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All right, Sam, today I got six trends that I'm watching that I want to tell you about.
All right, Sam, today I got six trends that I'm watching that I want to tell you about.
My spidey sense is tingling on these trends and I just need somebody to talk to and you're my guy.
How masculine of you to say that it's tingling? I love that.
>> sense is throbbing right now.
>> [laughter] >> I'm going to call my doctor after this. All right, first one.
Alcohol is in the gutter.
So, I sent you this tweet.
So, it says spirit inventories are soaring and it shows Campari and you know, a bunch of other spirit brands that honestly I don't know how to pronounce cuz they're from a French but basically from 2011 to 2025 there's this up into the right trend.
It's basically a measure of inventory as a percentage of sales.
And so, it goes from like what used to be under 20% to in some of these cases like 60%, 70%, 80%, you know, it's a crazy crazy rise.
And this lines up with I guess my lived experience.
In our social circle, our age group, drinking ain't cool anymore.
Being healthy is cool and drinking isn't cool.
When are you going to learn that when you see me do something health-wise, you should just expect that it's going to be popular in 3 years.
I I gave up booze in 2013 or 14. I think 14. So, yes.
I didn't actually think this was going to be that popular.
I did not think that this was going to be a trend, but we actually wrote about this in we had a my old company the Hustle had a newsletter called Trends and we wrote about the rise of non-alcoholic beer and it was actually Steph Smith who's we all know is an amazing person, very smart.
She pitched me this idea and I was like, I don't I don't buy it. I think this is insane.
I don't I really don't believe it, but go ahead, write the article.
And she So, a lot of guys a lot of people have been calling this and I actually even though I'm sober, I did not think that this was going to be as real as it is.
And so, I think there's an interesting question which is I don't think people fundamentally just become better better behaving over time. I think they substitute.
Yeah, they're just using drugs.
Yeah, so what's the substitute I think is the interesting question, right?
So, you had you had non-alcoholic non-alcoholic beers.
We had I think the guy from What is it called?
Athletic Brewing Co on the podcast before.
>> Yeah, they're awesome.
Um, we you know, Kin Spirits.
There's been all these like startup brands that are in the non-alcoholic um, space.
But then you have just substitute straight substitutes.
So, weed is probably a winner.
Where are all these people gone?
Where did Where are people getting the behavior?
What What jobs to be done were done by alcohol that are now being done by something else?
Like is it literally just TikTok scrolling? Right?
Like people are literally just not going out because they're at home on their phones and when you're not going out, you're not drinking as much.
What I'm noticing in my life is So, I you know, it's I I could never tell if I only hang out with people who don't drink because I don't drink or if it's like truly popular or less popular, but Zen, I mean nicotine, some type of like non-smoke nicotine.
So, vaping I mean all of my friends vape, but they everyone does do some type of like Zen.
The second one is the rise of psychedelics.
So, I have just a crazy amount of friends that are regularly and I mean like every 6 months doing some type of like journey that they call it which I think has like a different set of issues, but then um, I think like exercise to be honest.
Like it just seems like more people are like into exercising.
Have you seen this company called Ultra?
I think they're kind of like a Zen type company.
So, Ultra founded in 2025 which is last year just raised $11 million to scale non-nicotine focus pouches.
So, they basically taken the nicotine thing, but they're branding it as like a focus tool.
And um, they've already sold 1 million cans in 6 months and claims the position number one amongst nicotine-free pouches globally.
While Zen dominates the nicotine pouch market, Ultra is targeting a different segment, high performers who want cognitive enhancement without addiction. It's a $16 can.
Their round is led by blah blah blah.
I think Austin Reif I think he was bragging about it.
Yeah, he was He's very bullish on this company.
The the the website says powering top performers at Facebook, Goldman, Sequoia.
Like it's pretty funny that like that is considered cool now.
Your cracked out friend's secret weapon.
Listen, when you and I were just getting started in San Francisco, it used to be a thing that people would protest at the Google bus and I even remember there was an era where they were flipping over smart cars because they thought that smart cars like represented like techies for some reason.
I don't I don't understand that.
But do you remember that?
Now now they're trying to be cool by saying that people who work at Ramp chew are nicotine. That's just crazy. Times have changed.
By the way, you were also early on the nicotine trend. Yeah, except I dipped.
I was a I was a I was a skull guy. I loved I loved tobacco.
I remember before we went on stage, we were doing our first live show in Vancouver or Victoria and me and you didn't really have a good idea what we were getting into and we saw that this like entire theater full of like I don't know, 2,000, 3,000 people. But it looked grand.
Like you have a photo of it.
>> You have a photo of it.
It's like, you know, four stories high of people and it's a dark theater or whatever and we peek out from behind the curtain, you see that and then immediately it was me, you and Andrew and both of you started scrambling for drugs.
You were both like, can we get a pouch?
Can someone go get a can you run across the street real quick and get a nicotine pouch? And I was like, what?
Dude, is that like did you not need that till 2 seconds ago?
What what is happening right now?
And then you both popped in a pouch and then went on stage. It was incredible.
Yeah, that's a substitute and I think then I was actually I would just swallow the nicotine spit.
You just stick it up there and you just swallow it.
That's like what the with the hard seltzers do.
Yeah, but the lack of alcohol to bring it back to that, that is a bit surprising that it's so widespread, but I haven't been around like drunk people in so long. Have you?
>> [clears throat] >> No, but I just assumed it's cuz I'm like in dad mode.
I didn't realize how you know, like I thought these are all bubbles, right?
So, I thought oh, myself and just kind of dad mode.
What a yeah, I don't I'm not drinking out there.
Then I thought, well, my tech friends were all biohacking, Brian Johnson, but we're in a bubble.
But then you see this and this is the global inventory stock of these alcohol companies and it made me realize like maybe [clears throat] this behavior is not just limited to my bubble.
It's taking place in the broad the broader community cuz we're we're all too small of a group to affect, you know, the actual trend lines.
If I had to guess it's going to be cyclical.
If I had to guess this will make a comeback.
Similar to black turtlenecks under jackets. Well, look. Sean.
Bringing that one back single-handedly.
A turtleneck is a pedestal for the face and I'm just trying to show off what God gave me.
