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Sam, I have a list of what I'm calling dumb ideas that made a million dollars.
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These are obscure lists that really only people like you and me would ever even keep, but I have a list of dumb ideas that actually worked.
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I say dumb not because I think they're dumb.
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I actually think they're genius cuz I think being clever and doing simple things is actually a form of genius, but I think other people would call these dumb ideas.
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So, I want to run through them with you and I want you to give me your reaction to each one.
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All right, let's hear it. All right.
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First one came up, I was watching uh the NFL playoffs which were on this weekend.
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I don't know if you've paid any attention, but like the Chicago Bears who have sucked for a long time are in the playoffs and Chicago has this rival, the Green Bay Packers.
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And the Packers have been great for a long time and the Bears have sucked for a very long time.
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And so, it's like kind of a rivalry just by like location, but they're not really they're not really like close rivals.
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And so, I'm watching the game and I look and in the crowd, I just see a ton of people wearing like I don't know how much you know about football, but do you know what the Packers fans wear on their head? Yeah, cheese heads. Cheese heads.
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So, what do the Bears fans wear? I don't know. Helmets? I I don't know. >> Cheese graters.
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And so, I see all these fans wearing this like silver cheese grater hat.
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And I'm like, oh that's clever like we're going about to shred the the the Green Bay Packers are going to shred the the cheese heads.
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Um and I'm like this is really smart.
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So, I really look at it and what's the story behind this?
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And the story behind this is kind of crazy.
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So, if you go to foampartyhats.
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com, this business started in 2017.
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So, Grace Rojas and her son Manuel Rojas, they they create this thing.
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And they had actually for like, you know, 15 years they had just for fun been making like fun party hats.
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Like I think for their own daughters like party, they made fun party hats for all the guests.
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People loved it and they kind of gave it up and then they moved and then they like started again and they're like, we're going to make these foam hats for special events, occasions, and sports.
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And so, they've been kind of like trucking along.
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They got on Shark Tank and they got a they gave up 25% of their company for a hundred grand, right?
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So, like you know, they did this deal with Mark Cuban. Yeah.
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And you know, birthdays, wedding corporate events.
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Uh they had all these like novelty hats. And then came the boom.
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So, this uh greater head thing has just taken off and become this like viral frenzy.
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So, like basically the Bears, they have this coach.
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I don't know if you've seen this guy, Ben Johnson.
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He's kind of got like if Sam Howell was into football energy a little bit.
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He's just basically this young coach who's supposed to be really really smart. He's super like ripped.
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So, every time in the post game, he'll like in the in the locker room, he just like rips off his shirt which like most of the old like 70-year-old coaches would never do.
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And he gets his team like really fired up, but he gives the game ball to this guy who comes out and I don't know if you can see this, but he's this wide receiver, DJ Moore. He's wearing the hat.
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Um and so, he's he's wearing this this guy, DJ Moore, and he starts dan the whole the team starts chanting go DJ, go DJ to the Lil Wayne song. He starts dancing.
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This clip goes viral, right? This has 2. 2 million views.
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And suddenly, these hats are flying off the shelves and they did they do like 10,000 orders in a week which is like half a million dollars in a week.
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They have this huge waitlist now, this huge backlog cuz they make these by hand apparently.
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And this idea of like team-specific novelty merch cuz like if like sports fans like when I went to that Warriors game, I walked out, I bought my son a jersey, little ball, but it's like all so like vanilla. It's all cookie cutters.
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Like the same things over and over again.
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But with social media, the teams now have little like trends, little meme moments.
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And if you could fast follow those meme moments and create stuff that's going to like kind of make somebody laugh or be worth sharing on social media, you can actually get a lot of spread.
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And so, that's what this company's been doing with these hats and going viral.
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So, they built they basically you know, million-dollar plus business now off of these like novelty foam hats. Isn't that wild?
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They do a really good job of making me into the story.
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Uh like it looks like it's a like a Hispanic like family and looks like the son is kind of the CEO and the mom is like one who is the brains and kind of came up with the idea and originally made it.
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Yeah, it looks pretty awesome.
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Yeah, but I think if somebody takes this idea, there was another company like a t-shirt company.
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I can't remember the name, but they were doing this for sports teams where they they realized like the drop shipping infrastructure has become so good that if anything happens in the game like last night within an hour after the game, they can have the store up for that product, for that slogan, for that thing.
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Linsanity happens in New York and then they go they have like the Linsanity like line ready to go.
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And so, I forgot what the name of this company is, but they're basically like rapidly like much faster like orders of magnitude faster than the the typical like merch industry creating team-specific, moment-specific um merch.
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And I just think that's like a it's not the it's not the best business.
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It's not a business I would want to be in, but it is like a simple man's business.
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Like anybody can understand what they're doing and be able to like try to replicate that.
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And then if you niche down even all the way, forget t-shirts like to giant oversized foam hats.
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It's like there's a million-dollar business sitting in in oversized foam hats which is pretty wild.
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All right, ready for the next one?
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>> [laughter] >> All right, yeah that that was a quotable last line.
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There's a million-dollar business sitting in an oversized foam hat.
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All right, so a lot of people watch and listen to this show because they want to hear us just tell them exactly what to do when it comes to starting or growing a business.
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And really a lot of people who are listening, they have a full-time job and they want to start something on the side, a side hustle.
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Now, a lot of people message Sean and I and they say, all right, I want to start something on the side. Is this a good idea? Is that a good idea?
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And again, what they're really just saying is just give me the ideas.
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Well, my friends here in Knock.
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So, my old company, The Hustle, they put together a hundred different side hustle ideas and they have appropriately called it the side hustle idea database.
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It's a list of a hundred pretty good ideas, frankly. I went through them. They're awesome.
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And it gives you how to start them, how to grow them, things like that.
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Gives you a little bit of inspiration. So, check it out.
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It's called the side hustle idea database.
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It's in the description below. You'll see the link. Click it. Check it out.
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Let me know the comments what you think.
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All right, here's the next one.
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So, as you know, a long time ago, I was running a business called birthdayalarm. com.
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This was a business started by Michael and Zoe Birch.
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It had been going for 20 plus years printing, you know, millions of dollars a year.
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It was one of the earliest viral businesses ever.
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So, I think birthday alarm has had like 50 million plus members with zero marketing spend because Michael was one of the pioneers of viral marketing and so, he understood how to how to get this business to grow virally.
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How much revenue has this done over the course of it's 20 years it's 20 years old?
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Uh yeah, I think he's it's more than that.
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It's probably 25 years old now.
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And so, has this done like a hundred million over 25 years? Probably not a hundred. Probably like over 50.
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So, maybe 75 million is my guess. Wow.
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So, uh so >> And it's hyper profitable by the way.
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Like that's like that's not just rev revenue is profit for a business like this.
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So, 3 million every year for 25 years, ish.
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Not exactly, but yeah, average.
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Let's say average two to three. Okay, wow. Amazing.
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Cuz the business model is very simple.
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So, it's reminders for your friends and family's birthdays. Fantastic.
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And then I was like, but that the reminders are free.
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So, you make the money when people pay to send a card.
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And I remember when we were trying to like grow the business or revitalize the business, I was brainstorming ideas with him and I was like, you know, I try not to be too smart.
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So, I always just like, what's already working or has worked in the past or is working for other people?
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And so, that was my first question.
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Before I tell you any of my bad ideas, tell me about some things that are already proven to work.
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And he goes, you know, at the beginning, these guys approached us with this goofy idea that I thought was a total scam.
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He's like, but I think they've actually made even more money than than we did without the 50 million members. I go, what is it?
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He goes, it's this thing called the International Star Registry.
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Oh my gosh, I have heard of this.
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So, [laughter] he goes, they let you for like a special occasion for your friend of you know, friend's birthday or whatever, you can gift them their name on a star.
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You can name a star in the universe after your friend.
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It'll tell it'll show you the star.
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It'll tell you the location of it and for the low price of $25, that star is yours.
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Technically, not technically yours at all.
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Not owned not even officially named.
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Just named in our book that we're going to keep in our office.
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>> [laughter] >> And so, these guys have been printing millions of dollars for also 20 plus years just naming stars after people. And this got popular.
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It was like it's been referenced in movies.
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It was like in A Walk to Remember.
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They like someone is dying, they name a star after her.
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Like it's this emotional, sentimental thing and I love it because the it's a pure play marketing product. There is no product.
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Like you don't get to have the star.
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They don't you know, there's nothing nothing changes hands.
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It's literally not even officially naming the star after them.
