How Rob Dyrdek Went From $15M to $350M in 5 Years (#465)

So does that mean that like the vast majority of your real wealth creation has been in like the last 10 years?

No, in the last like few years.

But you were, you, you were broke.

I was, I would consider myself broke. I would say I started from zero almost in 2016 when I launched The Machine. I wouldn't say dead broke.

I mean, you're a millionaire. You, you, were you worth at least 10?

I would say I was probably worth like, you know, $15 or $20 in that zone.

So not broke, but to me, I was like, bro, to a future billionaire, a millionaire is broke.

Sean, say exactly what you just said to me when we finished our recording with Rob Dyrdek.

I said, I think that was the best episode of MFM we've ever done. I don't know. I don't know if I'm just on a high right off of it. But I believe so. People can tell in the YouTube comments, they should tell us. I, to me, this was the best episode we've done. 400-something episodes. How many have we done, Jonathan? Something, something like 400 episodes. That was the number one, my favorite, the best episode we've ever done.

The, from beginning to end. I'm shocked. So like you asked him, we, we started getting along really well and you said, Rob, what's your net worth? And I was like, damn, is he gonna answer that? And he gave the full answer. We're not gonna say it now, but you— it's somewhere in the middle somewhere. But he gave the entire answer where he broke it down. He talked about his— I, I'm just actually shocked that he said most of the things that he said, and it was amazing in a great way. In a great way.

He told stories of two companies that he's built, and the stories were phenomenal. Uh, we talked about net worth, what he does with his money, how he thinks about investing. We talked about like how he kind of went from beginner at business and making all the mistakes to to now being really sophisticated and how that all happened in a really short amount of time. We talked about his, his house, the Forever Estate, the dream that he's been building around and how he does it. Was, we, we touched, it hit all the, the buttons. It had the inspirational, the tactical, the, uh, entertaining, the humorous. It had everything that I like in an episode, but in one. So I'm, I'm, I couldn't be happier right now.

So if you use YouTube, whether you're listening on, on podcasts or you're actually watching us right now, let us know in the comments what you think or if you're not a YouTuber, just tweet at Sean and I, it's SeanVP, like Vice President, SeanVP, and then TheSamParr, and add Rob to it and let us know on Twitter, or if you're a YouTuber, let us know there. I'm very curious what you guys think and tag Rob if you can.

Give us a wave of feedback. I'm going to send it all to Rob after the pod to show him the love, because I know people are going to love this. All right. Without any further buildup, Here's the episode with Rob Dyrdek.

Uh, all right, we're live. Rob, we, uh, Sean, you missed it cuz you're late. You're always late. And that's Dyrdek. That's his whole thing is timeliness. And he was talking mad shit about you cuz you were using his face and his time template that he talked about in the last pod.

I am human optimization was the big, the, the line from his last time he was on. That's been, I think it's like in our trailer.

Now.

And, uh, Rob, if you are human optimization, I am human unoptimization. I am the opposite. Yeah.

And hey, look, the beauty of, uh, you know, time mastery is you don't— you're also— it's time flexibility and understanding that life is this living experience. But nothing brings me greater joy than to know a man that was using my time data for customer acquisition and knowing that how much I collect my data and how specific I am with mastering my time would be 7 minutes to have me waiting for 7 minutes is what makes it even more, makes life more grand to me to know that for you knowing how much I respect and use my time so thoughtfully that you would steal a little bit from me. Even it's fun to me. You know what I mean? It's very fun. Okay.

All right. That is well played. I appreciate that, dude.

We were talking about a bunch of stuff before you hopped in. Well, Rob, I want to talk about that in a second. But you came on, I think, 2 years ago or a year and a half ago. I don't remember. That was like your first— everyone— I just reread the comments a minute ago. Everyone said the same shit, which is the exact same thing I thought, which was Rob's just a skater. Uh, he's, he's smart and does good TV shit and all that stuff. But we didn't realize that he was this profound. And that pod, I felt like one is your, what it was like, you're coming out as like this, like human optimization thing. Now I've watched you with so many other people and you've, I've gone more in depth on some of your stuff. Is that true? Was that like your first time? Like, was that like the, the artist formerly known as Prince moment?

You guys get all the credit.

Thank you. That's what I was looking for.

Hey, because, because, because let me give you this. You led out with trying to talk to me about, you did, you did no depth of research into seeing what I was up to. You led out with some skate talk and TV talk, and then I went on like a 20-minute rant to un— so that you could understand the depth of how I operate. Yeah. Then the entire conversation changed for an hour. You know what I mean? And that, that, that to me is like the funniest part of the experience was I said, okay, they didn't even, they have no idea who they're talking to. Let me, let me lay this out real quick. And, and, but again, I'm so thankful that you guys, the conversation turned to, because it was also like, I had been collecting the data using my rhythm of existence, but I'd never shared it before. So even then sharing it with you and then you guys reposting it, it really began to like create the wave. And then you guys put out a, a little thing that was about what if Rob, how would Rob monetize his data? And so you put out this entire thing about like how to build an app and what I would need to charge in order to create a business out of it. And it really started the wheels in me of like realizing that, man, I need to turn this philosophy first into then a usable digital product that's more intuitive, that's deeper than an app, that's actually a software that allows people to realize this level of harmony and overall happiness that I've created through this system, and which has led to where I'm at today of continually pushing the philosophy forward and ultimately creating a software, was inspired by you guys.

We get all the credit. That's nice.

There's actually a couple listeners who, after they heard that, made their version. They were like, dude, he was talking about this. It sounded so awesome. He said he might share it, but we haven't seen it yet. So I just went ahead and I made my own version. It's linked to Google Sheets. It was kind of a janky version, but it definitely inspired several people to— I mean, many people to look inward and be like, you know, how am I treating my time? And it seems like you had the kind of the complete balance. You were like, I have my time that's with my wife and my kids, and then I have my work time, and then I have my body. You know, you had it all. So I think that definitely inspired a lot of people to look at it, but it also inspired some people to try to build their own version of that tracker so that they could have the kind of the, you know, the what gets measured gets managed type of attitude around, around their time.

Yeah. And again, I think it's, it's so much more complex than that, right? Because time's alive and your time and experience, your present, basically your whole life leads to this present moment in time. And then the energy that you feel at this present moment in time is ultimately the quality of your reality that you're in, right? So time ends up being this much more important aspect of learning to manage. And then you are changing all the time. The world's changing. You're selling companies, you're starting new companies, your kids are growing, all these things. So like managing your time and how you stay balanced is constantly changing as well as you change. So it's this ongoing focus in my life that it's this constant assessment and adjustment to lead me towards a better probability of a better future experience. And that's what's difficult when somebody makes their own app. There's sort of a philosophy and a rhythm and a process that I think I need to, that I'm creating in the software that makes it much more intuitive based off of the type of personality you have and the way your life rolls to get it to actually work. Because otherwise it just feels like you're making checklists and making data, and then it gets too difficult and it's over.

Before you joined Sean, we were talking about Andrew Huberman. And the reason why we were talking about him is because both— I like to skate. Rob is a skater, hardcore, obviously professional skateboarder, and Huberman loves it. And we were talking about that. And I don't know if you know what Momentous is, Sean, but it's like they're one of the main advertisers on the Huberman pod. And they're— and it's Andrew Huberman says like, this is the only protein that I like. So obviously I bought a ton. That's what I drink every day. And Rob was like, and I, is it Jeff? Is he the CEO? I'm supposed to talk to Jeff.

Jeff is the CEO. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. I'm supposed to talk to Jeff because Ken Rideout introduced us, who was also on the pod. And anyway, uh, Rob was like, yeah, yeah. You know, that's cool. It's amazing to see what, how fast that business grew because of Huberman's, uh, you know, promotion, you know, you know, I co-founded that company not too long ago and it's just crazy how fast it's grown. and we were like, wait, what? Rob, you co-founded Momentous Protein?

