I Spent 7 Days With LA’s Rich & Famous… Here’s What I Learned (#481)

He'd just come back to it. We were talking about a whole different topic and he's like, Big O Tires. Really? You could just own 12 Big O Tires and that's it. And he would just come back with the example of one of these like shitty brick and mortar chains that are like, you know, so easy, sweaty cash flow business.

All right, we're going to start the pod, but before we do, we have an announcement. We are looking to hire a new producer. This producer is going to be the person who sits live on these podcasts, helps us edit them and make the videos and podcasts popular, helps us get guests. And so we're hiring.

We're hiring. I almost call them a band manager. It's like, you know, the band manager's job is to make sure that the band blows up, right? And so this podcast has grown a lot. It's time that we find somebody who wants to take it to the next level, booking amazing guests, uh, helping us brainstorm great content segments and be like, guys, people love it when you do the blue collar side hustles. Let's make sure we hit those every week and, uh, you know, keep us on our A game. Um, make the audio, the video tighter, make the YouTube channel better, make it pop. Uh, we want somebody who's great at this. Uh, ideally we hire somebody who's already a fan of the show and is looking to basically hang out with us a few times a week, see how we operate, loves making great content, loves getting content made, and has the, I don't know, like kind of like the taste and the skills to put out a great content product. And that's what we're looking for. So if that's you, you could reach out, you can email me. It's shaan@shaanpuri.com. So S-H-A-A-N at S-H-A-A-N-P-U-R-I.com, and I'll forward it to our team over at HubSpot that is That is vetting and interviewing everybody. So we're going to hire somebody this next few weeks.

And it's a full-time position. If you're an amateur, you've never done this before, you maybe you'll get noticed, but you have to be really good. We're not looking for people who are trying to take huge risks on. We're trying to find people who are the best. Uh, we've already had hundreds of people apply. So we really want the best people out there. If you've never done this before, you could still throw your, throw your, your resume out there and try to impress us, but make sure you do that. If you've already been there, done that, that, that's awesome too. So check it out. Email Sean, sean@seanperry.com. All right, let's get to the pod.

All right. You ready for the greatest show I've ever done?

A lot of people have, we got a lot of good comments on the last show. People were saying, someone asked me an interesting question. They go, your guys' cadence is really good. You guys, uh, you talk really fast and it feels quickly. And then someone said, do you do something to one another? Cause Sean and I are remote. Do you do something to one another to let each other know that it's your turn to speak? And I was thinking, I think we just have, we just know each other well enough that we know how to do it, but there is something that we each do. At least I pay really attention to you when you do it. And I try to give you the signal, which is you open up your mouth when you want to say something and then you let it sit open for a minute. Do you know what I mean?

The Zoom hack, because you're like, uh, you're like, uh, and the little, uh, is without the sound is basically just settling in now. But you know, because on the recording, they're not going to see it. So it's a silent signal. Whereas if you were doing that in person, it'd be a little strange. But yeah, it definitely works. The hard one is during interviews, because during interviews, the guest is talking. We don't know when they're going to stop. They're opening up probably a bunch of paths you could go down. Like, oh, they mentioned 3 things. They said it was really hard. Then they said they met a guy who, who was the guy? And they said that it really changed the perspective, but how, what did it change? And so you're like, and then we don't know who's gonna go. We're both pretty insatiably curious. I have a bad habit of just like talking too much in general in life. And so then it's like, we don't know which path we're gonna go and we don't know who's gonna decide. So a team interview I think is really hard.

It's, it's very, that's very hard. The interviews are easier in person, but what we do this now with just us, I think it's way easier on Zoom because I've gotten so used to it. Also, I've recorded in studios like you have done lately. You're going to talk about your trip in LA. I cannot stand when there's a third party there because I'm constantly trying to entertain her or him, like the, the, like the person there. But, uh, yeah, we, it, what people don't see is we do a good job of opening our mouths. Just a little bit so the other person knows when it's done.

Pro tips for everybody. Yeah, that's what you learn after 3 years of, uh, intense podcasting. One of the top-ranked business podcasts in the world. You don't get these kind of insights anywhere else.

No. Oh my God. Someone was like, you guys are so fast-paced. I'm like, yeah, it wears me out. I usually always have to take like a 20 or 30-minute nap. I just close my eyes and lay down on this couch.

That guy's definitely just listening to us on 2x and he is like, wow, these guys are strange. You know, he doesn't know he hit the button on his app.

Uh, so you just went to LA last episode. I asked you about it. You said, I'm going to do a whole thing where I tell you about it. I love these things because you're very observant. You, uh, you, you are, you have great observations and you don't ever leave your house. So when you do, you're extra, you're at, you have great observations.

Boy Meets World.

And the thing about you is you've got like a child's like awe of the world because like you're so sheltered and you live in such a bubble. And so you say these things that I'm used to. But I love just hearing it anyway.

A Sam Parr backhanded compliment. One of the finest. Uh, yes, all those things are true. There used to be a website back in the day. I don't know if you remember. I don't know if it's still up.

Probably is.

Uh, Little Big Details. Did you ever see this website?

No.

And it's a great little blog. It's a Tumblr blog actually. That's like, Tumblr's not even around anymore, but what they did was—

Last post 2017.

They would just, uh, it was like a swipe file. So they would just capture any example of like, a small thing that a company did well.

So, um, like on a Google Doc, it— on a Google Doc, when you go to share it and you don't name it, it just takes the first line of what you spoke about and it makes that the title of the Google Doc, as opposed to just naming it Untitled Document.

Yeah, exactly. Or like it says on Google, if you Google the word kerning, every word that shows up in the results has a large amount of kerning, right? Like the, the font. Um, or it'll be like, you know, the error, like the 404 page of this site instead of just saying error has this really fun fucking poem or whatever it is. And so I love this website. I love the name Little Big Details. I love this site because it just gave me a bunch of inspiration when back in the day when I was like more of like a PM product designer type guy. But third, little big details are the secret of life, right? I've said this before. It's the moments in between the moments. Like, it's not the big moments that matter. It's the moments in between those moments that matter. This is the product version of that. It's like, here's the little things. I remember the first time I used Slack and our designer typed a hex code. They were like, oh yeah, it's gonna be color, you know, number 883344F. And then it just, it automatically swapped that to the color swatch so we could see it. Added the color swatch to it inline.

Right.

And we were just like, what the, like, it was a mic drop moment in our, in our every, like our design team was like, okay. I fuck with this product. Like, they, like, somewhere in this, a designer was like, you know, it'd be cool. It'd be cool if you could actually see the preview of the thing because nobody knows what these numbers mean. And like, I don't even know how they did it with the emoji size thing. And it was just like a little big detail. And there was a bunch of those with great products like Slack that kind of like, we were in the first 100 users of Slack or something. And so it was very clear that like this thing might become a thing because the care that they took to this. So anyways, the things I want to talk about the LA trip, they're not the big moments. It's not, oh, I met with this famous person and here's the groundbreaking insight. I tried to find a bunch of the little big details, a bunch of the moments in between the moments that I think were interesting in their own way. This is for two reasons. One, I don't really want to brag, or I can't really talk too much about the people I met and what they said because it'd be kind of airing out, you know, those private meetings. But two, I think there's just a lot of interesting stuff in these, or at least I think there could be. So I wrote down a bunch of very vague but slightly intriguing bullet points and you can pick, but I will say here's the structure. So I go to LA with Ben, business partner Ben. We do 3 things. So we, here's the daily schedule. Morning is basically meetings and a workout. That was the goal. Um, midday was typically recording a podcast live in person with someone that we admired, respected, or thought was really cool. And then the evening was always a dinner with kind of like founder friends who were almost always people who had sold their companies, sold one or more companies, uh, in the past. And we did that for 5 days straight. So we would leave the house at 8:00 AM, we would get back around midnight and crash and then do it all again the next day.

Oh my God.

And, uh, for me, who's someone who's almost always at home on it. I have two little kids that are under the age of, you know, 4 years old. So, uh, you know, I'm on a kid's schedule typically. This was crazy, but, um, was, was an awesome, was an awesome experience. So now take it away.

All right. So you have a list of maybe 20 things. I bolded about half of them that intrigued me. I want to learn about big company CEOs talking about laundromats.

