Investigating The Mormon's $100 Billion Hedge Fund (#424)

Did you, Sam, have you heard the story about how the Mormon Church has a $100 billion hedge fund?

Yeah. That caught my eye. Yeah. That was, that, that's old, right? That's from 2019 or 2020.

2019. Exactly. Yeah. Um, and Ben, you're Ben, you are, um, I don't know how to explain it. You are Mormon. You are a, a member of this great business. You are a, a patron of the business, um, that, that we described. Uh, first, so far, Ben, have I offended you?

Not yet.

Okay, great.

Let's fix that.

Keep going. So you're saying there's a chance.

All right, we're live. Uh, dude, you're wearing the brightest sweatshirt. It's like bothering me almost.

I'm here and I'm ready to shine bright like a diamond, Rihanna style.

Oh, diamonds.

Actually, it kind of looks like Rihanna's halftime outfit a little bit. If I just had the belly bump, I'd be there. Some would say I do.

I wouldn't say that. Some would, but I wouldn't.

I had to take the shot before you did there.

No, I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna, you're, you're not chubby anymore. You're, you're strong. So you got your shit right, bro. We, I've got a couple of things to cover that are pretty good. I think you do too.

Yeah. I'm locked. I'm locked and loaded.

All right. Do it. What do you got?

It's amazing what not running another business will do to you. You so much, so much time to, to work on this podcast. Okay. I want to tell you about what I think might be the greatest business of all time.

Okay.

The greatest business ever. I think this is the greatest business ever, and I'm gonna convince you of that. Uh, let me, let's just walk through the, before I even tell you which one it is, let me walk through the criteria for a business like this. Okay. So if we were gonna describe the greatest business of all time, What would be some of the— you gotta have attributes. What would be some of the attributes? So the attributes, lifetime LTV, high, high LTV. So you want a customer around for a long time that pays you for a long time. Okay, great. Uh, what about like, let's say I told you there's a high LTV business, but it's only been around for 18 months. Well, you'd be like, I don't know, not, not a long operating track, track record or history here. So you want longevity, right? You want the longevity. Years. What if I told you this This business may have been around for 1,000+ years. Would that be something you'd be interested in? Okay, let's continue on.

Are you going to tell me if there's tax advantages too?

This business doesn't pay any taxes.

Okay. I love this.

No taxes. How does that sound?

I like that. I like it even better if the government would subsidize it. That's a thing. But yeah, that sounds great to me.

Kanye, I like that.

Kanye.

Kanye's mom had to come back out for this one. Okay. Cost structure. What if I told you, you basically don't employ anybody? Volunteers do all the work and there are franchisees essentially that pop up to sell your product and just pay you a royalty. Wouldn't that be quite nice?

I'd say hallelujah. I, I love that.

What if I told you, you know, you might say, well, what's the balance sheet look like? Okay, you've told me the P&L's fantastic, but, uh, what about the balance sheet? Well, what if I told you that these types of companies have, uh, or this, this, this product, this business has not just billions of dollars, but, but often tens of billions or hundreds of billions of dollars in assets on the balance sheet with no liabilities. Wouldn't that be something you'd be interested in?

I would be very interested in this. Yes. I pray to God and I would thank that God that, that they gave me this idea.

You're a product guy. You love product. It's all about products, hair products, any product, any type of product. You love it. This is a product beloved by millions. Has insane product market fit. People use it daily, weekly. They don't even need an app. They could just use it in their head. It's that good.

Even if there's evidence that it, it's a bad product.

If, if the, if somebody said, hey, there is no proof that this product works, they might, they would not care.

They would not care.

They would, they would not hear a word of that.

They would like it even more.

Maybe. In fact, in fact, it drives them together. Uh, what if I told you this product spreads by word of mouth? What if I told you that some people would not only teach their kids, but they would leave their house, go to other people's houses, knock on their door and tell them about this product? That's how much they believe in this product. What if I told you to help them with their core issues, their morals, their ethics, their community, their self-development? What if I told you that the product is so good, it not just guarantees you a good life today if you use the product, but not— but in your afterlife when you die, you might go to a nice special place where you'll be happy after you die. That's how good this product is.

Eternal LTV. I'm in.

What if I told you it touches every part of your life cycle? From when you're a baby to when you're old and dead, you, how you pay for your funeral and everything in between your marriage. Um, you know, you give away part of your salary to this, to this company just because you feel like it. And, um, it's part of everything in between. What if I told you this, this company not just sold this product, but also had the number one bestselling book of all time?

This sounds like the Crips and Bloods, like a gang, but even better. Your blood in, blood out. I love this.

You love real estate. They also own a shit ton of real estate. So tons of real estate. Okay. So let's, Let's review. Billions in revenue, tax-free, with basically no customer acquisition cost and super, super high LTV. It's a product that solves a core need, spreads via word of mouth, and the people who use it believe it and use it day, day to day, week to week, month to month.

They're willing to die for it.

They're willing to die for it. People run this business with volunteers and franchisees. It lasts for 1,000 years, has network effects. It sells an information product. There's no manufacturing even involved. It's got the number one book of all time, and the TAM, the market size, is every human from birth to death. How would that sound? Because religion is the greatest business of all time. And I'm gonna tell you why I got excited about this, but how was my rant?

That was good. I, uh, I, uh, I knew where you were going cuz I'm, I'm, you know, like I'm born and raised Catholic. I, I, I catch your, your stepping in. I'm all about this. You smell what I'm farting, you know, you picked it up on that one quick.

So I, I wanted to, to talk about this because there was this news article that came out, um, or like there was like a wave of news about this recently, but actually there was like a whistleblower thing in 2019. And Ben Wilson, you're going to have to come on to talk about this. Sam, have you heard the story about how the Mormon Church has a $100 billion hedge fund?

Yeah. That caught my eye. Yeah. That was, that's old, right? That's from 2019 or 2019.

Exactly. Um, and Ben, you're Ben, you are, uh, I don't know, —how to explain it. You are Mormon. You are a member of this great business. You are a patron of the business that we described. First, so far, Ben, have I offended you? Not yet. Okay, great.

Let's fix that.

Keep going. So you're saying there's a chance. Second, Ben, what— can you explain this $100 billion megachurch fund— or sorry, Mormon Church fund and what your reaction to it was when this news broke in 2019.

Yeah, I don't know how deep you want me to get, but the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, popularly known as the Mormon Church, tithes its members. So we all pay 10% of our income to the church. And but not only that, the church also has a number of businesses associated with it, has and a lot of this comes from over 100 years ago when essentially the Mormon Church controlled Utah. So it spun off a lot of those businesses. It basically doesn't run businesses anymore. But what it did was create basically a big hedge fund. And because of its association with the church, that hedge fund does not pay taxes and has done really well and now is worth, as you pointed out, over $100 billion.

Yeah. Could the hedge fund be invested in just public equities as well? Yeah, like, can you just do normal?

Wow. Basically, here's, here's, here's what the— here's how the hedge fund works. So, uh, so it owns $40 billion worth of US stocks. So companies like Apple, Microsoft, Facebook, things like that. They can't own stocks that are like Caesars Entertainment or like Starbucks. They don't, they don't own that because of the caffeine or whatever. So they, they, they select some— but don't they own, uh, Coca-Cola?

I don't think they—

I don't think they own it. They own Microsoft, Apple, Facebook, they own Tesla. They made $8 million on the GameStop squeeze when that was happening. So that was pretty cool. Um, they also own 2% of all the land in Florida, which is kind of amazing. They, um, they basically grew from $40 billion to $100 billion just from 2019 to today. Uh, uh, for, or, or sorry, from that was from 2012 to 2019. So like in a 7-year period, it kind of doubled there. Uh, they also invest in hedge funds. They own a $100 million hotel in Maui. They outbid Bill Gates for like $200 million of land in Washington. Uh, so land, stocks, hedge funds, um, this is what they do. And then they've donated, um, $64 million to charity since 1985. So that's kind of where the knock on this comes from, which was the, the complaint was basically, um, wow, that's a lot of money.

Um, It's just like, why are they homeless when you all got this? That's like the—

and why are we giving 10% of our income when maybe I actually need that money, right? If it's going to this massive stockpile and then that's not being redistributed to this. And then the answer was like, they called it— this is where there's some all-time, all-timer lines. I gotta give, I gotta give credit to whoever these people are in the church that are giving these lines out. I mean, you to say these are the straight face is amazing. They go, it's a rainy day fund. So this $100 billion fund is a rainy day fund. And actually, it did start out like that. That was the initial intent, I believe, like in the '70s or something like that when it started. It was like, all right, for every $6 we get, we'll put $5 towards, you know, operations and furthering the mission, and we'll put $1 away for, um, for, for the rainy day fund.

