3 Profitable Business Ideas From A Private Equity Guy | Sahil Bloom (#384)

Sahil Bloom 0:00 Mobile, uh, podcast and video studio. Buy, like, a few vans, kit them out with, like, a pretty fire setup-

Sam Parr 0:07 [laughs]

Sahil Bloom 0:08 ... just in the back of, like, a normal sized van. Doesn't even have to be an RV for, like, two to three people could fit. Deck it out with, like, a few good DSLR cameras that can do the recording. Like, dual camera setup so that you have, like, a few mics hanging off the sides. And basically go and post it up in a couple of major cities, like, one van in each major city, and rent it out for, like, 500 bucks for two hours to do podcast recordings or, like, you know, a couple of hundred bucks to do, like, people going in and filming Instagram shorts, TikToks, shit like that. Like, if you put one in LA and you put one in New York City, I bet you could kill it. [upbeat music]

Sam Parr 0:45 What's going on? Who's, who's the guest, Shaan? You wanna give the intro?

Shaan Puri 0:47 We got Sahil here. The man who answers the question: What would happen if Shaan was better looking, smarter, harder working?

Sam Parr 0:54 [laughs]

Shaan Puri 0:54 Sahil Bloom is here. [laughs]

Sahil Bloom 0:56 Definitely not smarter.

Shaan Puri 0:57 [laughs] Yeah, but don't dispute those other two. [laughs]

Sahil Bloom 1:02 [laughs] I'm just screwing with you.

Sam Parr 1:04 So-

Sahil Bloom 1:04 Uh, what's up, guys? Happy to be here

Shaan Puri 1:05 ... how often do you get your hair cut? Let's start with the most important question.

Sahil Bloom 1:09 Uh, you know, like, every other week at this point. Now my wife is making fun of me for this 'cause, like, it used to be that I'd go once a month, wasn't a big deal, and now I'm going, like, every other week 'cause I like to keep it tight, and she keeps giving me shit 'cause we have a little newborn at home, and I'm like, "Oh, I gotta go, gotta go." Um-

Shaan Puri 1:26 Right

Sahil Bloom 1:26 ... so yeah, it's becoming an issue.

Shaan Puri 1:27 As long as you don't call it a hair appointment. That's the only thing you can't do. If you say, "I got a hair appointment," then you're out as a guy. [laughs]

Sahil Bloom 1:34 The place just can't be called a salon. That's always been my rule.

Sam Parr 1:36 [laughs]

Sahil Bloom 1:36 It's gotta be a barber shop.

Sam Parr 1:37 You seem, you seem like, [laughs] you seem like a salon guy, though.

Sahil Bloom 1:40 Dude, look at you, man.

Shaan Puri 1:41 The first thing you touch your hair.

Sahil Bloom 1:41 You're wearing, like, a... You got, like, a Werther sweater on. You look like you're getting ready for Christmas.

Sam Parr 1:45 [laughs]

Sahil Bloom 1:45 It's like it's 85 degrees in Austin, Texas today.

Shaan Puri 1:47 Yeah.

Sahil Bloom 1:48 So-

Shaan Puri 1:48 Are we, are we at your, like, book reading for your, for your book right now, Sam?

Sahil Bloom 1:51 [laughs] Yeah.

Shaan Puri 1:51 What are you doing?

Sam Parr 1:52 It actually does look like you should have a fireplace in the background, and you're gonna be, like, reading us nice stories in a soothing voice. I'm definitely drinking tea right now. Uh, so [laughs] basically, like, your bio is pretty easy. You were a nobody private equity guy.

Sahil Bloom 2:05 [laughs]

Sam Parr 2:06 The pandemic hit.

Shaan Puri 2:07 [laughs]

Sam Parr 2:08 The pandemic hit, and you're like, "I'm gonna be somebody." In a matter of two years, you got famous on Twitter. What do we, what do we have? 9 or 800,000 followers. So you got famous on Twitter and basically transformed your life all because of Twitter and COVID. Is that right?

