From High School Dropout To $952 Million At 33 | Jess Mah Interview (#526)

0:00

All right, this is going to be a special episode.

0:01

I think that the best episodes we do are the ones where we highlight a business or a person who is amazing that you've never heard of.

0:09

And that's what today's episode is.

0:11

The person that we have on, Jess Mah, she has built herself I don't know, 10 companies that have combined, you know, they're worth $950 million.

0:22

She And not only that, just has she made a bunch of money or been successful with business, but she's just a force of nature.

0:30

People that I I respect think she's one of the best entrepreneurs in the world.

0:33

And that's kind of amazing for somebody who you don't know her name, you've never really seen her do interviews.

0:38

Paul Graham, when when he met her and she was at YC, put her on the very short list of a couple people with Sam Altman and a few others as the most impressive people, the people that he thought 30 years from now will have done done the most and gone the furthest.

0:51

I was at a dinner, that's how I met her, and a friend of mine pointed out, he goes, "That woman over there is the best entrepreneur I've ever met."

0:58

And he's lived in Silicon Valley for 15 years, and to say that that's high praise.

1:02

So I had to have her on the podcast to talk about everything from her beginning, where she was basically a loser amongst loser losers in school.

1:11

She talks about like, you know, not only was she not cool, even in the computer club she got bullied.

1:17

And didn't really fit into school, didn't get good grades, really like was just kind of like school wasn't for her.

1:23

She ended up dropping out of high school because school wasn't for her.

1:26

She's she started a business, and it started off as a very And you know, when she was a teenager, she ended up making hundreds of thousands of dollars on this little server business that she was creating, just paying for her own video games.

1:35

We talk about that all the way to where she is today, building these biotech companies that are doing crazy stuff.

1:43

And I asked her, I was like, "Were you like a science genius?

1:45

How how did you know to go into How did you have the confidence to go into a space like that?"

1:50

Like I think we all I think there's a part of all of us that wants to go do the big, bold, crazy, change-the-world thing, but we're afraid.

1:56

Like, "Who am I to go do that?"

1:59

At least that's the thought I've had.

2:00

And it was kind of amazing to hear her talk about she felt the same way.

2:03

Like, she's like, "I got a C- in minus in biology, and now I have like a nine-figure, you know, $100 million-plus bio company."

2:10

Like that's crazy to do that.

2:10

And and how she approached that.

2:12

How did she meet these scientists?

2:14

How did she get the funding?

2:16

How did she actually talk herself into doing that from rock bottom where she was completely depressed and didn't know what she wanted to do with her life to now, you know, living the kind of life she wants.

2:26

The other thing that's in this episode that I think you're going to like is she talks a lot about the lifestyle and financial stuff that come from people who are already really successful.

2:36

So she, you know, like I'm going to give you a trigger warning now.

2:40

She talks about like, you know, "Yeah, I just like I hop on my jet."

2:42

Like, you know, "And I bought this jet.

2:44

I bought it for this reason.

2:45

Here's the tax write-off that I got."

2:46

She's very open and very um clear about this stuff.

2:50

And and I think for some people who are at the very beginning, it's going to feel unrelatable, or it's going to feel like, "Oh, yeah, you know, the the classic YouTube comment guy who's like, 'Easy for you to say, you're already rich.'"

3:01

But I think the important thing to figure out is she's successful because she always thinks this way.

3:06

She she talks about her mindset, and that's why she was able to do this.

3:09

And also, I love when people talk about money stuff.

3:12

I love when they're open and honest.

3:13

I hate the billionaire who downplays it and pretends like, you know, they're flying coach and oh, you know, money's no big deal and I I Oh, you know, I don't I don't really do anything with my taxes.

3:23

No, I like to hear what people actually do, how they use money to improve their life, how they architect their businesses. She does that.

3:27

She's very open about it.

3:29

So that's all in this episode.

3:31

I think you're going to enjoy it.

3:32

Uh this is an episode with Jessica Mah.

3:43

All right, it's good to see you. Good to see you again.

3:44

Um I want to tell people the story of how we met, which is not like this extravagant story, but it is one that um I don't know.

3:53

It's like it it's this thing that happens that is I I I would have bet anything that you're an interesting person just on the way that this meeting went.

4:01

So we got a dinner together, so that's like signal one.

4:04

Uh you know, a friend hosts a dinner, and it's like only friends inviting friends to this thing that's going to be like a you know, some sort of founder investor type of dinner.

4:11

So already you got filter number one.

4:15

Filter number two is I'm sitting at one end of the table, you're sitting at the far end of this other table, but our mutual friend Sieva tells me, he's like I was like, "Oh, what's her name?"

4:25

And he's like, "Oh, yeah, that's Jess Mah."

4:26

He says And he's like, "Yeah, she is um the most impressive entrepreneur I've ever met."

4:33

And I was like, okay, I didn't even ask.

4:35

And he just says that, and he's he basically gives you this extreme compliment.

4:40

And I was like, "That's extreme."

4:42

And he's like, "Yeah, she's extreme."

4:44

And I was like, "Okay, I got to know more."

4:46

So already I got a signal.

4:48

Next thing I noticed that you had your dog in the restaurant, and I was like, "Okay, that's awesome. Love dogs. Dogs here."

4:53

And later I was like, "Is this like a service animal?"

4:55

Cuz this is kind of like a nice restaurant.

4:59

And you were like, "Yeah, Amazon, you can buy this for $10, this vest." And like, "Look."

5:03

And you flashed me like an FBI badge that was like a service dog thing.

5:08

And I was like, "Did you buy that?"

5:10

And you're like, "Yeah, this is great."

5:12

And I was like, "Wow, this person is just you know, so there's all these little signals, somebody who rolls by their own little rules, my friend telling me that you're you're one of the most baddest people that he's ever met literally in the game of entrepreneurship."

5:24

And and then when you did your intro, you said something, you go, "Uh yeah, I'm working on like I started this thing in Indinero, which I've heard of."

5:34

And you were like, you know, "I started that, and now I have I sit on the board like, you know, whatever, 10 companies, and we do like bold science bets."

5:42

And you didn't even explain it, and I was like, "Okay, well, you have my interest.

5:46

What's a bold science bet?"

5:47

And you were like, "You know, like curing cancer, but not like the typical way, like this other path to curing cancer."

5:53

And you like you like kind of nonchalantly gave me some answer as to what a bold science bet would be.

5:57

And I was like, "Okay, say no more.

5:59

I need to meet this person.

6:01

I need to get to know this person."

6:02

And I've gotten to know you a little bit now, and yeah, you are just that impressive. So this is my build-up.

6:06

Um that is my perception.

6:06

And tell me what that feels like to hear because that's people never tell you their actual perception, first impressions, as they remember it, uh you know, in their own head. That's amazing.

6:19

It was super fun to have that dinner with you that night.

6:22

I just had a good feeling that we were going to have a fun time.

6:26

And normally I don't go out.

6:26

I'm kind of like a loner.

6:28

I like to be at home, and you know, just take it easy after work.

6:33

And uh you know, it's a lot to deal with with 10 companies.

6:36

We're going to add more companies this next year, and I'm trying to figure out like where do I want to spend my time as an entrepreneur?

6:43

And that's an ongoing question.

6:44

I'm sure we'll talk about that.

6:46

But I've heard about you.

6:46

You know, I've I've seen your podcast, and you're famous, so it's kind of an honor to get to be friends with you, too. So.

6:58

Our software is the worst.

6:58

Have you ever heard of HubSpot?

7:00

See, most CRMs are a cobbled-together mess, but HubSpot is easy to adopt and actually looks gorgeous.

7:06

I think I love our new CRM.

7:08

Our software is the best. HubSpot. Grow better.

7:11

Well, the other thing that's cool is you have a hold co, and like, you know, if I was going to say what are some of the themes of like almost like entrepreneurship trends, like you know, there's fashion trends, but now there's entrepreneurship trends.

7:23

One of the entrepreneurship trends is this whole personal hold co model.

7:27

But what most people are doing with the personal hold co, I would say, is kind of like small boy stuff.

7:32

It's like we acquire this little SaaS app, or like, you know, I'm going to I'm going to buy this this plumbing business, and I'm doing this hold co to roll these up.

7:40

Um and you kind of have a hold co, but you also have the big venture change-the-world kind of thing inside of it, which I find really fascinating.

7:50

So you're like, "Yes, I'm doing a hold co, but the hold co is going to be all sort of game-changers type of like go big or go home type of bets."

7:58

I find that really interesting.

8:00

I also think that another entrepreneurship trend is doing hard stuff.

8:03

So I think Elon really popular you popularized like "Yeah, you can create the next kind of app, and that's cute, but I'm going to make rockets and electric cars."

8:11

And then, you know, then you have AI and Sam Altman, and that's like, you know, the kind of cutting-edge science do hard stuff movement.

8:19

And I think you're a part of that, too.

8:21

And so I really like that you're here because you represent, you know, some intersection of these trends, and there's very few people that really play that game.

8:27

And uh that's what I wanted to to learn from you today is is why do you play that game, and how do you do it?

8:34

But let's give people like I guess the quick background um of you.

8:40

So can you give me kind of like your How do you introduce yourself when you're trying to brag a little bit um about, you know, why anybody should pay attention to what you have to say?

8:50

I'll I'll be honest, I'm really shy, and it's hard for me to talk about these things cuz everyone I meet is so impressive.

8:57

So no matter what, I feel like the dumbest person in the room and the least successful person in the room.

9:04

And um and so that's really hard for me to talk about still, but um just to catch everyone up, I'm an entrepreneur.

9:11

I've started so many companies now.

9:13

My first company was called Indinero.

9:15

And Indinero is a financial SaaS company.

9:17

We do accounting, tax, bill pay management software and services for businesses.

9:23

And our customers were companies like Slack, Stripe, Pinterest, DoorDash, Instacart, Coinbase.

9:27

And I started that straight after college.

9:30

I studied computer science at UC Berkeley.

9:32

And when I was a senior at Berkeley, I was running the computer science club, and I brought in these speakers, and one of the speakers I brought in was this kid named Sam Altman.

