David SenraHigh School Dropout to Multi-Billionaire: The Relentless Drive of Rafael Vivas
EVERY SPOKEN WORD
80 min read · 15,999 words- 0:00 – 6:42
Kicked out of his house at 16
- DSDavid Senra
[typewriter clacking] You have a very interesting story, one of the most interesting entrepreneurial stories I've ever come across. You're a high school dropout. You got kicked out of your house. You lived in an office, and now you're a multi-billionaire. So I wanna start with, how did you manage to get yourself kicked out of your house?
- RVRafael Vivas
I always focused on driving as much value as I could. And so I realized, you know, when I was in school, I wasn't really good at it. Horrible grades, couldn't pay attention, didn't really care about anything the teachers were talking about. But internet advertising was something that I gravitated to and kind of grabbed onto. And so for me, once I got into the business, I stopped going to classes. I was skipping school. I was working twenty four/seven. And it came to the point where my dad was like, "All right. You think you're this big guy. You think you're this hotshot making all this money online, then just move out of the house." And literally w- was like a day later, got my stuff, moved to my best friend's house, and it was kind of funny because at that time it was, you know, I go-- showed up to my best friend's house. His mom was a really sweet lady. And she was like, uh, you know, "Hey," like, "Good to see you." I was like, "Oh, can I, uh, [chuckles] live in your house?"
- DSDavid Senra
[chuckles]
- RVRafael Vivas
And I was like, "But I've got a great deal for you. I will employ your son as, as an intern at this business. I'll help clean the house." That was pretty much it. And, uh, so that, that was, you know, I would say the first foray of me moving out of the house.
- DSDavid Senra
But you were how old when this happened?
- RVRafael Vivas
I was around sixteen years old.
- DSDavid Senra
Okay. But why drop out of high school? Why did you-- like, how did you-- a lot, a lot of people drop out of college, but, like, you dropped out of high school. Why do that?
- RVRafael Vivas
Yes. So, so take a step back. I started working online around fourteen years old, doing performance media buying. And what I saw, uh, during that period was really eye-opening. I saw... At the time, I was working for my brother. You know, these guys were making twenty, thirty thousand dollars a day in profit advertising different products. My teacher would make twenty-five thousand dollars a year. So it was a no-brainer to me really quickly that school, the upside was nowhere as high as compared to if I were to put all my efforts into performance marketing.
- DSDavid Senra
And so your older brother was kind of teaching you the trade?
- RVRafael Vivas
Yeah.
- DSDavid Senra
Is that how it worked?
- RVRafael Vivas
Yeah. So, you know, kind of backstory. I come from a family, it's four brothers, two stepbrothers. All boys, but my parents got divorced very early. I was, you know, not growing up with my oldest brother, but I was always online, always on the computer. I was building websites. Uh, did game servers business for a little bit. And at one point, my brother came to go visit my dad, and, you know, he was telling my dad that he was doing performance marketing. And my dad had this brilliant idea that I would go and intern for him. I go and intern for him for a summer, which initially I was against because I was like, "I'm making a thousand dollars a month," you know, selling stuff online and doing game servers. And, you know, as-- at that time, you know, a fourteen-year-old kid, that's a lot of money-
- DSDavid Senra
Mm-hmm
- RVRafael Vivas
... you know, in, in, in middle school. So, you know, what ends up happening is he convinced me to go and join him. I start working there, and I start doing, like-- I would say, like, I'm below the water boy.
- DSDavid Senra
[chuckles]
- RVRafael Vivas
I'm like, you know, I'm like the boring terms of service and privacy policy, like, I'm the guy adding that onto the site. Whatever work that those guys didn't wanna do, you know, was pretty much foisted on to me. But through that, I got to learn a lot about the industry. So learned about, you know, what types of products people are interested in, what types of ads get people's attention, how money is made online just in general. And so that was kind of my big foray into it.
- DSDavid Senra
And at the time, you were essentially be- you, you became obsessed with online advertising, which is a funny, um, like, obsession for, like, a teenage- a young teenager to have. But your other obsession was video games, right?
- RVRafael Vivas
Yes.
- DSDavid Senra
D- was there, um, like parallels that you, that you drew between the two activities?
- RVRafael Vivas
I was never really good at sports. I played soccer and, and baseball as a kid, but I wasn't good at any of them. The thing that I loved about video games for me was that it was all about based on merit. If you're competing in a multiplayer game or a single-player game, ultimately it's just to outcompete the people that you're competing against, effectively. And that was something that I loved. So taking it into business for me, I always had this analogy in my head of when they sent the warriors out, you know, back in the days to go get food for the tribe, the only thing that they-- that people would care about back in the tribe was who brought back the food, who killed the animal. In business, for me it was I always just focused on being the most valuable person in the room, doing what I could to drive the most value for everybody.
- DSDavid Senra
Say more about this.
- RVRafael Vivas
I think titles and, uh, you know, seniority, I think it's all bullshit. I think it-- in, in business, similar to sports and similar to video games, it's just about delivering the most value possible. And that was something that I realized early on, is that if you go kind of down the same route as everybody else, where it's like, okay, I'm gonna go start a company, I'm gonna be an analyst for a few years, you know, then I'm gonna go and, uh, try to get to the next level of a manager and then a senior manager and so on, it's this linear and very boring path where actually you limit your ability to grow personally and then also the ability to deliver value to a company versus if you take this other approach of, what is the most important thing to the business? And in my skill set, what can I do to deliver as much value as possible? If you take that mindset, very quickly-- It may not be a linear route, but very quickly you will be exposed to opportunities that you wouldn't be otherwise. And so that is kind of the approach I've always taken.
- DSDavid Senra
But this is one of the most fascinating things about you. When I tell other people about you and Adam Foroughi, is you had that trait when you were, like, a kid. You've been working with Adam since you were seventeen. Uh, seventeen or nineteen, something like that?
- RVRafael Vivas
My brother and Adam had worked together. So I'd known of Adam since, you know, I was fourteen. I met him at fifteen, and when I told you I was the water boy, he came to the office. My brother was like, "Go get Adam a water."
- DSDavid Senra
[chuckles]
- RVRafael Vivas
But I knew who he was before because there was kind of this leaderboard in my brother's performance marketing company, and, you know, Adam was at the top of the leaderboard at the time and, and I was the guy behind him. You know, initially I started building websites, I started building ads, and then building campaigns, and so I already knew who he was. So that's how I got connected with Adam. And, and then from there, we didn't really communicate that much in the beginning. I would say when I was around seventeen, eighteen is when we got closer, and that was because W- you know, my, my road was very, uh, [laughs] was not, was not linear at all. I didn't wait to be given opportunities, right? For example, like, w- when I started building websites, that was one thing, but I was curious about, okay, like, how, you know, are ads made? So I just, I was start getting on Photoshop and making ads. And then at the time somebody showed me how to put up a, a, it was like a MySpace campaign, and I did that. And then from there, you know, it was like, okay, I want more traffic, and I just started reaching out to brands on my own, right? And, and nobody gave me the permission to do it. I just started doing it. Fast-forward, I was like, "Hey, we should start our own ad platform, right? Why are we buying from all these other ad platforms when we can just go and reach out to the publishers ourselves, and we have demand?"
- 6:42 – 9:58
Starting his own ad platform at 17
- DSDavid Senra
Wait, wait. So when you got this idea, we're gonna start our own ad platform, you're how old?