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It's literally just we are going to write it down in our book permanently.
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It's like something I would trick my kids with.
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Is [laughter] this what's really funny is if you Google Star Registry, you can see they're buying ads against each other.
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There's like dozens of these companies.
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>> Which begs the question like you know, like whose book is like the more permanent book?
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But is this the one that was founded in 1979?
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Yeah, 1979 when like kind of space was hot and the moon and all that.
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So, you get a you get a certificate, you get a map of where the thing is, and you get to you get to have that forever in their book.
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And so, the the funny thing is like they are like kind of the the the the details of this which I think are like pretty funny.
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You know, think about it from a marketing point of view.
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How do you legitimize this, you know, frankly, illegitimate thing?
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And what they did was they basically like they made their book so official.
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They're like, it's placed in the Library of Congress.
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And we store the official book in a Swiss in a Swiss bank in a vault.
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And you know, like just leveraging like prestige and like are any of those things impressive?
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Like how do you get a book into the library like you probably donate a copy.
10:26
Like one of my favorite copywriters, Joe Sugarman, wrote this famous ad for Casio watches and he asked the guys who made the watch.
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He was like, explain to me how this watch is made and they say, well, we use a quartz movement and then we use this type of aluminum and he goes, hold on.
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Did you say quartz movement?
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And they go, yeah, it's like a movement that every $10 watch uses.
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He's like, but tell me more about quartz.
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And if he finds out what quartz means and then he's like, tell me about the steel.
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He's like, yeah, well, this metal.
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He's like, oh, it's just aluminum.
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It's just like, you know, we use it.
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This this pen company uses it.
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Hell, even like NASA uses it.
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Did you just say space grade aluminum?
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>> [laughter] >> And so if you read this old ad for the Casio watch, he was like, made with the same aluminum that's space grade or like it's space grade aluminum and it's called that because NASA uses it on their rocket ships to make it so strong with the with the with the quartz movement, which is the most precise movement.
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It's the same thing that Rolex uses or like something like that.
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And so he like took like a truth and made it sound a lot cooler than it is.
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Sort of like in a Swiss bank account.
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Like a fact and he made it value. Yeah.
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By the way, I think this is the what's that thing called?
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The Rorschach test or whatever the the ink blot and you're like, is this a bunny rabbit or a serial killer, right?
11:43
Like to me that's what you just described is the thing for this podcast.
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It's like if there was like a speak easy and you had to come in and like we had to decide who gets in and who gets out.
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I'd tell this Joseph Sugarman story and I'd be like, do you find that amazing or repulsive?
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They're like, well, that's [ __ ] And they're like, cool, you should you should just head to the next bar.
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And if they're like, this is amazing. How do I do that?
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They're like, come on in. Welcome to MFM.
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>> [laughter] >> That's pretty good.
12:09
How long do did you ever look up who owned this company?
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Do they have like some crazy story like Michael Birch?
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Yeah, so it was owned by this Canadian advertising executive, but only for like a year.
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Yeah, I think he like passed away two years later and then this mom of 12 who gifted a star to her husband loved it, finds out that like the business is like, you know, for sale.
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She buys it and then they've grown it as a family business.
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Now her son is the operator of it or something like that.
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So this mom of 12 did it.
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Which by the way, if you're a mom of 12, you're hired.
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You're capable of doing anything if you can be a mother of 12.
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>> [laughter] >> I don't know what Navy SEAL training is like, but it does not compare to being a mother of 12.
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Dude, on their on their on it's called starregistry. com.
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On their about us page, they explain how they're democratizing the cosmos and all this stuff and then they have a line that says, do not be fooled by the impostors.
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And it's this and it's those other guys.
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It's this big paragraph that says in the vast experience of celestial naming and there are also impostors seeking to capitalize on the allure of allure allure of the stars.
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Numerous companies have attempted to copy us.
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And they go on to say why they are the more official one. >> [laughter] >> Right. It's pretty funny.
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Yeah, snake oil salesman says other guys oil is terrible for you. Yeah.
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Did I tell you how he came up with this idea? No.
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Michael had a they were they were both I think working at an insurance company and he's like, we were making really good money cuz he's like, computers were new and like not many people knew how to do programming for computers. The internet was new.
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Insurance companies needed somebody who could do like database programming or whatever. So he's doing that.
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I think he told me they were making like a really good salary.
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Like maybe like 200 grand a year, maybe combined, maybe the two of them, I don't know. They were doing well.
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So the internet boom starts.
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It's kind of like 1998, 1999.
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And he's like, what am I doing sitting here at an insurance company?
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I got to be a part of this.
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Which I'm sure today many people feel that way about AI and you know, the way the robotics and the way the world is going.
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So he his friend sends him a site a link to you know, some some Friendster or something like that.
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He's like, wow, this is incredible.
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I got to get I got to get in there.
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I got to start doing things.
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And so he decides, I'm going to create a self-updating address book.
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So like, you know, today this is still an unsolved problem by the way.
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Sam, you move, I don't have your new address.
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I have to keep asking you for your address.
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I don't know when you move.
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So he had this idea, well, the way it should work is when Sam moves, he changes his address once and it changes automatically in anybody who he's already accepted like to have his address, like it changes for everybody. A great idea. Still a great idea.
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This is an idea that he had many like Sean Parker, you know, who's famous from the social network and you know, Facebook.
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He tried to start a company doing this too.
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Like a bunch of smart people have been like, we're going to solve this problem.
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It just turns out people don't really care enough to do it.
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But he's building this thing. It's called Lemon Link.
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He's like, you know, the best thing that ever happened was he's like, we had no money.
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So he's like, I'm the programmer, I'm the designer, I'm the product manager, I'm customer service, I'm the janitor, I'm everything, right? Cuz there's nobody else.
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And he told his wife when he quit his job, he's like, give me three months to try this computer thing and like this internet thing and like if it doesn't work in three months, I promise like we'll we'll go back to having a job because I think they were like pregnant with their second or third kid.
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And so it was like, you know, not not super like stable time to just quit your job.
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Well, two years goes by and he's like, I'm so close.
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I just just keep I need another three months.
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I just let me keep going. So he's still trying.
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He's doing customer service and Lemon Link is not growing.
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And he's like, the only thing I'm getting in customer service is basically like shut down my account. I don't need this.
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Or hey, thanks for that birthday reminder.
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You saved my butt, you know?
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And cuz he's like, I added this one feature.
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In addition to the address thing, like, oh, by the way, like save their birthday too and I'll tell you when it's their birthday. That's a good feature.
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And he's like, I kept seeing that and this is pre-Facebook.
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So people didn't have an easy online way to know when their friend's birthday was.
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And so he realized, oh, this is a thing.
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And that's that was the because he was doing customer service and because he finally faced reality, which is like, nobody wants my idea, but they do seem to want this.
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Then you know, overnight he creates birthdayalarm.
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com and like within a couple of weeks he gets like 10,000 members and he's like, oh my god.
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He's like, this was cuz he figured out a viral loop and he's like, there's he's like, to this day, you know, that was still the best feeling.
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That even before we made any money, getting to 10,000 members.
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Like that was that was crazy.
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It's pretty crazy he had the audacity to stop working on that and work on Bebo.
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Like most everyone else would say, all right, birthday alarm.
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How do we make anniversary alarm? How do we do this? How do we do that?
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It's it's working and it starts making a little bit of money, not much, but a little bit of money and his friend Morgan sends him a link to Friendster at the time.
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And he's like, oh, of course.
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People are going to want to like this internet thing.
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It's not just looking up information.
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They're going to want to like talk to their friends and put post photos about each other, you know, like stuff like that.
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Like that makes total sense.
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So he created a before Bebo, he created Friendster-like product.
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It goes viral again cuz he really understands virality, but he's losing money because the more members that sign up, the more his bandwidth costs and at the time social networks didn't have any way of making money.
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Like today Facebook is known for like Facebook ads.
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There was no ads at the time.
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And so there was no ad network.
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Nobody had ever done that before.
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Nobody knew how to make money off of those things.
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So he went to a meetup and he sold the business to James Currier for like 2 million bucks.
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And he was like and he went and worked for them for a year and then kind of like as social networking was was maturing, he's seeing what MySpace is doing. He's like, oh, okay.
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I think I know what I should be doing.
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I learned even more about virality here.
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Now I'm going to go start Bebo.
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Then he started Bebo and that that was the one that took off.
18:07
And that was like in two year or three years he grew it from nothing to like a 800 million dollar exit, right?