9:43

He was building a company called Loopt.

9:45

And I'm like, "Hey, Sam, what should I do after college?"

9:48

And he said, "Oh, you should do YC."

9:49

And he helped review my application, and uh and then the rest is history.

9:54

So I did that for 10 years, grew that to a few hundred people.

9:56

Um valuation in the hundreds of millions of dollars.

10:00

But, the way I built that business was I didn't raise uh traditional venture funding.

10:05

So, I didn't bring in VC capital.

10:07

I only brought in some angel investors.

10:08

I was able to retain most of uh the ownership in the company.

10:15

And uh and it's a cash flowing, you know, profitable business to this day.

10:20

So, so that was kind of my first uh foray into business.

10:22

And uh lots of ups and downs and like, you know, being weeks away from insolvency multiple times over.

10:30

And I think it's because we were undercapitalized.

10:32

And I always ran things a little too close to the edge there.

10:37

And um and I was pretty public about that.

10:40

I mean, if you Google search me, you'll see that I survived a bunch of near-death experiences with that business.

10:46

And eventually I I realized I didn't want to be a CEO anymore.

10:50

I grew up with this mindset of you have to be the operator.

10:57

And if you're not the CEO and make a company a unicorn, you are a failure.

11:02

And I just didn't that didn't land well with me.

11:05

I I Google searched, you know, the world's billionaires.

11:08

And I'm like, how do these people become billionaires?

11:09

And most of them built companies.

11:13

A lot of them were diversified holding companies.

11:14

And they held onto these companies for decades.

11:19

And a lot of them they weren't the CEO or the operator.

11:22

They were more like investment manager.

11:24

And um I mean, Warren Buffett's a great example of this.

11:29

Um but, there are many, many more like that.

11:31

And so, that kind of got me thinking, hm, am I doing this wrong?

11:33

Am I just listening to Silicon Valley rhetoric that's pointing me in the wrong direction?

11:41

And um and then a few years ago I went through a really tough experience where uh my boyfriend who I I was living with uh died very unexpectedly.

11:50

And I was going through a really dark period after that where I was not able to work.

11:56

I just couldn't I woke up in the morning and I'd be super depressed.

11:58

And I didn't want to do anything.

12:04

And I thought, what would I do if if um I was going to die this year.

12:08

If this was my last year here because I'm so depressed and I have to make myself happy, what would I do?

12:15

And running a company was not on the list.

12:17

So, I immediately hired a CEO for Nantero.

12:22

I had another company that I had started that I brought in a friend to run.

12:26

It's a litigation fintech company.

12:26

And um that company originates and funds lawsuits.

12:32

So, you know, like the personal injury uh billboards you see on the side of the road, we do that in a very sophisticated way.

12:37

Um a lot of details I I really would wish I could talk more about, but uh you know, I don't want to invite competition there.

12:45

And then I started a bunch of other interesting businesses like that, which also, if you go look at my website mawway.

12:50

com, I don't go into much detail.

12:53

Actually, I don't mention any of the details on these businesses for the same reason.

12:56

Um I'd rather build quietly and come up with these really interesting ideas, find someone to go build those businesses, and a good chunk of them are businesses that would just print cash.

13:08

But, a lot of them are more bold.

13:10

And that's why I got interested in the biotech stuff.

13:12

I just thought, what would I do if I wasn't scared of failure?

13:15

And after my boyfriend died, I thought a lot more about that.

13:18

I thought like I shouldn't be scared of trying and failing because I've seen rock bottom.

13:27

I can't my life can't get any worse than it is today.

13:29

So, I might as well try something. You know?

13:33

And uh so, that's that's where I landed with that. That's an amazing story.

13:37

And uh that question of like, what would I do if I wasn't afraid of failing is like up there in the pantheon of great questions.

13:46

I asked myself that same question and it I wouldn't be doing this podcast if it wasn't cuz I had three paths that I had written out.

13:54

I remember I made a Figma file and I was like drawing like a flow chart of my life.

13:58

And I was like, I could start a company and maybe it'll be this, maybe it'll be this.

14:02

And that was like you said, the Silicon Valley rhetoric cuz what gets written about is the visionary CEO founder who creates the next big thing.

14:10

And that's the movies are about social network.

14:11

And uh you know, the the TechCrunch articles are about that.

14:15

The VCs want you to be that cuz they're like, yeah, it's sweet.

14:19

I get to write a check and chill.

14:19

And like, you go do the like you go win the lottery and do all the hard work at the same time.

14:24

Like, do the low odds hardest thing you can do, you know, over there.

14:30

So, I was like, I could go start a company.

14:32

I could invest and just kind of like be on the other side of that.

14:35

That's I don't know if that would be the most fun thing that I would do.

14:40

And then I was like, and I literally wrote, or I could be Tim Ferriss.

14:42

And I was like, I think I want to be Tim Ferriss.

14:44

I was like, well, why don't I just do that?

14:45

I've been thinking about this for like seven years in the back of my mind.

14:50

And I was like, well, because what if I'm not what if it doesn't work?

14:51

Then I'm just a guy with a podcast.

14:53

It's cool to be Tim Ferriss.

14:55

It's not cool to be the guy with a podcast.

14:57

Like, a podcast just normal podcaster with 100 views or listens per episode or something.

15:01

And I was like, all right.

15:04

So, am I just going to not do it because I'm afraid that I might fail at it?

15:09

Like, what's the worst that could happen?

15:10

I kind of had this whole talk with myself.

15:12

You know, the most important talks are not with mentors, they're the talks with yourself.

15:15

And it sounds like you had one of those, too, where you were like, what would I do if I if I wasn't afraid to fail?

15:20

Can you just talk a little bit more about that talk with yourself?

15:23

Cuz I think everybody should have that some version of that talk with themselves.

15:28

Yeah, I I think just to expand on that, a big question I asked myself was also, um how will I deal with the insecurity of feeling like a beginner and terrible at something despite the fact that for the past 10 years I got pretty good at being a CEO and running a business.

15:45

I'm sure you felt the same way, right?

15:47

Where you're a great entrepreneur and then now you're getting into, you know, building content and interviewing great folks.

15:55

And that's the new skill set that you had to become good at.

15:57

But, for a while it's awkward and like the I'm sure your first videos were not nearly as good as the ones that you posted over the past few months, right?

16:06

And so, that's a lot of the self-talk.

16:08

It's like, oh my god, I didn't do a good job.

16:09

I still don't know what I'm doing.

16:11

People don't take me seriously.

16:14

Do I even take myself seriously?

16:17

And meditating on that and thinking, you know what?

16:19

It doesn't matter cuz I'm having a great time. I'm learning a lot.

16:24

And the outcome will work itself out.

16:26

That's how I deal with it. But, how about for you?

16:27

Like, what's what are your other best practices?

16:31

Yeah, so being a beginner and being okay, like that mental prep for yourself of I'm going to be a beginner at this, I think is also a very important part of that conversation.

16:41

I'm glad you said that cuz it's one thing to just say, um what would I do if I wasn't afraid?

16:46

But, then like the fear is still going to be there.

16:49

It's not just going to disappear when you ask that question. And the fear is what?

16:52

The fear of being wrong, being failing, looking dumb, all those things.

16:56

And so, that beginner conversation is important, which is cool.

16:58

If I go into this, I'm going to start as a complete beginner.

17:03

I'm going to get better at it over time because I'm good at learning and I'll try.

17:05

And um you know, if I don't need to become the world expert at this, but I need to become competent at this.

17:10

And that might take me 6 months to a year.

17:12

That's like a reasonable expectation if I really put my mind to this.

17:17

Um it reminds me of the story I've told on the pod before of Moiz Ali who created Native Deodorant.

17:20

And deodorant's not curing cancer or whatever, but it is uh you know, it's still it's a totally different space.

17:27

And so, when he told his friends, he's like, I think I'm going to create a deodorant brand.

17:30

And they were like, cool. Uh random.

17:34

You know, do you do you even wear deodorant?

17:37

Like, do you know anything about deodorant?

17:38

And he's like, today I know nothing about deodorant, but in 6 months I'll know everything I need to know about deodorant.

17:46

And that idea of like writing yourself a blank check, I think is really important to uh to starting anything.

17:51

And you told me this when I was like, dude, you're like working on crazy science stuff.

17:59

I like that idea and I wish I could do that, but it feels above my intellectual pay grade.

18:04

Uh are you just a science genius?

18:04

And you were like, no, I got like you were like, I got like a C in biology in school.

18:10

And then like, you know, you're like, I hired a tutor to like as an adult to like learn about this.

18:14

And I watched TED Talks and podcasts.

18:16

And and then I flew out and I met the scientists and talked to them.

18:19

You just did all of the like normal blocking and tackling I feel with like just like uh Is is that how you would describe it?

18:26

Like, cuz that that was totally different for me.

18:28

I just put you on a pedestal.

18:29

I was like, oh, maybe she's doing it cuz she's just smarter than all of us.

18:32

And that's why she can do this and nobody else can.

18:36

No, I still have major insecurities about about this.

18:38

In fact, last night I dreamt again, this is a recurring nightmare, where I am getting C's in school and I am very close to flunking and having to repeat a grade.

18:53

And I got C's in bi- in also in biology when I was in high school.

18:57

So, I thought I could do a lot of things with my life, but anything related to biology is not one of those things.

19:04

And then when I was um so, I was on the cover of Inc.

19:08

magazine um a bunch of years ago.

19:12

And uh there was a woman who who was on the cover a month before me.

19:15

Her name's Elizabeth Holmes.

19:19

And you know, obviously, we all know what happened.

19:23

And so, when she got uh you know, when Theranos went under and the whole thing happened, I thought, wow, bio is really hard.

19:31

And I would be so paranoid and scared of doing anything in biotech cuz I don't want to go to prison.

19:35

Now, obviously, you know, there's more to the story there.

19:38

And I don't think I'm going to go to prison.

19:41

But, like the thought crossed my mind, like, should I even risk my life and my career if everything's okay?

19:46

Like, why do something hard and where the last woman who tried to do something here, you know, got you know, totally destroyed by the media and is now in prison.