But then maybe it's still a rainy day, it's just their household now has 100 or 200 or however many hundreds of millions of people it is instead of whatever it was. But there's not that many members.

I think there's— Ben, how many members? There's like 16 million members or something like that. It's not that ballpark.

Yep. Yeah, it's not that many members.

Um, they, uh, overall, overall, they, uh, uh, this thing has just sort of ballooned up. And so I think they don't know exactly how much members contribute every year. Some— one guy said $7 billion in the whistleblower report. $7 billion. There's like some historians who think Uh, that's too low. It's probably closer to $30 billion gets contributed in per year. So there's a, there's a bunch of like kind of, uh, there's a lack of transparency. That's the second complaint. Um, because not only was this not openly discussed, like that's why a whistleblower had to come out and say, hey, there's this management company called Ensign Peak, and Ensign Peak is getting the money from the Mormon Church and deploying it. And Ensign Peak now has $100 billion under management, and they're not being open about this. And they said, well, We didn't want people to know how much money is in there because then they might not feel like contributing. So that was the first, uh, first line. And the second one was like, well, how come you did it through these like 13 shell companies so that nobody could track, you know, what you were investing in and how? And you bought this mall and you bought the stock. What's going on here? They said, well, we, we obscured it because we didn't want our members to try to copy Ensign Peak and maybe they would mismanage their funds not having the same info that we have. And so these are just like, I just love the, the, you know, the, the sort of the repartee here between, between people that, that, uh, that were running this thing. So I thought this was kind of amazing and it was just staggering that they've accumulated this much wealth from a very small base of, uh, of, of people. And that's why I kind of had this realization, oh man, religion really is the greatest business ever invented. And, um, you know, there's, there's 5 big ones and then they, they, they sort of dominate in the same, with the same sort of they all share these same benefits and characteristics. You're Hindi or Hindu?

Is that what—

are you nothing? I don't— I'm not a believer, but yeah, like most people in India are Hindu.

And is there no central hub? There's no organization, you know, like the Catholics or the Mormons have like a crew, you know, you don't got an HQ.

I don't think there's— I think it's more decentralized than that. So I don't— there's no like, there's no like the church. Nobody says that. I don't know. I don't know if that means there's not one or what, but there are many, many like temples that are sort of like the Vatican that get tons of donations and people make the pilgrimage. And, uh, there's tons of, you know, uh, shadiness around that too, where like, you know, we went and you're in line on this mountain to get to the top to see this like statue. And then it's like, hey, $100, cut the line. And it's like the guy who's taking the, the the bribe, essentially the cut money. He's like a priest. And so they don't even like obscure it. It's like the guy comes down in his robe and it's just like, oh yeah, yeah, your family, your family. Come here, come here. Uh, we want to give you a special, uh, special treatment, you know, do you have some, something to donate? And then you're like, yes. And then he's like, cool, cool, cool. Come on to come to the front of the line. And they found like these guys have gotten raided and they're, uh, like these gurus and sort of like, uh, you know, leaders in these temples and they have like It's like, oh, open up your master bedroom, and it's just like piles of gold. Just like, yeah, just like, you know, it's a gold storage facility.

It always— so I went to Catholic school my whole life, so K to 8, or no, K to 12, and then I went to another religious college. And at it, so we used to go to church 3 times a week, Catholic Mass 3 times a week. It was like Monday, Friday, Sunday for since I was 8 till I was 18. And every week your mom and dad write a check and they like, someone comes around and like collects it. Right. And I remember hearing about this like all-powerful God and how smart he is. And it's like, you know, this guy's the greatest, you know, he's just, he's brilliant, you know, like created us. It like, you know, we just came from his hip and all this stuff. And like, we're just magical. Like this guy's magical, but he's really bad with money. You know, he needs— and he needs more of it. He needs more of it. And he's just— he can't get enough of this money. And he's really bad with it. And he loves you. But look, if you don't give him money, you're going to go to hell where you burn for all eternity forever. But he loves you and he needs fucking money. I was like, this fucking guy, man.

He's like the worst uncle ever.

Yeah, he just needs money. He comes scratching his neck. He's like, hey man, yeah, oh yeah, like, what do you got? I'll take anything you got, you know, literally just give me change. You got change? I'll take a change. You got a check? I'll take a check. And now you could even Venmo him. And I just remember being at church every Sunday thinking, this guy, man, he ain't so good with money, but he's all-knowing. But he, but he can't— he doesn't know which stocks to short because he cannot figure this out. He needs more money.

Um, there's also another little side thing before we get off this religion tangent. Uh, Ministry Brands. Have you ever heard of this PE firm?

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Are they the ones who buy software companies for churches?

Yeah. They've rolled up 30 church-related software businesses and it does $100 million in EBITDA. So $100 million essentially in profit before taxes. Um, just on this rollup, which is kind of amazing. I mean, it's sort of a billion-dollar, billion-dollar church rollup, which is a church software rollup. Which is pretty awesome.

All right, I have a story for you. Well, let's stick with scandal and, uh, like, and negative stuff, because I gotta go away.

One disclaimer: the product of religion genuinely is great. It genuinely helps people. I'm also just saying that the business of, of religion, I think, is amazing from a pure business point of view, and also a little sketchy to me. But I do think the product is amazing, and the believers, you guys are awesome. And Ben, you're awesome. You're, you're super awesome, and I hope we didn't offend you.

I, I have—

you didn't offend me. Still haven't offended me, but I just like final word on this, which is kind of the Mormon perspective on our $100 billion hedge fund, which is, um, the, the leaders of the church, uh, so like the prophet, the apostles, their salaries got leaked, um, by some people who are disaffected members of the church who want to make them look bad.

Tell me more.

What you got?

You guys want to know what you guys want to guess what the salaries were?

$300,000.

That's pretty good. Yeah. I would have guessed $200, uh, $200,000.

Also close. $170,000. I— well, I haven't checked. I believe it was $170,000 a year. Um, and they get like a, a car, which is usually like a Toyota Highlander. And why a Highlander?

That's the— that's like the— so specific. Is that like pious? That's like— that like they've decided— no, no, no, they just own a bunch of Toyota stuff. There's no cup holders.

Can't put soda— can't put soda in it.

My dad was one of these people who, who was getting this. He was a, a clergy. So he, you know, he's a Stanford MBA, was making a bunch of money. They asked him, would you come work for the church? So he takes, you know, like a 90% pay cut and goes and makes this. And he had— he's driving around. This is my point. Toyota Highlander, just like very middle class. And so the point is, no one's getting rich off of this. Even the people who manage the hedge fund kind of get paid below market rates, right? They get paid fine. They get paid well, but less than they would make it other big hedge funds that are doing equally well that we know of.

Because, because with the Catholic thing, it's a little bit different, right? The Catholics on the Catholic side, it was like, oh, this whatever bishop took 17 private jet rides last year and that's like, yeah, there was like a bunch of things like that. So, so maybe in this case it wasn't, or maybe it was more obscured where the benefits come from and not just so obviously on payroll like, but, but I know that with other religions that also have a big balance sheet also have huge revenues and tax-exempt status, the perks were sort of substantial.

But this is why it seems like it's a bigger controversy outside of the Mormon Church than within it. A lot of people like myself, we hear about it and we're like, well, I wish it was $200 billion.

It doesn't bother us that the church is doubling down on it. Yeah, take 20% of my income, dude. Well, not everybody. I mean, one guy famously was suing them. For $5 million. He's like, I want all my tithing money back cuz I was basically under the impression this was going to help people, uh, or like expand the church. Did he get it?

And it wasn't.

He sued for $5 million and, uh, I, I don't know if that's been resolved yet.