Yeah. And look, and, and, and here's the thing with Momentous Protein. I co-founded it with Matt Wan in 2016. Um, the— when they brought it to me, he had a vision for creating basically the most premium supplements that the market had ever seen, the Ferrari of supplements. It was called Project One at time. And Matt was foregoing his first year of Harvard to build this company. He was 18 years old. And his father, Mark Wan, had been one of the big investors in my professional skateboarding league. So I had a relationship with him and said, you know, I would do this project with his son. First thing we had to do is rebrand it, right? And really like create a name and a soul into what is the absolute pinnacle of supplements, Momentus, right? And all the way down to where I even, you know, went through the whole process of even making that logo, you know, like to me that M is like this timeless, extraordinary logo.

And Rob, that's you in Photoshop or this is like a creative agency pitching you guys? How does that happen?

You take it, make it, well, this is me literally an illustrator of the agency sent some logos and me cutting up the agency's logo and being like, no, get rid of, there was a circle in the middle. I'm like, no, this is like, look at this. It forms like an M in a mountain. Like, like get rid, like I literally cut and pasting in my Illustrator, the Momentus logo.

Love it.

And so we launched that company and what happens? We don't sell a thing. We don't sell a thing. What do we got? We got the most overpriced protein in the entire industry. It's like, it's like 35% above. Like every other protein. Like, it's like literally nobody buys it. Nobody buys it. Now you, what do you got? You got an 18-year-old CEO. This kid doesn't even, every single day is another thing of like, oh, that's what happens in business. You're, you're, if you want to talk about the headwinds of no man's land and the pain of launching a business with an 18-year-old genius, right? Because he's brilliant, but he was 18 and didn't even understand anything about a company. And you can't advise somebody into running a company, you know what I'm saying? You have to fight the fire, learn the battles to ever learn how to operate a company. Long story short, this, this business never got off the ground for years. And I finally— now he's older, and like, I'm like, look, man, you've got to make a decision. Like you've tried everything, you've done all different types of partnerships, you've made all different types of verticals of product. It is the Ferrari of supplements. It is absolutely the purest and best. You kept it real, but you just can't find a market for it. Like you either have to sell it or you have to find somebody to merge with, but you gotta move on. Like you can't like spend your, you're now 23. Like you learned everything, go figure, take this skillset that you learned and apply it to a business that has a more relatively faster growing opportunity.

What were the sales? What were the annual sales when you, when you had that conversation?

Oh, I want to say a few million and just losing money year over year.

And how much did you put in? Yeah. How much did you put into it to start?

I put in Um, shoot, I want to say not much, like $200,000 in the first, like, like at the beginning to get it off the ground, and another $100,000, $300,000 maybe.

Do you split equity when you do that, like a 50/50?

And I got 30% of the business. Okay, okay. So, so now, um, man, raised so much capital any which way but loose, you know. Now I'm on the board, I'm in board meetings, like, and there's— I'll tell you what, Nothing, nothing as painful as board meeting after board meeting when there's no revenue growth and you're just burning capital, trying to figure out how you're going to tell a story to raise more capital to keep the dream alive. That went on for a significant amount of time. We got incredibly diluted. And then the, it was just like, hey man, you've got to make a decision here on like what you, what your life looks like. Forget about this company. Forget about this investment. Like you now, like, are you, you forego going to Harvard to build this company. So you essentially like stepped away from this big education, which always like in the beginning, I was like, this kid's too smart to go to school. Why? He should just go start a company. He doesn't need to go to school. Like as I have kids and I'm older, You know what I mean? You know, like 7, 8 years later, I'm like, man, I was like the bad uncle by advising him to not go to Harvard and I'll do this company with you, gassed him up. Right. Like, I think he should have went to Harvard in hindsight. But again, like diluted all the way down. He went out and found Ampd, the business that Jeff was running at the time that I actually, man, I looked at in 2005. 15 and almost did a deal to own half of PR Lotion and, and the Amp product because of how much I believed in the IP, uh, of, of what they developed because it was built through this, um, uh, uh, biopharma group that I was doing deals with back in '15 in my early days of hustling. And they merged, and in that merger Then they did a deal. Now they're joint companies that the whole company becomes Momentus. And then they lock in that Hummer Bin deal. And then the business exploded overnight. Overnight.

Wow.

Overnight.

Do you know how much did it grow by?

Like, man, like 20 times, right? Like it, like it went like, um, it is, it is now like poised to like now make a real run. And I would attribute it to the one-for-one like media to consumer that Anders Huberman was to the product, right? So we could never find an audience. It didn't matter how much like ad spends we did, where we spent it, we had deals with NFL teams and MLB teams and all these athletes and all this stuff. But it was when it finally landed with someone whose core media is their authenticity in, um, the science side of human optimization. Then he's saying, hey, Andy has this massive platform. Then he's saying this is the very best supplements because they are in fact the very best supplements When you tie those together, boom, that thing goes, you know what I mean?

That's an amazing story.

What do I have now? I don't know. What do I have now? Like 4%, you know what I mean? Like I've been deluded. So now, you know, call it 9 years later, uh, or 7 years later, I already gave up on the brand. Don't even like claim it. Like looked at it when they merged as an exit and now it's just like, completely exploded. But, you know, and yes, I'll get like a return on my $300,000 that would be significant, um, to, you know, probably a regular investor. But, you know, for me in the co-founding game, could have been, you know, I looked at selling that business for $100 million in under 5 years and having 20% of it when I, when I measured that out in '16 versus, you selling it 8 years later and making $1 million wherever I end up getting diluted on the end. And like, okay, cool, you got like 2.5 times your money. But that's like, that's not why you play the game of venture creation.

That was, I think that was my perfect, that might be my, the favorite story that's ever been shared on this pod for a couple reasons. One, you told it great. Two, it had all the drama, the elements to it. And three, you're very honest. Like, most people that come on this pod, uh, we're like, how much did you put in? They're like, ah, hand wave. We're like, oh, it's doing well now. And then they're like, yeah, it's doing well. But they won't say that last part, which is like, yeah, but you know, it's been 8 years. I got diluted. And honestly, I'll make kind of fuck all on this. And, and I, I'm really— the game I'm in, you know, that's good, but the game I'm in is to create, to create X. Very honest. I, I want people to appreciate that because that is so— we do— we've done 100+ guests of people that are from all walks of life. People that are post-economic, they already made it. They have no incentive to not fully be honest with the situations. And it is very rare to hear that. So I really, really like that. I got two follow-ups for you on things you said there. The first is you said you kind of think maybe he should have gone to Harvard. And I think this is an interesting question that applies to a lot of people, which is like, should I go to college? I kind of feel like people who make it, they're like, ah, that's not where you learn it. You learn it in the real world. It sounds like you were kind of in that boat, but you said maybe you changed your mind as you've matured or with your own kids. What's the thinking there? What is it? He should have gone to Harvard because the company wasn't working, or you came to appreciate something else about the value of college?

I think I've come to appreciate the value of college above all. And as someone who quit high school and started his first company at 17, you know what I mean? Like, I'm, I think about the—

but do you appreciate college or Harvard and top 20 colleges?

Well, Harvard obviously has a higher level of like prestige, but, but what I never understood even back then was the looking at business in a multidimensional way, learning everything about business, understanding product and, and supply chain, understanding brand and marketing and customer, customer acquisition, understanding management and hiring and teams, like all of this, and understanding sales and then understanding operational side, really understanding the financial side, knowing that all of those have to integrate into a financial model that you've got to believe you can execute because that's how a business actually becomes successful is when you project what you're going to do and you actually do it, not project a fantasy so you can raise money, right? And I think that going to business school, you at least leave with the fundamentals of that and have a general knowledge that when you step out into the real world and really try to build a company, you're at least going to have a foundation of what you're launching off of versus what he did, what I did, when I was launching all these companies when I was young, all the way into my 30s, or what he did at 18, you have such little general knowledge of how it all works because you're such an optimist, especially when you're really smart. You can figure things out fast, but there's just too many things that you don't know when it comes to like the complexities of building something like a business.

Right. And then my second question was, do you— this is a little nerdy on the protein side, but how did you actually go about creating the cleanest supplement? Because I've thought about this many times, which is there is definitely a market for people who want the highest quality, purest grade, best for you product, and they'll pay the extra $20 per bag to get it. And when you look, I think the supplement industry is notoriously dirty. The places where they make stuff, if you test these things, they don't turn out very well. So did you guys do anything radical to actually achieve that result, or was it just finding the right partner and then that was it?