All right. So this is the story. We're out at, um, one of the kind of like after dinner, just like, let's go hang at this other place. So we're hanging at this other place and it's me, it's business partner Ben, and it's our buddy Sully. And we're hanging out and, um, Ben goes, hey, that's so-and-so. And we look across, I'm like, I, I don't even rec— I don't recognize the name or the face. So I'm like, what are you talking about? And he's like, we did a call with him 2 years ago. And I was like, what? He's like, yeah, we did a Zoom call for like 20 minutes with that guy. He introed us to this other guy. And I was like, I don't, I mean, I can't for the life of me remember this guy. And this guy, by the way, doesn't remember us either, right? Like he doesn't recognize us either. Ben, he's got like freaking the, like, you know how China has the facial recognition software that is running at all times using AI?

Yeah, Ben has that.

Ben has that. This happened like 5 or 6 times during the trip. He would see someone walking by and be like, That's that girl from Twitter. I'd be like, what? How do you know this? And so he does it. He's like, hey, blah, blah, blah. And they're like, surprised. And he's like, hey, it's Ben. We talked 2 years ago on a Zoom call for 20 minutes. And he's like, you see the guy kind of like doesn't really know what's going on. They're having dinner. So we merged dinners.

Wait, did you really?

Yeah, we just merged hangouts. Their crew was awesome. So they're best friends from business school. They went to Harvard Business School together. One of them runs, one of them is now CEO of a public company. Can't say which one, but he's such a funny guy.

So assuming multi-billion, multi-billion dollar company.

Yeah, over $1 billion. So we're hanging out and this guy who's the CEO of a multi, of a multi-billion dollar company at the moment, he goes, he's like, yeah, he was like, oh, you do a podcast? What's a podcast? What is it called? Oh yeah, I'll check it out. Right. And he's kind of like, he's like one of those people that's busy actually doing something. So he was kind of detached from the world of Twitter and podcasts and content creators and all this stuff. But as we're talking, he's like, oh, you know, one thing I did see, what's with all these entrepreneurs who own laundromats and HVACs and shit? Yeah, they're just buying laundromats. They're just making like a million dollars a year owning a laundromat.

What is this?

That can't be true. He's like, Either this is not true and they're lying, or this is true and what the hell are we all doing? Why don't we all own like 15 laundromats? He's like, it's, it can only be one of two situations. And so we had this hilarious conversation with this guy, but there's not a third situation of it is true and it's kind of stupid. No, he was like, if it's true that these things are as, you know, sort of simple and cash flowy as po— as they sound, why would we all not just own 15 of these and call it a day? And he's like, and if it's not true, why the hell are they talking about it like it is? And I just thought it was so funny because it was like smart person. It's kind of like if you took a really healthy person to a grocery store and walk through the snack aisle, they'd be like, so this is all just sugar? You'd be like, well, yeah. So all the kids' food is sugar, and then all the adult food is like sugar and salt. You eat this? Why wouldn't you just eat normal food? And you're like, I mean, I can't defend it. It's just the way, I don't know, it's just what it is. That's how he was talking about entrepreneurial content that he's run into on social media, just in passing while he's trying to go see friends' photos. He's like, why is this entrepreneur telling me that they make so much money so easily doing something so stupid and hands-off? He's like, it's either not hands-off, it doesn't make that much money, or we are all idiots because it is hands-off and makes that much money. And I just thought it was such a, like, it was so funny the way he was ranting about it. And he just like kept, and then every 15 minutes during the conversation, he'd be like, he'd just come back to it. We're talking about a whole different topic. And he's like, Big O Tires, really? You could just own 12 Big O Tires and that's it. And he would just come back with a new example of one of these like shitty brick and mortar chains that are like, you know, So easy, sweaty cash flow business.

I went through this period, so I was public about this. I bought property to do an Airbnb because I was like, you know, let's see if I'm interested in that. And what I've learned is exactly what that guy feels, which is if you can make money on the internet or like through content or software or something like that, the business is so much better. You can create a huge amount of money from nothing. You need nothing except You gotta work on it with real estate and laundry method shit you make. We're talking like single digits. If you're really lucky, tens of thousands of dollars a month in profit. And it's a pain in the butt, man. It is so hard and you have to have a ton of money to do it. Uh, like it, it, it's quite challenging. So I understand now I'm like, oh my God, like I, I have the skillset. This is so stupid to do this other thing when this other, when this internet thing is so much easier. I feel, I totally understand what he's saying.

And so the other great story this guy told, um, so I'm gonna try to do this without giving away too much info. So he, um, you know, he takes over as CEO of this company. He wasn't the original CEO. He becomes, he gets hired as CEO or becomes CEO. Um, and now this company has like, it's like has big scale, but it's not profitable. So the stock was getting kind of hammered and the company wasn't doing so well because it's not profitable. And so there's all these theories. So if you, if you just listen to like the pundits, they would be like, it's a category problem. Like this category can't be profitable because of A, B, C, and D. They're sort of like, it's a more like they're all theorizing about it and they made it sound like it's just a law of physics that it's just not gonna work. Bad category.

Like, like, like, like grocery delivery.

Yeah. Like 15-minute grocery delivery or whatever. Right.

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. And so, that was, if you just listened to the smart pundits, you would've just been like, ah, impossible. And if you listen to the original team, they'd be like, you know, like, yeah, it's, we're working on it. It's like, no, you're not, dude. Every single customer we lose, we lose money every time someone buys from us. Don't you recognize how big of an issue this is? Like, how did you let this go on for this long this way? And he's like, okay, so first act as CEO, he goes to the kind of like, let's say the place where the kind of the product is developed or made. It has like a real-world product. It's a business that's like tech-enabled, but it has like a real-world component similar to like an Uber or Airbnb has like, there is the physical place. So the guy goes and we're like, so what'd you do? And he's like, I just sat there. I just sat, I got a chair and I sat down in the middle and I just watched for 8 hours straight. He's like, I just looked, I just looked at what was going on. I had no preconceived judgments. I said, let me just watch what's actually happening here. How is it that we are losing so much money for every order that we get? Every customer that we get, we lose money. How is this possible? Um, and he just sits there and he watches, he watches and he's like, Oh, okay. I see. We got too many people doing too little shit and the manager is not doing what they're supposed to be doing. And so he is like, I like that guy. You're outside for half the time and therefore this person is not doing what they're doing. And these 3 people are all trying to do the same thing. And he is like, I didn't have to, like, like it wasn't a theoretical problem and it wasn't an inevitable problem. It was just a everybody's too distanced from the thing problem. Everybody, nobody just sat here for 8 hours straight and just watched what the hell is actually going on. And they told the story how they actually turned it around. Now it's profitable and so on and so forth. And so I think that's all I can say without giving too much away. But I just love this guy. I love the story. The two things that he said out loud was the like, hey, wait, wait, pause, timeout, timeout. We can all just own Big O Tires and call it a day. If it's that easy, we should be doing it. If it's not that easy, screw those people for saying it. And secondly, he's like, I'm just going to go sit for 8 hours and watch and just really get to a first, like a clear understanding of what is actually happening before we come to any other conclusions.

Will you ever do one of these things? So I dip my toes in it and my thing, like, it's on paper, it's successful. It's just like, it's just emotional baggage. What do you think about yours? Or are you ever going to do anything like that?

You mean a business that has real-world sweatiness?

Yeah. Yeah.

Um, yeah, like for our e-com thing, we ran our own warehouse for a while, so that was like, you know, ultimately my problem if it, if things went wrong. And I spent many weekends, you know, like breaking down pallets and reorganizing the warehouse and making it work and looking at the numbers and being like, why is this person's, you know, maybe we should measure their rates and like, This guy's picking 80 products per hour and this one's picking 40. Is it a person thing or is this guy just lazy or what's going on? Like, and then just dealing with all those issues, you know, one guy threatened to kill another guy today at work. All right. Um, there's nothing in the handbook for that. You know, this doesn't make me money, but I think it can lose me a bunch of money.

Did you really have that incident? Yes. You had that incident?