>> [snorts] >> Putting it on a pedestal.
>> [laughter] >> I like it except for you said pedestal which took took away some of that >> [laughter] >> the the the the squawk the the you know, the squawk that you had [laughter] there.
Um, all right, can we get It's It's 10° in New York City.
Listen, there's this article that I read about a turtleneck and said, when a man wears a turtleneck, he's asserting or he's advancing the situation and that situation is himself.
>> [laughter] >> He's advancing the situation. That's incredible. Wow.
That's the [clears throat] best branding since the actual situation from the Jersey Shore which [laughter] was which was an all-time nickname he gave himself.
All right, so a lot of people watch and listen to this show because they want to hear us just tell them exactly what to do when it comes to starting or growing a business.
Now, a lot of people message Sean and I and they say, all right, I want to start something on the side. Is this a good idea? Is that a good idea?
And again, what they're really just saying is just give me the ideas.
Well, my friends, you're in luck.
So, my old company the Hustle, they put together a hundred different side hustle ideas and they have appropriately called it the side hustle idea database.
It's a list of a hundred pretty good ideas, frankly. I went through them. They're awesome.
And it gives you how to start them, how to grow them, things like that.
Gives you a little bit of inspiration. So, check it out.
It's called the side hustle idea database.
It's in the description below. You'll see the link. Click it. Check it out.
Let me know the comments what you think.
Let me give you a better one. All right. Voltra.
Another trend you might have been early to as a former fitness influencer.
So, Yeah, I can tell you all about that.
I was I heard this for the first time when we were doing a podcast with Hormozi.
And you know, you do the podcast with Hormozi, I go to his office and we're talking and we talked for probably I don't know, two two to three hours, something like that.
So, we talked about a lot of business stuff, but you know, by the end I'm sort of out of asking him about business stuff and I want to talk to him about other stuff.
So, I asked him, I said, what are you nerding out about?
What do you really like what are you really interested in that's like letting your freak flag fly?
Like what's your what is your what's getting you off here on the nerd level? And he goes, Voltra.
He I forgot what he called it.
There's a category for these.
He's like, I don't I don't know what the term is, but it's like resistance based blah blah blah.
So, he tells me about this device, this fitness piece of gym equipment.
>> [laughter] >> The way he said it was like, some guy's Instagram feed is sports, some guy's Instagram feed is girls, my Instagram feed is just niche gym equipment.
So, he goes, this thing is incredible.
So, he was telling me about this and I thought it was pretty fascinating. So, I filed that away.
I took a look at it, filed it away.
So, I was watching this guy that what's his name?
Home gym reviews or something like that. >> Coop Mitchell.
So, I want to tell you all about Coop. Yeah. He was talking about it.
Somebody else was talking about it and then in general like all of my training has been like the number of times my trainer has said the word eccentric load.
I've just like, okay, I don't know what I don't know why the eccentric load is so important, but it's definitely super important and and the two go together.
So, what's let's explain what it is.
Yeah, so basically if you're looking at it, it looks like it's the size of a red brick.
Like for building a house, it looks about that size.
And so, if you imagine you have a home gym or any gym and you have a squat rack, imagine having this brick that you could attach to various points of the squat rack and then you could attach a pulley or a handle to it and it's sort of like a portable cable machine except instead of a cable machine it's just this brick size pulley that I imagine is magnetically creating resistance.
So you could say make this 400 lb worth of weight and you pull but it's special because it's very precise I believe. >> Right.
So there's couple things there.
One is you you nailed it.
It's a Bowflex that's the size of like a shoe box or even smaller than a shoe box which is pretty cool to put a cable machine inside of a such small thing.
So there's First point is small small footprint.
That's a big deal because most gym equipment is enormous and bulky.
The second thing is that you can change the the precision you're talking about specifically is you can change where the resistance happens.
So let's say I go pick up a pair of dumbbells.
If it's 60 lb then it's 60 lb on the way up of my curl it's 60 lb on the way down of my curl right?
There's no difference there.
But the way your muscles work is that the let's say the curling up which is the concentric part of the motion and the eccentric which is the bringing it back down you actually have totally different strengths.
So your eccentric can typically hold have like I don't know somewhere between 20 and 60% more load than your concentric.
But if you're picking a pair of dumbbells well you just got to pick the one you're sort of limited by your weaker part which is your concentric load.
So what's actually happening is that the more important part of the movement the eccentric load you're actually under training because you're limited by what you could what you're able to curl.
Now what this machine does which is kind of great is that it lets you change the weight.
So you could say hey on the way up give me 100 lb but on the way down make it 150.
And so that precision of changing the the curve of where the resistance happens in the movement apparently you get like incredible progress and gains from this.
Now I don't know how real that is but like I I don't want to make a claim that I can't back up.
I've never used this device.
But in theory that makes total sense to me and I think this is kind of a game changer on multiple fronts.
So that's it's a game changer in size cuz now you can have a piece of equipment anywhere.
Well you still need like you still need um an anchor.
So you still need like a squat rack but yeah. >> can be a wall. It could be a tree.
It could be like anything.
It doesn't need to be a >> be a tree yeah as long as it could hold like as long as it could hold like 300 or 200 lb worth of force. Yeah.
I think it goes up to I think the max resistance is like 200 I think on their main main skew.
>> Yeah but if like you could use this in lieu of a bench press.
So you could actually use it as a bench press and but you would need two of them one on each side. Right.
So like so the so the size is a big deal.
The potential gains you could get by changing the eccentric and concentric loads and then the third is the weight of it.
So the bulk of the cost of gym equipment is in the fact that you're shipping like 1,000 lb to someone's house whenever you have to do this or 1,000 lb to a gym.
And now if you have this thing the size of a brick well it's also the the weight of a brick pretty much because the resistance is from the the cable pulley not from like actual weight in the box.
So I think this is a big deal and this might like change the way that gyms are made home gyms work >> And actually comes to the battery you charge it.
So the way the technology works is it has some type of battery and you have to you do have to charge it I think after every session.
But it is incredible how you can get two or 300 I think it's 200 lb like you said 200 lb of force from like a thing that's this small.
I think I just sold myself on it on [laughter] this pod.
