, you know, he makes his money on people who want to be him and want to be like him and they're not really going to be like him. And he's sort of like, you know, promoting that dream. I would say that that's probably true, but I think that's true of a lot of things in life. Like that's true of Nike also, like, would I go buy Nike sneakers, you know, because Michael Jordan wore them? Do I really think Michael Jordan's a scumbag for— yeah, I'm not— he's not tricking me into thinking I can, I could be like Mike. But yeah, that is actually what the commercial literally says.

Dude, I'm, um, I'm working on this new thing and I want to tell you two things about it. I'm working on this new business and I'm like, I'm still like MVPing it out and making sure it's legit. And I, I, I've got six figures in revenue now, six figures of cash in the bank. Um, and it was all from phones. I, from calling, calling constantly. No website, a Typeform and calling them and then setting a Stripe link.

So what's, if, what are you doing that's effective on the call? Give me the, gimme the strategy of the call, uh, without sharing what you don't wanna share.

So I'm not in, I'm not really selling. So basically the thing that I'm, I'm making like a community for a particular type of salesmen claim.

I'm not here to sell you anything.

Well, because, because here's, here's the thing.

No offense, but of sales.

So the, the, the place where the business is at right now, which is like, I only want like, let's say 50 people to join right now. I don't want a lot of people to join because I want to make sure that it's like legit and good. And also because it's an exclusive, like private paid community, I need to make sure that like each person actually can provide value for one another. So I can't just let anyone in. I can only let in the type of person who Makes the next person feel, yeah, feel more valued because they came in. So in a way I'm like, no, like I'm, I really like, I don't know if I have space for you. I don't know if we can make this work. Um, but we, we may be, and that's why I'm here to interview to see if this will be a good fit for you. And, uh, that's basically what I'm doing.

It's like, I also, you're using the bullshit line, but this time it's not actually bullshit. It's real this time.

I, I, yeah, I guess that's true. But like, I don't know how to explain it. It is true. Like we, we only have a certain, I can only make it true truly work for a few amount of people, otherwise it sucks. And so remember how we interviewed the Chief folks? She said that they had 60,000 people apply, but they only have like 10 or 15,000 members. So I kind of believe it. Um, uh, but anyway, I'm working on it and I, and I went to this pro— I'm starting it with, uh, my friend Joe and we did something interesting the other day. And when I had started companies in the past, I did, I partnered with the wrong people. Not every time, but sometimes. And I'm, and the mistake that I'm trying to not make this time is basically making sure I partner with the right folks.

When we did this thing, by the way, you're saying partner, like business partner, not like an external partnership. You're, you're talking about like your co-founder type of thing.

Business partner, like someone who you give a substantial amount of equity to. Um, which is very similar to a marriage. And I, I actually did this in my marriage, but I've never done this in a business partner. Uh, but we basically like said like, hey, like separately write down 3 things. Write down what, like, what does success look like to you? You in 10 years, what are you willing to give up in order to achieve that? And, um, like just your day-to-day, like what, what do you value and how do you want to get there? And so we each wrote that down and we came together and we're like, all right, here's all the things that are important to me. Let's look at what, what's important to you. Oh wow. They actually align really nicely. This thing doesn't align. Is that a game breaker for you? And then we, and then there was another thing that we went through scenarios where like, let's say you're Lance Armstrong. It's 1999. You know that everyone's cheating and you have to cheat if you want to win. What are you going to do?

Right?

Like, how do you want to play? Like, what do you want to play? And there's no right or wrong answer, but it's just like, let's just see how our values align in different scenarios. And so anyway, we've been doing this thing where we're like trying to figure out why won't this partnership work? Let's get all that out of the way at first. And it has been awesome. More people should do this. Have you ever done this?