Got a call that was, uh, hey, um, this one guy just threatened to kill the other guy. Like, what should I do? Like, it was a kind of a serious threat. Like, he's mad. Like, I don't think he's going to do it, but he did yell it in front of everybody. And I was like, well, I think you got to fire that guy right now. And I don't know why you're on the phone with me. And then the other person, like, why are they— why does that guy want to kill him? What did he do instead? Like, you know, can we just replace all these people with somebody else? You know, it was a— it was not a— I mean, there's— there's— it's a very hard thing, right? It's hard, like, getting warehouse crews that are happy, productive, and kind, you know, and reliable is not like a thing for anybody. I have a friend who runs an e-commerce store and they go, I'm shutting down my warehouse tomorrow. Like, where can I move? And we're like, oh, what happened? What happened? He goes, someone just shit all over the floor in the warehouse for no reason. And we go, dang, like, what did he do? She goes, he goes, she, what did she, why did she do it? I was like, wow, just for a woman to just shit on the floor in a warehouse is like, what? What happened? What did it take?

Was it a spite shit or was it an accident shit? I mean, the intent matters.

I asked all the wrong questions apparently, because I didn't ask that one. I had 10 questions, but that wasn't one.

What about the NBA player?

All right, NBA player. So we meet an NBA player in LA. This isn't my story. I wasn't there for this, but Ben related to me. It was very funny. He's like, he talked about like, yeah, so is it, it's kind of like, what do you say to these guys? Right? So like they get a bunch of fanboys and you don't want to be a fanboy in general. I would say there was really two learnings. The first was we go to this thing, there's a bunch of NBA players, but who cares? They're cool. I think they're cool. I think it's cool what they do, but this event, it's hard to What are you gonna do? They're not gonna be your friend. Like, this is like, you're very unlike— like, what do you think is gonna happen here? Like, you go in excited, it's like, oh, this person's gonna be here.

You know what they're thinking? You know what they're thinking? Which is like, damn, Sean, you're pretty tall. You ever lace up? Like, you know, we, we need, we need a fifth. Like, are you interested? Like, that's what you want to happen, right?

Yeah, exactly. It's like, we've been waiting for this, you know, this Indian guy with no athleticism. Like, you know, would you like to become my best friend and on the road with us? Like, you know, what's going to happen here?

Or like meeting Drake and be like, hey, you're really like, you're really good at speaking. Do you happen to have a mixtape on you that I could check out?

You want to just hit the studio real quick? Yeah.

That's what you want to happen.

So I think the realization was we got excited to go to this event, but it's also like, cool, this event is cool, but that's not going to happen. Nothing's going to happen that's awesome from this event in that way. Two things happen. We meet a team owner. Again, Ben runs facial recognition software. He's like, that guy's a minority owner of the Philadelphia 76ers or something like that. And I was like, how do you know the minority owners of this? He's like, I recognize him from something I read. And I was like, and nobody's talking to this guy because nobody knows this old kind of like older looking dude. So we go up to him. We're like, hey, you're blah, blah, blah. Normally when Ben does this, the person is so elated that somebody kind of knows them, that you're a fan of theirs. They're like, nobody's talking to them otherwise. They're kind of like, they know they're actually pretty dope, but nobody at this event knows they're dope. This was the opposite. This guy just totally big-dogged us and made us seem like we were pieces of shit. So we're like, oh, cool. I asked you 10 questions. You gave me exactly 10 words as answers. So one word per question. And you left your AirPods in the whole time. And then you looked at us at the end like, if you ask one more question, I'm going to fucking slap you. And so we farted and walked away.

And then we had the basketball player experience where Ben takes a photo.

Ben's like, oh, look, I got this photo. With this like famous NBA player and we had a realization. The realization was this, it's dope if these guys were our friends, but it's not going to happen this way. The only dope situation is not that we meet them and we're a fan of them and we, they recognize us as a fan, but that they're a fan of what we do and we're a fan of what they do. That's the only cool version of this is do something dope so that they have respect for you as you have respect for them. So you should actually spend your time instead of chasing them to meet them and get a picture with them and whatever, just do dope shit. Become a magnet where other people who are awesome will respect you and want to meet you and want to talk to you or have something that they, you know, some common ground that they could find. Peer versus fanboy.

Yeah. So like showing them your calves was not going to like cut it.

Like, oh, like I run a 5.4 40. Does that do anything for you?

Can you jump high? Can you jump high? Those calves are looking great. Yeah.

I wear a Fitbit.

We have so much in common.

So, okay, next thing was NBA players, like, so I have nothing to lose at this point. So we're like, so like, what's it like just like having, you know, tons of chicks that want to be with you? Like, how do you do that? How do you navigate that? He's like, because we're like, you know, he's got, he's like, I got a wife, I got kids. He's like, um, he's like, I told my wife, I said this. Uh, anytime somebody has that voice, uh, uh, yeah, I'm in. Only good things come after that tone. He goes, I said, baby, um, you're happy, right? Yeah, yeah, I'm happy. Baby, you got the house of your dreams, right? Yeah, yeah, baby. I gave you 3 beautiful children, right? Sure did. They're beautiful children. He goes, baby, you can buy anything you want on this credit card, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, baby. You got to be called my wife, right? All right, what more do you want, baby? What more do you want? I just had an open conversation with my wife that like, look, you're gonna have a bunch of amazing things in your life, and so am I.

Oh my God, I hate that, by the way. I hate that.

Of course you hate that. I mean, it's, uh, it's not necessarily something that's admirable. I'm just saying it was something that was fucking hilarious and nobody is that honest. And I thought, wow, to have the, the honesty to tell a stranger that story is a confidence level that I could only admire. Um, you know, do I do that with my wife? No, of course not. Would I want to even?

Oh, I do it with my wife, except it's a little bit different. It's like, hey, Sarah, look, you know, if someone comes in this home, I'm gonna go and fight to the death to protect you, right? Whatever you want, I'll give you. I'll do anything for you. Take out the trash, please. Usually it's more like that. It's like, will you be the one who takes out the, the dishwasher today? Let you do it this week, and tomorrow when someone breaks into our home, I'll die for you. Normally it's— normally that's the argument that I make.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. These are all not great traits, I would say, but, uh, I found it hilarious. This falls in line with just a general thing, which was people in LA say wild shit. Like, people in LA are so, like, name-droppy and money-droppy.

It's disgusting, isn't it?

But they're not even really even aware of it. It's crazy. Like, they'll be like, um, this made-up example, but like, uh, yeah, yeah, we can meet at my place. It's over on, um, you know, Beverly and whatever. It's a $4.2 million property. It's like, whoa, whoa, whoa, why did you He said that at the end, like, completely unnecessary information, complete brag out of nowhere. And I just kept getting sideswiped by brags as I was walking through LA. Just, oh, sir, you dropped this. Oh, that's a producer, you know? Yeah, that's a name. Okay, here you go. Take that. I couldn't believe it. And I think SF is obnoxious. San Francisco is obnoxious in its own way.

Which ways?

'll be like, oh, I'm going to eat dinner. They're like, dinner is actually unnecessary. Study show. I say, what, dude? I just want to eat dinner. We don't have to be transhuman right now. Not everything has to be a thing, or we don't have to use AI to go get a smoothie right now. But San Francisco is obnoxious in its own ways. But the LA version of being obnoxious, I found to be very strange.

Yeah, it makes me really uncomfortable whenever I'm there. It's, um, every, every city is a dick measuring contest, but, uh, the type that they measure in LA, it's like the ruler, right?

And in San Francisco, it's like, how ambitious are you, right? No, you say the craziest thing you're working on. No, no, you say the crazy investment you just made. It's like, it's an ambition contest. And New York is like some power contest, and LA is basically like a fame a fame contest or a network contest. Like, who do you know and who knows you?

When I, uh, when my wife used to work at Facebook, one time Facebook rented out the baseball stadium, AT&T Park. And I remember going there and we wore nice clothes, like a suit jacket or whatever. But then the engineers would wear— it was like a contest to see who could look the most schleppy. So it would be like one guy wearing a tuxedo t-shirt. It's like, oh, I see. It's like, you're ironic. That's funny. And then another guy would be like just only wearing pajamas. And Birkenstocks, right? Or another guy, like, only pajamas but like dress shoes. It's like, oh, it's cute. You make a joke like, oh, you think that that means you're dressing up. Get it? I get it. You're like a brilliant guy. You're Einstein. And that's the type of contest that you would see there. Whereas in LA, it's like, uh, Land Rovers, Range Rovers, and, uh, fancy cars. And, um, everyone has beautiful white teeth. And like, have you noticed that there, the teeth in LA?

Veneers.

Yeah, what about that?

