This Guy Is Richer Than Jeff Bezos & Elon Musk... (#425)

All right, let's do this. What, what topics you got today?

I've got a Billy of the Week.

Million dollars isn't cool.

You know what's cool? A billion dollars. All right, so I'm going to tell you some facts about this Billy of the Week, and I want you to see if you can guess who this person is. All right.

Okay. I'm game.

So Steve Jobs appro— so one, one time Steve Jobs approached him, uh, on advice about designing the Apple Stores. And when they discussed each of their products, Steve said to this guy, I'm not sure if the iPhone is gonna be very popular in 20 years, but I'm certain that your products are definitely going to be popular. So that's one interesting thing about him.

Intriguing. Okay.

He's had multiple tennis matches with, with Roger Federer. He lives in a 150-year-old castle. And last year his company did $84 billion in revenue and $22 billion in operating profits. And This might give it away. This year, his company was the 4th largest company in the world, and oftentimes he's number 1 on the richest person in the world.

The Louis Vuitton guy.

The Louis Vuitton guy.

What's his name? René?

I don't know how to say his name because it's French. We're gonna call him Bernie, but, uh, it's, uh, it's Bernard Arnault. I don't know if the T's silent.

Sorry, but it's, it's usually not a hard T, but we're gonna go with that.

Yeah. Is that a hard T or is that a soft T? I don't, I don't know.

Bernie Arnie, you are the man. Uh, so, so Steve Jobs really went to this guy, huh, dude?

Yeah. And a lot of people really respect this guy. So I'll, I'll like give you a little bit about his background, but some facts about him. So he owns 46%. So the Louis Vuitton empire. It's called LVMH. So it's a multinational luxury goods conglomerate deal, market cap of $430 billion. Oftentimes him, Elon, and like Bezos go back and forth. But he's kind of the odd man out because he's not like— he like dresses really nice and he like looks as like a— someone who owns Louis Vuitton would look. He like has this black turtleneck and a nice sports jacket. But he's been called the— well, I believe it's like the, the, the wolf in cashmere sweaters or something like that, because he's like, he's pretty ruthless, but he like dresses nice. But, yeah, I'll tell you a little bit about him. So at 21, it's kind of an interesting background.

They call you the denim fox, right?

The denim fox. Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah. I wish.

The jort juggernaut is what they call you.

The dog in the Canadian tux. That's what I'm known for. The denim dog. So listen, at 21, Bernie joined his father's construction company after finishing his engineering degree. And by 25, he was the CEO of the company. The company wasn't small at all. Uh, at the time it was doing, uh, something like 10 million in revenue, which is the equivalent of 40 million now, and it had 1,000 employees. But right when he joined, he like, he said, let's expand. So we got into like some, he started investing, investing the profits in some finance businesses, into real estate, things like that. Then in 1981, he goes to the US and he starts expanding the business. And eventually he like specializes, specializes in townhomes. Sells a bunch of them, makes the equivalent of $75 million now, which was $25 million back then, or that's what he sold his company for. I don't know what he made from it, but there's an interesting thing that happens. So he's in the cab, he's in a taxi in New York, and he asked the taxi driver if he heard of the president of France. And the taxi driver was like, "Nope, never, but I know all about Christian Dior," who, you know, Dior's like a luxury brand. And he started thinking, he's like, okay, so this guy who's like just a normal guy in New York doesn't know who the president of France is, but he knows all about Christian Dior. Like, maybe I should explore, like, luxury brands. And so he buys the holding company eventually of Dior. And it was like all like he got inspired by that first taxicab meeting. He raises a bunch of money, buys it, fires a ton of people, turns it around, sells like the other brands that Dior owns. And it's a really good success. And that's like his first big entry into luxury brands. Then in 1987, he gets the idea to buy Louis Vuitton, and he does the same thing where he raises a bunch of money and he buys it and he fires a bunch of people and definitely turns it around.

Was Louis Vuitton a big deal? Was it doing— was it very successful at the time or was it like distressed?

It was.

Christian Dior was like distressed when he bought it.

They both were distressed, but they were both brands. And so that kind of brings us to like the big point here, which is, I mean, Louis Vuitton has been around for hundreds of years or at least 100 years. I think from since the 1800s, but they, they were kind of mismanaged. So have you seen that movie with, I think it's Lady Gaga, Lady Gaga, where she like is the, is that how they say it? Lady Gaga, where she, have you seen that movie where she plays like the wife of like the Gucci guy and like murders him?

I saw part of it. Yeah.

Yeah. You saw the trailer? Part of the movie, to be honest with you. Yeah. It was only Dece, but, uh, you know, big Gaga fan. So, uh, they, uh, it's like mismanaged. So like a lot of these family businesses, they like have great style, but it's kind of like, you know, like a, a, a singer managing their own career. Like maybe like, you know, the left part of the brain doesn't actually work well with business, but it works well with creating stuff. And so it was the same thing where it was definitely mismanaged. He raises all this money and he just turns them into an operation powerhouse. And then he just starts going on a, on a, on a spree where he starts buying all this stuff. So he owns all these brands. He owns a, you know, I don't freaking buy any of this shit, so I'm gonna look like an idiot talking about it. But Sephora, which is like the big makeup thing, Fendi, which is another popular thing. Bulgari, Marc Jacobs. Like, if everything that a woman aspires to own, he owns like a huge portion of that market. But I want to tell you about a few of the things that interest or that make me interested in this guy. And first, have you— have you heard about him? Do you know anything about him?

I had only seen him because he's at the top of the rich list and he's, you know, LVMH. But I didn't know— I didn't know this backstory. So go on.

So what interests me about him is I think Peter Thiel has this book. What's that book called?

Zero to One.

Zero to One. And it's awesome. I really like reading that book and it kind of had an impact on me where he talked about like extreme personalities and having extreme results and all about like an engineering culture, yada, yada, yada. But there's one part of the book where he lists out all the moats. He's like, you can have like, you can like know like a secret that no one else knows. You could have like a patent. You could have technology that no one else has, whatever. But and then he mentions there's this one moat called brand. That's a huge moat.

And I think he's like, I never understood brand, so I don't invest in this.