- RVRafael Vivas
At that time, I was about 17 years old.
- DSDavid Senra
Okay. That's a very unusual idea for a 17-year-old.
- RVRafael Vivas
Yeah. I, it was... Uh, the reason we started the ad platform was at the time, this advertising platform that we were working with, uh, they had their own advertisements, their own offers, and they banned us off of it 'cause we were competitive. And I got so angry that night that I was like, I remember I went home, like pretty much cried, and I was like, "We're gonna bury these guys." And I went to my brother and I was like, "Hey, I'm gonna leave your company to go start my own ad platform. I'm gonna go head-to-head with this company." And he started laughing so hard, and he was like, "You're not going anywhere. I'll give you a few engineers. Go build what you want." And you know, that was, uh, the idea at the time of Appenda. Appenda was a mobile ad platform. Around this time, Adam had already left my brother's company, and he was actually done with ads and wanted to start building consumer products. And so, you know, the beginning of AppLovin actually was, at first it was a, a dating app, uh, and then there was a fashion app, uh, and then there was all these other products that they kind of built. Adam was buying traffic from me.
- DSDavid Senra
Adam was buying traffic from your ad network for his apps that he was developing?
- RVRafael Vivas
Exactly.
- DSDavid Senra
Okay.
- RVRafael Vivas
Exactly. So at, during this time, you know, Adam and I would talk a lot over AIM because I was effectively his account manager. Uh, but I would screw with him a lot. You know, I'd be like, "Hey, I'll teach you a lot about making money online. You know, I'll teach you how to run real business." Uh-
- DSDavid Senra
Which is also another crazy thing, 'cause he's like 10 or 12 years older than you.
- RVRafael Vivas
12 years older than me.
- DSDavid Senra
[laughs]
- RVRafael Vivas
Way smarter than me. The guy's a walking calculator.
- DSDavid Senra
[laughs]
- RVRafael Vivas
But ignorance is bliss, and I just had this chip on my shoulder, right? That I feel like I, I could take on the world. And as we spend more time, you know, talking, what ended up happening, very intelligent, Adam was like, "Okay, this kid who works around the clock but isn't that intelligent, has built this ad platform in kind of this, this wide open blue space a- and that's seeing success. I'm gonna go build a mobile ad platform."
- DSDavid Senra
So he's going to compete with you?
- RVRafael Vivas
Yes.
- DSDavid Senra
This is where he, like, pulls you in the room and he's like, "Don't get..." I- he came on the show. Let me, let, let me back up before we get to this.
- RVRafael Vivas
Yeah.
- DSDavid Senra
'Cause some people are listening, they haven't seen an episode. And the Adam Foroughi episode, when people are like, uh, I, I think that is one of the episodes I'm most proud of, because I think I titled it, like, The Best Entrepreneur You've Never Heard Of. And you know, it's the fact that, like, at the time it's like, whatever, AppLovin was a $150 billion, uh, market cap company. Uh, they're gonna print 6 billion in, in cash this, this year, and they're doing it with like 400 employees. And the reason I'm proud of the episode is because it goes out and all of the, like, almost like, I think the next, like, five or six guests that we had on the show that came on, this happened over and over again. We, we did a sh- um, this episode, they'll be out in December with MrBeast, right? And I've known MrBeast for a while. Um, he listens to my other podcast, Founders. Like, he'll send me his Spotify Wrapped every year, and it's like Founders at the top. And as soon as we stop recording, he leaned forward, he goes, "Hey, can you introduce me to Adam?" Mickey Malka, over and... Like I, over and over again, like, "Who is this guy and can you introduce me to him?" He was, like, such an unusual, like unfiltered, like, hardcore person. So this is the person that we're talking about. This is the person you've been working with-
- RVRafael Vivas
Yeah
- DSDavid Senra
... for like half your life.
- RVRafael Vivas
Yeah.
- DSDavid Senra
So now this guy is like, "This fucking kid is making all this money with this ad network. Don't..." He, he, I think he told the story. He's like, pulled you in the room. He's like, "Don't be mad, but I'm gonna compete with you."
- 9:58 – 11:06
“Don't be mad, but I'm going to compete with you”
- DSDavid Senra
[laughs]
- RVRafael Vivas
Yeah. You know, it's funny, he was in the office and he had this just this shit-eating grin, like, on his face. Like, like somebody who had just, like, eaten your food. [laughs] And it was actually, no, he pulled me, I pushed him into a room because I saw the smile on him. I was like, "What the hell?" Like, "Why are you so happy? What are you smiling about?" And that's when he goes, "Hey, don't be mad. I'm building a competing ad platform." And at the time, I didn't care because I was, you know, uh, like I, you mentioned to me earlier, I'm a massive gamer. I love playing video games. I was actually gonna go join my friend's company in Y Combinator that built mobile games, and then Adam reverse Uno'd me and he said, "Whoa, whoa, whoa, wait. What do you mean you're gonna go join, uh, somebody else's company? You should come work for me. You know, you, you know how to work your ass off. You know everyone in the space here in, in mobile gaming, but you know nothing about building a real business." And out of respect for Adam, because even though I talked a lot of shit to him online and, you know, I always knew he was a really intelligent guy, I decided to come down to Palo Alto and meet the rest of the team.
- DSDavid Senra
Is this when you move into the office?
- RVRafael Vivas
Yes.
- DSDavid Senra
So a lot of people are like, "Oh, I'm here 24/7," or, uh, you know, "We, I work 9, 9, 6."
- RVRafael Vivas
Yeah.
- DSDavid Senra
Like, Raf moved into the office, and then it speaks to the unique culture that you guys have. Adam built the bed.
- 11:06 – 15:40
His one condition: living in the office
- RVRafael Vivas
He did. He did. Him and another engineer. So, so double click into it. So what happened was this. So interviews went great. I was like, these are the smartest guys I've ever, you know, really spoken to in my life. It's a no-brainer, I'm gonna join. You know, we negotiate. I'm like, "I want half the company." He's like, "Oh, somebody in your role gets a quarter of a percent typically." [laughs]
- DSDavid Senra
[laughs]
- RVRafael Vivas
Uh, you know, I, I got a little bit more than that. I didn't get half the company though, obviously. And so I was like, "Under, but there's one circumstance I have." And he's like, "What is it?" And I was like, "I have to live inside of the office." And he was like, like, "Sure, but why?" And I was like, "Think of this as like the Vietnam War," right? Like, "We have this goofy name called AppLovin. We have no VC funding, right? You're gonna have some 5'8" chubby kid go out there-
- DSDavid Senra
[laughs]
- RVRafael Vivas
... and go sell, you know, to game developers and advertisers. The only way that we're gonna win is we're gonna have to out-hustle everybody else, which means I have to live here, right? Like, this is the only way this will work." And, you know, obviously he was very happy. It was like your first business hire, the guy's like, "I'm gonna fucking live in the office." Like, you couldn't ask more for, out of an employee. So yeah, him and this guy called Furqan at the time, they went to IKEA, and they built my... built me and this other guy, uh, who's... I, I brought over, another engineer to come live inside the office, uh, our bunk beds. Uh, I can tell you, the other engineer, the second he saw the bunk beds, he was like, "Screw that, I'm definitely not living here."
- DSDavid Senra
[laughs]
- RVRafael Vivas
When I saw it, I was like, "Home sweet home," you know? I'm... Time to get started.
