0:00
You got caught. Okay, you got got.
Search this video
0:00
And okay, I think we should create instead of the Forbes 30 under 30, I think we need like the Madoff 1000.
0:09
For all the grifters and con artists that are that are out there.
0:22
All right, we don't normally let Ben have ideas, but we let the man out of the cage. He's got an idea.
0:26
Ben, what you you texted us uh this morning.
0:28
You want to try something. What do you want to try?
0:32
We're doing a new segment, fellas.
0:32
We're just going to we're going quick through the news and we're having you guys react.
0:36
People want to know what the fellas think about what's happening.
0:37
So, we're going to we're going to find out.
0:40
We'll call it I'm going to call this the boys react.
0:45
I've been trying to make this the boys thing a a thing for a little while now and it hasn't happened.
0:51
But, as I told my daughter yesterday, we never give up.
0:53
And so, the boys react is going to be uh we're going to react to the news here.
0:58
So, Ben, you have some news segments uh or news stories, I guess, and um Sam Sam actually likes the news.
1:04
Sam Sam's into into the news.
1:05
I'm a Dude, I I read the news like crazy. You don't read the news? I'm an anti-neuser. I just love drama.
1:14
You know how some people are preppers?
1:16
I'm like whatever that is where you avoid the news at all costs.
1:19
Yeah, I just like gossip.
1:19
I'm I'm a big fan of drama.
1:22
My life's pretty boring, so I I need I need drama.
1:23
I love the comment sections, too.
1:27
Somebody said this the other day that I think it was like Naval or one of these smart guys.
1:30
They go um the goal of the media is to make every problem your problem.
1:36
And I was like, "Oh, that's pretty true.
1:38
That's kind of like what the news is."
1:39
It's like, "Oh, there's a flood in this county I don't live in.
1:41
[ __ ] I'm going to watch this for 20 minutes."
1:46
Why do I care about this?
1:46
This is there's nothing to do with me. All right.
1:48
But anyways, sorry to interrupt your news. Okay.
1:50
Let's start with the the most interesting one, Ben. What is it?
1:53
We're starting a little close to home.
1:54
Uh your your Nikita Beer, uh his social app Gas was acquired by Discord for an undisclosed amount.
2:00
What do you guys think about your buddy Nikita being acquired by Discord?
2:06
Give the background, Sean, about this guy.
2:08
Like cuz it's a pretty He It's a caper. I call this a caper.
2:13
I don't even know what that means.
2:13
A caper is something you put on your like a Like no, a caper, it's like a a scheme, like it's like when you would rob a bank, you know, you'd be like it's a great caper.
2:24
Fool me once, shame on you.
2:24
Fool me twice, shame on me.
2:29
He just fooled the tech industry twice, dude. He sold the same app.
2:31
So, he built an app called TBH that was like uh you know, let a teenager go on and it basically quiz you about people in your school, your friends, and be like, "Who's the most cute boy in your life?"
2:45
And you're like, "Oh, Sam."
2:45
And it's like, "Who's the most likely to be famous?" "Oh, it's Ben." Right?
2:48
And you just do that, right?
2:49
And then it would text them and be like Somebody said you're cute 8 years ago.
2:53
Yeah, somebody said you're cute. Download my app.
2:54
And of course, that [ __ ] worked.
2:55
He did that and like it immediately went viral because it went viral, Facebook buys the thing cuz Facebook has like a system internally that says like viral teen app and then it's like must acquire, must acquire viral teenage app, you know, like get that young blood in here.
3:12
And so, they acquired it.
3:15
People have said $100 million. It's not $100 million.
3:18
But but I think something more like 30, 40 million bucks.
3:20
And um And this was in 2017 that he did this. 2017. He sells the app.
3:29
Promptly, the app gets shut down within like a year because there was never any retention in this app.
3:35
He then sits at Facebook for 4 years, invests out the entire every cent of his earn out, which is just hilarious in its own right.
3:44
Um and all he did was just tweet all day, you know, like yeah, he he worked in the new products division and you know, half released some apps, I guess.
3:50
And then he he leaves, you know, what's it called? Recidivism?
3:54
Sam, you're a you're you're a person guy.