Let, let me, let me tell you another interesting controversial story. So we talk about software as a service, we've talked about SaaS, we talked about a few other type of as a service products. I wanna talk to you about SIOPS. As a service, meaning psychological warfare. So this story, I'm basically, uh, uh, my researcher here, he's around here, uh, on the, on the, um, uh, you know, he's here on the riverside, so he might have to pop in if I get something wrong. But I found this article that blew my mind and was totally underplayed, and I thought not talked about enough. So I'm going to be recanting a bunch of this story. So nothing here is crazy original, but we found a bunch of articles that we kind of tied together. So basically this starts in the summer of 2022 and a bunch of journalists from all different newspapers kind of teamed up to, uh, to, to write this story. But it basically is a, um, they went undercover and they found this company. It's called Team— it's, it's pronounced, uh, I actually don't know how it's pronounced, but it's, uh, J-O-R-E. So maybe Jorge. I'm gonna call it Team George, like George, like George Mosvidal, but we're going to call it Team George. But it's Team George and it's this Israeli company that does psyops as a service. And so what that means is you can give them $1 to $10 million and they'll basically hack stuff for you. And this company, it's based in Israel. They have employees. This isn't like, like the guy who runs it has a LinkedIn. This isn't like a criminal enterprise necessarily. This is like a legitimate company. And I wanna tell you this crazy story. So it starts off, they're a private, they call themselves a private intelligence agency. They charge anywhere from $50,000 to hack someone's phone, $400,000 to have their services on retainer, $6 million to get involved with an election.

To $6 million to meddle in an election. This is hilarious that that's on the menu, dude.

And the guy gives like these crazy stories. So the guy's name, his name is Tal Hanan. So he's the guy, he's like the CEO, the founder. And he does this like crazy stuff. And so basically their 3-step process is to gather intelligence, construct a narrative, and then deploy maximum impact. All wonderful phrases. And so I'm going to give you an example. So this guy, Tal, he's the head of Team George. He's in Kenya with these journalists who he thinks work for an African government who wants to hire them to do some work. And at the seminar or at the meeting where he's pitching his services, He shows his phone, Tal shows his phone, and he's talking to a person who's supposed to be an African government consultant or something like that. And he goes, here, look, check this out. I just sent your mom a few messages from your Telegram account. And the guy's like, why? He goes, yeah, here's my phone. Look, I'm logged into your Telegram account. I hacked you already. And so they do these crazy things where they offer these ridiculous services. So they do, they have this tool called a profiler, which is, it can create all these different fake social media accounts. And so what they'll do is they'll figure out what, what story they want to— like who they want to hurt, what story they want to construct. And then they use these fake social media profiles to make it really popular. And they have something like, I think it was like 50 or 60 or sorry, 39,000 of these profiles out there. And so here's like a handful of crazy stories. So here's a couple examples. So the team claimed to have a sex toy delivered via Amazon to the home of a politician. With the aim of giving his wife the false impression that he was having an affair. "Thank you, my love. It was a wonderful night. Waiting for you whenever you come back," read a note inside the box. The wife received the package, and then the Team George, they sent a film crew to film this, and they found the politician sleeping in his office for the next 2 days. And they found out who the sender was. It was this woman named Shannon, and I think she was one of their fake avatars. And they found out who she was and she's active on Twitter and on Facebook and has a Gmail account and WhatsApp account. But I don't believe this woman's real. And her Amazon card was connected to a digital wallet so they could like track all of this. And so that's like an example of the things that they do. Another thing that they do is to prove— the journalists to prove how powerful these guys are. Do you know who Emmanuel the Emu is? Do you know who that is? Have you heard of that person? No. Who's that? So there's this TikToker, this lady who's got a TikTok and she's wonderful. I follow, I followed her forever and she has, uh, an emu. You know what an emu is? Like an ostrich looking thing. Yeah. Like a pet emu that went viral on TikTok and she talks to the emu and his name's Emmanuel. Well, the journalist asked Team George to make it go viral that Emmanuel was dead. And so overnight they did that.

By the way, they started really weird request by the journalist. What the hell were they thinking? I don't know. It's just weird. They're weird.

Super strange choice makes zero sense.

Makes zero sense.

And it got to the point was where this woman who owns Emmanuel the emu, who I follow, I love her. That's why I found this article is I saw the story where they're talking about Emmanuel the emu. I love Emmanuel. I know all about him. I own an Emmanuel the emu t-shirt. And they, for real. And they, like she tweeted, today I saw online that RIP Emmanuel the emu was trending on Twitter. So I just wanna let you know, I had, I ran outside to check what was going on. Totally fine. I have no idea why this happened, right? This company, they like create all these crazy stories. Well, they'll be like, uh, hey, you know, uh, one, one company will be like, hey, the CEO of this billion-dollar company, we need a front, we need something bad to happen to them, uh, find some dirt in their past. And what they'll do is they'll hack into a person's Gmail or Google Drive. Using that, they'll find passwords to all these other things, and they'll create these crazy stories. Then they'll use their network of 20 or 30 or 50,000 fake social media profiles to share, uh, all this stuff. And then they'll also bribe some, uh, journalists or create fake blogs where they'll write these stories and then the avatars or social media profiles share that stuff. Crazy fascinating. And I read this article and it blew my mind. It absolutely blew my mind.

Yeah, this is really, really wild. And the, you know, psyops I thought was like when you use like the social media thing or articles to influence somebody's, uh, beliefs. Not just like, but like hacking their phone is sort of different. Um, so, so it's interesting that they do both. Um, I have a couple quick reactions. Number one, prices seem really low.

Um, I feel like they can seem low. Yeah, Team George, triple your prices.

This is, this is, uh, small boy stuff for what you're, the value you're providing. I mean, it's only $6 million to meddle in an election. That's it? Like, uh, you know, I'm thinking, uh, shit's bigger than that. Come on, what's going on here?

So, so I don't really understand their pricing.

$50,000 to hack into a phone. You know how much chaos you can cause by hacking into someone's phone? That, that seems wild. So I think that's crazy. Uh, good find, uh, that this business exists. That's my second reaction. And my third is this kind of lines up. I think I've, I feel like this is a thing on social media that people, that you sound like a conspiracy theorist if you bring it up, but it's clearly going to happen. It clearly happens. And it makes total sense that this would happen. I also know that this happens in the, like, non-election, you know, this is basically also done for influencer marketing, right? Like, like what? Uh, like we've talked about, um, my buddy Steve Bartlett and how he used to own a huge number of Twitter pages and he would own pages that had nothing to do with anything. It'd be like, you know, um, Hermione's favorite books. It's like some Harry Potter fan page and they would have like freshman problems. They would own that page and like things I overheard in Manchester. They would, they would own that. So they own a bunch of things that If you were like a 14 to 21-year-old in the United Kingdom, you followed probably, you know, 4 to 8 of their accounts. And so what they would do was when we wanted our app to go to, to grow and to, our goal was to, um, to go get a bunch of downloads for cheap. We worked with him and I was like, all right, Steve, what can we do to grow this thing? He's like, well, we can use my network. And I was like, great. So just say, uh, You know, hey, this is a great app. Download it. You know, blah, blah, blah. Here's the link. And he's like, just looked at me like, okay, you know, get out of here. Get out of the room, dad. Like, you don't, you don't understand. And he was like, yeah, we're not going to say this is a great app because nobody cares. And that looks like an ad. We're going to say like my mom's reaction when she sees me checking Bebo for the 43rd time that day. And then it's a mom slapping a kid. I was like, oh, well, I don't think that's a good image for a new app. And he's like, No, he's like, do that and then be like, um, you know, when I, you know, when I, um, you know, my notifications blown up because of this annoying effing Bebo app and it shows 47 notifications. I'm like, but you're calling it annoying. That seems bad, right, Steve? He's like, no, when somebody sees that there's an app that has 47 notifications, they want to know what it is and that you're complaining about it makes it look like not an ad. And I was like, but then where are you going to find the link? He's like, I put the name Bebo in the thing. They'll go, yeah, they're going to look for it. And he's like, then they'll search for it and then they'll find it and then they'll share it because they saw 7. He's like, when you hear 5 people talking about something on social media, the same thing in a day that you hadn't heard about, it feels like everybody's talking about it. And that was his core insight. We called this the Thunderclap and we did it and we ranked number 1 in the App Store.

Wait, wait, wait. Thunderclap is like the name of going, getting popular.

Yeah, that's what we call it. Whenever, when all the accounts start talking about it at the same time. God, that's a great name.

On the same day. Yeah. Thunderclap? Who made that up? You make that up?

Well, I used to say that when like, you know, it's, you know, if your thighs get together or something like that, oh, it's a thunderclap. And I just decided to reuse it for a better purpose now.

So for when your thighs get together, just messing around.