- DSDavid Senra
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- RVRafael Vivas
State of the business is pre-revenue. It was like an animal house. Adam had a bunch of engineers, uh, just working on different apps, um, and they were just trying to find product market fit. Their next idea was to build AppLovin ad network. And, you know, for context on Adam as well is that Adam before had ran a very successful ad platform called Social Hour, um, that was an ad network on Facebook, and then before that, you know, he'd been doing advertising as well. So he, he's very, very familiar with the space, and I- something that he mentioned in your last episode, he already saw a lot of the user activity switching from PC to mobile. So it was kind of like he was the perfect person to, to tackle the space because he understood the problem. It was an... right... a wide-open field. And then also me coming on board, I was able to connect, you know, us at that time to the right advertisers and publishers, and the rest is history.
- 15:40 – 21:00
Turned down by VCs while already profitable
- DSDavid Senra
He also told this story, too, where, um, he tried to sell twenty-five percent of the company to VCs for a million dollars.
- RVRafael Vivas
Yep.
- DSDavid Senra
He's like, "You know, you can buy twenty-five percent of the company. You should back this." It... You guys got in really early this tran- what you just said, this transition from desktop to mobile.
- RVRafael Vivas
Yep.
- DSDavid Senra
And he was turned down because they thought, they're like, "Gaming and ads, like, these are terrible businesses."
- RVRafael Vivas
Yep.
- DSDavid Senra
They didn't understand that. And then a few years later, they go and fund a bunch of other competitors to you, and he said you guys made it a company principle to put those, to drive those other competitors out of business.
- RVRafael Vivas
So, so take a step back here. So there was actually plenty of other companies in the space that were very well funded. Uh, and you know, they were backed by the top-tier VCs at the time, so Benchmark, Sequoia, uh, and so on. Some of them were very, very successful already. It felt like the market actually at the time was very mature. It was like, m- how are these... You know, at the time it was like this one kid, uh, doing sales and a few people, and Paul also gonna succeed against these behemoths that already had a l- at that time it looked like a lot of the market. And also when Adam went to go try and raise this money, we were already profitable. It's funny because he was giving them a deal on a silver platter. Revenue traction, company's growing like crazy month over month, very profitable, you know, world-class margins compared to everyone else in the space, and he still got turned down.
- DSDavid Senra
Why you think that is?
- RVRafael Vivas
I think what it came down to was that we have a very untraditional story and background. A lot of people that, you know, had raised money before, you know, like they were doing these mobile game app platforms, they were game publishers, or they were part of these big corporate companies. And so on paper, you know, they worked at Facebook, or they worked at Google. They were on the AdMob team, which was one of the biggest ad platforms at the time. You know, they worked for all these businesses. So, so on paper they looked great. Um, versus us, we were performance marketers who... We always ran arbitrage businesses. We'd never run an ad network that had kind of seen its way to a, to like a very profitable exit. So I, I think that's really what it was.
- DSDavid Senra
How do you start? Like, you guys are a smaller team, no funding, you're essentially bootstrap, competing against already established players that have more money and have more people. So how do you guys start building a company? How do you start winning?
- RVRafael Vivas
What Adam understood better than anybody else in the space was that the tech is the most important part. Everyone else focused on sales, right? So they had, you know, hundreds of advertisers, and they had, you know, these premium publishers, but their algorithms were shit. And a lot of these algorithms were people just like manually optimizing things in the background. Now, we didn't have, like, a state-of-the-art machine learning model. That's not what existed back then. But we had rules in place, and, and we did, uh, regression, uh, learning around, you know, kind of deciding what to serve. And that in itself allowed us to out-compete our competitors even though we didn't have as much demand and, and even though our publishers, uh, at that time weren't as high quality as some of the other ad platforms. And so when we would go and we'd actually see our monetization, let's say we'd go head-to-head with another ad platform, and a lot of times we would monetize at, you know, double the clip of somebody else. So the conversation of when I would run in- when I'd walk into a room or I'd reach out to a publisher was, "I guarantee you more money than you're making elsewhere." It was a no-brainer, right? A lot of people, they believed it was too good to be true, actually, so they'd make us put it in writing, and we had no issue doing that. I would really say it was Adam's vision in going all in on the tech is what allowed us to succeed.
- DSDavid Senra
Okay. We were talking before we started recording. You're like, "I think our brand is, like, too soft, and it doesn't represent, like, the insane performance culture that we have inside the company." Okay, I want to skip ahead, way ahead in the story, 'cause this is... I, I spent a ton of time with you, spent a t- ton of time with Adam, and it does kind of remind me of, like, the Chicago Bulls being led by Jordan that you see in, like, The Last Dance. So just talk about, like, what it's like working inside of AppLovin.
- RVRafael Vivas
AppLovin is a company where we're always on, and our goal is to make sure that any dollar that is given to us, that we're driving a profitable return. And so the businesses that we partner with and we work with, we treat ourselves as an extension of their team, and that is really different than a lot of these other ad platforms where they look at it as they're just providing a service. You know, so I'll give you an example. Like, we've interviewed a lot of people from some of these bigger ad platforms, and they try to come get a job at AppLovin. And, and one of the questions I'll simply ask them is that, "Hey, would you set up a campaign? Would you, you know, upload ads? Would you come up with creative ideas?" And a lot of the times they're like, "Whoa," like, "I haven't done that." Like, "Why would you do that?" And for us, we do all of these things, and this is a part of, like, our operational excellence, is that it's w- w- we feel like all of these little things, they all add up to delivering incredible returns for our advertisers. And so that I would say is one big thing that's different. We are so focused on performance. That is actually, like, the cornerstone of our company. So a lot of people may say to us, like, th- and customers, they love and hate us for it, some customers say, like, or, well, I'd say a lot of customers would say we're very competent, we're great, we're, you know, we deliver great results for them. But they would say, like, "You guys are, are pretty arrogant and always, aren't always the nicest people." But it's not that, you know, we're trying to be arrogant. It's that we just ultimately are trying to deliver the best returns for them, and so we are very opinionated on what they could be doing better and always pushing them, um, versus other companies out there, they would say, "Well, whatever the customer wants is... The customer's always right." And it's like if our goal is to deliver more customers profitably for you, then, like, there is data that you can look at, and there is right and wrong decisions. And for us, like, we're always trying to push towards the right decision.
- 21:00 – 24:15
Why he's against delegation
- DSDavid Senra
So say more about this, like, anti-delegation take that you have.
- RVRafael Vivas
Yeah, so, like, we talked about this before the show. Like, a lot of leaders, like, you know, and you hear about it in podcasts is like, "Hire people. Delegate, delegate." That's not a cloth we're cut from at, at, at AppLovin, and the reason why is kind of like to be a great leader, you have to be in the weeds. If you think about, like, in a sports analogy, right? Like, why did Michael Jordan always get the ball? You know? Or why was he, you know, effectively, like, considered the captain of the team? It wasn't 'cause he was, like, the oldest person there, the most senior there. It's 'cause when they gave him the fucking ball, he made the shot, right? And so for us, it, we look at it as in, like, if you're in the weeds, you understand what the customers want, you understand what the customers need for them to succeed, and you understand what's also important. Like, when you, when you delegate and you hire all these people, you focus all on a lot of things that are not important for your business. But you've hired these people, so they need something to do, right? So you just go and have them work on these tasks that don't really move the needle.