3:57
He leaves the jail of Facebook and he does the same goddamn thing again.
4:02
He creates another teen app for compliments.
4:05
He tells us this in advance.
4:06
He goes, "Yeah, I'm going to I'm just going to make an app that makes like $10 million in 3 months."
4:13
And we both kind of laughed it off and we're like, "Is that even possible?"
4:18
And then he pretty much did it.
4:18
I think Gas app has made 7 million in gross sales in like three-ish months.
4:24
So, you know, pretty much called his shot, which we do respect.
4:27
But also, we have to clarify one thing, Sam.
4:30
Ben said he's our friend.
4:33
Is he still our friend after how insufferable he is in the group chat?
4:38
So, he is insufferable, but I kind of like it a little bit.
4:44
Uh I think it's pretty hilarious. I love a good troll.
4:45
I think that you're missing some of the data here.
4:47
So, he sold the company to Discord.
4:49
There's no release on price or anything like that, but uh some people can make guesses.
4:55
But basically, between leaving or being at Facebook and Discord, he creates this mystique.
5:01
I call him the Jewish Great Gatsby.
5:04
He creates this kind of mystique where he's got this really lovely home in LA.
5:08
I I he's single or at least he's not married.
5:11
And he like hosts really fun parties and then he posts on Twitter about like his opinion on going viral and all like legends like or quote legends start following him.
5:21
And they like message him and they He's created this aura of sophistication and of like he knows what he's doing with apps, which is true. It's all true. He's very talented.
5:34
But it was pretty cool how it was like kind of systematic.
5:36
So, he has the talent, he has the skill, but he did a great job of also flexing that he had the talent and he had the skill, and people start flocking to him.
5:45
And he starts launching this thing and And here's the analogy.
5:49
He's like He's like the guy who moved He moved to a new high school as a sophomore and then didn't try to make a single friend, but he just went to lunch and he was just totally content sitting by himself. He wasn't a loser.
6:01
He was almost too cool to have to try.
6:03
And because of that, everyone's like, "Who is this guy?
6:06
Does he have a Is his girlfriend in college? Oh my god."
6:11
And he would just be like, you know, texting his college girlfriend.
6:13
Like you don't know if you don't know if they exist, but he just built this aura, this mystique around him by almost not trying.
6:20
Whereas everybody else on Twitter is like "Hey, follow me for more threads about how great I am, right?"
6:24
And he's he's trying to do the exact opposite where he's just like only [ __ ] posting and you know, just hinting and posting little screenshots that make you think he's up to something big at all times.
6:36
Yeah, you're like, "Who's this kid coming up to school as a 16-year-old on a motorcycle?"
6:40
You know, like this guy's got a neck tattoo.
6:42
Like I can't confirm that he's a badass, but like all all signs point to it. That that was his thing.
6:48
And and he never He didn't deny it. He didn't confirm it.
6:50
So it could be true, it could not be true.
6:52
But the fact is is that he created this app.
6:56
Something happened to it.
6:56
Like there was a crazy rumor with the app that it was used for child sex trafficking, which wasn't true.
7:02
He changed the name of the app.
7:04
Then he changed the name again a third time and it takes off and he sells it.
7:09
We're recording this on a Wednesday.
7:11
I believe it was announced yesterday.
7:14
This is a wonderful caper.
7:14
Not to say that Discord didn't get value.
7:17
I have no idea what the truth is.
7:18
The truth is probably like they're going to make something cool of it. Who knows? But he pulled it off. He called the shot.
7:24
He pulled it off and he did it in such an obnoxious way and that's why I love him.
7:28
You know, I love guys like that. I love what he did.
7:32
And honestly, I love the way he did it, too.
7:35
But the problem is he's like a fart.
7:35
A fart is amazing when you're It's than 6 ft away.
7:40
But you don't want to be too close to the fart.
7:42
Like you don't The fart's not funny when you're right up against it.
7:45
And so that's the problem with this is we were too close to it.
7:47
We got We had to hear him And he loves smelling his own scent.
7:53
smelling his own fart, too.
7:53
And so, you know, he will in our group chat just post every like Twitter mention where somebody's like, "Oh my god, Nikita has done it again."