There's one sentence that he says, this is definitely a moat. Not for me. I don't get it. I don't understand it. And I always thought that was funny because when a lot of like tech people discuss moats, they talk about like technology, network effects, yada yada yada. Rarely do they discuss brand. Well, this guy Bernie, that's truly what he understood where he was like, no, they're like, that's where all my margin is, is because I can create a brand. I'm gonna create luxury goods. I'm gonna get luxury margins. And not only that, it's gonna live for forever. So, uh, Louis Vuitton, by the way, was founded in 1854. And he ba— his whole thing was like, uh, in 10 years there'll be far fewer luxury brands and the ones that survive will be more important because people are getting richer and richer and richer. And if a brand has been around for 50 years, he thinks it can be around for another 50 or 150 years. So that's like his whole shtick. And I thought that was interesting. And he has this rare combo of operational excellence and also like good style and understanding brand. 'Cause typically, this might be an overreaching statement, but a lot of times these really rich people are like, maybe like, what's his name? Warren Buffett might be a little bit like that where he like sees like what a good business is and he's like, well, I don't care. This could probably last for a long time. Let's just do it. I can look at the spreadsheets and I can understand it. And then other times there's people who are like, this is a sick brand and they just totally, but they totally mismanage it and they're not numbers oriented. But then you got a guy like this guy who like does a pretty good job of like being pretty ruthless that you like, you need to be in order to make the business hugely profitable and very successful. But also like understands like vision and some of these intangible things basically like how to make shit cool, which is very, very, very challenging. And it's hard to have just that let alone both of those features. So, I thought that guy was interesting. And he has a few interesting quotes and I'll wrap up. So, "Luxury goods are the only area in which it is possible to make luxury margins. For me, luxury is how do you create desire?" And then he says, "I'm optimistic long-term, pessimistic short-term." So, interesting, interesting guy.

Here's another one I think that's like something about being rich without being famous. He has some quote like that.

And he's not quite a recluse, but he like, owns this island in the Bahamas where he spends most of his time, obviously flies private and is somewhat under the radar compared to Bezos, who's in the news with his, you know, new girlfriend and things like that. This guy's pretty low-key in his business. He owns like all the voting shares and all that. And when he dies, he always says he's giving 20% to each of his 5 children and it's run like a family business. So in that regard, he's pretty low-key and out of, out of the, out of media Mostly, right?

Uh, yeah. Okay. I can't, can't really fully find it, but, uh, he had said some, there's some French phrase, which is like the only, uh, something about, uh, something about being, you know, being happy. Uh, you know, basically it was, it was, it was something around the idea of you want to be wealthy, but not rich. And he had some cool French way of saying it, but I can't find it off the top of my head here.

Well, it'd be like, it'd be a lot cooler if you did, but that's all right. Sure would. Well, that's my, that's my Billy of the week. Dude, I have another like weird internet culture thing that I was, uh, kind of related to like your engineers. I was thinking about this and I think that what I'm about to say is incredibly not normal, but I think for you it's normal and it's incredibly normal for me and it's probably normal for a bunch of our friends. So I was thinking about this. We got, we, I have this new researcher that you're trying to steal from me a little bit. Um, and he, I met him through a friend of a friend, but it all started on Twitter and the Twitter DMs. And without talking to this person, like, uh, uh, whether phone or, or Zoom or whatever, meeting in person, we just like text and we hire them and we do a business exchange. And like, you put a lot of trust in one another. And I've realized I've done this like 20 times where some of like my best coworkers and best, uh, some of my best friends, in fact, It just started like through internet culture and we very rarely exchange words and we've done like some relatively big business together where we're like exchanging tens of thousands of dollars a month or we've invested one another companies or whatever. So I've done it with the partner of my latest company, Joe. We basically were Facebook friends. Have you ever met? Yeah, maybe only like 6 times. But like we knew each other for like 5 years before we really like talked a lot in person. I've done it with this guy Diego who, uh, I'm helping him with his agency business.

I, by the way, I heard a funny story from about you on this. So, uh, somebody who's worked with you goes, yeah, Sam gave me the login to his Instagram or something like that, or to LinkedIn. I don't know what it was. And what is it that you requested back from this internet stranger, Sam?

I asked for his social security number. I asked for his girlfriend's social security number. I asked for, uh, a picture ID of both him and his girlfriend and a utility bill. So I knew exactly where he lived.

The Sam Parr School of Background Checks. Like, dude, what is your plan? Okay, let's say— what is he going to do? All right, let's say he posts something or changes the password. What are you going to do with this utility bill and his Social Security number? What is your— what is your revenge?

Well, I don't know, but I know it's scary enough that if someone has that, I don't know, sign them up for a credit card. I would, I would show up to his house for sure.

I would commit a crime.

Yeah, I don't know, but, uh, I don't know, maybe it's like scary enough that it worked. But have you done this? Have you like done business with a bunch of— it's not anonymous people because you actually get to know them, but internet, it's like a weird internet.

Totally, totally. That's like very normal now at this point, which is strange. It shouldn't— almost feels like it shouldn't be normal, but it is.

I don't think it's normal for most people.

I mean, it just seems natural. I feel like I know these people. I see their writing or I hear their podcasts or they, they email me a bunch of times and we go back and forth and then they're in my Slack. And then so sure enough, it's like, hey, you know, here's everything. Yeah. Here's the keys to the castle. And once you get that, once you're working together or you're doing things together, that builds even more trust and it just layers on. And then you meet them 4 years later and you're like, you see them in person and then you're like, nice to meet you. Uh, you know, you don't know what to say. It's like nice to see your, nice to see your body. That's really the accurate way to say it. Nice to see your face finally.

Yeah, like sick legs. Dude, I'm okay not meeting these people. I like it how it is. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. Like, I enjoy these types of relationships.

Yeah, it's a feature, not a bug, right?

For sure. And we have this one dev. I have this dev working on a project, uh, that I have, and he's in Hong Kong and he's in high school and he built this amazing thing. And I don't really know anything about him other than I wanna work with you for a very long time. And like, I was just, the, he sent me some of his work and it was so awesome. And I just realized this is super odd and also amazing. And I don't think a lot of people realize that you could like do business like this. 'Cause I'll tell my family and they'll think I'm crazy, but it's become so normal at this point that I don't even, I, I forget that it's not normal amongst others.

