How to Have an Early Adopter Mindset, ConstitutionDAO, Optimizing Twitter Bios, and More

it's sort of like if you look at what do our, what do our rich friends do now that's not common, and then that's just gonna become like, like more people are gonna do that thing.

Yeah. I feel like I could rule the world.

I know I could be what I want to.

I put my all in it like no days off. On the road, let's travel, never looking back. What's going on? So did you see, uh, Andrew Huberman replying to my tweet.

Yeah, I did.

I feel like kind of giddy a little bit.

I feel a little honored.

Yeah. Do you feel— I mean, it's kind of cool to interact with him, right?

Uh, yeah, I think he's great. I just really— I think he's really great. Uh, like the cool part about this podcast is that we, me and you, get to hang out often. And then once in a while, like there's a bunch of guests, I would say for all the guests, I like them all, but maybe 2 out of every 10, I'm like, oh, this is a— this person, you know, they're my kind of people. I just really get along with them and I really respect what they're doing. And he's definitely one of those people.

So hear me out. I think that we should get— okay, so you have to go somewhere on Wednesday.

Yeah.

So I went and found a guest. Tell me what you think about this guest. And then when I got this person, I was real— I realized we should do this way often, way more. So I met this guy and he has his business that's like a fine local services business in California. And I go, what did you used to do? And he goes, I was in the CIA. I go, what did you do there? And he said, I would go to the Middle East and I would try to commit— get people to commit treason. And I would do it by trying to influence them and persuade them and basically give me secrets so I can, you know, we could do espionage. And I was like, that's the most amazing thing I've ever heard. Can you tell me everything? And I just sat down for like an hour and I asked him questions and I asked him to come on the podcast.

The podcast, or that was pre-pod.

Pre-pod. And so I go, dude, you just want to come on and tell me all these— he like told me stories about being in like an alley in Lebanon trying to get some person to show up. And he— the way that he convinced— he's got all these like weird stories, and, and, and it's about persuasion and influence and shit. And I realized, I'm like, Sean and I should just start doing that way more, just getting people who are like interested regardless if it has to do with money or not.

Yeah, yeah, I think that's cool. I met a guy once who— he was like using our product, and we held a meetup, and like I think 200 people flew to our office, and it was a big party basically. And, uh, there's this guy and he was like, he was always very mysterious cuz our product was kind of like Clubhouse. So you could just kind of sit there, hang out all day and just chat. He was always online and I was like, oh, so you like don't work or what's the deal? Like you're always online doing this. He's like, oh yeah, I'm like in between, you know, gigs. And I was like, oh, unemployed. I didn't really think too much of it. But when he showed up, I was like, I noticed two things. One is The guy was incredibly muscular. Like, you know, I kind of like bumped into him and it was like I hit a rock and I was like, oh, that was so strange. But he wasn't trying to look super fit, but I could tell. It's like, you know, one of those people that like, yeah, they could do 90,000 pull-ups. It's like, oh, your core is just incredibly— you're just— your whole body's made of muscle. Um, it's not that you have giant muscles, but your whole body is a muscle. And, um, so I was like, okay, that's interesting, noted. And then later on in the night, he, um, like I introduced him to two people. One person was from Russia He spoke Russian with them. I introduced him to another person from Pakistan and he spoke in like Urdu with them. And I was like, how many languages do you speak? And he was like, oh, white guy. And I was like, and he spoke with like per almost like a perfect accent. And I was like, what the hell? Why do you know how to speak in all these different languages? And he's like, oh, um, and he kind of like, as the night got on, like, you know, he wasn't drinking, but we were all drinking. And he's like, he kind of confided. He was like, yeah, I was actually a spy for many years. Uh, he's like, yay. And he starts telling me these stories. And they're so unbelievable that I'm like, I just kind of think this guy, is he lying? Is he telling the truth? It's very hard to tell because the stories are so good. Like, you know, the story is like, you know, he's in a bar in Russia and you know, this mobster's there and then Yuri Milner, the famous investor comes in and he's like, okay, I want to talk to Yuri. Um, and Yuri just kind of blows him off. And then he says something in Russian and he's like the perfect one-liner. And I was like, what's going on here? So we go to The Battery later that night. The Battery is basically this private members club in San Francisco that is like a Soho House for San Francisco. And my, the previous investor who bankrolled my whole company, the, the Idea Lab that I was working at, he created The Battery. So we go, we're hanging out there and on the way out it's like 2 in the morning, we're leaving. And The Battery has I think 14 hotel rooms, but really there's like the penthouse that you rent out for, for parties. And the penthouse I think was like $10 grand a night, at least maybe $15 grand a night to rent out. Um, and there's an elevator that goes straight up to the penthouse. And so at that elevator, we're walking out and at the elevator is Elon Musk. He's getting in the elevator and it's him, it's Jason Calacanis, and it's two other people we don't know. And, uh, and I was just like, you know, kind of like fangirl moment. I was like, oh shit, that's Elon Musk. And so the guy, the spy guy, he's with me. And he goes, oh, Elon's there. He goes, hold on. He walks over and they're waiting for the elevator. The elevator's about to be there. He walks straight up to them and he goes, like classic pickup artist, doesn't address Elon. He goes, Jason. He's like, Jason. And he goes to Jason Calacanis. Jason Calacanis is like, oh, hey, uh, what's up? Then he's like, he's like, Jason, um, I met you last year at the conference and I told you, you know, what, what I do with the government and all that. Um, You know, I offered you a tour. I offered you a tour, but I forgot to give you my number. Um, let me give you my number now and I'll be able to get you that tour. And if, uh, if, if Elon wants to come, he can come too. He's like, he's like, he like focused on these guys. It was just sort of like, uh, you know, Elon, if you're interested, you're welcome to join as well.

You can tag along.

And then he walked away and I was just laughing because it wasn't like some super— it's like he tried to do a super smooth move. Wasn't that smooth in my opinion, but was still hilarious. And he had the balls to approach. So, you know, good for him.

So who was the guy?

I mean, I don't want to say his name, but yeah, he's just a guy. And I like haven't seen him since. Oh my God. One night with the CIA guy.

Well, this guy's coming on when you're gone. And long story short, we should do more cool shit like that.

Yeah, for sure.

Speaking of cool shit, can you— I don't know what's going on with this constitutional shit, and I know you know everything about it. Can you tell me? Because it's actually amazing.

Or like, yes, I think I got a DM a few days ago and it said, hey, a group of us are getting together to buy the Constitution.

Okay, it's like, like, like the United States Constitution.

The United States Constitution.

I think there's, um, 11 of them, right?

There's 11 copies. I think there's only one that's in the hands of private buyers. This is the one.

Who owns it?

Um, so I don't know who owns it, but it's being auctioned off by Sotheby's. So they said, hey, there's a Sotheby's auction in a couple days. We're gonna create a DAO, which is a crypto term for basically like a group of, just a group of people. Think of it like a company. Um, we're gonna form a DAO and every, anybody can contribute, contribute any amount you want and we're gonna try to buy the Constitution. And I was like, what the fuck? And I was like, you know, I was like, that's great. Um, I was like, how much is it? You know, how, and I think he said they're gonna need, I wanna say, is it $10 or $20 million? I think it's $20 million that they're gonna need to raise.

Who messaged you?

I mean, I don't think they all want their like name out there necessarily.

Okay. Well, who's the organizer behind this?

It's a, it's a small group of kind of like NFT collectors. So they basically, oh, okay. It's not Paki or, no, he's kind of, so they, they basically approached me, Paki, and I think some others to try to help get the word out. Got it. So the, the, the amazing thing is, so there's this thing called, so they created Constitution DAO and, and they have raised in 3 days, I think $3 million from 2,000 people, something like that. So I'll just pull up their Twitter handle. So the Twitter handle is ConstitutionDAO, and it says, we the people, for the people, we're buying, we're buying the Constitution from Sotheby's in 4 days. We need your help. And then if you go to the website, it shows that they have— it says amazing copy at the top. What if we held hands and bought the Constitution together? It's just a hilarious way of putting it. And then it says they've raised $3.6 million so far. And I think they need— where do they write their target? Um, okay, I don't think they write their target anywhere here. Uh, but I, I'm pretty sure I, I asked the guy, I'm pretty sure they said they need like roughly $10 to $20 million. That's crazy.

It's actually pretty amazing. So who, who, how does it work? Who owns it and who, and how is it tracked? And how do you know to trust these people?