Sahil Bloom 2:23 [laughs] I mean, the nobody private equity guy designation is not unreasonable.

Sam Parr 2:28 [laughs]

Sahil Bloom 2:28 Uh, I mean, that's like... I, I think that's totally fair. I mean, there's a lot of nobody, like, finance guys that are making bank out there though, right? Like-

Shaan Puri 2:35 That would've-

Sahil Bloom 2:35 It's, uh-

Shaan Puri 2:36 That would've stung, but now you're, like, famous and stuff, so now it's okay to, to laugh at it.

Sahil Bloom 2:41 I mean, I don't know. Like, do, do you think it stings, like, the... if you're making pretty good money doing something like that? I mean, VPs in private equity at this point, if you're doing well, like, you're making seven figures as a VP in private equity.

Shaan Puri 2:52 Name four of them.

Sahil Bloom 2:53 Yeah.

Sam Parr 2:53 [laughs]

Sahil Bloom 2:54 What, what about-

Shaan Puri 2:55 [laughs]

Sam Parr 2:55 Dude, I hung out with some PE guys the other day, and I didn't know them well enough, but obviously I just, in the back of my head, I was just, "How rich are you?" And that's, like, just what I wanted to keep asking. Are... If you own a PE shop, is it safe to assume that you're just wealthy, and how much do they actually earn?

Sahil Bloom 3:11 Yeah, I mean, if you are, [clears throat] if you are a GP, so, like, one of the principal owners of a private equity fund, and you've been doing it, like, across multiple funds that have performed well over a period of time, it's pretty safe to assume that you've got a net worth north of $50 million. Because, I mean, you just, like... Simple math on it, right? Most of those funds are taking, like, 1 1/2 to 2% management fees on... You know, if you're running a big fund, 500 million plus, 1 billion plus if it's, like, a real substantial fund. So there's, you know, 20 million plus coming in a year on a billion dollar fund. Uh, and realistically, most of them don't have that many employees, so they're not having to actually pay out a ton of that in terms of, like, you know, operating costs. And then you have carry, and they're taking, you know, 15, 20, 25%, uh, of profits above their hurdle rate, whatever that is, 8%. So you're like, you know, you're talking about if they double the funds, there's $200 million plus of carry to go around. And so the principal owners of those are taking the lion's share of that, you know, back carry.

Sam Parr 4:09 Which is how much?

Sahil Bloom 4:10 I mean, if there's 200 million, and their principal owner owns 20, 30% of that, it's a shit ton of money.

Sam Parr 4:16 And the th- I think that I've always... I can't decide if it's jealousy because I'm like, "You guys are making m- a lot of money for what feels like not a lot of work," or if it's actually I dislike them because I feel as though they're just, like, Excel sh- sheet monkeys and they're, like, not actually creating value. What... where's the reality?

Sahil Bloom 4:34 No, I mean, they work crazy hard, man. I, I don't, um, I don't know anyone that is a longtime GP, uh, in private equity that doesn't work, you know, 70-plus hours a week of, like, stressful work. I mean, it's the type of thing Shaan would absolutely hate. Like, y- you think about, like, people that care about leverage on their time. It's, like, pretty piss-poor leverage, and it's high-stress work because you're putting a bunch of debt on these companies typically. And, you know, during a downturn, like right now, right, it's hugely stressful 'cause you're constantly dealing with, like, breaking covenants on the debt and having to restructure and... You know, like, basically what ends up happening is you spend 80% of your time on the, like, couple of losers in the portfolio, and the winners you just, like, kinda get to set and forget it 'cause they're growing. They're... You know, you're getting, like, a levered upside on them 'cause you put, you know, 70% leverage to buy the company, 60% leverage to buy the company, and you're just, like, eating off those couple of winners. But you're dealing constantly with the ones that are losers.