I'm I'm very curious about something like this.
Did you go down this rabbit hole with when you were making your home gym?
I tried to go down the rabbit hole.
It was the wrong rabbit hole because the people who are interested in this they're too interested in the gym equipment.
Whereas I'm interested in like the MTV cribs or what's it called like pimp my pimp my ride?
It's like hey how do I turn a kind of generic space into a cool space very quickly and what are like most bang for my buck materials?
I'm not trying to stuff it with equipment cuz the way I train like our training model is much more functional anyways movement based.
It's not I don't want 15 bulky like static machines or racks that I need to to work on.
Yeah look on one hand I'm like dude 45 lb is 45 lb regardless of like how nice it is and like I lift things up and I put them down.
That's like the what the exercise is.
But then on the other side there's like gadget nerds of which I am one of those guys.
And so I'm in the category of people who just love browsing this gym stuff.
There's this guy named Coop Mitchell that I met I think in 2020 because or 19 when I was building my home gym.
And he's been reviewing stuff for years and it's a really good channel and it was hilarious.
Hermosi did this video with him and this was the one time where I've seen Alex like Can you like he he was asking the questions like you know he's always people are always asking him the questions and it was really cool and they were nerding out for about 30 minutes about this Vitru thing.
Well you were you were my version of this cuz when I was building my home gym I was like hey tell me what I need to do.
And you were like hey I was like what do I need to do for the flooring? >> Horse stall mats.
Yeah you were like hey get these horse mats.
It's go to this barn website. Yeah.
And get these things that horses like poop on or stand on and I was like what are you sure?
And I bought them they're amazing they're great. >> They're amazing. >> [laughter] >> Yeah.
If they get out of what do you call like alignment or out of sync? >> for that. >> Total pain for that. Oh okay I need this.
What's what's the solution?
So you have you ever looked inside of like a garage or or barn?
There when when when the when it comes together where the 2x4s come together to form the the angle of like the home they usually use this like piece of metal that has nails on it.
You put those on the bottom of the mats.
So you lift the mats up and you put these little things and it nails them down.
>> So then they don't move? Is that the idea?
>> Imagine a thing that looks like a post-it note but that post-it note is made out of metal and on top of the metal on top of the post-it note part is like a tons of little like tacks like little like little little nails.
And so you just set it on you set it on the ground you put the mats on top of it so it like comes like the seam comes together and then you just smack it down really hard. >> I see. Okay that makes sense. Yeah I needed that.
It's like what's the >> a you'll find it in the roofing section of Home Depot.
>> [laughter] >> What's what's the third trend? Next trend physical AI.
All right so um I think you're going to hear this phrase a lot and I think people when they normally say it they're saying it for robots.
They're talking about Optimus they're talking about figure robot they're talking about like human robots.
I'm talking about something different.
I'm talking about almost like these gimmick devices where you can you just put AI in anything? So here's an example.
Have you ever seen ads for this thing called Plaud? No. No. Could use a better name. P L A U D.
I bought this thing I don't use it just this is like an anti-endorsement.
I don't use it I think it's kind of junk but this company has done a 100 million dollars in revenue on this device.
>> Oh I have heard of this.
I the promise of it is amazing.
It's so and maybe it's better now.
I maybe ordered the early version and it was definitely like the wish.
com like type of experience.
But the premise of this is it looks like a business card almost or this is what it did.
It looked like a business card but it basically is like a physical meeting recorder.
So you could bring this to any meeting you could put this on the table and it'll record your conversation.
It's something you could use for your own notes just talking out loud at your home office or again if you're at a at a at a meeting with somebody.
I think the big use case actually that they say is student notes.
So you students bring this to class lectures and I think that's where they found like really fast growth was oh cool if I go to class this thing will record it it'll transcribe it.
It's like what Fathom and some of these other like meeting recorders are doing for the business world they were doing for classrooms.
So this thing kind of took off and I think there's a lot of things in this genre.
So there's teddy bears where now your teddy bear comes with essentially like chat GPT inside.
So I have a couple of these like for my kids.
Again still all in the janky state nothing that I would be like this is good yet.
But it's definitely where the puck is going.
There's wasn't one of them incubated in your buddy's uh Yeah Faink has one that that that was being incubated there.
It had the best launch video I've ever seen.
It was basically this like like nerdy engineer type a guy like sitting there and the bear was saying like Far Khan you're you're such a nerd.
You're always talking to a bunch of robots and he's like this like nerdy guy is like having a conversation with a robot. It was hilarious. Yeah that's the idea. So it's a talking toy.
I think Fatin is the guy who's behind it. It's called magicaltoys.
com is the name of theirs.
They gave me like a really early prototype of this thing like you could literally is like the bear on the front and then there was like a control control board like dangling out the back like open wires.
So you know it I got like the earliest prototype so I don't know how good the newest one is but again this is where the world is going where your toys are going to be able to talk to your kids to teach your kids they're going to be interactive in a open world way.
So a lot of toys today are interactive but it's just hard coded.
Like you push this button it sings itsy bitsy spider.
You push this button it's going to say hello.
Well these toys can do anything.
And so once this works it's going to be kind of amazing.
When my kids ride in our car we have a Tesla and Tesla has AI built in.
And so I would say on half the rides we just pop her pop the AI open and we're like hey we're playing guess the animal like come up with a you know come up with the animals we're going to guess or how does like you know where does the earth come from right?
Or like you know questions my son has that I'm like I this is pretty hard to say like what's older the you know the sun or the moon?
>> [laughter] >> You know things like that and then she explained where did who invented chocolate?
We learned this the other day.
Do you know who invented chocolate by the way? No idea.
So this is kind of a crazy story.
Thank you, AI, for telling me this story in the car.
So, chocolate was initially they took the cocoa beans.
I was like, "Where does chocolate come from?"
It's like, "Oh, these like cacao trees."
Like a nasty bean, right?
It's like a >> You take this nasty bean, it's bitter, but then if you roast it and you do whatever and then you add sugar, you add butter, you add all this stuff, it becomes like milk chocolate that we all like.
So, I was like, "Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa."
Yeah, how does one get >> thought of that?
Who would have took the nut and like got to chocolate bar at the end?