Right, right. Yeah, totally. I've also, a lot of my real life friends, I just sort of like shifted more to online. I'm like, Hey, let's— we can hang out 10 times more through the group chat and through a bunch of, a bunch of these little, like, like, you know, apps or things like that. I feel like I get to know them better that way almost. And, you know, ain't nobody got time to hang out in person anymore.

And now we know why the birth rate in America is declining rapidly. But yeah, this basically, like, is, uh, a thing that I do, and I thought I should bring that up because I don't think most people realize, like, how some of that stuff happens. And it's actually quite random how it happens. But if I see like a 19-year-old who's like impressive or like a 21 who's impressive and like writes well and is like clever in my DMs, some— this sounds like creepy, but I'm like, I'm, I'm, I'm interested in giving them a shot on something. And so it's really cool how these like little projects actually turn into like pretty meaningful things after a while.

Right? Yeah. They're IYBs, interesting young boys. And Sam's got a list.

Isn't that a Michael Jackson song? Pretty IOP. Pretty I.O.B.

Yeah, pretty little things.

RIP, no disrespect.

All right, I want to tell you about somebody interesting I met recently too. So did we talk about Chris, uh, Sparling on the podcast yet?

Yeah, so, uh, we have this great friend named Andrew Wilkinson who has maybe close to a billion-dollar empire, and Chris is his partner in crime.

And I had never met him until we went to that event in Vancouver for the show.

And you guys are really similar. You guys are very similar.

Me and him?

You have similar— some, some similar, uh, parts of you.

Yeah, yeah, for sure. Um, a couple of, a couple of observations I would say about him. Um, I wanna— I want you to tell me if you— because you've interacted with him, right? You've met him?

Only a couple times, but yeah.

And we're both very interested in these kind of like high performers, especially in this case, it's a high performer who went and built their own island and did— they won in their signature way. I think that that's particularly what's interesting to us. Like if somebody's just like, I don't know, some VP at Google, I'm a lot less interested than somebody like Chris who basically made their own path. I think he, you know, Andrew met him when he was working at a bank. He was like a banker, uh, not like a cool investment banker, but like a go-to-the-bank-I-need-to-write-a-check banker. And they started talking about cars because Andrew drove up in a cool car, and, uh, they both nerded out about cars. And then they were like, okay, what's going on? You know, what do you need for— you're getting like a line of credit or whatever for your business? What's your business? Uh, Chris was like, yeah, I'm like studying to be like a CPA, or like I'm about to get my, my license to be an accountant or something like that. And, um, Andrew was like, hey, you want to just leave here with me and like, you know, work with me?

And, uh, you know, Chris actually happened at the bank.

He didn't say it like that, but he, you know, he offered him a job. He said, you should come work with me, uh, like I need help. He, at the time, Andrew just had Meta Lab, his design agency, was doing well and, um, had gotten to maybe a couple million dollars a year of profit. Um, you know, let's call it I don't know, 4 or 5 years in, something like that. Uh, but so, so he hadn't started what became Tiny, which was acquiring a bunch of other internet companies. And so Chris tells the story. Here's some of the things I took away from this, uh, this, this meeting. So one interesting part of the story, he goes, so my first day at work, I show up, uh, Andrew's not there. I'm just like waiting at the door and, um, 30 minutes go by, Andrew's not there. Andrew rolls up in an Uber with like, you know, one AirPod hanging out of his ear or whatever. And he's got, he opens up the trunk, he takes out this giant box full of papers. Oh yeah. And he's like, he's like, you're here. Okay, fantastic. Here's, uh, all of our papers for like, you know, here's the business finances. Um, I gotta go to a meeting and there's no office space for you. So I talked to my neighbor, they have room in their basement. So just go knock on the door, tell 'em you're with Andrew and like there's a desk in their basement and like here's this box of papers. Then he's like, Andrew left. And Chris is like, man, I made a huge mistake. Uh, who is this guy? What, what is happening here? He goes, he knocks on the door. He's like, hey, um, do you have like a basement desk for me? They're like, yeah, yeah, come on in.

And it's like when you see the guy with the hole in his boot, you know you're there.

Make a right. His boot. Exactly. He's like, so that's how it started. And then I go, okay, so then that time he's just doing Metalab. So what, how did this become Tiny? And he goes, uh, well, we looked at the business and the business was good. Business was generating revenue, was generating profit. And I was like, okay, well, like, what do we do with this profit? Um, What are we supposed to, you know, should we reinvest this in some way into the business? Like, can we grow? Can we, should we hire people? He goes, oh, I don't know. What do all agencies do? He goes, agencies hire a bunch of people, uh, and then buy fancy offices and they put a basketball hoop in the office. Like, you know, they put a, a play pit in the office. And he's like, yeah, that doesn't seem like a good idea. We should not do that. That's kind of the only thing they agreed on. Let's not do that. They go, well, okay, we can't follow agencies to figure out what we should do. Like, you know, how should we think about this? And they go, well, Look, we're a business that has clients and we have, you know, like a service team and then we have some profits. Like we are a boring law firm. Let's just pretend we're a boring law firm. Uh, let's not try to be a cool agency. Let's be a boring law firm and not get too high on our own supply. Okay, so what, what could we do with these profits if we weren't gonna like try to just get flashier and flashier with the design agency? Um, and that's where they decided, let's buy a better business than our current business. So like, let's buy a business that has recurring revenues, maybe that has less service-oriented, more of a product, and let's use the profits from the service business to buy increasingly better businesses. So I thought, I like that story, that frame. I enjoyed that.

And, and what was the first thing that they bought? Was it Dribbble?

No, that wasn't the first thing. I don't, I don't know. I don't know exactly what the first thing they bought is, but honestly it was probably another agency is my guess. But you know, regardless, that, that's kind of the start of their journey. So I had never met Chris. Andrew, uh, talks a little bit about him, but you know, you never really know, uh, what people are like. Here's my observations. Chris had the juice and it was very surprising to me that Chris had the juice because normally in these partnerships there's like the outgoing, uh, face of the brand that everybody knows. And then there's like the quiet, silent but deadly operational partner or finance partner, whoever partner that's like, doesn't really care about the spotlight, um, and usually is more reserved. I would say most of that is true, but at this dinner, I thought it was remarkable that he was kind of like this, like, it was shy, but he still had the juice. And I've never really seen that combo before. Like, I think he would have rather just been at home reading a book, but he had this thing which is like, I'm at this dinner, so the flip is— the switch is flipped. And he was like super talkative, and not with— not because he's Mr. Charisma, or he's not like dripping with like, you know, he's like, this smooth charm.

