0:00
By the way, there's a funny tweet from Parker, I think it's Parker Thompson on Twitter.
Search this video
0:03
He he he replied to that.
0:03
He goes, "Okay, so for those keeping the score at home, Elon Elon brought a bought a product for 44 billion, and then Zuck built the same product for a thousand times less, is stealing all of his users like an absolute Chad, and is God willing about to choke him out in 90 seconds in a steel cage soon.
0:19
Huh, so that's what a cuck means now." All right, what's up?
0:34
Today's episode we're talking about Threads versus Twitter, the big debate, and we're going to talk about where we where we land.
0:40
Our predictions for what we think is going to happen, how it's going to play out.
0:43
Um we told you some funny stories, and then in the second half we have a uh an interview with a guy named Sam Ovens.
0:50
So, Sam met Sam met this guy Sam.
0:50
He used to run a business called consulting.
0:54
com that at its peak hit 30 million in revenue.
0:57
He was all over our Facebook feeds as kind of like one of these internet marketer guys, and so we were curious like who is this guy? And what's he all about?
1:05
Um definitely an interesting interview.
1:08
I would say uh he had some interesting stuff to say.
1:11
Also, his energy was totally different than most of the guests, and also different than what you would expect out of an internet marketer.
1:17
So, I'm curious what to see what people think of it.
1:18
Um I would say it's you know sort of like a different style of interview than we've done before. Sam, what do you think?
1:26
Uh so, for those watching on YouTube, I'm sweating right now.
1:28
The reason I'm sweating is around minute 35. I can't stop laughing.
1:33
I'm still laughing about it.
1:35
You're going to enjoy it. The Taco Bell story.
1:37
Let's just leave it at that.
1:39
Oh my god, it's ridiculous.
1:39
Uh I don't know like how this story came about in a business pod. I'm happy it did. I'm sweating right now.
1:45
If you are on Spotify or Apple and you're listening to this, go to our YouTube page, uh search My First Million, go to this episode, let us know in the comments That's you think.
1:56
People liked when we did that the last time, Sean.
1:57
We got a lot of comments, got lot of good feedback.
1:58
It's It's uh we actually It's been fun to read all the comments, but let us know what you think.
2:04
And we'll talk to you soon. All right, what's up?
2:07
Um Sam, we got to talk about Threads. Threads versus Twitter.
2:14
And uh Threads came out a few days ago.
2:16
We've had a few days to to play with it, to sit on it, to think about it.
2:18
And um I think everybody's giving their opinion on it. And why not ours?
2:27
I want to hear what you what you have to say about this.
2:28
I have a I have a I have kind of like a way I think we could talk about this.
2:32
The uh what I'm calling the bull and bear case.
2:35
So, the bull case, the bear case, and then where we land.
2:36
But, I first just want to hear like I don't know when did you get on it and what was your kind of initial reaction?
2:42
How How on your radar was this thing to begin with?
2:46
I had only heard about it three or four days before it launched, and I heard about it because of a leak.
2:50
I think there was a leak, right?
2:53
There somehow it leaked out that it was coming out.
2:54
So, I downloaded the app, like the you can download it before it launched, and then I got the notification right at midnight or whenever it said it launched, and I signed up.
3:02
I think it's pretty cool.
3:03
Are you jealous that I already have more followers than you do on that?
3:07
Because I was already going hard on Instagram. No. Well, yeah.
3:09
Yeah, going hard on Instagram paid off there.
3:11
Uh you got like a like a double bonus for for growing your Instagram.
3:15
So, so props to you on that. Um I think it's great.
3:19
You know why I think it's great?
3:21
I really I think it's great for one reason, which is Twitter to me is pretty great.
3:24
But, dude, my feed is just like fight videos and people getting shot and dying.
3:28
Like, it's real It's kind of become a little bit sad. That's on you.
3:32
I also I don't know if that's anyone else's fault.
3:34
You know, when you click the follow button and the like button and the save button, the algorithm will just give you more. Look, here's the deal.
3:42
If you see like a fight video, you watch it.
3:44
Like, you're not not going to watch that.
3:46
It's like when you have a hot girl that like scrolls through.
3:48
Like, you you slow you scroll slower through that.
3:50
I mean, that was get here? You all right? Keep scrolling down.
3:58
Yeah, so just all these weird handles.
3:58
I also think that I've I've become such a stan for Zuck in this whole thing.
4:04
He's just proven to be like the man.
4:06
He's He's He's come off very likable.
4:09
And so I find myself picking sides based off of the owner of the company. Yeah, yeah.
4:15
It's become It's It's become sports. It's become tribal. Whose team are you on?
4:19
And I don't know how the hell I ended up team Zuck, but I'm like I'm on team Zuck. It's very obvious to me. It's very clear.
4:26
I think this guy's done an incredible rebrand of his personality cuz he went from like easy to hate for a bunch of reasons.
4:35
One, becomes rich and powerful. People don't like that.
4:37
Um two, he looked like a robot, talked like a robot, seemed to have no personality.
4:44
So, you know, that was, you know, again, like For the people who didn't get turned off by the power and billionaire thing, they got turned off by like, okay, this guy's a lizard or he's a robot.
4:52
Like, what what's going on with this guy?
4:54
Um And then somehow it's you know, he hired the top top PR agencies in the world.
5:00
He hired the the fixer, the wolf came in and tried to fix him.
5:04
All he needed to do was start working out.
5:06
He The guy guy takes 10 jiu-jitsu classes and and learns how to do a pull-up and all of a sudden idiots like us are like, you know what? I [ __ ] with this guy.
5:16
And he's relatable somehow.
5:18
Yeah, totally worked on me.
5:18
And then to the point where you start thinking about it.
5:21
This happened also with LeBron James.
5:22
LeBron James at one point was he was super hyped, then he became the guy, then people started to turn on him, then he did this thing where he left his team, went to Miami, and everyone's like, "Oh, I hate this guy."
5:33
And then somebody just pointed out they're like, "So, you're telling me this kid who had all the pressure in the world uh when he was 17, 18 years old, delivered on the hype, lived up to it, never got in trouble with the law.
5:44
You've never heard about this guy, you know, married his high school sweetheart, is a good dad to his kids, um you know, is is one of the best players of all time, and just like keeps himself in phenomenal fitness and shape, and tries as hard as he can every single year.
5:57
What what do you have a problem with?
5:59
And in the same way, I feel like the same that's happened for Zuck, where it's like so this guy who built this company that billions of people use, stuck with the company, he's he works hard every single day, um you know, married uh you know, his college sweetheart, uh never been in trouble with anything, doesn't tweet out offensive stuff, doesn't say anything just to get a reaction.
6:17
Uh seems like a perfectly good reasonable guy, works out hard, is a good dad.
6:21
Like what do you hate about this guy again? What's going on?
6:25
Do you know how old Zuck is?
6:27
I don't know, he's like our age.
6:27
He's like he's a little older than us, right? He's like 37, 38, 39?
6:31
Yeah, he's he's he just turned 39.
6:31
You know and LeBron, also 38.
6:33
These guys are the same, man. They are the same.
6:37
They've been Dude, what what what is it like? Yeah.
6:41
Yeah, LeBron got drafted what he was a high schooler, right? 18 out of high school.
6:45
Zuck has been the man since he was 21 or 22.
6:47
There's been nothing, I mean there's been like if you the grand scheme, it's there's been no like human uh Errors.
6:54
No no no no self Yeah, there's been like business errors, they've been cringe, but there's been nothing that they've done where you're like, oh that guy's a piece of [ __ ] If your biggest crime is cringe, you're doing all right. You know what I mean?
7:05
Yes, when you're the man for that long, that is impossible.
7:07
That is so challenging to do that.
7:10
So so so so we're we're clearly Zuck fanboys.
7:12
Let's talk about Threads though.
7:13
Um Oh, and by the way, did you see what Elon posted?
7:15
I don't know, did you see it?
7:17
On Twitter, he goes Zuck is a [ __ ] You know what a [ __ ] is? Yeah, yeah.
7:23
I had to look it up, actually.
7:23
A [ __ ] is a A [ __ ] is a guy who wants his wife to sleep with other men, and he like enjoys it.
7:29
Uh and then he also goes, I challenge Zuck to a dick measuring contest.
7:33
Literally a dick measuring contest.
7:36
Like he says stuff like that, and I'm Dude, he says stuff like that, and I'm like, oh my god, you're He's an absolute tryhard to me. I don't don't like it.
7:42
It says By the way, there's a funny tweet from Parker, I think it's Parker Thompson on Twitter. He he replied to that.
7:49
He goes, "Okay, so for those keeping score at home, Elon Elon bought a bought a product for 44 billion, and then Zuck built the same product for a thousand times less, is stealing all of his users like an absolute Chad, and is God willing about to choke him out in 90 seconds on a steel cage soon.
8:04
Huh, so that's what a cuck means now." I think it's great, man.
8:10
Zuck is just looking great on this.
8:12
All right, so by Threads, you have on here that they grew to 70 million. It's actually 100. It's 100.
8:18
So, they grew to 100 million users in a week.
8:22
So, we'll we'll deliver the bull case first.
8:23
So, the bull case is this.
8:25
Uh will and and the will Threads win argument.
8:28
So, the bull case is we're 5 days in and they've reached 100 million users making it the fastest growing product of all time. Okay.
8:36
Um Instagram has about a billion and a half users.
8:41
They seem to be converting over pretty quickly to this.
8:42
We already got 100 million on the platform.
8:43
If 20% of Instagram's users come on board, it's now bigger than Twitter.
8:49
So, 20% conversion from from Instagram is what they're going to need.
8:51
They've done, you know, like I don't know, 5% or something like that on the public math.
8:57
Something like 5% so far in 5 days.