Like, that sounds like an insane leap.
And AI was like, "Well, here's the progression."
Actually, first they took the the cacao thing and then they put it just in a drink.
It was a spicy, kind of bitter drink, more like a coffee.
But they thought it had these like benefits and so it was really popular for that.
So, then this doctor named like something Fry, he believed in the the the medical benefits of the drink.
And then his He had stopped being a doctor and his family had made a industrial plant to make the drink.
But in order to increase demand, he had this idea to experiment to turn it into a bar, like a snack bar.
And then the bar was too bitter.
Like, the bitterness was okay in the drink form, but it wasn't that good in the bar form.
So, he's like, "We'll just add a [ __ ] ton of sugar to this and like see if we can make this good."
And he created the chocolate bar. That's pretty awesome.
Um So, physical AI, small little either, you know, one-off devices, baking a chips into toys, chips into different different objects in the house.
I think this is going to become more and more popular.
When you said physical AI, there's this guy who just applied to join Hampton.
It's called >> [laughter] >> the handy. com. Have you seen the handy?
I think I've been to this website.
Might be saved, bookmarked.
>> [laughter] >> All right. I'm here.
What am I What am I looking at?
It's uh >> number one male interact Oh, okay. All right.
It was It was what you were joking about.
I thought that was like a Oh, yeah. Good.
It's a >> mind out of the gutter.
It's actually going to save lives. Nope, it's not.
[laughter] Uh no, I'm like I'm being as clinical as one could be.
I'm just going to read you exactly what it says.
The number one male interactive stroker, the top-rated male sex toy with perfect sync to adult videos on VR.
Top-rated how and where is what I [laughter] want to know.
Let's get some source cited from that.
But it says that it says they've sold 200,000 of these things, like on on the website.
So, this guy applies to Hampton and you're like, instant acceptance, skip the application process, come on in.
[laughter] Well, we like do these weekly meetings where we discuss like who who who has applied and like do we have a good group for them or not?
And it's pretty funny to be like, "Yeah, like the handy guy uh" >> [laughter] >> It's just kind of a yeah, it's definitely weird, but it's pretty funny.
There's a tab on the website, so it's like products, bundles, accessories, and then the last tab of the navigation menu just goes, "Oh."
>> [laughter] >> Oh, man, this is weird.
Oh, I think I know what they're saying this is.
>> So, I don't think this is AI, >> [laughter] >> but but maybe it could be someday. What's the fourth?
Okay, so my next trend is too many podcasts, too little time.
So, [laughter] I don't know if you've seen Is that what a trend means?
This is an insane explosion in the number of high-quality podcasts done by high-quality people.
So, there's one that this guy did with his He The podcast was from this guy T. I. Morris. T. I. Morris.
It's podcast called Relentless.
So, just shout out to to him.
I don't know him, but I thought it caught my eye.
I've had so many people like reach out.
There's this guy named Mark Brazil who I like, who's got a podcast, and he was like, "Does everyone know how much money can be made in podcasting?"
Like, all these people are like discovering this about how strong this medium is for engagement. All right.
So, let's look at this podcast.
Do you see what I'm looking at? Yeah.
Like you got a Cybertruck tonight if you can get a training run on these GPUs in 2024.
So, this guy Just describe what you're seeing.
Wow, he's actually recording a podcast outside on a huge building.
Yeah, and I think, by the way, it's not that hard.
Like, I think what he's doing is, you know, like these apartment complexes in San Francisco where like there's like a Oh, we have like a rooftop thing with like a shuffleboard and like a grill that nobody's going to use cuz it's like cold.
And but if you had friends, which you don't, but if you did, they could hang out here, but they won't cuz it's cold.
>> Our version of that when Sean and I like started making like a podcast, it was let's just make our love seats bright red. Yeah.
[laughter] That's what I'm saying.
We were like cavemen in the podcasting game right now.
So, this guy basically has this like fireside chat, literally by the fire.
He's talking to some like a technical staff member at XAI.
The guy's sharing a bunch of like Elon stories. So, you know what? I'm in. Guess what? Guess what?
I'm definitely in on that.
And so, I'm listening to this and then the next podcast I see is Joe Lonsdale, who's a billionaire and, you know, probably going to be like in the 10 richest people on Earth at some point.
Like, uh Joe Lonsdale's talking to Joe Gebbia, the guy who created Airbnb, and they're in like a warehouse and it's well-lit and they're talking about, you know, Joe's time at the White House now cuz he's the chief design officer of America.
And I'm like, there's been this absolute explosion of podcasts.
Uh and it's this in every industry.
In the sports industry, this is the same thing.
You know, I grew up The first podcast I ever listened to was Bill Simmons.
I used to listen to him back in 2007 but in college when you used to like have to like download from the RSS feed and, you know, he had like Ronald Jenkins doing his intro music type of deal.
And now sports podcasts are like, "Well, here's LeBron has his own podcast called Mind the Game."
where he's sipping wine, talking to J. J.
Redick, the future Lakers coach, and they're just talking X's and O's. And then oh, guess what?
Um you know, Max Kellerman, he's not on TV anymore.
So, so Max Kellerman who goes from the number one TV show to now he creates a podcast with Rich Paul, LeBron's like long-time friend and sport like the number one sports agent in basketball.
They're going to They're going to talk shop.
So, like the amount the the type of people who are getting into this industry, the quality of production and sets, like our friend Chris Williamson is doing like IMAX 4K, like, you know, your phone starts rumbling when the an insight happens.
I don't know what he's doing with his production value.
And then you have the volume, the overall volume that comes from this.
And I think it's because of what you said.
Podcast went from niche and nerdy to now kind of cool. Cool people do them.
People think you can make a lot of money doing them, which I think is not as true as people think.
And I think there's this big problem, which is what I call the shelf space problem, which is that a podcast is great when you have listeners because it's like an hour in their ears and it's habitual and it becomes a part of their day when they're commuting or they're at work or they're doing chores or they're going for a run or the gym.
And I'm I'm glad we are that for some number of people, but the reality is like you only have so many idle hours where you're going to listen to podcast.