He has wisdom.

It feels like he was, he was just like, I would call it honest. He was just like, he would ask a question and if you said something, he'd be like, hold on, hold on. So is it like this? Or he'd be like, but you're saying this, is that because you think that? Or is that because your parents taught you that? Why did you say that? And he would ask these questions that were very pointed.

That's what reminds, that's one of the ways in which you guys are similar is you ask those same questions.

I do. And I, so I was eating it up. I was loving it.

Yeah.

I was like, oh, this guy's right up my alley. The other thing he did that was like me, but times 10, is he was like Mr. Framework.

Exactly. You guys are the exact same way for that reason.

I called him out at the dinner. I was like, bro, you have just named 14 different like cognitive biases in one dinner. That's crazy. Like, he'd be like, it's like the Streisand effect mixed with the thing that, you know, the, the, the, the, the, like, you know, the sucker's bias. And it's like, what are you talking about? He had just like an index. He had an index of mental models. I was like, this— I was like, did you download Twitter threads and you just memorize them? Like, how do you know all this? And why are they so top of mind for you? And that's really how he thinks. He truly seems to think that way, which I thought was really interesting.

Well, you know why? So Andrew told me this. I don't know, like, the— what Chris's story is, but Andrew said they basically were like building their own companies and like reinvesting the profits into building their own things. And then they read the biography of Warren Buffett. I think it's called Snowball or something. And then they read like a Charlie Munger book and they go, oh yeah, let's do this instead. And so they start buying companies that work and they have the, you know, like I think Tiny's website says we buy wonderful companies. That's basically, I think exactly what Buffett said. Uh, at one point.

Tiny's just, we buy wonderful internet companies and then there's, but Berkshire just doesn't have internet in it.

Right. And so they basically stole, uh, you know, a lot of Buffett's really great ideas. And also, have you ever read a Charlie Munger book or anything by Charlie Munger?

Yeah, yeah, for sure, dude.

There are frameworks about everything. There's like one's called like Poor Charlie's Almanac, I think it's called. And it's like 88 different frameworks. I started reading it and I'm like, dude, I need a story here.

But yeah, it was a very strange book. People say they love that book and I'm convinced that anybody who says they love that book hasn't actually opened it because when you open it, it's not even like a book. It's like a, uh, have you, have you, have you actually opened the book?

Yeah, I read the whole thing and I, I found it very hard to even remember stuff. It's hard to read, dude. It's like a, it's like a list of rules. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like the table of contents, except it's long. It's a very challenging book to read. But what I remember from the book and then hanging out with Chris is like, oh, you read a lot of Munger because you guys are sort of similar in that framework. And another thing Buffett does is like he'll say things— I forget exactly what he phrases, but he's like, you know, why kill a mouse? Why kill a mouse when we can go and shoot an elephant? Like, he'll say things like this, or he'll like create some analogy.

Picking up pennies in front of a steamroller or, you know, these things. He said that to me. We were talking about something. He goes, so is that like Diomekle's sword that slays the beast? And I was like, I was like, what the fuck are you talking about? Like, I was like, uh, I don't know what that is. What are you saying in English? And he's like, no, like, you know, the story of Diomekle, whoever, some Greek guy. And I was like, no, I don't know any of these things. What are you talking about?

Yeah. It's like, dude, I need an analogy for your analogy. But I've noticed that Chris, uh, the limited time that I've been around him, he does the same thing where I can tell who he's read and he's really good at what he does. And I think he's also naturally like that. He just like thinks in frameworks and analogies and things like that. He can take complicated things and make them quite simple.

Totally. And he, uh, I think he's really, really like super curious, which I really respected about him. Like I felt like when he was asking questions, he wasn't doing it to make conversation. He was doing it because he actually really wanted to know the answer. He was genuinely interested. And I think that comes up, comes off. And I think that is a huge, um, saving grace for— I think people overthink how to be in social situations and like, you know, the easiest hack is just simply genuinely be interested in the other person. Everything else will work itself out. Um, that's how I felt about Chris and I really liked that. We had an interesting dinner conversation. I'll share one, uh, one little tidbit that, that can take a dinner conversation from surface level to a lot more interesting. And, um, I forgot who was talking. It was the CEO of something. And, um, she said something and I go, I go, let me ask you a question. It's a little bit, a little bit of a weird question. Can I ask you? And she's like, yeah. And I go, um, growing up, I said, what you said was really interesting just now. And it made me wonder why you, why you wanted that so bad growing up. Whose love did you want more, your mom or your dad's?

Oh my God.

And, uh, you know, she immediately like, it's like, you know, taken, taken aback by the question, but then kind of answers. and then, and people open up about their, like, they, they open up about their relationship with their parents and also like, it's kind of like, where'd that chip on your shoulder come from is really what this question is asking. And I stole this from Tony Robbins. Tony Robbins asked this question and I saw that like in most of, he does these like, uh, live kind of coaching sessions or whatever with people during his events. And he had asked this question and it immediately found like the actual answer to the, to the problem. And since then I've like kept this question in my back pocket and I ask it from time to time. It's a very revealing question. Um, hard to say without sounding like just like a pretentious prick. Um, yeah.

Did you have like your, like glasses, like in your mouth?

Like, yeah, yeah, exactly. You got it. The tip of the frame, the tip of the glass needs to go into the mouth and you have to be wearing a turtleneck. But if you do happen to have a turtleneck on, it is such a good turtleneck question.

That's ridiculous. And it worked. Oh, it worked.

And then the whole, the whole table kind of shared their answers to it. And it went from like, all right, we can either sit here and we'll go 1 inch deep or like we ended up 50 feet deep. And I felt like everybody actually felt like they knew each other. And, um, and it was like after the fact, it was like, so what do you do again? It's like, you know, you're trying to, it kind of reversed the order of how most of these like kind of networking dinners go. And I've been to a lot of these. And so like, I appreciate something that can break out of that, the surface level, you know, surface level stuff, fluff. That's not really that interesting.