19:57

Like that's not really good inspiration for me to be try to be the next Elizabeth Holmes, but who didn't up as bad, you know?

20:05

That's So that went through my head and I had to overcome that.

20:09

And then eventually I decided, you know what? it. I want to give it a try. Why not?

20:15

You know, just learn and so I hired a biology tutor.

20:17

I like I did digested all the information and I brought in people who've been running biotech companies and who had been part of big bio.

20:28

So that's that's really how I operate.

20:32

It's just bringing other people smarter than I am.

20:35

Another question I would want to ask you and it's something I ask a lot of my best friends is what would you do if you were a billionaire?

20:45

Um and if you had like billion in hard cash in the bank account, and you were not allowed to do what you're doing today, how would you devote your life?

20:55

And it's so fascinating to hear the answers that that I I get from my friends.

21:00

And I'd say occasionally it's I I'm doing what I'm doing today, I would just keep on doing that.

21:07

I I hear that from my more successful friends.

21:09

But some people who haven't made it per se, it's very thought-provoking.

21:14

That is a great question.

21:16

I can tell a quick story and then I'm going to answer that question.

21:18

So the quick story version is when we got acquired by Twitch, I grabbed I was like first day, what do I want to do?

21:26

I was like, let me go find my people cuz I went into this all of a sudden I'm in a company of 2,000 people who you know, each are doing their little function in this company and I was like, where are my entrepreneurs at?

21:36

Like where are the people who like to like, you know, make happen?

21:38

And so there was a company that had gotten acquired a few years earlier and 3 years earlier and they got bought for like I don't know.

21:47

I want to say like $100 million.

21:48

And the founder was one of the founders was still working there.

21:50

And so I we go out to lunch and I was like, hey, can we meet?

21:54

He's like, yeah, let's go to the cafeteria.

21:55

I was like, no, no, I just need to leave this building.

21:56

I'm having like big company claustrophobia.

21:57

I need to get out of this building.

21:59

So we go to a lunch and I say, why are you still here?

22:04

And he's like, what do you mean? Like it's going great. We're working on stuff.

22:07

I'm like, yeah, but like uh you know, is this what you want to do?

22:11

Like you're here you're 3 years in and I'm looking in the mirror thinking, you know, do I want to be here in 3 years?

22:17

There's no way I want to be here 3, 4 years from now.

22:18

You're going on your four and you're drinking this company Kool-Aid.

22:22

What did what happened to you? Why are you still here?

22:26

And he was like, you know, slightly offended, but he was like, no, it's great. I'm having fun. I'm learning a bunch.

22:30

I go, let me ask you the question differently.

22:34

It sound it sounds like what you're saying is you don't want to be doing anything else, right? He goes, yeah.

22:35

And I go, so let's say that I had put $100 million in your bank account tomorrow, would you show up to work?

22:44

And he's like, well, no, like I'd be I'm like, okay, so you're doing it for the money.

22:48

Let's let's okay, well now we've established that because if I all I did was I changed the money part of the equation and now your answer is very different.

22:54

He's like, well, I would buy a ranch and I would you know, I have four kids and we'd be outside all day, but then on the side I'd be building this type of project.

23:01

I was like, okay, so that's what you really want to do.

23:03

I'm not saying you have to go do that, but let's at least be honest.

23:07

I didn't like the part where you were telling me this is exactly what I want to be doing with my life.

23:12

And I would say today there's things there's a part of my life like this podcast part of my life that is exactly what I would be doing regardless of what the number is in the bank account.

23:24

And there's a part of my life where like we spin up companies, but like we spin up companies like for example, we just spun up a company that is I would say it is opportunistic.

23:30

It's not the most fun sexy company in the world.

23:34

I don't want to operate it forever.

23:35

I'm like, oh, this business will work. It'll be successful. It'll have a great exit.

23:39

It'll provide a great return.

23:41

It'll you know, it'll put you know, millions of dollars in people's bank accounts in the next 3 to 5 years and that is good.

23:50

But if I was totally post-economic, there's no way I would spend an ounce of my energy doing that company.

23:56

Like just the reality of the situation.

23:58

So I'm like, you know, partially following that that philosophy, but not all the way yet.

24:03

And I'm kind of honest with my at least I'm honest with myself of like yes and no.

24:07

But the my answer to the question of if I was totally post-economic, you know, I have more money than I'll ever be able to spend.

24:15

The thing that I would do is I would teach and I would either just teach in the way that I do today like podcast, write a book, uh you know, just basically be curious, go learn something and then explain what I learned to people who don't have the 12 hours to go down the bioelectricity rabbit hole.

24:31

You know, you know, but that's what I would do.

24:33

Or I would extend that if I wanted to be a little more ambitious and I would actually create a campus in a school for people like me and be like, cool, let me create the ideal school that I wish I had when I was younger and do that.

24:43

I just don't know how much I don't know how much that would be fun like the kind of reward versus extra effort that that takes versus creating content online and doing the same thing, but not having any of the like students and physical campus and stuff that I need to deal with.

24:59

You we should talk about that sometime because I've thought about that as well.

25:03

I wish there was a better school for me and for people like us who are, you know, we're creative, entrepreneurial, quirky and the traditional school system does not like satisfy our needs.

25:15

Um and what's cool about it is you know, if let's say we came up with a a concept for how we would do this, like I would just put my whole team behind it and then we'll find a way to find the money and then it will just manifest.

25:27

Like these things don't have to wait until you have a billion dollars in cash is the point.

25:30

And but I asked you the question because I I found that bio was on my list.

25:34

Like, oh, I would do more bio stuff.

25:38

I just fund it and I'm like, what but I know people who could fund it.

25:41

So I could just call them and have them fund it and I I don't need to fully fund it and it'll manifest.

25:48

Um and I think I think a lot of us um have so many of these things that we want to create in the world and it's dangerous to wait because life priorities change and I think that I see this with many of my friends who go on to get married, have kids, they get comfortable, they're building their ridiculous house and then life goes by and they never go through this lesson.

26:12

It always stays a dream or an aspiration and I I just couldn't allow that to happen to myself and I'm so glad that you're, you know, doing most of the things on your list. That's a a great phrase.

26:22

It's dangerous to wait cuz I think most people feel like it it'd be risky to go do it and I think they vastly underestimate the risk of allowing yourself to just wait on the things you really want to do in life cuz actually what happens is you accrue this like um it's not like by waiting you get closer to the goal.

26:43

By waiting you actually get further away from the goal because you add all this space that gets filled up with other activities, other responsibilities, thoughts you train yourself to not take action on the you actually want and to like go down this like long winding path.

26:57

I remember when I was um back to when I was working at Twitch, there's a guy Dan who's now the CEO.

27:03

At the time he came in as like I don't know, chief product officer or something.

27:07

He was he became my boss.

27:09

So we go into this like one-on-one and um he's like, so like what are your like career, you know, what's your like goals for yourself here, you know, at the company?

27:17

And I was like, um well, I have two options here.

27:19

I'm either going to lie to this guy and say, oh, I can't wait to get promoted from L7 to L8 to L10.

27:26

Like you know, like this like the ladder.

27:28

Literally it's a ladder and you that's your goal. That's my final answer.

27:33

I was like, I'm either going to lie about this to him cuz he's you know, he's my manager.

27:36

I guess that's what I'm supposed to say. Or I'll tell the truth.

27:39

And so I told him the truth and I was like, yeah, I can't wait to go build another thing or just go on my own and like I don't see myself being here and long term.

27:49

And he was like, okay, well, that's but he didn't he didn't get I thought like that's going to put him in an awkward position, but he was like, don't want you to totally write me off because I said that.

28:03

Like I do think I'll be here to earn out this part of the deal.

28:06

I think I can do good work while I'm here.

28:07

Like, you know, I think you'll you'll get value from somebody with my talents being here.

28:12

So I hope you don't just like, you know, say, oh, this guy's not here for the long haul.

28:15

Like write me off, but that's the truth. And he was like, done. I appreciate that.

28:18

Now let's talk about the thing you really want to do.

28:21

What is it that you really want to do?

28:22

And I was like, oh, I want to do this, this, this, but you know, before I do that, I need to kind of like, you know, I'm trying to get, you know, save up, you know, enough capital cuz I'm going to that's going to require a lot of capital and I'm going to learn some things.

28:33

I'm going to build my network and and he's like, yeah, I'm not really a fan of the like I want to do X, so I'm going to go do A, B, and C before I do X.

28:42

He's like, you're better off usually just going ahead and trying to do X.

28:48

And I was like, all right, you're right. That's true.

28:50

I don't need like I you don't even need to say anymore. You're right.

28:52

I was bullshitting myself a little bit.

28:53

Thank you for saying that.

28:55

That's actually a really valuable piece of wisdom.

28:58

And it reminded me of there's this Tony Robbins TED Talk.

29:02

Have you ever seen the the one time Tony Robbins went to Ted? Yeah.

29:06

He's like on stage and he's like um what stops you I've been I spent my whole life basically studying like what stops people from having what they want in life.

29:14

And he's like, you know, what do you think it is? What holds you back?

29:17

And people are like, oh, like you know, from whatever it is you want.

29:19

You want a better relationship, you want a better career, you want more money, you want better health, whatever whatever it is.

29:25

And people are like, oh, I don't I don't have the time.

29:26

And other people are like, I don't have the the knowledge, the skills.

29:29

I don't And the people in the crowd are saying it and Al Gore is there and this was like right after Al Gore had lost the presidential race to Bush.

29:38

I think there was like a runoff.

29:39

Like they had to recount the votes in Florida or something.

29:41

And like they it went to the Supreme Court and the Supreme Court ruled that whatever, Bush won.

29:47

And so he hears this voice that says, "I didn't have enough Supreme Court justices."

29:50

And he's like, "What the hell? What do you mean?

29:53

Like, who's Oh, Al Gore's here."

29:56

And Tony Robbins gives this like 1-minute thing that like actually kind of like bitch-slapped all their answers.

30:01

He's like, "Uh you know, everything you guys just said is a resource.