8:02
Blah blah blah, Nikita is the best.
8:04
It's like, "Bro, I don't need your Twitter mentions posted here, uh you know, for me for me to see."
8:08
Uh it is completely He's an insufferable fart, but I do respect what he's pulled off. Yeah, it's pretty funny.
8:15
So, this is like an interesting thing.
8:17
I can't believe he pulled it off, but he called his shot. I respect that. I think it's cool.
8:23
Also, he's done a thing like, you know, um Mr.
8:26
Beast does this thing where like if you go talk to a pretty serious business person, they'll like reference a Mr. Beast like a Mr.
8:31
Beast-ism where they're like, um Well, Mr.
8:35
Beast said, uh Yeah, yeah, Jimmy just says, you know, we just try to make great videos.
8:40
As if like nobody else tries to make great videos.
8:42
Or he'll be like, uh or he'll be like, you know, we just um we're willing to put more into our content, try to make the best content possible. Blah blah blah.
8:48
It's like And then it If somebody goes and looks and they're like, "Bro, you you your your video is put your hand on this car and the last person to take their hand off, you know, last person with their hand on the car keeps the car."
9:03
Like this is not like, you know, you're not Steven Spielberg over here.
9:06
But didn't we talk about this where we're like, "Look, we're going to do this thing and we're going to send them a welcome letter and we're just going to make it really delightful.
9:13
It's just going to be a beautiful Really well done. Just beautifully done.
9:19
And if you do it like that, people start to buy in.
9:21
They start to eat that little puppy chow.
9:23
It's a similarly, he um Mr.
9:26
Beast does this reality distortion where he makes you believe that he is the deepest thinker.
9:30
He's creating the most epic, beautiful, well-done content. He is a content creator. It's just so thoughtful.
9:39
you know, he'll "Watch me fart in people's ears."
9:40
And like, you know, It's true that people I'm on a fart kick today.
9:46
But people People do like it.
9:48
The content would definitely works, but it creates this almost this mystique around it.
9:51
And I feel like Nikita did the same thing where he'll tweet out [ __ ] where he'll be like, um, Just move the butt hole a little closer.
10:01
He'll tweet out like, uh, you know, the you know, um, The underrated metric in social networking is density, uh, by far more important than spread.
10:10
And he's like, you know, like, "If you're still measuring K factor, you might as well still be using a BlackBerry." Right?
10:14
And he'll like, he'll tweet out [ __ ] that makes you think like, "Damn, this this [ __ ] knows [ __ ] that I don't know about social networking."
10:20
Or he'll be like, "There's only five people on Earth that can tell you about building social networks.
10:25
The problem is they're all unhirable because their name are names are Mark Zuckerberg, Jack Dorsey, and Nikita Bier."
10:34
So, and And so, by the way, I I think There's levels to this. There's levels.
10:39
So so, I think he does a great job of creating It's like, "Bro, you created a a app that lets me say which which girl in my high school is the cutest."
10:45
And then it texts her, "Somebody said you're cute." Right?
10:48
Like, you know, it There's beauty in the simplicity, for sure.
10:53
But they almost make it sound more complicated and artistic than it really is.
10:56
And, uh, and and trust me, it's it's not.
11:00
We're not We're not like every other social app.
11:01
You see, we're changing the world one popularity contest at a time.
11:06
We are We're democratizing popularity.
11:09
He went on um on like CNBC or one of these like news networks or whatever, and they were like, "We have here the founder of the hit teen app, the sensational app Yass.
11:22
Nikita, wh- what inspired you to do this?"
11:23
And he's like, you know, "We just believe that teens they know the world needed a little more positivity, and that uh we wanted to create a safe space for whatever Dude, the only safe space he wanted was was a vacation home in in Tahoe. Exactly, exactly.
11:38
You you wanted to you know, you you wanted to fly private. That's what you wanted.
11:44
Hey, mission accomplished. I respect that. That is amazing.
11:47
Yeah, his next app's going to be called Pleb.
11:53
Uh but in all seriousness, he pulled it off. I think it's cool.
11:56
Yeah, I make fun of him because uh because of how obnoxious he's been for 4 months in this group chat, but I but you know, deep down he's my kind of people.