Yeah. We made that up, but I think it is actually a social media term. I remember looking it up because I was like, oh, this is genius. What do you call it when all the accounts on the same day just flip on and start organically talking about something. Like, what is that? And some other person had made that up, so I stole that name off them. But basically, that's what these guys were able to do. And he used to— and we've talked about this before, so I'm repeating a story here, but he gave a talk once on stage and goes, watch this. This is whatever. I've made up a name like Freddie Debee. Freddie Debee, he puts a slide on the screen of him wearing a Manchester United uniform. And he goes, Freddy Deebie just signed with Manchester United for $72 million. One of the craziest contracts for a prospect who's only 17 years old. Oh, but the thing is, Freddy Deebie doesn't exist and he never signed a contract. But watch this. We're going to make this go viral just by the end of my talk. This will be trending on Twitter. And oh my God, he like nodded to like, you know, one of the like 19-year-olds that worked for him offstage. He goes, you know, like, like launch the missile. And that's exactly what they did. By the end of the thing, it was trending real, like, you know, ESPN-type news sites started picking it up, being like, Freddie DB signs for $72 million, because they're all trying to find information on it, but they just publish first because they don't want to be late to the news. And it just showed how much influence you could have. And so this happens, I think, from a commercial, for just in the business world, plus in this case for political power shit.

That's wild. What a badass presentation. I know, right? That's a really good presentation.

I mean, that's like all time. Swagger, like the swagger knob is broken. It's just stuck on 12. There's nothing you could do. We've tried to take them into the shop.

The Hustle, we now are read by about 3 million people a day. So we're not a big deal. And we're definitely not like influential enough that one of these companies would be like, let's get that company to influence the masses. But and like same with this podcast, like we're not, we're not a big enough deal or we're a target where someone's going to, or at least I don't think so, where someone's like, I'm going to trick them into saying this because then they're going to like actually have influence over the outcome of whatever we want.

We'll, we'll make your analytics guy say, what happened today? But that's it. You know, nothing's going crazy.

Yeah. Like it might be a little bit of note on like your spread, your spreadsheet for that day. But that's the, at, at best, that's it. And, uh, but like I would see a little bit of this like fake news stuff because I would do little tests where I would create like, you know, uh, so my parents do this all the time. They'll look up a celebrity and they'll say, Oh, Nick Cannon only worth $8 million. That's not, he's not even a big deal. And I'm like, you guys, like, and like they wouldn't even like click the article sometimes. They just see like the paragraph text and, and I'm like, or they'll be like, uh, the other day, today or this past weekend I was with my father-in-law and he's like, oh look, if you Google it, it says the worst way to sleep is on your belly. And it's like, cuz we were talking about someone in the bag.

The worst answer. Yeah. Yeah.

I'm like, you guys realize like, like anyone can write these articles and I can make them show up. And so I used to write these articles about net worth. So like Ross Ulbricht, the Silk Road guy, I would write an article about his "Net worth," I would just fucking make it up. I'd have no idea what it is. I would just make it up and I would track my analytics and people would start linking to it and I would start getting traffic. And that happened a lot of times. Or there'd be times where I made errors in articles and I noticed I would see that same error on a few other people's websites. And you start seeing, wow, this is how it starts. Like these little things, that's how it starts. And so this whole fake news conspiracy, it's one of the few things where I'm like, No, there's actually truth to that. Like, and I have very small examples of that, but if you're like a much bigger deal, you can find lots of bigger examples of that. It's actually, this whole fake news thing is, it is 100% real. And so this story is definitely proof of that.

Dude, as soon as you see how the sausage is made in any industry, it just really ruins it for you. Um, I remember when we were doing our restaurant startup, we were like, dude, we don't know anything about restaurants. Like, how does a restaurant even work? Like, this is like, what are we doing? And we had learned a little bit about sushi 'cause we were just sushi restaurant. But I was like, uh, Dan, who's my, our, our business partner was like my—

Raw fish seems like the best, the best platform to learn, by the way. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.

Exactly. My favorite sport, Russian roulette. Yeah. Um, so we were like, Dan, go work at Noodles and Company and go learn their like process stuff. And he's like, all right. So he did graduate. He's this Duke graduate, goes, applies for a job at Noodles and Company. They're like, wow, son, you, you interned at Goldman Sachs and now you're here. He's like, yep. Always been a dream to be on the back client and they, they, they, whatever. And so he used to bring home Noodles and Company every night and we were like, dude, what's, uh, so he's like, he's like, bro, the, the way they make this, the way that he's like the amount of salt in this. And he had this, like this guy that worked, this guy who barely spoke English that worked back in a, you know, like a line cook with him. And Dan was like eating the tomato soup. And cause he's like, I'm going to eat. He's like, I don't want to get like super fat while I'm here. I guess I'll just have the soup. So he's like, put the soup in a bowl and the guy just like knocked it out of his hand. He goes, No, don't eat the soup. Too much salt. He's like, he showed him like when they make it, they just like take a salt thing and just, it's like, is it measured in grams? No, it's measured in seconds. What do you mean seconds? It's like, how long do you hold the thing, the lid with the can upside down pouring salt? And it's like 17 seconds worth of salt. And so he used to tell us like, dude, don't eat this shit. And that's how I feel about everything. Like, um, when we sold the Milk Road, to Mike and Kendall. These guys are— they come from an affiliate marketing background. And so what they do is they make websites that are like news or blog sites that rank at the top of Google, and they're the authoritative example. Like, they were doing it for, um, gold, buying gold online. And so they were like, should I buy gold? Or the price of gold over time? Or should I buy gold coins or bars? And so whatever question you would ask, they wanted to be the number one result. The other guy did it in for, for sports betting. So it would be like Um, you know, is it legal to gamble in this state? Or like, you know, what's the best place? What's the best place? Or what's the safest place to do X? And so they're good at doing this on Google. And so as I met them and I was like, okay, so who else does things like this? And it's like, dude, have you ever Googled anything? Like every top result in Google is the same model. Like, oh, you, you're worried about that, uh, whatever, like that, that thing on your elbow? Yeah, Google that. Oh, you found Healthline. Cool. Yeah. Healthline seems like a great website, right? Super helpful for you. You're making a medical kind of decision on whether to worry about this or not off of Healthline.

It's owned by an SEO company. Red Ventures. Red Ventures.

Yeah. It's like, oh, this rolls back up to Red Ventures. And so does this credit card website. And so does this other thing. You want to know what's the best credit card? Don't Google it. You want to know what's going on with your health? Don't Google it because not only is their model that They're just going to write whatever's going to rank. And then when they rank, they're going to promote whatever they get paid on as an affiliate. And they'll try to say, no, no, no. We just say that what's the best. And if they happen to be an affiliate, they happen to be an affiliate, but we don't let that affect our editorial rank. Yeah. Right. Bullshit. That's how you make your money. You're going to promote the things that'll pay you a bunch of money.

Um, and so we used to have like a TV in our office, which the person who had the most page views that day. Like things like that. So it's like, what does that make the writer's room do? Oh, you better get more page views. Yeah. Yeah. Get more page views.

Like I don't think it's a dirty thing. Like I don't think there's a malicious intent. It's just a natural incentive is all I'm saying, which is that if your natural incentive is that one company does not offer you an affiliate deal and the other one does, you're probably not going to put the one that doesn't give you the affiliate deal as the number one best choice. You might put it as number four. Right. And so the editorial thing has been slightly smudged with that. Um, and so you see this with everything and then you're like, okay, cool. So who's writing these articles? It must be like, you guys have all these doctors on staff or, uh, not a chance.

It's an SEO specialist from Upwork. Yeah, exactly.

You know, this is Jorge and you know, he is the guy writing our best articles and you know, we pay him $19 per day. I'm just making all these numbers up, but like you get the idea. This is like, It's basically what ranks in Google is somebody who understands how to rank in Google, which is not the same thing as the person who has the right answer. And once you see how the, how the content gets made, once you see how the tomato soup gets made at Noodles and Company, you, uh, become very, you know, suspicious or skeptical of things, which has, you know, pros and cons, I would say.

All right, well, sorry everyone. So, uh, what do you got? Next topic. What else do you want to shit on?

Um, okay, let's do a quick one and then I have another one. Um, I put this thing in here, the work smarter, not harder hack. I said that to you. You said this. Okay. This is amazing. Explain what this is.

So, uh, no, you explain. You explain. Well, we just need to lighten the mood.

Do something fun here.

So I said this to the group chat because I thought it was hilarious.