- DSDavid Senra
Did you watch the Todd Graves interview that I did?
- RVRafael Vivas
I did.
- DSDavid Senra
Where he says that he's a delegate. He's like, "What does that word even mean?" He had, like, this, this nasty look on his face.
- RVRafael Vivas
Yeah.
- DSDavid Senra
He's, like, completely anti. There's a lot of great founders that are kind of, like, anti-delegation.
- RVRafael Vivas
Yeah. I, I also think it's like, it's what makes the game fun, right? Like, g- going back to, like, video games, it's like imagine, like, you play all these levels, and then you get to, like, a boss, like, the final boss. Like, you're gonna hand the controller to your friend? Fuck no. You're gonna, like, go and do it yourself. Like, that's a new challenge, right? Um, and that's what keeps the, the, the job exciting for me personally.
- DSDavid Senra
What do you spend most of your time on? 'Cause Adam told me he thinks, like, you're one of the best deal guys in the world.
- RVRafael Vivas
I focus on doing the highest leverage deals that we can that's possible for the business, right? So, like, we have a very small team. Luckily, we're a business that's very profitable and growing very quickly, and so we try to do deals with, uh, whether it's, you know, companies that they're advertisers or doing partnerships with other companies that can bring us thousands of advertisers. That's my goal is to, to generate or to bring as many customers onto AppLovin as possible so we can build the bus- best business possible and one of the biggest ad platforms in the world.
- DSDavid Senra
And then you try to expand the existing customers, too. Adam told this great story on this podcast where he's just like, "Yeah, Raf's like an animal," and he's just like, "I get calls from customers all the time." He's like, "What's up with this guy? This guy's a multi-billionaire, and he's has- harassing me to spend an extra $5,000 a day." [laughs] And he's, he's like, "This shouldn't matter to you," and he goes, "It matters to us."
- RVRafael Vivas
Of course.
- DSDavid Senra
Everything matters.
- RVRafael Vivas
Everything fucking matters, right? It's like if you can't do the small things right, how can you be expected to do the big things right? And like, you know, I, I've said this online before, but, like, we're just getting started. Like, you know, Adam talked about this. We're on pace for $20 billion of advertiser spend. When you look at the, like, the two behemoths in the room, combined they do half a trillion dollars of ad spend on the platform, right? Or across their ad platforms. So, like, there is so much room for us to grow, and when you're able to get into the weeds, make sure that you're suc- you're succeeding for your advertisers, and, and by the way, a lot of times, like, we do deliver better results for advertisers. But m- they may not move budget at, in the b- in the beginning because, like, they're not focused on us or they're focused on other things. Like, it's important that you get in there and you make them care about your business, right? And, and that's actually one of the, I'd say, o- one of the superpowers I have is that when I reach out to these customers, they're like, "What the hell is this billionaire reaching out to me for an extra $5,000?" It's like, goes to show, like, we're very serious about your business. Like, we really care about working with you. You're not just a number in a spreadsheet to us.
- 24:15 – 30:42
Two years of persistence to land one customer
- DSDavid Senra
Is this just like a persistence thing? Like, um, I just read Ari Emanuel's new book, and his whole thing, I- th- he's gonna come on the show, and one of the things I wanna ask him is just, like, does literally just calling people over and over again actually work? 'Cause people do this with me. They're like, "Hey, I wanna get in touch with you." And they're like, "I'm just gonna email you every day till you respond." It's like, you're getting blocked immediately.
- RVRafael Vivas
Yeah.
- DSDavid Senra
[laughs] Like, that's just not gonna work with me.
- RVRafael Vivas
If you just email people, like, nonstop, right, and just send them useless stuff, like, they're just gonna tune you out, and as you said, you'll block them. I think what matters is, like, you're persistent, but you're always figuring out ways to deliver value for the customer, right? So, like-
- DSDavid Senra
So give me an example of that
- RVRafael Vivas
... so it's a really funny story. So, you know, we're going to Miami after this, and there is this guy called Nadir Khan. He ru- he ran a business, an apps business out of, out of, uh, Miami, sold it for a few hundred million dollars. And, uh, it took me two years to get ahold of him, and every single time I'd reached out to him, it was about ways that they could make more revenue, right? Whether it was like, "Hey, this level could be optimized," or, "You should be showing ads here." Or like, "Hey, in this market, you're, like, you're dropping the ball here." And there was this inside joke, uh, within their company, which was, "We wish we had a Rafael Vivas at our, you know, on our team, because this guy's always, like, on top of things, trying to help us become better." And eventually, he, like, responded back to me. He goes, "You are one of the most persistent folks that I've ever encountered in my whole entire life." And then after that, we started doing a lot of business together, and we helped them grow dramatically.
- DSDavid Senra
Okay, so you're- it's not like, "Hey, I'm gonna keep bothering you, calling you, emailing you, 'cause I want something from you. I'm going to keep getting in contact with you and delivering value, and you'll just realize after I tell you six good ideas, 'Hey, maybe I should take this call.'"
- RVRafael Vivas
Exactly, right? And, and also, it's not like a lot of times, like, these people don't think that your ideas are good. It's just like they have other things going on, right? It may not be the right time. They may not have the right people. It's important to always stay in their ear. Like, uh, you said, right? If you're delivering value, like, these people will eventually wanna work with you.
- DSDavid Senra
What do you think are some of the other parts of AppLovin culture that's very different from the inside that you, uh, that you would compare to, like, some of the other companies that you may see?
- RVRafael Vivas
The really big difference about us is, like, we are very, very hands-on. That's what I touched on before, but, like, even Adam sometimes will set up campaigns, or, like, we'll be checking in on these small clients. And, uh, I, I would say, like, really just, like, giving a shit, like, really caring is one of the biggest things for us. Uh, a- and then also, like, um, I, I would say, like, we lead with bad news internally. [laughs] Like, you know, a lot of companies, like, you know, they're like, "Hoorah." Like, you know, "We have this, you know, we, we did this thing, and it's great for our business." And like, but a lot of the internal AppLovin, like, monologue is like, "This sucks, this sucks, this sucks, this sucks." Like, w- like, and then, like, we just tackle it one by one to go and improve it, right? I would say those are really the, the two big things.
- DSDavid Senra
You guys seem to be, like, immune to the, like, your stock price volatility, too. Like, I remember, uh, something happened recently, and I didn't, uh, I don't pay attention to the news, so I don't even see this.
- RVRafael Vivas
Yep.
- DSDavid Senra
But, uh, I think it dropped by, like, quite a bit for some reason. And I had called Adam, and he'd called me back, like, right away, and I just had, like, a joke for him that had nothing to do with anything.
- RVRafael Vivas
Yeah.
- DSDavid Senra
And, like, he was, like, laughing, and he was in a good mood. And then I found out after the fact, in fact, we were flying back from a, a recording, and then somebody on the plane had told me, they're like, "Dude, their stock dropped by, like, I don't know, 20% today."
- RVRafael Vivas
Yeah.
- DSDavid Senra
I was like, you would never know talking to him.
- RVRafael Vivas
Yeah.
- DSDavid Senra
He just did not give a shit.