18:12
I'm not sure how many years.
18:13
Yeah, three, four years probably. Like very short. Yeah. What a baller. Damn.
18:20
And now he's just the sole proprietor of little birthday alarm. com.
18:25
>> [laughter] >> Just a mom and pop shop.
18:26
Yeah, just trying to make it make ends meet.
18:27
I have one more very dumb idea that I admire for its simplicity.
18:32
So you probably are subscriber to this YouTube channel.
18:36
Can you just type in 10-hour fireplace? Of course.
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I mean, everyone is, aren't they?
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>> [laughter] >> So there what you will see, describe what you see when you type in 10-hour fireplace and then click their YouTube channel.
18:50
They have done a very good job of naming it. So I see, oh my god.
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I didn't realize it was that big. Okay. Holy moly.
18:55
Okay, so obviously it's what you guys expect.
18:59
It's a 10-hour video of a fireplace with 157 million views.
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>> [laughter] >> Exactly.
19:06
There's how many videos on this channel, Sam?
19:10
So they posted this 10 years ago and shockingly they have 120,000 subscribers and there is one video. And it is it's so funny.
19:19
There's like points in the video that you know how when you scroll over YouTube, there's points where it spikes.
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Like where the viewers are like, why is this the viewers are just loving it?
19:28
Yeah, like why is it so I look at the most replayed section.
19:31
Like oh, they don't even add logs.
19:31
They don't even add logs to the fire.
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So it must be like a 30-second loop just done over and over and over again.
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Like there's parts where it spikes.
19:38
You see this the part at 5 hours and 55 minutes?
19:42
>> [laughter] >> Thrilling.
19:45
Everybody knows about that part.
19:47
Oh, the top comment, bro's a millionaire.
19:50
Bro's a millionaire because this guy is a is this channel was started by one person in Romania.
19:56
It's a channel with one video.
19:56
So, this guy just hit it and quit it.
19:58
This is the one-hit wonder Did you just say >> world.
20:03
>> [laughter] >> He posted one video of a 30-second loop of of a fireplace or I don't know if it's a 30-second loop, but a 10-hour video of a fireplace crackling and this guy made a million dollars in Romania.
20:14
And did he try to follow it up with another video and then turn it into an empire and then create No.
20:17
He just put the video up and let it run, baby.
20:24
I admire this I admire the restraint maybe more than I admire the ingenuity.
20:29
Dude, have you noticed on YouTube what's been going on with these types of things? So, I don't know.
20:34
I I guess we can call it an ambient channel.
20:35
Let's call it these Let's Let's categorize them as ambient channels.
20:39
I like love I love ambient ambient channels.
20:42
I listen to like them weird music >> Yeah, it starts It started as white noise.
20:47
There's this company called Brain FM. Do you know Brain FM? Yeah. I love Brain FM.
20:51
So, they make some of my favorite noise.
20:54
Uh >> [laughter] >> Just great noise.
20:58
I was a paying subscriber to Brain FM years ago. >> Oh my god. So, I love Brain FM.
21:00
But, then I started going down the rabbit hole of like other music.
21:04
So, there's like they call it like like um Is it like lo-fi Mac Miller?
21:08
It's basically just Mac Miller for some reason.
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I don't know how I got into I I like Mac Miller, but not enough that I would think he'd start popping up on my channel.
21:14
So, it's tons of like lo-fi Mac Miller, which I love.
21:18
But, what I've noticed is that there's basically like a quadrant or like a a huge graph where it's like let's do old money, let's do 1980s, let's do this.
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And then it's like now select country.
21:29
So, for example, I keep getting targeted with old money Brazil or 1980s finance or like it's like and they create the best AI thumbnail.
21:38
So, type in old money Brazil music. Old money Brazil music.
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Trust me, it's so strange. All right.
21:49
I see this gentleman in a nice suit with a cigar and old money Brazil elegant bossa nova timeless luxury instrumental playlist 74,000 views.
21:59
I get targeted with so many of these.
22:02
There was another one where it was like um You get targeted or you you select you you you beg for them.
22:09
>> You make the algorithm.
22:09
So, yeah, like if I see that image it it might get a click.
22:13
>> our algorithm then our algorithm shapes us.
22:15
Like old Winston Churchill.
22:15
But, then >> [laughter] >> But, then there was like there's even crazier ones where it's like greedy American Revolution.
22:22
Like I don't like like locked-in American Revolution or something like that.
22:26
Like it's like it's crazy how like specific they get, but they basically just take like like [laughter] You are joking. This is ridiculous.
22:36
90 minutes of American War Revolutionary music Liberty song playlist.
22:41
>> [laughter] >> And they like like do you see like a good a good one?
22:45
>> I'll define good, bro.
22:45
I'm I'm never going to click any of these.
22:47
Like the thumbnails are so funny.
22:49
Like I'll have to find a different one, but the the thumbnail I I tweeted out the other day.
22:55
I was like the thumbnail gods have been smiling on me and it's like an American Revolution um uh like [clears throat] music, but the best thumbnail ever and I keep getting targeted over and over and over again.
23:06
These guys are must be doing well.
23:06
You You've never seen these?
23:11
Well, I've seen just a normal lo-fi So, like lo-fi girl, for example.
23:13
Lo-fi girl, I think is probably the biggest channel in this category.
23:17
Um 15 million subscribers, 2 and 1/2 billion views uh on on the channel making about 100 grand a month uh on this channel right now and that's just that's like one channel. Right now, she's live.
23:33
There's 30,000 people just listening to this right now while we're recording this. It's the best.
23:38
So, look at the Look at the >> just do this? It sounds awesome.
23:43
>> Why Why are we talking?
23:45
Look at the thumbnail that I sent to you. Oh, this is incredible. Uh what is this? >> Explain what you see.
23:53
I mean, I don't even have a word for this.
23:54
It looks like You know like that What's the painting at the top of the Sistine Chapel where like the naked man's reaching out to like God and their fingers are about to touch?
24:03
It looks like that guy, but he's got his dukes up like he's about to fight and he's like a a hairless naked man with like half a mullet and it just says classical music that goes hard.
24:14
Yeah, or I'll see them where it looks like paintings like that and they're giving like the shocker sign.
24:18
And so, I just get like so many of these and I think it's just there's like this weird underground world.
24:23
There's that underground world and there's the underground world of the comments.
24:26
So, if you look at MFM's comments, people can't see this, but on the back end we've tried to ban them where it's like I can't believe no one has been blessed Why hasn't anyone blessed me before?
24:37
Like they've just blessed me after I read this book called like you know, Millionaires R Us.
24:42
Like Or they'll be it'll be like I totally agree with this video and it's so funny that that this video that you guys are making these points cuz I had read I wrote about this exact thing in the Millionaires R Us book by this person who's a total saint.
24:56
Dude, this is I Those guys are like the bane of my existence, by the way. >> Same. It's the worst.
25:00
I just sit there and like manually try to get get rid of them.
25:03
Have you seen this guy uh Yang Man on Instagram?
25:07
It's It's like an AI monk.
25:11
>> [laughter] >> And [snorts] he's got this like healing guide.
25:14
He's got a million views. >> into it.
25:15
He's got like one to two million followers and it's a monk who's just give doing like talking head um advice videos and then he sells a healing guide.
25:23
And again, it's like, you know, it's a guy who's like Is he You know it's a kid who's 17 with like the broccoli haircut who has just moved to Miami and he's in a house with seven other guys and they're all creating these accounts that are like Dude, it's sold on Whoop.
25:37
You know, what's that thing called Whoop or Whoop where you buy like financial newsletters?
25:41
If you go to his If you go to Yang Man's Linktree, you click on >> what a monk would do, right?
25:47
Sort of what >> be on on Whoop.
25:50
>> [laughter] >> The ebook time to heal, young man.
25:54
>> [laughter] >> And then it's like things you might love and then it's like newsletters that's like 10x your wealth with this stock tip.
26:02
>> [laughter] >> Yeah, but there people are doing this They're doing this with fake grandparents.
26:06
So, they have like an account that's like wisdom from like grandparents, but they're all AI and it's like what I wish I knew when I was younger.
26:12
Like the one thing, you know, the the love that got away and they just post content like that.
26:15
They're just printing views right now.
26:18
>> Dude, this stuff gets me every time. It sucks. I love this stuff.
26:22
>> [laughter] >> I fall victim to this worse than like a grandparent falls victim to like buying the top listing on an Amazon like like every birthday for every like for like every gift-giving experience at my house right now from grandparents, it's like you guys all just typed in bike kids bike and bought the exact same thing. All right.