8:59
Um The next reason that this is bullish is Instagram people Zuck shared that on Threads.
9:04
He said, um he goes, he he said we just hit 100 million, and he said, "We've not even really promoted it yet."
9:11
Yeah, we haven't even done our promotions yet. Which is Yes. nice.
9:15
It's also really cool that he's revealing some of this stuff.
9:18
Yeah, yeah, he's really active on it right now.
9:19
He's part victory lap, part like community engagement, which is which is cool.
9:22
Um and he tweeted for the first time in like 15 years right on the day of the launch, which was which was also nice.
9:30
And it was like the meme of the three Spider-Mans pointing at each other.
9:31
It was pretty It was great.
9:34
He's He, know, he's in on the joke.
9:36
Whoever he hired, like his nephew or whoever like just is like, "Yo, give me the give me your app, give me your phone.
9:41
I'm going to make you likeable.
9:43
Um like, hey, instead of like fighting it, just post a meme. It's cool. Don't worry." But he needs a verb. So, there's no verb. What do What do you say? You threaded it? You You posted it?
9:52
Yeah, you know what I mean? Yeah, we're threading.
9:53
I don't know what's going on.
9:54
So, the the interesting part is I go on Threads and I expect to see the same sorts of people on as I do on Twitter and there's some, but there's a whole new market of people who were basically never on Twitter.
10:07
Just didn't like Twitter didn't work for them.
10:09
And so, um so, you know, you get a whole new set of people that are going to use Threads that weren't They don't have to switch off of Twitter.
10:17
They're just new people to a Twitter-like behavior.
10:19
So, it can basically beat Twitter without getting people to switch cuz it's expanding the market.
10:25
Twitter is I don't know if you know this, Twitter's basically the most abandoned product I think ever.
10:32
So, more than a billion people have signed up for Twitter or tried Twitter and then been like, No, I don't get it. I'm good. Just that's not for me.
10:40
And now the the big question, the the like sort of like the hundred billion-dollar two hundred billion-dollar question is is that because the idea of Twitter doesn't appeal to that many people or that Twitter's execution was not good enough to hook those people?
10:55
And if it's the idea, then those same people who try Threads will eventually bounce cuz they're like They're just people who like to look at pictures and videos.
11:03
They don't want to write text and and read random-ass text messages from different people.
11:07
So, if it's the idea, then Twitter's safe.
11:11
All these people will try it and they'll bounce.
11:14
But if it was the execution, if it was that Twitter didn't hook them properly, then they're screwed because if there's one thing that that the Instagram and and Facebook teams are going to do well, is they're going to execute.
11:25
You can already see it in the small things that they're doing where they're like, "Yeah, we're just going to make like kind of like the feed work better and blocking and muting and like all of the like all of the stuff, we're just going to do the stuff good.
11:38
The stuff that they've been doing for 20 years, which is like, hey, when somebody signs up, let's just make it really easy for them to find like their friends or interesting people for them and like let's just make this this feed killer.
11:47
Like let's just make this algorithm killer where you just want to keep scrolling.
11:50
Stuff that Twitter never really did.
11:52
Like if you go look at Twitter's ad product, like have you ever run Twitter ads?
11:57
Yeah, so this is what I was going to say.
11:58
This is another bit of bull case, which is if you if if you've never run ads before and you go talk to anyone who has run any ads, Facebook is always in the top two or three parts of the conversation.
12:08
So normally it's number one.
12:10
It's usually the best platform.
12:12
I've spent maybe 10 plus million dollars of my own like me actually running ads, Facebook is always number one.
12:19
Twitter is never part of the conversation. Not even mentioned.
12:23
if I don't even know if it's any I don't know if it's like that anymore cuz I haven't run ads in a long time. on it now.
12:27
So I'm running ads on it literally right now and it works, but the ad platform is so trash compared to Facebook and Google's ad platform, um which is so surprising because that's how they make money.
12:43
You would think they're highly incentivized to do it.
12:44
So anyways, I guess my my bigger point is not really about who's ad platform is going to be better. It's just execution.
12:51
It's going to be execution on all the details on on getting people linked up with the right people, making the feed super interesting and you know, and and handling spam better and abuse better and all the things that Twitter has struggled with over over the years.
13:03
So the bull case is that basically this, 100 million users, if they convert some of Instagram people, they'll be bigger than Twitter.
13:08
They don't even need people from Twitter to switch.
13:11
They can just bring net new people to the market and that um and they can just continue to promote this across Instagram and WhatsApp. So that's the bull case.
13:18
Um now I'm going to switch to the to the bear case.
13:22
Oh, also part of the bull case, Twitter shoots itself in the foot a lot.
13:24
So Elon does a lot of dumb [ __ ] pisses a lot of people off.
13:28
They um He's basically pushing to like basically put a paywall where like you have to pay $8 a month in order to like have your [ __ ] be seen in the in the feed.
13:36
So, that's basically introducing friction.
13:37
He added the tweet limit not long ago, which introduces friction cuz oh, you know, no more tweets for you.
13:43
Uh cut off like the ability to post tweets and have them embed in other places cuz he was like, "Oh, we're getting scraped too much."
13:51
So, he basically put a login wall in front of the content.
13:52
Like he's adding friction everywhere.
13:54
So, these are These are foot faults.
13:56
These are, you know, nobody This is not Threads killing you. This is you killing you.
13:59
And so, that's that's part of the bull case.
14:01
Now, here's the bear case. Why this won't work.
14:06
If I was to argue why this won't work, here's what I would say.
14:07
I'd say um Hey, name the last Facebook standalone product that just worked.
14:13
Not one that they bought, but one that they made.
14:16
And that's where there's really a kind of a graveyard of Poke and a bunch of these other apps that they tried to create.
14:21
They tried to create a TikTok competitor, didn't work.
14:22
They tried to create a Snapchat competitor, didn't work.
14:25
So, there is a graveyard of these things.
14:27
The only things that have worked have been things that they put into the Instagram app like stories and reels um because people are hooked on Instagram.
14:34
So, the standalone app thing hasn't really worked, and this is a standalone app. The next problem.
14:39
Just cuz 100 million people try it doesn't mean they're actually going to stick.
14:42
There's going to be massive churn just like there is when any app does this.
14:46
Yeah, I I open it up right now, but like I'm not like hooked on it completely myself yet. Are you? I'm not hooked yet.
14:53
No, I'm definitely not hooked yet.
14:56
Twitter, but I've also built up like a big following, plus a bunch of people that I follow, so my feed is more interesting on Twitter.
15:02
It's a Yeah, I was curating it for 10 years.
15:05
I was going to say we might be the 1% the 1% because we make a living in part because of Twitter.
15:10
And so, we could be like There could be a part of it of like, "Ah, [ __ ] I don't want to use this other thing because I already have this one thing that's working, and this thing is just going to like cannibalize it."
15:18
So, I can't tell if there's is bias there or or what it is, but no, I'm not hooked yet, but I am opening it maybe once a day, maybe once every 2 days.
15:26
I am a little bit like, [ __ ] I don't want another thing to have to use, but I am happy that it's text-based cuz that's where I excel cuz, you know, I'm a Missouri six, but like But I'm a Microsoft Word nine.
15:41
Yeah, I don't want I'm not like I'm not I don't I got the I got a good face for Twitter.
15:46
So, like I prefer that, but I Yeah, we we are the outliers because both of us have I don't know, together we probably have almost almost a million followers together on on Twitter.
15:54
And so, going now I go to Threads, I have 3,000 followers or something.
15:59
I'm starting from scratch again.
16:00
And, you know, I'm like that guy who I moved to San Francisco and I bought a house and I just redid my lawn and then everybody started moving and they started raising the prices and I'm like, I'm I'm dug in. I'm like dug in.
16:19
I already paid for the reno, you know, like I guess I'm just here when everyone else is is choosing places that might be a better fit.
16:24
So, you see, you know, we we might be the wrong person there.
16:28
Here's the other reasons that Twitter might win.
16:31
Twitter, after the churn, you know, Threads might have 20 million or 30 million active users compared to Twitter's 300 million, right?
16:39
So, I think there's going to be so much churn that this 100 million number is a bit of fool's gold. The next thing. Twitter has key content.
16:47
So, it has news, it has sports.
16:49
So, it's got the journalists, it's got the athletes, it's got the the people that cover the NBA and the NFL, like it's got famous people.
16:56
It's basically got like this key like rapid breaking news and influential content.
17:03
Threads is going to have new content, but like the type of person who's big on IG may not be the right type of person for what works in this text medium. We don't TBD. There's a TBD on that. The The thing.
17:14
Threads is just a straight-up clone.
17:16
There are no product improvements, and in fact there's some big drawbacks like they don't have DMs.
17:21
They don't have like, you know, uh Dude, I get DMs.
17:23
I've been getting DMs, I think, but I don't know what they're called. no inbox.
17:28
People have been messaging me. Let me pull it up.
17:29
But I think they're at-mentioning you.
17:32
There's There's definitely no no inbox.
17:33
Oh, maybe that's what it is.
17:33
I I don't even know how to use it yet.
17:35
Then yeah, it's it's a it's a mention, but it looks like a DM.
17:37
Like the the the thing looks like a DM. All right. Yeah, you're right.
17:42
So it's just they cloned the app, but they left some things out.
17:43
That might That might make it better, but uh for the most part I would say the product strategy, like if you printed out the road map, it's like, here's some features, and then you turn the page, and it just says, "Not Elon Musk." Like "Not Twitter." Right?
17:55
Like it's just basically, "Here's not Twitter."
17:56
And like there's a bunch of people who don't like Elon, don't like Twitter, and they'll just try this out.
18:00
So I don't know if that's a great long-term product strategy.