Sam Parr 5:27 So Shaan and I have our hand in this world where, like, we've definitely sell and have sold courses and information stuff. We also have a podcast, and so th- that, that's, like, this, like, personality world. But then we also have built, uh, nice-sized companies, and we will continue to build, very likely, much bigger companies, and so we have our foot in that world. For you, you have your foot in, like, the PE world as well as the thing that we're in, this information thing. Where do you think... Do you think that one... Do you think that the information world or whatever we call this thing is actually a, uh, is it an equal, uh, r- revenue or net worth driver as, like, some of the traditional company building or PE stuff?

Sahil Bloom 6:06 Yeah, I mean, like, I think y- you have to think about it in terms of, like, your, uh, you know, profit potential multiplied by, like, the freedom and time freedom that comes with it, right? To like, get to, like, kind of an adjusted profit that you can generate from something. Doing it in PE and, like, making $50 million in PE from a time-adjusted standpoint is a r- is a pretty grindy way to go do it. It's like high certainty. If you're just on... If you're at a good fund, and you're rolling with a good fund, and you're, like, gonna be a partner there, and you're gonna get more and more carry across, you know, bigger and bigger funds, it's a pretty low beta way to go and generate that type of, you know, that type of net worth. But you're gonna be working your ass off until you're, like, 60 years old doing it. Versus, you know, you go on the information side, uh, into the information economy, and you're, like, doing newsletter, doing podcast, courses, stuff that you guys are doing where you're like, you know, Shaan might do his course, and in a week, make 300K, uh, and then be able to chill for, you know, two, three months if he wants to because who cares, right? It's like, it's just a totally different time leverage. Um, so I don't know. It, it sort of depends on, like, what you wanna do in that regard.

Shaan Puri 7:11 Dude, what's your, what's your job now?

Sahil Bloom 7:13 I mean, I kinda do, like, 10 different things. Um, I've got the fund. You know, like, so I ended up raising the fund. I didn't do the rolling fund like Shaan, but I've got a $10 million venture fund that I raised from, you know, a handful of institutions, and then a bunch of, like, the GPs at big funds invested in it, and basically, like, kinda share deal flow. Um, I've got the newsletter, which, you know, monetizes, like... Well, we can talk about it, but like, you know, with newsletter sponsors now. It's 125ish thousand subs, and, you know, it makes anywhere from, like, three and a half to $6,000 per send right now. And I send it, you know, eight to 10 times a month. So, um, you know, pretty nice, just, like, business that scales to your point on, like, time leverage. I write the same two newsletters a week, and it's a pretty nice business. Um, and then I have this agency business that frankly, like, started just because it was, like, something that I saw, you know, as an arbitrage opportunity early in, like, 2021. And it ended up scaling into, like, you know, order of magnitude, probably, like, close to six figures a month, um, gross revenue business with super high margins. And so I kinda just, like, kept doing it and kept walking into different areas with it.

Shaan Puri 8:18 And I don't know if you guys talked about this already. But you had come to us, or you were kinda talking on our group chat about, like, the fork-in-the-road moment you had. You were, like we said before, no-name private equity guy, uh, making good money, and you had started tweeting out stuff, like, pretty regularly, I would say, I don't know, six months or a year before that. Um, and you, you... It was clear you had momentum. It was clear you were good at that. Uh, you were getting followers, maybe had 100,000 or 200,000 followers maybe at that time. I'm just rounding around. And, uh... But it wasn't, you didn't have all these other things, like this clear, like, "I have a fund. I have a newsletter that makes money. I have an agency that makes money." So you didn't know exactly what was on the other side of that hill, and you were debating, "What should I do? Should I s..." You know, the, the fork in the road a lot of people have. "Should I stay in my job that's a good, cushy job, or should I, uh, take this leap of faith into the unkn- unknown?" Give us, like, the two-minute story of, like, you know, how did you think about that, and how'd you decide, and w- w- was that the right way to think about it?

