Ryan Reynold’s Mint Mobile Acquired For $1.35B, Chat GPT-4, & More Tech News (#433)

All right, welcome to our Friday episode, Boys React. We got a guest host filling in. Nick, how you doing?

Ben, thanks for having me. I'm doing great.

It's the Nick Huber show today.

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Thanks for having me on.

Um, all right, let's, uh, let's go through some news items. do some rapid reactions. First of all, the big news everyone is talking about on Twitter is ChatGPT-4. Uh, it's the newest version of the AI. Uh, it's programming simple video games, doing Pong on its own, stuff like that. Uh, convincing TaskRabbit workers to complete CAPTCHA for it. So fellows, what are your thoughts on the new ChatGPT?

Have you used it, Nick? I haven't used it.

I think these people need to go outside and touch some grass.

You're not a fan?

No, I think it's all a joke.

Dude, you are so gonna get left behind. I, I'm, I'm, I don't use it, but I know that it's gonna change everything. Uh, uh, Dharmesh from HubSpot created this thing called, um, chat, uh, uh, ChatSpot. And basically you could do a bunch of stuff, but you can like talk to HubSpot and tell it what to do. So you could talk to it like a human and like, you know, HubSpot's really complex. Like it does a little bit of everything and you can just use normal words and be like, you know, make my website look like this, or, uh, email these types of people who are on my list. And I think that's like a really good example. There's this, uh, you, you know what like the best iteration of AI right now is? If you watch Monday Night Football, you know how they put the one line or the, the, you know, what do they call it? I don't fucking follow football. First, first down, you know, the yellow strip on the thing. That's AI. Or you know how when you back up in your car and you see like a 360 view of like everything around you, that's AI. So my theory is if you have to say this is AI and the product is good because of that, that's a horrible way to go about it. But if it just freaking works all the time, that's a great way that, you know, the product is gonna be good. So anytime something says AI or Web3 and they have, and that's how they explain it, I go, I'm out. But I'm convinced they're gonna figure out another way how to do this. Did you laugh? Cause I didn't know anything about NFL.

No, I think, uh, I think that was a great explanation and I don't want to, like, I'll preface this by saying I think these people are brilliant and this will be a tool that makes people more productive. Absolutely. Now let me tell you that 99% of humans and Americans and everybody else gives two shits about AI. They're worried about enough money coming in their bank account on Friday to pay rent on Monday and that their house is maintained and that they have food to put in their kids' bellies. It's absurd. Like literally we have a whole physical world. There's grass that needs mowed. It grows. Can you believe we plant, we plant this green shit around our houses that every week we have to go outside and cut it. By hand with a lawnmower. We gotta go outside and do that. We gotta wash our houses, we gotta clean our floors, we gotta install carpet, we gotta repair windows. We have a physical world that's crumbling around the United States. Nobody cares about AI.

Dude, you need to get outta Georgia, man. You got, you need to get outta Georgia, hang out with the real people in San Francisco and New York so you actually know how real people live.

Sam, you didn't have me here to agree with you.

Uh, all right, Ben, let's do Mint.

Okay, let's do Mint. We, um, we talked about it a little bit last episode, but T-Mobile is set to acquire Ryan Reynolds' Mint Mobile. He owns 20 to 25%, uh, for $1.35 billion. Uh, guys, thoughts on this?

What's 25% of $1.3? $300 million?

Yeah.

Holy crap. More. So, and then he, how much did he sell? What's it, what's his gin called or whiskey or whatever the hell it was? Avion or something. He sold that for hundreds of millions of dollars recently. So this guy is killing it. That's awesome. I— 25% seems like a lot of equity to give to him, right?

I think it— I think it's crazy. I mean, I think this is exciting to me, and it should be exciting to you, Sam, too, because it's an example of somebody with clout, somebody with a personal brand, somebody who everybody likes and loves, which is the definition of Sam Parr. They've been able to capitalize that. They've been able to capitalize that to an insane degree. And I'm excited about what it means for people with distribution. Meaning if you have ears and you have eyes and people care what you have to say, you can get involved in products and you can grow massive companies. Sam's doing it. I'm excited about doing it. It's just the beginning.

How much more famous is Ryan Reynolds than both of us? 100 times? Is he 100 times more famous?

Of course.

You think more, more, more than 100 times?

So what's, what's 100 divided? What's his exit divided by 100 and how much money is that?

Is that 2? Is that 2 million? If it's 20, that would be a lot cooler. But, uh, uh, yeah, I, I think it's cool. I like him. He's very likable. He's significantly more likable than both you and I combined. I think I'm more likable than— I'm a lot more likable than you, and he's a lot, a lot, a lot more likable than me.

So I'm a lot more better looking than you, and he's a lot more better looking than me.

Uh, I think it's awesome. I like Ryan Reynolds, so kudos. I wanna know, I've been asking him to come on this pod for a while. I wanna know, does he actually do anything? You know, like what he actually does?

Uh, what's his day like?

I'm very curious. Yeah, I'm very curious.