Veneers were, I don't know, just, it was a blind spot for me. I didn't even know what the hell veneers were. Didn't know who had them.

Do you know how you get them?

Dude, I went down the rabbit hole. I went on YouTube for like 3 hours. What are these things?

You like drill each tooth so it almost looks like a spike and then you like put up these fake things on there and glue them on there. So your teeth are like ruined, I believe. Like they're changed forever.

They are. They shave them down. I think the bad version is when they really shave too much and it becomes like little spikes and you look like you have little baby teeth. I think the good version is they just take a layer of the enamel off and then they basically glue a fake tooth front onto your thing and it looks awful for like a decade and then you like get 'em switched and you have these pearly white teeth.

They look awful. They, they look like Barney teeth. Remember Barney, the, the puppet or the, like, it was just like one strip of white. Yeah.

I think the good version, 'cause I was like, again, I went down the rabbit hole, like the good doc makes them look like they're your, teeth and not just like the generic thing. But I said a really, like, in LA, I was like kind of enamored by this veneers thing. And I go, okay, I figured it out. There's only two types of people in the world, people who have veneers and people who need veneers. Because once you see people who don't have veneers, almost everyone's teeth are pretty nasty. Like most people's teeth, they're kind of yellow, kind of misshapen, whatever. People generally don't have great teeth. And the people who do, have veneers. So there's only two types of people in life. This is now my belief. People who have veneers are people who need them. I'm currently in the people who need them category, and maybe, who knows, I'll go do them. But for some reason, tell me this, plastic surgery. Like, I don't think you or I would ever be like, you know what, just, I wish my eyebrow was a little higher up or whatever, you know? Like, dude, I wish my nose was a little different.

The cool thing about being a man is like, older men can be like pretty smokin' to women, you know? Like George Clooney is like a fine wine, you know what I mean? Like, people still like him. Brad Pitt still looks smokin'. My wife's been trying to convince me that like Botox for women is okay, because she'll talk about like Botox. I'm like, no, F that, just age. You look beautiful. Like, it's cool that we're going to age together. Then I met a couple people who get Botox and they're like, it's not that big a deal. So maybe my opinion is changing on Botox, but in general, I would say plastic surgery, I'm like, let it be. Let's age together and we're going to look awesome. So I'm generally pretty against that.

Me too. Uh, totally was in that camp. As I've met more people, I'm like, it's way more prevalent than I realized because I'm in a dude tech bubble. Uh, so it's way more prevalent than I realized. And secondly, there's some things like, I kind of get the teeth thing. It's like, it's like there's, there's grades to it, right? It's like, well, You do get a haircut, you do, you know, maybe you'll shave your beard. All right. You might buy nicer clothes. Okay. That's, that's the thing. Like, uh, you know, what if you just like, you know, get the, get like a, a facial treatment, maybe that makes you skin looks a little better. Okay. It's like a kind of like a, almost like a slippery slope of, of the beauty thing and like, yeah.

But what did you see there? Like fake asses and fake boobs or stuff on men?

Everything, dude. Everything. Saw everything. Men with Botox, you know, fake everything. Everybody's nose was— everybody had the same nose. So that was insane. The power of veneers. I was like, yes, I just love— it's a pleasure to make you laugh because I like seeing that smile.

No, don't fall down this trap. Do not do it, man.

Do not do it. So I might show up to one of these podcasts with veneers and a nose job. Who knows? We'll see.

What about the thing?

Or like, I don't know if I told you this. I have like a deviated septum. I went to ENT person. I was like, yeah, I don't know. Never been able to breathe through my nose very well. And they're like, yeah, because you have like a super screwed up thing. Like, it's like horrible. And he's like, you should get that fixed. I was like, okay, cool. And I was like, does that change how my nose looks?

Well, yeah. They're like, while we're there, that's the thing.

He's like, it doesn't have to change how it looks, but like, we're doing the surgery anyways. It's very easy to like, you know, just shape it. And I was like, but does that make me lame? And he's like, that's a personal question. Like, I was like, would it be considered like, if I did that, would I have to tell my boys I got a nose job?

Like, What are you like telling this? Are you like, doctor, am I gay?

I was like, yeah, I need a 360 opinion here on this. Like, you can't just hit me with the medical. I need the medical, the personal, the social. Like, I need all the opinions.

He's gonna diagnose you as being a douche. Yeah, exactly.

He's like, well, your douche levels will go up if you have beers, but like, you know.

Uh, all right, maybe last one, but what about the, uh, rich— who did you meet with? Someone who donated hundreds of millions of dollars to a high school.

Yeah. So Rich People Do Really Stupid Things is the name of my, my, of this topic, which is actually they do misguided things to help their kids. So I met multiple people who had donated somewhere between single-digit millions to double-digit millions. One person said $100 million plus. Well, I, I don't believe it because we're, I don't even know to a high school. I don't even know where that would go to a high school. I'll give you one. I'll give you one famous, where would even $10 million go to high school? I'll give you one public example, which is that, you know, the Fertitta brothers, the FC before they sold it, the guys who owned casinos in Vegas, they, their kids like to play football as many kids do. But unlike many football parents, these guys decided that their, the high school, their alma mater needed a, like a Division I college level football facility and donated tens of millions of dollars. They, they haven't said the exact number, but you can kind of triangulate it because They later donated like 10 or 15 million bucks to a college and it's less than what they gave their high school for their football facility. Oh my God. And it's like basically they gave at least $20 million to a high school to build a better football facility so their kids would have a better shot at becoming a better football player. And I was like, this is such a misguided way, such a inefficient way to help your kids. And I've met many people like this. I know people who are wealthy beyond measure. And I asked them, why are you still working like so many hours? What are you doing? Why are you taking all this risk? They're like, okay. They're like, my dad, when I wanted to be an entrepreneur, said you're never going to do it. And he refused to give me any money to start. So I struggled so hard at the beginning. When my kids turn 18, I'm going to give them each $20 million and say, like, you know, I will support you in building any business you want with that.

You know someone who said that?

This is their literal plan. Uh, they're like, and they're saying it, bragging to me again, crazy brag.

How old are their kids?

To me, their kids are currently, their oldest maybe 10 years old. Um, and their youngest is 4. So they have 4 kids. That's $80 million, uh, uh, you know, allowance that they're gonna, that they're creating trust fund that they're creating for their kids to start these businesses. And I, I told 'em, I was like, well, you know that like, because you didn't have the resources, you developed all these skills, which is what made you successful in business. Like you weren't, if you were handed $20 million, I don't think you would actually be who you are today. So I, I love that you're trying to help your kids, but I just don't think what you're doing, which is working super hard when they're kids, being so busy, being busy that you're kind of away from them, making all this money that you plan to hand them at 18, like This sounds like a recipe for disaster, but you know, people, it's a whole other topic.

People don't really want to hear that.

Yeah. So, you know, I don't think that message was received very well. But, you know, I just found that people do crazy things in the name of like their kids and money.

No, I think that that's crazy. I think that's exactly how you create like a future heroin addict.

I'm going to tell you a couple other ones that I think are good. Talk to an investor friend. So I have a friend who was a VC at one of the big VC firms. He's left. He left and started doing his own thing. but he has a style and a strategy I think is very different than most people. I find it very fascinating. So if I asked you, I said, what's, what is like, draw me like a picture of the typical Silicon Valley VC. Like, can you just describe some things about them? Like, you know, what, what are they like? What are they doing? You know, like just the, the average VC, let's say average VC, a, a, a tall looking white guy who wears, um, a sweater.

And brown shoes or shoes that have white soles, like white bottoms. And they basically meet tons and tons of people, tons of coffee meetings. Yeah, tons of coffee meetings, lots of introductions from other people who come from really amazing universities, and they'll pass on most of them, but then they'll invest like 50 to 100 companies, smallish checks, and then never hear from— they don't really talk to the founder often unless things are going really bad and they bitch out.

Yeah, exactly. They say they're going to be value-add. They invest in, uh, dozens, maybe 40, 50 companies over their lifespan of like a couple years. They're taking tons of coffee meetings. They're super agreeable. They'll only kind of smile and say nice things to your face. Typically they, um, cast a wide net. They love going to networking events.

They'll say that like, uh, we're a founder's first company.

Founder first. We're founder friendly.

We invest in world-changing ideas.