It was first like the people who helped develop it, right? We're all like trainers and for the 49ers and the Celtics, right? Then it's all the certifications that make the— I can't think of their exact name, like Grass and InfoSport, whatever these— Intrasport, whatever they may be, but these certification that are very expensive, right? So now, like, the layer of— and what does that do, man? It just keeps putting pressure on price and margin, right? Because there's just a certain point where it's like, man, it's so expens— more expensive. Do even the people that really care— is it making enough of a difference, right, for the absolute premium? And to me, absolutely, we'd find a consumer. And that consumer never showed up until Huberman said to that audience, which converted Sam and now has Sam talking to Jeff. Like you, it's like that level of authenticity, the product backed that up, but it, we never found that level of media that could validate it to reach a large enough consumer base that would be willing to pay that extra amount of money. It's a dice roll. When you, when you launch a business to do it like that, you know.

We need to get in the certification business, I think.

Yeah, that sounds like the real business opportunity in there. Uh, this is Cruelty Free Certified Inc. Yeah, we, we will, we will certify everything for y'all for, for the low, low price. By the way, it's funny that like Joe Rogan is like bro Oprah, but now Tuberman is like Dr. Phil or Dr. Oz or something, like of the, of this kind of like the guy media game where It's the, the doc. If the doc says this is the way to go, if he says this is clean, you know, he can move a lot of product, like an unbelievable amount of product in a short amount of time.

But look, you think about, it's like when you think about the depth of him and how he approaches it, like, you know how deep it is. So it's like you, he's earned that respect from you. And, and so it's like, you don't have to, you don't question whether or not Nike's going to put as much effort and innovation as they possibly can into a running shoe. You don't even look into the technology. You pick the color and which one feels the good. You know that they're going to do all the work to get it there. Developing that level of authenticity is incredibly difficult, you know, because there's a lot of other people that are Huberman-esque that do not have his depth, which in turn does not allow, or his process that you believe in, which in turn doesn't allow them to carry the same weight. That he does.

And that was probably just a straight cash deal when you guys bought that ad spot, I would imagine, right?

Yeah, I'm not entirely sure. I was involved in the company at that point. I'm not— I'm not entirely sure what the— what his deal is, but whatever it is, he got underpaid. Whatever it is, whatever it was, too little. Look, I am not privy to what it is, but whatever it is, they got a deal.

You know what I mean?

Like, I just know that.

What are some other venture creation that you've been up to? That was one amazing venture creation story. You got me hungry for another. Do you got any other interesting things you've been cooking?

And how many have you even done? Have you done— you've done dozens of these.

Yeah, I've done a bunch. I've done a bunch. You know what I mean? And, and that's— and here's the beauty of it too, is like, I've made so much money, right? That I'm— you can play the game more honest, right? But in your, you're not really, you're judging yourself off of your IRR, but you are not like, once you get to a certain point, like you're playing the game for the speed of the IRR and the scale of the IRR and its potential. Because when I started the game, I wanted to build 50 to 70 companies and make, you know, own 25 to 35 and sell them for between, you know, 50 million and 150 million and make 20 to 30 each. But when, you know, you sell a company for 200 million and get, you know, 150 million, you know, you're like, well, that's way more fun. Like, how do I, how do I move this number from like making, you know, 15 to 30 million a deal to like, $50 to $200 million a deal, right? You just begin to change as you're sort of evolving.

And what, do less deals?

You want to do less deals, right? And then you want to be much more focused on the opportunity and then focused on all the lessons learned. Would I start a supplement brand with an 18-year-old ever again? I would not. You know what I mean? And so let me give you an example of an opposite version, right? So, um, I was approached by a really, really, uh, seasoned CEO who had just built a company and sold it. It was a footwear brand called Greats.

Okay. So I also owned a pair of those, man.

Right. So, so you understand him as a brand and him as a brand builder and as a CEO, like, you know, and he had an idea he wanted to share with us and It was in the beauty space, and he essentially presented to us this concept of filtered shower water is this overlooked cornerstone of creating your beauty routine. Like, your water is filled with all this garbage that dries out your hair and dries out your skin. It does all this stuff, yet for some reason, there's no, no one's approached beauty and filtering the water, right? So we do all the— and again, so, okay, wow, this is super interesting. Then now you look at it from a business model, right? Then it's like, oh wow, now it's recurring revenue. So it's a single bit of hardware that now the filters have to be replaced. So now you've got this recurring revenue. Now it's a super experienced CEO that has a depth of knowledge in DTC. So it's not like You know, a lot of times you'll find an experienced CEO that came from retail who just, oh, it's, I want to build an Amazon business, right? Because retail's so hard. Like anytime you find people trying to transition to what they think is an easier way to create sales is always a red flag. But again, now he has the understanding, the knowledge, and now it's like, is this space valid? So we do the research. What do we do? We go and look at the entire space of all of the filtered showerheads, the entire market. It is tiny, tiny, tiny, under a billion dollars, right? And he wants to charge $135 for the unit, $35 for the filters. You know, you can go to Home Depot and get a shower filter for like $19. You know, there's like one premier premium one that's sold by a beauty company that's that's, you know, kind of chromey or whatever, that's like $99, $100, but like no movement. And so when you look at that opportunity, you look at it like it's as clear as can be where it's like, man, this is either pure white space and there is a real opportunity to like make this matter in beauty and make a massive business and, or it will like literally just not work. It is like so pure, but then the tantalizing side is, well, boy, if it works, man, it's like, think of the friction it takes to get a shower head in. But man, think of how low the churn will be on the subscription because it'll be way more friction to take it completely out, to stop your recurring like subscription every 2 months. Than it will and put back your old shower head. Like that made it this incredibly compelling concept.

And by the way, for the listener, this is basically your shower head. So I don't even, I don't even think most people know this, but the shower head, it's not that hard to remove. You can kind of do it yourself. And what you're in, and it's Jolie. Is this Jolie? Is that how you say it? Jolie. And you basically, they give you a, cause I've seen this company, they killed it in year one. I think they did $4 million in sales in the first year. You basically, they send you a thing, a new shower head, you, they send you a wrench, you put it on there, and then you put little like filters and packets. And I think they smell nice or something like that. And they might have some type, they might have some type of other good stuff in there. But the premise is, is that for all the really hardcore health nerds, they're afraid of some of the chemicals and minerals that are in city water. And so they want this to be better. And I have friends that have like, what's that one, like charcoal water filter that's made out of metal that every— they do that for their home. Like they do these really like $10,000 projects for their home. And what this product is, is that for a showerhead. Did I summarize that?

And think of— that's correct. And it's the efficacy of it, right? And then how did they launch the company? How were they able to go to $4 million? And now this year, you know, they'll do close to 40 million is that they, um, they opened it up by like putting in your zip code so you could see all the contaminants in your water.

Ah, nice.

So how they did all their initial customer acquisition is they got all the data of what it— because the city, the water departments have to report all the contaminants in the water. And so they scraped all that data You put in your zip code and then you got a complete report of all the stuff in your water. That's how they did customer acquisition for months before they even had the product out. You know what I mean? Then they did pre-orders before it launched, right? Then what were we all hanging on for? What's that first quarter of churn? The churn was at like, you know, 1.2%, like of the subscription. It's like everything about it. And then it was just growth month over month over month. Then like they just keep evolving. Like they launch an Air One in the grocery store. They have a giant display and you can buy them an Air One, right? The, it's like the entire process of how they did it overnight. Because you got to think, how do you value a business like that? That, that business is valued at $200 million plus in a year and a half. Because how are you, how do you really look at that where it's like, yes, it's selling hardware month over month, but then it is stacking subscription dollars. Like, so it is, it is this extraordinary hardware subscription service that is incredibly rare that has made it so valuable overnight. He built the company with 3 people. We're the primary investor. It's profitable and never raised another dime ever again.

Chef's kiss.

What size check you do on that one?

Yeah, I did $800 million in that one.

So that's, I mean, that's substantial, right, for an early-stage startup?