Uh, I have actually done that, which is so funny you say this. We did something so similar. We, we sort of stumbled upon it organically at our first business because the first business I ever created was that sushi business. And, um, the idea was to create like a Chipotle-like restaurant chain for sushi. And so we're going about it. We've been at this, at this point we've been doing it for, I don't know, 6 to 9 months, something like that. So we're not like, it's not like the, it's not like day one. We've already, already committed. We already have the equity splits. and we're all best friends. We've known each other for 4 years, so like surely we know everything about each other, right? And a smarter business person, kind of like a mentor type dude, was like, at this time we were really big on mentors. And he was like, oh, um, he was like, you know, um, how aligned are you guys? He's like, if I— so it was the guy we wanted to partner with, the chef. He was like, he flew each of us out one by one to LA and hung out with us. And he told us, he was like, Yeah, I feel like all of you guys say the same words, but they mean different things. And I was like, what do you mean? He goes, you all be like, oh man, what really matters is that we do this the right way. He's like, but I think you all have a different definition of the right way. Or we all want this to be a success. I think if I asked you, what do you mean by success? Put a number, put a timeframe around it. I bet you it's all different. And so we came home, he gave us that feedback. And we did it. We did the same exercise. We go, I, I created a list of questions and we all went and sat in our corner of the room silently and we wrote our answers and then we came and we compared and Jesus, they were so different. Me and one guy were like pretty aligned. And then the third guy, and we all thought we were all totally aligned. The third guy, his was like way different. And the biggest differences were like timescale. Like how long do you, how long do you expect to work on this before we see any, like any like tangible success? What are your expectations on that? And then what would be a win for you? And it was like, one guy was like, oh man, like if I could be making six figures in like, you know, and you know, I'll do this forever. And then I was like, oh dude, I wanna like, I wanna make $10 million in, you know, three years. And the other guy was like somewhere in the middle. And then we were like, oh wow. Like we all have a, like, you would be happy with one path and I would be completely unhappy if that same thing we both are. And if we didn't talk about it, our definition of success would've been very different. And the same thing with values of like, what, for one, for two of us, it was super important. Like, look, I don't know if this business is going to work or not, but I want to do it our way. Like the thing that makes this fun for me, like there's a lot of shitty components to doing this business. The part that makes me like want to wake up and do it every day is that I feel like we're putting our own stamp on this. And for the other guy, he's like, yeah, that's cool. But like, I don't really care about that. And we were like, oh shoot, it's important to know how important it is. Cause we're going to spend a bunch of energy doing it. Yeah, well, it was clarifying. Like we were sort of at the point of no return.

The partner— well, that's why I'm saying you got to do this early on because it's in a way a business partnership is actually more of a commitment than a marriage because with the marriage you can just like end it and be over. With a business, screwing up your cap table and someone owning a portion of your business, I mean, that could be— it's just kind of an irreversible decision. And the only way that you reverse it is by spending a lot, a lot, a lot, a lot, a lot of money.

Yeah, like what we did, what was lucky for us was that we were all 21 years old. So we were all like a blank slate. It's like, dude, I don't know. This was just my first thought. I'm not like married to this, to this belief system, you know? Like, so it was very few things that we were like, no, I am certain and I'm stubborn on that point. Now in my life, if I said something, if I, if I may, if I answered 10 questions, 8 out of the 10 would be things I'm like, no, I stand by that. Like, that's really, that is what I've thought this through and that's what I believe. Back then it was like, I don't know, I hadn't really thought about it, but if you had, now you're asking me to articulate it, so I'll just say these things. So what happened in our thing was we kind of, we would all hear each other's answers and then we would be like, oh, I like that. That's right. Let's all agree to align on that. And we were like, yeah, yeah. Like, sure, that sounds better. I don't know what the fuck I was thinking. It was, that wasn't, I'm not married to that. And so it worked for us because it got us to like get to a right answer versus who's right. You know what I mean?

Yeah, this exercise that I've been doing, um, with Joe, we should publish this, by the way, because, you know, we—

I think we talked about this one time, was like some New York Times article that was like 17 questions you should ask your future spouse or something like that.

Like, before, dude, it was like— it was like 27 questions to ask on the first date. And like, as a single guy who just wanted to like meet girls, I was like, oh, I'm just gonna ask— or it was like 27 questions to like make someone fall in love with you or something like that. And it was like for like relationships. And I was like, Oh, I'm asking every woman this. Like, this is the first day question. This is the first hour, first day question. And I remember doing it like 3 times. I'm like, those fuckers at the New York Times, they didn't know what the hell they're talking about. None of these people like me.

Okay. Yeah, maybe I misremembered. So we should— but I do think it would be useful, whatever you and Joe just did, because I did this like, I don't know, 10, 12 years ago now. I think you did it just like last month. So you should definitely like compile these. So that more people can, can do this because it'll save— it'll straight up save people years of pain in their life if they like can identify some of these things up front versus just rushing into the co-founding.

Yeah, I mean, I, I like— it was like, all right, so here's what I want just in my personal life. And then I put like a net worth. I said, I want— I want to have a seat at the big boys' table and I want people to think that I know what I'm talking about when it comes to business. I want freedom. I want to be able to live in different cities with my family. I want to be present in my children's lives. I want to own a bunch of real estate. I want to have fun and adventure. Uh, and I want to work like really hard for 3 or 4 weeks or for, uh, 6 or 7 months. And then I want to chill for like 3 months. Uh, and then it was like, all right. And, uh, ways I want to get there is I want to build this particular business. I don't want a boss. I don't want to have any meetings. I want to have few, if any, employees reporting to me. Um, and then it was, um, the ways in which I'm going to approach this particular business. I want to be incredibly aggressive about it. I want to treat it like a job. So we're working 40 hours a week on it. I want to have close to no standing meetings, few employees. Um, and basically that's it.

Yeah.

Oh, and a revenue target of $100 million in 5 years. I don't care if we actually hit that, but I want that to be the target. And then he like answered similarly on a lot of those. It's like, all right, there's like some alignment here. Nice.