12:05
I respect I respect what he's done and I also respect the the massive troll that he's played on everybody here.
12:09
So, this is this is good.
12:11
Speaking of trolls who didn't pull it off, uh Ben, we got to get to the next story.
12:16
Before we get to the next story though, we do have to remind everyone we have a gentleman's agreement here. Everyone follows it.
12:19
If you follow if you listen to us, it doesn't matter what app you're listening to, you have to go to our YouTube page and you click subscribe.
12:25
That's the gentleman's agreement. It's I have my pen here.
12:27
Am I going to need this for the gentleman's agreement?
12:28
Do I need to sign something or what do I do? You actually don't.
12:31
See, all you have to do is go to our YouTube page and you click subscribe.
12:34
You don't even need a pen. That's how easy it is.
12:35
We made this gentleman's agreement incredibly simple.
12:38
You go and you subscribe and then we work for you and we make this content for you and we reveal our life and dedicate our lives to you. It's simple.
12:46
That's the gentleman's agreement.
12:48
I can't find this client info.
12:50
Have you heard of HubSpot?
12:50
HubSpot is a CRM platform, so it shares its data across every application.
12:55
Every team can stay aligned.
12:57
No out-of-sync spreadsheets or billing databases. HubSpot, grow better. Next topic. Ben.
13:06
From someone who pulled off the caper to someone who did not, JP Morgan Chase bought college financial aid platform Frank for $175 million.
13:11
It has now shut down the website and claims that they fabricated more than 4 million accounts.
13:20
On their first email to their customer list, they got a 70% bounce back.
13:23
Uh founder Charlie Javice, I think it's pronounced, denies that this is fraud and claims that JP Morgan is just inventing reasons to not pay her.
13:35
Fellas, who do you believe? Well, JP Morgan.
13:38
This lady was on, like, that's easy.
13:43
This lady was a Forbes 30 under 30 and then just like a couple years later sells her app for nine nine figures, 100 million plus, and it's pretty hilarious.
13:53
They even found they tracked it down, I believe, where they talked to the developers.
13:56
It was a it was like a they hired one freelancer, I think, who they said, "Hey, can you like make some test data to put in here?"
14:02
And he starts doing it and they're the guy was like, "I think this is fraud. I'm out."
14:06
So, they found those emails and then they did it again with another contractor and who actually did do it and they convinced the contractor that it wasn't fraud and so they've kind of like honed in on this that it it seems quite clear that it's fraud.
14:19
Uh, bold move, very bold move, very easy to catch though, really stupid.
14:25
Like, this seems like really a foolish mistake.
14:31
Yeah, this is like, um, JP Morgan's got a little egg on their face for not not noticing this cuz this is pretty easy to notice.
14:36
I mean, the fact that they sent one email and 70% bounced back, right?
14:40
Like, that that sounds, uh, like, it wasn't this really sophisticated, you know, botnet that, you know, was simulating real users.
14:47
It was just a bunch of fake fake emails in a you know, in a database.
14:52
So, you know, that sounds pretty easy.
14:54
It also it says, "There's there's an email with where she's asking the professor who who ended up doing this, 'Will the will the fake emails look real with an eye check or is it better to use unique ID?' Right?
15:06
So, like, you know, handed the cookie jar, as we say around here.
15:13
That I mean, you got caught, okay? You got got.
15:15
And, okay, I think we should create instead of the Forbes 30 under 30, I think we need like the Madoff 1,000.
15:23
They're all the grifters and con artists that are that are out there.
15:27
Um You know, I I think that you know, maybe the caper caper 20 or something like that.
15:31
I we got to come up with something here and we need to just annually I think we should just do a show where we just rank the best cons of the year and uh and give them their due.
15:40
Let them put that on their bio. Dude, I'm down.
15:43
And what's crazy is this is so So, when I sold the Hustle, we had I think 1. 7 million subscribers.
15:47
We used this service, HubSpot paid for it, and it was a service, I forget the name of it, but I believe it did two things.
15:54
We uploaded our whole email list, and then I think HubSpot uploaded some of their email.
15:59
I don't remember exactly how it worked. I think they did it.