I mean, you know, I will, I'll go, I go, I'm all over the place, but I'll go up to $10 million, you know what I mean? So when I think $800 million, I think it's like kind of small.

What's been the biggest bet? Like, where have you plowed in something like $10 million into? What type of bet was that?

I did you know, when I, my professional skateboarding league, my production company merged in with Nitro Circus and created Thrill One Media. And then we sold Thrill One Media for $300 million, right? Of which we got $200 million, right? And this was sort of like the layering in of my production deal. Deal. And then the group that bought Thrill One, I invested $10 million with them to buy me, um, as, and then did a separate deal as it relates to having a bigger stake in the production company, uh, that I sold and my league and the overall sports property. Because I knew during that transaction, I knew I was going to negotiate for a bigger television deal. So I basically leveraged, you know, my ability to go and get a lot of value for the company. So I got all this equity back. They just paid me, you know, close to $200 million. So I used $10 million of it to invest in buying me. So that I could, you know, turn around and hopefully make another, you know, you know, not, not nearly as much, but hopefully like another like $100,000 to $150,000 off of it a couple of years down the line.

And when you say we, is that like Dyrdek family office or is that, uh, you don't have a fund, right? Yeah. It's just your family office.

Just my money.

Yeah.

Like, no, I, this is all my money. So I, and I just run it like a family office and I just look at that as where I would deploy venture. Capital, right? So if I just deploy capital into real estate and ventures that I have much more control over and/or I have a higher leverage or position, but it was amazing. Think about this. Like in the closing of the deal, I had to not, it was the most money I made in one shot, right? And the most, like I had invested at one shot in a venture. So with the, like, Here on my, you know, closing that deal in the Zoom call, it was the most I made and the most I invested in one, one, one here, here with, you know, whatever, like I, whatever my like final checkoff on was it. But again, what are the stakes of it? It's whatever, you know what I mean? I look at it as it's fun and like I'm underwriting the business because I went and signed a massive television deal. So I'm underwriting that entire roll-up, like, and it's amazing partners. It's Dana White and the Fertitta family who own the UFC. So it's like even being close to them and knowing them for so long just makes the joy of even partnering with them fun and exciting. And I dedicate very little time to it, right? Like, I still, and help sort of adding the vision and how to continue to evolve it and grow it. But I, you know, continue to shoot television at an even much higher scale. Like now I'm shooting 336 episodes a year up from 252. That's still at 4% of my time. That's, you know, essentially 5 hours a day, 4 times a month for 10 months, right? Like is essentially what it is. But it's underwritten the entire roll-up. It is, you know, a billion-dollar television deal over a 7-year period with the production and everything involved. I get all my talent money, but then I'm also leveraged into the roll-up and the production company again to sell it again. And it's, it's, it's just squeezing water out of a rock. You know what I'm saying? It's like you're looking at opportunities. Inside every deal. You know, there just isn't a world where I'm just looking at like, where are the ways for me to add leverage, create opportunity in each one of the ways that I look at every one of these deals each and every time.

Who are some of your business advisors, mentors, friends that are helping you develop this muscle? Because, you know, you go from anything you want to do, you go from a white belt to blue belt. Eventually you're, you can become a black belt. And it sounds like, you know, when you started, you were more of a white belt like everybody. And now, you know, looking at structures, looking at ways to double dip, looking at ways to, you know, measure, okay, I want IRR, but also I should be thinking about the gross dollar amounts and maybe fewer deals, but bigger deals. Who have you learned a ton from that you respect either as a friend or a mentor on the business side?

Man, I, you know, I don't think anybody plays the game like this that I know that's in my circle, you know, I think it's a, it's that experience and it's that like continually looking at every deal multidimensionally. Right. And I think like the gift that I actually had early on is I used to look at media and marketing multidimensional, right? So like in the early days, I would, you know, be able to look at like a television show and how are all these ways that I can monitor, monitor, monetize it. right? Like, how do I own the rights of media? And then I could sell that to different people. Like, I always looked at opportunity multidimensionally, but I didn't understand how to build and create value in business. So I never looked at business multidimensionally. And I just think I, once I taught myself really how to look at business holistically and how to create and build businesses to sell, creating value, that then I began to look at You know, how can I see all of the opportunity in these different angles in order to, you know, create the most value for myself? And a lot of times underwrite risk, you know what I mean? Like, if I didn't know I was going to go and sign that mega television deal, I wouldn't have put in the $10 million. But then I said, well, what if I go and sign this deal? How much additional equity will you give me for my $10 million? Right? Then they're like, oh, if you go and get that deal, then we'll give you 12 extra percent, you know what I mean? Like, then it's like, okay, now I'm like, you know, I just made my, literally overnight made my $10 million worth like $60 million and underwritten it off of a deal that I'm going and making hundreds of millions of dollars to just do, you know? So it's like you're, and at the end of it, and keep in mind through all of this, I work less now than I've ever worked. You know what I mean? Through optimizing my time and getting more and more efficient of how I use it. I work at about a 40-hour week to manage my family office, all of my venture portfolios, and shoot television and a podcast. You know what I'm saying? All of that is about a 40-hour week. You know, this data is wrong every freaking time.

Have you heard of HubSpot? HubSpot is a CRM platform where everything is fully integrated.

Whoa, I can see the client's whole history— calls, support tickets, emails— and here's a task from 3 days ago I totally missed. HubSpot, grow better.

What do you think you're worth at this point? Um, so you have, you have liquid and you have obviously illiquid. Um, what do you think the, the kind of the old, the N-word, the net worth is at And do you have a goal with that?

And last podcast you go, I need to be a billionaire like I deserve. So like, yeah, where are we at? Remember that line? It was a beautiful line.

No, no, I don't. But that's really funny. It's like I'm, you know, I was doing, because you got to think like, you know, I have this in between our last call. I have this, I hired an amazing CEO that came from a family office structure. I needed somebody that understood business, but understood sort of the dynamics of a family office, but was also young and excited to go on like a journey to a billion dollars. Right. And so I have modeling for just my cash flowing assets that take me to a billion. Like, forget about like any of your venture stuff and building out sort of your pathway through the business side. Like I have modeling out to the year 2050. Like that I have fully integrated on all asset classes that I'm even investing in. Now, where do you make the billion dollars? You make it either slowly over time at compounding or in big chunks, right? So if today I'm— my net worth of all of my assets is a little over, just under $350 million, right? That the the pathway, there's the slow, long pathway to a billion. That's easy through compounding, right? Because the majority—

what do you assume, just like 7 or 8%?

Correct. Right. And with the buildings now, you got to think about the way the buildings work and the real estate work is I'm getting 5 to 6% cash, like tax-free cash, but I'm still getting 7 to 10% equity growth over the long term. And some of those are, you know, so, you know, call it with the cash, 15, 16% IRRs. But a lot of the buildings that I've sold, I ended up with like 35 and 42% IRRs. And what do you do with that? You 1031 exchange it and you get new buildings on an ongoing basis. So like that real estate, even side of it, is compounding in a unique way. And then with my cash, you know, money markets are giving you 5% right now, close to 5%. And then I keep a significant amount of liquid dollars in, in sort of Nuveen high-yield funds that kick off around a blended 10% that aren't going to grow. But you get cash for your cash. You're making so much cash off of your cash, then you're making so much cash tax depreciated cash off of your real estate portfolio that you, you know, when you look at all of, I look at that, I call it the modern cash flow portfolio where it's just that cash is underwriting the expense of my life in the family office. Right. And so I don't even like when I have these big exits and when, you know, all the money I get made from TV, I look at all of it through the lens of how much am I actually making post-tax per hour? So, okay, it seems like I'm making a lot shooting television so efficiently, but, and how much time I actually work on the Dyrdyk machine and the actual venture side of the business. When you look at long-term capital gains versus ordinary income, but boy, when you look at the amount of time I spend on that, cash flowing portfolio in real estate, it's a couple hours a year.

And so what do you have as a dollar per hour goal? Like, what is good for you? What is bad for you? Right? So like everybody has a, like, you know, if I do something that saves me $100, I go return a blender to the store. That wasn't a saving of $100. It was a loss.