Nice. Okay. I like that. And, um, Yeah. Okay. I think you should publish some of those things. Also the Lance Armstrong things. I think those are, if nothing else, it doesn't really matter, but it's like at least knowing how the other person is wired and being like, am I okay with this? Am I okay with the weird psychology of this person? I think it's not so much that do all of our answers match just like in a marriage. It's not, do we think the same way about everything? It's like, do we think the same way about the really important things?

Um, all right, so what did you say? Would you, would you, if you're in Lance's situation, what do you do?

I for sure cheat. Uh, you basically have two options. You either exit the sport or you cheat, right? Like, uh, it's not even cheating at that point when everybody is doing it. It's just the new normal, right? Like, there's not a— it'd be one thing if it's like, is if one person's cheating and they're winning and everybody else is clean, would you, would you cheat to try to win or would you stay clean? It was like My belief is that all these Olympic sports, plus pretty much all professional sports, are full of PDs. And, uh, like, you know, it's just a, it's just a naiveness test whether you believe that people are clean or not. It's like, in the same way, it's like, oh my God, what percentage of NBA players do you think cheat on their wife? It's like, um, like, you know, I don't know, but yeah, the answer is yes, not a, not a number. And so like, There might be one outlier and like, cool, you know, credit to that person for, for being the, the, the, you know, the, the outlier, the AC Green of this. But, but I think same thing with cheating. So yeah, that one's an easy one for me.

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Dude, you wanna, you've got some, you wanna like quickly go through some of your topics or do you wanna, uh, talk about a company that I had listed that, what do you wanna do?

Uh, let's do one of yours and then we'll do one of mine. We'll finish up.

All right. Um, have you heard of this company called N2 Publishing?

No. What do they do?

The reason I like this story is because they're succeeding wonderfully in a place that everyone thought that it was impossible to succeed. So it's called N2 Publishing. They just rebranded it like last week to Stroll, and it's basically neighborhood magazines. So magazines in like upscale neighborhoods. And I'm almost positive they have like 800 of these or 650 of them, but they're all print. So it's like in your, in, in like Danville or in like the nice suburb. I don't even know what the, like the very specific neighborhood you're in, what it would be called.

I don't live there, but. Blackhawk. No, no, but Blackhawk's an example of a nice neighborhood in Danville.

So what they do is they send you a magazine like once a month, and it's just a magazine. It's like a bulletin. It's like a, it's like a newsletter. I don't know what you want to call it, but it's literally physically a magazine. And the company has like 250 employees. Most all the employees are ad salespeople, and they hire someone— and not exactly hire, they fran— it's a franchise. So someone who lives in Blackhawk pays like 5 or 10 grand to become the official publisher of that area. And that person has to gather a couple stories every single month. But like, the stories really are like, they're not that good. But it's just like people— there's this old like, uh, idea with local publishing where like, dude, people don't care about the writing. They literally just want to see people they know and their friends and places they know in a newspaper. And you could just list all their names and they would like that. And that's kind of what they do. And it's just like a magazine every month and it says, here's what's going on. Like, uh, uh, you know, the local high school had their graduation and like 8 people went to Stanford. Um, uh, like this new restaurant opened and the guy's a Greek immigrant and he's bringing some of his Greek like taste to the area. And like the feta is amazing. And like that, it just like goes from thing to thing. So anyway, it's a bootstrap business that's been around for like 18 years. And they announced that they're doing like $150 million a year in revenue, and they've been profitable every single year. And they don't have a website, so like, or they— the HQ has a website, but each individual magazine, there's no website. It's 100% done through, through paper. And everything that they're doing is something that you would say like it, it can't be done, and it's kind of killing it. It's kind of, it's kind of a major business. Isn't this wild?

So how did you get these numbers? Did they— is something public that like Like, do they have all their numbers?

Uh, yeah. So if you Google Stroll Axios, they just did a big, um, announcement on Axios last week where the founder and the CEO kind of gave, he gave their revenue. He said, we do $130 million in revenue. We have 18,000+ advertisers. Wow. Um, we've been profitable every single year. We expect revenue to double every 4 years. That was an, uh, I believe an exact quote. And we're just expanding to all these cities and we changed our name from N2 to Stroll. Um, it's kind of a really fascinating story. I guess if it's doubling every 5 years, that means it's growing what, like, uh, 10, uh, 10 or 15% a year. So it's not like killing it, but it's doing pretty good.

Yeah. That's, yeah, 14% a year.

Wow.

This is, uh, I mean, you've done it again. A Sam Parr special. Like, how do you find these businesses? This is amazing.

It's pretty wild.

No, literally, it's a real question. How did you find this business?