16:02
And it showed the crossover, like how many we each shared in a huge amount of emails.
16:07
I imagine HubSpot has like hundreds of million I have no idea. A lot of emails.
16:11
And then I also think it checked for fraud.
16:13
And it was like a couple days to do this. It was pretty simple.
16:17
Um there's a few other services where they make fake data.
16:22
And the reason they do this is if you have a sensitive thing like a bank startup, you put a whole bunch of fake data in it and it like makes up people and you can test your data because you can't use like, you know, obviously real social security numbers when you're testing certain things, and they would make up fake stuff just to test the software make sure it all works.
16:40
Tonic, I think it's called tonic. ai.
16:42
It's the It then says the fake data company.
16:44
We talked about them on the pod. I love this idea.
16:45
I've been trying to invest I forgot I need to invest in this.
16:48
Yeah, I think it's a cool thing.
16:50
And so also with GPT-3, whatever it's called, I was like thinking I'm like, dude, I should just I'm not going to do this, but maybe.
16:57
I I was like, I should just make up fake fake reviews for all of my like products, and you could just like make up fake reviews, or you could like make up negative reviews for all your competitors' products.
17:06
But uh I was like Are you looking for a nomination to the Madoff 1000?
17:11
We we'd we'd be happy to have you.
17:14
But you do you to formally submit the application. I you're not in.
17:18
Yeah, and we have to make everybody pay a $500 application fee, too. Right.
17:24
If there's no con going on on our side, what are what are we doing here? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
17:26
Don't you want to win the award? It's an award.
17:30
We did a thing with Milk Road where um we had this philosophy which is like we should be we should bank that in the future we're going to cut out all advertisers and be our own advertiser.
17:39
I mean, only promote our own product, our own service in this newsletter.
17:45
Um that's the only way to hold yourself like accountable to not just acquiring like shitty subscribers.
17:51
And so we we had started this new growth channel.
17:53
We're like, "Oh, let's try this thing out.
17:54
We heard they're you know the the rates are pretty good." We tried it out.
17:58
Uh we tried it for like a week and we're like, "Oh, the numbers look pretty good.
18:00
We're getting cheap sign-ups.
18:00
They're opening the email. That sounds great."
18:04
And I was like, "Hey Ben, just you know, just for just to double-check here, why don't you just email all those people that signed up and um just ask them like you know a simple question like you know, "Hey, like" ask them a a one-line question that would be Like what city you're in?
18:16
for them for them to answer.
18:16
Just be like, "Hey, I just wanted to know blah blah blah.
18:18
I'm the founder of this thing.
18:19
Just wanted to know blank."
18:19
Uh cuz they're opening the thing daily, it looks like. Okay, fantastic.
18:22
Surely they would they would reply to the email from the owner of the thing they read every day, right?
18:28
Um and he was like, "Dude, guess how many" I forgot how many There was like a couple thousand people on this thing.
18:34
He was like, "Guess how many people replied?"
18:36
I was like, "Well, you didn't say percentage of man.
18:37
This is a number of people who replied."
18:39
I was like, "I don't know, like 400, 500?" And he was like, "Two. We had two replies." Turned off the channel. I was like, "Wow."
18:47
And I know a bunch of other people that are still buying from this traffic this like you know, this uh this marketing player, this traffic source.
18:53
And I'm like, "Well, they're they're just dumping money down the drain if they're doing that."
18:59
Dude, seeing uh Billy McFarland and the Theranos lady go to jail um like this woman potentially could go to jail.
19:06
It's pretty crazy that like what do they not think like just like eight months in advance?
19:13
It's like man, this isn't like internet play games.
19:15
This is like go to prison games.
19:17
You're this is really screwing up a hundred plus million dollar acquisition and 70% of the users were fake. That is crazy.
19:25
You go to prison for that type of stuff.
19:28
That is wild and it's just crazy to think that no one's there and they're like uh Charlie, um you know, like are you do you like generic Oreos and baloney sandwiches?
19:36
If yes, then this is great cuz that's what you're going to be eating for like the next 9 months in prison. It's crazy. Oreos? That's that's nice.
19:48
Well, not not when it's every day and watered down Kool-Aid.