I'm looking at a million an hour as the goal. You know what I mean?

That's your goal.

Like, as it relates to energy and effort, that's put into it, right? And, and, you know, because I, I, it's fascinating when you look at how much money I make from television and then what that ends up being like post-tax and fees, even though it seems like a limited amount of time because I, and it's only 4% of my time, but seeing all of them through that lens, it's a way more interesting way to view it all. You know what I mean? Because since it, and again, it goes back to time. It's like when you, because what life do you want to live, right? And where do you get time? Where can you buy time back? But ultimately, where are the places where you make the most money? And people don't believe in them. Like this idea of passive income, passive income is not buying a building that you've got to operate and you're constantly dealing with like trying to keep it rented and things breaking and trying to make decisions. That's not passive income in real estate. Passive income is when you give money to an operator and they give you cash back for your money. That's when you're doing nothing. Now you're, you're, what you have to get good at is evaluating rules and, and creating principles for the type of operators you'd be willing to deploy capital with. So that you know that they're world-class and that you, what they say they're going to do, that they do, which in turn, all you're doing is reading statements and putting a little money together or putting a little bit of time to think through strategy, future strategy, a few times a year. That's the difference on the way you choose to get into an asset class.

And based off of the last pod, you, you were saying how like, I think you said, I think you're 47 now, right? You said on the last pod that basically, I think you said into your late 30s, you'd screwed a whole bunch of shit up. I think when you were trying to raise money from, I forget the VC or PE company, but you were raising money for something and you're like, dude, my business sucks. I'm losing money. It turns out I was wrong. So does that mean that like the vast majority of your real wealth creation has been in like the last 10 years?

No, in the last, like, few years.

But you were, you, you were broke.

I was, I would consider myself broke. I would say I started from zero almost in 2016 when I launched the machine. I wouldn't say dead broke.

I mean, you're a millionaire. You, you, would you, were you worth at least 10?

I would say I was probably worth like, you know, 15 or 20 in that zone.

So not broke, but to me I was like, bro, to a future billionaire, a millionaire is broke.

Well, yeah, but, but he, he described it. He was like, in my thirties, he's like, I spent this and this. And you said phrases like I had nothing. And that was— and that was—

but I would tell you that the majority of this wealth was all created between 2018 and 2022 over that 4-year period. Right. And now it's exponentially scaled. Right. I don't even know, you know, when I think about sort of how I've, I, I'm, I kind of, I very conservatively value the ventures that get me up to the 3.25 zone. I could easily push those to, I could easily say those are, you know, push me closer to 4, right? And, but it's also like then, okay, what is, how do I want to continue to create like bigger opportunities in the future? Because I'm always like 5 years into the future. The same way I understood in 2016, here's the strategy. The strategy worked, only it was bigger than I had anticipated. Then all these other additional things had happened. I had the clarity of like, this is what I was going to do. But then that clarity, the universe conspired to create more opportunity that I capitalized off of and got to this scale that I could have never imagined in such a shorter amount of time. And all it does is make me see further and clearer on how I can get the scale even bigger, which leads me to believe compounding, I become a billionaire over time. But I, I believe I can create some ventures, including the software that I create, that, and the platform that I want to build to speak to that core audience, that I believe I will be able to monetize it at a much higher scale in a shorter amount of time with my existing portfolio of assets.

And if you Google your name, you'll see like you went on a little bit of a buying spree where you're buying like, I think, 4 really, really nice homes in LA. But I thought it said that you, I thought there was a quote saying you're not going to live there. That's rentals. A, is that true? And B, what type of real estate are you actually buying that you consider cash flowing real estate versus just personal?

Yeah, so I would never buy a house. Rent.

That's like—

I didn't think so. I thought it said— I thought it said that you— maybe it was like on the— what's it called? Like The Dirt or like The Real, something like that.

Yeah, really what I did in this— look, this is gonna like— this will— this, this will give you— this is— this will give you an ex— like clarity on how much money I had and how dumb I was in 2015. Okay. I like had met like my wife. Like all I wanted to find was a forever home. I had like realized in '14, like I had began to develop, like, like, like learning everything about business and everything. You gotta think in 2013, I was dumb as dirt. I was at the bottom. I didn't understand business. I didn't understand anything. I hired all the consultants and all the groups and began to formulate Everything I needed to learn to speak the way I'm speaking today and, and the strategies of what money is, where do I want to invest it? Never even heard of multifamily units in 2014, right? Like all of this, I, I then took all of my money at the time. I had the, all the money I had to my name in 2015, it was $12 million in cash. Moved it all to cash, like, because I had money in all these different brokers that didn't know what it was. Here I am in 2015 with a vision for, like, how I'm going to create a venture studio, the Dyrdex machine, and the whole thing. And I'm looking for, you know, I just got married and I'm looking for a forever home or a place to buy. and I find the most heaven-sent piece of land that God has ever created in a gated community in Beverly Hills. That is a, like, this gated community to a private road to a 4-acre promontory with unobstructed views of the entire LA basin, Hollywood sign, every, the most extraordinary property I have ever stepped on in my life. And paid $10 million cash for it and then took— launched this dream with $2 million, you know, because I was like, oh man, this is my destiny to build a house and live on this land forever.

So it was just land. It was just land.

Just land. Call it Forever Estates. And I have since— and so in that neighborhood, like where it is. I have bought multiple houses and remodeled them in the neighborhood while I continue to design, uh, Forever Estates as it's called. And, and kept it all these years, carried the cost, you know, $200 grand a year just to carry it, spending mil— like built a whole, designed a whole house of the architecture team, fired them, hired Seota, the best architects in the world out of South Africa. and we have just been designing and designing and designing. It was part of the vision of like, I'm going to spend the rest of my life in Forever Estates. Like, that's where I'm going to live. There is no better piece of land in the city of Los Angeles. It's the most extraordinary home. I rented a house for 3.5 years, bought a house for $6.5 million, sold it for like $9.5 million 2 years later after remodeling it, bought another house for, for $8 million, put $2 million into it. This house that I'm in now is two doors down from the entrance to Forever Estates. So when I begin to build it, uh, at the— in the fall, that I can be there every step of the way. But what happened—

wait, hold on.

Begin to build it in the fall? How long of a timeline are we talking? This has been 8 years and we're, we're on begin to build it. This is the— this is the Take Forever Estates.

Yeah.

Hey, and what did the world say to me? They're like, this is crazy. And I'm like, man, I'm going to live there forever. And when I build it, I don't even want to think about the cost. It's going to cost me $20 million to build. I don't even want to think about it. I needed to get to generational level wealth to even like, I didn't want it to be a burden. That's why I kept buying houses and kept working on the design. And then now you've gotten to such a scale. What's the strategy now? Well, I'm putting it into a trust. I'm paying cash for the house to build it. And then I'm going to pay rent to the trust. and then it's going to build an endowment so that this home can be in my family forever, but run it, be self-operational. That is so it doesn't have to be tied to the estate, that it will be ran. And then there can be family meetings in Forever Estates for hundreds and hundreds of years into the future. Right. And you can't even get to that way of thinking unless you have kids, unless you create generational wealth. And unless you get to that time, But that all happened over a 5-year period.

You know what I mean?

That is an extraordinary transition to go.

And it started, it started with a horrible decision. I mean, 10, 10, terrible, terrible.

You took, look, I put, I could have put 10, think I'm going to tell you how many build, how much money I had invested in buildings in 2015, $100,000. $100,000. I had invested $100,000 and was making, you know, 7 Gs from that one. And, and like, I put, instead of putting $10 million into a cash flow, which would, I would've been set for life if I would've put that $10 million into the buildings that I put back in 2015 that got like 40% IRRs, like, and were kicking off like 9% cash. I would've been like set for life. From the compounding and the cash flow of that one thing. Oh no. Oh no. I took 10, put it straight into a liability. You know what I'm saying? That now I'm carrying the cost of paying the taxes and double homeowner's fee because it's a double lot. So I'm just carrying $200 grand a year of, and, and then I'm paying all these architects on an ongoing basis to continue to design and develop it. Absolutely ludicrous.

You're amazing. Are you taking adoption? I think you're 15 years older than me. You know, I could be your teenage—

You're taking applications?