The way this would work is a group of people get together, they buy a thing. Now this is how they've bought several other things. So they bought, uh, the people are creating DAOs to buy CryptoPunks. So, oh, you want a CryptoPunk, but a punk costs like a million dollars. Now you don't have a million dollars. Well, you wanna put, you wanna invest $10,000 into a CryptoPunk? Cool. So we can all pool together $10,000 each and buy a CryptoPunk collectively for a million dollars. And we all own whatever that math comes out to. As you know, we don't do public math, something like whatever, you know, less than 1% of the CryptoPunk is yours, and you can sell your stake in the CryptoPunk. So they fractionally own it. So that's what I think they're trying to do here, is they're trying to fractionally own, uh, the Constitution, which is hilarious. They're going to turn the con— they can take the actual Constitution, they're going to turn it into an NFT, and then you can fractionally own the NFT.

And what laws—

or my loose understanding of it—

how does it protect the investors? How are the investors protected?

Um, protected in what way? What do you need protection from? Who's out to get you?

Um, they can lie about the price that they sold it. They can never sell it. They can, uh—

Who? So, OK, buying it from Sam Parr—

If they get ahold of it, they can accidentally ruin it.

I don't know how they do custody, so I don't know who actually holds the keys. Maybe it's a group that owns the keys. I think the way the DAO is structured is there's a wallet The wallet holds the NFT and it requires X percent vote in order to do anything with it, to move the NFT again. Um, so you kind of vote as a group and if whatever, over 50% of people do it, then, um, then, then they're gonna do it. Okay. Hold on. Let me tell you what this person said. Um, so, okay, maybe I could say his name. It says it in his profile. So this guy Austin Kane reached out and he goes, um, we're lit. He, he just, he started off hot. We are literally purchasing the Constitution of the United States. Okay. I go, cool. How much is it? Uh, Sotheby's estimate is around $15 to $20 million. We're building around the clock. You're the NFT we did shaped his views on this idea. So I'd love to have you be a part of it, blah, blah, blah. And they're basically pulling together assets. I think the Discord group that they have has like thousands of members. Like I think they had $10 million in soft commitments, like verbal commitments and $3 point something million actually funded. Commitments. And so, uh, you crowdfund the DAO, um, and then I think they— what they plan to do is they actually plan to hold the physical Constitution in like the Smithsonian or something like that. Um, so they plan to like have, have the—

do they make a profit? Does this guy Austin make a profit for organizing?

Um, I don't know. They don't— you know, there's not a ton of details and about the how the DAO is structured and whether they have like some preferential thing. And you know, by the way, so this is the same idea we had.

They got $10 million in 3 days.

$10 million, they're soft commitments. They have $3.6 actually wired into their wallet.

And you're gonna say we had this for the Jordan thing, and yeah, uh, looking like— I was talking to a friend about that the other day. I'm like, I still think that would be great. The only reason it— I like, if we ever actually wanted to do this, I think there's— the difference is, is that, that, that Constitution is likely just being sold to the highest bidder. Whereas if Jordan found out that someone was gonna do X, Y, and Z, he'd be like, no, fuck that. I don't wanna do that.

Yeah. Yeah. Perhaps, perhaps. Then again, it's been on the market for what, 7, 10 years, something like that. So maybe he's ready to sell if somebody can actually meet the price. I think one challenge we had was, A, we were just busy and just kind of fucking around saying it. Somebody would actually have to go boots on the ground, figure out, go see it, go figure out why it's not selling. Figure out what the, you know, the rules are around. Could people Airbnb it, or could you turn it into a museum, or could you do something with it, or is it literally going to be an inactive asset? Um, you know, but I think this is something that can happen. There's another version of this. Have you heard of Kraus Haus?

No, what's that?

So I'm a little jealous I didn't think of this idea myself, but I like the name. I might just do my own. The name is really good. Kraus Haus. So Kraus Haus, which is K-R-A-U-S, uh, Haus, Um, it might be the weird spelling of house too, but basically they're, uh, it's Kraushaus.club. And here's what it says. We're a DAO of basketball fans and we're crazy enough that we're gonna try to buy an NBA team. And so they're basically trying to do the same thing. They're trying to crowdfund and buy an NBA team. Today, NBA teams are owned by billionaires, you know, successful business people, Steve Ballmer types who go buy these teams for $1 to $2 billion. And the idea here is, why don't— why wouldn't all the fans of, let's say, you know, like the diehard crazy fans of, you know, the Grizzlies or whatever, like, uh, why wouldn't they band together? Could they band together? Could they raise enough money, um, between fans of the team and investors who just would love to own a piece of an NBA team? And you buy the team, and then you, you control the team through the same sort of vote. So you decide which GM do we hire, do we keep this person on for another year or not, And so it's sort of like a crowd-controlled NBA team, which is—

you can't— that's a— yeah, it's a dope idea. It's incredibly— it's impossible because with buying a basketball team or any American sports major, like one of the top 4 or 5 sports, it's impossible to buy— or not impossible. The issue is not the lack of money. The issue is that it's like, you know, in England they knight you and they start calling you Sir Richard Branson. In America, we allow you to buy a sports team. Like, it's a select group of people, and very few people are actually allowed to do it, and it's done that way on purpose. So for all the people—

that's true, you, you basically, you have to get approved by the other 30 owners. So, um, you know, they can vote to block you, but that's not to say they would vote to block this. Like, I think this could generate a ton of, uh, attention and press and be seen as pretty forward-thinking. I don't think it's a given that they would block this.

Um, I don't think it's a given that they block it, but my point is, is this is not like a thing like 'Oh, I'll just get the money and buy it. I'll just go and buy it,' right?

Yeah, but I do think money is the limiting factor here because, uh, if you go— like, there's a team that's for sale right now, and if you want to buy them, you have to go put up the, you know, sort of like— you— I think you need to come over the top with the bid. So you're not going to get a deal here. You'd have to say, 'Okay, you know, the price is $2 billion. We're going to play $2 billion,' or, 'We're going to pay $2.4,' or, 'We're going to play $3 billion,' because we have to be the winning bidder. And if you could choose between a simple, clean transaction with another billionaire, you'd probably take that. So we're gonna have to like buy something that's got hair on the deal. Now there's another group that's doing this in a much more, uh, practical way. And I don't know if practical is better. So what they're trying to do is they're, they have a DAO and they're trying to buy a like fourth tier, um, soccer team in like the English Premier League or whatever. So there's like not a, not a team that's in the, I don't know how soccer works, but it's like not the actual Premier League, but it's like, you know, there's the ranking system where you can like ladder in or you can get demoted out. So they're buying one at the bottom. And that's like a no— it's, it's, you know, the show Ted Lasso. They're basically trying to do Ted Lasso. So they're buying this like joke of a team.

Who did that?

And they're like, great. Uh, it's another group of people, another, another crypto group, uh, that's putting this together. And they're, they're buying the team. They're gonna own— and that they can do. That's a pretty permissionless thing. And the price is like not— you don't need $2 billion to do it. You can buy it for $10 million. And so you're gonna buy this team for $10 million. They're gonna crowd control the whole thing. They're gonna mint NFTs cuz they're gonna own the IP of the team brand. And they're gonna, they're trying to be like, They're trying to show what a technology kind of like first crypto, first team, how they would run their team as an example that other bigger teams might be able to like look at and say, oh, that's smart how they are. They meant to— they sold $20 million of NFTs for their team and every jersey comes with an NFT. How does that work? Um, or, well, you know, there's a social token that gets you access for season tickets. Like, what does that mean? And so they're trying to demonstrate it that way and they're trying to literally rank up. And the goal is to eventually get into the Premier League and be, you know, can they one day go play against Manchester United or whatever? That would be the dream.

I don't want to spend much time talking about NFTs and crypto because I'm so bored of it, but I just read this amazing Wall Street Journal article about Gary Vaynerchuk. Did you happen to see that?

I didn't see that, but I've been following kind of what he's been doing. But tell me what stood out to you.

Gary's— if for the listeners, Gary's been on the pod a ton.

If you—

everyone probably knows who he is. If you don't know, he's basically He's a celebrity for having a big mouth, but he's like cool and he's— and he talked, but he talks a lot and he owns an agency that at this point is quite large. If I had to bet, I would say they're like a $200 million revenue business. Like it's really big and he bootstrapped it and he is on fire lately. So basically, before we get to the article, lately he launched a thing with Michael Rubin where I forget— Michael Rubin launched two new businesses and Gary is a partner in one of them. I think it's the like NFT trading card one. Is that it? Yeah.

You told me about this. Yeah.