18:04
Um Oh, by the way, speaking of mediums and leaving things out, do you use Twitter on your phone or desktop? Both, yeah.
18:11
I mostly use it on desktop, and I used the Threads app, and I was like, "Hey, when's when I need a desktop thing?"
18:15
And that's why I prefer typing on it.
18:17
And people were like calling me boomer and [ __ ] And apparently is That's some boomer [ __ ] Dude, that's some boomer [ __ ] I guess.
18:24
But I hate using it on my phone.
18:24
I want to use it on my computer, so I could scroll through and click [ __ ] Yeah, that's like if a guy knocks on the bathroom stalls, like, "Hey, I got to take a piss sitting down." And you're like, "What?"
18:34
And you're like, "I It's not illegal to do what you're saying, but certainly not acceptable.
18:37
And that's that's how I feel."
18:41
of a You're What are you more of a pee with your shorts down at your ankle type of guy? Standing up.
18:46
So So your your desktop thing, it's okay to use desktop, but let's not let's not get out of control here.
18:51
I think most I not most, I think a ton of people do that, man. I'm telling you.
18:55
The older guys, I guess I'm old now, but I I needed I I needed a desktop version.
19:00
appeal to as a social media platform, the older guys.
19:06
Um Yeah, we'll call it Khaki. All right.
19:08
So here's here's a couple of other things, which is uh the best creators on Twitter.
19:12
So, the people who have a basically in a 10-15 year period proven that they're really good at creating text-based content now have a big following and don't really want to start over from scratch on on Instagram, aka me. Yeah.
19:25
So, so I think those are some of the some of the downsides of this.
19:28
Um but I do think, you know, once you take into account the bull and the bear case, it's prediction time.
19:36
How do you think that this plays out?
19:39
Well, you have to let's do the interesting nuggets really quick.
19:41
If it doesn't work out, Nikita, our friend Nikita, who is worked at Meta and did all the social stuff, what did he say?
19:48
Uh he was basically like, you know, this thing's going to be at 100 million users soon, and if it fails after that, that will sort of officially make it the biggest fail in social app history at that point.
19:58
Which I don't think that'd be a really means anything, to be honest.
20:01
I think the truth is I think it's going to end up closer to the bull than it is the bear.
20:05
I think it will it will more work than it does fail.
20:07
I don't think Elon whatever sell Twitter out of like pride reasons, but I think it will if it weren't run by a billionaire, I think it would effectively put it out of business uh for the ad ad purposes.
20:19
Um I think it's going to I think it's going to work.
20:23
I don't know if it will overtake, but I think it's going to work so good that it's going to cannibalize Twitter and it's they're going to be at least equal.
20:31
The CEO of Cloudflare tweeted out a a chart, I don't know if you saw this, of Twitter traffic cuz Cloudflare has like, I don't know, they run like That's [ __ ] up, right? in some way.
20:42
Um it's Yeah, I don't know I don't know.
20:43
Maybe they haven't paid their bill or maybe there's all sorts of stuff going That's like a doctor like revealing like your illnesses, isn't it?
20:49
It's like It's like these two guys are making fun of each other.
20:52
It's like, "Actually, this guy his cholesterol is way worse than yours." Right?
20:58
Like if you want to beat him up, but kick him in the left knee.
21:05
He uh he did that, basically.
21:05
He tweeted out the showing that this uh that Twitter's down like 5% in overall traffic so far this week um from from Threads.
21:13
So, it's like, you know, he said like, "It's uh plummeting." Or something like that.
21:16
Like, dropping off a cliff.
21:17
Which is like, pretty dramatic for I don't know, 5%.
21:19
I wouldn't call plummeting, but um That's weird that he shared that. That's super weird. Yeah. Uh yeah.
21:26
I I I I It's going to be closer to the bull.
21:28
I And what whatever I've learned, Nikita actually would always joke about this.
21:34
He would say, "Never ever ever bet against Zuck."
21:36
And I've heard so many people say that.
21:38
Would I bet against Elon? For sure. Uh not often. Not often.
21:42
I think that he he follows through a lot.
21:45
He's just been closer to death so many times, and I don't think Zuck entirely has.
21:49
Uh I just think that Zuck Zuckerberg, when it comes to this field of consumer social, I just think that he's I would not bet against that person. Yeah, exactly.
21:58
I think that's the That's the rub here.
22:00
I think that um it's not Zuck versus Elon mano e mano, like, you know, like, in the same way that in the cage, Zuck will probably win cuz he trains.
22:10
And he's been training jiu-jitsu for like, you know, a couple years.
22:13
So, that's like, gives him a little head start.
22:16
Um In the same way that Zuck probably could not build a rocket company or a car company, you're playing on couldn't even build Oculus.
22:22
Like, he couldn't even like do that type of hardware.
22:26
Um It's doing okay, but I think that they're going to miss They're not going to be like the one. Perhaps. We'll see.
22:32
But, I guess like it's his domain.
22:33
The so The social app thing is is their domain. They have Instagram. I think I'm with you.
22:37
I land where I do think Threads will be bigger than Twitter.
22:42
I don't think it kills Twitter.
22:45
I just think it sort of stunts whatever slow growth that Twitter has.
22:48
It just stunts it even further.
22:50
And Twitter remains this kind of niche this basically this thing that has really strong appeal to a niche.
22:56
And I think that Threads becomes the more mainstream version of it.
23:02
Like, I think it becomes the more palatable, just cool, interesting thing in the same in the same way that like this happens a lot with music or with TV shows or with with stuff like that where something has its time and then the new thing comes out and it's just has like a little more mainstream appeal and it just becomes the default.
23:29
And the other thing doesn't die, doesn't go away necessarily, but um but I do think that if you fast forward 2 years or you know, 18 to 24 months, I think it's pretty I think my bet would be Threads is bigger than Twitter.
23:43
And Twitter basically has now like a ceiling on its head that it's bumping into.
23:47
It can never really grow from there.
23:48
It might get better at monetizing those people or preventing them from switching, but the dominant place for that will be will be Threads, which is insane to me.
23:58
It seemed impossible like to dethrone a social network like 12 months ago.
24:04
There's this cultural shift with young people where they're so much more kind and nicer than our generation when we were that age.
24:13
And you see that in TikTok.
24:15
So, if you go to TikTok and you look at the comments, people are so much more positive.
24:18
Uh there's still some And they're now more positive.
24:21
That's TikTok is amazing at sorting comments and hiding comments.
24:26
Whatever whatever that is, okay.
24:26
Maybe maybe there's the Cuz all you see is kindness and jokes and then you're like, oh, that's how I'm supposed to behave here.
24:33
And Twitter never figured that out. out.
24:36
It builds a culture, whereas on Twitter I post something and I get made fun of so much sometimes and I always click on the accounts and it's clearly like a bot or I don't know what it is, but there's this huge underground culture.
24:46
I don't I've no idea what how this is happening of people who all they do is make fun of make fun of people and I always it it shows it to me.
24:53
Do you get that when people are are making fun of you all the time? Yeah.
24:58
Yeah, cuz it it just shows you everything.
25:00
Twitter says, "Hey, it shows you everything."
25:01
You said something, here's what they said back. And guess what?
25:02
There's always going to be people that either disagree, argue, or just say mean [ __ ] to you.
25:09
That's like, you know, just that's actually the way the world works.
25:13
The best companies have figured out how how to algorithmically like suppress that behavior.
25:19
Yes, and when I opened up the day I opened up Threads, it was like Gary V saying like, "I hope you all have such a wonderful day."
25:23
And it was like they like seeded it with like these positive people, and it like created this weird culture where it seems significantly more positive so far.
25:33
Threads, like, "Good morning, y'all." Yeah.
25:36
Or or like I have like Pomp saying like, "I hope you have a wonderful day and get after it."
25:42
Uh like it just so much and I have Sahil already popping up on my [ __ ] I It's like all positivity, whereas Twitter, it's way more negative and honestly it it does wear me out.
25:52
And by the way, Zuck has sort of said this in his in his Threads where he's like, uh yeah, that's part of our key strategy.
25:57
He's like He's like, "I always thought there should be a a sort of like this town square conversate public conversation type product that gets to a billion users.
26:06
Twitter for some reason never figured it out.
26:08
We're going to do our best, and then people are like, you know, "Oh, I noticed that this place is like, you know, more kind or sort of like, you know, more more positive energy right now."
26:17
And he goes, "Yeah, I think that's really important.
26:19
Um that's what we're going to That's something we're going to really focus on and try to get right.
26:22
I don't think that Twitter ever got that right, and um some of these features like setting the culture in that way are invisible.
26:31
They're not like "Now you can do live video.
26:33
Now you can do Twitter Spaces."
26:35
It's not a feature that you see, it's almost what you don't see that's the feature.
26:39
And I think that Facebook and Instagram have a lot of experience fighting abuse, spam, hateful content.
26:47
And it's not going to be no It's not that it's going to be gone like the whatever, that's fine.
26:50
I I get that, but I think they're going to do a better job of it.
26:53
In the same way that like you remember it used to be a common thing people say, which is like if you ever want to see sort of hell on earth, go to the YouTube comments.
27:00
Like YouTube comments were considered like an actual cesspool.
27:06
And now if you go to a popular YouTube video the comments are often like they add to the joke, they're funny and they're positive.
27:15
And I don't know what they did over time, but over time they fixed that problem, which was that the YouTube comments were like, you know, where where, you know, hope goes to die and now it's good, it's part of the experience.
27:25
And sure there's some spam or there's still obviously like the one-off thing, but it's nowhere near where it was like in the early days.
27:32
I went out to dinner last night. I'm in Williamsburg.