Uh, I just read, like, there's this blog I read called Flash in Flames. There's this blog I read called Flash in Flames. If you Google Flash in Flames, it's just some guy named Colin in England who just writes about cool B2B, uh, media companies. And I just, I read like loads of trade publications, like trade publications that has like Literally 500 website visits a day. This is just the most niche stuff. I read it. And if you Google, if you Google it, it's hard to even find their website. The only way you find it is you type the CEO's name is Dwayne Hickson. And so you have to type in like N2, cause there's like 10 or 20 companies called N2, right? N2 and then Dwayne Hickson. And that's how I found it. And when I did a little research on him, I think they're, it's heavily rooted in Christian stuff because they're, Their mission is like to, like, to bring, like, to create jobs and value people and to bring glory to God. And we're just so happened to be doing it through like creating this like newspaper thing. Uh, and so that's our podcast mission or that's theirs? Both. Uh, so anyway, like it, it just kind of an interesting guy outside of our world. Uh, really fascinating.

This is great. I wonder how many more of these there are. Like I could imagine somebody doing frickin' Doctor's Office Daily or Doctor's Office Monthly or whatever, Doctor's Office Magazine. And you just go to every doctor's office and you're like, hey, here's, you know, this awesome magazine for whatever, for doctors who run their practices. And you just, if you eat the cost of the print, then you're like, you could basically go to advertisers and, you know, pharmaceutical companies and be like, hey, yeah, we have 15,000 doctor's offices that read and subscribe to our thing. Um, and you know, you should advertise.

But here's the thing, like selling local ads. So they're selling like the advertisers, advertisers are like local dentists, local realtors, selling ads to those types of people is really hard because you're selling like $500 ads. That's a hard business. You just have to be like smile and dial, you know, you gotta do it constantly. So like maybe they threw that whole God stick in there because they're like, but you're doing it for the will of God. Therefore you have to be like, that's the only way that you can motivate someone in order to like be on the phone all day selling a $500 ad. $1,000 ad to Kathy in Scottsdale, Arizona about coming to her open house. That's a hard sell. That's a grind. That's a grind. Ben did it for 2 years. He probably wouldn't want to do it for 3 or 4 more years. It's a hard job.

But, but what I'm saying is if you did this for other, just say other like subgroups, right? So like doctor's office, you wouldn't then need to advertise locally because you could advertise like to all the companies that sell to medical professionals or like if I created You know, e-com, you know, Shopify mag, right? And I sell, I send this to every Shopify owner's home and I'm just putting out like awesome case studies about e-commerce and they're just cool, like stories of brands or whatever. And in it, I just go tell Klaviyo and Postscript and like every e-commerce company, every company that sells to e-com stores, like every Shopify app. I'm like, yeah, you should advertise in this thing. We have like, you know, pretty like pretty like hyper-targeted distribution. Basically the question is, is this better than a newsletter? Like, you know, you, you know both spaces. We know Andrew's doing this local news thing, but for not neighborhoods, but it's for like local cities and he's doing it through newsletter, right? His company Overstory. Uh, what's better, this magazine idea or newsletters in your opinion?

So I actually think that's the wrong question, the, the, because the, what's, What's quite interesting is that they're selling a franchise, which is very weird for a media company. That is actually the more interesting thing. Um, do I think that this— I think this is an awesome business. Do I think it's better than a newsletter? No, I would probably do that, the newsletter, but I would consider doing it this way where you're like, you're like, hey, like we have 10,000 people already pre-signed up to, for, uh, this small neighborhood in Arizona. If you wanna, you wanna buy this list from us as a publisher, it's a $10,000 buy-in. And we'll monetize it for you and you get 15% of all the revenue that we sell, but you gotta make sure that you put it out all the time. Um, that is, that's kind of an intriguing, that's an intriguing business model. The, do I think that it's better because it's in print? I definitely think it's potentially more interesting. I think the ad rates could potentially be higher because I think that like it is actually quite cool to hold and see something. I think it's a very fascinating business model. Um, I think you could also do this with a lot of different things.

What is the— did they say anything about the cost of actually the print and the delivery? Like, you have to print and mail magazines, right? Which is, uh, kind of costs you something. So that's, that's like the biggest difference from like a newsletter. You get the tracked clicks and you get no— you have no hard costs for the, for the print, for the shipping and the, and the printing of the magazine. Do you know at all what that costs?

No, I don't. So they didn't reveal too much, but they basically said that their national team has editorial oversight on what's published to ensure editorial Editorial standards are nonpartisan and community-focused news. Um, they keep a cut of all ad revenue. They have local operators, so the people who run the local papers, uh, the local magazine use Strohl's national printing, copy editing, and operational resources. And the company distributes the magazine for free in readers' mail.

Right.

It's pretty, it's, it's pretty fascinating. It's an interesting business. You know what else is kind of interesting? Did you hear what ConvertKit— so ConvertKit is like a Mailchimp competitor. I went to their conference this weekend. It's an email platform. I think you use them, right?

Yeah, I use them.