Yeah, all of them, all of them only invest in the best somehow. Um, yeah, every single VC only invests in the best. Uh, they, they do all those things. This is an investor friend that has a Twitter egg profile picture. They go to no networking events that are like VC-run and, and/or like kind of generic founder events. Um, they do go to random events that are like, oh, I'm going to this biohacker meetup in downtown Oakland where people are going to like shoot themselves up with DNA. It's like, okay, I'll go to that. They go to those types of events. They have a strategy, which is basically, here's what he told me. He goes, every year, one company becomes kind of the center of the universe, and my job is to have invested in that company 3 years ago. And I go, wow, okay. I like that. So what do you give me examples? He goes, well, back when we met, I met this person in 2012 or 2013. They were like, Stripe was actually the center of the universe at that time. Stripe was the company that was the clear breakout recently. He's like, most recent ones last year would have been OpenAI. So OpenAI before kind of early ChatGPT or before releasing GPT-3. Right now, I go, right now, who is it right now? He goes, Ozempic. Ozempic is the center of the universe right now. And I was like, oh, interesting. So not just like tech companies. Last time I talked to this person was maybe 3 years ago. In earnest. And I was like, so what are you up to nowadays? And generic, usually the answer is like, oh, a little bit of this, a little bit of that. This person said, I quit my job and I am just hunting down a way to own a piece of OnlyFans. I go, what? The porn thing? And he's like, yeah, OnlyFans I think is going to be massive. I think it's, you know, it's one of these, it's the center of the universe right now and people are, it's going to be the center of the universe. People don't realize it. I think it's going to be one. I think it's going to be the one of this, like this year kind of cohort. This is going to be the company that matters. So my only mission is to add so much value to the owner of OnlyFans that I can invest in it or own a piece of it somehow. And if I don't, whatever, at least I was helping that rocket ship go. And previously it might have been SpaceX or Tesla was like, you know, those, that company, the company and Bitcoin, Ethereum, like those are like some of the other ones that had their They owned that year. There was no more valuable company that was like creating more value that would then in the future be realized. And I just thought it was awesome. I thought it was an amazing, I was, I'm just so happy that this person's a friend that like thinks so differently, operates so differently than the average person that has.

He been successful?

Has been successful. And he told me, I was like, I go, so what's the strategy here? He goes, Oh, I'm trying to make all the best investments I can so I can make the worst investment of my life and buy this like soccer club in Europe that I grew up loving. And he is like, I, I was like, I'm, I'm trying to make the best investments ever so that I can make the one worst investment ever.

And, and does he use other people's money?

In the past he did. I think now he's doing a lot of his own or he'll raise SPVs. Like I was like, oh, you invest in this company? Cool. What, what, how much do you invest? He goes, $100 million. And I go, $100 million? I was like, you don't have $100 million. He's like, yeah, I raised a $100 million SPV because I believe in this company. And you just, it puts your own conviction and ambition in check. You're like, so what's the company I believe most in? How much have I plowed into that? And why is that number not $100 million?

Right?

Like you can only like self-check when you hear stuff like this in a good way. It's a frame breaker. I said, where'd you get the $100 million? He goes, from one LP. I convinced one person and they, they were actually already convinced. Actually, that person was kind of already convinced that this was a good company. I busted my ass to get the ability to put a $100 million check in and they put the money in.

What did he put $100 million in? Can you say?

I can't say.

Has it worked?

Uh, I don't know. Again, it's, you bake these things 3, 4 years ahead and then we'll find out, like, did that company, was that the right place to concentrate like a laser beam of conviction? So I loved, that conversation and meeting that person. So that was one that I think is great. Let me give you one more that I think is— oh, here's a quick one. Neighborhoods, not cities. You're, I think, a great person to talk about this because you've been traveling around trying to find cool places to live. You don't pick at the city level, you pick at the neighborhood level. It's actually what is the best neighborhood to be in, not what is the best city to live in. I just, that was just like an obvious understanding to me once you go to a place like LA or, you know, you, you've done this in, in New York or, uh, Brooklyn or—

and it's really hard to do that, by the way. Like the idea that, like, let's say that you're a normal person, your home is likely going to be the biggest purchase of your entire life. And it will unfortunately be the, uh, for most people it'll be the largest portion of their net worth. And it's pretty insane that you make that decision, a 20 or 30 year decision off one, maybe two, one hour visits. like in, like for a, uh, uh, open house. It's, it's, it's, it's insane.

And you did this, I think, way back in the day. I think you created one of these for San Francisco. I think it was the, um, the roommate infographic for neighborhoods in San Francisco. It's like, if you live in this neighborhood, here's who your roommate's gonna be like, which is so brilliant because it's A, about neighborhoods, and B, it's about people. Um, because people is also what makes your experience when you're in a, in a city. It's not the, it's not the environment.

Yeah. Basically in 2014, we had this app and in order to make it popular, we launched in 5 cities, San Francisco, Boston, Manhattan, LA, and Chicago, I believe. And what we did was we're like, all right, in order to make things go viral, we have to name as many names of local restaurants and local people that we can think of because those people will share. And if we name like 50 of them in each one. That's 50 people sharing in that city. That's how we'll get, uh, that's how we'll get popular. And so we created this thing called the Stereotypical Roommates of Los Angeles, Stereotypical Roommates of San Francisco. And if you Google them, you could find them. And we just made like an infographic that made fun of each neighborhood and all the brands and places that they shopped at. And that way you could like figure out what restaurants were like that neighborhood, but those restaurants and the people in those neighborhoods would share. And here's the thing, at that period, I don't think I'd— I'd never been to New York. I had never been to Boston. We just looked at Yelp. We just went to Yelp and look at what are the most popular things and we found the jokes that people were making about it. And then that's how we made the infographic and it went like crazy. I think we got tens and many, many tens of thousands of downloads for the app in the first day.

I saw that before I ever met you. I read that thing when I moved to San Francisco. Somebody shared it because it was so funny and like, kind of like, oh, that's funny because it's true. Like, so it was actually useful too because it was like, yeah, it was a little bit stereotyping, generalizing, but it was, it was true for the most part. So I thought that was so So good. And I kind of wish somebody did that for every city now. Like, just keep doing that.

Exactly. Whenever I go and look at new neighborhoods, I try always to go to a bar and I say, what's the stereotype of this neighborhood? And I'll ask the bartender or whatever. I'm like, tell me the stereotypes. And they'll be like, oh, a lot of gay people are moving in. And I'm like, all right, up and coming. Got it. That's what that means. Like gentrifying or like, oh, like what's the stereotype of this neighborhood? Tons of strollers. So I'm like, all right, rich young families. All right. Got it. What else? You know what I mean? Like there's all these like things.

Yeah, there's like codes. It's like, that's a, it's like, you know, if you're in the government, it's like, oh, it's a, it's a 38333. That's the government code that means X. Uh, this is the same thing. It's like when somebody says critically acclaimed, cool. Code for not profitable. Thank you.

Uh, moving on.

Yeah. Or boring.

Yeah. Um, for the everyday man. Got it. Okay.

Yeah. I got a couple other Quick ones for you.

Rattle off one more.

I'll give you a networking hack. So Tim Ferriss back in the day did this blog post called How to Build a World-Class Network in Record Time or something like that. I loved that. I remember reading that and like kind of like getting inspired by that. So I don't know if you know this, but business partner Ben, I think is the greatest networker in the world. Actually, I've now come to realize this. I had no idea. I had no idea what was going on. Until recently. I've now learned this. He is working the phones and he is just like, it's so funny too. What he does is he just checks in on people. Like just this morning he texted my friend from college that I had introduced him to once. This is one of my best friends from college that were helping buy a business. And he goes, yo, I remember you said that the close date was supposed to be 7/31. Did it end up closing? And I was like, Bro, how did you even remember to check in? Like, he's the perfect boyfriend, basically. He's just fucking checking in and supporting everybody. Like, Barshop, you could probably attest to this. In all of our— we work together. I probably text you, I don't know, a couple times a year max. And it's usually about something that's like urgent, sort of transactional. I'm just guessing that you talk to Ben fairly often. Uh, could you just describe this for a second? Because I think there's something to learn here out of this whole thing.

Yeah, I could pull up my texts. He, he probably hits me up like 2 or 3 times a week. Like, how's the X project going?

Or how's the— how's X going?