Dude, I was at this one dinner recently and this guy who was a younger guy and he was like a fan of our stuff. So he was, and he like clearly like was learning how to interact with people. Like he was like an internet guy who like read How to Win Friends and Influence People. And the first thing that he said to me and my wife was like, he was trying to do what you did. And he asked us like, why didn't you guys 'When did you first have sex and what was it like?' Uh, and I swear to God, and I like, I, I was so frustrated and I was like, 'I'll answer your question, but you gotta answer mine first. How much money is in your checking account? How long is your dick? And what was it like when you saw your parents having sex for the first time?' And he was like, 'What?' I go, 'Yeah, that's weird, right? I don't want to talk about that. Don't be weird.' And he clearly had like red like a book on how to do this. And then he like saw something you said and thought that would've been a good idea. And it wasn't, it was a total mess.

Well, there's something that you gotta do, right? You can't just ask out of the blue.

Oh, he did.

The only reason this question worked on ours was because when somebody's explaining the chip, like they have this chip on their shoulder, you're basically, it's a natural question to ask, where did it come from? And then they give you some bullshit answer. You say, all right, let me ask you a different question. And you, you dig in that way. You can't just go up to somebody and be like, hello, I'm Sean. Nice to meet you. Hey, I was curious, what's your deepest, darkest secret, right? Like, it doesn't really work like that.

Yeah, it was weird, man. It was weird. It was one of these guys— I'm, uh, it was horrible. Uh, but you pulled it off. This data is wrong every freaking time. Have you heard of HubSpot? HubSpot is a CRM platform where everything is fully integrated. Whoa, I can see the client's whole history—

calls, support tickets, emails.

And here's a task from 3 days ago I totally missed. HubSpot, grow better. All right, what else you got?

Um, okay. Oh, I'll give you one other, uh, Chris little gem that, that came out of the, the talk. Uh, somebody was telling a story about somebody else and, and it was kind of a story that was like, uh, what do they call it? Like a romp, which is basically like a, like, like a, like, it's like a, It's like a tale about like your, you know, you could tell a tale of like your drunken days and this is the crazy thing that happened. We almost got arrested, then we ended up fine, right? It's like, it's a story that doesn't have a lot of like, it's not like a meaningful story. It's an entertaining story. And, um, and so person telling this story about like this business romp. So somebody was like gonna get rich and then they like went almost broke and then now they're okay. And like, you know, whatever happened. And he goes, and the takeaway was, you know, that, you know, that person they said, yeah, they could have sold the top and made a bunch of money, but they said, well, if I had done that, then I wouldn't have blah, blah, blah, blah. And he said something that has stuck with me, which he goes, do you think that's the right lesson to learn out of that? And he goes, I wonder that sometimes. He goes, people always talk about how the lessons that they learn—

Chris said this?

Chris. And he goes, He goes, a question I've often asked is like, is this person somebody who's learning the right lesson out of things? And I thought it was so funny. It was like a blunt thing to say. So I loved it already. The second thing was, it's so true. I look around the people around me in life that I encounter and very rarely, like if, like a lot of people have experience, go through experiences and think they learn a lesson. But if I was to measure like the hit rate of are they actually having the correct takeaway out of a situation? It's shockingly low. And I think that that is one of the greatest indicators of success is are you actually able to learn the correct lesson from your life experiences? Um, nobody's 100% on that cuz we all have weird things where we'll blame other people or we'll glorify ourselves and not realize that we just got lucky. We'll, we'll do weird things like that. But, um, I realized, oh, I want to only be around and work with people and hire people who are high on this score. I don't really care how much experience you have, but if you don't take away the right lesson from the experiences you're going, that you have, uh, and that you're going to have, your rate of learning is just going to like, it'll be a different rate or you'll just end up in some weird trajectory where you'll just do dumb shit because you're taking away the wrong lessons from your life experiences. And I just never heard somebody say that out loud and it really stood out to me and it's like, now I see it everywhere.

That's a, that's a really good question. I wonder if that is something that he came up with or like was inspired by. I mean, that's a hard thing to, that's a real unique, that's a really unique question.

He said it kind of as an offhand comment. This one wasn't one of his like frameworks or like go-tos. I could tell it was just like, he literally just asked the question cuz he was curi— cuz it was so, he heard like, it was kind of like, uh, you know when somebody starts a sentence and you kind of, your brain is trying to fill in the blank of the last thing they're gonna say and then they say something totally different. You're like, that is not where I thought you were going with that. That's what happened in the story. It's like 90% of it kind of made sense. And then the last 10% of the conclusion was like some other weird conclusion. And he was like, what is that? Wait, that was the conclusion? I feel like the conclusion should have been X, but you're saying their takeaway was Y. What? Uh, and, and, and so I don't even think he really meant it that way or he really put that much weight into it. But that was my, my golden nugget of that dinner was that one question. And, uh, and I can't, I literally can't stop seeing it everywhere now. Like my kid does something, my wife does something, I do something. And I, I started to think back. I was like, in what areas did I take away the wrong lesson? Like, I don't know if you think back in your life, can you think of an example where if you, if you're honest with yourself, it's like, yeah, actually I kind of learned the wrong, I kind of, did I even learn the right lesson from that? Was that the right answer?

There's a few things like, you know how that phrase like fail fast, like I used to believe that that was cool. And then I'm like, I'd rather succeed fast. Like, uh, like it's a, yeah, like I'd rather not fail and like, how could I succeed faster than I fail? And I remember thinking it like for years I was thinking, well, it's okay. I tried something and I'm like, but like if I'm a baseball player and I take lots of swings, but I don't get any hits, like that's bad. That's not good. That's very bad. So the lesson here is I should swing and also have a high batting average. And I remember thinking like, oh, just shots on goal. That's all. That's all that matters. But I'm like, No, I need a score too. And so for years, like, I thought it was okay to fail because I'm like, oh, I'm failing fast. I'm moving fast. I'm breaking things, whatever. And then I'm like, maybe I shouldn't break things and I should actually like succeed fast. And I remember like that, like it changed like 5 years ago.

Yeah. Yeah, totally. Uh, yeah, I can think of a bunch of examples in my life where I've, I think messed that up, but now I've learned that's not the case.