30:03

You lacked money, time, capital, Supreme Court justices.

30:08

It's a a thing you lack."

30:09

Supreme Court justices, yeah.

30:09

That's one of the most hilarious examples.

30:14

He's like, "The only thing you actually need is resourcefulness."

30:16

He's like, "That is the master skill, the ability to go get the resources you need when you need them for the thing you're trying to manifest."

30:22

And he's like, "If you Is it not true that if you are motivated enough, charismatic enough, playful enough, convincing enough, um you know, like determined enough, and and charming enough, can you not get everything that you want?

30:35

Like is it like is it really anything that is outside of you if you really put your all into acquiring that resource?

30:43

Could you not have gotten the time, the money, the the network, all of those things?

30:48

Like, Al Gore, if you were not more passionate when you were on that stage in that debate, would it ever ever even come down to the Supreme Court justices? No, right?

30:55

Like, you would have just won in a landslide uh if you had acquired the things that you actually needed to get there.

31:00

And that's kind of what you're saying of your little manifestation studio type of concept. Yeah.

31:06

I love that because it's like you are completely striking out from the thought process of an entrepreneur, the like do I have what it takes either personally or financially or uh you know, knowledge and skill-wise.

31:20

You're like, "Well, if I want to start a bio company, I'll go recruit the best bio people."

31:24

And then I'll go raise the funding. Exactly.

31:28

We say like you don't have enough time or money.

31:30

Those are always the excuses, but you create the time by hiring other people to do the work who are better experts at whatever that thing is.

31:36

And you manufacture the money by raising the money.

31:41

And in my case, I've got a multi-person investor relations team.

31:45

They have connections to tons of billionaires and family offices.

31:47

And we're trying to like place these deals with our family office connections.

31:51

And that's going to be you know, within the next year that's going to be a four-person team.

31:57

And the capability I had.

31:59

So, instead of being a whole show, let's create manifestation shows.

32:05

That's what I'm talking about.

32:06

are not always going to be right.

32:06

I I mean, I you coined it.

32:08

It's the manifestation show.

32:10

And uh cuz now it could be a profitable endeavor. Great. Sometimes it won't be.

32:16

And but the point is all of us have that thing we want to create in our our life.

32:20

And we want to have the ability to do that in a way that's painless, fun, and exciting for uh us as the I beta.

32:31

What about like um you know, crazy science dreams you have?

32:34

You said you have ideas or you're talking to scientists all the time.

32:36

What are some things that are, you know, in the future that you're excited about that is not just a pipe dream?

32:41

Like there might actually be a pathway to do it.

32:45

Like, you know, I don't know if the the grow test tube baby in a vat type of thing.

32:49

Like, I don't know if that's like just a dream or there's actually people working on the that that might be scientifically possible or practical.

32:57

Can you tell me about some parts of the future that I should be excited about or my kids might get to experience?

33:00

I actually think that is very viable, the test tube babies.

33:06

Um I know um I've talked to several scientists who are doing the portion to like for example, let's say you wanted to be the mother of a child, not the father.

33:19

And we could take your genetic material and create an egg out of that.

33:21

I think that we're going to see that within the next 5 years.

33:26

And then the converting, you know, having a artificial embryo generated avatar style, that's a little harder to do.

33:32

I I met scientists who've been able to um get to maybe 6 weeks before the whole thing falls apart.

33:40

And that will get better and better over time.

33:42

Um but the implications there are huge.

33:46

Like, for women, imagine not having to deal with this and uh not having to do egg extraction um if you're, you know, if you're having trouble conceiving.

33:57

And then what's also realistic, I think, is extending our lives by 30%.

34:02

I think we need to be prepared to live till we're 120 or longer.

34:11

And right now, the upper limit in our head is, "Oh, I'll probably die when I'm 90."

34:16

We're not thinking about the exponential rate of change here.

34:17

And I am talking to a lot of longevity scientists. I'm seeing the data. It's compelling.

34:21

I think we're going to live longer, and we need to plan for that future.

34:27

What's the short version of how we get that extra 30%? Is it drugs?

34:30

Is it uh diet lifestyle changes? Is it reversing aging?

34:35

Is it, you know, uh getting blood from young uh you know, baby seals?

34:40

What what are we going to do to to make that happen?

34:44

It's probably going to be a combination of multiple factors.

34:48

And you All these projects fall under what you call bold science.

34:49

Can you define bold science? What does that mean?

34:55

Yeah, there are just so many uh companies working on very incremental uh you know, companies where it might extend your lifespan by 3 months or 6 months.

35:06

That's not a great outcome.

35:06

Like, you're going to be going to the hospital and taking chemo drugs for another 6 months before you're dead. What do you do?

35:14

That's like I'd rather go to a go to hospice than prolong my suffering.

35:16

But if you could instead patching the problem, like putting a band-aid on a gunshot wound is the analogy.

35:27

Um what if you could get to the root cause and reverse cancer, for example?

35:32

So, right now everything we do within cancer is about um trying to kill the cancer cells through chemo, radiation, surgery.

35:39

CAR-T therapies are super hot and trendy.

35:43

But that just basically involves using your immune system to target and kill your own cancer cells.

35:50

But what if killing cancer is the wrong approach?

35:52

And actually cancer happens because your cells are trying to protect themselves in some way.

35:56

And if you could train them and coach your cells instead of killing them, let's rehabilitate them, get them to integrate back in with their surroundings, then you could fix cancer.

36:06

And so, we're working on a company around that.

36:09

Um that's what I mean by bold science.

36:13

That's That's uh that's great.

36:15

So, it's basically non- non-incremental, a big leap in function or leap in quality of life.

36:21

So, like, you know, a a step a complete step change.

36:24

And usually that's going to come from taking a different approach than like, you know, or taking a different point of view on the problem, looking at it through a different lens.

36:33

And um you've you What you do is you partner with scientists to make that happen.

36:37

One of the things you said that I liked uh when we were talking before was you're like, "I get on the plane."

36:42

I get on the plane every time, yeah.

36:44

And um I don't know exactly what you mean by that, but talk about that cuz I think that's just the entrepreneurial as part of the manifestation studio, you got to just get on the plane sometimes.

36:55

What do you What do you mean by that? I have a real example.

36:57

I have uh there's this successful entrepreneur who I'm sure you've heard of.

37:01

Um maybe you've even read him. He lives in Vegas. I live in LA.

37:06

And I just said, "Hey, tell me a time and place on Sunday and Monday, and I will fly to Vegas and I will meet you."

37:14

I will literally take my plane and fly there just for the meeting and then fly home afterwards.

37:17

And then Tuesday, same thing.

37:19

I have um Patrick Collison from Stripe asked me to hang out with him and have dinner.

37:24

And like, "All right, cool.

37:26

So, I'll just get on my jet and go see him and then fly back and be back in my bed after dinner, you know?"

37:32

And does it does that only work if you have a jet? No, I Southwest ticket.

37:35

I mean, just get creative about it.

37:38

I do it so often though that it is really nice to have my own airplane, but like I think that um it doesn't matter.

37:46

Like, if I have to fly to London and see someone, I will I'm gladly, you know, book a ticket and do that.

37:52

And uh I think that it really, you know, I had a billionaire do this for me where he literally flew in from South America, and he went straight from the airport to dinner with me.

38:06

And that was the first time I had a one-on-one meeting with this person.

38:12

And it really made an impression on me.

38:13

I'm like, "Wow, this guy went out of his way.

38:15

He was planning to go to some other city.

38:17

Instead, he came to LA to meet me just for dinner."

38:21

And and he's more important than I am by by a million miles.

38:28

He's so much more important than I am.

38:31

But it made me want to be friends with this person.

38:32

And um you know, I have another billionaire who I hit it off with. We hung out for drinks.

38:38

Um we were part of a bigger group.

38:41

We had 2 hours where we just talked about the meaning of life, all of his regrets, all the things he'd do different.

38:46

He's like this 70-something-year-old dude.

38:48

And he's like, "Yeah, everyone wants me for my money, but no one just asked me these questions that you're asking me about life advice."

38:55

And I'm like, "You know what?

38:55

We should continue this." "Where do you live? I'll visit you."

38:58

He says, "I live in the Bahamas." I'm like, "Great. I'm visiting you." And we booked the time.

39:03

I'm seeing him for dinner in 3 weeks.

39:05

And I want to literally go there just to see him.

39:09

And he's so happy about it.

39:09

And I want to get 4 hours of downloading this man's wisdom.

39:15

And uh it's it's super cool.

39:19

I think it's massively underrated.

39:19

Uh well, uh my uncle calls it meeting belly to belly.

39:23

He's like, "You got to meet belly to belly in business."

39:24

And he's in the real estate game.

39:26

It's a totally different game, but I loved it.

39:27

I was like, "Not face-to-face.

39:28

We're going belly to belly."

39:30

And I just think that that was like some created such a good visual in my head.

39:33

If you were going to score it, let's say if I gave you one point of like trust, productivity, relationship building for a Zoom call versus meeting belly to belly.

39:47

If one is if a one is the is the call, how much is the in person?

39:54

Well, I mean, I would think about it the other way.

39:57

I mean, it's it's just it they're totally opposite ends of the spectrum.

40:00

Like a belly to belly, like flying out to see them is the ultimate 10 out of 10 way to engage with someone.

40:04

There is no better way than to say I'm flying 5 hours out of my way to see you and I spend, you know, dinner with you.

40:13

And a call is definitely a one and a Zoom call is maybe a two.

40:15

It's like that's how wide the delta is. Right.

40:19

And uh other thing I want to mention is that you didn't I think a lot of people think, "Oh, but Jess, like you you've already like we did a bit, so of course people want to hang out with you."

40:29

Well, I was getting meetings like this when I was 16 and I knew nothing.

40:34

I cold emailed the Reddit guys.

40:37

I cold emailed Justin and Emmett from Twitch. I guess it was justin. tv back then.

40:42

And I said, "Hey, I'm this idiot 16-year-old.

40:46

I think you just put it on the table."

40:48

Like I'm an idiot and I think you are brilliant and I'm willing to fly to you and I just want to be a a fly on your shoulder and see do your work and just like, you know, just follow you around for a day.