Yes, and then he also is doing— he has a new book coming out, and he just launched this thing like a year ago. We had him on when he did it, called VeeFriends, which I think it's like a collection of NFTs. I think it's valued north of $500 million, right?

I'll have to look up the latest, but yeah, it was basically like a top 10, top 15. It's been a top 10, top 15 crypto project for its entirety, basically.

And I talked to him like the day it launched or something like that. I was with him at this dinner and I think he said that he had made like $20 or $30 million that day from it, like just a huge sum of money.

There's been $93 million of sales of VeeFriends, and I think he gets, you know, let's say a 10 to 15% stake, uh, royalty on every sale. Um, so I think it's pretty easy to estimate at the— I think at the low end he's made $10 million off of VeeFriends. At the high end, it could be like $30 million.

So he's just like prolific.

And let's say what it does. He, he decided to make a, a, an NFT token that you could own it and it guarantees you one utility just the way we did an NFT that said you get 5 minutes of airtime on our pod someday. By the way, the guy who bought it reached out.

Okay. What'd he say?

He's, he's an interesting guy doing interesting things. And so, you know, he want, I asked him, I said, do you wanna cash that in or you gonna hold? And, uh, he hasn't replied yet. The, um, uh, Gary Vee did one where he said if you own—

wait, is the buyer—

my conference—

is the buyer just a rich guy? Is he just like a rich crypto guy?

I think he's, yeah, I think he's like crypto rich basically.

Got it.

Not like mega, mega rich. Not like crypto billionaire rich, I don't think.

Um, but just like a wealthy crypto guy who's—

Yeah, like got in early-ish and has done very well and is now in doing a bunch of things. So anyways, Gary Vee's, his NFT, if you bought it, great, you have this NFT, which might be cool as an NFT. You might like the art. It might be, might, he might launch more products into it someday, but at the very minimum, it gave you access to his conference. So it was a conference ticket in a way. For, uh, that you could use. And, and it was the only, I think the only way to get into the conference maybe. So that's what he did.

And he hasn't even, I think he just announced when the conference is gonna happen and it's gonna happen for a guaranteed 3 years or something.

Yeah. So COVID kind of bumped it back, but whatever.

So kind of cool. So his latest thing, he's got this new book, it's called 12 something, 12 Things to Be a Good Leader or something like that. I forget. And he had a rule that, or he created this thing where if you bought 12 copies of the book, you would receive a mystery NFT. It's still to be determined what that NFT or token actually like. What does that actually get you? But he— that's what he promised. And so far as of today, it is the largest preorder ever in publishing history. He has, I think as of yesterday, he has sold 1 million copies of his book before It's even gone live and the people have no idea, you know, what, what they're getting. The way that he did it was he last night or a few days ago, he did a 3-hour live YouTube and Instagram thing where he told people to buy the book. And his whole shtick is basically like, I don't ask for much and I provide a ton of content. When I have a book come out, I'm begging everyone to buy it. So that's kind of cool. And that's what he did. And it's the largest book release ever. And that is nuts. That is so crazy.

So, uh, the way— and you know why people are buying this, right? You know why people are buying 12 copies of this book?

Because— oh, did I not say the 12th copy, they get one of these tokens, right?

They get, they get a mystery NFT. So he promised you that there's gonna be an NFT, it's gonna be good, and it's gonna be for anybody who buys— I, I think— I don't know if there's tiers or what, but like, yeah, 12 or more books, you're gonna be able to get one. And so, and so, so it's kind of crazy, right? Like, that's— 1 million books is an insane number of books to sell. Very few books do a million, a million copies. I think I was looking at this site because I signed up to write a book next year with Tucker Max's thing, and I was like, okay, so what's like good? You know, it's good like 100,000 copies, 10,000 copies.

No, I bet it's like 1,000.

They're like, they're like, you know, some stat, 99 point whatever percent don't sell 1,000, won't even sell 1,000 copies, 10,000 copies. It's like, you know, yes, the bestsellers do eventually sell, you know, like 100,000 copies. And then there's things like, you know, like 4-Hour Workweek, or in this category at least, Atomic Habits. I think Atomic Habits, he did 3 million copies sold in about the first 2 years or something like that.

And the biggest winner of the past 5 years is Mark Manson's book.

Which one was that?

The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck. That book was so big that when I was reading the quarterly reports for whatever— it's owned by Harper's, which is owned by one of Rupert Murdoch's companies. I don't know if it's Fox or News Corp. Anyway, they like— one of their big things was talking about that book and how it's like saved their publishing business, right?

And there's basically— so, so why did this work? So one reason why it worked is because Gary's been doing this for, you know, he's been bail— been building trust for like 20 years. Uh, you know, like I, I've known about Gary Vee for 10 years and I, uh, you know, he didn't start then, I don't think. So definitely before that. So he's built up a lot of trust and he's like maniacal about content production. Like he, he creates so much content in addition to everything else he does. Um, and it helps, right? The content helps feed the agency. It helps feed all the things he helps sell books. But like the amount of content he produces is, is wild. So he built up this trust. He was talking about NFTs before he was talking about trading cards before trading cards had their huge run-up. So if you're like, oh, Gary's talking about trading cards, I don't know about that. I'm gonna, I'm gonna hold off and see how it goes. Then you just see this huge run-up in basketball cards. Then Gary Vee starts talking about Pokémon and, um, then he starts talking about NFTs. Pokémon goes up through the roof. NFTs go up through the roof. And then you look at his track record, you say, oh man, he kind of was also big on social media. Before social media was obvious. He was saying, you know, I remember when Instagram got bought, he went on the news and everybody's like, underpriced. He's like, this is, this is a steal. And everybody else thought, oh my God, they paid $1 billion, it has $0 in revenue. Like, what are they doing? And he was like, are you joking? Like, this is a, this is absolute steal by Facebook. He was talking about Musical.ly and music, how people were making, how kids were making music videos before Musical.ly turned into TikTok. And I remember tons of people making fun of him, like, okay, you know, great. Yeah, yeah, 12, 12, we're all gonna be like 12-year-olds making dance videos in our bedrooms. He was right. So he's right on social media, he's right on baseball, uh, on trading cards. He was right on Pokémon. Then he was right on NFTs. He started talking about NFTs. NFTs had this huge bull run, partly because he, a guy of his stature, him and Logan Paul, when they started talking about Pokémon and they started talking about NFTs, it actually drove a lot of attention into NFTs, uh, a lot of adoption. So, um, then he launches his own and you're like, oh, do I wanna buy this VeeFriends, this doodle that he made? It's priced at 2.5 ETH. Uh, so he auctioned off the initial ones at 2.5 ETH. Uh, today the floor price, meaning the minimum you could, the lowest price you can buy it for is 8.1. So if you just bought, if you just bought, uh, that's like do 8 times roughly 4 grand. So, you know, 32, 32,000. Um, so basically you, you're up almost 4x on, you're, you're up 3x basically on, on the last thing he told you about. So this time when he says, hey, Buy my book, I'm gonna get you a special NFT. You might have missed VeeFriends, you missed the NFTs when I told you about them, you missed, you know, the basketball cards before they, they all got hot. Get this one right. And I think if you have a track record of being early and right, this kind of like FOMO builds and people just start to trust you. And I think that's what's happening right here is people are like, all right, cool, I'm in, I'll do this.

Yeah. And I think what I would like to do is I don't know this, but eventually I would like to do it, is I want to look at what he's been wrong about. So Gary is right a lot, but he takes a ton of shots. And I was reading Glassdoor reviews of VaynerMedia to understand like what's, what's cool about working there, why people like it so much. And they were saying like the haters, of which there will always be haters, where it was like the negative reviews said something like, he's always saying the latest and greatest thing is going to be the next big thing. For example, and then they named like 4 apps and I'm like, oh, I don't even like these are dead. Those are cool, like 2 years ago. And so I'd be curious what, what he's been wrong about, but I do think that, that he's likely right more than he's wrong, and he's been right in big ways.

Yeah, I was actually watching it. So he did another cool thing, actually, not to make this the kind of Gary Vee hour, but he did an interview with Mark Zuckerberg, which I thought was a pretty big deal.

Amazing, amazing. It was so good.

Yeah, he was good.

Dude, he steamrolled Zuck too.

He kept interrupting, of which the comments were just ripping him for.

He steamrolled Mark Zuckerberg.