This was really funny. A guy at Barstool basically is a guy who works at Barstool. Um, uh, or sorry, the Barstool retweeted this, but this kind of an ad. So there's a tweet. We will play it in the, in the YouTube video if you see it. But like, basically there's a guy who goes out to like a party and he just looks like he's wearing no shirt. He's just like in Miami somewhere, it looks like. And it looks like he's live streaming. And so he goes up to this girl. She's like, no way, 50,000 people are watching this. Oh my God. And then he's like, yeah, what's up, guys? Oh, they want to know what, you know, what's the craziest place you've ever been? She's like, um, um, she's like panicking because 50,000 people are watching.

And then she's like, how are you so famous?

Yeah, and he just like doesn't answer or something like that. And then he just does— it's a montage of a bunch of people reacting. He's like going into the club and he's like, yo, what's up y'all, we're at this place. And the guy's like, hey, go ahead, VIP. And so basically it's all fake. It's just a fake livestream scene, uh, screen. And so it just looks like you're live. It looks like you're on IG Live. It'll say live. It'll show 50,000 people are watching this. The comments are flooding and you look like you're some sort of celebrity, but it's That's all the app does. It's called Parallel Live. I think it's a real app, by the way.

It's real. I'm on it right now. Yeah. By Big Brains LLC. Work harder or sorry, work smarter, not harder. Yeah. That's like the whole thing.

I try not to get jealous anymore, but I'm jealous I didn't think of this app, to be honest with you. Because by the way, I did this when I was younger. We did a version of this that made sense back in the day where we paid a guy to walk around with a camera behind us. Like we were on a reality show, like an on-the-shoulder camera. And we were like, dude, I bet you like, you know, we won't need to do anything tonight. We don't need to pay for stuff. We don't need to approach people. We don't need to wait in line. Watch. And, uh, it sure, sure enough, it played out completely that way. And so I, I was sort of onto this idea, you know, more than 15 years ago now. And, uh, I think this is so smart.

What a great idea, dude. My best friend Neville. So you can Google this. So Neville Medhora, so M-E-D-H-O-R-A. Madora. So Neville Madora, one year during South by Southwest. So Neville's Indian, but he's from wherever part of India he's from. He looks Persian. So one year he, he wore like, like these stereotypical things that you see in the Middle East of where it's like a white, you know, like what do they call that, a white gown with like a burqa? Yeah, yeah. With like a head cap thing. And he basically looked— he's like, I'm going to look like a Middle Eastern prince. Like that's my goal tonight. And his other friend, I think it was Noah and a few other guys, wore black suits. And he said they walked around South— they walked around in the evening on South by Southwest. And he goes, we got in everywhere. They thought I was from the Middle East. And I had, uh, like I was this king or prince. And I had people coming up for me, up to me constantly. And like, uh, his friend Noah would like whisper in a girl's ear, like, hey, this man wants to speak to you. And they like kept up this shtick going for a while. And if you Google it, you'll be able to find it. But, um, dude, this type of— these types of pranks are my favorite. What's the—

what's the— play the clip. Sometimes you just want to do hoodrat shit with your friends. But I wanted to do hoodrat stuff with my friend. That's what this is. This is an app that lets you do hoodrat shit with your friends. Parallel Live. Genius. Big Brains LLC. I went and looked at what other apps they've made. There's one thing— like a relationship one, right? A relationship tracker. And it's got 17 ratings and 2 stars. Um, you know, this is— you can almost see the, the, um, the development of an entrepreneur. Go to their app store and it's like starts with like productivity app, to-do list, um, you know, bus tracker to be more efficient, um, oh, something that helps you save your, you know, your favorite memories with your family. And then it starts to become like Hot or Not, uh, fake livestream simulator, get laid tonight.

Yeah, exactly.

So, you know, that's like, it's like eventually you stop selling what you want people to do and you start selling what people want to do. I can't find this client info. Have you heard of HubSpot?

HubSpot is a CRM platform, so it shares its data across every application. Every team can stay aligned.

No out-of-sync spreadsheets or dueling databases.

HubSpot. Grow better. All right, let's do one more thing.

What do you got? Um, I had a fun meeting. I want to tell you a little bit about. So I went and met up with, uh, James Currier, who is an internet OG. I know this guy. I like him. He runs something called NFX now, which is a big fund. Like they have like a billion, he's at $1.2 billion under management or something like that. Oh, I didn't know that. So it's grown, grown a lot. Uh, back in the day he started a company called Tickle. Uh, here's another example of you start by doing what you think you should do. And then you, at the end you give people what they actually want. So Tickle started off. Doing, um, cycle— like psych quizzes. So it'd be like, you know, um, I forgot what's that thing called, Briggs-Myers and Myers-Briggs or whatever that is.

I think they were originally for like which jobs are you built for or something.

Yeah, things like that. It was like trying to like help you figure out what you should— what career you should do, blah blah blah. And then the thing that went viral was what dog breed are you? When you take a quiz, it's like you're a husky and you're like, oh, that's so cute. I'm gonna tell all my friends about this. And went super viral. And then they started making more and more silly quizzes. Eventually they sell the thing for, for about $100 million to Monster. Um, but kind of like a good, a great win, uh, in the early internet days. And then they did a bunch of other things.

So they've, and they kind of like invented a little bit of the, of the, uh, uh, internet virality. If I remember correctly, your old boss, Michael, worked with them. And I think like Rick Marini was there too, who Rick Marini now owns. What's the gay dating app? That went public. Grindr. Rick Marini. Rick Marini owns that? Yeah, well, he owns— he didn't start it. No, he didn't start it, but Rick Marini owns or founded the PE firm that eventually bought Grindr, and I think they either took it public or they sold it to someone and it went public, something like that. But it was like a pretty big deal. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So these guys are all about— they've been doing this from the beginning. And if I remember correctly, like, they invented little things that we like take for granted today or things that don't even work anymore. Like, for example, enter in your Gmail here and we'll email all of your friends to ask if they also want to join along this thing. And they grew that way.

Uh, yeah, they, they basically were like kind of, um, they were early to the viral game. And so they bought my, so Michael Birch, who was my former boss and then investor, um, they bought his first social network, Ringo. And what Michael, the way Michael described it to me was he's like, I built this social networking thing. Uh, it grew to like 300,000 users, which was like really big at that time in the internet. Like, that was like a big internet thing. He's like, it was costing so much money to run it. Uh, pre-Facebook, didn't know what to do with it. Didn't know— nobody thought social networking was gonna be like a money-making thing. It just seemed like a kind of time waste. He's like, so they offered me a couple million bucks. I sold it. I worked at Tickle for like 9 months or something like that. And then I, um, I was like, you know, I learned a bunch of things through sitting in an office with these really smart people. And when my earnout was done or my, my, my non-compete was done, I went and I was like, now I know how to do this right. And he built Bebo, which got a million members in 9 days using everything he had learned during that period and ended up selling for $850 million. And so, um, yeah, they kind of were all this cluster of people that were doing the early address book imports and how to measure virality with the K-factor, that sort of thing. So I go meet with James and—

What was the premise of the meeting?

So the premise of the meeting was just catch up. So he knew that I sold the Milk Road. He was like, you know, what do you think about doing next? And I was like, I'm not sure. Let's chat. So he invites me down to Palo Alto. And so it could have been a Zoom, but I was like, no, no, no, Sean's leaving the house today. Let's go meet belly to belly here. And I think it's going to be worth it. Totally was worth it. I go down there. Um, first thing I noticed was like, his office is right on like whatever, like University Ave or whatever that is in Palo Alto where it's like everything is there. It's like right in the middle. So I just kind of noted that observation. I was like, oh, that's interesting that he like made that choice. Could have been somewhere else.

BDE. That's, that's big dick energy.

Second thing was, um, there wasn't really anybody else in the office, but like he was there. And, uh, I think other people may be working remote. So we sit down, we, we start chatting and, um, I wanted to give you some of my notes from, from this thing. So the first thing is, um, he's, he, have you ever met him before?

Yeah, he's like a, he's, he's really nice and can have a conversation, but he's like a quirky, uh, not quite, I wouldn't use the word eccentric, but he's just like, uh, uh, he loves this network density stuff and just like sharing stuff. I don't know. I mean, he's very academic almost about it.

He, yeah, personality-wise, he's got a great vibe. Like he's very lighthearted. Uh, and he doesn't take himself too seriously. Like, you know, I even wrote this, I emailed him afterwards, which is a little life hack, by the way. I emailed him afterwards. I was like, here's my notes from the meeting. People don't usually do that. They don't, A, they don't even take notes, but like, if they do, they keep it to themselves. But if you actually send the person the notes, they really appreciate it. And it's almost like it's a double meeting and then they'll edit. And so he sent me like a revision of one thing. So here's my, um, can I read you my takeaways from the meeting? I go, here's my notes. 5 big takeaways. I like your lifestyle. So I learned something.