41:05

And so if you pull up the justin.

41:05

tv archives, you will see me driving him around San Francisco and going to a poker game with him and like all this random stuff just because I was willing to do that.

41:16

Marc Benioff replied to me also.

41:20

Again, I'm an idiot 16-year-old.

41:22

This is when you're a teenager.

41:22

You also told me cuz I asked you cuz um I think one of the valuable things in life is to study like to become a good evaluator of people.

41:31

Like if let's say you were an NBA general manager, you need to be able to spot talent.

41:36

Um I think any business person or investor needs to be able to spot talent and ideally spot the difference between good and great, great and the best in the world.

41:43

And um when I met you, I really felt like, "Oh, this might be somebody who's one of those like elite best in the world at what they do and they're going to just do special things that are beyond even what really great smart, you know, intelligent people are going to do just because they seem to be operating differently, but I need to understand them a little more."

42:00

So I asked you a question when I was getting to know you and I I was like I was like, "If I met you when you were younger, like 13 years old, what would I have seen and what I would have would there have been any signals for for this?

42:11

And I I said, "And I will say on my side, I was a totally unimpressive 13-year-old, you know, um you know, there was no signals that I was going to do anything out of the ordinary, you know, forget like being great at something, just like out of the ordinary, beyond average."

42:28

And um so I wasn't that way, but I've met a lot of people who were, you know, they were like teenagers and they were flipping things like, you know, on eBay or they were building a product of some kind or, you know, whatever.

42:38

You have an amazing kind of backstory. Uh can you tell it? What were you doing?

42:43

What was like your first, you know, interesting little business you were doing when you were you were teenager?

42:49

When I was 13, I started a dedicated server and colocation business because that's what I thought you did in high school.

42:59

That's just I don't know why, but I thought it was kind of normal and I grew that said at a few hundred grand in revenue.

43:05

Did you know somebody else doing it?

43:05

Why would you think that's normal? know.

43:08

I was on the internet forums, you know, there are lots of people who do this.

43:11

So I thought, "Okay, this is like a commodity business, but I could probably figure out how to do it and make a few bucks and offset my gaming server expenses." That was the goal.

43:21

I just wanted to make like $10,000 a year to offset my own costs and buy some clothes and not have to like go work at the shopping mall or like rake leaves or shovel snow.

43:30

So you're like, "I'm playing video games.

43:31

I want to scratch my own itch, be able to play my own video games and and like, you know, pay the pay off that, buy some clothes. Were you cool in school? Were you like a No.

43:40

smart popular kid or what what were you? Total geek loser. I so lame. I So I had no friends.

43:47

I went to the computer club at my high school, which is all the nerds who also had no other friends, so you have to be friends with each other.

43:55

They were making fun of me and they were bullying me.

43:57

I was literally on the bottom of the bottom totem pole.

44:06

Like that's how I knew it was really bad.

44:07

I'm like, "Okay, I have to get out of here as soon as possible."

44:09

So I ended up dropping out of high school uh halfway through my sophomore year, but I got into this really cool college program called Simon's Rock.

44:18

College, you know, Simon's Rock and going to college early, it really saved me because I was bored in high school. I wasn't doing well.

44:26

I was I was getting terrible grades because I was uninterested and because I had no friends and I felt like I couldn't relate to anyone.

44:34

All other girls um and guys just like were interested in things that I had no interest in.

44:39

So when you said, "Hey, I would love to create this school for people like us," I just thought, "Holy cow, I want to create that school, too. We can make this happen. Let's do it. Let's brainstorm it.

44:51

Let's set aside some time another day or let's just go meet up for dinner.

44:55

I'll come wherever you want, any day you want.

44:56

I will I will fly to you and we will put together, you know, like a game plan for what this would look like and how we would manifest this without having to wait till we're, you know, sitting on a billion in cash." Yeah, okay, done. Uh love it. Belly to belly, booked.

45:13

Um you Tell me about this server business.

45:16

Did you make the 10 grand off that?

45:16

I was making like hundreds of thousands of dollars a year off of it.

45:22

I was making more money than my teacher.

45:25

I remember in biology class it's 8:00 a. m.

45:26

and I can't pay attention and I'm like like the biology teacher clearly doesn't like me cuz she knows that I'm high potential, but I wasn't doing well cuz I was up till 3:00 in the morning answering customer service and sales emails.

45:40

So of course I only had like 5 hours of sleep.

45:44

And when you're 13 and you're operating on 5 hours of sleep, you're not going to do well.

45:48

And but to make myself feel better, I thought, "Well, at least I'm making more money than my biology teacher while I'm falling asleep." The moral victory.

45:59

So when you were meeting these people cuz you're like, "I'm a I'm a dumb 16-year-old college kid."

46:01

You're college kid cuz you're 16 cuz you dropped out of high school and like just went to college.

46:06

Um you met Justin Kan, you met Marc Benioff, you met uh you know, these different YC founders.

46:13

Did you Do you learn Did you learn anything?

46:15

Did anything stick with you?

46:16

Was there a story that like you remember?

46:19

Like what did you get out of those meetings?

46:20

Yeah, what I got out of it was that, "Holy cow, there are other people like me who are a little crazy, who are willing to approach life and entrepreneurship in an unconventional way and who are willing to do uh you know, the hard things."

46:36

So when I saw Justin and when I saw Steve Huffman from Reddit, I I realized, "Wow, like I don't need to wait till I'm older to start doing this today."

46:46

And I also don't need to have money.

46:49

I don't have to have like a job to demonstrate success first.

46:53

So it's one of the mindset, I would say.

46:55

It's always mindset and psychology more than tactics um when you're meeting these people that I focus on. Yeah, yeah.

47:04

And you you also told me you had met these other people like when I was like, "Oh, what's um uh I forgot what I was like I think I was asking you like what you do with your money and you were like, "Yeah, I You said one interesting thing.

47:15

You were like you're like, "You know, taxes um people We I think I was asking you something about taxes and you were like, "People don't spend enough time on taxes."

47:23

So can you tell me we'll put this in the bucket of billionaire secrets.

47:30

Uh you you said you've met a bunch of successful super rich people and the way they think is a little bit different than the way everybody else thinks and I'm interested in that gap.

47:36

What's different about the way that the most successful, the richest people that you know, think?

47:42

What is it that they're thinking about differently?

47:45

Um one of the things was taxes, but you had a few more.

47:47

Can you tell me the taxes point and anything else you kind of remember on that?

47:50

Yeah, top tax optimization is a really big deal because if you think about it, if you're spending if if half your money is going to Uncle Sam, it's really going to impact your compounding.

47:59

Like do a, you know, compound interest calculator and you'll see the delta is very wide if you're starting at age, say, 30.

48:09

And these billionaires employ the best tax strategists in the world.

48:13

So eventually I said, "Hey, could you introduce me to your tax person?"

48:19

And that person, of course, works with like 30 other billionaires and has saved them, you know, collectively a hundred billion dollars in taxes.

48:24

And then I I've gotten enough of these tax professional intros where now I have a whole collection of them I call and I combine the advice from multiple tax professionals and merge it all together.

48:38

And I think that's the uh level.

48:38

Most people just pick one person and they say, "Oh, I've been working with Betty as my tax accountant for the past 10 years."

48:46

Well, Betty doesn't work with billionaires.

48:47

It's time for a new tax accountant.

48:50

I literally had this conversation with someone over lunch last week and he texted me right before we got on this call saying, "Oh my god, like this is going to make me millions of dollars more over the next few years."

49:02

Like Well, this is so true.

49:04

I feel when I like I have like a lawyer and a tax person and I feel like I I talk to another tax person or lawyer, I'm like kind of cheating on them.

49:12

And it's like that's so silly.

49:14

That's so dumb of a way to think about it.

49:15

Like first of all, it's your job to get the best opinion possible because the best answer the best answer is not going to come necessarily from the one person you know who you picked one time 5 years ago without vetting anybody else.

49:31

They may also not specialize in other stuff you're doing.

49:33

Oh, now you're doing real estate deals, but they don't know anything about real estate deals or you're doing you have an exit and M&A they don't know anything about M&A.

49:38

So you know you should be talking to people who really understand that stuff.

49:41

Um a team multiple opinions is better than one. Uh specialties matter.

49:46

Um also when you said that it reminded me I was like, "Oh yeah, the person who I have doing tax strategy stuff, they stopped giving me strategy after year one."

49:56

Like we you know like the bulk if I if I had a pie chart of 90% of the like strategy convo convo's we had were at the very beginning and then like now I'm just like the client that they you know stamp the the thing on like every year, right?

50:10

Like that happens naturally.

50:10

Same thing with legal legal stuff.

50:12

And so you kind of need to keep dating in order to have like fresh ideas or advice coming in uh from that perspective. Exactly.

50:22

like there's a certain amount of time you think people should spend on or like you know maybe you not should but like the math tells you you should be spending a certain amount of time on taxes and actually the what people actually do is maybe less than 1% of their time. Yeah, exactly. Less than 1%. Way less than even 0. 1%.

50:42

Cuz if taxes impact half your income potentially, if you invest just even 5 or 10% of your time this year it's a finding five amazing tax strategies, get all their advice and figure out how to apply it.

50:53

10% of your time is the up upper bound here.

50:59

And you're making like way more money as a result it pays for itself like a hundredfold.

51:03

It's the highest ROI investment that you can make and it's way better than like investing in the stock market with the money you're paying these tax people.

51:09

No, that's so true cuz your tax is always your biggest expense.

51:14

Uh and if you're a business person you have your you know your business tax then you have your personal tax you have like investment tax capital gains tax you have all kinds of taxes every single year.

51:20

You know the same dollar gets taxed a bunch of times.

51:24

Um so you're right basically it's the biggest it's the big biggest expense.

51:29

Even 10% sounds absurd cuz I'm like, "Oh that's 36 days out of the year." It's a little jail.

51:33

You don't need that much time.

51:35

I mean even five days in the year to do this gets you a lot of value. on the math.

51:39

Like you would be justified spending 36 days out of the year.