Yeah, he's a beast.

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.

So I noticed this because I would meet people and then somehow afterwards they're only keeping in touch with Ben. I'm like, dude, am I just unlikable? I was like, and I think there's something to it. I, I definitely give off some, some stink that's like, you know, repels people. But Ben has the opposite effect on people. He draws them in.

He's like a golden retriever and he's always smiling.

He's just harmless and people people like him and he's helpful. He's just supportive and helpful to everybody. And so he's like, he knows, here's what he's figured out. He's figured out that most people just, nobody checks in with him. So he checks in on how's that your mission in life? How's that going?

Does he do it on his cell phone or on the computer?

On his phone. Then they reply with like a long-ass update and I'm like, you're basically just saying sup. And then the sup is generating this like, highly interesting response. And then what he does is he just like connects dots. So he'll be like, oh, you should talk to that guy. Like, oh, you, uh, you really like this TV show. We just met the writer. You should meet him. And he'll just connect dots and like, he's just a dot connector. And then people are like, oh, that was helpful. Or like, once he knows you're trying to do X, like let's say he knows Sam, you're trying to, um, do some, uh, body fat thing. He'll then just start sending you tweets, just little links. —like, he does that to me all the time. And he's also, what's it called? Like, infatigable. Like, you can ignore— like, you probably ignored the last 4 that he sent. Don't matter. No hard feelings. Going to keep them coming. And I'm like, wow, this is just a recipe. So this kind of led me to this understanding of, okay, Ben is world class at this. Fantastic. But in general, Ben's kind of like my wingman. He's like my number 2. And everybody's got like a number 2 at some, it's, once you get to a certain level, you get like a number 2. And actually the number 2 guy network is the most under-tapped resource. So why were we meeting these NBA players? Because we're friends with the number 2 of an NBA player. And it's like, and guess what? Nobody knows that guy. Everybody wants to get to the NBA player. Nobody even knows this guy's name, but he's got all the access. He's got 98% of the access that the NBA guy has, but he's got 2% of the, like, the, the, the busyness.

And which we did with, uh, with Huberman's guy. Um, God, I'm blanking on his first name. Uh, what, what's his name? Um, Rob, Rob Moore. Uh, yeah, I went out to, I hung out with that guy in LA and he was like, he runs the Huberman show. Huberman's the face, but this guy's got all the keys. He's like, oh yeah, we interviewed this person.

They have the keys to the kingdom.

If you ever want to talk, let me know. Yeah.

The keys to the kingdom. And generally these people are nicer. Less busy. They're the ones who actually do a lot of the fucking work. So they're actually more interesting people. They also are kind of like the gatekeeper. Like, they decide who gets in, who gets out, what opportunities come in, what gets out.

And they're hit up way less.

They're hit up way less. So they're way more available and they're very helpful. They know a bunch of the other people. And so I'm like, oh shit, the number 2 guy network. I don't know what I'm going to do with this, but I've had the insight now and I'm like, I actually get along better with the number 2 guys, but for all those reasons I just mentioned, and I just think that this is like an undertapped resource. And I get why everybody hits up Ben now because he's the number 2 guy. And some people have figured out this arbitrage that you should hit up the number 2 guy because he's nicer, smarter, better, faster, more accessible, all the things. And so this was just a realization for me on the networking side. One of the few big unlocks I think that I've had.

Before we wrap up, did you, what was this thing about Bucked Up? Is that someone you met with in LA?

I didn't meet them, but I heard, I met somebody who told me their story and I was blown away. Had you ever heard of Bucked Up?

No. What is it? So Bucked Up is a hunting thing. Is this like a hunting thing? No, no. Okay.

Let me tell you, don't even look it up. Let me just tell you the story. So, um, starts basically in the 2000s, in the, in early 2000s, there's these two guys, two twin brothers, I think. And they just do affiliate marketing. So they're like affiliate marketing. They're like, hey, it's 2001. Google is not that competitive. We can basically say, oh, you want leads for your lawyer practice? Cool. What are you going to pay us? We'll get you leads for that. You want leads for your apartment thing? We'll get you that. You want leads for this supplement? We'll get you that.

So, and at that time, those guys killed it. Those guys are killing it. Those guys kill it.

By 2010, so they've been doing, they do this for about 10 years. They're making money by 2010. They're generating $25 million a year in revenue with only 3 employees. That means they're basically pulling in like $20 million a year of profit. Uh, as much.

Yeah. If they're, if they're, if they're, uh, CPCs are low or the cost per clicks are low, which back then they were.

Maybe I'm super aggressive. Yeah. I thought it was, it'd be pretty low then. Maybe I'm super aggressive. Let's say it's $8 to $10 million in profit. I think it's a very safe estimate.

Yeah.

A, a ton, which is just amazing. 3 people doing this. So this was like, you know, what they were doing.

My partner, my partner Joe, by the way, Joe Spicer, my partner in Hampton, he started this and when he was 25, he sold the business. It was called Epic Advertising. He was the affiliate marketer. He sold a portion of the business for $250 million. That's amazing. Amazing. And it was all this affiliate marketing stuff.

And so these guys, they're doing the affiliate marketing thing and a guy comes to them and says, um, this is now like a decade later, right? And they, he comes to them and says, hey, I have this supplement called L-Arginine, and the brand's called L-Arginine Plus. And he's like, I don't even know what L-Arginine does, but like, it's like a vitamin.

I think it helps make you sleep, or does it give you energy?

I think it gives you energy, or does it help your brain function better? Who the hell knows?

I don't know. I think you're supposed to drink it with caffeine and it gives you energy, I think.

Yeah, maybe. Like right now, it's just some generic fucking supplement is the one. But back then it was Arginine was the one. And so, yeah, whatever.

The guy goes, acai bowls and shit. It's all, it's all, or acai berry or whatever the fuck that thing is. It's all a different thing every time. What's that shit called?

What's that Brazilian shit called? Acai? I ain't eat no acai berries.

It's like whenever I see the word, uh, quinoa, it's all right.

What's that?

Quinoa? Quinoa? Uh, no, it's one of the quinoa.

I don't know. Quinoa.

Yeah, it's like, what do you call, uh, do you ever used to call, uh, I used to think that La Quinta Inn was La Quita. You know what I'm talking about? The La Quita Inn. I didn't know it was like, is that—

The thing you said, you say it, how do you say it now? Because I think it's also completely wrong too.

What's it called? La Quinta? What's it supposed to be called?

I think it's Quinta, but I don't know. La Quita. So, so a guy approaches him and says, hey, I'm making $250 a day. On this L-arginine thing. Will you guys be my affiliate marketers? Quickly, in 3 weeks, they ramp it up. It's now making like over $3,000 a day. Okay, that's pretty good. $3,000 a day. That's like $100K a month. They own 50% of this thing and they buy L-arginine.com to get an exact match. They're ranking number 1. That's doing pretty well. And then he reads this article. So he's interested in this supplement game. He reads this article that Major League Baseball just banned deer antler spray. Never heard of it. What the hell is deer antler spray? Looks it up, finds that deer antler has some extract that's supposed to help you with recovery. Damn, must be— if it's so good that the MLB bans it, that means shit must be fire. Like, there's going to be a lot of— so he has the right— what is that Chris Farley thing? Did you learn the right lesson? He learned the right lesson from that news, which was This shit must be fire and every athlete's going to want it. So he buys deerantlerspray.com for $8 and he owns the domain. He's the number one rank and it goes okay at first. Not a huge demand, but he's there. And then I don't know if you remember this, but one year before the Super Bowl, Ray Lewis was the—

Killed the guy?

No, he killed the guy, I think the year before. But during the playoff run, he gets hurt. Got it. And there's a 2-week— there's like a, there's like an extra week rest between like the Super Bowl and the playoffs or whatever. I think the story goes Ray Lewis is hurt, but he's got to play in the Super Bowl, and then he plays amazing and they win the Super Bowl. And he's— and it comes out that he used deer antler spray to like recover during that week and to like get rid of the pain and allow him to play well. Demand explodes through the roof, baby. And, uh, GNC comes to him and says, hey, we'd like, um, 30 units. And he's like, okay, cool, no problem. And they're like, oh no, no, sorry, 30,000 units. And he's like, oh, what? They're sold out everywhere. As soon as they, they, they, they, they get all this influx of demand, they're, they're trying to keep up. So for 1 or 2 years, they're just keeping up with the new demand and being the number 1 player in this deer antler spray thing. But as they go, they're like, okay, we, we're kind of limited. It's like very niche. What if we expand this to, um, to something a little bit bigger? So they changed the name from deer antler spray to Bucked Up. They kind of stay with the deer. Oh my God. They changed it to Bucked Up because one of the GNC franchisees who they were chilling with goes, yeah, you know what sells really well, but like, you know, it doesn't look that good, is these pre-workout supplements. So basically the powder you take before you work out. Remember NO-Xplode? Yeah, NO-Xplode.