And so, the number of podcasts might 10x, 50x and has over the last, you know, 10 years or so, but the number of podcast listeners and listening space hasn't gone up in that same way.
And I think that dam has broken and now what's happened is I think a couple things are going to happen.
There's going to be too many podcasts that are bad and boring, so that's happening already.
I think there's going to be a disillusionment when people realize how much time, money, and effort goes into podcasting well and you don't get fame and money back.
And then I think the the the trick and what's happening with the the the the the savior in this case is clips.
And so, I think podcasts are just becoming clip farms.
That's not where real engagement is.
But I think that's what That's what all these people are going to use as their our moral victory, which is oh, look how many people liked that clip on Twitter or TikTok.
And they're going to make a the the pod is a clip farm and whether anybody listens to the pod or not doesn't really matter.
This is I mean, TBPN I think is doing the best at that.
Um but but that's where I think all this is going.
I think that what a lot of people Okay, and we we have I think made mistakes on this path a lot as well.
I think a lot of people think that just because you see the video and that's what gets your attention because it is cooler.
The reality is is that you just said that it's hours in ears and that a lot of the shiny stuff really doesn't matter.
The content just needs to be good and it needs to be consistent and it has to have a unique perspective and it is all in your ear.
It's audio is what matters more than anything.
And like there's been times where we've talked about something like in minute 55 of this podcast and people on the streets will bring it up and they didn't watch that on YouTube.
They're listening to it while they're working out.
If you If you're working out and actually In fact, if you're listening to this on your ears, go to Spotify right now and just like tell us what you were doing right now.
I'm curious in the comments.
But people aren't like watching these things and What do you mean people aren't watching these things?
People are definitely watching these things.
>> No, they're not watching it near If you look at the time spent If you look at our for example, if you want to on our megaphone and you look at time listened versus time watched, so the average engagement the average time on YouTube versus Spotify some other type of feed, it's significantly longer.
>> So, we'll put numbers around this.
Our average time on a YouTube video is about 15 minutes. Yeah, 15 minutes.
And on audio is about 40 to 45 minutes. Yeah.
So, so you you need three views for every one listener of audio if you wanted equivalent of time spent.
Now, even that's not exactly right because that one person who listened to 45 minutes has a deeper sense of connection and trust and fandom than three people who watched 15 minutes each.
Now, here's the downside.
For anyone listening, YouTube, it's very simple to grow.
It's not like there's there's a formula behind growing YouTube.
It's still challenging, but it's simple.
Growing an audio feed, very hard. It's very hard.
We have tried so long to do it and we've hit so many plateaus, multiple times.
Growing audio is so challenging, but it is significantly more consistent in in listenership, but it does not grow fast in most cases. I think you're right.
I don't think you're right though that like the clips and stuff don't matter.
>> No, I didn't say that.
I didn't say they don't matter.
What they matter significantly less. Right.
I guess what I'm saying is I think that the people who are who are going to play that game are just actually playing a different game and they can do very well in that game and have like all the results that they want out of it, but it's very different It is a It is like literally just like a new game.
In the same way that I think if 7 years ago you're making prestige TV or movies and you looked at like Ryan Trahan and Mr.
Beast and you're like, "What?
He painted a circle and they have to These six strangers have to stay in it and every 3 seconds something changes on the screen." Like that's not art.
No, that's not Breaking Bad.
That's not Game of Thrones.
You're not going to get the You could say all those things.
>> No, but I'm not criticizing it for that reason.
I'm criticizing it because of the the physics, the mechanics of it.
Often times the equation of influence involves time spent.
And so the amount of time you have spent with someone, so meaning the >> Yes.
So So I I wonder if it's going to flip or I wonder if volume is the other variable in this and if you just said, "Okay, but you're going to see my face 30 times for every one time you're going to see that." It could be. >> if that works. It might work, you know.
You just need to do it a lot.
So like clients are 60 seconds.
Our podcast, you said the average listen time is 45 minutes and there's two a week.
You just You're the volume has to be the game. You better be Walmart.
You better be churning that [ __ ] out. Yeah.
All right, I'll do two quick ones.
Peptides, peptides everywhere.
I think peptides are going to be here, there, everywhere.
I think they're going to put peptides in your nose.
I think they're going to put them in your mouth.
I think you think you'd put them in your butt.
Peptides are everywhere and it's a classic like what the nerds are doing on the weekend, everybody's going to be doing soon.
Arguably they already are because Ozempic and the GLP-1s, those are peptides.
But I'm just seeing people I would not expect, people I don't count as biohackers who are very interested and jumping through a lot of hoops to get peptides cuz you can't just get peptides easily in a trustworthy, frictionless way.
And so a great proxy for demand is like, "Are you willing to, you know, break the law and like do something sketchy for the thing you want?"
Um well, that's what's happening with peptides.
I have, you know, cousins, brother-in-law.
Like I have people who are not Dude, just outting him? God.
Yeah, he's like, "I got shoulder pain." For Did he do a BP-157?
I don't know which one he's on, but yeah.
He probably doesn't even know which one he's on. He's like, "I got pain.
This guy gave me this acronym and it it my shoulder feels better. I feel younger."
>> [snorts] >> I got friends sending me pictures of themselves just absolutely ripped on the like, you know, the new version of the Wolverine stack.
Yeah, what's that What's that one called?
I I For research, we should find out what that is and and start putting it in our bodies.
>> [laughter] >> Yeah, exactly.
So I just think peptides are this uh this thing that's going to be a big deal and if you use proxy for demand as uh people who are willing to jump through hoops, go through untrust go to untrusted sources, imagine once somebody makes this easier to access, more easy form factors, like get it to get it to gummies, get it to to pills, get it to a different form factors.
As that happens over the next 10 years, I think peptides will become a normal part of everyday life for people in the same way you take protein supplements and vitamins and um you know, medicine when you're sick.
I think you're going to have enhancements through peptides.
I'm shocked that you're so interested in this and I think that you will never take this, right?
Sometimes I'm a user first and I become an investor.
Sometimes an investor first, I become a user.
In this case, I'm an investor I'm I'm looking at it as an investor.
I haven't made any investments yet, but I'm hunting. Would you take it?
I try not to be early to experimental like health stuff.