Sahil Bloom 9:13 Yeah, I mean, I, um, like a lot of people, had the, like, COVID moment of, "What the fuck am I doing with my life?" Um, and, you know, "Am I happy doing it?" Like, you know, all of a sudden, for the first time in my life after s- I guess it had been six years working in, in private equity, which at the time, you know, it was, like, 80 to 100-hour weeks, right? So you don't really have time to look up. You don't think about shit 'cause you're just working, and you're, you know, you're making more and more money, and so you're, like, patting yourself on the back. Things are good. You're, you know, you're, you're Indian, Shaan. Like, Indian mother thinks it sounds impressive. You know, things are good. She probably wants you to go get an MD, but it sounds pretty good. Uh, and so I was just like-

Shaan Puri 9:45 I- is that what your mother wanted you to do, Shaan?

Sahil Bloom 9:48 Uh, my mom, yeah, she was, yeah, yeah. That, all those things. She, she definitely was like, "Don't leave a good-paying job." That was just, like, a general rule [laughs] or general rule of thumb.

Shaan Puri 9:58 I mean, my mom, to this day, still asks me why I didn't go to medical school or why I didn't get a PhD, in all seriousness. Like, the In- the Indian mother thing is sort of a meme, but it's also very real. The, like, you know, "You should go work for McKinsey if you're gonna work in, uh, in professional services. That's the only place that is, uh, that's respectable." Um, but yeah,

Shaan Puri 10:18 man. I mean, I was doing that. COVID hit. All of a sudden, I was like, "Ah, what am I doing with my life?" Um, had time on my hands to actually, like, think about other stuff for the first time in my professional life. And so I started, I mean, the Twitter thing, I just, like, I started writing. And I didn't ever think of it as a potential way to, like, go make money or get another job or do something else. But as it started to grow and as it started to spiral, you know, we were in this, like, group chat together, right? And I started seeing friends from the tech world, how they were leveraging, uh, you know, platforms, Twitter, et cetera, to make money. I was like, "Huh, I wonder whether there's a way that I can actually, uh, you know, build, like, a little side hustle with this." You know, like, whether it was courses or whether it was an agency business or, like, w- whatever it was. I never really thought about the fund or investing side at the time. Um, and then candidly, like, I had a conversation with you, Shaan, that I remember being really impactful, where I was, like, at a real crossroads, and I thought I was gonna, I thought I was gonna kinda just, like, go join another type of investing firm. And we were gonna move back to the East Coast to be closer to family. I was gonna do that. And I remember you saying to me, like, "It sounds like you're just gonna go do the thing that kinda sounds like it sucks instead of doing the thing that you actually get a lot of energy from, which is all this new stuff, and that feels scalable, and that you're, you know, you're fired up about. So why are you making that decision?" And until someone just reframed it for me like that, I had never thought about it. I was just gonna, like- Deep, deep insight

Sahil Bloom 11:36 ... continue down the path that felt safe.

Shaan Puri 11:38 [laughs]

Sahil Bloom 11:38 Um, and so it was, like, a stupid conversation frankly, but had a pretty big impact

Shaan Puri 11:42 [laughs] You had described it, you were like, "I'm thinking about path A or path B." But the way you described it, like path A sounded like shit. Like, it sounded super hard and not that much fun, and path B sounded like a lot of fun with just, like, you know, some unknowns, but, like, definitely good was gonna come of it. And I was like, "How is this even a, a decision?" Like, it sounds like you're saying, "I'm choosing between a bad option and a good option." Go with the good one. [laughs]

Sahil Bloom 12:03 Funny story about path A. So the, at the time, that path A, this is real, was to join, like, a, a crossover hedge fund. Like, a hedge fund that also does investments in private tech companies.

Shaan Puri 12:13 Oh, puke, man.