- RVRafael Vivas
We don't care about the short term, right? And we don't care about the short term because ultimately, if we feel like we're doing the right things for our business and, and growing, ultimately the stock price will reflect that, right? And, you know, you saw the company, uh, went to one point, worth $3 billion, you know, or actually, sorry, $4 billion. So, like, the stock dropped over 90%. So, like, being cut by 20% or being cut by half is just like another day in the NFL for us. Like, it, it's doesn't, doesn't phase us. As long as we know we're doing the right things and helping our customers grow, the score will take care of itself.
- DSDavid Senra
Now, I've heard you say, uh, in other places too, that, like, o- one of your goals is, like, to, to build AppLovin into a durable business where it actually outlives you.
- RVRafael Vivas
Yes.
- DSDavid Senra
Where'd you get that idea?
- RVRafael Vivas
Purpose is extremely important in life. And for me, you know, I, I'm probably not gonna be the guy who cures cancer, and, um, you know, I, or I'm not gonna, you know, build AI or robots or anything like that. But what I'm very confident that we can build is a business that will be able to help, uh, companies grow m- many, many, many years past w- you know, our lifetime. Uh, and that to me, if I can do that successfully, I would say I've succeeded in my lifetime, personally.
- DSDavid Senra
So is that what, why you're still working? Is that why it keeps you going? 'Cause, like, there's some people, I, I was just, uh, at this, uh, event in, in England, and one guy sold his company for like $13 billion, and he's kinda, like, chomping at the bit to get back in the game, you know? He doesn't regret the sale, but he's just like, "I can't be an employee. I have to have a, a company. I have to have, like, some kind of vehicle for all my creativity and my energy." And he, but he said his other cofounders are just fine. They made, you know, a billion dollars each or whatever the case was, and he's just like, they're, like, building houses, and they're, like, writing angel checks, and they're hanging out on the beach.
- RVRafael Vivas
So it's a few things. O- one, like, when I say, like, we're still early in the game, like, I didn't work 14 years of my life to, like, leave before the game even got started. Like, w- what are we talking about? The job's not done yet, right? Like, we are so early in our life, like, uh, as a business and, like, our impact, like, it makes no sense to me on, like, why I would leave this early. I have to be a part of s- of something bigger than me, right? And bigger than me is helping businesses grow, delivering tens of billions of dollars, hopefully, you know, someday hundreds of billions of dollars of, of value back into the economy. Um, I think that's one of the great things that we do, right, is that as we help these businesses grow profitably, they can hire employees, they can invest in better products, and ultimately, that gets consumers p- uh, purchasing their products more and stimulates the economy. And I think that's something great that I can do for society.
- DSDavid Senra
What happened where you had to, like, take a year off, though? You were, were you just, like, completely burned out? Like, w- tell me the story again.
- RVRafael Vivas
Yeah, so [laughs] I, here's, here's the back story. We started a games business. Um, and the reason of starting games-
- DSDavid Senra
Wait, you s- the ad platform first-
- RVRafael Vivas
Yes
- 30:42 – 38:41
Lion Studios: built to kill a Cheetah
- RVRafael Vivas
and they were one of our biggest publishers, and what they would do [chuckles] is they would, they would just squeeze us, right? Squeeze us in every way possible you could imagine. And like we had an agreement signed with them, and they were like, "Screw the agreement, we don't care about it." Like, you know, and they would just break it all the time. You know, I... There were so many nights I'd stay up when I was staying in the States till 4:00, 5:00 AM to, like, go and manage them and then, you know, spend a lot of time in Asia with the leadership over there too. But throughout this journey, you know, I was thinking to ourselves, like, "We will never be in a position when, like, we are so dependent on, like, one of these partners." And, and we'd also seen what Netflix had done at the time, and w- w- we thought there was this great opportunity, you know, for, you know, owning the vertical really. Like, you know, it w- great, we have the ad platform, but also having our own content as well, you know, you have better economics, you have a distribution advantage, and, like, o- overall, you build more enter- more enterprise value. And by the way, this is, like, not an uncommon business tactic in Asia. Like, the biggest gaming companies in the world are all also distribution companies. Like Tencent being a perfect example, NetEase being a perfect example. These are companies that have other things outside of the games, and they use that to distribute their games. So that's how we, we got into the games business. But, but Cheetah, you know, really pissed me off so bad. It kind of like I told you the story earlier about how we started the ad platform because one of our partners fucked us. I came back to, this partner had, had pushed to the ends of me, and I went to Adam and I said, "It's v- it's very simple. I'm going to leave to go and build this competitor against Cheetah Mobile or I'm gonna do it here. And I, I really wanna do it here because of-
- DSDavid Senra
Wait, wait, pause there. Why is that simple to you? Why would you leave to go build a competitor? It's cheetah, the animal?
- RVRafael Vivas
Yes.
- DSDavid Senra
Okay. To cheetah.
- RVRafael Vivas
Because I had so much rage in my heart [laughs] that I wanted nothing but to, like, dominate those guys.
- DSDavid Senra
[laughs]
- RVRafael Vivas
It wasn't about like, you know... I'm a very simple guy, David, you know? And we talk... I, I, I stay in the $200 hotel. I'll take the, you know, the shitty, you know, uh, commercial airline flight. Um, so, like, money to me, like, of course, like, it's important, but, like, I don't... You know, some people are like, "Hey, I'm gonna make more money and buy a big house." I don't care about any of that, right? Like, for me, when I work, like it's, it's for purpose, and that company w- w- pushed me to a point where I was like, my purpose at this point was to destroy these guys. [laughs]
- DSDavid Senra
[laughs]
- RVRafael Vivas
And so that was really the start of, at the time, Lion Studios. And, and why did I call it Lion Studios? Because lion is the only animal that can kill a cheetah.
- DSDavid Senra
[laughs]
- RVRafael Vivas
And our thesis was, let's go work with the best developers in the world. We have one of the largest distribution platforms in the world, and we'll help distribute their games. And within two years, we built that from zero to over $250 million in revenue and profitably. It was a great business. But throughout that, it was, it was really fucking tough, for two reasons. One, as you can imagine, when you start building games, all of our customers started looking at us as competitors, right?
- DSDavid Senra
Because at the time, the AppLovin is essentially, it's advertising in games, but is it, is it, at this point, you're still just doing game installs?
- RVRafael Vivas
Exactly.
- DSDavid Senra
Okay.
- RVRafael Vivas
Exactly. So we're the new kid on the block doing games, and our partners didn't like that, obviously, right? They looked at us as hostile and, and in reality, you know, there was more benefit, right? We were, we were creating more inventory for the market. This data was helping im- improve our machine learning model, and so we're able to be more efficient at effectively driving, uh, traffic for them. And so they worked with... Like, even though these partners didn't like us, they worked with us 'cause the value we delivered, but there was just a lot of internal stress. And then also the games businesses, they're very hits-driven. You're working around the clock. And our, our best partners that we published games with, they were not sitting in America. They were sitting in, uh, Europe, they were sitting in Asia, you know, all around the world.
- DSDavid Senra
Why do you think they weren't in America?