26:39
I'm going to show you one more. This is the best one. All right.
26:42
So, I I'm on YouTube the other day and you know when the algorithm just like has a Michelin five-star you know, experience for you. So, this is one.
26:50
The most intense shoe salesman you'll ever meet.
26:54
It's a CBS News archive from 1983.
26:58
There's a shoe store here in Sharon, Pennsylvania is just you know, a shoe store. Oh, no.
27:07
That's the playing field of a champion.
27:11
>> [laughter] >> Here he comes now out of the bullpen, the hottest pitcher in retail shoe game today.
27:20
Big number one, Larry Jolton. Let [snorts] me see. Come on. Come on. Come on. All right.
27:26
So, this video is of this guy Larry Jolton who is the number one shoe salesman in America.
27:31
And he sold this back in 1983.
27:34
He sold 400 $400,000 worth of shoes at this physical shoe store himself >> by hand. It's in Pennsylvania.
27:42
It's some like Rayers or something.
27:44
That's a famous shoe store.
27:46
And so, he was the number one hustler and this video is amazing cuz they just show him >> him. I want to see. What's that? I The hook is great. I'm in. I'm I'm bought in. >> Here we go.
27:56
I wouldn't go any bigger than that.
27:56
I got some nice red shoes, 20% off. I like the light better. All right. I think so.
28:02
Especially for the summertime. >> Listen to me.
28:04
You order the two shoes, whatever color you want.
28:05
If it comes in, it don't fit, if you don't like it, you're not obligated to pay. Big day. Clean it up.
28:10
Larry Jolton is the Cy Young of his time, the best of the big league shoe pitchers.
28:18
There are only 38,000 ft in Sharon, Pennsylvania.
28:21
Last year, Larry Jolton sold $423,000 worth of shoes.
28:29
It's going to be busy tonight, fellas. I can feel it. I can feel it. It's going to be busy.
28:33
His stats make him the MVP, the officially recognized champion shoe salesman.
28:38
That's not bad at all, Larry. All right. So, watch this.
28:41
So, they they show him doing his thing and there's a couple of amazing parts.
28:44
There's There's All right.
28:46
So, one is he's like I'll He's like He's like the worst thing in the world is someone leaves without a shoe.
28:50
He's like that's not going to happen on my watch.
28:52
So, he's serving like four or five customers at once and he's like He's basically like selling them on like it's about not about the size, it's about the fit.
29:00
He's got all these like go-to slogans.
29:02
And he's like that's a good looking shoe right there on you.
29:05
And then he'll um he'll like deliver them to their house.
29:07
He's like I'll deliver to your house.
29:09
I'll deliver to your office.
29:10
I'll find you on the street. I'll give you the shoes. Don't worry.
29:13
And he's like if you ever have a problem, you just give right back to me. I'm Larry.
29:16
And then he they show like he never takes a lunch breaks.
29:18
They show He's eating a burger.
29:21
You have to keep up your strength because sometimes the game goes into extra innings.
29:24
He's just eating a burger in the back like he just has a burger in in the shoe rack where he finds the sizes.
29:32
He just takes bites as he's running back and forth to get customers the shoe size. This this guy's awesome.
29:38
He's like And then he's like, you know, He's He's like his sales philosophy.
29:39
So, he's like you don't want to be the nice guy.
29:43
He's like, you know, you got to Some people just want to be told.
29:45
They want to be told what to what they need.
29:48
He's like, you know, they come in they think their shoes are size 8 and 1/2.
29:52
They're they're walking around with cramped feet all the time.
29:53
He's like, you got to give them a size 10.
29:54
He's like, he tells this story about this guy like didn't know what he wanted.
29:57
He's like, the customer doesn't always know what they want. You got to help them.
30:02
And he's like, yeah, that's that's the art of shoe sales.
30:03
But just his overall energy and when he's like walking around the bullpen, like he's like, going to be a big day today, boys.
30:09
Got a lot of shoes we got to move today.
30:10
And like all the other shoe sales people like clearly don't care.
30:13
And like this is a very inspiring video about just like being the best.
30:17
Just be championship mentality in anything you do.
30:22
Dude, so he he died this year, which is he he died this year. It was an obituary.
30:26
It goes in depth about how he was on that show and a bunch of other shows.
30:30
And he said he was the National Shoe Retailers Association named him Salesman of the Year in 1983, 84, 85.
30:37
They say he was a larger-than-life figure. This guy's awesome. He's incredible, right? I love this guy. I love this man.
30:42
Larry's a salt of the earth type of guy.
30:44
If you're going to do anything today, you bring that Larry Jol Tin energy, that championship mindset to whatever you do.
30:51
You You sell whatever you sell the way Larry sold shoes today, all right?
30:54
That's that's the final word here.
30:56
Have you ever studied sales?
30:56
Like I I imagine, if I had to guess, you did something you you and I have behaved similarly, which is like we're pretty charismatic, so we think that's all it takes.
31:06
But then I've hired salesmen before and saleswomen before, and I've like seen the difference between a really like a winning one and a pretty good one.
31:13
And it's just like a total like the greats have both the talent and and this thing that I'm going to describe.
31:21
But the second thing that they all have to have is process.
31:23
Where like they know that saying this gets that.
31:26
It's like such a um a mouse in a finding a cheese type of energy where it's like the really good ones just kind of blindly, oh, that worked. No ego.
31:36
I'm just going to do that.
31:37
Oh, I just threw that thing out there. That caught. That got a laugh. Doing that one.
31:40
Like they follow like this process.
31:43
Guys like >> You and me actually suck at sales.
31:45
And the reason we suck at sales is because we want to use charm, charisma, talent, whatever.
31:50
And they you know, the best people use process.
31:54
And even the reason we actually suck isn't even because we can't adapt that cuz over time we're like a problem solver. Like it's a puzzle.
32:01
Oh, I got to do this and then that gets me the solution I want.
32:05
We would get bored doing that.
32:07
The most impressive thing of this guy isn't that he sold $400,000 shoes.
32:11
It's that he just kept doing it year after year after year.
32:12
He never got bored of it.
32:14
I I have this phrase I say now cuz every day when I do my my workout, we start with this 10-minute routine where I basically like loosen up my IT band.
32:24
It's I it's like a do like a like a fascia release on my IT band, which is painful. It's boring. It doesn't look cool.
32:31
You don't feel like you're getting any stronger or more athletic.
32:33
It's like the opposite of what you want when you go into a workout. But I need it.
32:36
I need it because like I've had knee injuries and I got to keep doing this.
32:41
And then you can't do it once, twice.
32:42
You can't do it for 2 weeks.
32:42
You basically have to just constantly do this if you want to stay healthy.
32:45
If you're like if you're got this sort of my my leg condition.
32:51
And now every day when I go and I say, all right, boys, we're not getting bored of greatness today.
32:55
Let's not get bored of greatness today, right?
32:57
The Larry mentality of like you can't get bored with doing the thing that leads to great results, even if it's the same thing you've done. You can't get bored.
33:06
You can't become sort of nonchalant about it.
33:09
You can't become autopilot with it.
33:11
You can't like cut the corner or cut it short cuz you already done it before.
33:14
Like you have to do this.
33:14
And that's when I'm coaching my team it's the same thing.
33:17
Like we played a game the other day and the warm in the warm-ups I knew we're going to kick this team's butt because their warm-up was so sloppy.
33:22
I was like, if they warm up like this, they're not going to be able to play at some high level because this tells me everything I need to know.
33:31
I don't need to do a scouting report. It's over.
33:32
And sure enough we beat them by almost like 50 points.
33:35
And it it was yeah, they didn't have a lot of talent, but they were shortcutting the the process.
33:38
And so and like I just feel like that like getting bored of what gets great results is a real problem.
33:46
It's been a real problem for me in my life.
33:48
And I know that like for other people, if you're sort of like smart and talented and you get off on solving new problems and new puzzles, it could become an Achilles' heel.
33:57
Dude, I'm always I'm the biggest victim of these stories where it's like a company does all the small things right and it like levers up or levels up to the big thing.
34:04
So for example, have you heard of Rakuten?
34:08
Yeah, I I know them well.
34:08
So Rakuten's a Japanese company.
34:11
I think they're like the Amazon of Japan, right? Ish.
34:15
Yeah, it's it's kind of it's retail, but then there's also like a big like discounting kind of component to it that I think like deals component to it that I think that Amazon doesn't really have.