Yeah, somebody said in the comments, they go, uh, Gary's talking to Mark about social like he's his big brother and Mark's his little brother. But, you know, obviously Mark Zuckerberg like invented social networking and like runs, runs the world. Um, but it was true, he really was kind of like all over him. He's a better talker than Mark, right? So that's actually kind of natural. He's better, um, speaker. He's more engaging and he has these quicker off-the-cuff, and Mark is a little bit more, you know, rehearsed and kind of thoughtful about his words that doesn't always play super well, you know, in front of a camera. But, uh, what did you think of that interview? Did you hear anything that—

Yeah, I thought it was great. I thought Gary said something cool about how he's like, I knew NFTs were going to be big because of FarmVille and how people would pay for these badges. And then he also referenced another Facebook app that I didn't— I don't know what it was, but my context Clues were like, okay, it was like a thing where you could like purchase a cool picture. And he was like, that's how I knew it was gonna be big. And Mark goes, you know, I never really thought of that. Yeah. And I thought that was funny. I thought that was pretty cool. Also, Mark's haircut was horrible, as if they just like put a ball on his head and just cut the bangs around it. What's he doing with a bad haircut like that?

It's all— actually, Gary had a great line in that, which he's like, he's like, basically Mark's talking about like the metaverse. You're gonna have this, this avatar. You're gonna have like your character who has its own virtual clothes. Clothing and it wears that. Like, it looks like a Sim basically, if you ever played The Sims. And Gary's like, you've been living this life. Like, basically, like, Mark already looks like a Sim. Like, Mark looks more like a character from a video game than an actual human being. He talks more like a character from a video game than a human being, and he wears the same exact thing every day on purpose, which is what your character in a video game does. Like, black shirt, blue pants.

And he said— and he, and he nagged him, and he goes, this is you already.

He didn't go into details, but he was, he was kind of like, complimented, like, you've been ahead of the curve. But I thought it was hilarious. Um, you know, that he called him out on that in a way.

Um, all right, let me ask you a quick question. So I've been thinking about this, something that I've been thinking about. We've had a bunch of friends talk about screen time, limiting screen time, and I've been thinking about this. So I just did a very short amount of research. So basically, uh, I was curious about what trends have existed where rich— that separated rich people from poor people. For example, um, in, in the Greek and Roman era, which actually I don't know what years those were actually, um, BC, sometime BC, uh, basically the— you were rich if you were, uh, very, very white. And Roman poetry would praise the white girl, and that meant like the, the pale. And paleness was— yeah, it was a, was a mark of beauty and, um, of social class and things like that, because basically you're not outside working really hard. Of course, uh, that changed, and in the 1960s, like Uh, it kind of started around right around that time where being tan meant that you have, uh, leisure, you know, you have enough time to go hang out outside and have fun. And skin tone became kind of a marker of wealth. And, and during World War II, women were using tea bags as self, self-tanner. Coco Chanel around, uh, the, the 1930s, 1940s talked about, uh, being bronze and being tan. And so now it's like became popular to be tan. So what do you think And I'll tell you what I think mine is. What do you think in like 20, 30, 50, 100 years is gonna be that thing? My opinion is what it's gonna be is a lack of screen time. So not like, like it's gonna be like, oh, you use a computer? No, I don't know. I don't use it. Yeah, I think it's gonna be people. And so like Mark Lore talked about that. I believe Jack Dorsey talked about that. Elon Musk has mentioned it.

Bill Gates says his kids don't get screen time.

That's what he said.

Yeah, he said this a few years ago. This came out. I think he kind of backed off it because it sounds really bad, because like, dude, you addicted the whole earth to social media and you're like, don't let your kids do it. But let me see what the exact thing is. But I remember for sure that he either limited or, or said, you know, said he wouldn't do it.

So he said— I noticed that once I kind of got a little bit more success in my career, like, I don't check anything on the weekends. And like, some— oh, for like different projects, like, I'll get to it when I get to it. Like, I'm just not gonna check check my email. I don't want to be on a screen.

Yeah, I remember it was a big deal when he said it. I think his kids were like under 3 at the time, so it was like, you're probably not doing a ton of— it was like, my daughter's 2, she has a ton of screen time. But like, you know, I get Mark Zuckerberg doesn't have to do that necessarily. So he was like, yeah, maybe when they get older, as they get older, I'm sure they will. But, but people were like, hey, you know, the media sort of out to get you, you know, in this kind of case.

I've got, I've got a couple like pretty wealthy friends and they'll be like, yeah, like our kid has never, like, we don't use our phone in front of them. Um, we don't let them see a phone. And then I, you know, I'll go and hang out with other friends who maybe aren't in that position. And like, we got to dinner and they're playing on the phone the whole time. And so that's my per— I think it's already happening. And I think it's going to happen in the next 10, 20, 30 years.

There's a few more. So there's actually, um, there's actually, uh, you know, other ones. So I think back in the day, uh, being fatter, so having a big belly used to be a sign of wealth. Um, because obviously you had enough like means to, to eat food and you were, you had a leisurely lifestyle. Style. And now it's the exact opposite, right? So like, um, uh, you know, having, you know, abs is more seen as a higher status thing than having a belly. Uh, somebody used to— I have a big nose. People used to tell— somebody told me once like, oh, back in the day that was like a sign of like great power and authority or something like that. I don't know if that one really could change over time because you can't really control it as much, I guess, nose jobs. But, but I think you're absolutely right that these things shift over time, that the, the status signals that you have shift. And it's basically, you want to be doing what the masses are not doing. So, um, you know, if everybody's on horseback, you want to be in a car. When everybody's on in a car, you want to go learn horseback riding. Um, that sort of thing. Same thing with like hunting, like, you know, uh, having others hunt for you. And then now it's like a status symbol in a way to be able to have the free time and the skill to be able to go out and, um, go out and go hunting, like have a hobby, have a hobby like that. I think that, um, I think you're absolutely right that being away from like the digital experience, like how— like being able to not have to either work online, play online, or talk to people online is going to be a status— like it's definitely like a status symbol because it's going to be so rare. It's going to be rare, you know, more rare than whatever, you know, a diamond or gold or anything like that, is because everybody is going to be completely engrossed as we already are halfway there in like kind of like the online world. So having anything in the offline world is going to be like a extreme luxury.

And that actually, like, if in terms of like money making and business, that actually like is an interesting trend to look at. Um, there's this thing called a, uh, what's the dumb phone thing? Is it called a Light Phone? Um, I keep hearing a lot of people talk about this thing. Have you heard of the Light Phone? I, I don't know much about getting it.

So basically, if you haven't seen it, the Light Phone is a really minimalistic looking phone. Looks pretty cool, honestly. Uh, looks very clean design, just like a very basic phone that doesn't have apps.

Like an— it looks like a Zune. Remember a Zune or Microsoft?

Yeah, it's like, it looks like the early cell phones, but just like cleaner. And, um, you know, like a flip phone or whatever. And basically it's just a phone that doesn't have apps. So you can text on it, you could call on it, but you can't use the internet beyond that. And, um, It's meant to be like, hey, do you want to, like, you don't want to be detached from the world, maybe your kids or whatever, like, uh, you know, as you, uh, you know, if you need to be reached for an emergency, but, uh, but you don't want to be kind of like on Instagram, you know, at the time. I think it's a great idea. The problem with it is kind of inconvenience with it, which is like, I think you need to like, you need to be like switch your SIM card every time you want to use it and shit like that if you want to use the same phone number. So that's kind of annoying. But, um, I think it's great, and I'm surprised this isn't bigger. I think it was like a Kickstarter project.

I'll buy it. I'm gonna buy it. So we just did this NFT thing, and we said we'll do content stuff. I'm gonna set us up with the, uh, or I'll set it up and you can decide if you want to go with the health thing with that executive checkup, and then I'll, uh, I'll buy one of these, uh, Lightphones, and we could talk about it. I think it's amazing. I think it's cool. You can still use music. I think it's really cool.

Yeah, I think it's great. And what else comes to mind that's like this? Uh, so what are some other things? So there's obviously in-person experiences, so travel, meetings, concerts. I think that already kind of has like a bit of a premium, but I think that'll get extended. The premium will get larger, the, uh, the rarity will get, will get higher on, on that. Because if most meetings just happen over Zoom, then you'll— it'll be a special meeting when you make an effort to go fly and meet somebody face to face. Um, same thing with a concert. If you, you know, going there and being there and experiencing it, it's going to be one of those feelings you can really only get by doing that. So it's going to become more valuable over time. Like, I was talking to a comedian and he said, like, he's like, dude, I was worried, like, you know, after COVID what would happen. He's like, demand is roaring back. He's like, the demand now for shows is higher than it was pre-pandemic.