Did you learn the right lesson when you got roasted by some people for posting your private chef? Dude, you posted this picture of this nice looking food and people are like, dude, your blood glucose is going to spike and you're going to be so unproductive because you're eating rice. Uh, I thought that was pretty funny. All the, all the hate you got. Yeah.

Also, that wasn't rice.

Whatever it was, people were like giving you a hard time. I thought it was pretty funny. You only clapped back a few of them.

There was 3 or 4 reactions. Reaction 1. So what did I do? I posted a tweet that was just like, I was having a delicious meal. I was so happy I was having this meal. I said, best life decision was hiring a family chef. And there was 4 reactions. There was the predictable positive, which was, ooh, yum, looks good. There was predictable negative, which was, hey, douchebag, people are struggling in the world. You're posting this like your nice flex, you know, asshole. Uh, so there's predictable negative. There was the predictable, um, next question, which was, how much does this actually cost? Um, you know, like, what goes into this? Which is a fine question. No, no problem. And then, uh, and then there was just like, you know, whatever the, the sort of like the, the, the random or like the, the interesting, the, I think the person who had the right answer from it, which was you either should just move on if it's not interesting to you, or if it is interesting to you, you should be like, Yeah, that's something I want in my life. Let me put, bring that back to the front of my brain, um, as something that like, you know, I, I kind of want.

And, um, I thought that, I thought it was very funny.

I didn't even know I wanted that until I met somebody who had a private chef and I was like, wow, this is incredible. So you're telling me like instead of them having to cook 3 meals a day and they're, they're, you know, also they have a wife and kids, like, you know, instead of their whole family have to cook 3 meals a day, do grocery shopping, do the dishes to end up with a meal that doesn't taste as good, isn't as healthy, and takes up, you know, probably on average 3 to 5 hours, you know, per day if you average it all out, including the groceries and the cleaning and the cooking and all of it. And, you know, but by the way, 3 hours a day out of your like, you know, people have only have like 16 waking hours, right? Like this is a, it's a really significant chunk of time per day. I was like, well, I saw it and I was like, oh, that's a goal that I didn't even know I should have, but I want that. And I want that way more than I want, you know, a ski home in Tahoe or like a fancy car or those types of things. And then I didn't do anything about it for a while because I assumed, oh, you got to be like a billionaire to have that.

No, you can get them for as cheap as maybe $1,000 a month, maybe.

And then I was like, oh, let me do the math. Like, how much do you actually need to do this? And then I did the math. I was like, oh, I think I could do this now. And then I just did it and my life got way better. And so I posted it because, hey, just whatever, it's Twitter. I didn't really think too much about it. But like, um, you know, there is a benefit in seeing somebody's, uh, like somebody do a decision in life or have something in life that, uh, is attractive to you and brings it, you know, to your attention and makes you think about, do I want this? Do I not? Uh, can I have this? Can I not? You know, I think there's some value in that too. So anyways, that's, that's my story on the tweet.

I thought it was pretty funny. Um, I thought it was hilarious. I am, I was frustrated you didn't like holler at some of these people. I almost started replying to them for you.

Yeah. I haven't decided if I'm a heel or a face yet. So to use wrestling terms, like, um, I'm tempted to just be a heel.

Uh, you know, like it's way easier in the tech world.

I would say like, uh, what's his name? The, the dude who loves Barry, Keith Raboi.

Yeah. It's like I called him out. I, I don't like that guy.

Well, you don't like him because he's a heel, uh, which is funny, right? Uh, you know, he basically, um, doesn't mind pissing people off, telling people, telling people off, whatever it is. And like, that's his brand. And he— and some people are like, man, I love it, this guy just tells it like it is, or he's funny, or, you know, he must be— you know, he basically has this aura of I'm better than you, like, like many great wrestling villains. And, um, and he'll tell you how much you suck. And so people, some people hate that. A lot of the majority of people hate that. And then there's a minority of people that love that and find him like interesting. And either way, you can't ignore him. He's like a, you have to take a position because it's so, um, polarizing. It's not just like, you know, vanilla. And I would say you actually do a lot of what he does where, uh, I don't think you think you're doing it, uh, because you're like, I didn't say anything bad. It's like, bro, you put a period at the end of that line. That just, you know, when you put the period there, you're saying like, that's a middle finger. Do you know you're doing it when you're doing it, or?

Not all the time, maybe some of the time, but I think I don't like— like, I'm kind of a stickler with language. Like, I like using certain words. So if someone like says something and they end it in a question mark, my reply will be like, I don't know if you're asking a question or if you're getting me to agree with you.

You're stupid.

Or do you know what I mean? Like, I just— it like— I just like— or when people like sensationalize things, like, we'll just say like Well, this happens all of the time. Like, for example, someone replied to you and they go, I've been seeing a lot of this lately. My example, what I want to reply with is like, oh, okay, well, what are some other examples? Right. Uh, do you like, I, I, it's like, I just don't like when you say that.

I think I did. I was like, like what? Uh, yeah. Just curious. Like, like what, what are you talking about?

I'm a, I'm a stickler with language. I don't like when people say this always happens or this never happens or these people are everywhere. Like things like that. I don't like that phrase or this is so common. That is becoming an issue. I'm like, well, I actually don't think that it's any more common than it has ever been. Anyway, so I'm an asshole about that. You want to do one more topic?

Yeah, let's do— do you have one?

No, I blew my load early.

Oh wow. Just all in on Bernie, huh?

And the internet thing.

Why do you think it is that I generate so many more ideas than you? Let's go. Let's get— did your mommy not love you or your daddy not love you?

If we look at the 3 years that we've done this, I think it ebbs and flows. I think that each person goes on a—

No chance, dude.

Dude, each person goes on a 3-month, like, run. Dude, 100%. I think you talk more, but I don't think that— I don't think that you necessarily bring more topics.

Right, right.

I think that when I was selling—

I don't know what you believe that, but thanks for your permission.

When I was selling The Hustle, You carried me when you were selling Milk Road. My shoulders got tired. That's all I'm gonna say.

These delts weren't, weren't getting come from nothing. These are Milk Road delts.

That's all I'm gonna say. So I think it ebbs and flows.