51:42

You would be justified spending 10% of your time and intellectual mind share on some on your biggest expense that's going to compound every year for the rest of your life.

51:54

Like of course that would make sense.

51:54

So that is a kind of like aha moment for me. Right.

51:57

What about like um coaching or uh you know some sort of like what is your like basically if the studio the manifestation kind of like vehicle here is an extension of you and your brain and your dreams and your desires and like getting the brain to be like functioning well seems important.

52:15

Do you do anything whether it's therapy, nutrition, morning routine, like do you do anything like that to like make sure your the psychology that you know the the the little voice in your head is saying the right stuff? Yeah, for sure.

52:28

I have um I have two different coaches I talk with each month.

52:36

And I think of it as like going to the gym or taking a shower.

52:38

Even if I think I'm happy or in a good mindset, I need to still go see them to make sure that my head is screwed on properly.

52:47

And yeah, it costs me a ton of money but it pays for itself right away.

52:50

I also have my CEO group I visit once a month.

52:56

It's kind of like Alcoholics Anonym- Alcoholics Anonymous for CEOs.

52:58

I'm in YPO Young Presidents' Organization but there's also Entrepreneur Organization this stage the list goes on and on.

53:08

And there yeah, you think, "Oh I don't have time for it."

53:11

but I actually think you don't have time not to do that.

53:16

Hm, that's a good way of putting it. Um Also health stuff.

53:18

We don't think about that.

53:20

What if you could optimize through better nutrition and neutropics and through IVs your not only your longevity but your mental acuity.

53:36

So I work with five concierge doctors to come up with my own custom plan and I'm actually going to put something together that I could share with all my friends so anyone I love can get on the same program.

53:48

Um and it includes the supplements, custom compounding my own supplements into you know just two pills um so it's a little easier um and then doing the excess of IVs once a quarter which I'm I'm a huge fan of.

54:03

And I don't know what it what is that What is that word you just said?

54:04

What are What are you doing?

54:05

Excessome IVs and yeah, I mean so it's still the science on it still a little um you know up in the air so I just want to be you know good on the disclosure there.

54:20

Um so it's not necessarily the fountain of youth but there's the belief that you know if you're if you're doing if you're bringing in stem cells you know through an IV um it will help you uh lower your biological age give you more energy and help you with um with your autophagy.

54:43

So basically your body's ability to get rid of uh old and dying cells.

54:48

If you do that then the thought is you're going to have more energy.

54:52

More energy means more brainpower.

54:55

More brainpower means more ability to manifest and create great things in the world.

55:01

And so this is another area where let's say you were able to improve your mental function and your energy by 25%.

55:08

By the way, if you do all these things like you could probably do like better than 25%.

55:12

Is that worth $15,000 a year?

55:17

Which is roughly how much I spend on this.

55:18

Maybe I spend 20 or 25 grand on it. It's not a lot of money.

55:20

You don't need to pull a Brian Johnson where you're spending a million dollars a year to get 80% of the results.

55:25

This is the 80/20 rule of Brian Johnson.

55:31

Uh yeah, that's what I need. Uh good.

55:33

I'm going to hit you up for Here's some recommendations on that.

55:36

referrals and um and then yeah, I I'll I'll eventually pull less all this feedback so make it so that we could share it publicly and for free so you guys don't necessarily need to pay for your own concierge doctor to do this for you.

55:50

I think it's ridiculous that like all the work I'm doing here I'm spending this money on it.

55:55

Like this should be like a public service that's offered.

56:00

Yeah, cuz it's not so personalized to you basically you're saying.

56:03

No, it's not that personalized.

56:03

90% of what I'm doing like anyone else should just be able to do on their own.

56:08

It's just not this whole longevity optimization arena is so new and in order for other folks to monetize on it has to feel bespoke and unique to you when So uh give give give me the quick rundown.

56:24

So you spend this money you have this this program that you're doing.

56:27

You said you do this excessome IVs. Uh okay, great.

56:29

What are like if you were going to go from like most impactful to like you know whatever fringe you know stuff.

56:35

What's the most the most impactful stuff you're doing?

56:38

I got to be super honest it's hard to know where the impact is. Of course yeah.

56:45

Like on what what you what you kind of believe in or what you would recommend to your cousin or your your your friend who you you know who you're like, "Look, we all we get all the disclaimers. You're not a doctor.

56:54

This is not the your this is not you know bulletproof science." Cool.

56:58

Okay, amongst friends do you kind of tell me what your opinion is? Yeah. Uh I'm a friend of EV1.

57:02

I'm sure people have talked about that on your pod before.

57:05

Um I'm a fan of uh adding in other There's this whole list of supplements and neutropics that I can't even recite the name of for you but I could publish the list for you if you'd like.

57:17

And then having them all again put together in you know a few compact pills that you could take.

57:24

Um and then I have a friend who Who does that?

57:25

You you like go to a compounding pharmacy and you're like, "Hey, can you make these pills for me?"

57:30

And then like cool we'll have like 32 pills delivered?

57:32

Like how how does that work?

57:33

Yeah, I have a friend who actually has his own.

57:35

So I did it at cost but my plan is to work with him to create it so that he can make some profit and then my friends will have basically what I take and not have it be marked up too much like all these other scumbag internet companies are trying to do.

57:54

Shout out to the scumbags out there.

57:56

Keep Keep doing your thing. That's it in a nutshell.

57:59

I know that's just my views on it and then there's also um Yeah, I mean there's a bunch of peptides as well if you want to do the more advanced thing.

58:07

Um and on the peptides you know some of them are injectable.

58:14

Um so you know that I would consult a doctor on but the supplements you you could probably just do. And I would benchmark.

58:23

I would take um the True Diagnostics um biological you know each test just to see how you're doing before, middle and after.

58:33

And um Yeah, so that's another area.

58:36

So taxes, health um coaching and mindset What are the other categories for you know billionaire secrets we haven't covered?

58:46

Um I think those are the big ones.

58:49

The I mean the other one is what you talked about which is um being non-operational.

58:52

So Non-operational, yeah.

58:54

Create a vehicle that's going to create all your other vehicles um and and be able to recruit talent that's going to be able to put the pieces together.

59:01

The way I look at it is like every project needs kind of like a vision. It needs capital. It needs an operator.

59:07

It needs you know what you know what are what does it need?

59:09

Okay, I'm going to be able to create those packages and so that's what I think that's what a lot of them do is they they get out of I'm going to go every day and work on this one business and toil away like turning the crank myself and you know that's the the the higher leverage way that they they operate is is like that. Yeah, exactly.

59:23

Yeah, I think that's great and um I I also billionaires have a different mindset when it comes to buying expensive things.

59:35

So, you think, oh, they have so much money, then why would they waste that on the boat or the plane or the exotic cars?

59:43

And the truth is um on a lot of that, it's taxes.

59:49

So, I have a friend who's buying a $30 million yacht right now, and he found a way for it to give him a $30 million write-off.

59:55

He's going to charter it out for a bit, but like he saves more money on taxes than what he's spending on the yacht, and his bank will finance 80% of the yacht.

1:00:05

He's only putting 20% down, so it's net net cash flow positive for him to buy the yacht, ironically.

1:00:10

And the operational costs are offset largely by the charter.

1:00:17

And you don't think that, but it pays for all his costs.

1:00:21

And um people do this with airplanes, too.

1:00:25

I did this with my airplane.

1:00:25

I mean, I had a bigger write-off from buying the airplane than what I put down in cash to buy the airplane.

1:00:32

So Can you give the quick math on uh it doesn't have to be your specific plane, but just like just the general math that people know, like how does the buy a plane work from a tax perspective?

1:00:39

Yeah, well, it the rules are changing, but I I closed on mine about a year ago, and um let's say you buy a plane, it's 5 million bucks, and your bank's willing to finance most of it, so you put a million dollars down.

1:00:55

Um but you get a $5 million write-off on the plane.

1:00:58

And it's a year one write-off, right?

1:01:01

That that was the accelerated bonus depreciation year one.

1:01:05

Um but now the problem is this year, it's only 80% you can deduct up front, next year it's 60%, and then 40 and then 20.

1:01:14

Um yes, it's getting worse and worse, but um but the point is you do get a tax benefit for buying these assets. They are financed.

1:01:21

And then also, if it enables you to do more what you want, then there's that like incalculable benefit that you receive. Right.

1:01:28

Um same with exotic cars.

1:01:32

A lot of people I know who have exotic cars, their exotic cars are worth more than what they paid for them.

1:01:39

So, they buy the car, they drive it for a year, and then they sell the car at the same cost or a higher cost than what they paid for it, because other people can't They want to have access to that car, but they don't have a relationship with the manufacturer, and they weren't willing to wait 4 years on the waiting list to get that car.

1:01:58

Yeah, I was surprised to learn that that the um there's just a whole class of really expensive cars that you basically get to drive for free.

1:02:06

It's like putting a deposit down.

1:02:07

So, you go buy this car, uh I don't even know if this would classify, but like our friend had a McLaren, and he's like, yeah, it's great.

1:02:14

I've driven it, you know, for a few years, and I'm going to sell it for exactly what I bought it for.

1:02:18

It doesn't depreciate, or it's up, you know, I'll make 10, 20 grand on this thing for the privilege of driving this around.

1:02:26

And uh there's a whole bunch of these like rich get richer uh style setups like, you know, where if you if you once you start to play it's like a snowball.

1:02:35

It's like you use the money to buy something that's going to make you more efficient and have more fun or uh you know, do better business, and then that also is going to save you money on taxes today, and then it's also going to hold value because it's a rare asset, so you're going to you know, if you ever sell it, you didn't lose anything just for holding this.

1:02:50

So, you know, you get all these like gains, and then they start to accumulate once you start to get there, and I think that's a um a real advantage.

1:02:58

And you know, some people uh who I think are on the other side of that hate that, and they feel like that's so unfair and unjust.

1:03:03

Uh you know, I don't really give a moral opinion either way, it's just that's is what it is, and uh you know, you could choose to either um benefit from that, you could choose to ignore it, or you could choose to be upset about it.