And so you're asking what else is like this, uh, well, the rich people, poor people thing.

What else could be kind of a status symbol? I think I have a couple.

Yeah, I think like the splitting time thing between cities. Um, it's still expensive, but it's one place. It's still expensive, but it's not prohibitively expensive. Um, so like, I think that that's going to be, uh, far more common. I'm doing it now, and I realize I'm like in a fortunate situation, but I think that it's far more, uh, accommodating than ever before. Uh, so I think that like that part-time living and splitting time between cities is going to be quite common. Um, I don't know what else.

Yeah, I think that's a, that's actually a great one. Uh, it's sort of like if you look at what do our, what do our rich friends do now that's not common, and then that's just gonna become like, like more people are gonna do that thing. So like, you know, like you're talking about having a few either Airbnbs or like having 3 homes and just shift like throughout the year, just shifting based on where you wanna be in whatever season you wanna be in and not having like a hometown. Um, I think it's gonna become more of a thing.

Here's one, and you're getting into it now. I've been into it for a minute as well. Which is, did you see?

So I—

well, kinda. I tweeted out asking people to see, to say like, what would— like, I— so I'm, I'm building this house, um, and I'm like, how would you optimize it for longevity, health, and fitness? And I got so many amazing replies, and the most consistent one was cold plunge and sauna. So many people are interested in that, and I think that that's a much bigger trend than I ever thought. So I think having home saunas and, and home cold tubs, that is something that's gonna be— that's— I think we're still in the early stages of that. I never would've thought that that was gonna be a thing.

Uh, yeah, that's the— I, I just bought a sauna, by the way, like 2 days ago.

I know, I saw you. What's his name? Andrew said like, don't do infrared. And you're like, uh, but I bought an infrared. Is that still okay?

Yeah. Uh, by the way, there's a sick company. So check this out.

Um, is it, uh, David, David's company?

Florence. Have you seen this?

This guy just DM'd me who I'm friends with. He spoke at HustleCon. He goes, hey, I just met with Sean about my sauna business. And I—

I said this guy, yeah.

And he said that you also like this type of stuff.

Have you, um, did you go look at it? Did you see it?

That's sick. Uh, he just— he DM'd me a video. And you want to explain what it was?

So basically, uh, uh, floor— so there's two that, that got, um, that got, uh that got kind of like highlighted here. Um, where are you at? The URL is We Are Florence.

Um, how do you spell Florence? Uh, F-L-O-R-E-N-S. F-L-O-R-E-N-S. Okay.

Um, okay. So basically We Are Florence. Uh, so basically what he's done is he's built a, in a custom kind of like new version of in-home sauna. It plugs into a normal, normal outlet, which when I was looking up saunas, that was like one big thing is like, like you have to, I don't wanna have to get an electrician out here to handle the power of the sauna. It's like small enough where it fits in. Uh, it's like a great, like, there's like, it's, it's like made for like, you know, one person. It could fit easily. Then there's a super nice, like super clean design. So like most saunas kind of look like this kind of same cabin looking feel. This looks like it fits in like a modern home. It's like very slick looking. Um, and so he's building this thing and he showed me one. He's got it. Uh, I'm gonna go visit him. He's got one down here not too far from where I live.

That's in the Presidio.

Uh, so then there's one in the— then there's one in the Presidio called Ancient Ritual. Have you seen this one? Or—

that's the one I saw, Ancient Ritual.

So, and so there's two. So Ancient Ritual is the other one that people are kind of hyping up. And I think that one is like almost like Peloton for a sauna. So you get in— normally when you get into a sauna, you're like on your own. It's like, dude, here, go sit in this, this hot box and like think, or, you know, talk to the naked guy next to you. Like, I don't know, like do whatever you want to do. I think what ancient— I don't know exactly what Ancient Ritual is doing, but I think what they're doing is it's sort of like a guided meditation. They have sounds, they have scents, they have like, uh, they'll talk you through like what to, what to like— it's like a, it's like Calm or like Headspace like meets a sauna. Uh, that's my like prediction. They're a little bit— they're very stealthy. There's like nothing on the website, but that's my understanding of it just from, uh, figuring it out.

Dude, the Florence thing is amazing.

Yeah, so I'm really excited about both of these. I don't think either of these is like, you know, mega huge business, but I think it's— I think it could definitely be a really healthy business. Um, and it might be one of those that surprises you. Maybe there's bigger demand. Maybe this is— maybe this ends up like pools, right? Like, I think, um, our buddies are in the— they bought a pool construction company. He was telling me something like, you know, um, like some absurd percentage of homes like, uh, 50% of homes or whatever in, in areas that can host a pool, like, will get a pool in the suburbs. And, um, and it's like a—

yeah, it's—

or it's— that's not the exact percentage, but it's like it's a $50,000 average ticket. Um, it's the number one, like, kind of like optional upgrade to a house that, that happens. And, um, and so, you know, those companies are doing really well, pool construction companies. And so maybe If you fast forward 10 years down the road, sauna and cold plunge is gonna be as common as swimming pool is in America. Like, I could, I could see a world where that's the case.

I definitely could too. So, I'll have to remember exactly what these, the, the, the study says, but there's a, there was a very reputable and famous study and it said two interesting things. The first thing that it said was if you sauna for two 20-minute sessions a week, it decreases the likelihood of cardiovascular disease by something like 30 or 40%, a massive number. Then it said if you sauna for 3 20-minute sessions a week, it's gonna decrease it by like 60%. Like, it's like the, the numbers are like astronomical just from 2 to 3, let alone 0 to 2. And so sauna's like, uh, I, I, I, the, what it, the way it works is basically like when your body heats up that much, um, I guess it stresses it and that's, that's a really healthy and good stress. And, uh, Anyway, it's pretty sick. I'm all about that. Do you want to talk about these last two things you have on here? I'm very eager what those are.

Yeah, let's talk about them. By the way, just to put an end point on this, like, we talked about this because just we're interested in it and like whatever, it's just this is our hangout. If you want to be up on the wall, great. But I would also say there's been a big lesson I've learned that is anytime people live— anytime you discover a group of people who are very interested in and living a lifestyle that is different than yours, it's very easy initially to write it off and just say, oh, that's frivolous, that's that's, um, that's just kind of like whatever, you know, they're out of touch or, uh, they're weird or whatever. Like, it doesn't really matter what, what category it is. Like, when I, when I saw gamers and people who stream video games and watch other people playing video games, it was so strange to me. I remember making fun of this kid in college because I walked in on him and he was watching somebody else play a video game on a live stream, and the guy was playing in Korea. And I was like, you're watching a dude in Korea play this video game? Why don't you just play? Better yet, why don't you get outside and like, let's go, go get some food. And I made fun of him for it. And then years later I'm like selling my company to Twitch and like, I'm, I'm like talking about how great this trend is. And he's like called me, he was like, you motherfucker. You know, like I, dude, you made fun of me for this 10 years ago and here you are now, like now you're on board. And I, that's happened to me so many times in life that now I go the exact opposite way. I see some, somebody like you who says the same thing that our other buddy said, which is maybe I should go to the Mayo Clinic and get these advanced scans done once a year. I think, huh, maybe that's something more people are gonna want to do. Why would he want to do this? Why are people choosing plant-based lifestyles? What is that all about? You know, like, well, and so now I lean in anytime I discover these things and that's become some of the best, A, like either like discoveries, life changes I can make, or B, investments. It's a great way to invest cuz you're actually on the, like the cutting edge of stuff you're in early, which is super important.

Obviously there's a book on, like a famous business book on it where he, where he talks, I think it's Crossing the Chasm or something where he talks about like early adopters and then like the, there's basically this like bell curve of people where it's like in the beginning of the bell curve, it's like late people who are late to it. And then like the middle is like the average Joe and there's like early adopters and there's one more like cutting edge. And you and I both have like a handful of friends of which I would actually say that I forget the names of them.

But in that bell curve, there's people who are getting on names because you got the idea right, but you like butchered all the names. So it's basically earliest is innovators. And it's like the people actually like figuring things out. And then there's early adopters, then there's early majority. That's the kind of like big chunk. Late majority, that's the other part of the big chunk. And then there's the laggards who are like, you know, people who still have AOL email addresses and like, you know, are looking, driving around looking for Blockbusters.

And for a lot of things, I would say you are on the right side. You're, uh, either an innovator or the one next to it, an early adopter.