There was a, there's a guy who basically took every idea from the podcast and put it in a database. This is how I know I win because he took every idea from the podcast and put it in a database and he said it was 75% me, 25% you. But that's specifically on ideas, not topics.

But that's maybe ideas. Yeah. Yes. Like this Bernie guy, that's not an idea, right? Come on, that's, that, that's, that's—

you're definitely, you're definitely the king of the billionaire of the week. I think, uh, you somehow know a bunch of these old-ass fuckers in different spaces, and, uh, and you, you find these guys. I don't know how you find these guys or how you think of—

just Wikipedia, bro.

Yeah, but like, why do they even get on your radar? You'll be like, this guy used to own this coal mine and then he bought the shoe factory and then he owns, like, you know, you ever read the St. Louis Post? And I'm like, nah, you're like, he owns that. So I'm like, I don't know how you found this guy, but you know, more power to you.

I just fucking books.

Can I give you, okay, let me give you a couple, uh, let me do an idea. I'm gonna go rapid fire. I'm gonna, I'm gonna just empty the chamber here on some, some things that have been on my list. Um, I have a D2C idea that I'd like to do.

Pass.

Uh, by I'd like to do, I means I'm not gonna do it, but I want to invest and advise somebody who does it, who's really good.

Wait, do you still ever wanna launch an e-com store?

Uh, I don't know. I'm torn. I don't want to operate it myself, but I do want to like incubate them. I do want to like incubate them and hire a CEO that would run them in theory. But, uh, that might also be difficult. Um, so I have a gut health one. So gut health is, uh, this is nothing new. So let me just start this by saying, oh bro, this, that exists. Yeah, I know it exists. Um, almost every D2C idea you've had exists. Um, Gut health is a, uh, a trend that is going up, up and up, and it fits a sales model that really works with D2C. What do I mean by that?

You mean you could just buy it over and over again? You never know if it actually works.

So what works in D2C? Uh, a D2C pro— a great D2C product is one that is gonna be high margin. So maybe, uh, can you get to 75, 80% gross margins? Well, with supplements you can get to 80, 85% gross margin. So that's fantastic on the product itself. The next thing that works in D2C is that it's a repeat purchase or it's a consumable. So something that somebody's going to buy many times, they'll shop from you again and again because either they ran out, they ate it, they drank it, or the, you know, the deodorant stick ran out, whatever it is.

Unlike a mattress.

Unlike a mattress. Um, so, so you want something that people grow out of or run out of. And, um, So, so high repeat purchase rate. Well, supplements have that as well. Health and wellness has that, um, as well. You want something that is a, uh, is a problem solution fit. So basically you want something that is not just like a kind of nice to have fashion item. Um, what works better, uh, in what, what sells better is something that you can just say, do you have this problem? We have this solution. And this is why you see, if you go scroll down to the bottom of a New York Post article, you're gonna see a toe fungus ad. Why is a toe fungus ad always there? Because guess what? People have toe fungus. It's a very easy problem to point out, and people are looking for a solution and willing to buy something that tells them, that promises them that it's going to go away.

So, uh, do you remember, um, the prom— the best promise solution ever is, uh, Claude Hopkins. He invented the advertising for toothpaste in the 1920s, and he said rub your tongue over the— your teeth. You feel that film? Now brush with our toothpaste, Crest. Now rub your tongue over your front teeth. Right. That was the best problem. That's like an easy to understand, like, oh, I see exactly what you mean. Well, and this, this solves it.

Why that one's even better is when you get to be the one diagnosing the problem, you have way more authority and you're basically creating a new problem category for people that they weren't fully aware of. And so this happened. This is why I like gut health a lot. 5 years ago, I didn't hear anybody talking about gut microbiome, leaky gut.

I personally, leaky gut.

I'm sure there was something.

I love that. I love that phrase. It's beautiful branding.

I hear leaky gut.

I have, I'm on board.

I have a family member who's just like, oh, I'm super worried about leaky gut. And I'm like, what? And then she's like, yeah, I bought every book. I watch these YouTube videos and dude, it scares the shit out of me. And like now I drink apple cider vinegar. I do this, I do that. I'm like, Hmm, interesting. Somebody just like created a problem, taught you about it. You may or may not have it. No way to know.

It's a beautiful word.

And you bought a bunch of solutions and it was branded in this way that sounded horrible. I don't want a leaky gut.

It's a, it's a, it's a spooky, it's what it is. It's a spooky phrase. Just like cleansing. It's like, I'm going to do a juice cleanse. Like, bro, I don't think like this juice is like a pipe cleaner and it like is going through pipes.

I don't know if that's how it works. So I, um, So I bought this domain, drinkguts.com, and I have this idea for this brand called Guts. And Guts is basically a drink that, uh, that you drink for— it's like, it's like a protein powder and you drink it for gut health. And, um, it helps with digestion. So a lot of people who are either constipated or going to the bathroom all the time, uh, it helps with weight loss, it helps with, uh, sugar control, it helps with those, those sorts of things. Um, so yeah, so I think I can incubate this brand and I just need an amazing marketing CEO. And so I'm looking for that.

Um, have you, uh, Have you heard of Olipop?

I've heard of Olipop. I've drank an Olipop before. Yeah.

So Olipop is basically— it looks like a soda or a seltzer. It looks exactly like this. I'm drinking Spendthrift right now. It's just like water with a little bit of fruit in it. It looks just like that, except it says like probiotic on the can. Yes. Which always turns me off, by the way. I'm like, nah, I don't want that weird stuff.

Turns me on. Probiotic? Dude, yeah.

No.

Who's antibiotic?

You? Dude, I'm antibiotic. I'm not probiotic. I'm neutral on the biotics at least, but I'm definitely not pro. But, uh, you know, how do you feel about oxidants?

Yeah, are you pro-oxidant?

Dude, I'm— what's it Michael Scott say? He goes, I wouldn't say I'm superstitious, but I am a little stitious. Uh, uh, Olipop, do you know how big they are?

I think they're huge, dude. I see them at every grocery store.

100 million plus. And they're doing the first one, by the way, called Poopy or Poppy.

You seen this one? No.

What's it like?

An even more, uh, it's like a gut health soda or like a probiotic, like LaCroix. And, uh, I see that one popping up at Whole Foods.