What a great compliment too, by the way.

Yeah. I go, I like the way you, I like your lifestyle. I like how you've used your financial freedom. So he said he spends 4 months a year with his kids. Um, so it's like just 4 months out of the year he's with his kids. They travel, they do different stuff. And he's like, dude, that's the max your kids That is, I'm pushing the boundary of like how much I can max out.

4 months in one turn? Like summertime?

Per year, yeah. No, no, no, like spread out. Okay. Probably a couple in the summer and then whatever the rest. Uh, he's writing a TV show for fun right now. And I was like, like that. Want to do things like that. I think that's dope that you have a life that lets you do that. Noted. Uh, because I'm, uh, he's 55, I think, and I'm 35. And so, you know, I'm basically looking at like, I'm always hunting for blueprints. Like who's got a dope lifestyle. And not their whole blueprint, but like part of their— where I'm, I like, I wanna cherry pick. It's like Costco. I wanna go around and sample different people and then be like, ooh, I like that. I like the way that Sam has his ranch and how he does things. And his, I like your home gym, for example. I went to your, your place in Austin. Your home gym was awesome. And then I came home and I was like, Sam, what'd you use for the floor? What'd you buy for this? How do you get the leaves out? What do you do this? And you gave me the thing and I recreated that in, you know, with a 10% change in my own house.

How's it going? Is it awesome?

Oh dude, it's amazing. Yeah. And so like, that's good. That's, that was what I stole from you.

And then I get the cordless leaf blower.

The leaf blower's dope. It's also a great party trick, by the way. People are just like, uh, if people, people love it, uh, but it's super effective. It's way better, way easier than sweeping. So, uh, so anyways, I was like, I like your lifestyle for these reasons. I told him a bunch of stuff. Um, then I go, then I go, the second good thing he told me, he goes, I think I could say this. Let me say, let me try to say this without I'm not causing any, uh, a ruffle in any feathers here. So he's like, where do you, he's like, where do you want to land in the, uh, the status game? So he's like, okay. So he draws this like line on the board and he goes on one side of the spectrum, you have like, let's say Gary Vee or like 500 Startups, or like, he's like, you know, think about like people who go for, um, um, like a mass market, like Tony Robbins. They try to reach like a mass market. Type of individual with their content. And, um, and then that becomes their audience, that becomes their deal flow. So, you know, if, if a really popular person sends me like, oh, here's a startup I got pitched, I'm like, he's like, I kind of know where that's going to be in the quality filter versus if Sequoia or Benchmark sends me a deal, like I know where that is in the quality filter. That's on the other end of the spectrum. They have a much more niche audience. They're only creating like NFTs. Creates really niche content that's for like an A+ founder who's trying to build a billion-dollar company using network effects. And this is—

you're referring to NFX the blog or NFX their customer base or both?

Like the blog is to attract a certain type of founder. He doesn't need a million hits on a video. He needs like the right 100 people to read the thing, right? Um, so that they think about NFX and they, they've learned from NFX. And so, um, he's like, we're on this— you're, you're making content, but who's your customer? Are you more like McDonald's? Or, you know, we're like a, say, a Michelin star restaurant. They're like McDonald's. You know, we're not gonna get the volume that they get, but they're not gonna get the, the quality of clientele we get. You know? So we're, he's like, today MFM, he's like, is in, he's, is in the middle here. He's like, and my advice to you is don't slide down that way. He's like, cuz today I like you guys and I tell people to listen to you guys because you're like, you keep it real when it comes to entrepreneurship. Like, A, you guys are real entrepreneurs. You've done it before. B, you just tell it like it is. C, you don't talk about the most like complex subjects. You like simple businesses and, and, and you know, more achievable business models for most people, but you're not yelling at them to hustle harder. You're not just hustle porn. That's just saying like, bro, you need to grind and like you need to do whatever. And then you're also motivational because we try to be motivational and we're not promoting paths that are like, um, you know, dropshipping and like, you know, flipping things on eBay or whatever. Like, you know, there's a, a, a type, a business class there. We're neither, nor are we saying like enterprise SaaS isn't like the main thing we talk about either. So it's like, you know, we're somewhere in the middle. He's like, I think you should stay in the middle cuz it'll be tempting to slide there to get more views. But I don't think that's what you're gonna want in the end cuz that will be the network you create. Those will be the deals you get. Those will be the people who like you. Those will be the people you meet. And so you will, your, your content will define which network you're a part of. Today you're here, you can kind of go either way. Um, you should either stay there, move up market, but like, he's like, my, my, my advice to you is don't, don't slide down market there. So I thought that was interesting. Nobody really talked about that. And there's also like, um, you know, I had gone through this exercise recently where it was like defining kind of like your, your brand, like who do you talk to, who's your customer and who do you, who do you like to create content for? And initially the thing I thought about was like, usually it's like, oh, you know, I'm all about entrepreneurship. I'm all about starting your own business. And that's what I did. And that's what I like. But there's many different flavors of that. There's like tech startups, like more like YC. There's stuff like starting an agency. There's different stuff in between. And then there's some people who are like, they cater to a market of people that are like, kind of like wantrepreneurs only. So it's like, Quit your 9 to 5 job. Don't be a slave to the cubicle. Get out there and be your own boss type of messaging. And I'm like, I don't feel like the people who listen to us are mostly in that category. Like, I think the people who talk to us often are like second-time founders. They're people who are, they own small businesses or they, they're actually planning to take shots and they're not like, they already have made the decision of like, I'm not going to like struggle in this 9 to 5. I don't, you know, I don't think it's Dairy Queen worker. That's our main. Like kind of personally listen. So it was just like interesting to hear that. Um, okay, here's the last thing that I think is two, two last things. Uh, one partnership advice. So him and his buddy Stan have been partners for I think like 20 years now. Yeah, forever. And I had talked to Stan before I met James and I asked him, I go, hey, I want to have a business partnership that's like yours, like a business marriage, not just a partnership. Like your thing is like multi-decades. There's no end in sight and it's been great. And you guys have had multiple successes with the same people. What's the secret? And normally when you ask somebody this, like the odds of them actually saying something insightful are very, very low. But you could tell like how good they are that off the cuff, he's like, there's 4 things you need to know.

Oh my God. I love these people.

He tells me the 4 things and I'm like, whoa, what are these 4 things? And so here's what he told me. He goes, He goes, most relationships are, um, both sides are focused on what they're getting out of it. He goes, you're, he goes, the first thing, if you want this to work, is you make it a giving contest. I go, giving contest? He goes, yeah. He goes, when we sold our first company, James owned 90% of it or something like that, 80, 90%. And he owned, Stan owned like 10% or 20%. And right before the deal closed, um, James like evened up the the thing. And he was like, really? What? Uh, he's like, no, no, no, you don't need to do that. Uh, because James had had, I think, some financial success right before that or something. And so he's like, no, that's not right. And James was like, no, this is, this is right. And he's like, in a moment where everybody would have been selfish, he had every right to just keep the deal exactly as is. I'm, I'm more of a gift basket type of guy, you know what I mean? Um, and I've, I've kind of done it both ways. It's not about like, you don't have to just make everything 50/50. I don't think that's the right answer, but I think making sure everybody's taken care of is an important thing. When we sold Bebo the first time, um, or when I sold Bebo to Twitch, I owned double the equity that my co-founder, uh, Furkan owned. And so on paper, I should have got double what he got. And as we were getting close to the deal, I told him, I said, hey, uh, we're going to get the same, like whatever that total pool is, we're just going to split that 50/50 of what we get out of between me and you. Because, you know, that's what felt right to me. And, uh, you know, I was like, this is, I think this is the right thing.

Was this before Furkan had, was this before AppLovin sold?

Uh, no, they had sold by then actually. So, wow.

And so for those who don't know, Sean's partner helped found AppLovin, which varies in market cap between $20, $40, and $50 billion. It's like a huge thing. And so you still, I mean, he had a, that was, that's probably a home run for him financially, the, the AppLovin. Yeah. Yeah.