And I'm trying to go— I'm intense. I'm intentionally trying to go that way. So I thought Uh, you know, I'm just not that, I'm not like a futurist type of guy cuz I've been so wrong. And the, and I, I figured out the formula for it. The formula for it is, um, have an ego, make a prediction, be wrong like 5 times and have it rubbed in your face how wrong you were. Boom. You're a, you're now a futurist. Uh, like I remember the first time the iPhone came out and I was like, who the fuck wants to like read tiny text on a screen? Like that's awful. I was like, nobody's gonna watch a movie on this. I was like, yeah, you can watch it. Who would ever watch a movie on this like tiny square? Like, that's like, that would be the worst. It's worse than an airplane headrest. Like, I remember saying these things to people and, you know, this is like, I was in college. I was like a junior in college. There's nobody remembers this, but I remember being that wrong. Snapchat, I remember being that wrong. My username still has the word test in it because I was so certain. I was like, Snapchat, this is, this is stupid, right? This is just for kids and dick pics and stuff like that. I was like, it certainly won't go on beyond this. Bitcoin, I was wrong early on, right? Like guys in my office were telling me about it back in 2012, 2013, and I was kind of laughing and saying, guys, let's focus on something like legit here. And now I'm like, you know, a fucking Bitcoin evangelist. And so like Twitch, same thing. I was wrong about streaming. I've been wrong so many times that I've actually flipped the script now. I kind of had to reassess my life and say, I'm not gonna be very good as a technology entrepreneur or a technology investor if I just continue to write off the big things as dumb and stupid early on. Like, I need to go the exact opposite way. Okay, what would it take for me to do that? And then I just, I just inverted. So instead of, you know, anytime I see that the same feeling, I instead lean into curiosity. What's making people wanna do this when I think it's so strange? And now I, that's, that's like flipped the script for me.

And we either had Justin or Emmett on at HustleCon or on here, and they were talking about Justin.tv, which was the site before Twitch became a thing. And it was basically, Anyone could log in and create their own live TV channel. And Emmett, I believe you could tell me if I'm wrong, I believe the story was like Emmett would like— there's a small corner of the site where these like guys were watching video games, and it wasn't a lot of people, like thousands of people, but they were spending 2%, I think, of the traffic at that time. But they were spending a significant amount of time watching, and he was like, that's— this is the one that we got to go to.

And I don't even think it was that as data-driven. Actually, the data pointed against it because again, remember, it was small trap, it was small amount. They had a combination of two things working in their favor. Number one, Emmett was like, I guess actually the number one factor was they were fucked. The current thing wasn't working and they had like no, like they had nothing to lose. They don't, they were gonna run outta money and fail, or they had to try something dramatically different. And, um, when you feel like you're fucked and you have nothing to lose, you actually have the one of the greatest assets on your side. Um, which is that, you know, when you have nothing to lose, you play completely differently than when you feel like you have something to lose. So that was the first thing they had to change. They, the things that were popular were all like, uh, illegal streams, illegal streams of sports. So they knew, oh, people wanna watch this, but we can't ever build a business around this.

Yeah.

So what 90% of people are doing on this site, we can't use. The 2% thing worked. And then the other one was, he was like, I personally like watching these. So he's like, I'm gonna go with that. Like, these are my favorite things to watch on the network. So if I'm gonna work on this, I'm gonna work on the ones that I personally find, you know, the most interesting. And actually, most of the company wanted to go work on the hotter, sexier idea, which was called— what was the thing called? The video thing they had? Not Viddy, their version. Yeah, Socialcam.

Socialcam.

So the company split in half. They said, all right, Justin.tv is not gonna work, abandon ship, and we got to figure out, you know, what's the— what's the emergency ship? And so they had this— I think Michael Seibel, who now runs Y Combinator, and Justin Kan, they wanted to do Socialcam. It was Instagram for video. Instagram is the hottest startup started up in Silicon Valley, but it's photos. We're gonna do Instagram for video. And they were able to instantly raise money. They got tons of initial hype and traction and press, and all the talented people in the company wanted to go work there. So I talked to this guy Jacob, who's the OG designer at Twitch, and he's still there. He's still at the company today. And I said, um, how'd you know, like, to bet on Twitch instead of Socialcam? He goes, oh no, dude, I wanted to be on Socialcam. They were just like, nah, like, we don't like like, team's full, bro. Like, you go work on, on the thing with Emmett because Emmett is his childhood friend. He's like, you, you got to go do that one. He's like, ah, fuck, all right, whatever. You know, so like, that was what seemed like the great idea. But actually what Emmett did, which was leaned into this really weird behavior, unique lifestyle that these gamers were doing where they were streaming themselves playing for 8 hours a day, that turned out to be the thing.

And that's kind of my point, which is like, I think that there's like these— I, I do it on online communities, particularly Reddit, but you can right now, you could do it on Twitter. Or you could just type in like any idea or any hobby and type in the word forum and you could just find like these niche communities of people that are kind of freaks and it's fun to like learn all about it. Like for example, intermittent fasting, fasting is now like, we all talk about it. Um, I remember like 8 years ago, I remember Business Insider wrote an article about like a Microsoft executive and they mocked him for the like intermittent fasting. What is this? And, uh, But there's, there's been communities online where I've like read about people doing this for forever, and you're like, fasting? Like, no, like breakfast is the most important meal of the day.

Just look at anything they make fun of Silicon Valley for. At the beginning of coronavirus, it's like, VCs are so paranoid about the real world that they're wearing masks to conferences. Guess what everybody's doing now? Wearing masks, right? Uh, oh my God, intermittent fasting, Silicon Valley's latest craze, not eating till noon every day. You know what Google engineers are doing, right? It's like, like, make— media loves to make fun of it. Guess what? That's what everybody's going to be doing. Um, you know, what are some other things that are like that? I think, you know, some of them are— meditation, by the way, was like that too. Uh, people made fun of it, and then, you know, boom, it's like the new yoga. Uh, the other ones I think that, that are happening are like stem cell or any like blood platelet spinning stuff where it's like, oh, you have knee pain? Well, these guys, they like go to Puerto Rico and like go to Germany and like get this fucking blood spinning treatment and go get stem cells injected into their knees.

That, and, uh, now they feel good. And gene editing, I think, is—

gene editing is one. Another one, uh, breathwork. I think breathwork is where meditation was. I invest in this thing called Othership. They just actually launched their app. I use it every single day, and, um, like, I use it religiously because it makes you feel so good. And to, to the average person, like, I do it outside now after Huberman was like, get, get sunlight on your eyes first thing in the morning. So I do it outdoors, um, and I'm sitting in my driveway basically doing it and neighbors are walking by, they're walking their dog, what they view as a very normal behavior, go for a morning walk, and they see me like doing fucking breathing techniques on my driveway and they think I'm a nut. And I love it. I go louder as soon as somebody walks by because I want them to know they live next to somebody from the future.

Dude, there's this guy, his name was Bill, well, we'll start with, there's this guy named Arthur Leonard. He's dead now, but in the '60s and '70s, he was a New Zealand track and field coach and he had runners like Paul Walker, or not Paul Walker, That's John Walker.

Uh, Furious actor.

Yeah. Peter Snell and all these like New Zealand guys who started winning the Olympics in the 1500 meters, 5K, and 10K. And everyone's like, dude, what are you doing with your runners? And he goes, we run like 120 miles a week. We do long distance running and we go slow and we just do it, just a shitload of it. And this one coach, uh, from Oregon got really interested and, uh, his name was Bill Bowerman. And he goes, well, I'm the track and field coach at Oregon University. I have all these great runners. What are you doing? And he goes over to— in the 1970s in New Zealand, and he learns from Arthur Leonard, and he comes back and he starts making it popular. And two things happen. University of Oregon gets really good at track and field, and he ends up making shoes for his runners so they can run a little bit faster. And he calls it Nike. He calls that company Nike. He starts it with a— with another runner, Phil Knight. And the other thing that happens, and this is just— it worked out perfectly, is he starts talking about it to all of his friends. He even writes a book about it, and I believe it's called like The Joy of Jogging.

Jogging.

And the idea of jogging, it wasn't even like a thing in the '70s. People are like, what do you mean? You're just gonna run? Like, aren't—

is it from what?

Yeah, like, aren't the police gonna go after you? And, and like, like, it was like astounding. Like, prior to the 1970s, right? So there was a— it was a jogging craze of the '70s. Prior to that, people didn't go out and run. That just like wasn't like a thing. And so anyway, that's like another example where like running became popular and Bowerman created Nike to kind of capitalize on it, right? Uh, let's wrap up with this last thing here. What does I always enjoy your wisdom of shit. Put yourself out there, announce what you're trying to do and how you're trying to do it.