Sahil Bloom 12:14 And my final interview, my final interview I had to pitch a stock, and the stock they gave me to pitch was Stitch Fix. And I had to deci- like, I had a week, and I had to decide whether it was a buy, you know, or, or a short. Like, if it was a long or a short. And I did like a week of research, like made this long deck, like did all this wor- I mean, it was miserable. Did all this thing. It was trading at the time at like $46, and it had come off, um, you know, it had gone up to like 100 in the whole, like, Archegos. You know, Bill Hwang was, like, pumping up stocks by doing, like, buying the swaps. Pumped all the way up and then it came down to 46. And I pitched it as a buy, uh, got rejected 'cause my pitch was shitty, and now that stock is trading at $3.56.

Shaan Puri 12:55 [laughs]

Sahil Bloom 12:55 So I would've taken path A, and I would've gotten fired within six months for sure.

Shaan Puri 12:59 [laughs]

Sam Parr 13:00 Dude, so something that's interesting is, like, I get, and I know Shaan does, too, I get asked maybe five times a week if someone can, like, write tweets for me or, like, cut videos for me and all this stuff. And it's pretty crazy. I don't know if it only happens, like what the popularity level is where you have to, where you start getting those inbounds. But I get... It's so often that I get this. And you, like, it's g- there's like this weird... I get people asking me all the time, they go, "Are you and Sahil or are you and this person, are you and that person? Is Sahil friends with this person?" Because there's this, like, weird circle jerk of a Twitter world. And it feels, feel as though that, like, you are connected to, like, many, many, many tens of millions of followers and reach. And, like, there's this, like, weird behind-the-scenes thing going on with your agency.

Sahil Bloom 13:49 It's the dark underground cabal that runs Twitter. No. Uh, no, I mean, it's, Shaan, you actually remember this, right? Didn't, like, some kid hit you up and say that he ghostwrote tweets for me? And then you, you just texted me and were like, "Does this dude ghostwrite for you?" And I was like, "No, I've never heard of this kid in my life. He was just lying." And then I hit him up saying like, "Yo, why are you lying to this person?" [laughs] And he completely panicked. Um, but yeah, man, I mean, the, like the world of, of ghostwriting tweets has now become, again, like it's become a meme. 'Cause what was it? Like, Business Insider wrote an article about VCs getting, um, getting ghostwriters to write tweets for them. That wasn't at all how my agency thing started. It started, um, in like late 2020 because I had started to figure out that threads were the way that people were growing on Twitter. And keep in mind, like, you know, Sh- Shaan, you were around the group chat at the time, but that was, like, before threads had become the, like, thread boy meme that they are today. And so there was, like, legitimate arbitrage in writing quality threads. And I had all these startups that I had invested in, the founders of which were like, "Wow, we see a ton of value in having a platform and a brand. Can you help us think through how to do this?" 'Cause you'd done it. Like, I had d- at that point gotten to 75,000 followers or so. And so I was like, "Yeah, let me..." You know, I basically, like, started an LLC, like an advisory business basically. And I started giving, like, strategic support to these startups on how to think about content. And then like-

Shaan Puri 15:11 How much, how much would you charge them?

Sahil Bloom 15:12 I was charging five grand a month, um, to a startup for basically, like, you know, t- it was like texting and then maybe like one call every other week. And it was, like, so low because, um, it was so low on time from what they needed from me, 'cause it was mostly like the founders didn't wanna actually spend a ton of time on it. They just wanted to be able to, like, kind of understand it, and then they would have people on their end that just, like, went off and did things with it.

Shaan Puri 15:34 And so what was the high level, like, one, two, three bullet points that you would tell these founders so that they could just be better at this?

Sahil Bloom 15:41 It was basically like you need your two or three pillars of content that you're going to be able to talk about consistently that are, like, valuable for you as a startup or as a founder. So if you're a founder, I mean, at the time it was like if you're a founder, talk about, you know, s- building companies and things you're learning along the way. Which now is, like, ultra-saturated on Twitter, right? There's like a million people that aren't necessarily credible writing about that. At the time, there weren't that many founders doing it. Like, I don't know if you guys have seen the, like, Copy.ai founder. I forget his name. Paul.