Do you see the thing? They low-key announced something that's kind of amazing. So, and the reason this is actually quite fascinating, they launched this thing where they now hired an ad sales team and they're gonna go out and sell ads and they're gonna give you, Sean, the user, 85% of the revenue that they go and, and sell.

Yeah, this is smart. I was always wondering why the, like, email platforms don't do this because once you start your newsletter, you're like, all right, cool. You get people being like, hey, can I sponsor it? And you're like, yeah. And then you de facto become ad sales.

And guess what?

You're like, not great at it because you're not doing it full time. It sucks. And you would happily pay somebody a 15% commission for filling your ad spots. And doing it well. And I, I was always thinking like, you know, a, a sort of a MailChimp, a Beehive, ConvertKit, like why aren't they just making this their business model? Like in addition to their SaaS revenue of like paying for the email stuff, like couldn't they, you know, ConvertKit's at pretty significant scale. Like I, I wonder how big this is gonna be for them.

Dude, listen to this. The Hustle, there was a period of time where Trung was on fire and he was our only writer. He basically— we had like people that would kind of fill in when he was sick, but basically he wrote the email by himself every day for like 8 months. And we were doing over $1 million a month in revenue.

Right.

And there was one Trung and there was like 20 ad salespeople. That's ridiculous. That is crazy. It was pretty crazy. And then we had like Adam. So we had like 4, like, growth marketers. So like, but that business could have been Trung and like 4 growth marketers and it could have been making over $1 million a month. And but it had— we had like 8 or 10 or 15. I don't remember exactly ad salespeople. And then each like 4 ad salesperson needs an operations person and then like editors to edit the ad. It was like, like Morning Brew, I think, has 250 people. I don't know for a fact. I would bet you that Morning Brew has 30 editorial people and 220 ad sales or ad sales related people.

Well, there's some management overhead, but like, so with your ad sales.

Yeah, managing the, the, the sellers.

When you, when you had your ad team, you, you probably had like some commission structure or whatever, right? Like, um, hey, yeah, 4%.

Yeah.

So, so how did you come up with them and basically what, Well, so what was your comp model? And then what is, what was like the overhead? So the fact that you employed them versus them just being, let's say like with ConvertKit, for example, if I write a newsletter, I'm not paying for the overhead. I'm only paying for the placement. I pay this 15% placement fee once they, once they get me an ad, right? That's their commission. Well, did you spend more or less than that in overall ad sales for The Hustle, do you think?

So we basically, when we kind of were getting going, we had two salaries. Like the entry-level people. So the people who were like 2 or 3 years of experience. And then we had the higher people, which for us was like 5 or 6 years experience. So still not a lot of experience, but I was only 24 when I started. So I guess basically like a 22-year-old and like a 27-year-old, like those are like— Do you get my jokes or do you not get my jokes?

That's how you decide your company.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And the earlier ones, Uh, the younger guys, it was like around, it ranged from like $50,000 to $70,000 a year in base salary. And then the upper guys got like $100,000 to like $120,000 a year in base salary. And the upper guys, they're ex— it was expected that they would sell, I forget exactly, but between $1 to $1.5 million a year in ad revenue. And they would get 4, either 4 or 4.5% of that. Uh, the younger guys, their expectations was that they were gonna sell between $500,000 and like $900,000. We had some sellers like this woman, Katie, who would sell, I believe the year we sold, she was going into the year with like $2.5 million booked, $2.5 million. And so, but, um, so basically, but then they had to get 75% of their quota. So if their quota was $1 million, if they hit only $600,000, they only got their base salary. If they hit 75% of their quota, that's when the 4% started kicking in. And then if they got 101%, then the kickers would go up and they would start making a lot of money. So the highest paid person, at our company oftentimes was an ad seller.

And do you remember, like, did you just look at like, uh, what is our percent of revenue that we're paying out in commissions? Like, did you have like, because let's just say the easy apples to apples math is let's say ConvertKit launches this thing. It's 15%. That's your, that's your cost of ad sales basically. Um, if, if they placed all your ads, do you remember what your—

Well, you could oversimplify it. Yeah, you could oversimplify it by saying, uh, 4.4% of total ad revenue and then just assume $100,000 a head plus. So let's say that you've got 10 sellers doing $10 million. So that's, uh, uh, $100,000 per salary for 10 people. That's $1 million. And then the commissions would be 4% of $10 million. So $400,000. So $1.4 million people, $1.4 million for 10 ad salespeople. For $10 million in revenue. But then of course there was like some account executives who would help with that and then like operations people. But yeah, that's basically it.

Bro, you just did a shitload of public math and I forgive you because you're my friend. You know, we don't do public math, but that's easy for you to just do that. Listen, it's just not who we are. It's not what we do.

Did you follow?

I tried to follow, but it's like you're speaking another language. You did it right.

$10 million in revenue.

You did it right too.

$1 million in revenue, right?