34:24
Yes, but it's just like a multi-billion dollar huge massive thing, whatever.
34:25
And for some reason I came along the founder and I started reading about him.
34:30
And they have a book because they're famous for having a culty culture.
34:35
So the culture is like they're like super into it.
34:37
And he released a handbook on what their culture and what their values is.
34:41
It's one of those things where it was supposed to be internal and it was a hit, so now everyone reads it or a lot of people read it.
34:45
And like he has like 30 rules or something of Rakuten.
34:48
And like rule number one is every Tuesday from 3:00 to 4:00, everyone every office throughout the world, you stop what you're doing and we clean.
34:57
And we refuse to have cleaners, hired cleaners.
35:02
And his reasoning was that if we keep our desks clean, it's the same thing.
35:06
You can you already know what I'm going to I'm going to say.
35:07
You you keep your desk clean and you have a clean desk, you're going to have a clean mind.
35:10
It's going to keep you disciplined.
35:11
Same thing like, you know, general I forget what the general is who had the famous speech. Um make your Yeah.
35:15
Yeah, was it make your bed?
35:18
And then there's all these other famous stories of like a coach of Indiana basketball or something like that who turns around the team and he's like, I started by teaching the front desk how to answer the phone by saying >> yeah.
35:28
Yeah, it >> [clears throat] >> it's like these stories over and over and over again. I love all of them.
35:31
I'm always I'm always I'm always into these.
35:35
I I don't know how often they are true, but I buy into it.
35:37
Do you have you ever tried one of these things with your I mean, it sounds like you're doing it with your basketball team, warming up, right? Yeah, we try.
35:43
I mean, the hard part is have the courage to actually live by it, right?
35:48
You could read the story back, that's great and that makes total sense.
35:52
Then you get into an environment where you got all these people who they're not as bought into it.
35:55
They don't you know, they they don't really care.
35:57
And are you going to really force it?
35:58
Are you really going to enforce it?
35:59
How how much of a standard really is it?
36:01
And how many exceptions are you going to create?
36:04
And are you going to let your best player not do it?
36:06
Or are you going to let a meeting get in the way of it, right?
36:09
Like it's all the compromises is where things get interesting in it.
36:11
I have never gone to the extent where I'm like truly hardcore about it.
36:15
Because I think it takes like just a different level of leadership and courage that I personally don't possess.
36:22
Let me reframe it for you.
36:24
So in high school, I I treated this the other day, but in high school, my freshman year of high school, first practice.
36:30
I went to an all-boys school.
36:32
First practice for cross country.
36:34
The coach gets up and he goes and it was like a Remember the Titans moment.
36:37
He was like, I'm going to teach you guys something.
36:38
We're not going to I'm not here to teach you how to be the best runner.
36:43
What I'm here to do this year is I'm going to teach all of you boys how to become men.
36:45
And we're going to do it by learning how to run better.
36:49
And he goes on to say like, you know, we're going to like show up earlier than we anticipate.
36:52
We're going to like run when we don't feel like it.
36:55
We're going to like go through the pain no matter what.
36:58
We're going to stick around until the last person's finished because that's what we do with our teammates, you know, the the whole thing.
37:01
And at the time I kind of like laughed a little bit about it, but then I started buying into it.
37:07
And it brought us all together. Our team did.
37:08
And the cross country team at my my high school slew, you know, it's a nerdy sport, but we won all the time. We always won.
37:14
And he used to have this idea of like being great in how you're going to be a great man just via running.
37:20
And we're going to teach you how to do all these little small things and it totally worked on our team. And it was awesome.
37:24
And because of that, this coach has a very cult personality.
37:28
We used to have this phrase.
37:28
It was tradition doesn't graduate.
37:30
That was like I still remember it.
37:32
Like tradition never doesn't graduate.
37:33
You know, like he was like he's like, I've been doing this since the '80s.
37:36
Tradition doesn't graduate.
37:37
You guys are going to graduate, but we've been doing this the same way and it works.
37:40
And I just remember all of these like culty lines and we're talking high school Nothing like significant, but it like meaningfully impacted me. And it was awesome.
37:49
And so this type of like inspire you to be a better human being by teaching you how to work better or clean your desk better. I love that story.
37:55
My buddy Jason told me an amazing story like this.
37:58
So Jason Hitchcock, I think you know Jason. He used to work at Bebo.
38:01
And I was pretty hard on Jason.
38:01
I like I would give him feedback all the time.
38:05
Like, hey, you got to do this. You got to do this. You got to do this.
38:06
And like maybe it's because he was one of the non-engineers, so I felt like you know, there's only a few non-engineers.
38:12
I'm going to tell you what I think.
38:14
The engineers I don't really have as much to say because that's not my domain.
38:17
And I noticed he took it really well, always.
38:20
Like incredible attitude.
38:20
So I was doing a one-on-one with him and I I gave him credit for that.
38:24
I was like, man, I think that you have just like a 10 out of 10 attitude at life and at work.
38:29
And I just really respect that.
38:31
And I know that like I give you a bunch of feedback, but you take it so incredibly well.
38:33
Like, you know, whatever.
38:35
And he was like, I receive it. I go, what?
38:36
And he goes, I don't take it. I receive it.
38:38
And he goes, can I tell you a story of like where that comes from? I said, yeah, sure.
38:40
He goes, my freshman year, um I go to high school.
38:45
I'm a I'm a high schooler and I wanted to play water polo.
38:47
My brother was the like captain of the water polo team, my older brother.
38:50
And I was I I thought I was like as good as him or going to be better than him.
38:54
So I feel I'm feeling myself a little bit. I'm like a hot shot.
38:58
And he's like, we get in the pool and I guess like for water polo like you're basically treading water while you're playing the sport, right?
39:04
So it's kind of a hard sport.
39:05
So during the warm-up you're probably not going as hard.
39:06
So he's being a little sloppy in the warm-up where he's treading, but he's like when he's throwing the ball his like arm is like skimming the the it's like in the water.
39:14
So it's not out of the water like you would want it to be if you were really playing a game.
39:18
And so the coach, the varsity coach walks by and he goes, Jason, get get your arm out of the water.
39:22
Keep your arm out of the water.
39:24
And Jason's like, yeah, yeah. Thanks, coach. Keeps going.
39:25
Couple minutes later, he's like, you know, being a little lazy again, does it again.
39:31
Jason, keep your arm out of the water.
39:33
And he's like, yeah, coach, sorry. I I will.
39:35
I'm just getting warmed up.
39:37
He has something to say back to the coach. Coach blows the whistle. Everybody comes over.
39:40
He goes, hey everybody, I'm coach.
39:42
Uh I just want to introduce you to Jason. Jason is a freshman.
39:48
Jason is too good for feedback.
39:51
Jason takes the gift of feedback and he does not care.
39:54
He doesn't want to He doesn't want your feedback, all right?
39:57
And he basically pulled him aside and he like embarrassed him in front of everybody.
40:00
Like, Jason is too good for feedback.
40:01
And he's like He's like, "Look, Jason, feedback is a gift.
40:03
If I'm going to give you that gift, you got to receive the gift, right?
40:07
Don't don't just throw the gift away when I give you that gift."
40:11
He goes, "Think of what it what it takes to give somebody feedback.
40:14
You have to be kind of vulnerable. You're risking conflict.
40:15
You have to care about making that person better.
40:19
These are what it takes to give that gift."
40:20
And so, he was like, "Feedback is a gift."
40:22
And so, like at the whole company that became like, you know, a mantra for us, which is like feedback is a gift, which is really important because otherwise, you can create a kind of defensive mentality or people shy away from saying something to somebody else.
40:36
They'll only do it as a last resort. And that's not good.
40:38
And so, the feedback is a gift thing like changed us.
40:42
And it was a lesson from his high school water polo coach.
40:43
But the story with the lesson is what we needed for like people to get it.
40:48
I love stories like this.
40:50
They always like get me going.
40:52
I uh You know, I distinctly remember we did a podcast a year ago where we were talking about I think I was actually like uh motivating you.
41:00
I think like you had said something like, "I haven't done anything like world-changing, but I've been doing this thing."
41:04
And I was like, "Whoa, whoa, whoa. Why are you saying that?
41:06
Like, who cares like if it's world-changing?
41:08
Like, you know, just just creating a small game that makes someone just a little bit happier is worth it."
41:13
Like there you know, like that's not It's not necessarily less meaningful than anything else.
41:16
And I sort of have grown to believe that to like work where high school sports are very insignificant.