Shaan Puri 16:12 Mm-hmm.

Sam Parr 16:13 Yeah.

Sahil Bloom 16:13 He might be an investor, Shaan. You know that business.

Sam Parr 16:15 Uh, Sam is, not me.

Shaan Puri 16:16 Oh, yeah.

Sahil Bloom 16:16 Okay. Yeah, I, and he was like the first one sort of that was, like, really building in public, quote-unquote, and, like, sharing about their journey and the things they were learning. So I was basically telling founders, "You have to establish, like, what are your two or three pillars that you're gonna be writing about?" Maybe it's, you know, building in public. Maybe it's the industry you're in. Um, you know, maybe it's, like, sharing Ls along the way and, like, vulnerability 'cause people find that endearing. It's like, uh, it's called the pratfall effect. Have you ever heard of that? It's like, uh, when, when people who you perceive to be perfect show, like, chinks in their armor, we find it, as humans, very endearing, and we, it actually makes us like them more. And so you're like, you know, playing on that. You're, like, sharing your Ls along the way. Um, but I was basically telling them, you know, versions of that on a regular basis and, like, helping, you know, kind of craft and advise them on the content they were putting out. And it was like five grand a month. Probably had, like, five or so clients. I think they were all, like, startups I either... Like the founders I knew or I'd invested in the companies, and so I was kind of around, and it was, you know, beneficial to me to, like, see them continue to grow and do that.

Sam Parr 17:19 So you, like, invest in the companies and they give you that money right back. I like that.

Sahil Bloom 17:23 Yeah, it was a good way to hedge the b- I mean, this was personal investments at the time. So this was like, you know, I might invest, like, 25K in a company. And if I was making that back in five months, that was a pretty good, uh, cash on cash return on the original investment. [laughs]

Shaan Puri 17:34 [laughs]

Sahil Bloom 17:36 But then, like, you know, like after, um, you know, the ghostwriting thing was interesting 'cause basically, like- Early mid-2021, I had a few of those clients come and say like, "Uh, you know, the biggest struggle for us is that we don't have people that can write this content. Like, we don't wanna build out a content team when we're focused on product and engineering and all that stuff. Like, do you have people that can write?" And right at that time, I had done the course with Julian Shapiro, our friend. Um, we did a Maven course on like how to build your audience, and it was mainly how to build your audience on Twitter, and so half that course was about like how to write good threads and how to write for Twitter. And so I had this pool of like 400 students who had gone through the course, learned the principles of it, knew how to do it, that then I was just able to sort of be a connector between like freelance, you know, writing talent to then support these startups. And, you know, the, the kind of fundamental of any agency business for anyone that's starting one is effectively that you're like creating price arbitrage where you're like charging a client 10 grand for some- or five grand for something that maybe costs you two. And like, you know, the reality for most of these people is you can pay 1,000 to 2,500 bucks a month maybe, depending on the output, and you can easily charge, you know, a startup or a brand five for that, or you can charge like a, you know, a, a founder or an entrepreneur who's doing really well and just made a bunch of money five for just like the fact that you're the connector between the two points. So that was when it like, I would say, like really started to scale, but it was never for VCs for me. Like, I've never, I mean, I've never had a client that was a VC. It's, it's all been founders and it's all been like ha- like half tech founders and half just like nuts and bolts, like meat and potato type founders, like Sam's guys.

Shaan Puri 19:13 [laughs]

Sahil Bloom 19:16 What?

Shaan Puri 19:16 Yeah, your guys. [laughs]

Sahil Bloom 19:17 [laughs] Wait, am I a meat and potato guy or a nut in a bolt?

Shaan Puri 19:21 Yeah, you're a meat and potato guy.