Dude, when I think probiotics, I think diarrhea. Like you're going to do something to my poop. Like, yeah.

So I think that's where the branding opportunities come in, uh, to, to, to fix that.

Um, guts doesn't exactly help your cause here.

I know, but I think it's a loud, uh, splashy name that can be almost like so bad it's good. And, uh, I don't think it's very trademarkable. I think that's the problem with it, but I kind of want to work with a designer just to make a fake DTC, like, packaging of this. I kind of want to crowdsource this idea through MFM. So basically I'm like, let's find a marketing CEO through this. I have, I have a guy in mind. Um, let's get somebody who's a design agency. Like, let's make the packaging for fun and, uh, and see what we could do. Somebody who's like a supply chain guy. Let's go find the formulation lab. Like, let's just like crowdsource this idea. I think that would be a lot of fun.

What, here's something I wanna test. So this, what you're saying reminds me of, so we're in the 55th minute or something like that of this pod, and you're saying like something where you want to, you're saying a call to action. I'm curious how many people you're gonna get. Last episode or 2 episodes ago, I, we were talking about my Airbnb and I said marathonranch.com. I go, yeah, if it's Airbnb, you can see it at marathonranch.com. And I just kept talking. Uh, I was curious how many people went to the site. Um, do you have a guess?

Oh, I mean, I would guess it's low. I'm gonna give you the homey guess. I don't know, 100 visits.

So we set it at minute 38 or something like that. Like not in the beginning. It got like 3 or 4,000 views. And, uh, nice. Not one, not one booking, by the way. Not one booking. Uh, not one.

To be clear.

Um, yeah. One time I shared it on Twitter and it got 2 million impressions. Not one booking. So not one booking. So it didn't help me at all. But I'm curious. I bet you you'll get maybe 15 qualified people messaging you. One time you talked about this thing you wanted a woman to holler at you for this woman brand that you were working on, and people started hollering at me to get to you. And like 4 of them were like Instagram women, like models, like wearing thong bikinis and shit, like trying to reach me to talk to you. And Sarah was like, oh, saw my phone. I'm like, dude, this shit. This lady, like, she's like, what are you looking at? Like, check this out, this lady just DM'd me trying to talk to Sean. It was, it was, uh, pretty funny.

Yeah, I also like that you say holler at still. It's like, that's not saying tight, but I think something's cool.

How about dank? I'm trying to bring dank back. Do you remember dank?

I'm still watching TRL when I get home from school. So, um, you just email me sean@seanperry.com. I'll put it in the in the show notes of this, like in the description of the podcast too. I hired an assistant that just reads all my email and triages it into buckets that's like action item, needs a reply, read this, and in case you're interested. And then she filters out a bunch of the crap.

It's amazing. How much is that per month?

I went from being horrible at email. Like I don't see stuff I should. I see a bunch of stuff that's trash. I forget to reply to things. I'll read it on my phone. Think to reply later, never, never remember to come back and reply later. I had a horrible system. And now, um, shout out to my assistant, Andrea, who's, uh, helping me so much with that. It's, it's like literally overnight game changer.

Well, I got an email from her saying Sean would like to schedule time to speak with you in Vancouver. And at first I was like, what the fuck? Sean, are you kidding me?

There's some growing pains.

Yeah. I was like, really? Uh, and then I was like, okay, this is awesome. And I message you, I go, who, where'd you get this person from? Very interesting. She did a good job.

Also, um, by the way, your call to action thing just reminded me, I think we should do two things, uh, uh, two upcoming shows. I'm gonna put it out there now. It's time for another Drunk Ideas episode, uh, which is where we come up with ideas that only sound good if you're drunk. So half-baked, kind of bad, but maybe good. Start-up ideas. So we should—

like the Very Long Distant Girlfriend, the best one ever.

Yeah, exactly. Very Long Distant Girlfriend was an all-timer. Um, the second one is, uh, I think we should do our version of The Bachelor. So I think we should get MFM's most eligible, uh, guys and gals basically submit your application. We need a photo, we need— we'll put up— we should put up like a dating site, which is basically like, um, Uh, we, we ask a couple questions and then we take the best and we present them on, uh, on the show. And then people can reach out to them and they will get like a bunch of inbound of people who want to actually date them. And let's see if we can get somebody married out here. Let's see if we can get somebody to fall in love.

The second time we've done that, by the way, we've had one MFM marriage, but did you, um, and more than one MFM divorce?

Yes.

More than one. And that's not a joke.

We giveth and we taketh away.

You see what I did that on Twitter where I like tweeted out like 10 of my friends who were single, and yeah, that's a great idea.

We should just do that.

It crushed. All right, I'll tweet that out after this.

Well, let's do this. By the time this comes out, let's make a—

Ben texted me. He wants to do— he wants to call it Hot Millionaires in Your Area.

MFMers.

MFers.

Um, what can we call it? So what should we call it? It could be, uh, maybe something with singles, maybe something with, uh, uh, let's see what else we need.

I don't know. We gotta get creative.

No, no, no. Don't give up. You could do this.

I don't know. We could change the word singles with shingles. Is there anything there? That's the thing that's always at the bottom of the website. It's like hot singles in your area. So just call it that. Like it's hot singles in your area.

Too much competition on that name, dude. That's the most competitive term on the internet. It's gotta be like, uh, um, MFM Most Wanted. And, but it's most wanted because you, you know, they're wanted in a dating sense.

Yeah. We get it. We get it.

MFM's most wanted.

That's fine. That's actually great. That's actually great. We're going to do that. Yeah.

Better than shingles.

I don't know. I like, I like changing words, you know, called Twitter shitter. Uh, classic. And then this month, Sean, we probably should do like a merch thing.

Yeah, I'm working on it. I'm going all in on, on just creating great content.

I don't understand what content has to do with merch.

It's like merch is content to me. Like, we're not gonna get rich selling t-shirts, but we can make awesome t-shirts that are like as good as great content. Like, it makes you laugh, it's interesting, it's cool, it's fun. It's, you know, it's It's meant for fun, not meant to be like, uh, you know, our Patreon.

All right, I'm down.

No offense to people on Patreon, but y'all are little bitches. Patreon is like certified small boy stuff.

Yeah, dude, I don't want to be like— I don't want to have a patron. Um, all right, that's the pod.