Which is about the same as theirs, right? So you, for all that headache of employing all those people, you saved like 1%, let's say, of like the commission rate. Now maybe you would fill higher or maybe, maybe you'd do a better job than like the centralized service would. Probably, I would guess.

But, um, but here's why it's also a better model. One time we had like Goldman Sachs or something, uh, as an advertiser and we had a story on Fuck Jerry and how Fuck Jerry, Fuck Jerry is like this meme Instagram account that says like funny stuff. They like launched like fuck Jerry News or something like that. And I was like, oh, well, let's— for this email, by the way, every single sentence, let's use the word fuck in it. And then like another time we talked about Donald Trump and we're like, this entire email, let's write it in the voice of Donald Trump. So like if you read it to yourself, it sounds like Donald Trump. And Goldman Sachs got really mad at us and they're like, you said fuck like literally 84 times in this email. Like we're not sponsoring you anymore. And I was like, well, good, fuck off. Like, I don't care about you. Like, you know, screw you, fuck you. But Katie sold the ad and her commission was going to get lost. So I was like, okay, I don't want to hurt you. So I'm willing to like not say certain stuff just because I don't want you to experience the pain, but I don't give a shit about that brand. If they want to like, you know, muzzle us, screw them.

Right.

So now with this new, with this new setup, it actually could be a lot more advantageous for the creator.

Yeah. Katie's amazing, by the way. We, uh, we work with her too. She's, she's really good. Um, so, so what are the, uh, do we want to do another one or are we going to wrap it?

We can do one more maybe.

Uh, let's do, okay. Let me just do a, you want an idea or a life hack?

A life hack.

All right. So, so Ben, business partner Ben, not podcast Ben. Um, you know, Ben, I might just refer to you as God's Ben and the other Ben I'm going to have to say is not God's Ben. So not God's Ben was in town visiting.

Yahweh. He's, you gotta come, come Yahweh and Jesus.

So, so he's visiting and I was like, um, and so, you know, it's always interesting, right? Like in one way, you know, he, he came, you know, basically stays at my house. We, we hang out for the week and we get a bunch of stuff done. So he gets to see a bunch of stuff in my world about how I live life. And I'm sure that's, you know, somewhat interesting to him where he sees some things. He's like, oh wow, thank God I don't do them that way. And other things you'd probably be like, oh, that's cool. Like maybe I should. Be more like that. And the, but the same thing happened for me because Ben, um, on the last day I see Ben and he's like, I'm like, oh yeah, you know, you're just packing up. What are you doing? Oh wait, what are you writing down? Cause he's, he's like hunched over his table and he's write, he's like got a pen out and he's writing something by hand, which is not like, you know, we do everything on our computers. I was like, what are you writing out? And I noticed he's not holding a pen. He's holding a marker and he, he's drawing. And I was like, What are you doing, man? What are you drawing? And he's, he's drawing like a birthday card basically on a giant piece of paper. And he's got 6 of them and he's drawn all these cards. And I'm like, what is this? It's like my daughter's birthday. What are you doing? He's like, no, it's my dad's birthday. And he's like, ah, it's a family tradition we have. He goes, every time it's someone in our family's birthday, we all get out a piece, get out like paper and markers and we draw them like birthday cards. And it'll be like, you know, inside jokes or like Dad, you're the man for this reason. You know, we always say that you got the best whatever. You got the best calves. And so he draws a picture of him with like huge calves or whatever, right? You love this. You love the Suns. Here's a picture of Chris Paul holding a birthday cake for you, singing you happy birthday, like this player on the Suns. And so it's just like, whatever. It's just goofy. And I saw it and I was like, this is amazing. And like everything he's told me about his dad, by the way, his dad listens to the pod. So shout out to Andy. His dad's amazing. And I'll tell you one thing that's amazing about his dad is he's like, so his dad's a huge Phoenix Suns fan. So is Ben. I'm like, oh, did you get it from your dad? Your dad growing up was a huge fan, so that's why you are. He's like, no, it's the opposite. Growing up, my dad didn't really care about basketball or the Suns, and I got super into it. And he's like, my dad just does this thing where whatever each of his kids is into, he's like, all right, I'm into it too. And not just like in a small—

That's a great dad move.

The great dad move, right? And so I was like, holy shit. I didn't even think— I'm a dad now. So I'm like, I didn't even think about that. He's like, he's not just supportive because I think that's normal. The common would be you're supportive. Oh, you like this? Great. Go on, do your thing. I'll show up at your game and I'll kind of be doing the crossword in my lap because I'm bored. It's not my thing. His dad's the opposite. He's like, oh, you like the Suns? No, we like the Suns and we love everything about the Suns now and we eat, live and breathe the Suns. And so for his other kid, His other son does real estate. He's like, oh, you do real estate? No, no, no, we do real estate. And so he works for his son for free, just helping him sell real estate 40 hours a week because he's like, oh yeah, we got to sell some real estate. I'm in. And so he's like a free employee who's like hitting up LinkedIn.