Sahil Bloom 19:22 [laughs]

Shaan Puri 19:23 No, you're a meat and potato guy. Shaan's my tech guy. You're my meat and potatoes guy.

Sahil Bloom 19:26 [laughs]

Shaan Puri 19:26 Yeah, like, you know, if something's like cool or interesting, then it's kinda more of my thing.

Sahil Bloom 19:29 [laughs]

Shaan Puri 19:30 And if something's like really boring, and like, you know, generally correlated with like obesity, it's your thing, right? [laughs]

Sahil Bloom 19:36 [laughs]

Shaan Puri 19:38 So, Sahil, I, I wanna ask you a bunch about like kinda your, your big vision 'cause you're gonna be president someday. I don't know if people know this. This is a future president sitting with us. But before we do that, people always tell us, they're like, "Yo, you gotta do ideas with the guests," meaning they wanna hear, okay, you're Sahil. You see a bunch of different things. You see a d- a bunch of different worlds. What opportunities do you see that you think somepe- somebody should be doing, or a cool startup idea, a cool business idea, a niche opportunity-

Sahil Bloom 20:03 Yeah

Shaan Puri 20:03 ... something maybe you're not doing or whatever. Do you have any kinda ideas on your cheat sheet?

Sahil Bloom 20:08 Yeah, I've got three for you guys.

Shaan Puri 20:09 Okay, go for it.

Sahil Bloom 20:10 Uh, let's go through them. So, so first on the agency side just 'cause I think there are two really obvious ones that, like, honestly anyone that's listening could probably go action on this if they wanted. One is, um, like LinkedIn growth agency stuff. Um, massive opportunity here. I mean, like, y- you, you guys know a couple of our friends. Me and a couple of friends are starting like a spin-off agency that's just gonna focus on LinkedIn because it's a massive arbitrage opportunity right now in audience growth. Twitter has become a lot more saturated because of the like thread boy thing and how many people are going and doing it. LinkedIn, like you, I mean you can go post a few things and immediately be like getting to 10K plus. And for founders and like business builders, there's so much business on those platforms. It's huge for recruiting. So basically, if you were to go start this, the way I would do it, I would go like go to someone who has a Twitter presence, and you can go create like TweetPik, uh, P-I-K, is the like web service that I use for it, and you can basically just turn tweets that are like proven with social proof into these like carousels on LinkedIn that are the big growth hack on LinkedIn. And if you go do that for them and just say like, "Look, I'll take over your entire LinkedIn presence. You never have to open LinkedIn," 'cause people hate opening LinkedIn.

Shaan Puri 21:23 [laughs]

Sahil Bloom 21:23 And you just go and create carousels for them off of proven tweets and then go post it for them like two, three times a week.

Shaan Puri 21:30 Off of, off, off of their tweets?

Sahil Bloom 21:31 Yeah, off their tweets. Um, off their tweets or off of like other writing that exists that they've put out, like say they've written blogs, like, I don't know. I mean, if you went and found, uh, you know, say it's like Ryan Holiday, and he's written a ton of blogs that are all over the place but doesn't have a massive LinkedIn presence. You can go like turn his blogs into just shorter form writing that you put into posts on LinkedIn and say, "Hey, I'm gonna, I'll post for you three times a week. You never have to log in. Don't even worry about it, and we'll grow you to like 50K by the end of this year." Either pay as like, you know, charge as like a success fee, like if you get to this level you pay me this, or you just say like, "Pay me five grand a month and I'll do this for you. Two and a half grand a month and I'll do this for you." And the amount of time it would take you is literally like, I mean, you could probably do like an hour a week to cover a, a single person to like, you know, call it four hours a month and make five grand. It's like an, a- an awesome, awesome arbitrage opportunity. So that's one.

Shaan Puri 22:23 Like it.

Sahil Bloom 22:24 Any thoughts on that, Sam?