So this actually came from the Facebook, uh, the Zuckerberg interview with Gary Vee. So Gary Vee goes, you change your name to Meta, you change the name, company's name to Meta. So like, you know, like, what's that about? You kind of wanted to like announce this to— what's the kind of like the thinking behind that? Because I, I think I get it, but you know, explain it. And Zuck basically said this thing, he goes, um, he goes, you know, I think this is really important. And he goes, you know how it is when you run a company, he goes, you have, you know, hundreds of employees, thousands of employees. He's like, we have thousands, tens of thousands of employees. It's really hard to get the message out inside your own company. One of the best ways to get your company to realize you're serious about something is to go talk about it externally. So that's the first thing he said. And I thought that was so true. When, whenever a statement gets made publicly inside the company, they also read that article. They read that press and say, well, I guess we are committed to this. I guess we are. I guess that is a top level priority and they start to take it seriously. So all of a sudden the product managers start adding features for that thing, or the top talent will switch to that division cuz they know that that's an area for growth for the company. So it works internally. Then he goes, the other thing is, he's like, you know, we, um, we wanted to put a, a message out there to the world. Like he goes, I think it's really powerful. Uh, he goes, we wanted to say what we were doing so that people who want that to exist, will come work for Facebook. And Gary goes, yeah, it's like a recruiting thing, right? He goes, he goes, yeah. He goes, it's kind of amazing, you know, if you just say what you're trying to do and how you go about doing it, um, that like, it repels— he goes, you'll get a lot of hate. And he's like, we always get hate. Anytime we announce anything, we get hate. Um, he's like, so that's gonna come anyways. And he's like, when you say what you're trying to do, what you're trying to build, uh, you know, what you're trying to do with your life and basically how you're trying to go about it, it, you will repel the people who find that off-putting and you will attract the people who want it. And he said it so simply. This is not a, oh, I've never thought of that, or wow, that's such a new concept. It's not that, but it reminded me of like a lot of good things that have happened in my life that simply came from saying what the hell I'm trying to do, why I'm doing it, why I'm so excited about doing it. And how I'm planning to go about it. Here's what I plan to do, because the other thing Facebook announced was we're investing $10 billion into, you know, the metaverse, uh, this year, like into our AR and VR projects. And $10 billion is like a huge number. And so that basically says we're changing the name and we're investing $10 billion. That means this is our future, this is the bet. And, um, and so that will attract talent. Now I just That's such a powerful concept for anybody. It doesn't even really matter what the, what the stakes are. Like I've done this when I try to hire interns. Most people when they try to hire interns, they spend all their time, you know, they, they'll, they'll write a, a blog, they'll write a job post and then they'll like, you know, hope and pray the right person comes by. And the better way to do it is you write a job post that would attract the, you think about who the ideal person for this is and you say, what would make them stop what they're doing? And be like, holy shit, I gotta check this out. I gotta go reach out to the— I gotta talk to them. And so now you're not gonna write a normal job description that says the role, the responsibilities, the requirements, minimum—

you also need to know who you don't want to work there.

Exactly. And it'll work out. So like, I put a thing up on Twitter once. I remember, I think I've talked about this before on here. I put up—

yeah, people shit on you.

People shit on me. They piss on me for everything I do. This one, this one, it was— I kind of like almost handwrote it and made it look handwritten. And I said, I Hiring an intern, I said, you're going to get 3 years of experience in the next 12 months. Um, I don't drink coffee, so you'll never have to go fetch me some. Um, you're not going to know what to do. I'm going to throw you in the deep end, but don't worry, don't, don't worry, I won't let you drown. And I said, uh, you're going to work on this, this, and this for me because I'm trying to do X. I, you know, my start— what the startup was at the time is I'm trying to build X, and I want somebody who can come in and do things like A, B, and C, and who knows what else. Um, and I basically was like, you know, whatever. And there's a PS at the end. And this got like hundreds of applicants to come in. Why? Just cuz I didn't write a normal job description. Secondly, because I said it, I said what the hell I'm trying to do and it attracted the type of people who, who want to do something like that with their life. You know, they, they found, they found an overlap between their interests. It sounds again so simple, but if you kind of check yourself, you say, have I done that? When's the last time I put a stake in the ground? I put a flag in the ground and said, here's like, I'm Sam Parr, here's what I'm doing so that you would attract like-minded people. I think you kind of did it with the fitness influencer thing, to be honest. You go, I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna get away from this business stuff and I'm gonna focus on being, I'm gonna become a fitness influencer. I'm half joking, but I'm also half serious. And, um, and then you started posting the content every day and you started like doing it in public on Facebook, you post on Twitter, you post it. And I'm sure some people make fun of you or some people leave kind of comments that are like slight jabs or whatever. But like, you put it out there and I'm betting your DMs are full of people who are now— Yeah, it's sending you cool equipment ideas.

Yeah.

Flying out to meet you. Like, that's just what happens when you do that.

And it's what I, what I tell people. Someone was like, do you want to make money off this? I was like, no, but like, I would love like a professional athlete to think that this is kind of cool and be like, oh, I don't know, you like fitness, you want to come over, right? Or, you know, like a Cheberman. Like, he didn't find us this way, but he's like, oh, you're into like, you know, the body and things like that. That's neat. I would want to learn a little bit about the media business. Can I, uh, learn it from you? Um, have you read the book 48 Laws of Power?

I haven't read it now, but I've heard some of them, and I find it weird. Uh, like the summary— basically the guy goes on TikTok. I don't know how he's in my algorithm, but the author Robert Greene, he does like one individual power at a time on TikTok, and it always comes up, but it'll always be something so generic that I don't know how to— like, it's like very weird. He'll be like like, Laws of Power, like, don't— you don't want other people to like you, or something. It's like, it's something like that. I'm like, okay, I don't know what this is. His book's so hyped.

His books are like so in-depth. I believe that like in some prisons, in some state prisons throughout the country, and some states have banned the book. It's, it's, it's incredibly interesting. Powerful. It's very— no, for real, it is. It's crazy. It's a crazy book. Book. And law number 25— I used to memorize the laws when I read it— law number 25, and I just had to Google it now that I don't remember it that well. Law number 25 is to always, uh, or consistently recreate yourself. And he says, be the master of your own image rather than letting others define it for you, and incorporate dramatic devices into your public gestures and actions. Your power will be enhanced and your character will seem larger than life. And with this Facebook thing, as well as a lot of other things, They get made fun of for doing that, but these huge gestures oftentimes work out well.

Uh, like I did, uh, here's this little example of it. I had a Twitter bio for the last few months. I just changed it, but I know I thought it was good.

10 million rev or something.

I basically said every Twitter bio I ever saw was like the past. And I thought, okay, I see the value in that. Like it's good for somebody to land and know what you're doing. But I thought what's more interesting is like, what are you trying to do now? I said, how could I plant my flag just in the, the top of my profile? And it was very controversial. I think a lot of people felt, I, I don't know, they don't tell me, but I'm, I'm assuming there are, there are a bunch of people out there who probably read it and was like, this is kind of cringey. Or like, why is he saying this is weird? And there's some people that would DM me.

Wait, what was it cringey? All, all you did was said, I wanna make a hun— or no, the business will do $10 million in revenue this year.

I said 3 things. I said 4 things. I said, I'm trying to be in a great mood daily.

Yeah.

I'm gonna get into phenomenal shape for the first time in my life. I'm going to make $10 million by December, and I'm going to, um, I don't remember what my last one was. Uh, something else. But those are the three.

There's something about fitness, maybe.

The second one was fitness. Get in phenomenal shape for the first time. That and, uh, something else. Maybe it was like, I don't know, blah, blah, blah, family, something to make me sound good after I said I want $10 million by December. Okay. So I put that out there and I got, I would say, 5 really important messages from there of like really great connections that came out of it from people just being like, yo, like respect. I respect you for putting that there. I might be able to help you with the fitness thing, or I might be able to help you with, I see you have the mood thing. What are you doing for that? I wanna learn. I'm like, great, I would love to teach it. Or $10 million, how you plan to do it? How far along are you? Come on. I get an email from one guy. He keeps saying, how far along are you? You're getting close. Your thing is inspiring me. My, I set my goal too. My goal's not $10 million. My goal's $100,000, but I wanna make $100,000. And so like, it attracts like-minded people. And I, and I, I don't even think that that was that good of one version of this. I think the, the law of 25 you just said is super important to continuously reinvent and craft it and like play with it. Um, don't get stuck in like whatever you used to say 3 years ago or even 3 months ago necessarily if it's no longer the, the most badass, exciting, fun version of you and what you're trying to do.