27:34
I went out to dinner last night and I you know, Williamsburg everything's tight in New York and I sat next to this guy who worked at Meta on the Threads team and I'm not going to reveal a lot because I don't want to rat this guy out, but me and Sarah were out to dinner and like I texted her, I was like, just let's just not talk.
27:54
And we just listened to this guy we just listened to this guy talk for two hours about launch week and like what it was like and he was like, it was the most exciting time of my career.
28:05
This guy was so bought in to like the Threads movement.
28:07
He even was talking about how much money he was making. It was crazy, man.
28:11
I was just sitting there What you hear?
28:12
You don't have to say the person, but tell us everything.
28:15
It was It was seven figures a year.
28:15
It was seven figures and this guy and like I feel like I know all about this guy.
28:20
Kind of know where he's from.
28:22
I or at least I know where he moved from.
28:24
I heard the very the very typical this is so funny.
28:26
You hear people say this all the time when they first move to New York or when they're like tech guys, they say San Francisco was all about what have you built lately?
28:32
New York, it's all about how much money do you make?
28:35
You know, you're reminded every time about how important money is.
28:39
San Francisco is all about what you build.
28:40
Like that's like such a Was he saying it in a positive way?
28:44
It's all There there is the guy who was with us was asking about the transition from Google to New York.
28:48
It's refreshing that my paystub delivers.
28:52
Uh but he was just talking about like he was like the launch and he was just saying like how the morale of the company is really high and how everyone was pumped which is which is something Facebook needed because it was pretty shitty for a long time with all the negative PR.
29:03
Um then he was just talking all about like the launch and like what they were doing.
29:06
It was so fascinating where I just sit there.
29:08
I'm shocked that he didn't like catch the hit that I was just like listening into this whole conversation. I just heard everything.
29:15
Hey, if there's one thing that Facebook engineers don't have a lot of awareness. Dude.
29:23
I don't think he even noticed that you weren't talking to your wife.
29:26
You ever um go out to dinner and like if you're with like a business associate or like a successful friend and you talk about money?
29:33
Uh you'll talk about like, you know, like I want to buy this house, it costs this much money or like this is what I'm earning, what do you think I should do with it? Whatever.
29:38
When you talk about these sensitive topics, whenever the waitress or waiter comes over, I always quit talking about that because I'm like, that's embarrassing. It's tacky.
29:46
They didn't get that hit.
29:46
And so I remember them talking about I remember them they they said the seven-figure thing.
29:51
It's like, yeah, it's not that big of a deal.
29:52
You can just go get like a director at a startup and get a, you know, a million-dollar package and that's okay, but like are you really doing anything meaningful?
29:59
Right as the woman was like waiting to see if they wanted dessert. Yeah.
30:03
And I remember seeing that and I was like, "Ah, I hate that.
30:04
That is so [ __ ] embarrassing and obnoxious.
30:06
You got to shut up at that point.
30:08
That's when you, you know, you're like, you got to lower your voice. You got to whisper. A million. You know what I mean?
30:15
Like that that's what you're supposed to do in that scenario, but these guys did not catch that hit. I hate that. Yeah. Yeah.
30:22
There's a little piece of you that dies inside every time.
30:25
You know who sucks at that?
30:25
Is whenever I'm with our friend Suli.
30:27
Suli is horrible at that.
30:30
He'll talk about [ __ ] Yes.
30:32
He'll talk about like, you know, about like what he's investing in so loudly.
30:37
And I'm like, dude, shut the [ __ ] up. This is embarrassing. Everyone's looking over.
30:40
You don't don't use that word million, please.
30:42
Not anymore in this conversation.
30:46
but I have I have another friend that does it like crazy.
30:48
And then I'll be like, "Hey, I'm like kicking him under the table."
30:50
And he'll just be like, "What? Why are you kicking me?" And I'm like, "Dude."
30:56
We have a friend that we took to this place um in San Francisco that I guess has like the best hot chocolate.
31:02
And he likes hot chocolate.
31:04
So we're like, "Dude, you're a little baby for liking hot chocolate, first of all.
31:06
But if you are a baby that likes hot chocolate, you got to go to this place.
31:10
It has the best hot chocolate."
31:11
So we go, sits at the bar, bartender comes up or whatever like the the table or whatever and it's like, "Hey, uh this guy loves hot chocolate and we told him this is the best spot.
31:19
So he had to he had to try it."
31:22
And he's like, "Oh, by the way, the waiter was like, "What are you four?"
31:23
Yeah, he's like, "Oh, cool.
31:23
Yeah, yeah, let me bring you one."
31:25
And so he brings one out. Guy takes a sip.
31:29
Um immediately gives like an audible like, "Ugh." And I'm like, "What?"
31:35
And then uh he doesn't like it.
31:35
And so I we're like, "Oh, you know, whatever.
31:39
Okay, guess it's not I don't know.
31:41
Guess not your your way uh your your type."
31:43
And so he just puts he just he puts it down, right?
31:46
So it's sitting in front of him. Uh waiter walks by.
31:52
And he just shoves like pushes it forward towards the the bartender almost like he's pushing his chips all in at like a poker table.
32:00
And the guy's like, "Oh, are you are you done?"
32:01
And he's like, "You didn't like it?"
32:03
He goes, "No, it's not very good."
32:05
Oh my god, that's so embarrassing.
32:08
What are you trying to accomplish here? Why are you doing this?
32:09
So I literally just fall off my stool and crawl away and die and uh you know, had to deal with this interaction, but it was terrible.
32:18
I had a friend, we went out and got dinner and afterwards they gave us coffee. And we wanted decaf.
32:21
And the next day we texted back and forth.
32:23
We're like, "Hey, did you stay up all night last night?" And he was like, "Yeah."
32:26
I was like, "I think they gave us regular coffee."
32:29
He's like, "I got to call them.
32:30
I got to call them and let them know."
32:32
And he was like insistent.
32:32
Like he's like, "I got to call them."
32:34
And so he like called them.
32:35
I'm like, "Dude, what what's What're you doing? We're We're on vacation. Like we're visiting. Like what?
32:40
That's such a weird It was such a Larry David move to like call someone to tell them you made a mistake last night.
32:46
You gave us a normal coffee instead of decaf."
32:47
And I Those types of people are very challenging for me, if Except when Larry David does it, it's like likable and adorable.
32:53
And when anybody else in real life does it, it's just hateable.
32:57
My My mother-in-law has a version of that where anytime we're complaining about something, her go-to is not even like tell them and call them.
33:03
She's like, "Call the news." "Call 1005.
33:06
They They will investigate this."
33:09
And I'm like, "No, it's really not Dude, I can't stand that.
33:12
It's really not what's going to happen here.
33:14
I've ordered a steak before and they've brought me pesto chicken pizza and I won't say a word.
33:16
I'm like, "Yeah, whatever. It's food. I I can eat that."
33:20
I got to tell you this story.
33:20
So this is um This is I can't decide I wanted to do a segment called L of the week cuz I think we sometimes brag a lot on here.
33:28
We say, you know, how we're so great and all these different ways.
33:32
I think it'd be nice to share a big L that we took. But I got to be honest.
33:35
This might actually be a dub.
33:37
This might not even be an L cuz the experience was so incredible. it? All right.
33:41
So I go I'm feeling I'm doing something. I'm working, whatever.
33:43
And I'm feeling hungry while I I was driving back from an errand.
33:46
And I'm like, "All right. I'm hungry.
33:48
I'm just going to pick up some food real quick." So I go to Subway.
33:52
You know, I'll get a sandwich. And I go to Subway. I walk in.
33:53
There's like five people in line.
33:55
There's only one guy working.
33:56
And it's a black guy and there's a white guy checking out.
34:00
And I'm like thinking about what sandwich I'm going to get and I kind of decide.
34:05
I notice that that guy's still checking out.
34:07
And I look over and I'm like, "What's taking this guy forever?"
34:08
And these guys are talking about like So he's like, "So where are you from?"
34:12
He's like, "South Africa." He's like, "Yeah."
34:15
And they're talking about Africa and they're talking about race.
34:17
Talking about race relations.
34:18
And they're just talking and like zero like for I'm happy that there's whatever no racism on Earth, but I'd really like a sandwich right now.
34:28
And so with the four people in me that, meatball marinara? Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Red.
34:34
That's the color of my my meatball that I'd like right now.
34:37
Um and so they're just talking and then they [ __ ] they hug and I'm like, "What's going on right now?"
34:42
And when they hug, I lose it. I leave.
34:44
I walk out and I'm like, "I'm hungrier than ever."
34:46
cuz I've just killed 9 minutes here thinking about a sandwich and I got teased.
34:53
There's no sandwich coming.
34:55
Right next to the Subway is a Taco Bell and I make a business decision.
34:57
I say, "It is I guess it is what it is.
35:00
I'm going to Taco Bell today."
35:02
Haven't been to Taco Bell in like 13 years. Going to Taco Bell.
35:05
So I walk into Taco Bell and I'm in line.
35:07
I'm and you could always I have this theory about places which is you could see your future when you go into a place cuz it's you're going to end up if you go to a place regularly enough, you're going to start looking like the people that that are in that place.
35:18
So sometimes I'll go to a like a fitness class and I'll look around and be like, "All right.
35:22
If these people who are like the clear regulars here don't look the way I want to look, I'm just going to leave now cuz this isn't this is not on a good path." Right?
35:30
It's like a good life path.
35:31
What did you what did you see in Taco Bell like a bunch of like Tweety Bird shirts?
35:35
So I like going to Taco Bell.
35:35
First, everybody in Taco Bell was under 17.
35:37
So I was like, "Oh, I get it.
35:38
Their body can like still tolerate this."
35:40
I'm the only guy in his 30s at this place.
35:41
So I'm I'm and there's one guy sitting there and he's probably like 28.