19:49
But like it's just it's it's pretty wild that people don't think ahead.
19:53
But uh this is such an obvious scam.
19:55
Also, JP Morgan, you guys suck, man.
19:57
You guys got to be on top of the ball.
19:59
Like this is such a this is seems pretty easy to to figure out. Yeah, fair enough.
20:05
All right, what's what's next?
20:08
All right, um Bitcoin and Ethereum are up 23% over the last week. Uh crypto's rallying.
20:16
Uh one major cause is continued rise in inflation, 6.
20:18
5% annualized in December.
20:21
The question for you fellas is crypto back? No.
20:32
You want to just end it there? I don't know.
20:35
Well, I will give you That's a great answer, Sam.
20:39
I will give you this lady for that answer.
20:43
Um Do I get to say like I told you so?
20:45
No, I don't I don't get to say I told you so.
20:47
In fact, I might maybe take the other the other L.
20:49
Did I did I sell Bitcoin too early? Did I sell the bottom?
20:53
Um No, I I think that a lot of things are rallying right now. Why?
20:56
Because people did I I think it's just a simple answer.
21:00
People did a end of year sell off in December for tax loss harvesting and a lot of people will re-enter and then that creates some upward momentum and when there's upward momentum, that makes people think, "Hey, is it coming back? Is this the rally?
21:12
Uh did we did we hit the bottom?
21:14
Is it time to buy back in?"
21:15
And so people are buying back in.
21:15
Um I don't think it's because inflation in December cuz guess what?
21:19
We had it inflation in October and November and September and August, too.
21:22
Like where where was, you know, if if inflation was driving crypto up, it should have been up all year last year, not uh not down.
21:31
And so I don't think that that narrative holds.
21:33
I think it's much more likely that the same way that tech stocks having a little brief rally, um it's uh it's kind of like New Year optimism, uh people being done with their kind of like in crypto, there's no wash sale rules.
21:46
So, you could sell, book the loss for tax purposes, and buy back in 1 minute later uh if you wanted to.
21:52
And so I think people are just buying back in and I think there's a little bit of people chasing momentum. That's my guess.
21:57
Have you ever looked at the correlation between G Wagon prices, used Rolex market, and Miami penthouses, and how it relates to crypto?
22:07
There's got to be a correlation there. not.
22:10
There's got to be a correlation there.
22:11
to get the best data people on it.
22:13
Did you see uh Yeah, Ben, Google that.
22:14
Did you see uh I'm just going to start telling Ben just to Google random stuff that are un-Googleable.
22:21
Uh did did you see that there was a guy in like you know how we have this Facebook group for MFM that we don't really check often, but there was a guy who was like posting in it a bunch, and he created this website where you can sell your NFT at a loss for tax purposes?
22:34
It's kind of interesting. a great idea, honestly. Um What's it called?
22:39
I forgot I I'm going to forget the name.
22:41
Uh Ben might actually know it.
22:41
Um it was called They advertised in The Milk Road, so I remember seeing it there and being like, "Oh, wow, this is actually a great idea."
22:48
Hold on, Ben just typed in the chat. What did he say?
22:51
It was like a really It was like a a white guy with like blond hair, looked like Unsellable What is it? Unsellable NFTs? Yeah. Yeah, that's it. Unsellable NFTs.
22:59
And so basically, um if you wanted to book a a loss on your NFT, they would basically let you instantly get liquidity on it and get it right back, I think, is the is the idea.
23:11
Um which is just a very useful simple tool.
23:14
So, you know, good on that guy for creating that.
23:15
That that that was a smart smart idea.
23:18
So, is this the segment Dem boys Dem boys react? Is that it?
23:24
I think I think we're not ready for Dem boys yet.
23:27
I think we're still The boys until until we get a little more street cred.
23:32
Go to the YouTube comments and tell us is The boys going to stick? Can I make it a thing?
23:37
Because I sure sure would like that.
23:42
Just type it Just type a thing or not a thing in the comments.
23:44
I just want to I'll do I'll read the poll and if it says not a thing, I'll only continue for another three or four years.
23:50
If it says it's a thing, I'm I'm totally validated. All right, that's it.