I mean, the AppLovin thing's way bigger for him than, than our deal was. Um, and we knew like he was gonna be wealthy from that. Um, so, you know, it wasn't, I, I don't know, like I just felt, I felt like it was the right thing to do. And what I, the, it was actually, it wasn't like, dude, I'm gonna make it so that we're even. That's, that's not really the mentality. It was, I, the original deal was not fair. And so I just wanted to correct it. Um, like when he joined the company, he had like 0.5% equity or something like that. And so I had already upped him once, upped him twice, upped him I'd been upping them without him asking anyways, just cuz I was like, this first deal was wrong. So now I just try to cut the right deal up front so you don't have to do that anymore. Um, but like the point is like you try to do what, what is actually right. So anyways, so that was the first lesson from Stan was like, he's like, I never feel like, uh, he's like, I basically feel like we are both trying to give more. And it's not about equity only. Like it's like effort. Like he's gonna do something, I wanna do more. He's going to try to make some sacrifice. I want to sacrifice the same amount or more. Turn it into a giving contest. That was lesson 1. He goes, lesson 2, when you disagree or you fight, which is going to happen a lot, and you have to decide which way to go, do we go my way or do we go your way? Don't use logic. Use the sleep test. So he's like, I ask, who cares? Who is more emotionally invested in this decision? If I'm, if we go with my way, but you are more emotionally invested, you're not gonna be able to sleep at night. And if I turn out to be wrong, it's gonna really hurt you. If I'm a little less emotionally invested in this, let's go your way. And we agree that we'll just, you know, we'll, we'll pivot if we need to. Um, you know, later. And he is like, when it's really like just a deadlock, that's how we resolve the deadlock is who's not gonna be able to sleep at night. Yeah. About this thing. And when you have that attitude, um, you know, both sides end up trying to compromise versus trying to get their way. Um, 3, he goes, I think in 20-year increments. So if I'm gonna work with this person for 20 years, what decision would I make today that's gonna be the best in a 20-year time period versus how most people operate is they just make a decision today about what's good today, and then the future consequences may not be that good, but they're thinking short-term. Whereas if we're, if we plan for this to be long-term, We're gonna make different decisions today to set ourselves up for long-term success. Um, so that's number 3. He goes, number 4, um, uh, the last thing I go, I go, I asked him, I go, I go, okay, that's the partnership, Sam. Why, why are you great? Why is Zuck recruiting it? Because he ended up getting recruited by Mark Zuckerberg to go run Facebook Messenger.

And didn't he go and actually do that?

He went and did it. And he, and They had been trying to recruit him for years, 7 to 10 years. Finally he said yes. And I go, I asked him 2 questions. I go, what makes you great? And what makes Zach great? And he goes, I'm not that talented, but here's my thing. He goes, I don't have the same bias as most people. I don't have to be right. And I go, what do you mean? He goes, when I look at data, everybody else, I find they look at data and they have a story in their head they want to be true. Then they look at data and try to find— they keep searching through data until they find something that supports their story. He goes, I look at data and I ask a simple question, what story is this telling me? And he goes, he goes, I just keep doing that and I just make better decisions because I do that, because that's my approach to, to how I actually read data. That's why I can have more business success than most people. And what about Zuck? On the Zuck side, he, I go, I go, what makes Zuck great? He, he said, you know, he didn't wanna say the obvious things. You know, he's brilliant, hardworking, like that would be a, pretty blah answer. Again, that's how you know the quality of the person. They just skip over the blah answer. They give you what you want. They give you a little candy. So here's the candy. He goes, I was sitting with Zuck when he decided to buy WhatsApp, and everybody said it was way too expensive. They bought it for $19 billion, and WhatsApp wasn't producing any revenue.

What's that worth now, you think? I don't even know. Hard to say. I, I don't know. A lot more though, I think.

More? Yeah. Um, like the Instagram one, definitely. They bought it for $1 billion. It's probably worth $100 now. Um, WhatsApp, probably double that. Sorry, but WhatsApp's probably also $100 billion franchise. So he was trying to decide to do it. And he goes, you know what's great about you, Mark? You're lucky. You're smart enough to know that you got lucky once and you found lightning in a bottle with this when social networking was going to be a thing. But you're smart enough to know when somebody else got lucky too. And he goes, uh, he goes, you are smart enough to know that this, this messaging thing was like, this was the big winner of this era. And these guys got it and you need to pay whatever effing price you have to pay to get it because there's only going to be one the way that there was Facebook. Like there was only going to be one big winner. Right. And you, you know that you don't think you're so genius that you're just going to outcompete everybody and beat everybody at everything. Like you're, you can recognize when somebody else got lucky too. And, uh, and I thought that was just like a fun answer for her.

For, for, did he say that he liked work? Did he like working with Zuck?

Uh, you know, he's not going to tell me if he hated it, but you know, the actions speak louder. He's been there for quite a while. I think he's, I think he just left this year. And so I think he was there for like 7 years or something.

So how did this guy run NFX Labs while working at Facebook?

He didn't, he just worked at Facebook and he came as an advisor. And then James was like, again, no problem. Go do that. Take the big fat check. I'll run an FX. You keep your partnership.

Dude, how much does a person like that make? Like, if you're the head of a Facebook person, a Facebook business, are you making over $10 million a year? I have no idea. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. You think so? For sure. Wow. I have no idea.

I say for sure, like I know. I don't actually know what he was making, but I would be stunned if it was less than $10 million a year. I think it's probably closer to $20 million a year.

That's so much money. That is so much money.

There are people at these companies that make $40 to $50 million per year.

Uh, because they had stock grants early on and they just stayed there for forever.

No, no, not the early on type person. Like, they'll get a package in 2019 that at the 2019 prices is going to pay them $20 to $40 million a year. They're usually like the top AI guy because they're like, look, if this top AI guy leaves and goes to another company, not only do we lose this talent that's kind of irreplaceable, but then Google gets them and then, you know, now they have a problem. So like, Google has published some of these numbers about guys who are making like, you know, $30, $40 million a year.

I want to have a, I don't know if this has to be anonymous or what, but I want to have a conversation with one of these kind of OG guys who saw the Twitter, Facebooks, uh, like some of these companies get created. Google, like get created. 'Cause you know, they're around, they're, and they're probably only 50 or 60 years old. You know, the people who saw Google, like who are a little bit older when Google was getting started. I wanna ask them, all stories about that and just what's it like being around some of these people and what are some of the stories around when it was getting going. Like, you hear these crazy stories about like, I think we had, I think we had someone on here talk about eBay and they're like, I joined eBay when we were 50 people and they were just explaining what like the day-to-day office life was when you're adding 50 employees a month or 50 employees a week when you're only at 50 people. And anyway, because this type of stuff doesn't truly exist anymore. Because the map, the playbook for a lot— for a fast growth company is kind of— it's not entirely made. And there's still companies like Uber that are recreating it as they go. But like, there's a story there and you have a history. But if you're Google, you're a little bit of a pioneer and you're like, I don't know, man, how do we— how do we add bodies to this problem? I don't know. But anyway, I want to hear— I want to get some OGs on to tell those stories. Yeah, that—

yeah, that would be awesome. I've heard, I've been lucky to hear a couple, like, uh, the guy who was the, my boss at Twitch essentially was, uh, semi-early at Google. So he would be like, you know, Larry says this, he's talking about Larry Page, like from Google. And so like, he didn't do it often, but like he would say these little things and I would like ask him a million questions about it.

Dude. So when my wife, my wife Sarah worked at Facebook from 2000 and I forget exactly, maybe 13 to 16. And during that time, Facebook, I think she was, she joined at like 5,000 and then when she left there at like 50,000, something crazy. And during that time, Zuck would do these meetings every Friday in like an auditorium or in a cafeteria on Facebook's campus. And any employee can, could show up and just ask him a question. And they would also stream them. And every once in a while I would like look over her computer and watch her streaming these, uh, conferences. And there'd be like 50 or 100 people in the cafeteria asking questions to Zuck. And I'm like, Sarah, you are crazy. You should be in that cafeteria every single Friday. Like, this is like being around like John Rockefeller or like Teddy Roosevelt or JFK. Like, this is like a pretty big deal. And if you just ask an interesting question every Friday, maybe eventually he'll say something like, Sarah, it's nice to see you again. You know, like, why don't you just come talk to me afterwards and we could help. Maybe you could work on that pro— like, I was like, fanfiction. Yeah, I'm like, then he'll sleep with you, and then I'm like creating this story in my head of like what could potentially happen, and, uh, it never happened. Bumping into each other in the elevator and he says, yeah, like, you know, right, you have like a meet cute in the cafeteria and he like says like, nice shoes. It's like you already know that you're like, boyfriend I want to hang out with. Maybe he'll follow you on Instagram, who knows? And maybe you're posting a bunch of pictures of me and I just so happen to like the same hobbies as him. I don't know, I haven't thought this through already, but like, like I had this whole playbook and she didn't do any of it. And instead we just had a traditional fall in love marriage and all that boring shit.