Yeah. I want to go to Forever Estates, man. Forever Estates for you is going to be more like a decade estate. It sounds like the way it's taken, but that is like—

Hey, and look, even I'm—

Hey, if it lasts forever, what's a decade, man? That's a drop in the bucket.

But, but think about it. It seems to me, I don't even, it's just another part of seeing my life completely in multidimensional because it's like, it's my relationship with my wife and kids in time. It's the health that I have. It's how every part of my existence has continued to expand and get better. I didn't get better in just business. I didn't get better in just, I got better in like all aspects of my existence on an ongoing basis. So that house, if I would've built the house I designed 5 years ago, I would've been so bummed because I got every 6 months, I would get a completely new design, get it in VR. And as I changed and thought about and got clear on what I wanted the future to look like and how I would want family meetings here in 200 years, like it allowed me to keep evolving and keep evolving to where when I finally got to this point where I'm just about to get the final permits, it feels right on time to me.

I love that.

Right. And, and it's like, I'm healthier, happier, wealthier, wiser. And I know that I'm just going to get healthier, happier, wealthier, and wiser till the day that I die. And right now, what's my goal? 1 million hours of life, 114 years and 54 days. So where am I spending a significant amount of my wealth? Understanding every single aspect of my body and having a very deep longevity plan that allows me to, to enjoy life and live it at a high level at the ripe old age of 112. Someone get to 114, just fall off a cliff.

I, uh, oh my God, Rob, you're amazing. So I was going to ask you about longevity. Like a perf— perfect segue, right?

Yeah.

I wanna ask about that too. And what I was gonna say is very similar to that, which is like, you know, a lot of people— when I sold my first business and had my first bite of like financial success, I was able to get physically fit. It, it was definitely a little bit easier. I could hire some people, but also like I felt a little bit more calm and I had more time. Is this new focus on longevity and focus on all this stuff, is that because you now are financially successful and have more time, or do you think that you always had this, this bug? And what are you doing now health-wise?

I have been doing it nonstop for as long— for, for 20 years. I got my first blood panel and started optimizing into my blood work in 2012. So for me, the— what— where a big transition was in 2015, around the same time, I had made the decision that, like, I was in the best shape of my life, but my body was always achy. And I had made this decision that I started having a doctor come to my house 5 days a week, and all I wanted to do was build a perfectly structured physical system, and there was no timeline to it. And, and really what it led to is triangulating a ton of different therapies which in— but in the process allowed me to learn every muscle in my body, how the fascia system works, what are my neurological deficiencies, what are all of the things that I need to retrain in my overall system internally as it relates to leaky gut and blood-brain barrier, all of these sort of things that lead to inflammation, that lead to heart disease and all these different things that reduce your quality and length of life. I had been doing over a decade. So now the way I approach it is so sophisticated because I know every single aspect of my entire function holistically of my body, my mind, my time, my energy. So it's a different level. So what happened when I got to this scale of success? I refer to it as peak top. It's the same psychological, uh, chaos that happens to a drug addict at rock bottom, where like you finally make a shift in you where like you don't, you can't be a drug addict anymore and something shifts in you mentally. I finally got to, I'm, I, it happened to me on the other side where like you started getting more and more disciplined and healthy that you all of a sudden were like, why would I ever not just be extraordinarily healthy for the rest of my life? And what happened from that point? I have not missed a day of getting up at 5:00 AM. I have not missed a day in the gym. I have not missed one day meditating. I have not missed one day eating supplements, eating clean. I have not had a drink. I haven't had any sugar. I haven't had a snack, any of that, for— since I hit that like 9 months ago. The data that I shared with you guys as it relates to the quality of my life numbers, how I feel about my life, work, and health, 0 to 10. And then my discipline numbers. What percentage did I get up at 5, brain train, meditate, get in the gym, eat clean, and not drink and take my supplements? It is 100% across this entire year. And then my qualitative numbers are at the highest they've ever been. So every single day I wake up feeling extraordinary, right? And I grew into that. And then the more success I had, it— I didn't have to then decide I want to be healthy. I had been working when I— in 2016, when I designed my vision for my business and my financial success, I designed a vision for my life success and my health success. So what happened over the last 7 years is I got better and better and better at all of it, which led to this euphoric state of where you have an incredible depth of knowledge of your entire reality and your current state and your future state. So you're just continuously predicting the future and creating higher probabilities of being healthier, happier, and wealthier in the future. While living extraordinary in the present.

What's been like the, the 80/20 of that? Like the, the, the things that have made the biggest change on your health?

I mean, look, you, I, you not drinking, not eating sugar and intermittent fasting and eating a lean, uh, protein and vegetable meal to me is everything. Is everything because you're just, your body begins to clean itself. You feel better about yourself, you make sharper decisions, you go 2 layers deeper, your emotions are more in check. Like, things happen inside the family, different things that are uncontrollable. You're able to, like, control all of those better. That just pure diet alone in avoiding all of these, like, processed foods and alcohol, like, in being committed to that will absolutely change your life because it gives your mind more depth to be able to execute at a higher amount, at a higher level in the limited amount of time that you have to execute.

Sorry, have you seen this guy, Bryan Johnson, what he's doing?

Look, I look at Bryan Johnson as this guy's outrageous. It's too much, but I withhold my judgment because I'm like, if I would have told myself 5 years ago, hey, this is what you're going to be doing. I'd be like, that guy's crazy. So I look at, man, I, I feel like Brian Johnson's crazy, but I'll probably turn into Brian Johnson in like 7 or 8 years.

He's wild, man. He's wild.

Yeah. Brian Johnson just has that look, you know what I mean? He looks like a futuristic, like, amoeba, you know what I mean?

That's what I was thinking. I looked at him the other day. I'll go, all he needed, all he needs to do is tan. If he tans, everybody would be like, this guy is amazing. He doesn't tan and they're like, you're a vampire, bro.

He looks like AI. All like the new AI versions of people like coming out. He looks like an AI person. He might not even be real. He might not even be real.

He's a Midjourney.

But I do look at like that aspect because you've got to think about anything. Think about the way that I talk about business. It's knowledge and experience and an understanding and then a continual evolution and growth of understanding the whole, like applying that to my relationship with my wife and family, applying that to my health, applying that to business, applying that to investment, implying that to building my family office. Like all of that way of thinking, like is based off of gaining knowledge to take something from not understanding it, feeling difficult, to then making it easier, then continually optimizing, right? You're just incrementally making it all better.

What are— I love the way you think, and I love the kind of pursuit of greatness and pursuit of excellence for yourself and having a vision for yourself. I also know that it's inspiring but also hard to relate to perfection. And so I'm curious, what are the current flaws or bugs in your software that you're still debugging? We all have some bugs in our software that's running. We're hunting them down and we're trying to squash them one at a time. What are some that are still in your system? It might be in business, it might be in health, might be in, you know, for me, oh yeah. A nice bag of chips is still a bug in my software. Uh, you know, maybe something— oh, sometimes when I'm with my wife, I'm not as present as I should be. I'm on my phone, but I know that's not really me and who I'm gonna be, but I'm still catching up to myself in that way. What are some of those for you?

I, you know, I— and this is gonna sound like extraordinarily, um—

don't say it.

I tried to help you, man. I tried to serve you up a way of being vulnerable here.

No, no, I'm not I'm not, uh, no, again, I'm not, there is no, there is nothing.

This is the, I'm not, I'm not racist, but this is like, you're, you're teeing this up.