What's, what's, yeah, what do you think his day is like, Sam? I bet he's going, I bet he's waking up, he's taking a 20-minute meeting where somebody tells him yes the whole time, that all of his ideas are amazing. Then they're going back and running the company without him. Or is he super involved? Is he getting involved with management? Is he doing marketing decisions?

No.

I want to know how operationally embedded he is in this company. What would you, what would your guess be, Sam? How many direct reports does he have at the company?

Well, zero. I think he has zero. I think he probably has a chief of staff who manages his whole life, but zero. I think that I don't know much about Mint Mobile. If I had to guess, I would say it's mostly a sales company, meaning they probably just like layered on top of an existing telecom and then just had a slightly different pricing structure and then targeted their marketing towards a certain type of person. I think Mint Mobile is more like a, like a, I think it's like a working class thing because it's like a, it's, it's all about price. So I think it's like a really, really, really low price.

Here's a question for you, Sam. Do you think a serious operator or entrepreneur or executive is in the background overseeing all of Ryan's holdings? Or do you think that he is that entrepreneur? I think he's the guy, man. I think he might be the guy. I think he might be a leader in these companies.

So, but here's Mitt's thing. I said they're a sales and marketing organization cuz their commercials are wonderful and I think they're wonderful because he says a lot of funny stuff on the commercials and he just does a really good job of, uh, branding the company. And I think they knocked it out the park with that where they did a really good job of being irreverent but still professional. And I think that is what he does where he's like, This crosses the line. Here's the line that we can, we can tow and how far we can push it. And I think that's what he does, which I think is easily worth the 25% because if I had to guess, it's mostly a sales and marketing company and he crushed it.

So this is a person that found an influencer with distribution. They knew they could build a company, they got him involved and they put together the ultimate system. I, I love that business model.

I think it's awesome. Good job to Ryan Reynolds. Let's do two more. Yeah, let's do the original iPhone.

Yeah, let's do, we'll do this one quick. Uh, so a woman in 2007 buys an original iPhone, right? When it comes out, she keeps it in the box, doesn't touch it for 15 years and is now selling it, just sold it at an auction for $63,000. What are your thoughts on that?

Awesome. You want to know what I collect? This is weird. Um, but so my wife Sarah worked at Facebook. Now she works at Airbnb. So like these, like pretty like culturally important companies where we look back in 100 years and maybe it'll be like a Ford or something or GE. And so whenever she gets gifts, like from Airbnb, they brand it Airbnb. I tell her, don't open any of them. Uh, and I collect all of them. So I have like an Oculus that's unopened. I have Airbnb swag that's still in the gift box. I have Facebook, a Facebook book bag that's unused. I collect all of this stuff. I love it. I love collecting. This like iconic company stuff. And so what I want to get is a Silicon Valley Bank shirt. I really— or a Silicon Valley Bank hoodie or, uh, what's the Sam Bankman-Fried, uh, uh, yeah, FTX or what? FTX. I want to get one of those. I really want to— I would kill for a Theranos, um, or Theranos blood, blood thing. Like I collect all that stuff. When Twitter was auctioning off a lot of their office equipment, I tried to buy a bunch of it and I, and it all, it went all above what I was willing to pay. But I collect all that stuff. Now what I really want to get, I want to get a monitor, an old Apple, a Macintosh monitor that has the Apple with the, uh, like with the rainbow colors. Or I want to get the desktop Mac that— remember the ones that were pastel colors, like the blues and the pinks and all that stuff? I want one of those. I just want to hang it on my shelf. I love that stuff. This is awesome. I'm happy someone did this.

I fully support collecting and storing totally worthless shit. I think that everybody should buy a ton of totally worthless stuff and put it in storage units right now. Put it all right in a storage unit. And you can use a company called Bolt Storage to do that.

Just leave it forever.

I think you should just keep it for all time. But no, in reality, we bought a— I got a funny story. We bought a property at auction. It had 187 units. It was in Erie, Pennsylvania. We went and every unit had been abandoned. We had to go through and saw off like the locks and open them up and there was dust and there was craziness.

We found some really cool things.

We found a ton of really cool things. One, one unit had like 60 bags of white powder. We immediately called the police. We never found out if it was drugs or not. Another one had a squirrel holding a baseball bat. Another one had an old Indian motorcycle.

Oh, what type? Do you know what year?

I got a picture. I'll show you the picture when we get off this call.

What did you sell it for?

It auctioned. I have no idea. Like we can't, we technically couldn't touch anything in the units. We had to take pictures of them and have an online auction and the people bid on them. And then they came and cleared out the units.

Do you know how old it looked? Did it look like there's some '30s?

No, no, not that old. It was, it was probably like not that old of a pretty dumpy one. If I had to guess.

Oh dude, some of those old Indian motorcycles, you can get $50,000, $60,000, $70,000. Well, that's awesome. Um, that's badass. That's a lot of fun actually to go and like see all that crap. But anyway, on board with this lady who bought it, Ben, Do we know? Just some, some nerd, some fan.

Um, I don't think we know. I don't think we know.