41:23
And yet, it's like such a world-changing experience for many kids.
41:28
And I think that we need to take that same energy to work, which is like you know, we're making a podcast. That's fine.
41:35
But like let's even go something way less glamorous.
41:36
We're making like B2B software.
41:37
Like it's not that special.
41:39
But like you can you can you can learn how to be excellent here.
41:41
You can learn how to follow through here.
41:44
Like you can learn how to like say you're going to do what you say and whatever.
41:46
You can learn how to have this unearned pride where you make these tough decisions when no one is looking.
41:51
And so, I think that like that has carried over to like employees and how I've been working with my team. That's cool. I like it.
41:57
Sam's in his leadership arc.
42:01
That's the That's definitely the season you're in.
42:02
You start You got to like start going by like Samuel or something.
42:05
I feel like we need to upgrade the name.
42:07
Everything I think I think you need to reinvent yourself here, actually. Father. Just father.
42:13
[laughter] So, what if everyone calls you father?
42:18
>> [laughter] >> Tell them to call you Sam.
42:21
Uh just the same way the stargazing thing exists, there's this thing called universalministries.
42:25
com where you can sign up and get ordained as a minister.
42:29
And I've had to do that in order to like I've had to do that to like cuz I've I've officiated a couple weddings before.
42:34
And it's all obviously a crock of [ __ ] But I am a minister.
42:36
So, we could If we could even go by minister.
42:41
>> [laughter] >> I I am a legal witness.
42:42
So, All right, Sean, I want to show you someone who's in the aviation business, in the grocery store business, and actually had a pretty important character in a movie, Marty Supreme, which recently just came out.
42:59
Okay, I haven't seen the movie yet. Okay.
43:01
But you know what it is, right?
43:02
It's like the biggest movie going on right now.
43:03
Timothée Chalamet and ping pong?
43:06
I I don't really That's literally the only two words I know.
43:09
>> Or as Adam Sandler says, "Timothée Chalamet."
43:11
Like he like You've seen that when he does that so good. Okay.
43:14
So, Google John Catsimatidis. All right. John the big cat. Here we go. Who am I looking at?
43:22
American Okay, here's just a quick description.
43:25
American billionaire businessman and radio talk show host.
43:28
He's the owner, president, chairman, and CEO of grocery chains Gristedes.
43:30
I've never heard of that.
43:33
D'Agostino supermarkets in Manhattan. Okay, go ahead. $5 net worth.
43:36
Yeah, have you never heard of this guy, have you? No.
43:40
[clears throat] He But he's a Is this guy a famous actor?
43:42
Like why do I Why does this guy look so so familiar? He's a familiar face.
43:45
He's one of these guys He's sort of like the character in The Dark Knight who plays the police chief where like >> [laughter] >> you're like, "I've seen this actor everywhere. What's his name?"
43:56
He's sort of has that type of energy. So, here's his story. So, I think he's 80 now.
43:59
So, he was born I I guess that would mean sometime in the '40s.
44:04
And he immigrated as a baby from Greece. He came to New York.
44:07
I believe he moved to Harlem.
44:09
Uh and then he was an okay student, went to Brooklyn Tech, which in I think New York is a pretty good school.
44:14
But eventually actually got into West Point.
44:17
So, he's clearly smart, but didn't go didn't decide not to go to school.
44:20
Instead, he bought a small grocery store.
44:23
So, at the age of like 20, he convinced a failing grocery store to sell to him at like an owner financing type of setup where he didn't have to come up with a lot of money.
44:32
But do you know anything about grocery stores?
44:33
They're like the hardest business to run.
44:36
>> no margin business, right? Yeah, it's a commodity.
44:38
There's like it's There are no margins.
44:40
So, if you look at like the biggest grocery stores or at least some of the mid-size grocery stores like the the regional giants, they do like 3% margins.
44:47
It's incredibly challenging.
44:49
You have food that's going to spoil.
44:49
And particularly back in the '70s when he was doing it, you don't have the most like the best systems to like make sure your food's not going to spoil. Very hard. But he's a he's a dog.
44:57
He's got that immigrant hustle and he's able to grow this business.
45:01
I think it's something like 7 years.
45:03
So, by the time he's only 32, he has this cool quote that I found in newspapers.
45:08
com in this old article where he grew the business to the point where he was making something like 40 million a year in revenue, had like 12 or 15 locations.
45:15
And he goes, "I'm now paying myself at the age of" And this actually He said this at the age of like 28.
45:20
He was like, "I'm paying myself a million dollars a year."
45:22
So, through like just hustle and grind, like he kind of makes it work.
45:26
And he does like a lot of like stuff that we take for granted now.
45:28
Like his grocery stores, they were called uh Red Apple.
45:32
They did free cash checking. They did free delivery.
45:34
Um it was a discount store.
45:36
Like a lot of stuff that isn't particularly groundbreaking now, but he just like provided like a pretty simple service, but he did it really well.
45:41
Now, Red Apple, which is I think they have like 100 locations in the city.
45:46
They own Gris- Gristedes.
45:48
Have you heard of Gristedes?
45:49
No, is that like a New York thing? I Maybe Maybe I have.
45:52
>> Yeah, these are all It's all These are all local things.
45:53
But here's where it gets a weird.
45:55
So, he does two interesting moves.
45:57
So, at the age of 32, I think it is, he was like, "Well, I was going to get into West Point.
46:01
My dream was to be a pilot.
46:02
I've never been able to do that."
46:03
Gets his pilot license as an activity just for being for for fun.
46:08
And he does this move that I've actually heard Richard Branson do as well.
46:10
He buys a jet and it's like kind of interesting and kind of fun, but then he's like, "I got to turn this into a business. I got to do something."
46:17
And so, he buys one plane, like a relatively small plane.
46:21
I He has a biography and it It was just a Cessna. Like nothing fancy.
46:24
And he starts allowing customers to charter his plane from New York City to Atlantic City.
46:28
And this is like in the '70s and the '80s.
46:31
So, like the airlines are still a little bit nascent, but it's still like pretty complicated. But he pulls it off.
46:36
And he's able to So, now officially he's in the aviation business.
46:40
And he like one thing leads to another and it grows for like 8 years and eventually becomes like a fleet of like 40 planes and jets, which eventually he sells to Warren Buffett or Yeah, Warren Buffett.
46:49
And that is like one of the beginnings of NetJets, which is one of Berkshire Hathaway's like crown jewels, I believe.
46:55
And so, he was doing it as private charters, not like an airline like Branson. No, private charters.
47:01
But he tried to get into the actual airline business and I don't think it worked out.
47:04
Now, while all of this is going on, he's still only like 33, 34, 35 years old.
47:11
He does another crazy thing.
47:11
He hears about an oil refinery going out of business in Pennsylvania.
47:14
And the grocery store business is a commodity, lots of unions, very low margins, 24-hour like you have to be working 24 hours to make it work.
47:25
And some somehow, which I never would have thought this would have been a thing, he made the leap that they are comparable.
47:30
And he gets into the oil business.
47:32
And he finds an oil refining company.
47:34
Which Do you Do you know what that means? No, I mean, not really.
47:36
Is it They are a middleman in the oil process between drilling for the oil and selling it to the end customer is my guess. What What What is it?
47:47
>> It's It's It's so These are all very vague terms.
47:49
So, I had to like figure out like what exactly is oil refining.
47:52
Basically, if I had to dumb it down, they do two things.
47:53
One, they have a massive pool or tank in the ground that can store tons and tons and tons of oil.
48:00
So, you drill the oil, it goes to this thing, and it's not particularly useful. You can't use it.
48:07
And so, there's this process where you have to refine it, and you could take parts of that crude oil and turn it into oil that you could use in cars, oil that you can burn as kerosene.
48:18
You know, oil can turn into multiple products along the way.
48:20
And that's what he did was he bought a business that did that, which is actually kind of ridiculous.
48:26
Like you never would have thought that that would have been a thing. But it works.
48:30
And by the way, when you're reading about this or watching whatever you watched for this, is it Is he just like a gunslinger?
48:35
Like why is he going into all these different spaces?
48:39
Is he can't help himself?
48:39
Does he have some aspiration?
48:41
Is he just, you know, he's just wired that way?
48:44
Like what did you get as a sense of like the Why is this guy doing all all Why is he bouncing from from totally different hard thing to totally different hard thing?
48:52
This is why I wanted to bring him up.
48:54
And so, I think you and I will get a kick out of like people like him.
48:59
But let me just add that the last thing he he does two things now in his six I think he's close to 80 now.