35:47
And he's sitting down and it's just him.
35:50
And he's got a feast in front of him.
35:51
Like this guy he he was like, "Hey, omakase. Chef's choice. Bring it all out."
35:57
So he's omakase that Taco Bell and he's sitting there.
36:00
He's eating up a storm and there's only me, these three teen girls who are in front of me ordering, and then this guy.
36:07
And it's kind of quiet in Taco Bell.
36:10
And I'm standing in line and this guy pulls a move that I I I don't know.
36:14
I'm still stunned just thinking about this.
36:17
He's sitting there in Taco Bell eating his feast and he just rips the loudest fart.
36:25
Just the loudest audible fart. And we all look over.
36:30
And I'm like, wow, so embarrassing.
36:30
This guy just farted loud in public. Wow.
36:32
And it was almost like he's sitting on one of those benches that like echoed.
36:36
It was like this crazy auditory experience.
36:41
And I look at the guy and he just stares back at all of us and he's just raises his eyebrows like, what? We're all here.
36:50
Like, you're also here at 3:00 p. m. on a Tuesday. And that is what it is.
36:54
And I was like, holy [ __ ] This guy did not back down.
36:58
He did not cower in shame.
37:01
He alpha'd us and was just like he literally was like, what?
37:06
And I was like, nothing, I guess. Just carry on. You're right. We're all equals here. of society.
37:16
You just got Dutch ovened by Taco Bell guy. It was incredible.
37:18
So, I it was like a L I took in a big dump for this guy and I just it was an experience I had to share with you. When did that happen?
37:28
This was like 5 days ago.
37:30
I've been sitting on this story.
37:30
There's no one else I could really tell.
37:31
Like uh I I started to tell the story to my wife and she was like, you went to Taco Bell?
37:37
And I was like, you're missing the point of the whole story.
37:40
And I didn't even get to the good part and I just thought, okay.
37:42
You should have farted back at him.
37:44
I wish I had one in the chamber. I didn't.
37:46
I mean, he really just like laid it down right there in front of us and What did the girl say? I mean, eye contact. Nobody said anything.
37:53
We all looked to laugh at him.
37:56
And then we just got stunned by his bravado.
38:01
And I was like, holy [ __ ] This is the biggest power move I've ever experienced. That's the past.
38:10
How was the food at least? Horrible?
38:14
Honestly, the food at Taco Bell is phenomenal.
38:15
Uh like the taste of Taco Bell is great. It It a great taste.
38:18
They got like the menu I mean first of all the innovation.
38:23
You've been to a Taco Bell like you know Taco Bell used to be tacos.
38:27
It's not like it's like Dude it's just the same [ __ ] Doritos that's become a taco now it's a taco inside of a burrito and it's like how's the taco inside the burrito and you're like it's we call it a cheesy gordita crunch and then they had like this thing called the volcano right now and I was like I guess just give me the volcano cuz I didn't even know what to do there.
38:45
I was like I don't really understand what's happening.
38:46
I'm still still reeling from what just happened a few minutes ago and I I got the volcano thing. It was great. It was fantastic.
38:54
You should have brought that African guy over to get it let him sniff up America.
38:59
Let him see what it was see if he believed this is what we're about bro.
39:02
Come on peace love and happiness.
39:03
hug [ __ ] that's not real.
39:03
That's not that's not the usual experience.
39:05
This this is the real This is why we're we're world war back back to back champions cuz guys like that salt of the earth.
39:12
They don't make them like that like that anymore.
39:16
Can you imagine a European doing that? Impossible. Impossible. No.
39:24
Like a kind person from the from Singapore? Never.
39:28
You get arrested for that in Singapore.
39:30
That's Yeah that's like that's like five to 20 in Singapore. There's not a chance.
39:38
I can't find this client info.
39:40
Have you heard of HubSpot?
39:40
HubSpot is a CRM platform so it shares its data across every application.
39:44
Every team can stay aligned.
39:47
No out of sync spreadsheets or dueling databases. HubSpot grow better.
39:53
So Sean I've got a funny story.
39:53
So we have Sam Evans today.
39:55
I'll do a little bit of an intro.
39:57
But about three or four years ago I used to see Sam's ads everywhere and it was basically him in a bright blue blazer in his fancy apartment overlooking Manhattan.
40:11
And there was a little bit of hate in me and there was a little bit of uh You had slicked back hair too. I remember. He had slick-back hair.
40:18
Yeah, and for some reason he pissed me off and I wrote like on one of the ads like, "You're full of shit." or something like that. You did a hater comment? I did a hater comment.
40:30
And it sat in the for years and I talked to my friends who eventually bought some of his products and they're like, "Oh, no, it's awesome. We loved it."
40:36
And I started learning more and I was like, "I think I was wrong."
40:39
And so I sent Sam this message I think 18 or 24 months ago and I was like, "I'm sorry.
40:45
I I that was For some reason that one comment it bothered me."
40:48
And eventually I saw Sam four weeks ago at a party at Sophia's party and I talked to him and my wife and I talked to him for like an hour and I was like, "You're You're one of the more fascinating people that I've ever spoke to."
41:01
and I was like, "Did you get that email where I apologized?" He said he got it.
41:04
So that's kind of like how we got here.
41:05
But Sam, what um how do you describe yourself? You had consulting.
41:09
com which was like a big information business, but you have a new thing.
41:12
You want to You want to tell us how you describe yourself? Sure.
41:16
Um well, I'm an entrepreneur.
41:19
Um and I have a software company called School. I'm CEO of that.
41:28
And it's it's like a community platform for creators.
41:34
You're You're kind of underselling yourself there, eh?
41:38
Well, what do you want me to say?
41:42
The reason why I like taking it out with you is Sean, he reminds me of Jack Smith so much.
41:47
Like it's the same type of like Yep.
41:49
uh The funny thing is like Jack um you're right.
41:53
Uh there's like definitely like a uh an echo of Jack there.
41:56
But Jack's I I almost feel like Jack picked business models that suited his uh like personality and his like way of thinking.
42:06
Um whereas Sam, the funny thing is that when I discovered you like Sam, I saw um this sort of like uh outgoing persona.
42:14
It's like guy who's like, you know, recording a selfie video of himself in his fancy apartment telling me something.
42:22
It's sort of like, oh, this guy thinks he's some hotshot business guy, whatever.
42:27
And now you talk now and I'm like, this guy owns a surf shop or something?
42:29
Why is this guy like in the like the most zen uh zen mode, almost introverted to an extent. Um Isn't that strange?
42:42
Was that strange for you to have like a very public persona even though you clearly are actually more of a of a of a laid-back, maybe more introverted guy?
42:53
Yeah, I think that's why it rubbed people the wrong way like Sam.
42:58
Um because you know, that's kind of the thing that I didn't like about that business.
43:03
Like if you're selling training or coaching or whatever, it's you have to be very out there.
43:10
You have to make content of yourself.
43:12
You have to you have to continuously promote yourself, right?
43:17
And I was always very uncomfortable doing that.
43:21
Um and I guess I I used like the New York apartment and the blue suit as like a character.
43:32
Yeah, like a character or like a crutch to help me. You know what I mean? Yeah, and it worked. You built consulting.
43:39
com which was like a uh the way I'll describe it is like sort of like training, masterminds, courses type of thing where you would teach people how to start their own consulting business.
43:48
And people would pay you a few thousand dollars and you you'd put out a bunch of free content and that would get people sort of in the funnel and then eventually they would pay you a couple thousand dollars to learn how to start their own consulting business.
43:57
their own consulting business. And uh from what I understand, like you scaled it up to uh about 30 million a year at one point at the sort of the peak on on the revenue side, um before being like, this is too much and too crazy and with
44:12
too many people, too little profits, we're pushing like, you know, the boundaries too much, you sort of scaled it back down um to a more manageable level where the revenue went down, but the profits went, you know, up or the same, um and you had less headache. So,
44:23
So, it definitely worked.
44:25
Did you get Where did you get the idea for that?
44:28
Were you just like in a basement watching Tai Lopez videos being like, okay, I understand, I could do this now?
44:32
Or like, where Why did you decide to even do that?
44:36
You mean like sell courses?
44:37
Sell courses in the way that you sold them, which was just like a really heavy uh paid ads strategy with you as this character or this persona, the face of it. Very internet marketing. Yeah.
44:49
Well, um I wanted to start my own business. I used to have a job.
44:54
This is going back like 12 years.
44:57
Um and I used to watch this this interview site called Mixergy.
45:00
Do you guys remember that? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, we love Andrew. Yeah.
45:05
Um and I watched a an interview one day and this guy was saying that he was going to show He had a software company.
45:12
His name was Dane Maxwell.
45:17
And then he said he was going to teach some other people how to start a software company.
45:22
And that was my first experience of being in a course.
45:24
He launched a course that was called back then the software round table.
45:30
And I learned how to start a software company in that and started a software company.
45:36
It was called SnapInspect.
45:38
And so, I first experienced being in a course like from the student side.
45:44
And through that experience, I I had a successful software company.
45:51
And then I was like the star student of that of that software round table foundation thing.
45:58
Um so, then I did an He made me do an interview on Mixergy.
46:01
This is big when I was very young.
46:04
And then a bunch of people started emailing me and saying could I they wanted to pay me so I could help them with their software company.
46:14
And I would just sell like six 1-hour Skype calls for $1,000.
46:20
And then very quickly I ran out of time to sell.
46:25
Like I sold so many of these packages.
46:28
And I just noticed that I was repeating myself on these calls like a lot.
46:32
And I was like, "Oh, this is this could be a course.
46:34
Everyone's like struggling with the same problems."
46:38
And so and I've run out of time, right?
46:40
So the next guy took through this six 1-hour calls. I recorded the calls.