He doesn't pay him.

Like, he loves this podcast because he'll hear growth ideas and he'll be like, oh, so I'm going to do that for my son's real estate business.

Wait, that's a— that's an amazing, amazing dad and a horrible horrible son. Pay your dad, dog.

No, he's just— he doesn't want the money. He's that great of a dad. And then the other son, like, he does this, like, comedy thing, and he's like, oh, comedy? All right, I'm in the comedy scene now. And, like, he does that. And I was like, wow, I'm gonna do this. So on the dad side, I was like, holy— like, Ben, Ben works with me, and he basically works with me too. He's like, he listens to every episode of the podcast, he responds to every email that we put out. He'll like he's not trying to get special treatment. He replies like a fan. Like he'd be like, oh yeah, I do my Five Tweet Tuesday. He's like, I love number 3. Or he's like the podcast. Oh, I love the way you and Sam did this. And I'm like, dude, how sick is that to have your dad become your wingman for your favorite hobby or your passion? Like, I'm gonna do that. So that was the first learning. The second was this birthday thing. He's like, yeah, my mom, like she came up with this early on. Like, you know, love's not about the gifts and like, this is just a fun thing we do for each other. And we always—

I do it. We did it.

You did what?

This birthday poster. So when you wake up—

Is this like a white person thing I just don't know about?

I don't know. But I mean, like, at my house, when you wake up on your birthday, you wake— my mom would put— puts like posters all over the house that all of the other kids like hand drew out. Wow.

Okay.

I don't know, man. What did you put?

Did you do this too?

We don't—

where did you get this?

No, this is, this is new to me as well. No, no, no, Sam. Yeah, we had it as well. And honestly, it made my day. It would— I like, I would, I would be so eager to walk upstairs. It's kind of like when you walk upstairs and you see like stuff around the Christmas tree. It was like, I felt that same joy. I walk up around the stairs and I see my signs all over the place, dude. And I know that like I get the breakfast that I want that day. Yeah, it's pretty cool.

This. So, so I, I basically like, I don't even care about my birthday anymore because it's always like the same thing. And I hate the same, I hate the sameness of life. There's so many things that are just the same all the time. Like when Facebook came out with the, you can write happy, it'll remind you of happy birthday, and then your wall becomes a thousand people who don't really care about you writing happy birthday.

I hate that because then I feel guilty. Like I got to reply.

Yeah, I never reply. And like, you know, and, but it's just the same thing, right? Or What other people do is, oh, let me throw money at the problem, which becomes a different kind of burden. It's like, oh, I gotta get you a gift. Um, I gotta think of something. Or let's say I go buy you a nice card. It's like, dude, the, the birthday poster is so much better than a Hallmark card because it's like, A, it's like actually thoughtful. B, it's like kind of goofy and funny. It's like more entertaining. And it's a kind of personal touch, right? And so, so I love this idea. When we came home from that farming conference, my daughter had drawn a poster that says, welcome home, dada. And it's still the first post, like in my bathroom, it's a poster on the wall. Every day I go to the bathroom, I see welcome home, Dada. Like the, the bathroom is my home, which is, you know, a little bit true. And so I'm like, this personal poster thing is a great life hack. And it got me thinking, I'm gonna start stealing everybody's favorite family tradition. And so that's my new question for people is like, yo, what are these like family traditions you got? Like what are the things that y'all do? And like, people don't even know, they're so like baked into their operating life. Like they don't even know them. And then you kind of keep digging and you'll find them. And if it's like, if it's a family tradition that's lasted like, you know, 20 years of your life, it's probably awesome. And like, I should steal that from my own family. What do you think?

I, yeah, I think that's good. I'm trying to think of what, if I even have, like my family, we're all atheists, but we still pray before every time we eat dinner. Like you don't eat until you pray, even though like no one believes in God. Um, that's like an interesting tradition. We do do birthday posters. Um, I don't think we have any other traditions like that. I'd wonder, I bet Ben has a ton. A bunch, but the one that we started, I think I talked about this. So we started doing our, uh, end of year reviews where we, uh, like do product reviews and, and talk and preview the year to come. That's our newest tradition. I like that one a lot. Yeah, but that, that's some new age shit though.

Product reviews, like actual product reviews, like I love this microphone. Or what did you mean?

No, no, no. Just like, uh, just reviewing like the year that the, what was Ben's 2021 or whatever. And then previewing. Yeah. Yeah. Um, but no, the other, like, well, we have a bunch of tradition. We do have a bunch of traditions. Um, like one of the simple ones is we eat waffles like every Sunday morning. And I just like a thing I know I can look forward to every week. My wife makes makes really good waffles with like strawberries, just like goes all out.

Yeah.

It's just one over the top. It's one meal a week that I know I can always look forward to and I love it. You don't have any, Sean?