Yeah, no, no, I'm not. There is no, like, to me it is like, I still get triggered, like, and will get angry, right? Like, I will get like, when my expectations are mismanaged at a high level, I'll, I'll get mad and get like, and snap, right? Like, I have, I'm not even kidding you. Like, I am trying to like, like, even when I get triggered, I'm trying to stop the triggers to avoid, like, saying something, like letting it come out, right? Like, I'm really, but I still feel the trigger. My goal is to get to like, don't even let things trigger you. Like when you let people get angry, but you got to think part of like the evolution is like, there's certain people in your life that do that to me. That I had to let go of, right? And continually optimize for those people. And this is embedded in my soul. This is embedded in my soul. When I feel stuck, when I feel stuck, when I'm working on, like, trying to do deep work or doing something and I feel stuck, all I want is pizza and wine. All I want is pizza and wine. It's not even like a matter of like, like acting on it. It's like my soul feels like it needs, it needs a glass of like wine. And it's like, because whenever I get stuck, it's this, this psychological thing of like, just fuck, let it all go. Let it all go. So even though I don't act on it because I've just evolved beyond it, I still, when I get stuck, I, the feelings are existing there. But I'm telling you, it's the commitment of where it went 100% health and no alcohol and no sugar and that level, it eliminated so many things. It eliminated me being short with people. It eliminated me making rash decisions, right? Not thinking through stuff and just shooting from the hip, which is a recovery. I used to say Like, you know, Dyrdyk Enterprises, our money's fearless, right? Because I would, uh, like invest so recklessly when it was really our money's dumb. But that reckless, like, let's just push it forward. Like, let's just, let's just start it and go for it is still something that I fight on an ongoing basis because I'll get excited and energized and see it and be like, let's do it. And I've got to control that impulse just to that I've, that I've learned to control in this state at a much higher level, but there are very little. And here's the thing. I look at it as like how Kobe was never like, was relatable to me because it was too much discipline and how Tom Brady, like, man, why would you not take the offseason off? Like, I used to look at that as this impossible level. And to me, like, I know that I'm reaching this unrelatable, unattainable place. It's why I put out a podcast earlier this year that was the most unrelatable podcast, part 1 and part 2, because I just laid out the depth of, like, actually how I'm operating and what I've learned along the way to get to this level. Because I do want to— I want to be the proof that you can get to a place where you never get angry, you never have a negative thought, where you are completely harmonious and balanced and all your relationships and time and health and happiness, where you are happy and filled with gratitude 7 days a week, every single day, even under unexpected duress. I, I'm living it and I know it's possible. I want to continue to be proof that it is. Then I want to build the products, services, and tools that other people can use to get to this level and this feeling, because to me it is heaven on earth. It is true happiness is really the output of this existence that I've created in a relatively short amount of time.

Let me run this trend by you guys that I'm seeing, and it's related to this. So I live part of the time in New York, part of the time, most of the time in Austin, Texas. And I also own a ranch out in Texas. And what I'm noticing is that in Austin, Austin is almost like LA a little bit where we have all types of health freaks, you know, it's like, it's really cool to be around those types of people. And I eat really healthy as well. And I'm noticing that my extreme health friends, they're doing something like that, like a redneck family, like where I grew up, what they used to do, which is they buy a cow. So like, you like go in with either you or your neighbor and you go and purchase a cow and someone slaughters it and then you get like the whole cow for the year. And I noticed that Zuckerberg, I think 2 years ago, he made this commitment that he was only going to eat what he killed or I think even grew. And I'm noticing that my health friends are doing this now. And I've seen a lot of tweets recently where people saying like, you know, I'm eating healthy, but I still feel bad. But when I go to Europe, I feel good. And I did some research. There's the FDA and the European, uh, the EU, how they like measure food. It's a little bit differently, like the, the preservatives and things. Anyway, have you— I know you're into health now and I know you invest in a lot of health and wellness stuff. My prediction is that in the next 5 or 10 years, I think we're going to see a couple brands where you can buy meat online. I'm even seeing people like revolt against like Whole Foods meat. Have you, are you eating? And so it's like something I've been thinking about is meat. Have you been, do you eat just meat off the shelf from Whole Foods or do you get it from somewhere special? Because I think there's going to be an interesting brand that does this in the next 5 or 10 years.

Yeah. Look, like I My meat is not so special to me. You know, I, when I, and so how I do it, how do I do it? I get meal delivery 7 days a week. Right.

And I get from which brand?

It's just a local chef here. So I get, that's all organic, right? Grass-fed. And so I get a salad, grass-fed beef. Yeah. Yeah.

It tastes so bad, man.

Yeah. And so look, so to me, I'm— that's my baseline. And then I have breakfast Wednesdays with my wife. I have Friday night pasta with my wife, Sunday night sushi. Like, I have sort of the rhythm of dates that I take my wife on. And so when I look at that particular protein, if you will, at this stage, like, I look at that as much as I'm willing to dedicate into what's in my body until I can get to a point where the data shows me the impact of having Daisy in the backyard and me cutting Daisy up and slicing off a rib is going to deliver more nutrients that's going to add to a, a longer, uh, um, higher quality of life, I would need the data to take me there one day, as opposed to getting that nuance in the delivery of the quality of that protein, where at this point, for me, that's enough as it relates to what I'm capable and my personal capacity can dedicate to the quality of the food.

You know, I think this is going to be a thing, Sean. If you do not know, there's a company that just raised money from Peter Thiel. It's called Koop. And they're making the Tesla of chicken coops. So normal people can have a chicken coop in their backyard. Have you guys not— Sean, have you not like—

I'll believe any trend.

Yeah.

That coop guy. He's the iCrack guy, right? Same guy.

Yeah. AJ, dude, I'm so fascinated with this.

Look, listen, listen right now, fundamentally, would you have your own chickens that you slaughtered and ate chickens if it was—

No, it's for the eggs. It's for the eggs. Yeah, it's for the eggs.

Eggs make sense, bro.

You just, you just told me that a shower head company is going to be worth billions. Okay. And you just bought a $10 million piece of land when— so look, you might have an error in your judgment. Things happen. I know your biggest weakness is you sing in the shower, but come on.

Yeah. Look, for eggs, maybe, but beef, I, you know, I, but I don't know. I'm not, I don't, I'm not, you guys, when you look at trends on an ongoing basis, you, you refine your lens of like the things that were improbable that ended up working when they're harder to see. You know what I mean? I think my even lens is, is always ties back to the probability of the unit economics and the recurring revenue aspect of it. You know, like I look at it so much more through that lens. Cause even when I think about the Coupe, right, if you're selling a single unit hardware, uh, now you've got this incredibly small, um, like, like customer base in the very beginning that are the ultra healthy. And then they're, they're, they're, it's like a mattress, like in the direct-to-consumer mattress game. As soon as they buy one, they don't need another one for, for, you know, 15 years. Right. Like it's, it would suffer that same sort of consequence versus 5 years ago, Coop would get, you know, $100 million valuation based off of like, there's going to be coops in every house in the world. It's innovation. It's like the Tesla of eggs, you know? So my lens isn't as refined. And I always go back to like, like how much revenue the idea can create from a long-term value perspective. Versus those tough hardware businesses that are minimal margin and you sell one, you know.

So what trends interest you now? Where, what do you think's going to be popular in the next 5 years and where are you investing your money for? What interesting trends are you looking to invest in?

Yeah, look, I don't invest in anything. I invest in real estate and businesses that I create. And right now I haven't even invested in a new venture since Jolie, you know, because to me, I do think when I look out into the future, like, as it relates to the type of stuff that I would do, would still be related to biofeedback, you know, health customization, all of these things that help lead you to optimizing your overall health and well-being. You know, I do think, you know, like, you know, you gotta think those glucose monitors that have, that sort of come out to kind of give you an indication of like what your blood sugar's doing when you're eating food, that they're going to evolve that to eventually become dopamine and cortisol. And it's gonna end up being a cornerstone of like how you even, your life is actually feeling based off of what your blood is saying in real time. I think that's going to be something that really makes a big impact on the world. And to me, I want to time into creating the existence management system that helps you manage how all of it fits together to lead to your present moment in time and help you optimize for guiding your life to creating higher energy present moments that you use with purpose. And whether that's to, to be on your phone and watch TV with your wife, cuz you're tired, or it's, um, for you to be ultra present with your kids so that you can actually experience it, or you want to be able to design, use the present to design a better future for yourself. Like, it's really about how do you become as healthy, develop healthy and understanding in the knowledge of yourself, develop the ultra awareness of everything about you. So that you can continually live a consistent state of joy because feeling joy over long periods of time is what creates the feeling of happiness.

Sean, we could wrap up with whatever you want to, but I know that people in the comments are going to be like, why is that douchebag bringing up me? What the fuck? They're already good. I already know they're going to flame me in the YouTube comments for that one. Hey, I was just curious.