1:03:14

You have many choices on how you're going to react to uh you know, a bunch of these things that that come with you know, the the snowball of of of you know, wealth.

1:03:21

Yeah, I think I think it's easy to hate on it, but what's cool is that people could learn about mindset and how to get there, and that's what you're doing with your pod.

1:03:32

Like you're very specific about like how to do these things, I've noticed.

1:03:35

And this was not available to people 5 years ago. So, Yeah.

1:03:40

um Well, well, it's funny cuz like money is this uh taboo thing.

1:03:45

It's like we're all supposed to not share anything we know about money, how much we make, what we how we invest, what the returns are, what taxes What do you do with your taxes?

1:03:52

Like everybody plays, you know, close guarded on that.

1:03:54

And uh that's a real shame, cuz it means it's very hard to learn uh until that gets cracked open, and somebody starts sharing, and then more people start sharing, then you start to learn faster.

1:04:05

And uh there's this great Conor McGregor quote where he talks about like Conor McGregor went from plumber to highest-paid athlete in the world in a span of 5 years.

1:04:14

And along the way, he was higher paid than any UFC guy ever was, faster than anybody was, and there was a lot of guys who'd been paying their dues for 15 years fighting for, you know, going out there and like fighting in a cage match for $20,000, and then they have to pay for their flights, their hotels, their medical bills, and they're left with two grand at the end of it, and they were very bitter.

1:04:33

And uh someone asked him in an interview, they go, "Conor, you know, do you ever think about kind of toning it down, because uh you know, there's so many people that are you know, get upset when you talk about you call your shots, you say how much you're making, you wear the nice watch, you wear the nice clothes."

1:04:49

And he goes, um "No, that says something about them, not me."

1:04:53

He goes, "Some people see this, and they take inspiration, and that's who I was.

1:04:57

I saw people doing things, and I took inspiration.

1:04:58

And now other people see things, and they get bitterness, and they will end up bitter.

1:05:02

It is not my job to figure out, you know, they get to decide if they're going to go on on the bitterness path or the inspiration path.

1:05:10

Um you know, the right people will get inspired."

1:05:12

And uh that actually kind of freed me up in this podcast to do things that I think, you know, ask questions or talk about things that I think are you're supposed to downplay everything, you're supposed to not talk about, you know, certain stuff. Um but that.

1:05:27

You know, that doesn't seem like like you know, I Yeah.

1:05:28

I when I was growing up, I couldn't wait to get a little more information or an inspiration or hear, you know, that somebody Oh, this guy has a private chef. Damn, that'd be awesome.

1:05:37

I don't feel bad that I don't have one now.

1:05:38

I now have a new thing that I've decided that would be really awesome, fun to work for, and a and a great like an idea a way to improve quality of life that I had never even thought about.

1:05:48

And um thank you for putting it on my radar.

1:05:52

Thank you for putting it in my in my uh you know, in front of me that I now wanted to go go do that. I love that.

1:05:58

Yeah, like I think it is difficult to struggle with the feeling of jealousy and aspiration.

1:06:05

And another trick that I'm not sure if this came from Tony Robbins or someone else, but if you're surrounded by people who are uh more successful than you, instead of envying them, um maybe you could interpret it as, hey, this is a great sign, cuz this means more success and more happiness is coming my way now that I'm able to surround myself and attract these people into my life. How awesome.

1:06:29

And um I remember having to deal with that a lot, especially when I was a up-and-coming entrepreneur, and I knew absolutely nothing, and I had, you know, Drew from Dropbox and Sam Altman coming to speak to me and these like CS students, right?

1:06:44

Like we didn't know anything. Right.

1:06:48

And um and like that felt very wide, but I just having them there to spend some time with us and to say, hey, we're open to like just email us if you have any questions about what it's like to be a founder.

1:06:58

We're going to be there for you.

1:07:00

Just feeling like all of them were approachable and accessible, I think made it easier for me to focus on the education instead of the envy. Right.

1:07:09

That's a that's a great way of putting it.

1:07:11

Can I ask you one thing before we go, cuz I know I took too much of your time. Sure.

1:07:13

Uh Sam Altman is now like this extremely interesting public character.

1:07:18

Um very few people actually know him.

1:07:21

Sounds like you've had interactions with him in the past.

1:07:25

Uh can you give me your impressions or any story you remember of Sam Altman um because I remember reading Paul Graham's essays like 10 years ago where he's like, "Of the five most impressive people I've met, it's like Bill Gates or whatever, you know, Larry and Sergey, and Sam Altman."

1:07:40

You know, and it's like and that's when he was doing Loopt, and nobody you know, there was no there was no track record.

1:07:46

He he sort of was was like it was just very apparent in meeting him at that time that this guy's going to go on to do great things.

1:07:53

Did you get that sense, or um I don't know how much interaction you had with him.

1:07:56

Yeah, I actually I mean, this was probably 13 years ago now, but I I had a one-on-one with Paul Graham, and I asked him to share like, who do you think the most um you know, successful people you've ever met, like who will who will that end up being 30 years from now if we have another one-on-one like this. And Sam was on the list.

1:08:19

I'm not going to share who the others were on that list, um but they're all also doing extremely well.

1:08:27

And um What a question by you, by the way. Fantastic question.

1:08:31

Yeah, and I asked Paul, what are the things in common with these people?

1:08:36

What What did By the way, he put me on the list.

1:08:40

I'm the worst one by far. So, I'm embarrassed.

1:08:42

I felt like I disappointed him, but we'll save that for another day.

1:08:45

Um And I asked him for like, what are personality traits you find in these people?

1:08:51

Like how you know, what do you see?

1:08:54

And for him, it it was less about the intelligence, actually.

1:09:01

It was not about the it it goes back to this common theme we've had throughout the past hour and a half here on like grit and being willing to be unconventional and to try different approaches and to you know, to collect ideas from multiple spaces and merge them together to come up with something even better than what a domain expert in anyone field would be able to come up with on their own.

1:09:24

Um and just like how they show up and what they're willing to do to meet the right people was a big part of um, what makes So, that's what that also reinforced my wanting to have this policy of just get on the plane because that's a trait that successful people perceive will lead to you know, you being destined for greatness, so to speak.

1:09:47

So, I was like, all right, well, I don't think I'm destined for greatness, but what if I could manufacture making other people think I'm destined for greatness and maybe they'll actually Maybe they'll all treat that reality somehow.

1:09:59

Yeah, eventually, you know, it walks like a duck, it talks like a duck.

1:10:01

Hey, it became a duck, you know, by the end of it actually.

1:10:04

So, so those traits you said just now, sorry to recap, was um, grit or resourcefulness, like, you know, the the the willingness to make things happen.

1:10:12

You said um, uh, going into mul- being being able to collect ideas from multiple spaces and and synthesize it so that you actually might create something more than any domain than the than the individual domain experts had been able to reach.

1:10:26

You get to a new a new ceiling um, from that.

1:10:29

That was like the second that you said.

1:10:30

Third was uh, wanting to meet the right people, ask the right questions, and being willing to go to certain lengths to to kind of meet them, right?

1:10:38

That was That was the third one.

1:10:39

Did I miss one that you said?

1:10:41

Yeah, just to build on that third one is that how do you meet yourself interesting enough at a dinner party so that they would want to invite you back to spend more time with them.

1:10:50

How do you broaden your field of knowledge to be able to be an advisor at, you know, someone that, you know, a king or president would want to call upon for feedback.

1:11:06

And, you know, you would have called him SAS or this was years ago before you left for the UK.

1:11:11

He has a huge library of books and he's read most of these books and and he's just fascinated by so many topics and that also left an impression on me.

1:11:22

Okay, like we should just learn about random things that have nothing to do with our DNA business because it'll help us with category number three on that list. Right, right.

1:11:33

Yeah, that's such a good call.

1:11:33

I went to a farming conference last year like two years ago like 500 farmers.

1:11:38

And it was the best conference I had been to in like five years because I'd only been going to tech conferences.

1:11:45

And you know, I'm not learning anything at these tech conferences or you know, like I'm adding the same incremental knowledge and it's the same thoughts and philosophies and same types of people in that bubble.

1:11:54

And there's nothing wrong with that, but like there's definitely like you want that 20% like total change up that is um, completely out of left field that's like wow, these guys talk about different things, think about different things, have a different perspective, live in a I was in Kansas City, right?

1:12:09

Like it was like uh, you know, you go to a different place and you have a totally different perspective and I literally started a company while I was there because I was like piecing together like two ideas, one from the tech world and one from this like farmer that we had met and like it you know, that was you know, when we created the Milk Road.

1:12:24

And we even the name Milk Road was like cuz we're at a freaking farming conference and there's like a dairy farmer next to us.

1:12:28

Uh, you know, like it all kind of played into to to having that if you know, we hadn't stirred the pot in that exact way, you know, maybe you would have come up with a different answer.

1:12:38

Yeah, that's super cool that you did that and I I'm curious to download from you what is also on your list of like the next areas you would want to learn about and um, I think it's actually a good exercise for me too to think about cuz for me it's been bio lately, but I I would like to have broadened it even more.

1:12:58

So, give an example of one of the bio companies that you founded.

1:13:01

What it you know, the give us the high level of like the problem, the solution you guys are trying to do, and like, you know, the the rough stage where it's at.

1:13:11

Yeah, the high level is I set up a holding company for biotech venture creation centered around the scientist named of Mike Levin.

1:13:21

If you search Mike Levin, he has a TED Talk.

1:13:23

search Mike Levin, he has a TED Talk. He has a three and a half hour interview with Lex Friedman that I highly recommend you watch and you will get sucked in because he's a scientist who studied he got he has PhD in genetics at Harvard and then

1:13:37

now he's devoted his entire career to basically proving the fact that genetics are actually not that relevant in the whole scheme of things and that it's this other thing, bioelectricity, that dictates how long we live, um, whether or not we get cancer, um, how our limbs and body shape forms. It's

1:13:53

It's actually not as much genetics as you think and genetics is like the hardware level of biology, whereas he says bioelectricity is like the software.