She's like, I'm gonna go to yoga class during the all hands.

Yeah, we could have had a thruple with Zuck, but no.

Well, dude, this is, this is one of the other things that James was talking about actually, like to, to kind of actually relate to that. He goes, um, I asked him, I was like, so, um, I asked him about his office. Remember I told you, I was like, I noted that he was here. I was like, I go, why do you have the, why'd you get an office right here? He's like, I mean, it's a no-brainer. If you're, he goes, uh, he goes, I made one mistake when we sold Tickle. He drew a diagram. He goes, he drew a circle.

Diagram guy, I like this. Oh dude, if you—

if I'm gonna meet you in person, we're gonna be on the whiteboard. Like, you know, that's what's gonna happen. Yeah, it's going down. Yeah, it's going down. You know, I'm a lady in the streets and a freak on the whiteboard. So, you know, like, I'm going to the whiteboard. And, um, and so he's— he draws a circle. He's like, yeah, let's say that— he's like, the white-hot center of Silicon Valley was like, let's say, Sequoia, Benchmark, these, you know, these people. These founders at that time, Facebook was just getting started. Facebook was like the hot center of like where all the action was happening. Google, he goes. And then like, you know, one ring out from that, you know, we were kind of like adjacent. Like we knew a lot of those people. Like I helped, you know, I, you know, I advised some people to take jobs there. You know, I had a job offer there. He's like, I didn't take it because I maybe had a little too much ego. I thought I was an entrepreneur, probably should have just joined Facebook. It would have been great. Um, he's like, Yeah, but we were like one hop away. We were like one ring away in this circle. He goes, what we should have done is realized that Silicon Valley is a network. And in a network, all the value, a lot of the value concentrates at the core. The closer you are to the center of the network, the more value you get.

Physically, in many cases as well.

Literally physically, which is like, he's like, He's like, he's like, the further you go out, the more you're on your own island. He goes, we decided to go start our own thing, our own lab, self-funded, doing our own startups with new people and doing our own thing. And it felt so entrepreneurial to go out on our own terms and build our own island. He goes, I could see you making this mistake too. He goes, I wish somebody had explained this to me at the time. He goes, and you see this all the time. He goes, I can't believe people are moving out of the tech, people are moving out of the Bay Area to go live in Austin or Florida or these places. You're going to save 13% on your taxes but make 10 times less money. That's the trade that they're making. They just don't realize it. Yeah, I totally buy that. And he goes, when we did this, he goes, when we moved out, when we decided to go off and kind of do our own thing, not physically, not geographically, but just philosophically, all of a sudden, he goes, I had a meeting scheduled with the Uber founders because, you know, they were in our network. And our friend was like, you should meet with the Uber guys, Travis is doing something cool. And, um, had the meeting scheduled, but I was so focused, oh, I'm doing my thing here, and I got busy and I had to— I just canceled the meeting, didn't take the meeting. Um, missed Uber, would have, would have definitely invested in it at that time just because in the network as our friends put a small check in, you know, no big deal. But I was so focused on building my own little island, I, I stopped paying into the network. It goes, you know, similarly, I could have took a job at Facebook at that time, been like, you know, one of the earliest people at Facebook. I kind of knew Facebook was going to be a big deal. Um, but again, had my own thoughts about what I wanted to do. So I went the other way and made things harder for myself rather than easier. He goes, you could see what, like the value of the network. He goes, when Facebook started getting popular, Facebook started in Boston. And he goes, Zuck was smart and Peter Thiel told him the right thing, which is get your ass to, you know, get your ass to Silicon Valley as fast as possible. Is the startup that builds this in Silicon Valley is going to have a better shot, better high expected value than one that tries to do this on their own in a new talent network, in a new funding network outside of Silicon Valley. And I was asking about YC. I go, well, didn't kind of YC do their own thing? He goes, no, I have the opposite view of YC. YC is fully a network. And he goes, Paul Graham did the first one in Boston and immediately moved to Silicon Valley because he had figured out, oh shit, this is the blueprint for investing in early-stage startups that's going to work. Whoever does this in Silicon Valley is gonna be the winner. And he goes, guess what? They moved to Silicon Valley right away. As soon as their first batch was done, Paul, his two little kids, they just forget every, drop everything, pick up and move. Like, he's like, you know, it wasn't convenient for them. He's like, I know the architect that was building their house and you know, they, they had to get there quickly and they just rushed it, moved in to start their second batch in Silicon Valley because they look at all the other accelerators that copied their exact blueprint. The, all the, you know, Techstars is the one in Boulder, Boulder, every other city. And you know, they've had like a couple unicorns. Paul, you know, has had 100. And it's like, you know, the, the difference is like a, you know, more than a 10x difference in outcome just by being in the center of the network. And he goes, um, and I saw, so I was thinking about that. I was like, you know, there's a physical location part of that. Then there's like staying in touch with people. So like me doing that meeting with James was great cuz like, Yeah, this guy's in my network, but I was just sitting in the burbs over here, you know, doing my own thing here, creating my own content. I wasn't—

do you not feel like a Silicon Valley guy because you're just 40 minutes outside?

I haven't been going to anything. Like, I don't meet with anybody. I don't go to anything. It's like dumb. And this brought my awareness to like, wow, I'm silly for not taking advantage of the network that I've— the hard network that I've built over, you know, 10, 12 years. Um, that's crazy that I'm not taking advantage of that. and then so I asked him, I was like, you know, what do you think? Uh, uh, I was like, how do you actually take advantage of the network besides physically being there? I, okay. I believe the physical thing. And I've always said this, like proximity is power. The closer you can be to the people you like and the people you want to be like and the people who you want to be around, like literally physically, the closer you could be, the better. And I go, why does that work? And he goes, he goes, what you should do is that You want to build something that brings value not only to you, but also to those people around you. Also, you want to be like an API. So like, you know, when a, when a, when Twitter is a product, they create an API that lets other people like read the Twitter stream, right? Create apps that help Twitter. Like they basically— Twitter stronger. It makes Twitter stronger. He's like, you want to be like an API. You want to tell, you want to tell people how they can plug into you. Where can they get help from you? How can they give help to you? Like, like, uh, if we know that Andrew Wilkinson buys internet companies, then when we see an internet company, we talk to some guy who's like, yeah, I'm thinking about selling. We'll make that introduction. 'Cause Andrew has an open API. He, he has made it clear how somebody can interface with him, how somebody can help him and how he can help other people. You know, he, he's made it clear for those founders, hey, if you wanna exit, I'll, I'll buy you out. And so he's like, that's why Silicon Valley's great because you can invest in other people's stuff. You can join them, you can partner with them. You can work for them, you can send them talent, you can do a podcast exchange, you can share ideas about growth with each other, you can share knowledge about a term sheet with each other. It's like, that's why Silicon Valley works is because the network is super dense and people share a ton within that. And so you get all these extra benefits that you don't really plan for that are sort of serendipitous when you're in there. And I thought like, this is all obvious. Like I kind of nodded my head, but it brought my awareness to— it's not that obvious. A lot of people don't take advantage of this stuff. And even me who still, who knows this stuff and still lives in Silicon Valley, I wasn't maxing that out. And I'm going to make a, you know, a sort of like turn that knob a little bit and do that better.

If I could, I only live where I live now for family reasons, but if my family were willing to live in California, I would be in Palo Alto, not San Francisco actually, but Palo Alto. I would be down the peninsula in a heartbeat. Totally. 100%. I would be there in a heartbeat. I think it's the greatest. And people say like, well, it doesn't matter anymore. I'm like, well, maybe like currently it doesn't matter that much, but things that maybe in 6 or 12 months it's going to be happening. But I actually think it is kind of happening still a little bit. But I think New York and Silicon Valley are a little bit uneven actually now, whereas for years they weren't. But still, Silicon Valley, I think, has a much better— you have a much better existence living there. But I would be there in a heartbeat if I could. If it were— if I was a single guy, I'd be there.

Tomorrow. Right. Um, cool. All right. I think we went a little over, but that's it. That's it. That's the pod.