I think the risk reward doesn't really make a lot of sense.
But would I Yeah, at a certain point I would.
And I at that you know, and I'm I'm happy to be late to certain parties.
I would challenge you um about investing.
I do not think that these are particularly good businesses.
I actually don't take a lot of stuff anymore, but I used to like dabble with everything cuz I I loved like trying new things and then I just found what works and I just repeat that, but I don't run one of these businesses, but I am an investor in one of them and I've like was a customer.
People jump from one to one to one like you you very easily can switch and there's not really a reason to stay with someone for a very long time because in most cases they're just selling the same thing at and and so anytime that you see there's a discount or a doctor is going to be more liberal about what they prescribe or you could just like tell someone, "Give me this." You switch.
It's it's very easy and often times even though people say you have to take these take these things for life, people don't.
You just do it for 12 months, you feel good and you're like, "I'm I'm going to bail.
I'm going to get off of it."
I'm glad that this is contrarian.
I thought that's going to be just too consensus, so I appreciate that that is not consensus.
>> Well, we've invested in one that's killing it, Hone Health.
They are killing it, but I guess what I'm saying is I've seen like for example, we had More Plates More Dates on Merit Meric Health, I think it was called.
He has one of these companies and it just like I've tried a bunch of them.
They just seem like they're mostly similar and I don't understand how you get locked in with someone for years.
Well, I think most people are not you.
You're in the early adopter experimenter cohort of people.
Money is never made on you.
Money is always made on the early majority and late majority.
So You know how people are like Have you seen those videos of people celebrating that they got their first customer?
I'm usually on the other end of that.
I'm the one who's like just like here, I'll give you my money and I'll take a risk and then I'll bail after 6 months. What's the sixth one?
Okay, sports betting and the consequences.
This is a trend that is in plain sight, but I think people underestimate how big and how bad this is going to be.
I'm shocked to hear you say that and also I'm very happy to hear you say that.
So basically I think there was an article in The Economist and they talked about the how sophisticated sports betting companies are and basically the headline is whenever you make your first bet, they know to a high degree of certainty what type of customer you're going to be and they manipulate you and the rest of their customers down to like an amazing science in order to get the most amount of dollars from you. Right.
One gambling consultant told The Economist, "By the time a customer places his first bet first bet on the sports book, they are 80 to 90% certain they know the lifetime value.
They know how big of a sucker you are from the first bet.
And they mathematically monitor players, create new risk score every 6 to 8 hours.
Basically they're trying to figure out is this customer going to become profitable on us?
How do we monitor Keep the Keep the profitable players out.
Keep the unprofitable players in."
And okay, so what what else is interesting about this?
There's new data about um like Kalshi and Polymarket.
How are those two different, by the way?
So they're both in the same category, prediction markets, right?
Prediction market basically just says you're able to wager what you think the outcome of an event is and they're markets, meaning unlike a sports book where there's a house that defines the rules of I'm sorry, defines the odds, the way a market works is the question is posed and then you take the yes or no side and based on the volume of dollars that go into the yes or no side, you're basically competing in a free market against each other.
And there's been some incredible things that have come from this, right?
Like um it is more accurate than the news, right?
So a lot of people go to the news to try to get a sense of what's happening or what's going to happen, but the news is far less accurate than just going and looking at with skin in the game what the Polymarket says of what is actually going to happen.
Um what do the odds say is going to happen?
And the odds change in real time as new information goes in.
And so you here you you know, let's just take the incentives as an example.
The incentives of a journalist who's writing for The New York Times or The Wall Street Journal, these extremely prestigious, you know, supposed truth-seeking uh uh platforms, well, their incentive is how do I get as many clicks as possible on this headline?
Um how do I make sure that nobody unsubscribes because I said something that they don't like, right?
That they cancel their their subscription because I told them an unpopular truth.
And so those that you know, fundamentally my incentive loop is that.
Now you take the incentives of Polymarket.
Somebody who's betting yes is saying, "I'm going to I'm going to win or lose money by being right or wrong."
And so you know, the and the high the more conviction I have, the more money I would place on this wager and the conviction if I'm taking if I have conviction based on, you know, gut and superstition, over time I'm going to lose all my money.
I'll be out of the market.
But if I have conviction based off of research or insider information or, you know, um in-depth analysis, I will make money and I'll have more capital to bring to this market over time.
So that's what that's the category.
Okay, now what's interesting?
They're now doing over 2 billion a week in just sports betting volume. Polymarket? The common Both of them. Both of them together.
And what percentage of the revenue do they get?
They're taking I don't know.
It's less than like a It's like a point point whatever percent. Point one, point two. I don't know what it is.
Some very, very small vig that they take on on the transaction.
>> And how much do they do in a week?
2 billion on just sports.
And so like what's happened is that these things started where they were doing, you know, like who's going to win the election and are we going to end up in a war in Ukraine and that those were very like informational things in order to inform like, you know, it's or you could say in some ways it's a it's a signal or a hedge against you know, your maybe your stock market performance or whatnot.
But sports betting is just so popular that like as a percentage share of action, it's just taking over these platforms and they're essentially becoming sports betting apps that are just like in this like loophole of regulation where you can't make you can't do sports betting, but you can do prediction markets about sports.
>> And this is legal in all 50 states? Yeah.
Or sorry, I shouldn't say that.
I'm not I'm not as well versed in it.
Kalshi, based on the way they're regulated cuz like prediction markets are regulated by like commodities or something like that, the commodities market.
And so they are and that's why if you open up the Robinhood app, you can just bet on any game right now and it's powered by Kalshi.
And I think they're going to switch off off of Kalshi at some point cuz why are they giving Kalshi so much volume?
If you were a politician and you could if you were the dictator, what would you do?
Oh god, that's a lot of power. What would I do? Uh yeah.
>> people feeding me grapes and I'd have No, about this, um you know, this is pretty dangerous.
Like there's like my you know, I'm coaching this high school basketball team and like, you know, it's interesting cuz you're around teenagers.
You get to see like what are they interested in? What do they do?
Do they talk about it all the time?
They're talking about it all the time.
They're like over unders. >> That's crazy.
>> You know, they don't want to just watch the games. They bet on the games.