Dude, that thing was acid. That would, that would, you could remove paint with that thing. I used to take that shit and you would lift so much weight, but it would make you feel miserable after. I don't even know what was in it.

Yeah, it felt like your heart was gonna explode. It should have just been called like, you know, artery explode and like, you know, 1 outta 10 people die of this thing. It was crazy. But like that category of pre-workout supplements turns out is a very big category. So Bucked Up today they say is the number 1 pre-workout supplement. This thing does, guess how much revenue this does?

I have no idea. $10? $250 million a year apparently Bucked Up does, dude, the flavors. So it's called, Motherfucker. That's one of their things is the motherfucker. And it just says like their slogan should be like strong as an ox. Like this is like ridiculous. Focus, strength, energy. The mother of all pre-workouts. Motherfucker. That's crazy to me. This is nuts.

You know, sometimes when I'm flipping the channels on TV, I'll see like, you know, Hasan Minhaj and he's just like, you know, this guy who's, who's this comedian, he makes the world laugh. He's so good looking. He's, you know, happy. He's having all this success. And I think, you know, I was maybe one or two, you know, right turns away from, from going down that path. When you see Bucked Up, do you think this? 'Cause I feel like you were one or two right turns away from being the creator, owner, and sole proprietor of buckedup.com selling Motherfucker pre-workout powders to people on the internet.

Yeah, maybe, maybe. I mean, I don't know.

I guess you could have a 90,000 square foot factory in Missouri, just like, you know, a huge antler tattoo on your back and a soul patch goatee.

Dude, listen, the flavors are Woke AF. Another one is the Banff Heist. The other one is the Banff Heist Stimulation. Another one is the LFG Pre-Workout. Fuckin' Go. Another one is called Rut. This is hilarious. These are all like really good names of like really mean dogs. You know what I mean? Like, I'm going to have like a really like a my junkyard dog named Buck. Get him, Buck. That's like what this stuff is, you know? Or like Rut. Yeah. Like, this is crazy. This is Deer Antler.

This is from that to this is kind of an insane, insane story. And Yeah, I just, and they still kill it. Yeah, they're doing really well right now apparently. I mean, I mean, I'm talking to one, I, I know this from one guy and then what you Google about them, but like apparently just crushing it.

Oh my God. I have no idea what's in this stuff. I would like, I mean, this might be a legit performance enhancing drug. Is it still illegal for the MLB? 'Cause maybe I will order it.

Yeah, exactly. Like, haha, that's so, insane, you know, as you check out.

Well, people talk about performance-enhancing drugs like it's a bad thing, but I'm like, I would love my performance to be enhanced, right? Do you know what I mean? Like, the main problem with my performance, that it's unenhanced right now. Yeah, how do I enhance my performance? I really want it to be enhanced. I prefer to be enhanced than unenhanced. So like, give me the PED. So I'm like in favor of some PEDs, uh, not, not if it means you break the rule, but But we never talked about this.

Did you see that thing, the enhanced games that somebody was creating?

Was that just the different sports but for steroid users?

It's basically like, it's like, you know, I feel like every college bro had this like conversation in their dorm room, which is like, they should just do the Olympics but with the drugs. Like you could take anything and see what happens. Like I want to see somebody run like, 2-second 100-meter dash. And it's like, these guys created it. It's called the Enhanced Games and it's happening. And I don't know if you've— it came out and it almost looked like satire, like it wasn't happening. So if you go to it's enhanced.com. It's a better version of the Olympics.

Yeah, exactly. That's a great— that's a great— or basically Airbnb, but better. Performance, performance enhanced. I can't find their website. Website's down right now. The website's down, but Enhanced Games is a planned international sports event where the athletes will not be subjected to drug testing. It's meant to take place in December of 2024.

So the guy Aaron D'Souza is the same guy that Peter Thiel funded to take down Gawker, by the way.

Okay, sign me up.

Prolific, you know, best LinkedIn ever.

So he, here's how he does it. He says athletes are adults. They have the right to do with their body as they wish. My body, my choice, your body, your choice. And no government should be making these decisions for athletes, particularly those around the FDA. Yeah.

So here's what he said. He goes, here's the game plan. He goes, every athlete who participates is going to be a part owner in the thing because you're generating part of the opportunity. I assume that if you were an Olympian and you won a gold medal, your life is made. It's not the case. It's sad to see the people who've achieved the highest level of human excellence are living, living an objectively impoverished existence afterwards. Um, but you know, the bureaucrats who own these things make millions. Um, we took— the Olympics has 13,000 athletes. We're reducing that to maybe 1,000, um, with no special infrastructure. So instead of costing $100 billion to deliver this, it'll cost us, you know, just double-digit millions. And, um, Yeah, they have a bunch of things. Here's kind of like their belief system. So it says the Enhanced Games will be a competitor to the corrupt and dysfunctional Olympic Games. It'll be the first international sports event without drug testing. Olympics are about the past. It's about Greek gods from history. The Enhanced Games are about the future. We're building superheroes. And it talks about how the IOC is corrupt, like the committee that runs the Olympics. and that anti-aging gets stymied because of all the anti-science authorities trying to take drugs out of performance, and we're trying to do the opposite. It's my body, my choice. He says, think back 50 years ago. Being a gay man was like being an enhanced man today. It's stigmatized, marginalized, and illegal in some senses. I don't know about that. Yeah. And then I don't know if it's actually going to happen or not. This seemed, seemed— well, their website doesn't work.

So like, we'll see. They can't afford their GoDaddy renewal for the domain. But, uh, no, I think I'm, I'm, I think I'm cool with that. My, a big— I mean, besides Lance Armstrong kind of used to be my hero and then he like got in trouble for lying and I kind of like got upset about that. But besides that whole lying thing, I was like, they're all doing it and he's doing it as well and he's still won. So like it's kind of fair, right? So I, and so I do get that. I'm kind of on board with that. And I think a lot of the PEDs are pretty amazing. Like, you know what EPO is? It makes you get more red blood cells in your, in your blood.

Endurance, basically.

Yeah. You have better endurance. And I hear about that stuff and I'm like, that sounds great. Give me more of that. I want that. You know what I mean? Like, and there's some anabolic steroids that, you know, you'll die young. There was this which I don't like, but there was this one. Have you seen the guy on Instagram? He was only 30, but I think his name was Joe. I forget what his like handle was. It was like Joe, like all ripped or something. And he was the guy who you would see flexing and he was so lean and big that you would see it looked like he had little spiders in his chest because all the little muscles were like flexing. I think his name was like Joe Flex. Have you seen that guy? No. Well, he died like last week.

He died like— Oh, that was that guy. Okay. Yeah, yeah.

I've seen he died last week because he definitely was on the juice. And he was just, it's really hard to be that lean for that long. So you have to be on a ton of stuff and he died. And so like, I'm not in favor of that type of stuff, but some of the other performance enhancing drugs, like I actually think that you could, you, you'd be a healthier, longer living human being if you took some of that stuff or like blood doping. So like in the '60s, this runner in Finland named Vääränen, he would like go up in the mountains and no one would see him when he was training. And what they alleged that he did. With blood doping, you could just take out some of your blood and you could put it in a refrigerator and that gives, that oxidizes it. It gives it, it, it, it, it, it gives you more red blood cells ultimately, and you just inject it back in your body. That's considered illegal. That's crazy to me. It's not illegal. It's, it's against, it's against rules for, for the Olympics. But that's insane that blood doping like that is illegal. It's like, well, dude, it's just your blood. You're just freezing it and putting it back in you. Things like that you can't do, but I've thought about that. I think it'd be amazing. There was a guy on Netflix who did it where he was an amateur cyclist and he was like, I'm gonna blood dope and I'm gonna document this. And this was the whole documentary and it was awesome. He crushed it, he killed it. He like improved so much and I thought that's pretty cool.