- RVRafael Vivas
I think they weren't in America r- really for two reasons. One, the, the cost of labor is a lot higher here, and games at a, like the games that we were building at the time, you didn't need the best of the best, right? It was just about getting the most amount of reps as possible. And, and a lot of the games that we built, they're th- these games called hyper-casual. There were these methodologies we'd use to determine what would be a hit game, and a lot of it was just based on, like, how marketable was the game. What we saw was, like, you could get more cost-efficient employees over there, and then also, like, they would just work. They would outhustle the hell out of the American studios. So, like, you know, we'd interview these people at some of these game studios and, you know, they'd be like, "Yeah, I worked 9:00 to 5:00. I, I handled this, like, really small part of the equation at, at this, you know, for this game studio." They'd have these bloated teams. Versus like, I would go meet, like, it is actually a perfect example. There was this team called Game 5 Mobile. We released a game that did, you know, close to $100 million in revenue together called Happy Glass. It was a husband, wife, and little brother. And they were so poor that they all lived in the same house, and their house was also their office. And I think at one point, and I, you know, I may be wrong or right here, I'm pretty sure they all slept in the same bed.
- DSDavid Senra
[laughs]
- RVRafael Vivas
I think this is literally how-
- DSDavid Senra
Yeah
- RVRafael Vivas
... how poor these guys were. So, so when you come from that, right, like you can't compete against somebody like that, right? They will die before they fail, right? And I think, you know, the, two things. One, those, like, partners, like they're incredible to work with, but it also drove me to work harder, right? Because I saw what they came from, and I know this was their big shot. I loved making people like that successful. They were the underdog. Nobody had believed in them. And, and actually, it was funny, this company, Game 5, these three people, they worked I think at HP. They took this bet on this game studio, and for them, like if it didn't work in like the next month, they were gonna have to go get jobs again. So it was like make or break for them.
- DSDavid Senra
I found one of my all-time favorite quotes when I was reading the book Zero to One. The quote says, "The single most powerful pattern I have noticed is that successful people find value in unexpected places, and they do this by thinking about business from first principles instead of formulas." That is exactly what AppLovin has done with their advertising platform. AppLovin connects you with over a billion potential new customers in mobile games. AppLovin allows you to capture undivided attention. AppLovin ads are full-screen videos that are watched for an average of thirty-five seconds. That is retention that blows other ad platforms out of the water, and you can launch on AppLovin in minutes. You set the goal, and AppLovin achieves it. No complex setup, no expertise needed. And AppLovin scales quickly. They can put your ads in front of over a billion potential customers. Other businesses have seen immediate results, scaled to hundreds of thousands of dollars of spend per day, and increased their revenue by millions. So you wanna get started quickly before all of your competitors are on AppLovin, and you can do that by going to applovin.com. That's applovin.com. Your story is similar, uh, where you've told me in the past where it's just like you're the kind of person who's just like, "I couldn't go back. I got kicked out of my house. I'm moving into the office." Like, this either works or I die.
- RVRafael Vivas
Yes.
- DSDavid Senra
That was literally what you said.
- RVRafael Vivas
Yep.
- DSDavid Senra
Like, there is no turning back. Uh, like, I'm going to die. I'm going to suc- it's like 50 Cent. It's like get rich or die trying.
- RVRafael Vivas
Yeah.
- DSDavid Senra
I'm gonna succeed or die trying.
- RVRafael Vivas
Yeah. I mean, I would... [laughs] It's funny. A girl- I dated a girl at the time and, and I told her I'm going complete Black Mamba, and when I would work-
- DSDavid Senra
[laughs]
- 38:41 – 44:13
Walking away from AppLovin at 28
- RVRafael Vivas
So I did that for two years, and I kind of... At, at two years in, I kind of put my man up again, like, from the frame. I realized like, "Oh, shit, this business does, like, not need me anymore, actually."
- DSDavid Senra
This is the game studio or the-
- RVRafael Vivas
The game, the game studio.
- DSDavid Senra
Okay.
- RVRafael Vivas
It was a game publishing business.
- DSDavid Senra
Okay.
- RVRafael Vivas
So, like, the, the way that I would, I would, like, compare it to, like, Universal Music Group, right? Like, we had the distribution. We'd go find talented game developers and, like, bring their games to the masses. And by the way, we drove over 20 games to number one, over three billion downloads. Like, this was an incredible business, and we were one of the biggest at the time. I'd gotten to the business to a point where I was no longer mission critical, and at that same time, I started, like, reflecting on myself and I was like, "Oh, okay, so, like, the business no longer needs you to succeed," right? And we'd also done other acquisitions that had helped heat up of other game studios. So, like, w- what do I really wanna focus on? And for me, like, making a family was really important to me, right? Like, I was 28 when I took a step away from the business, and I was like, "I need to start thinking about, like, having children." This was something that was always really important to me. I always knew I wanted to be a father. And so I took some time off from the business. It's funny you say a year, but I wasn't really good at taking time off, 'cause three, three months in, I started going crazy and just started building products for fun. But yeah, I moved to Miami at the time because San Francisco was so depressing. COVID, everything was shut down. I went to Miami. It was supposed to be just, like, a, a vacation for, like, a weekend, and I was like, "Oh my God, COVID doesn't exist here."
- DSDavid Senra
Yeah.
- RVRafael Vivas
Like, everything's open. And then, um, you know, ended up planning my roots there and meeting the love of my life and having a family.
- DSDavid Senra
Yeah, I was there during that time too. [laughs]
- RVRafael Vivas
Yeah. [laughs]
- DSDavid Senra
I remember 'cause, like, o- one of my favorite pizza spots is Lucali-
- RVRafael Vivas
Yeah
- DSDavid Senra
... in Sunset Harbor, and at the time you used to go up... First of all, there would be, like, never a wait, and then there started being a wait during COVID, and you, you would put your phone number, and I kept seeing all these, like, 415 and 212 area codes-
- RVRafael Vivas
Yeah, yeah, yeah
- DSDavid Senra
... 'cause everybody from San Francisco [chuckles] and New York came-
- RVRafael Vivas
Mm-hmm
- DSDavid Senra
... to Miami at that point. So wait, you take a, a sabbat- like, how, how did you frame this with Adam? Was it a sabbatical? Like, what did, what did you say? "I'm, I'm fucking done forever"? Like-
- RVRafael Vivas
Yeah, so this was, uh, [laughs] I wasn't really good at breaking the news to him, right? This was like, you know, Adam's like a bigger brot- a big brother to me, and so I waited for my birthday. You know, I, I'd actually been, like, diary-ing it for a while of kind of like what... Indirectly, I was actually just kind of, uh, kind of knew I wanted to take time off. I'd say about a year before, I was, I was just writing about, like, what are the things that the business... Like, where am I the bottleneck, and where does the business need to be in a place where, like, I don't exist but here for it? So I, I kind of just started marking things off the list, and before I knew it, like, everything had been accomplished and, like, you know, I, I could not be around and new games were being released and revenue was growing. And so I called Adam, and, uh, I was like, "Hey, like, you know, uh, it's my birthday." He was like, "Happy birthday," of course. And I was like, "Hey, I wanna take some time off from the business." And Adam is not a very emotional guy. He was just like, "Are you sure?" I was like, "Yeah." He was like, "Well, I respect whatever you wanna do." And then we kind of, like, ended the conversation. And then what happened after that was, like, a lot of people calling me being like, "What the hell are you thinking?" or "What are you doing?" My brother, this guy Harold Chen, all these guys, they're trying to convince me to stay. They're trying to offer all me all these different packages. And I was like, it has nothing to do about the money. It's like the business is in a immediate succeed, and there's other things in my life I wanna go and accomplish. And so I took a step away from the business. I would say, like, from that conversation, probably it was supposed to be, like, a six-month transition, but within three months I was, I was kind of out.