1:14:03

So, you you told me this you you were like, uh, we have one company's uh, Astonishing Labs is about bioelectricity and I was like, what is I've never even heard this word and you said it in a in a really interesting way.

1:14:13

You go, um, you know, people think that it's like genetics is kind of like what your genes say or your DNA says is kind of like what ends up manifesting and you're like, turns out it's not that at all, which already I was like, oh, that's like kind of narrative violation.

1:14:26

What is What do you mean?

1:14:28

I that's all I've ever heard, so what is the answer?

1:14:32

Um, and you were like, yeah, there's this idea of bioelectricity and then I went and I watched his TED Talk and he talks about like, you know, they're able to like, you know, grow a arm on something's on an animal's back.

1:14:42

They're able like to grow third eye, right?

1:14:44

They're able to do all these like show all these amazing like phenotype outputs without any genetic modification.

1:14:51

And um, so can you just like explain that a little bit more about like, you know, the kind of the layman's version of it?

1:14:57

Yeah, well, I I'll be honest, I don't even fully understand the science of it, but that's everything you said is correct.

1:15:03

Like if you manipulate the bioelectricity on an animal, um, you can create weird outputs like this.

1:15:11

So, when they saw that a tadpole was growing an eyeball, the bioelectric signature of the cells in that area changed.

1:15:18

And so, the question was, oh, what if you created that same bioelectric signature but on another part of the body? What will happen? Will it grow an eyeball?

1:15:28

Not only does it grow an eyeball there, but it grows connection to the spinal cord.

1:15:35

Um, and so, you don't have to micromanage biology.

1:15:37

If you try to change that through modifying the genome, how would you do that?

1:15:43

There'd be no way to do that is the answer.

1:15:48

And so, if you just think about it logically, genetics are therefore not the end all, be all.

1:15:52

So, anyway, I heard of this, it blew my mind.

1:15:54

I said, this this is brilliant.

1:15:56

Like is he does he have a commercialization partner? What's the status of it?

1:15:59

And the answer is it's still in the lab and there is no one commercializing this yet.

1:16:04

And Paul Allen was funding the whole lab and then Paul Allen tragically passed away and then the funding dried up.

1:16:11

So, he needed money, he needed people to help him make it a real biotech company.

1:16:16

So, I come in and I say, I know nothing about biotech.

1:16:21

I know a lot of rich people who would love to fund crazy stuff like this.

1:16:25

And wait, wait, wait, when you say I came in, that means like I cold emailed him, I I called him, I I met him.

1:16:28

What What did you actually do?

1:16:31

I met him through a friend.

1:16:34

So, I had a friend who was telling me about Mike over lunch and I thought this is brilliant, this is amazing.

1:16:39

Could we fly out and meet Mike like next week?

1:16:42

Like I'll literally clear my calendar and I'll spend a few days and I will get to know him and figure out what we could do with this.

1:16:50

And so, I met Mike, spent some time with him, and realized that this is really compelling and we could do something cool out of it.

1:17:01

So, um, so I hired this guy named Tom.

1:17:02

Tom had taken a drug called Elsandra from lab all the way through FDA approval, full approval for $16 million, which is absolutely crazy in the drug world.

1:17:17

Like normally it takes hundreds of millions of dollars to get something approved by the FDA.

1:17:22

But his drug actually worked.

1:17:22

It was putting patients in full remission, the first eight out of nine patients.

1:17:29

Normally they would be dead within months.

1:17:31

With his drug, they were they were going into remission.

1:17:34

So, I brought him in to go do to do diligence on all of Mike Levin's science and figure out a strategy for turning these into real biotech companies.

1:17:44

And so, my contribution was I have a team.

1:17:51

I have 12 people who work with me at my holding company or whatever you want to call it.

1:17:55

For me, I don't really think of it as a holdco or a venture studio.

1:17:57

For me, it's just an extension of me where if there's something I want to manifest in the world, I have a team of brilliant people who will figure out how to help me make that happen. That's amazing.

1:18:09

And so, um, so you do that.

1:18:12

What is the like, uh, you know, what's the product or what are you guys actually building?

1:18:18

We are building um, several companies under this holdco.

1:18:21

So, the first company we created um, is called Cell Jado and it's essentially a company that will help overcome drug resistance.

1:18:33

And um, how do I make this more concrete?

1:18:35

If you're taking uh, drugs for your leukemia or you're taking chemo drugs, it might be effective and work for a while.

1:18:46

You have lots of drugs that are effective and work, but then one day they stop working.

1:18:50

And when they stop working, um, unfortunately, there are sometimes no other viable options for the patient, which means they're going to then die, but a month a month earlier, the drugs were working and they were fine, right? So, that's one company.

1:19:06

There's another company that's developing um, programmable human biobots and in fact, this guy, you know, there's an article about this in Nature as of today and that company is called Antrobots. Wow.

1:19:20

So, I'll send you more info on that if you're curious. That is really cool.

1:19:23

I think CNN's going to post their interview with Mike today about that as well.

1:19:30

And so is all your all your bio stuff under the this lab with Mike Levin or is there are there other bio bets too?

1:19:34

Cuz like you've talked to me about you know at that dinner we were talking about I don't know like pregnancy or something like that and you said something kind of in passing you're like yeah like in the next I don't know 10 years you know women may not need to birth a baby like you know you'll be able to just essentially grow a baby. And I was like what?

1:20:00

So like Like Avatar style.

1:20:00

How cool would it be if you could see like a baby growing in like a fish tank and all you have to do is I could swab your mouth and swab my mouth put it in the machine and then a baby will start to grow out of it.

1:20:12

You know there's no Just get the genetic material no sperm and egg.

1:20:18

No sperm no egg just swab genetic material and uh you know I think that will eventually be in the future.

1:20:25

I don't think that's going to be the next 10 years probably not even the next 20 years but I I have random ideas like that this and I think how cool would it be to find who's doing that research and and if if I find people who are then I might support their work and fund it if not then I'll have I'll put together my own team and go try it ourselves and it's likely going to lose money and fail and not work but like this is fun.

1:20:50

Like not everything has to be for the profit.

1:20:56

I know your what your whole pod is all about making money and all the whole shows are about how to like compound cash flow and blah blah blah but like what if we could have fun doing this and by having fun being mission oriented you think bigger you think more grand about what the world could become one day and then you're more likely to end up like Elon or whatever.

1:21:16

Like that's kind of the direction I'm going with with my company here which I realize it's not as sexy it's not as compelling as saying you know we're you know making money you know Maybe it's more sexy I don't know.

1:21:30

Like you know when when Facebook was going public Mark Zuckerberg wrote this letter to like the potential shareholders that were going to buy the stock and it was like I think it was called the hacker way.

1:21:41

It's a really great thing.

1:21:42

I you know I know people are very skeptical of Zuck but I think a lot of the stuff he does is is pretty awesome including this letter that he wrote.

1:21:49

And he described the way that they do things and one of the things he said is like you know we don't build products to make money.

1:21:55

Uh you know you know Uh we don't we don't build products to make great money.

1:21:58

We we make money to build great products.

1:22:00

Like that is the the core of what we're doing.

1:22:02

the core of what we're doing. I think Google had said a similar thing when they went public and you know I don't think it's one or the other but there is a first order bit and second order bit meaning like if the first order bit is

1:22:15

we are trying to fund bold science that might change everything um even though it has a high likelihood of failure even though it might take many years and a lot of money to get there but we think that advancing the research and ultimately trying to commercialize the research is the way. Um

1:22:28

Um that to me is the version of like we don't do that to make money we make money so that we can do that.

1:22:37

So I think it in a way it's it's a lot more attractive and sexier to to to most people.

1:22:42

I think if they step back for a minute.

1:22:43

A lot of the like money first comes from the insecurity right?

1:22:47

Like um just the the sort of wanting wanting that success wanting that win under your belt wanting that safety in the bank account you know that's where a lot of that comes from.

1:22:56

I don't think anybody really if they looked at their life would say I'm so glad I devoted it to maximizing you know how much money I made.

1:23:02

That's a very unlikely scenario.

1:23:02

made. That's a very unlikely scenario. I think a lot of people would actually be more uh inspired by you know the way you're doing things now which is like what's fun what's interesting what gets me out of bed in the morning that's exciting that will if done well can like you know change change change the world in in the non cliche way cuz this stuff you're doing actually is more change the world than like

1:23:26

than you know the Intuit Intuit Intuit Intuit Intuit Intuit Intuit Intuit Intuit Intuit Intuit Intuit Intuit Intuit Intuit Intuit Intuit Intuit Intuit Intuit Intuit Intuit Intuit Intuit Intuit Intuit Intuit Intuit Intuit Intuit Intuit Intuit Intuit

1:23:31

Intuit Intuit Intuit Intuit Intuit Intuit Intuit Intuit Intuit Intuit Intuit Intuit Intuit Intuit Intuit Intuit Intuit Intuit Intuit Intuit Intuit Intuit Intuit Intuit Intuit Intuit Intuit Yeah exactly. That's how I That's how I felt.

1:23:36

I I literally had this nagging feeling in my soul that I was wasting my capability and I'm sure a lot of people feel that way. Awesome.

1:23:44

Well sounds like we got another couple conversations to have. Thank you for coming on.

1:23:47

Where should people go find you reach out to you?

1:23:49

Where where where do you want to direct people?

1:23:53

Yeah I mean I'm on you know my website's malway.

1:23:57

com and I'm on Twitter at Jess Mah um at Jess Mah official on Instagram.

1:24:05

And if people want to reach out you could either guess my email address which is what I've done with Mark Benioff and everyone else.

1:24:14

That's a good filter actually.

1:24:14

You don't want the inbound that's easy.

1:24:16

You want the inbound of at least you were at least able to guess an email address. It's not that hard.

1:24:21

Just like I had like I literally emailed like Mark salesforce. mark.

1:24:26

benioff and benioff you know like every permutation I could come up with and most of them bounced and one of them worked. So That's awesome. Thanks for doing this.

1:24:38

You're awesome and yeah that's a great episode.

1:24:41

Yeah great great time hanging out with you. Thanks for having me.