Dude, I remember when that came out in 2007, I was a sophomore in high school and someone was watching YouTube on their phone and we were all like standing around it. And that was like, it was like hearing the Beatles for the first time, you know, it was like, it's pretty amazing. It was, it was mind-blowing seeing that. So that's awesome. Um, all right, let's do one more. All right.

Last one. The reason that Sean is not with us here today. A massive wind and rainstorm has left more than 200,000 people in the San Francisco Bay Area without power. Fellas, any thoughts and prayers for our comrades, for the working class people of the Bay Area? Any thoughts for those people?

Did that really happen? I didn't know why he didn't have power. I mean, that stinks.

I think every responsible— this is going to sound very radical. I think every responsible man should have provisions to keep their family alive for 2 weeks with no power and no internet.

What do you have?

Now, I'm not— I'm not a doomsday person who thinks they need to survive a zombie apocalypse and build a bunker to live for 6 months. But I think if you have a generator, some fuel, some ready-to-eat packages, and a way to get clean water, And a, like Hungry Man TV dinners. Yep. Of course. A way to defend your house. If people come for that stuff, you're gonna be better off. And every man should have that set up, in my opinion. It's like a very small investment and it goes a very long way if shit ever did hit the fan. Imagine being a wealthy person.

What do you have?

Sam, Sam, could you keep your family alive for 2 weeks if everything, if your phone, internet cut off, power cut off, everything gone? What would you do?

The grocery?

Don't tell me you're gonna go to the grocery store.

No, dude. I, I, I am a mini, I'm not quite a prepper, but no, I'm prepared. We have a, yeah, I have that. Uh, because when the Austin snowstorms happened and then COVID happened, and then when a lot of the riots were happening, I definitely got fearful. That's one of the reasons why I bought my ranch is we have stuff out there where we can bug out to. So I'm on board with that. Um, I don't think I'm ever going to have to use it, but, um, I agree. It's a very small price to pay for insurance. What do you do with the gas? Do you replace it every 6 months?

No, you put it in, uh, there's these things the military uses and you put stable in there and you can keep the gas safe for 5 to 10 years. You can order them right on Amazon for $90. You fill it up with 5 gallons of gas. That's all you need. Then you got a generator. You can keep your food cold and you know, your, your kids, kids warm. If it gets really cold, what type of food do you have? You order some, uh, I think Peak, Peak is the brand, P-A-K. Um, it's like a little freeze-dried food that'll last 20 years and you keep it in a little package.

In, uh, in, in January when, whenever COVID happened, um, I had this Chinese intern working for me. He had family in China and he was a, like a foreign exchange student and he was awesome. And he was, you know, on what's the app that they use? Uh, WeChat. And he was like, Sam, this COVID thing, this is like a huge deal. This is, it's gonna come to America. And I was like, hung. This is America, dude. We don't like wear masks. We don't have these types of things that Asia has. Like this, this doesn't happen here. Well, you're, you're crazy. The next month he goes, dude, it's coming. It's going to be here. And then March happens and we see in the news the first case in Seattle and then eventually Bay Area. And I was like, Hung, you're right. I'm wrong. I am so sorry. And I went immediately to the grocery store and bought as much crap as we could. And like, I had like storage. We, I remember like, I, I was like, you're right. Now I understand why. Why people are afraid of this stuff and why, like, the peppers exist. You're totally right. And ever since then, my opinion has, has changed on, uh, a lot of this stuff. So, uh, maybe it's like a man thing when you get a little bit older and start having a family. I'm not sure what it is, but COVID definitely opened my eyes to, like, you know, it's nice to prepare for just the worst-case scenario. I know a lot of guys who go way overboard and they, uh, like, they have 2 years worth of stuff.

I'm not into that slippery slope. That's the thing about prepping is it's a very slippery slope, and you got to have the discipline Hey, I don't need more than 2 weeks worth of crap to keep my family alive.

But you want to know the other issue? It's really, really fun. All the gadgets, like the different flashlights, the different generators, like I just love gadgets. So I just buy this stuff all the time. I just bought Sarah this like thing that will break your glass if it goes, if your car goes underwater. And she's like, when am I ever going to use this? I'm like, probably never. But like, it's sick. It was only $12 on Amazon. Like, I love all that crap. I'm into it all.

If you're listening, the best way to save a life, the best way to save a life is put a tourniquet in your glove box. Everybody should have a tourniquet because a motorcyclist— I have one. Yep. A, a motorcyclist or a cyclist gets hit on the road 95% of the time. You could save their life by being able to stop the bleeding, but a lot of people can't. So put a tourniquet in your car.

Dude, you saw the other day how I held that t-shirt up to that guy's head? Uh, like I saw a guy, I got, I saw a guy fall and I gave him my shirt and we stopped the bleeding yesterday at the meetup. A guy was like, uh, worked in the military. He goes, hey, I got this for you. And he gave me a tourniquet. And so he goes, next time this happens, here's how you use it. And I was like, all right. So I have a tourniquet in my car. Now. So I'm on board. Uh, that's the news. Is that it, Ben? That's it.

Thanks, guys.

Thanks for having me, boys.