- DSDavid Senra
At the time, though, did you think, "I'm out of AppLovin for good"?
- RVRafael Vivas
Oh yeah, I thought I was gonna go off to the sunset and enjoy my life and chill on a beach and never work again. Um, but you realize very quickly that it's a very fucking depressing life. Like, there's no purpose.
- DSDavid Senra
We should have a fucking ad in every one of our episodes about this. It's like, go these post-exit founders that have never found something else to work on is, like, the wor- mis- most miserable souls to be around.
- RVRafael Vivas
Yeah, and, and to double click on it, you know, uh, so- I like, I to- you, you know I love playing video games. What you realize is that, like, on a Wednesday afternoon, you have no one to play games with. None of your friends are around. They're all fucking productive. They're doing things, right? So you have no one to hang out with. It gets lonely. But then I started, you know, I started working on these businesses, and, and actually, this double-clicks into, like, what drives me. What I realized is, like, you know, I'd found this great tech team, and we were working together and working on all these products. I didn't c- one, I didn't care about the products we were building with. I had no connection with them. For me it was just like-
- DSDavid Senra
You're talking about the ones you're doing in your sabbatical?
- RVRafael Vivas
Yeah, my s- my sabbatical.
- DSDavid Senra
Yeah.
- RVRafael Vivas
I was like, oh, I just, like, opportunistically, like, hey, I think this vertical's right. The KPIs look good. Let's, let's go and build into it. So that was, like, one thing. One funny thing is I ran a dating show for a little bit. Don't recommend that, that business.
- DSDavid Senra
You ran a dating show?
- RVRafael Vivas
Yeah, it was, uh, Love or Fame. The idea was that you come and you... It, it was on a mobile phone, and you would compete for love or fame. Uh, but imagine watching 12 hours a day of dating shows. [laughs] You wanna jump out of, out of a window. So, so that wasn't for me. Uh, and then the second thing is, like, I-
- DSDavid Senra
Sure. You, you take time off to go on a beach. You're not even on a beach.
- 44:13 – 45:44
The IPO that brought him back
- RVRafael Vivas
we're New York Stock Exchange, ringing the bell. We're all hanging out, and-
- DSDavid Senra
So when you go public, you're still outside of the company?
- RVRafael Vivas
Still outside of the company.
- DSDavid Senra
Got it. Okay.
- RVRafael Vivas
Great shape, by the way. [laughs]
- DSDavid Senra
[laughs]
- RVRafael Vivas
So yeah, so go, uh, you know, go there. Uh, we ring the bell, and, like, first day out, stock drops, right? And, um, you know, I'm talking to people there, and, you know, things, they were... The company is still growing, but, like, there was definitely some flaws within the business. And it was, like, very clear to me that, like, I need to be here. Like, this is my calling.
- DSDavid Senra
You found your purpose.
- RVRafael Vivas
This is my company. And, you know, we were drinking our sorrows away. I wouldn't say partying, because it wasn't, like, a, a, a super happy moment. You know, y- y- your IPO happens and your stock immediately drops after. And Adam, you know, he looked at me and he was like, "Hey, um, I'm hearing from people you're thinking about coming." And I was like, "I'm fucking in." And then I've been here ever since. I got drawn back in through the purpose of the business, and I knew there was a lot more I could be doing here.
- DSDavid Senra
Do you think you would've made that decision if the business was ripping, in a good spot, and the stock price was going up?
- RVRafael Vivas
I think I would've, because at that point there would've been nothing else for me to offer to the company, or no value that I could deliver. I mean, if, if-
- DSDavid Senra
So you would've stayed out of it?
- RVRafael Vivas
I would've stayed out of it and I would've had to figure something else out. But I felt like at that point, the business needed me.
- DSDavid Senra
And this is where, I think you guys go public something like 28 billion market cap or something like that, and it goes down, I think, like, almost, like, every day for, like, 200 days or something like this.
- RVRafael Vivas
Yes.
- DSDavid Senra
This is the legendary stock buyback?
- 45:44 – 1:01:01
The stock buyback that made $50 billion
- RVRafael Vivas
Yes, yes, yeah.
- DSDavid Senra
Which we should retell this story now-
- RVRafael Vivas
Yes
- DSDavid Senra
... because it's incredible.
- RVRafael Vivas
The company's crashing. It's funny. It's like it's inverse, right? Stock is crashing, revenue's going up. And so, like, Adam tells the story better than anybody, but, you know, he just doubled down on, on buying AppLovin stock and, uh, levered up the company, and it was one of the greatest returns of all time, right?
- DSDavid Senra
Yeah, 'cause I think at the time you, I think you went down to $3.8 billion market cap, right? Something like that.
- RVRafael Vivas
Yep.
- DSDavid Senra
But I think you guys were doing, like, a billion in cashflow or something.
- RVRafael Vivas
Yes.
- DSDavid Senra
Right?
- RVRafael Vivas
Yeah, yeah.
- DSDavid Senra
And so the idea is, like, let's take, no one else is gonna buy the, our stock.
- RVRafael Vivas
Yep.
- DSDavid Senra
Let's, let's take this billion in cashflow, start buying back our stock, and then at one point the company reaped, like, a $50 billion windfall-
- RVRafael Vivas
Yes
- DSDavid Senra
... on that decision to buy back the stock.
- RVRafael Vivas
Yes, yes, yes. Um, and it was funny because at the time we, uh, you know, we were thinking if the stock continues dropping, we're just gonna buy the company and take it private, kind of like Michael Dell did with his own company, right? So that was, that was kind of, uh, one of the directories we were gonna go if, if it didn't keep freefalling, because we thought it was such an incredible business and we knew we wanted to continue running it.
- DSDavid Senra
Well, that was gonna be my que- next question to you. Like, when this is happening, you're like, "Okay, we went public 28, now we're down to 3.8," you're not, like, stressed?
- RVRafael Vivas
No, because you're talking to a guy who my hobbies are, are, like, $15 a month. [laughs] You know, like, I play, like, a game of World of Warcraft, right? It's like a subscription. I, you know, I hang out with the same friends I did in high school, uh, or people I work with. Um, you know, I wear clothing that's, like, a f- you know, pretty cheap. I don't have, like, these extravagant tastes. Like, I, I think what ends up happening with a lot of these people is that their lifestyle creeps a lot more than what they end up, you know, having. That was something that, that never had happened to me, and so I was never concerned about cashflow. I knew we had a great business and, and, you know, it was still growing, so I was just like, "You know, let's, let's double down on what we have."
- DSDavid Senra
Is, like, frugality, like, a company, uh... Like, is that something you guys talk about inside in the company? 'Cause, like, I remember talking to Adam, and at the time the stock price was amazing. At, on paper he's worth, like, 20 billion.
- RVRafael Vivas
Yep.
- DSDavid Senra
And he's, like, taking JetBlue.
- RVRafael Vivas
Yeah.
- DSDavid Senra
And then I introduced him to my friend Patrick, and he was, like, I think doing, like, investor meetings. He was, like, flying, like, Southwest or something.
- RVRafael Vivas
Yeah.
- DSDavid Senra
It was, like, a normal, like, budget airline. It's like, what is this guy doing? [laughs]
- RVRafael Vivas
Yeah, so I, I think it's less about, like, you know, we're, we're talking about frugality, but, you know, if you look at dashboards all day, and the main KPI you're looking at is return on ad spend. Like, we think about life like that. [laughs] Like, how much return am I gonna get for my investment, right? If I can get to the same place at the same time, but, you know, one is 10X cheaper, why wouldn't I take that every time? I think that was really kind of the mindset of it. So it was less about frugality, but, like, the return wasn't there for it.