No, I do. I have some. And now I'm like, and I give credit to my dad. My dad was really the one who was bringing the, like the fun factor with some of these. Whereas my mom's more like practical. Whereas my dad would be like, like once a week he would do the same, like the, the whatever, like the Monday night dinner. And it's like, oh, dad's making dinner. Oh sweet. It's not 'cause he's a better cook, but he would like, He would just add some showmanship to it. So he would like make, he would like get this tray. And so everybody had their own circular tray with like 4 dishes in it. And then he would add a quarter and we were always like, yeah, the coins there. Like I got a quarter. And like, it was like the equivalent of a McDonald's Happy Meal, but like with a quarter. And there would be just like some flourish. There was always something that was like a little extra that he would do. And, um, and like, yeah, or like these little things, he would come home and he put his wallet down, but the game was I would always steal the wallet and I'd have to, he'd run and chase me and I'd have to hide it. And like the game was like, can he get his wallet back? And it was like, how do you turn that like 2 minutes of coming home from like, oh, hey, how's it going? Like autopilot into like something that's actually like fun and breaks everybody's kind of like mood for a second. So he used to do that.

That's a great question to ask someone. What family, what's a really good family tradition? Yeah. I'm going to steal them too. Good idea.

I had a buddy actually that just came to mind. I don't even, I don't think I want to steal this because I, I don't think I could convince my family to do it, but his family did it. And I remember because he started dating this girl and I was like, ah, how's it going? You know, dating Mike or whatever. And she was, I think maybe the other way around. I was like, how's it going dating this girl?

She's like, they got this weirdest tradition. They kiss on the lips.

Yeah, basically. It was basically that. He was like, yeah, they go to, he's like, I went on their annual family vacation to Tahoe or whatever. They went to a cabin. And I'm expecting skiing and all this other stuff, and there was, but at night they did this thing and I'm like, oh shit, what did they do? It's like blood cult, like what's going on? And he's like, yeah, they all read Harry Potter, but like they read it aloud and they read it like in the voices. And he's like, oh my God, that's a bit much. Sitting there in the circle. Yeah, exactly. But I was like, but to them it was like their thing. And I was like, I, you know what, like as as cringe as I would feel doing that. And I love Harry Potter, by the way, but as cringe as I would feel like doing, you know, Dumbledore's voice as I read the book, that would be a lot for me and definitely a lot for me if I'm the visiting boyfriend into that family. That was like a lot. But like, you know, respect to have a family that's like willing, willing to be a little silly even as everybody gets old. Like, I really respect that. And like, if that's your thing, that's your thing. All right, whatever. Like, you know, let me go ahead and, and read, you know, Order of the Phoenix, like in the voice. Like, let's do this.

You know, like I say, like cornrows and tattoos or cornrows and sleeve tattoos. I respect that others do it, but that ain't for me. Not for me.

You don't want to know my new line. I tweeted this out yesterday. Just bother people. But I called, I was like, product managers are the bottled water of tech. And it's just a funny backhanded slap. Like nobody, nobody knows what to make of it. Like it's a compliment, but it's clearly kind of an insult. Like I like bottled water, but I guess bottled water is wasteful and useless. And then somebody one-upped it and I'm like, oh, that's my new shit. He goes, he goes, they're more like the throw pillows. And I was like, dude, throw pillows are such a good diss because it's like, it's like, you know, girls love them. They look good, but they're completely fucking useless and annoying and like annoying when you actually need to go to sleep. And so calling something the throw pillow of X is just an awesome slam that I'm like saving up in my back pocket to use.

I met people at this conference that I went to, and there was like a lot of listeners there. And someone came up to me, he goes, so, um, like, when did you guys decide to make the switch to go from talking about business to just being like 12-year-olds? And, uh, yeah, that's what he said. And he goes, are you happy with that switch? And I was like A, I don't remember, and B, yeah, I think so. But I was like, yeah, there definitely was like a decision. Yes, absolutely.

Thank you. And fuck. This is my reaction. He's like, do you—

he's like, was there— but he wasn't trying to like roast me. He was like, it was Steph's fiancé, Steph Smith's fiancé. And he goes, He's like, I love the pod. Um, but like, when was that switch made where you were going to like go from like talking about actual business to being 12?

When I was 12, we had a question like this, which was, um, I was like, what was it? You probably know what it was like. Um, when did you tell your dad you were gay? And it was like, it was like the viral question that went through our middle school, like COVID. It was like instant. Someone said this and people realized like, oh my God, it's a hilarious trap question. There's no good answer to this question. And literally everybody in every school in the school district of Texas was saying this question for like 3 months and then it went away. But that's what that question is like, oh, when did you guys decide to like switch the podcast up to being like 12-year-old idiots?

It's like, yeah, he just totally like alpha'd me and I was like, oh, I don't remember Calvin. It was pretty good.

And on that note, we're out.

All right, all right, we're out.

See you.