I think this actually would be a good YouTube or podcast channel. Have you ever gone on YouTube down a rabbit hole of college ethics classes? Have you ever seen this? No, no. Sounds boring as hell, but it's actually kind of interesting. It's not very interesting because it's not made for YouTube, but basically, if you go, like, you can basically sit in on a Stanford or Harvard ethics class. Well, they'll pose some question like, should you be allowed to, like, or performance-enhancing drugs, should they be allowed in the Olympics or whatever? Like, some philosophical question, like the version of the trolley thing where it's like, if you could save 5 lives and pull the trolley and kill 1, would you do it right? Like that. Those kind of like moral and ethical, like thought experiment questions. And you see people just stand up in a college lecture hall and they're like, I say no because blah, blah, blah. And then somebody stands up and says, I disagree. I would say yes because I think that what about blah, blah, blah, blah. And you just see the debate. I think debate is actually like pretty interesting. And I think if somebody did that well, you could do a kind of like NPR style or Gimlet style, like intelligent but entertaining podcast series or YouTube channel that like just gets like, find these things like the equivalent of like, um, uh, somebody, I was at one of these dinners in LA. Somebody goes, I had jury duty and the case that I had jury duty for was actually kind of interesting. This guy, um, this guy goes online and he's in this online forum or community for like kind of like kinky meetups. Okay. Nothing illegal about that. And there's a woman there who says, hey, me and my husband really want to do a thing. It's, you know, here's our thing. It's kind of weird, but like, we want somebody to come over and we want to roleplay like a kind of like a rape scenario. And she's like, so, you know, I'm looking for somebody who wants to do that. This guy's like, that's fun. I can do that. And she's like, cool. Here's what's going to happen. You're going to come over to this place. I'm going to act surprised. I'm going to say no. That's part of the bit. We're going to do it anyways. And, you know, we're all good. Was it like a setup?

Was it like a different woman?

No, the guy, the husband was roleplaying it. It was bad. So the husband was on this forum as acting as if he was the woman saying they're in on it. She wasn't. His wife was not in on it. So this happens. Oh no. Now this guy's So the jury duty was, should this guy be— go to jail for rape?

Wow. What a horrible scenario for everyone involved. Lose, lose, lose, right?

Like just a terrible— oh man. But it was kind of like an interesting question. It's like, well, like on one hand, what a conniving husband.

Yeah.

He's like, okay, definitely the husband should be in trouble. Like that's kind of a set type of scenario. But this guy, like, should he go to jail for like 20 years because of this scenario or not? and the vote was basically like, should this go to trial? Like, it's like an indictment. So it's like, should he go to, should this go to trial or no, should this not be, not go to trial or whatever. And we had this just like fascinating dinner conversation about it with just hearing everybody's kind of opinion, hearing like a little bit of a healthy kind of debate or just like a perspective on it. Similarly, there was another one that was like, you know, this couple looks like they're holding drugs, like crack or whatever. Cop starts chasing after them. They throw something away in the trash. Cop grabs them. They don't have it on them. He's like, I saw you dump it in the trash. He opens up the trash, sees it there. But who's to say they didn't throw something else away? Right? Should they go to jail for this offense? And it's like, well, if you're the jury, you kind of do think they They probably did it, but you don't have uncontroversial or whatever evidence that leaves no shadow of a doubt that they did it. And it's kind of a nonviolent offense. Do we really want to punish them? You start bringing your own subjective opinion into this versus what you're supposed to as a jury member. So anyways, the conversation was so interesting that I thought, I think this could make for an interesting pod or YouTube channel. What do you think? You have a good sense for content. What do you think?

How would you do it? I think it would be great. I think I would, I think you could do a YouTube channel, a 10-minute, 10-minute videos where you could dissect some of these interesting things and just have one take a, take a side of debate and then people live vote. I think, wasn't there an app that was trying to do this where it was like live debates and you vote on who's the winner? Maybe. Do you not remember that? Yeah. Happened in 2014. Yeah. I think you could kill it. It's where it's, you know, almost like, remember, you know, drunk rap battles where it's like Napoleon versus like Caesar. Yeah. Yeah. You do this in that situation. I think like it's an incredibly interesting topic. I mean, clearly if you've gotten into it, yeah, I think it could work.

Cool. All right. That's all I got from my trip to LA. Hope that I actually, I had a bunch more, but I think that's enough. Also, Erewhon, you've been to this place?

Yeah, I went there before and I wanted to buy the most expensive bottle of water they had to see what it was about. And it was like $20 or $30. But it's fun, a fun, fun experience. How's the water? It's fine. It was normal. But, and I also bought like the most expensive, I wanted to, I was like, whatever, like the most expensive chocolate is and water, I'm getting it. I think they have like asparagus there, like asparagus water. That's really expensive.

I think this is also a layup TikTok channel. Um, you know, Erwan Experiments or the Erwan Taste Tests. You just go to Erwan.

Do you see any famous people there though? What's that? That's why you go. But did you see any famous people? That's why you go.

No, I was just looking at the snacks. Is that what I was supposed to be doing? Oh God, this is like, it's like in college when I used to go to the bar and, you know, I'm there to listen to the music and I didn't meet anybody.

I missed the point. Yeah. You're like doing a Long Island Iced Tea tasting. I'm talking to the bartender.

I forgot. Yeah.

You're supposed to go and see famous people. No, it's a fun experience. That place kills it. They're expanding, I think, aren't they? Don't they have multiple There used to be one just in Santa Monica, I think.

There's like 13 or something like that. For those who don't know, Erewhon is basically like the bougiest Whole Foods.

It makes Whole Foods look like the dollar store. Yeah. You're like, you look down at Whole Foods people as peasants.

Yeah. Erewhon is to Whole Foods as aioli is to mayonnaise. It's the like just jazzed up version. The cool part about it is it has a lot of products that are like almost like it's like a D2C pop-up shop. It's like, here's a bunch of products that are not the normal things that are on the shelves, so you can try them. And they're all 3 times more expensive than they should be, or maybe 5 times more. And, um, I think a layup content thing would be go to Arawan, buy all the chocolates, or buy all the chocolates versus the fancy Arawan versus Walmart. And you do blind taste tests and you like, absolutely try to rank them and you just give your recommendation. You spend the money on the stuff. And you just do like Air One shopping. You just, you become the Air One guy. Like, dude, if I was broke again, I'd be back. I'd be back so fast. Cause I just know where these little content niches are. Right. You just see it and you know it. Like another one is pranks. I hate the pranks, dude. Have you seen this guy who does the, I think his name is Jody or something like that. Like, um, what is this guy's channel? The guy who went to sleep at an NBA, at WNBA game. Did you see this? No, no.

But I hate the pranks where it's like people like prank, pick a fight with you and then the person responds and actually beats him up and then the recipient is like, it was just a prank, bro.

So this guy, Jideon, or Jideon, Jideon, I don't know how you say it exactly. I love his video. So he goes, he went to the WNBA All-Star Game. He bought 4 courtside seats, dropped like, you know, like whatever, $25K on these seats. And then he came with a blanket and I guess it looked like an eye mask.

Oh my God. What an asshole.

And he's like, the funny thing is they asked him about it. He was like, dude, I had the idea because I knew this would go viral, just fall asleep. Because he's done it before. He goes to a basketball game courtside and he brought his barber and they put the bib on him and he gets a haircut during the game. But if you're just watching TV, you're like, is that guy getting a haircut? It's just very obvious. And so he had this idea. He's like, I wasn't going to do it. I thought it might be too mean. I told my friend about it. I was like, yo, maybe you want to do it. That guy was like, he's like, that guy got so excited because he knew this would go so viral. I was like, nah, fuck it, I'm going to do it myself. He's like, so I did it. He's like, but then it turned into like a political thing, which is not how I intended it.

Like, he got banned from all NBA events.

He got banned from all NBA and WNBA events for doing this. But this guy's just so good at trolling the world. And it's like, that's just like a, it's a niche that will never get old.

Like, you can play an asshole though.

There's just like an infinite demand for the second.

He also caught one of the NBA balls and tried to shoot it from his seat, like, because he was courtside.

Dude, he's so, he's so funny, this guy.

All right, I think we should wrap up there. That's the pod. We done.