Rob, uh, I wanted you to, can you, can you finish with a 2-minute crash course on something I've been interested in? and you know very well, which is production companies. So I noticed, uh, I don't know anything about Hollywood or TV production, but I, I, my, my ears perked up when, uh, I forgot who it was. They bought, um, Reese Witherspoon's production company for some hundreds of millions of dollars. Then, uh, I saw that Peter Chernin from, uh, the Chernin Group, he's doing a rollup of production companies. He's putting a billion dollars to work rolling up production companies. And I thought, oh, that's interesting. I read some interviews and he's talking about why he thinks there's a growing and sort of insatiable demand for content. And then I just look at people who create Netflix shows. I go look at, oh, Love Is Blind is ranked number 1 on Netflix. Who created this? Oh, it's a small production company. Is this like the startup game where you create the next hit show and you become a billionaire? Or is it a ruthless business? Can you just describe what creating a show or creating a production company is like and if that's a good business to be in or not?

As someone who sold their production company for $200 million and who like had an offer on the table that fell apart for $400 million recently, it is the worst business that you could ever get in, in your life. It's like, and I'll explain to you why. It is a shoot-what-you-kill game, and the distributors control all of the money. So like, and you're, you have a hit show and you have this flourishing production company, and then the show gets canceled and your company's worth zero, right? It is. And then the problem with shows is like, they don't pick them up for long periods of time. I have a 5-year, 1,680-episode order of television. It is unprecedented in all of production. It does not exist. But why is it hard for me to turn around and sell that? Because it's one single show. And now they look at the— and it's so expensive because it's made the production company so profitable. But let's just say that didn't push you away. A production company is built like this, right? You, you've got to build the infrastructure that allows you to have your camera equipment, your finishing equipment, your licensing for your music. You've got to basically then go and, and give a budget to a network who's going to give you $500 grand for an episode. And now you have got to figure out how to pull, uh, 20 to 30% of that in margin, right? So it gets incredibly difficult to do. And the only way that you can do that is look at all of the different ways that you can scrape margin out of that budget by owning, vertically integrating. So a lot of times there'll be people that, you know, have, you know, television shows and they just get paid an executive producer fee, right? So they will make a lot of money, like Jeff Tremaine, who is one of the executive producers on my show, you know, makes millions off of Ridiculousness and doesn't just off his executive producer fee, nothing. Where we rolled in our executive producer fees, then built out the entire post and finishing and music division to push our margins up to be able to create a sellable asset. Then we had multiple shows and then the, um, you know, the, call it the long-term sustainability of Ridiculousness created the value. That allowed us to sell it. Right. And so even if you, you launch a production company and you have Love Is Blind and it's a hit show, you're not making that much money off of that show. You are now hoping to stack shows and then end up pulling off of that margin that you get to split. Right. And then, then you trade on EBITDA, right? So when you sell the business, you're trading at like, you know, 6 times EBITDA, 5, 6 times EBITDA. And then a lot of times now they won't even buy you outright. They will partner with you, incentivize your long-term earnout because they don't want to just like pay you, you know, 5 times, 6 times your EBITDA. And then all of a sudden, like the show goes away, right? They, and, and you were the creative force behind getting new shows, right? So it's a lot more like complex. And when you think about like the big dogs doing it, they're looking at it more from— they're buying the creative minds that are making the new content all the time. So when you— if they believe long-term in content, they're just— and when you look at that aggregate, you can have a couple of them slip and have a couple heroes in there. And when you see all those together, you can bet that that thing's going to generate a ton of cash because the industry itself is built around being incredibly lean. And then being profitable because they're only worth their profitability. And then they can accordion. You got a big show and all this staff and the show goes away, boom, you bring it all the way back down because you put so many people under the show itself. So that's where the bigger vision is for them to look at. And is there an opportunity for creatives and people in the space In this day, yes, because Endeavor's doing it, Chernin's doing it, a lot of people are doing it, but it's extraordinarily difficult. And the gatekeepers are the distributors, the Netflix, the Paramounts, the, you know, you can attempt to create your own platform and distribute it yourself, YouTube, digitally, whatever it is, but it's expensive and difficult to build audiences. And then you're really looking at those distributors as the gatekeepers to the quality of the asset that you're creating and whether or not someone will make it to decide that you're worth the purchase. All of that incredibly difficult, in my opinion, to make happen.

Perfect answer. Exactly what I was looking for. Rob, this has been amazing.

Better than part one somehow.

Uh, where should people follow up? Where do you want them? You want them on your pod, your Twitter, email list. How can people get more, Rob?

You know, Rob's just at robdyrdekacrosssocial.com, you know, on a dot com and just, you know, I got Build with Rob, but really I'm not out pitching nothing. I'm just out trying to figure it out, keep evolving. But one day I'm gonna come back on with my software when it's done. Well, first I'm gonna send it to you guys first. And, and then when the book and the philosophy are out and the software is out, then It's going to be like, how do we convert the listeners into changing their lives from being erratic into harmonious, high-quality existences with the existence operating system? You know, but that's all for the future. Now I'm just glad to reconnect because I'm thankful for you guys, um, for kind of starting the spark of the whole thing. And really, I'm even thankful for you posting all the data and using the customer acquisition from the stuff that I sent you. You know, I sent you all the new stuff.

You know what happened? Sam might not know. So basically he came on, he did the Rhythm of Existence, he sent us the Excel PDF, we post on Twitter, and it was kind of over. And then like a year later, I was like, all right, I'm going to start building my email list. And I was like, how do I get fans of the show, the like-minded people? How do I get my type of people to subscribe? I don't just want any subscriber. I want the right type of person. I was like, what would the right type of person be into? And I was like, oh dude, the Rob, the Rob Dyrdek, the, that that Rhythm of Existence sheet, the time tracker, I think they would be nerding out about that. Like, that's my type of nerd. And so we put it up as a lead magnet, which was like, hey, come, you know, put your email in and get the— he'll share his thing with you. And we started spending a bunch of money. Rob emails me like, I don't know, 6 months ago. He's like, bro, you're blowing me up with this sheet. You know, it's all good, but you got to update the photo. You're using the wrong photo from over here. And so we updated the photo. And I was like, oh, man.

I feel bad.

We took the whole ad down. We started putting something else up, but it was a moment of embarrassment.

Don't feel bad because it, to me, just perpetuates, like, for me, it just continues to push the narrative of like level of discipline and commit and data-driven.

So, and Rob, you said you subscribed.

It was good in that we were preaching your gospel and makes you look like a badass. So there's nothing bad there. I just should have asked you first and I had forgotten to do that. I didn't do that. And that's why I felt embarrassed. I was like, oh, my bad. Yeah.

Don't— hey, I appreciate it and thought it was funny, but I was also like, like, this is great. Then I was like interested in the data from your perspective of like, okay, well, I wonder how many it converted just to kind of understand like how many.

Well, there was nothing to convert to, right?

Like since you had the DocuSign, it was just the views of the Uh, the, the PDF was like what I was interested in. Right.

And so I don't think it ran for too long. I think it had maybe 5,000, 10,000 hits, something like that. So, you know, a good amount for sure, but, um, not, and again, I love that as just another data point from my perspective.

That's why I was like, hey, use the new stuff, make it feel more inviting. Like make it feel more exciting for people to see, to, cause I want to, you know, continually to perpetuate it. But again, I am—

Rob's getting triggered now, by the way. This is him working on that trigger of not getting angry.

You know, I was talking to somebody yesterday about triggers. They were like, they're like, man, he just pushes my buttons. And I was like, dude, you're like a BlackBerry. You're just covered in buttons. I was like, the problem is not that he pushed a button. You got so many buttons to push. Like, you want to be an iPhone, no buttons, nothing to push. What can someone do to you? Now you're unstoppable.

Right. And it's possible for everybody to get there.

Awesome.

Well, we, we appreciate this, dude. Uh, last time maybe video and audio had like half a million views. I have a feeling this is gonna, uh, crush it. So we appreciate you.

Okay, till we meet again. Till we meet again. See you guys.

Thank you.