46:49
And then I put them in a Dropbox folder.
46:51
And then the people that wanted to buy my coaching and from that point on I said, "I don't have any time left, but I've got like a course that you can buy for the same price."
47:02
And I would just sell it for $1,000 and give them a login to the Dropbox.
47:10
And they would watch the recordings in there. And they liked it.
47:12
And they they didn't ask for their money back.
47:19
And it's like And that's where it started.
47:21
And then when I sold more and more of those, I was like, "Whoa, this is I should put some more effort into this." So I did.
47:28
And then I And then I wondered, "Well, how can I sell more of this instead of just waiting for people to come to me from my Mixergy interview and ask me over email?"
47:41
So that's when I started learning about like internet marketing.
47:46
Um And then I remember the people back then were like Frank Kern and who else?
47:54
There was like Ramit Sethi.
47:56
There was this guy called Clay Collins.
47:58
Do you remember this era of like Yeah.
48:03
And so I just kind of got I learned how to market from that world, like that kind of underground internet marketing world.
48:13
And that's And then my course business started to do so good it quickly overtook the the profit of my software company.
48:22
And I just wasn't very passionate about property management, which was the niche that my software product was for.
48:28
Was that called SnapInspect? Yeah, it still exists. It's snapinspect. com.
48:34
And I just wasn't passionate about the niche.
48:36
Um so I sold my shares of SnapInspect to my co-founder.
48:42
And then just went all in on the course business.
48:46
And that's what eventually became consulting. com.
48:50
And in the end I was making courses showing people how to make courses.
48:52
I just fell in love with the craft of like finding a group of people that you care about and solving their problems and then sharing the solutions with them and turning that into a business.
49:11
How did you get the domain consulting. com?
49:12
Cuz that's a great domain.
49:14
Um it was I went to the domain I went to the URL and it was there was nothing on it and then I used like MX Toolbox to find out like who owned it.
49:27
And then I just sent him an email and I said do you want to sell it? And he said, "Yes."
49:33
How much did you pay for that one? Um that one was 300,000.
49:37
Just um just in the the 10 minutes that you've just given that spiel and telling the background and then the hour that I've hung out with you, you have this trait that I love that certain people have where in your brain I could see you're the type of person that you see a challenge and you don't think of it like a lot of people think of it as an emotional thing, but it's a very logical and you're like this is a puzzle.
50:00
I'm going to figure out this math equation and that gives you joy.
50:04
At least it seems like it.
50:04
Um with the marketing thing, it seems like the same thing where you're like, well, if I wear this jacket, that will pop off in a thumbnail and that's important for a higher click-through rate and it's like you just read tons of books and you put together like an algorithm on what to do and it and that's why it it didn't seem entirely authentic that that was who you were, but it seemed like you were just playing a game that you wanted to win.
50:26
Is that how you went about it and who did you what interesting people did you learn the the the algorithm from that aren't entirely popular or that are like some strange resources?
50:38
I guess you know, there was I just looked at the people who were doing quite well, like um Brendan Burchard and Marie Forleo. This is back then.
50:47
Um and I knew I noticed that they had like a a if you thought of their name, you could quickly assign like a couple of attributes to them.
50:59
They had like a brand essentially.
51:02
And I was like this kid from New Zealand teaching people how to start a business.
51:09
And so I was like whatever it is that needs to if when people see my video, they instantly need to think of money, basically.
51:20
And my main market is New York.
51:20
I mean, my main market is America and New York is like so iconic and it mean it's like the money place, right?
51:29
So that was why I went to New York and why I found an apartment with a view like that.
51:37
I heard a rumor that that apartment is almost like exactly the same apartment as something from it was it a Wolf of Wall Street or one of those like iconic money movies where they like hang a guy over the the balcony.
51:47
I heard that that you wanted that apartment for that reason. Is that true? It isn't true.
51:52
Um I wanted the apartment cuz it had a really cool view.
51:58
But then we were watching that movie and we had to pause it and be like, wait a second, is that this building?
52:02
And we realized it's not the same building, but it must be one of the five in that area that are all very close to each other. Got it.
52:13
And so you um you start doing this now.
52:15
I'm curious, a lot of the names you mentioned I never hear about those people anymore.
52:21
Uh you know, I've I remember Frank Kerns, I remember even Pagan and some of these guys that you know, you can kind of go study their their content, their funnels.
52:29
Um but they're not around anymore.
52:31
Or if they are, like I don't know where they are.
52:34
They're not they don't seem to be like crushing it anymore like they used to. Um am I wrong?
52:40
Are they just out there crushing and I just don't see them for some reason?
52:43
Or why do you think that they very few kind of sustained?
52:45
Or did they just get so rich they quit?
52:48
Or are they like locked into one mode and they didn't evolve with the times?
52:52
What do you think happened?
52:55
I think things have changed a lot and a lot of people didn't adapt.
53:00
But also I think some people just got like they're just not going as hard or they might have got burned out and they're just relaxing a little bit.
53:07
Um I probably a combination of all of those things.
53:12
How how big were some of those old school marketers?
53:14
Well, they're they're old school to me.
53:15
How big were some of their businesses?
53:18
You wouldn't even know, like That's that's why it's always so interesting.
53:22
I I I I have no idea cuz they never talked about that.
53:26
to they weren't real businesses in a way because they would make a a ton of money on a launch, right?
53:34
But then that product would kind of go away and then they might do another launch in 6 months.
53:38
And it was all based on this launch model and these launches would pull big numbers.
53:44
Like millions of dollars.
53:44
But and I'm sure there was a lot of profit in there, too.
53:50
But they weren't like these products that were evergreen that could be sold continuously and they didn't have a team and they weren't like contributing to this body of work.
54:00
They weren't building on top of what they built yesterday, essentially.
54:06
You had this interesting video where Yeah, there we were we were talking about Jack.
54:12
Jack's one of my best buddies and he was on the last episode and you guys are very similar.
54:14
But on this video you opened it up and you just looked at the camera and you go, "I'm back."
54:19
And apparently like the story of the video was consulting.
54:22
com consulting got got to like 30 million in revenue and you had hired dozens of people, fancy offices, you hated it.
54:29
You basically scaled it down to I think you called it a band.
54:33
I think it was like five or six people.
54:34
You were like, "We're going to do 10 million in revenue, 5 million in profit.
54:37
Everyone gets a share of the profit."
54:39
What uh What was like the peak of the consulting business and then where was it when you sold it? Sure.
54:47
So, the peak was it must have been around like 2000 and 17 or 2018.
54:56
And it was doing a 36 million a year in revenue.
55:01
Um but profit-wise was probably only like 5 million on that.
55:04
Most of it was was um expenses.
55:08
And we had about 50 people and we were spending like 2 million a month on ads.
55:17
Um and it was just everything was breaking.
55:21
I hired everyone way too fast.
55:24
And it was heavily dependent on ads. Um which I didn't like.
55:29
I was reading this book on my honeymoon in um Tulum in Mexico.
55:36
And it's it's called um Lean Thinking.
55:41
And apparently it's like Jeff Bezos's favorite book, which is why I was reading it.
55:46
And in there they talk about like how you should optimize a business based on customer based on value the way a customer experiences it, right?
55:58
And you should analyze like the head count, how many people are like working on how many people are actually contributing to value the customer would experience in your head count.
56:09
And then your your money flows.
56:11
So like how are you allocating the capital?
56:14
Where is all the money being spent and does the customer experience value from that?
56:17
And then your time and attention and energy, right?
56:21
So you're just analyzing all of these flows.
56:25
And I realized that all of our time, money, attention, and head count was on ads.
56:33
And that customers did not think ads were valuable.
56:37
In fact, they thought what you did, it actually pissed them off. Right?
56:41
So I was like, "Oh man, I've really screwed this one up."
56:45
Um and I was like everything should be focused on the customer.
56:52
And so I went back after that vacation and realized that I basically had to start again.
57:03
And I so I just started restructuring that company.
57:08
Um I realized that organic content was really good because that's cus customers find that valuable, right?
57:15
Like a good YouTube channel, good email newsletter.
57:21
So I was like, "We should do that and then if we do that well, we don't need to do ads."
57:24
And then I was like everyone on the team should be contributing value to like the customer.
57:31
They should be doing support or they should be account management for mastermind clients.
57:37
They should be customer facing in some way.
57:40
And all of my time and attention and energy should be thinking about the customers problems instead of advertising problems, right?
57:48
And so I just with that kind of mental model, I just started restructuring the whole company.
57:53
And then so like you you've talked about consulting uh a bunch on other pods and but the story is that you eventually and we can go back to it you eventually sold it but your new company School it's uh whenever I was texting to you it always uh auto corrects to stool s k o o l.
58:08
You were telling me you didn't exactly say it this way but I I read it this way where you were telling me that you you're like we're not taking any funding or at least you're not anytime soon because you self-funded it with 10 million.
58:24
And you're like I'm hiring the best people.
58:26
So you like went from like this like internet market type of culture to startup.
58:32
It it First of all, is that true and second was that number right 10 million that you're going in on this? That's true.
58:41
And why the shift from like this startup where you like have hired all the like you're you're running things very Silicon Valley esque versus what I imagine in my head a lot of uh internet marketers are not like.
58:55
Well, I started in software remember?
58:57
The first company I ever did was SnapInspect.
58:59
So I've always had a love for software.
59:03
The problem back then though was I didn't love my market like property managers and I we were constantly have limited by our money.
59:15
Like you know, software engineers are expensive, subscription revenue has a cash flow trough in it.
59:20
Um and so we were limited by money and I didn't love my market, but I did love software.
59:29
And I also hated like having to market.
59:31
I swore I was never going to touch software again unless it had network effects.