Do you, um, and what does it say now? You want to build a $100 million brand or something?

Yeah, I said I'm building a $100 million brand and, uh, that I put, uh, that I'm investing in company badass companies like XYZ.

What are the odds that, um, what— so you're building a business right now, which we purposely don't talk about it, but you're building a business right now that's in a totally separate field than you are in now.

If you, you being like media, uh, media, Sean, different than anything I've done before also. Yeah.

Yes. And many people, including me, well, I haven't done this, but this is something I would have, I would do, would say, well, what the hell? Just focus on like the main thing. Yeah, but do you think it's gonna work out? Like, it seems like it might work out, right?

Yeah, I think it's gonna work out. I'm pretty— I think it's gonna work out. I— the reason why— I mean, I started with my wife, so like, I wanted to start a business with her. I think we had the idea together. I thought that would be fun. I never did it normally. I would go work all day, be super like, you know, excited and stimulated by like all the shit there. She's not into tech. She's not into like the stuff I'm into, so So I'd come home and, you know, she'd say, like, how was your day? And I'd be like, ah, it was great. Like, you know, it's hard to go much further in depth than that. Right. So this was a cool thing we could do together while we, uh, you know, like had our first two kids and I got two little kids now. So that's why I went into this very different thing. And also as a challenge. And also we have a couple friends that also do e-commerce and we're doing really well with it. So I thought, okay, I can learn from them and, and kind of we can bounce off each other, bounce ideas off each other.

Would you sell it next year for like $20 or $30 million?

No, I think it can get to— I think get to $100 and like, I think we should just go all the way.

That's pretty awesome. And you're enjoying it still? It's not exhausting?

It's a pain in the ass tons of times, but like, you know, overall, yeah. Like somebody like our buddy Suli, who, um, who I talked to and kind of like look up to as a business mentor, he was like, he really wanted to advise and help me with it it. And I was like, okay, why do you wanna do this? Like, you know, your time on this is not gonna pay off. Like, you know, you have, if you just spent that same hour in your other business or in one of these other 10 things, it's just honestly, it's more valuable for you. And as your friend, like, I don't want you to make a decision today that is actually like a bad decision. And he goes, like, don't worry about that. Like, and he goes, I'm basically, you know, like I was like, you could just be having free time. He goes, Uh, yeah, I don't, this is my free time. He's like, I am only happy when I'm in a prison of my own making. And I thought it was just a badass way of saying it. He's like, you know, I don't wanna do nothing. I like doing hard things, challenging things, as long as I get to choose what the hard and challenging thing is. If it's something I don't wanna do and it's even remotely hard or challenging, I'm like a whiny baby. But when it's really hard, but I chose it, I, I picked this poison, then, uh, I have so much fun. Like I just wake up every day energized and I was like, I was like, wow, that's a great way to know yourself.

Well, um, we can wrap up there. I think— what did you, uh, where's Ben? Ben, what do you think? I think we covered a lot of interesting things. I like the philosophical wisdom bullshit. Yeah, the end was really great. It got my wheels turning about like what I can build kind of in public, how I can put myself out there more. I love that part. I think building in public is overrated, by the way. I'm gonna do it with this ketchup thing, but I think it's overrated. You know what's better than building in public? Just doing cool shit, not talking about it, and being private.

Yeah, that's fair. I'm actually— I'm doing both right now. I have one thing that's in private and a bunch of stuff that's in public, and I actually like them both. Ben, what if I said— what if you were gonna put yourself out there? What are you trying to do? How would you put your— plant your flag so that you can, like a magnet, attract like-minded people to you? What's your— what's your version of, I'm Ben and here's what I'm trying to do right now?

Well, so I mean, obviously a lot of people know about my podcast already, How to Take Over the World, and I'm trying to make it a top 100 podcast in the world across any category. So we're trending in the right direction, but I haven't really put that out in public yet, and I guess now it is. So there we go.

But Sam asked an important question. Every, every goal or dream should have a time associated with it.

Yeah, you always have to have it.

You know, so what would be— otherwise, you know, it's a, it's an endless wish. So what would be— what do you want?

Um, how much time is left in 2021? Uh, we got 6 weeks.

Yeah.

Uh, let's say in 6 weeks, let's say, let's, uh, I got a little more than a month.

All right, everybody go subscribe. If you listen to this, go subscribe to the How to Take Over the World podcast. It's honestly an amazing podcast. That's why we've run some episodes on this feed before. Uh, all right, we'll, we'll get you closer. Um, and I think, you know, like if you just said, all right, um, I think one of the reasons people struggle with this question is they feel the pressure like, oh fuck, this is my purpose in life or my mission in life. I better get it right. And actually you wanna do the exact opposite. You wanna treat it like a kid when you say, what do you wanna be when they grow up? And they say, I wanna be a dinosaur. I wanna be a firefighter. I wanna be a pizza man. I wanna be a pizza. And it's like, okay, Okay. Uh, the best way to get to this statement is actually to put zero pressure on it and say it out loud and then say it out loud again. Say a different thing out loud. Say like, play with the ideas until something sticks with you and hits with you. And then you say, okay, and then how do I juice that? If that's the dream on level 7, what would it be on level 10? What would it be if I turned the knob all the way, broke the knob off the volume thing, and it's now at like volume 12 accidentally? What would that be? Of this, of this podcast? Like, what would it be right now if you cranked it up?

By the way, I feel like we both put ourselves out there of like putting a number to it. Meanwhile, Sam is like, I'm just gonna be a fitness influencer. But like, where's, where's your number in timeline, Sam?

We're not judging. We're not judging.

No, I have one, bitch. It's to weigh 185 pounds by January 15th. Come on. Okay, okay, my bad, my bad. I have it written down on this piece of paper. That's not, that's not an influencer. That's not an influencer. Dancer goal. That's just a fitness goal.

Well, no, no, that is because where are you at now?

So you're at 196. So you started at 210.

Sam's basically saying in the next 2 months, I wanna lose 11. I wanna lose 11 pounds, but I'm more, I'm, you know, he's already like, you know, somewhat in shape. So, you know, I, I don't know if it's, I don't know if you have like a body fat thing or whatever. So now what will that attract? It'll attract other people who also want to lose weight or have just done got it, right? Those are the two people that are gonna reach out to Sam. Hey, me too. Or I just did it. You can do it too. Here's what I, here's what worked for me. And so like, that's the power of doing this and of saying it out loud is convincing yourself.

And Ben, don't come at the master when it comes to goal setting. Okay? I'm the self-manifest. I'm, I'm the man of, I'm a manifest cowboy, baby. I get it done. I just wanna know when you're gonna have 100,000 Instagram followers, Sam. That's all I wanna know.

Manifest, bro. The manifest cowboy. This is hilarious. First of all, my, my buddy, uh, has the best nicknames I just discovered. He, cuz he, he showed up, uh, for this thing and I was like, dude, you showed up. Like, I thought you'd be late. And I thought like, you know, you might skip it today because you didn't have to do it. And, uh, his, our other friend was there. He goes, that's why they call him Mr. Show Up. And I thought he was joking. And then literally someone called him Mr. Show Up. I was like, is that your actual nickname? Mr. Show Up? And he's like, yeah. He's like, that was the thing. He's like, he's like, anytime somebody needed like whatever, was a ride to the airport. Oh, you know, like, you need a ride home from the airport? I'll be there. Just gimme 15 minutes. I'll, I'll show up. And like, you, you'd give him a throwaway invitation to a party. You'd be like, hey, yeah, I'm going to this thing. Um, but, uh, you know, you won't know anybody there and it's 2 hours away and like, it might not be fun. He's like, cool, I'll go. And they're like, dude, you showed up to the party? Like, you don't know anyone here. I can't believe you showed up. And that became his reputation.

Mr. Show Up. Who's this guy?

Is this guy Dom that I work with? I love this guy. And he's like, I thought that nickname, Mr. Show Up, like, I wish that was my nickname because I can tell you one thing, Mr. Show Up is gonna win in life because 80% of life is just showing up. And, uh, and if you're Mr. Show Up, you're, you're acing that part of life.

That's hilarious. Um, I think it's gonna be a good app. Yeah. I feel like I could rule the world.

I know I could be what I want to.

I put my all in it like no days off. On the road, let's travel, never looking back. Like—