- DSDavid Senra
What is this relentless focus you, you guys have on the amount of employees you have in the business?
- RVRafael Vivas
Yeah, so, like, the thing for us is like-
- DSDavid Senra
Is that, uh, or same situation, like, we can hit this much revenue with half the... It's like a, almost like a demonstration of, like, an actual skill set of an entrepreneur. It's like, I can do twice as more with half of what-
- 1:01:01 – 1:03:54
The mentor who redlined the NDA
- DSDavid Senra
AppLovin?
- RVRafael Vivas
Yeah, so there's this guy called Mark Rosner, and he was my mentor. And before we had a lawyer, he was our in-house counsel.
- DSDavid Senra
What was his position at AppLovin?
- RVRafael Vivas
So he was our CRO, and-
- DSDavid Senra
Okay
- RVRafael Vivas
... how we got a hold of Mark was, uh, he ran, he was at the point he was the CEO of this company called Zedge, which did ringtones and wallpapers, and he, like, broke off on his own, and he had this blog called Applied Revenue. It was just talking about, like, ways to make more revenue on apps and just within the mobile app ecosystem and- I told Adam, "Hey, like, we want to work with Zedge, and, like, this guy seems pretty intelligent. Like, you should reach out to him." What turned into, like, potentially was going to be a consultant, we decided he would come in as a CRO. What was hilarious that when Mark first met Adam, and they were doing, like, the sit-down, Adam put an NDA in front of him. And, uh, you know, most people just sign the NDA. And, uh, Mark says, "Hey, can I get, like, 15 minutes?" Adam steps out of the room. And, like, Adam comes back from the room, and, uh, a- Adam calls me in with him, and, like, the whole thing is, like, marked up. And he's like, "I can't agree to this, I can't agree to that, I can't agree here." And immediately I was like, you know, pull Adam to the side, right? I whisper in his ear. I was like, "We can't trust this guy." Like, there's no way we can work with this guy if... Like, what type of fucking human being is gonna s- like, redline an NDA, like, uh, for a company they're interviewing for? Like, what are they gonna do, is- share trade secrets? Adam had a different perspective. He goes, "This guy, if he was this diligent to take the time to redline the agreement and go over detail, this is somebody that we want to work with." Mark came on board. We ended up hiring him. And initially, we did not get along well at all, actually. So he was managing the, the supply side. I was focused on the demand side. I brought in a ton of demand. He was working on publishers. And what ended up happening was over time, I ended up working, uh, on his team. I say team, 'cause it was only one person. [laughs] So I ended up working under him. And initially, you know, w- what wasn't a great relationship turned into, like, a great mentorship. Because what Mark saw was this raw kid who had a ton of energy, who had a ton of skill, but it wasn't honed yet. He always pushed me, uh, to, like, really di- div- dig into the details. Like, when we do contracts, make sure that we're very specific about what we do. Um, and going back to, like I told you, like, we didn't have an in-house counsel. Like, Mark probably did over 200 agreements himself, and we only got screwed on one of them. Like, his, his hit record is incredible. When we hired our first lawyer, and he started redlining agreements, he would redline our lawyer's agreement.
- DSDavid Senra
[laughs]
- RVRafael Vivas
Like, also, the best Mark Rosner story, and, and by the way, he's gonna hate that I'm bringing him up. Mark doesn't hate anybody besides the one guy that he lent 20 bucks to when he was in fifth grade. He still sees him at temple today. [laughs] So, like, you're talking about a guy that, like, every detail matters to him. And actually to kind of, like, go, like, further into the story, so at one point, you know, my grandmother, she had breast cancer. I had to go to the hospital.
- 1:03:54 – 1:05:46
“Do you want to be Michael Jordan or Tiger Woods?”
- RVRafael Vivas
And, uh, there was this deal that we were working on. It took months. It was, uh, it was a company, uh, actually out of, uh, a little outside of LA. And we were so happy we got the deal done and, like, you know, I was working on the agreement while in the hospital, and I sent it out, and they signed it, and I signed it. And, um, Mark calls me, and, you know, I was, I was expecting him to be like, "Oh, how is your grandmother doing?" He's like, "Raf, you screwed up big time on this deal. Um, there's, like, this, you know, one, one point that you're off, effectively it was off by, like, 1% or 2%." And I was like, "Mark," like, "are you kidding me? We spent months. I can't go back to the client. I can't have this conversation with them." And he was just like, "Do you want to be Michael Jordan or Tiger Woods?" And just hung up the phone. And it, we're following up with me, following up with the client, renegotiating the deal. The, as you can imagine, the client's very irate. And, uh, you know, we got the deal done, and then he called me back, and he was like, "Good job." You know? Like, he, he, like, that was the type of guy who mentored me. And so that's why I cared so much about every single detail, because for him, it, it wasn't good enough unless it was perfect.
- DSDavid Senra
Yeah, I think, well, you- a very common trait around people that, like, where excellence is their North Star, they get to the top of their profession is just, like, you'll hear them say the same maxim over and over again. It's like how you do one thing is how you do everything. There are no small details.
- RVRafael Vivas
Yep. And The Score Will Take Care of Itself, which is a book about Bill Walsh and, you know, the 49ers. When he took over the team, it was a losing team, and then it ran- it won over three Super Bowls under his, um, management, was about every little detail, every little thing h- between that, like how they showed up on practice on time, how they answered the phones, how the locker rooms were. Everything, it was, it was focused on, like, every detail. All the actions that you do are more important than focusing on the scoreboard. Because if you do all the little things right, then the score will take care of itself.
- DSDavid Senra
So that's great advice that Mark gave you. What's the best advice that you've ever received?
- 1:05:46 – 1:06:56
The best advice he ever received: stay in the game
- RVRafael Vivas
The best advice I ever received is staying in the game. When it, when it hurts, when you want to quit, that's, that's when you know you're having growth in your career. And there's been many times in my career where, and this has come from my brother, where I've wanted to throw in the towel, and it's, "I've already won. You know, why, why am I doing this? Um, you know, I don't need to be working this hard." And he's just like, "Sack up. You know, work your ass off. And, like, if you're feeling this pain, that's because you're growing." And so I think that was the best advice I ever got in my career.
- DSDavid Senra
I think it's probably the best advice anybody could ever get. Just stay in the game. It's awesome.
- RVRafael Vivas
Thank you.
- DSDavid Senra
Raf, this was awesome, man. I had high expectations for this conversation. You exceeded them. I really appreciate you trusting me and actually letting me twist your arm-
- RVRafael Vivas
[laughs]
- DSDavid Senra
... and making you do the podcast. I hope we can run this back again in the future. Thanks.
- RVRafael Vivas
Thanks, Seth.
- DSDavid Senra
I hope you enjoyed this episode. Please remember to subscribe wherever you're listening and leave a review, and make sure you listen to my other podcast, Founders. For almost a decade, I've obsessively read over 400 biographies of history's greatest entrepreneurs, searching for ideas that you can use in your work. Most of the guests you hear on this show first found me through Founders. [upbeat music]
Episode duration: 1:06:56
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Transcript of episode IdvsD61Rmmk