59:37
Cuz I wanted it to grow itself, basically, like a platform instead of a software tool.
59:42
Um So, then I fell in love with courses, and that The beauty of that was like I was able to save a lot of money.
59:50
Um And then I came back to software because I now was building software for the market that I loved, which was like online creators.
1:00:00
And I had money this time, so I wouldn't be limited by that.
1:00:03
I could get the best engineers and not cut corners on anything, and take a more long-term view.
1:00:11
Um And this was a platform opportunity instead of like a software tool.
1:00:16
So, we didn't have to have a marketing or sales team.
1:00:20
Um And we had no like CAC.
1:00:25
Um And how is this growing?
1:00:26
Cuz I see the traffic is like, I don't know, 8 million visits a month or something insane like that.
1:00:32
Um It looks like you got an affiliate program here.
1:00:35
If you're not running marketing, where's the growth coming from?
1:00:38
Cuz I get that there's network effects, but um That's way more than like circle. com Is it called circle?
1:00:44
It's way more than a lot of like high VC competitors, the traffic, I believe.
1:00:48
Yeah, so I don't know if the number's right, but let's let's say than double circle, yeah.
1:00:52
Um how are you getting so much traffic?
1:00:55
It's a community platform, so you know, once you once you start a community and you add some content to it, the first thing you do is you invite members, right?
1:01:07
And then what happens is roughly 1% of members create their own community.
1:01:14
So, they're like, "Oh, this platform's cool.
1:01:16
I want to make one of these."
1:01:16
And then they create their own, and then they invite their members, and then that There's a There's a loop there or a network effect.
1:01:24
When you were doing your content stuff, um your ads, I had read stuff like you um did some interesting things like you we talked about like the apartment and the suit and I don't know you had like a motorcycle in the middle of the room and stuff like that.
1:01:38
What were some interesting experiments that you ran that um that either worked or didn't work that sort of taught you something about, you know, human psychology or the way that people's what gets people's attention, what people what gets people interested, what gets them hooked.
1:01:51
What are some learnings from all these different kind of content experiments you did when you were doing uh when you're making, you know, when you when you're your content, your face was the was the driver.
1:02:02
Well, a lot of people just want to make money.
1:02:04
Like that one was annoying.
1:02:04
So, like if you just put a Jason something or a fancy car or a New York apartment, like it works so well that it's it's annoying cuz you're like, oh, do I have to do that?
1:02:21
Aren't people just won't they just listen to the value of the idea?
1:02:23
But that's what I learned back then when I was doing those experiments.
1:02:27
I think now people are looking for like longer form real stuff that like a podcast.
1:02:34
Podcasts are really taking off, right?
1:02:38
Um so I think the people that are doing a good job now is like what you guys are doing.
1:02:44
I think having a podcast and an email newsletter, that's what I would do if I was starting again right now.
1:02:51
Um that those two work really well together.
1:02:54
We have this friend Rebecca Zamolo who um has tens of millions or maybe 15 or something million YouTube subscribers.
1:03:03
And she only launched it in like 2017, not that long ago.
1:03:05
And I was like, Rebecca, why'd you get so big?
1:03:06
And she goes, I took it like a job.
1:03:08
So, like I got laid off or I quit, I forget what happened with her other job.
1:03:12
And she goes, this is now my thing.
1:03:13
So, it was like a 40-hour work week.
1:03:15
It's like this all I'm doing.
1:03:17
And I was like, well, doesn't everyone do that?
1:03:18
She said, no, shockingly, no.
1:03:21
Most of of a lot of popular YouTubers, it starts as a side hop hobby.
1:03:25
And even when they're like fairly big, it's still not full-time.
1:03:28
But she's like, I just treat this son [ __ ] like a company.
1:03:29
Like I just ran it like a company. And then it worked out.
1:03:33
So, I think that that like that focus thing No no no chance he said son [ __ ] No no chance he said son [ __ ] I I added That's the same part special.
1:03:43
Maybe maybe I subbed that out.
1:03:43
Maybe it was like you know, I took this wonderful thing very seriously. Uh Yeah.
1:03:52
Yeah, you've been you've been pretty good at focus.
1:03:53
I mean, that's why you've been sellconsulting.
1:03:55
com if it's like doing well, you're not working on it.
1:03:57
I mean, you're you're you seem like you're you're very very very focused on [ __ ] I mean, just to go 10 million on that on school, is that a was that a significant chunk for you to do that?
1:04:08
And was that like a verbal commitment?
1:04:10
Like I'm willing to do up to X or did you literally wire into a bank account and say that's now in the company that's being used for this company.
1:04:15
It's we're we're burning that. That Yeah, that.
1:04:19
Like I bought a house cuz, you know, I've got a wife and family.
1:04:25
So, I bought a house and I left some money in the personal account for like family.
1:04:29
And then I was like, everything else I'm just I'm betting on this company.
1:04:33
So, no no other portfolio? Nothing.
1:04:37
How big do you think school's going to be?
1:04:39
Well, that's hard to answer.
1:04:39
There's what I would like it to be. Which is what?
1:04:45
I've always wanted to build something that a billion people use.
1:04:49
What do you How are you sleeping at night knowing that your whole or a lot of your nut is in there?
1:04:55
That's a very stressful thing.
1:04:57
Quite well at the moment, but because things are going really well. Um You know what?
1:05:03
The growth is compounding pretty fast and top-tier VCs email us every week.
1:05:11
So, I like and they I've had to just stop talking to them.
1:05:15
Um and a lot of people want to give us money, but we're not taking it.
1:05:22
And so, I think the fact that a lot of people want to give me money is allowed me to calm down quite a lot.
1:05:28
That I'm not that we're not going to run out of money.
1:05:29
Um also just the grow what Is it profitable? No, it's not. But deliberately so. Okay, fair enough.
1:05:40
And um where do you base the company?
1:05:42
Uh is it remote or people in uh in America, New Zealand?
1:05:47
Where where you where are your people?
1:05:48
Um everyone's in LA and San Fran. Okay.
1:05:52
And do you um you like what we when Sam says he you remind him of Jack Smith, one of the cool things about Jack Smith is that while he's clever and interesting on the business side, he's also clever and weird and does crazy experiments also in his personal life, uh whether it's like sort of biohacking or uh lifestyle choice or not naming his child until she was 1 years old, like whatever.
1:06:16
Parent parenting, everything.
1:06:18
He he takes sort of like a novel approach to each thing.
1:06:19
I'm curious, are you weird in other areas of your life?
1:06:23
Do you do anything that's sort of non-standard that to you makes sense, but maybe to other people sounds a little strange? I'm sure.
1:06:30
Would you like to say any examples since this is a podcast?
1:06:34
Um I mean, I slept on a futon for like 3 years. And I loved it.
1:06:39
And then when my wife got pregnant, she she made me give it up, but I really missed that futon.
1:06:47
You know a Japanese futon? Yeah. Um I loved that thing.
1:06:52
Um I just like to keep things very simple and minimal.
1:06:56
Like only have one pair of shoes and I only have like the same type of socks and the same kind of like underwear and the same t-shirts and then like three wool jumpers. And that's all I have.
1:07:11
And then I have the same soap, like this tea tree soap.
1:07:16
And I just have like 20 blocks of it.
1:07:18
And I I even take one with me when I travel, cuz I only like that soap.
1:07:23
Um I like don't wear sunglasses, cuz I think they're unnecessary.
1:07:28
Um and I just like to reduce things.
1:07:30
Just to I like to find something that I think is good, and then only use that.
1:07:40
And then just get a few different pairs of that.
1:07:43
And just keep things as simple and as minimal as humanly possible. Is your wife normal? Yeah, she is.
1:07:55
We were The reason why one of the things you said We were sitting around, Sean.
1:08:00
It was me, Sam, and my wife, Sarah.
1:08:02
We were sitting around at this restaurant.
1:08:06
And Sam, you have You've got some strange energy, in a very cool way.
1:08:11
You've got very strange and cool energy that I like. I love people like you.
1:08:16
And we were just sitting around, and the conversation kind of died.
1:08:18
And we just sit We sat in silence for like 3 seconds, I think.
1:08:25
And then you just said I delivered my baby.
1:08:27
And we were like We were like What? With what?
1:08:33
And you just said My hands.
1:08:38
And we were like We were like, hold on. Say Say this again.
1:08:42
And you're talking about how your wife She You're going to be like a home delivery or something, and the midwife didn't make it in time, and and you just did the damn thing. You And you just did it.
1:08:53
And I remember thinking like the reason I love this guy is I don't think he understands like how straight like your mannerisms, your voice, they're this is they're so unique and strange in such an interesting way. Um which I frankly love.
1:09:11
I love people like you because you're so unique and you're not vanilla.
1:09:17
Do you realize that you're like that? Honestly, not really.
1:09:22
Because I don't I don't try to fit in and I don't try to like I don't even look at what other people are doing.
1:09:28
Like I don't have social media at all.
1:09:32
Um and I never look at really what's going on or what's in the news or anything.
1:09:38
Um And I just do what I want.
1:09:41
What do you do with that free time?
1:09:41
So let's say no social media, no news.
1:09:42
For most people, that's like 4 to 5 hours a day or something like that.
1:09:48
Um how do you reinvest that 4 to 5 hours a day? Where do you put it?
1:09:50
What what does give you energy or or what do you do for entertainment or what do you do to to unwind?
1:09:58
I mean, all I really do is focus on school and that's mostly the product.
1:10:03
So I'm just obsessive about the product, all the details of it.
1:10:08
And then I go home, hang out with my wife and daughter.
1:10:14
And then I need 2 hours of like watching something to to unwind, otherwise I can't sleep.
1:10:21
And so I'll I'll watch series, like TV series, and I like old stuff, like things before technology, cuz it's it's nice and slow and it helps me go to sleep.