I They're probably betting very small amounts, maybe on their dad's account.
I don't even know how they're doing it exactly, but it's definitely something that they love to do and that they're doing a lot of.
And the the problem is it's one sports betting and I take it this take this as somebody who's wasted far too much of their life gambling, whether it's poker or sports betting.
Sports betting is one of these things that it's dumb to do, but it's easy to look smart.
So like it's a dumb activity to do, but if you cherry-pick a good bet, you can share it, you can tell people about it and you get to look smart for a moment.
And like the real gains in life come from things that look dumb to do, but are actually smart to do.
Those are like that's where all the real alpha of life is.
And of course there's the obvious things, things that are smart to do that look smart to do and you should do those too.
That's like, you know, the sort of highly competitive things that the people do, like going to college or you know, like trying to get a good job.
Like like sounds smart is smart.
And then you know, and so I think the the problem with sports betting falls in this one is obviously super addictive.
Obviously there's going to be a lot of people who you know, lose a lot of money, waste a lot of time, get addicted to this stuff.
There's NBA players that get death threats constantly because like some guys got a $200 parlay on them getting 11 rebounds instead of nine.
And you know, in his DM every [clears throat] day he goes home and from basketball if you talk to any player, like their DMs are just filled with angry voice notes and death threats from a guy who needed them to get an extra rebound for their parlay.
And you could do this for college sports, too?
You could do this for college, which is toxic now at the younger level, right? Um it's crazy.
Like I put this in my 52 Tuesday.
Like some guys rooting for World War III because he's going to win $390 on Polymarket. >> [laughter] >> Right?
Like I think it's um so I I tend to I would say I'm a very moderate person politically.
Um I I disagree and agree with people on both sides.
And also I would say I'm very pro-capitalist and this is one of the free time one of the few times where I'm like, "No, I'm I'm definitely not in favor of the market just doing what it wants to do in this case."
I definitely think that regulation would be nice.
I don't exactly I don't I'm an idiot.
I don't know how it needs to be done, but this seems very dangerous.
I think what will happen is I think that like a college or professional sports sports player is going to be murdered or there's going to be like something crazy that happens in politics where the person made the decision just to get the payout on the bet.
Yeah, and there's been there's already been players who have lost their whether it's college scholarships.
There's NBA players that are getting fined or boot banned from the league permanently um because they they told their homies, "Hey, I'm out today. It's not reported yet." Or worse, right?
There's been guys who like owe people money in the mafia from their poker losses in the poker games.
They're like, "Hey, to make it back, I'm going to pull a hammy in the first quarter. Just bet my under. You'll make it back."
But it's too obvious cuz somebody suddenly slams $50,000 on this obscure player's under and then you know, the NBA bans that player.
They lose their $30 million contract.
>> I remember when we were younger, there was this one player, he was like the superstar quarterback for I think Ohio.
Was his last name like Owens?
And he got in trouble for getting free tattoos from a tattoo shop in in in exchange for like some jerseys or something like that and he was banned. >> yeah.
He was like signing jer He like signed a jersey.
I think he got kicked out.
Or it was a huge it was huge deal.
It was national news and he signed jerseys and gave it to a I think a tattoo parlor in exchange for free tattoos. Do you remember that? Known as Tattoo Gate. Let's see.
It was It was Terrelle Pryor.
This was years ago and this was a huge deal and I think he was like the hottest guy going and he did this and that was like the biggest scandal I remember in years.
It's going to get way worse.
It's going to get way worse.
Dude, this is where they're do what they're doing instead of drinking alcohol.
I'd rather people drink by the way than than do this [ __ ] >> [laughter] >> Yeah, gambling instead.
Yeah, so those are my trends.
Give me a favorite and a least favorite.
I think alcohol is going to get popular again next generation.
I think it's going to I think that whatever the generation >> that whatever your parents do, you're going to do the opposite.
Um I think sports betting in the next 5 years is going to be incredibly heavily regulated and companies like Polymarket and Kalshi are going to to crumble.
Wow, big big predictions there.
Let me tell you one thing that I saw really quick.
Did you see Hermozi and Tony Robbins do a podcast together? I didn't see it.
I but I thought I think I saw it on YouTube. I didn't click it. Is it good?
Yeah, the reason it was good is I saw two things yesterday that I thought were pretty funny or interesting.
One was Tony Robbins and Alex Hermozi and it was basically a coaching session where Tony Robbins was coaching Hermozi and that was kind of cool because Hermozi is usually giving advice and this one he appeared a student. A student.
So I was almost going to say the word lost.
I don't think it was lost, but he was like, "Here's my issues. Help me."
Um and then the second thing that I saw was Scott Galloway was at Is it Davos?
Davos, like the Davos, the I don't even know what it's called.
Never in my life have I had a conversation about Davos.
Like I don't give a [ __ ] But I guess it's where like the global superpowers meet and somehow decide like who's going to win what.
And Scott Galloway was like, "I think I'm just going to go home.
I'd rather be home with my kids than be here."
>> [laughter] >> Did you see that? No, I didn't.
I Was there anything particular he was like disillusioned by?
>> going to give you a takeaway. Here's what's going on.
But first let me say, I think I'm just going to leave. I don't really care.
I don't care about this at all.
I'm just going to go home and hang out with my boys. I really miss them."
And I thought that was cool because in the Hermozi podcast, he basically was explaining Hermozi was like, "You know, I've been experiencing a lot of success lately, but I feel empty."
And there's something that you and I I think maybe you say it more than me talking about seasons.
And Tony Robbins was basically like, "Dude, you've like primed yourself to only care about like being aggressive and succeeding and getting after it.
And you just told me that you said basically every waking hour I'm working."
And the problem with that is not that that exists. That's okay to exist.
The problem is is that you don't also have these other states of life or these other like feelings where now this for these next few hours you can you can turn work off and you can feel enjoyment.
And it was this whole idea of seasons.
And I think Scott Galloway was the same way which is like, you know, I get after it sometimes, other times I want to like enjoy life and be with my kids.
And I thought that was really interesting because we talk about work a lot here and the people who listen to this are listening because I mean the podcast is all my first million. It's like making money.
And I think that we actually do a pretty decent job.