49:04
In his '60s, he does two other wild things.
49:06
One, he starts an AM radio station political like weekly radio show, which he still is the host of.
49:14
You can't find it on YouTube, and you can't find it on Spotify.
49:18
You literally only get this on AM radio.
49:20
And he records every single Sunday.
49:23
Uh and I have like listened to it.
49:23
And like his co-host is this like Long Island guy who's like, "Hey, uh John, what do you think about this Mondani guy?" Like it's hilarious.
49:34
Like he's a very um unrefined billionaire, I would say.
49:36
And I mean that in a in a cool way.
49:39
And the second thing, the reason or the second thing that he did was he ran for mayor uh in 2012, I think, and he almost won.
49:47
And he was like, "I'm going to be a mayor for for the people in Harlem and the people in Wall Street."
49:53
So, he's this very like sort of salt of the earth immigrant energy type of billionaire guy.
49:57
But, the reason why he's interesting is A, what is that What's that word that you have been obsessed with? Generative? Yeah.
50:05
He's very generative, but he does this in a way, you know, like the charm that when Donald Trump is being like a nice guy, you know, like the charm that he has where he's like, "Ah, screw it. Let's just do it.
50:15
You know, what's money amongst friends?"
50:16
This like old-timey like >> Right.
50:19
>> uh like, "What's a little like, you know, I'll take a little, you take a little, we all win."
50:22
Like that type of energy. My word is my bond.
50:23
My word is My word is stronger than oak.
50:25
This guy is actually that.
50:27
He he has that energy with him, but it's not he he like he doesn't he's not hateful at all.
50:32
So, he's a Republican, but he talks very fondly of Obama and Hillary.
50:35
Like he he's he's not he's not a hater at all.
50:39
And he's got this very foxy type of vibe.
50:41
And when you hear him talk, he's got this thick New York accent, but it's a very much a like spit on my hand, shake your hand type of energy.
50:46
And I have found him very fascinating because uh that and also now his company, it's called Red Apple Holding Company, I think.
50:57
They have like eight or 9,000 employees. His family runs it.
51:01
And I believe him and his kids, they all they own a building uh in New York City.
51:05
They all live in the same building.
51:06
They run this company together.
51:08
And he's still like incredibly active even at the age of 80.
51:10
And he's just constantly doing stuff.
51:12
He's very interesting to me.
51:13
And also, he looks very funny.
51:17
Like he looks >> was just an actor? He just had a cameo?
51:20
Was he playing himself or he was >> this.
51:22
So, Marty Supreme, which is the hottest thing going.
51:24
I I went and saw it the other day. >> How is it?
51:26
Like must-watch, okay, where where are we at?
51:29
>> Did you see Uncut Gems? Loved Uncut Gems. Loved. Then you'll like this.
51:32
So, if Uncut Gems is a nine out of 10 on the stress scale, Marty Supreme is an eight out of 10.
51:38
And for people like me, if you're in my If you're in my boat, you'll hate it.
51:41
I hated Uncut Gems and I hate Marty Supreme. Too much stress.
51:45
Yeah, all the characters are pretty evil and there's no like redeeming qualities of any of them.
51:49
But >> [laughter] >> but he this guy, John, has like a pretty like interesting like not minor character in Marty Supreme.
51:56
And so, I I was like, "This guy is everywhere. He's a man about town.
52:01
He's just always doing stuff."
52:02
And he just seems like um sort of in that Jesse Itzler category of people who have fun while winning and doing well.
52:10
And he's just a really fascinating guy to me.
52:12
Dude, I'm reading this guy's Wikipedia and I'm like, "Wow, that's really amazing.
52:15
Oh, that's really amazing."
52:17
And then it's like He gave a speech at the Stern School of Business expressing his unease about his daughter's graduating class.
52:23
He said, "480 of the 580 kids are Asian, including Indian.
52:27
And that's scary when you think about it.
52:29
We're going to deport most of these kids."
52:32
So, then I was like, "Oh, well, that may not be so amazing for you know."
52:36
Yeah, so you might kick me right off this podcast.
52:38
>> [laughter] >> Did he really say that? I figure I don't know.
52:41
It's on the Wikipedia page.
52:41
I didn't see that one, but I did see other things where uh I'm like I couldn't tell if you were trying to be funny and it reads stupid or what. Right.
52:51
>> Yeah, he it does he does seem like he's an 80-year-old New Yorker who has a little bit of a big mouth, but my vibe my read on him was that he was an all right guy.
53:00
But maybe maybe I could be wrong.
53:02
>> this list of what you call capital men and I feel like he would be one of the capital men where he's just takes money, goes into these, you know, sort of mavericks into new spaces, creates new investments, new entities, and whole new and whole new industries and you know, wins more often than not. Doesn't win every time.
53:22
You actually can't be a capital man if you have a perfect record.
53:25
It kind of means you did not uh you know, you weren't playing as as as rough as you should have, but but wins more often than than not.
53:33
This I feel like this guy's in that bucket.
53:34
Yeah, I was reading his book and it's there seems like a common theme.
53:38
A lot of these guys, there's one point in their life where they're just What What was the phrase we used?
53:43
They're they're leveraged up to the tits.
53:45
Like they're just like they have crazy amounts of debt.
53:48
>> What's the scientific term >> [laughter] >> Derek from More Plates More Dates More Plates More Dates, he always says, "This guy is juiced to the gills."
53:55
And when I was when I was reading about uh old old John Johnny Cats, I was like, "This guy's This guy's leveraged to the tits.
54:04
He's leveraged to the gills."
54:06
Uh and so, yeah, there's they you have to pay the price to do a lot of this stuff, but I love these young guys who are like have this gunslinging energy.
54:14
So, he is your your billionaire of the week? Yeah.
54:16
So, the whole anti-Indian thing, I didn't know about that when I got into this.
54:19
So, this is a little this is So, I should have done a little capital J journalism.
54:22
Uh otherwise, I was going to say we should have invited him onto the pod, but I think uh I think that probably won't be happening.
54:32
Hey, [snorts] we can still invite him.
54:33
Let's see let's see what happens.
54:33
You should You should ask him about that quote.
54:36
We'll just make sure we do it remote and I don't disclose my location.
54:39
>> [laughter] >> I didn't realize he said that.
54:42
So, uh Did he say What other dumb stuff did he say?
54:47
He said he he said a few dumb things.
54:49
>> like There's something about Hitler. Yeah, I don't know.
54:52
>> Oh, man, classic blunder.
54:52
He compared raising taxes on the wealthy to how Hitler punished the Jews, which is >> Yeah, that's probably not the best place to go to.
55:00
A trap we've all fallen into.
55:03
>> [laughter] >> Yeah, I did read that line and I was like, "Uh dude, like we have seen time and time again that type of comparison people have tried to make it.
55:10
Literally not once has it ever worked.
55:12
Dude, I might end up being the richest man in California.
55:16
Have you heard about this billionaire tax?
55:19
Yeah, so is the gist of it that net worths will be taxed at 5%? Yes.
55:26
A one-time tax of 5% for billionaires.
55:29
So, all the billionaires are leaving, >> [laughter] >> which will mean they'll just be like, "Okay, we'll move to the next class of people."
55:35
Soon enough, I'll be the last man standing in California.
55:37
Yeah, I think that's a pretty stupid law, but at the same time I'm like, isn't it crazy how little power a billionaire has if they have to leave their home?
55:47
>> [laughter] >> If Ro Khanna can bully you.
55:49
Yeah, like do you really have that much power?
55:52
It's like another Dark Knight reference.
55:53
Have you seen when Bane is talking to the guy doing construction and the little guy's like, "I'm in control."
55:58
And Bane puts his hand on his shoulder, he goes, "Do you feel in control?"
56:01
Cuz like Bane is about to like snap his neck.
56:06
>> [laughter] >> That's sort of like >> That's That's the 850,000 votes it takes to put this on the this on the bill.
56:12
That That's sort of the energy that I'm feeling right now, which is like these billionaires being like, you know, we're the big shots.
56:17
It's like, you don't look like the big shot if you have to leave your If you have to flee your home.
56:22
>> [laughter] >> That said, I do It is kind of a stupid rule because so, like the analogy that I always use is let's say that you buy a Picasso painting for $5 at a garage sale.
56:31
And turns out you didn't realize it, but you bought like, you know, a one-of-one rare piece of art.
56:35
Now your net worth is hundreds of millions of dollars or whatever the painting is worth.