1:10:34
But when you say you're obsessive, what does that mean?
1:10:36
Like do people like working with you?
1:10:38
Like are you the type of guy who like if something very small at the footer is screwed up, you freak out over that? Yeah, I can see a pixel.
1:10:48
So if something's off, like I'm like something's off over there and then I'll inspect it with Chrome Inspector and it will be one pixel.
1:10:55
So I can like I've I joke with the team that I can see a pixel.
1:11:00
Um and yeah, I'll I'll go into those details.
1:11:04
Like I designed School's interface in Figma, like the whole thing.
1:11:10
Um and defined a lot of like how that entire system works, which is it's quite complex.
1:11:18
Well, I knew you were like that because when consulting.
1:11:20
com first came out, most courses don't didn't look the way your yours looked.
1:11:25
Yours had this like you had this really cool thing of a it was like a caveman becoming a a person. Uh right? Is that what it was?
1:11:33
And then it was like a picture of the globe and it uh it looked like a software page.
1:11:36
It it looked very unique and I remember seeing the design of it and I thought that is incredibly unique and it stood out.
1:11:44
It made you feel more sophisticated than most other people in the space.
1:11:49
Um do you remember that page and my describing it accurately?
1:11:51
Yeah, what uh what were you thinking when you made that?
1:11:55
Well, that's what I like to do.
1:11:55
I like to just spend a long time on the tiny details.
1:12:02
Like you know, I've spent days trying to figure out the right pixel radius of a rounded corner for the for like a button.
1:12:12
Is that a feature or a bug?
1:12:12
Like if somebody I worked with was spending days on a uh how much the border radius should be on a button, I would slap them.
1:12:22
I'd be like, "What are you doing?
1:12:24
This is not This doesn't matter and this is not going to be like high impact.
1:12:27
So, why are you doing this?"
1:12:29
So, you know, is that a is that a good thing or is that a byproduct?
1:12:34
Like maybe you do that in certain areas where it really works and uh uh I got to live with the fact that I do it in these other areas where it doesn't matter at all.
1:12:43
Yeah, so I you know, if if it's not I won't block anyone by doing that, right?
1:12:48
So, like when we're building the thing, like I'll be very fast and not the bottleneck of the team.
1:12:55
But then in my spare time, I'm playing with things, thinking about the next time we update the design system, and I'm just tweaking little things and like that's what I do for fun.
1:13:06
So, it's not like what I'm doing is my work kind of thing.
1:13:10
How do you How do you organize your day?
1:13:12
Uh do you have like a Are you like focused on one thing?
1:13:14
Do you have like a morning like Okay, there's my to-do list.
1:13:17
What What do How do you How do you create your day?
1:13:21
Most of what I do, I would say it's product, strategy, and design.
1:13:23
That's like where I spend all of my time, just in those zones.
1:13:28
And we have got like three product teams at School.
1:13:31
So, three full-stack product teams with back end, front end, QA, product manager, designer, right?
1:13:37
Um and they've got three roadmaps that are all going in parallel.
1:13:44
And I need to think ahead of them.
1:13:44
Like I've got to dream up like the whole product strategy and roadmap and everything.
1:13:53
And then I have to reverse engineer it into chunks, break it down, and then figure out which team should work on what thing and sequence it, and then I've got to design the whole thing, spec it, brief that team, and stay a few development cycles ahead.
1:14:11
Um and so I'll either be designing something, trying to figure out a priority, talking to that engineering team, or checking's doing the final QA check before we push something into production.
1:14:25
I actually think that that's totally the right way, in my opinion, that a lot of companies should run.
1:14:29
The reason they don't is because A, that's really, really hard.
1:14:33
So, like you're the brainchild, you have to like you probably know every single thing that's happening.
1:14:38
That's incredibly challenging for just about everyone.
1:14:42
Number two, it doesn't feel good to feel like a dictator.
1:14:44
It's like basically you're you you guys are a band and you're like the main you're you know you're the main you're the main guy.
1:14:51
You're Celine Dion and everyone else is the backup band.
1:14:53
That's a weird reference, but it is what it is. You're Billy Joel.
1:14:56
I don't That's where I went. Yeah. That's where we went. You're Celine Dion. I don't know. Long hair. Uh You're like the guy.
1:15:05
Whereas whereas I don't know if I can recover from that.
1:15:09
Whereas most startups it's like it's it's a lot more decentralized and things like that, but with this type of product it seems like you're like the the main person and there's a circle around you with [ __ ] going on. Is that right?
1:15:21
It sounds [ __ ] exhausting.
1:15:23
example of this was I remember Sam when you were running The Hustle and I was running my company and we would meet up every couple weeks as part of our like kind of like founder mastermind thing where we we would get together.
1:15:33
And you know, I was sort of drinking the Silicon Valley Kool-Aid which was like autonomy and like give people empower your people and all these things and I was like, you know, preaching to my team like, "Hey, whoever's got the best idea, we're going with you, you know?
1:15:48
Oh, janitor, you got an idea? Let's do it, you know?
1:15:49
Like let's make it happen."
1:15:51
And Sam showed me I'd meet up with Sam and Sam shows me like a 12-page doc that he wrote out for some new woman that he hired.
1:16:02
And he just goes and the document just says uh welcome.
1:16:04
Here's the things that you're going to do.
1:16:07
Um your job is to do this.
1:16:09
Here's how you will do this. Step one, do this. Step two, do this.
1:16:14
And he wrote this like 20-page doc and was just like handed it to her and was like, "This is do not deviate from this.
1:16:24
I don't want to hear I don't want to hear your your ideas on this."
1:16:25
And I asked you I was like, "Why'd you do this?"
1:16:29
You're like, "Cuz people [ __ ] up and I just I need her I think this is the right way to do it and I just need her to do it this way."
1:16:37
No, cuz that I whatever Sam has said, I totally agree with that.
1:16:40
The problem is that it's [ __ ] exhausting. You know what I mean?
1:16:44
Like it's really hard to do that for a long period of time. It's not scalable, yeah.
1:16:48
Well, it's kind of scalable.
1:16:49
Oh yeah, like the engineers, I'm not telling them what to do, like in terms of code, right?
1:16:55
So, and then I'm not even coming up with all the ideas from my own mind.
1:16:57
I spend a lot of my time looking at what our community wants.
1:17:01
So, like going through our school community where people ask for stuff and share bugs and feedback.
1:17:10
Then I'll talk to power users.
1:17:10
I always find who's spending the most time on the platform, get a top 100, just DM a few of them, get on Zoom, talk just talk to them for hours about it.
1:17:21
And then I use the product myself.
1:17:24
And then I talk to the team, too.
1:17:24
And so, ideas come from all of these places, but I'm like the filter and the the sorter and the prioritizer, basically.
1:17:34
Um and then when I go to engineering, I know what the feature should be, but they they might push back on a lot of what I say based on how easy that is to implement with code.
1:17:45
They might be like, "Oh, do you really need to do it this way?"
1:17:48
cuz that's going to make the code messy.
1:17:49
Or "Why don't you do it this way?
1:17:51
That would be way more simple for the system."
1:17:55
And I'll listen to that feedback and adjust the actual feature cuz I'm trying to like I'm trying to give the the users what they want, but I'm also trying to keep the code clean.
1:18:07
And and I'm trying to build things fast, too.
1:18:09
So, I'm like, "How could we shrink the scope of this to make it so we could deliver something faster?"
1:18:13
And and so, it's not like I'm just dictating to everyone.
1:18:20
Um there's a lot of collaboration.
1:18:23
You know, Sean, is something I've I've Uh do you know that company, Jasper?
1:18:26
Have you talked to those guys?
1:18:28
Is the the founder's name is Dave or David? Yeah, same one.
1:18:31
Same one on the website of consulting. com.
1:18:35
Dude, well, as I was going to say, for one, if you go to like Unsplash, I think it was called, or what one of those like stock websites, stock image websites, for some reason Dave is on the picture of so many stock pictures.
1:18:47
I used to use a picture of him, and then I met him, I'm like, "Dude, I used your face for a stock image.
1:18:52
You're on this like royalty-free website."
1:18:53
And number two, he used to be part of consulting. com, didn't he?
1:18:55
So, Jasper's, for listeners, like a I guess a billion-dollar now company that does AI stuff.
1:19:01
Um Was he part of your crew?
1:19:07
He was a he bought my course like many years ago.
1:19:09
Um and he was one of our like most successful students.
1:19:16
Um he used to sell coaching, like training and stuff, but then he he wanted to get into software.
1:19:21
So, then he did this thing Proof, do you remember that? That little pop-up? Yeah. Yeah.
1:19:26
And then that turned into Jasper.
1:19:29
And did I Why did someone someone tell me to ask you what you think about AI? Why did they say that?
1:19:34
Um Well, I think it's like massively overhyped.
1:19:40
And somewhat like just unnecessary.
1:19:46
Like, I don't know about you guys, but ChatGPT hasn't replaced my Google usage.
1:19:51
I still use Google every day.
1:19:54
Um and I've found no real task for it, honestly.
1:20:00
It's seen but the hype is extreme.
1:20:02
Well, the hype cycle is there around like the growth, and like, well, it's it's not there yet, but I can see the future of this.
1:20:07
So, you're not bullish at all on the future of it? No. All right.
1:20:13
I'll take the other side of that.
1:20:13
Um Sam, anything else you want to ask before we we wrap up?
1:20:19
No, I I appreciate you coming.
1:20:19
I find I want to talk to you again in another time. I find you fascinating.
1:20:23
I think that you're an original thinker, and I appreciate people like you. Thanks. Uh all right.
1:20:29
Well, that's that's the pod. That's it.