I think that's one of the reasons why people like us, although it's not necessarily intentional, where we laugh and we have fun.
And I thought that this was just like super interesting to see such a serious person and such a successful person like Hermozi complain about not being happy even though he's succeeding.
And what I've realized I I realized this when I read Robert Greene's book Human Nature, which is humans are humans.
And you and I have been very lucky to talk to billionaires, all these successful people.
And oftentimes when they're on our podcast, we're asking them questions and they come off they're giving advice.
And so they're not going to purposely appear weak.
But we've gotten to become friends with a lot of these people and it's really cool to see behind the scenes that the people who we look up to and it was cool that Hermozi did this where he showed like weakness.
He even cried a little on the podcast which was uh I didn't think that he had that gear. A boy's got range. Yeah, he has range.
I did not think that was going to come out.
He's like Jim Carrey in like a serious movie or something. Proportions.
Uh And I thought it was cool.
I thought it was cool and it was a really good reminder and I want to give that to that reminder to people that A, the people who you look up to, you and I some people actually shockingly look up to us, but we have hung out with people who we look up to on this podcast and the people who others look up to we've had on this podcast.
It's cool to see that everyone complains about the same [ __ ] and have has complained about the same [ __ ] And also the advice I think that Anthony or Tony Robbins gave, it's sort of the same advice Anthony.
[laughter] It's We're friends. That was incredible. Hey dog. We're buddies.
It's sort of been like the same feedback like on how to like live life.
Have you heard of that song by The Byrds?
I don't want to sing it cuz I'll look stupid, but it's like to everything turn, turn, turn. You know that song?
I've never I've never heard that. No, no. That's crazy.
Okay, so this song was from the '60s.
This song Let me tell you an interesting fact.
This song I was looking it up.
I was like, "I recognize this."
So I went to Catholic school my whole life.
We had to read the Bible.
This song is word for word a Bible verse.
And I'm not a religious person, but because I like read the Bible so much as a kid, I had to like read it.
It's word for word a Bible verse.
And the And here's listen to the words.
It says, "To everything there's a season. A time to whatever.
To everything there's a season.
A time to be born, a time to die."
But then it goes, "A time to kill, a time to heal, a time to weep, a time to laugh."
And basically further down the verse it says like, "Now go and eat your bread, drink your wine, be merry.
God has already like approved what you're going to do.
Whatever happens, happens."
So, like these are like old issues that people have cared about for thousands or tens of thousands of years, which is work hard sometimes, enjoy yourself sometimes, be sad sometimes, be happy sometimes.
There's a season for all of it.
And it's just so interesting to me that we all, and myself included, complain about the same things, and we have for tens of thousands of years, and like the advice that Tony Robbins gave of like there's a season, be happy.
That's literally the same advice from like the Bible and from the song.
It's kind of interesting.
Yeah, you know, there's um uh if I had an interesting conversation with um this basketball coach.
So, we had just played a game, and um the coach the head coach of my team that I'm coaching this high school basketball team, the head coach of the team is really young. He's 25 years old.
This is his first first head coaching job.
And he got the recommendation to get the job from his old college coach.
So, there's this guy who was his college coach, he's kind of like a legendary community college coach.
He coached um at Diablo Valley for like 30 years or something.
He's like one of the winningest coaches. And he's retired now.
And so, he comes to our game sometimes.
He sits in the crowd, and he's just like up in the bleachers, and he's just observing.
And then, occasionally afterwards, after after the game, after we talk to the players, we hang out in the locker room, and he comes down, and he gives us kind of like the old coach's wisdom. And it's the best.
It's the best That's like my favorite time in this whole thing.
You know, couldn't have predicted it, but that's like my favorite time.
And so, we had just won a game that we kind of weren't supposed to win.
We were these underdogs, and we like played amazing, and we won.
And then, we were playing the best team in our league, and we were coming off that win, and we're like, "Yeah, we're going to do this."
And um we just got smacked, and we lost by 50 points. It was embarrassing.
We only scored 15 points in an entire basketball game. It's hard to do that.
And it was just terrible.
We like we were scared played scared. It was It was just bad.
So, um coach comes in, and he just goes, um "You know, 2 days ago, you're unstoppable.
You're the best team ever.
Today, you can't do anything right.
You know, you're the worst."
And he just he just said he goes, "The number one thing you're going to learn as a coach is that victory and defeat are liars. They're both liars.
And once you learn that they're both liars, then you can become a great coach." And I just love that.
And it was like uh my my roommate in college, Trevor, he had this his dad [clears throat] gave him this gift uh when he went to college.
And like I went to Duke, and so, there's a lot of rich kids with rich parents who you know, they give them this like air conditioning device and this like you know, like their their rooms were like tricked out.
And Trevor's parents were both PE coaches in Wyoming for their whole careers.
And so, when they drove him out to what they drove him out to college, and then they his dad gave him this like this poster, and it had a poem on it.
And it's this poem called If.
I don't know if you've you've ever read it.
It's If by Rudyard Kipling.
And on it, it has the same line.
And this was I stared at this thing like every day in college cuz it was just the only thing on our walls.
And it's the the line from it is it says, "If you can meet triumph and disaster, and treat those two impostors just the same."
And the the last line is um "You'll be a man, my son."
And um his dad gave him this this poster, and I kind of by proxy got this poster from that.
But it's this idea that like the highs and the lows are liars.
The wins and the the the the losses are liars.
Victory and uh you know, triumph and disaster, they're impostors.
And once you recognize that, then you're free.
Then you can actually do what you need to do.
And so, like you know, what you're talking about Hormozi and being happy and success and all these things, I think, you know, the challenge is that we think success is something that's real and final and lasting, and that was the meaning of this whole thing, of all that of all that effort.
And then, if it's failure, that it's real and going to be lasting, and that it's it means something.
And once you realize that like, no, it's they're neither real nor lasting, nor were they the meaning in the first place.
Like then, you're actually playing the real game. MFM wisdom corner. Yeah. Welcome to guru corner. No advice given.
Look, you just quoted a an old coach.
I quoted a Tony Robbins and the Bible. I mean, no advice given. We're just messengers. Um all right, that's it. That's the pod.