56:41
How are you supposed to pay taxes on that assessed value?
56:45
Yeah, it's it's complicated.
56:45
I mean, you don't even have to go as far as the finding a Picasso at a garage sale example, which is, you know, that's more of an edge case, but like you're a founder of a startup in San Francisco.
56:57
You're on paper net worth is $200 million, but that's just cuz you just got a you have an AI company that was hot and you raised a round.
57:05
That doesn't mean you have that money.
57:06
That doesn't mean that that money is anywhere close to guaranteed for you, but you would be on the hook for the taxes the following year, which is um which is pretty wild.
57:16
And we all it'll do is just obviously going to drive the wealthiest people out, obviously drive the startup founders who want to get wealthy out cuz why would you start here?
57:23
And literally like uh you know, strangle the golden goose of California.
57:29
It's like, "Oh, yeah, you know, what what did you achieve?
57:31
What did you accomplish with that?"
57:33
I read that like it said like 20 or 30 families have left, like prominent families.
57:40
You should make a like a public announcement the 20 the 31st.
57:43
Yeah, Oh, what [laughter] a great idea.
57:47
>> [clears throat] >> That's hilarious.
57:48
That's like that one time that I tweeted that I was buying Bitcoin and then it somehow got picked up by all the Bitcoin like magazines and newspapers and they were like, "Executive Sean Puri says he's moving 20% of his net worth into Bitcoin."
58:00
And I'm like, "I don't think y'all know how small that net worth is."
58:05
You know, like that's not magazine worthy.
58:09
>> [laughter] >> This This This has escalated far too quickly for me.
58:12
I saw some guy online announce that he was leaving and everyone was making fun of him and they're like, "You know, you're not you're not important enough to like for us to care."
58:22
>> [laughter] >> Yeah, you own two duplexes.
58:25
Um you didn't qualify for the bill. [laughter] Um all right.
58:29
>> Is that Is that what it is, by the way? A billion?
58:32
Well, there was a proposal for 50 million. That didn't make it.
58:34
They went to the billionaire tax cuz it's like, "Who's going to not vote for that?"
58:38
And so, that's the one that's currently proposed.
58:42
But you people have done the math like even if you taxed the billionaires, even if you took all the billionaires' money, it doesn't like plug the hole of the California spending.
58:50
It's like basically it's setting precedent for It's kind of like income tax, right?
58:54
Income tax I think was supposed to be this one-time What was the first one? Like 3%?
58:58
It's like, "It's a one-time only 3% tax on income."
59:03
Like "Don't Don't worry, guys. It's okay."
59:06
And now like everybody pays income tax, you know, 20, 30, 40%, 50% of your income every year now.
59:11
And so, the idea would be once they set the precedent that they could just tax you on your property that you have not realized any gains on, then that's a problem.
59:20
And if they can set the bar at a a billion, then they can easily change it to change it or add, "Well, also if you're over 100 million, then you would this.
59:29
And also if you're over 40 million, you're going to pay this.
59:32
And you know, they could sort of just continue on from there.
59:36
I've always found it interesting how they people come up with round numbers to make as the thresholds.
59:41
Like so if if I remember correctly, like I think like in the 1910 or 1920s, this idea of a millionaire kind of came to be where like people were using the phrase millionaire like you're a millionaire, you made it.
59:51
And it's kind of funny that 100 years later, we still use that as like a threshold.
59:55
Uh because the a millionaire in 1920 would be something like 20 million today.
1:00:00
I think it's 18 or 20 x something like that.
1:00:02
And then billionaire like people are like billionaire shouldn't exist and I'm like okay, but why 1 billion? Why not 800 million?
1:00:11
It just I've always found that to be interesting how we like have settled on this perfectly round number.
1:00:17
Dude, so yesterday I took my whole basketball team like the team I'm coaching to the Warriors game.
1:00:22
And I like wanted to make like a special thanks I like after they won their last game in the locker room, you know, normally we're just sort of like saying like you know, you did this well, you did this poorly.
1:00:32
And then I was like want to do something for you guys.
1:00:33
It's your birthday coming up.
1:00:35
You guys want to go to a Warriors game?
1:00:36
And then we went to as a group and they got to go court side and see Steph Curry like it was cool.
1:00:40
And you've just ruined all of their eligibility for going to NCAA [laughter] by providing I accidentally violated like HIPAA.
1:00:46
Um wait, how did you get court side?
1:00:51
Uh you just knew a guy who knew a guy?
1:00:54
Uh I don't know I don't know if you want me to say so I won't say his name.
1:00:55
But yeah, I know a guy who's who's with the team ex-player.
1:00:57
And so he he was like he just literally like waved his hand.
1:01:02
He's like I'll I'll let them come down and the security guy is like I guess if he's waving his hand you can go.
1:01:05
And I was like yeah, me and these other 18 guys.
1:01:09
>> [laughter] >> And so we all went.
1:01:10
But the anyways, this is part of the story I'm telling.
1:01:12
I I had one extra ticket so I took my son who's 4 and 1/2 years old.
1:01:14
And um you know, taking a kid to a game like this like his first basketball game, you know, we have to leave at after the you know, second quarter cuz it's like bedtime and I got to drive him back back home.
1:01:24
But on the drive back, so I'm hoping I'm going to have this amazing father-son time bonding.
1:01:31
And like I'm like wanting him to love it.
1:01:33
I'm like watch that's the greatest shooter ever Steph Curry like that's the closest we've ever been to God right here this 5 ft away.
1:01:37
And he's like trying to care but he doesn't really care.
1:01:41
He's like can we get a candy now? And I'm like okay.
1:01:43
Like I got him some M&Ms and I'm like every time the Warriors make a shot, you get an M&M.
1:01:47
Now he's like locked into the game.
1:01:47
And so then finally we leave and then of course the drive home was this like amazing moment.
1:01:53
I basically I put Tesla in like self-driving and I just talked to my son for like an hour and it was like a one-on-one cuz my I have three kids.
1:01:59
So normally it's not one-on-one but I got to talk to him.
1:02:00
So he was but he told me he goes, you know what I want to be when I grow up? I want to be a builder. And I was like amazing. Builder of like what?
1:02:07
And he's like do I have to pick?
1:02:09
And I was like no, I guess not.
1:02:10
And so I'm telling him about builders like that somebody built this bridge, somebody built this building, somebody built this car.
1:02:15
And I'm ex And somehow I start explaining to him who Elon Musk is.
1:02:18
And I'm basically doing a podcast episode for him.
1:02:20
And I'm like you know, rockets?
1:02:22
This guy builds rockets that land themselves.
1:02:24
And he's like what did they do before they landed themselves?
1:02:30
And I was like honestly, I don't know.
1:02:32
Maybe that's actually hype cuz like people went to the moon and came back. So I don't know.
1:02:35
They like you know, they come back. They do come back.
1:02:37
Anyways, don't ask too many questions.
1:02:39
So I'm telling him about Tesla and he's like did he start it?
1:02:40
And I'm like no, I'm not technically but let's not get care let's not get into those details.
1:02:44
So I'm telling him about Elon Musk and I tell him he's the richest man in the world.
1:02:47
He's got you know, money.
1:02:47
He's got the most money in the whole world.
1:02:52
And he's like how much money does he have?
1:02:53
And I was like he's got like 300 billion dollars, 400 billion dollars something like that.
1:02:56
He goes he's like quiet for like 30 seconds.
1:03:02
And then I'm like did you hear how much money he had?
1:03:03
Like I don't know are you still there? Did you fall asleep? What happened?
1:03:06
He goes can it even fit in his wallet? And I was like no.
1:03:10
He goes so he has to use a grocery cart?
1:03:13
I was like [laughter] no.
1:03:15
Explaining the concept of banks and so anyways, I have this long conversation with him about uh about money and about like you know, these uh like the sort of the builders and the prolific people that that is what make all this happen.
1:03:25
And it just reminded me like I don't know.
1:03:29
>> By the way, did your son have a take on the simulation? We didn't get there.
1:03:32
That'll be the next time.
1:03:33
He does have a lot of questions similar to that like you know, like where did the earth come from?
1:03:38
And then I'm like yo, honestly like we're very much past the edge of my understanding of like I don't know to be honest.
1:03:44
And like who's older the earth the sun?
1:03:46
I don't There's a lot of questions that are that are pretty tough.
1:03:48
But the good thing is in the car, they have like AI built in so you just like if I don't know, we just turn on AI and ask AI and then AI tells us. Anyways, so that's that.
1:03:57
All right, that's the pod.