Shaan Puri 22:25 I th- I think it's awesome. Yeah, I'm writing this down.

Sahil Bloom 22:27 I've, I've been doing a, a similar thing. So I, I hired this guy as a content remixer for me, and, um, basically it was take content from the pod or, or Twitter and, uh, remix it into content on other platforms, and I focused on Link- I focused him on LinkedIn 'cause I thought, thought the thing you just said, I had kind of a hypothesis that that's true. And, uh, I'm now at 38,000 followers on LinkedIn, and I haven't opened LinkedIn once.

Shaan Puri 22:51 Right.

Sahil Bloom 22:51 So if you see something on LinkedIn, it's not me writing it. [laughs] It's me- I mean, the same thing happened to me

Shaan Puri 22:56 ... having a thought, but it's not me writing that text.

Sahil Bloom 22:57 But hold on, Shaan.

Shaan Puri 22:58 Right.

Sahil Bloom 22:58 So you got 38,000. Let's say that you post a product-

Shaan Puri 23:01 And by the way, this is like in two months or, or something like that

Sahil Bloom 23:03 ... let's say you post a product that cost, or your power writing thing. Let's say it's $1,000, and you sell a $1,000 thing to your 38,000 followers. How much revenue will you make from that?

Shaan Puri 23:14 I don't know. Haven't tested it. Uh, Sahil, you might know better, but I also haven't been doing it for long enough.

Sahil Bloom 23:19 No.

Shaan Puri 23:19 I wouldn't expect to be able to get value 'cause I don't think I've given enough yet.

Sahil Bloom 23:24 Yeah.

Shaan Puri 23:24 Like with Twitter, same thing, you know? Like people see, oh man, you guys just, you can sell a course. You can just like say you're doing this new thing. You get a bunch of signups. It's like yeah, but, been doing this podcast for three years, do, you know, 300 episodes. You know, the hundreds of hours of content that somebody's listened to, so yeah, they trust you and they know. They've come to a decision whether you're smart and interesting or whether you're full of shit, and they've do- they, they've do- they've made that, that, they've done all that work and I've done all that work beforehand, so then when you make an offer, it's just a simple yes or no. Um, does it fit their life? Does it, does it, do they think it'll drive value? They already trust that you can do it. On LinkedIn, I wouldn't bet that that would happen yet because it's just been so-

Sam Parr 24:03 Uh, recent

Sahil Bloom 24:04 Yeah, I think you have to get... I mean, there's like a, there's like a low... There, there's a bar that I think you have to get over from a follower count standpoint if you use that as a proxy before you can like conceivably harvest value. You gotta like, you know, plant enough seeds over a period of time, to Shaan's point. I think like 100K is probably the point at which you can start harvesting value from LinkedIn. Justin Welsh is this guy that you might have seen on Twitter or LinkedIn. He was like, kind of like godfather LinkedIn influencer, and I think that dude now is making like 100K plus on not even cohort-based courses, just like auto courses that he generally just promotes through LinkedIn. He like, he has a newsletter now that he's built through LinkedIn, like built on the back of LinkedIn, and now he's bigger on Twitter 'cause he's managed to like cross across all of those, but he's doing over 100K a month in, uh, in sales revenue on his, um, on his courses, which are just like, you know, they're just, they're, they're, they're not cohort-based, so he's like putting in no, no time now-

Sam Parr 24:57 Dude

Sahil Bloom 24:58 ... but got them stood up.

Sam Parr 24:58 This is interesting. Shaan, have you seen what Sahil's been doing on Instagram?

Shaan Puri 25:02 On Instagram? No.

Sam Parr 25:03 So basically-

Shaan Puri 25:04 I barely am on Instagram.

Sahil Bloom 25:05 Your boy's blowing up.

Sam Parr 25:06 So listen to this.

Shaan Puri 25:07 [laughs]

Sam Parr 25:07 So, uh, around the same time-

Shaan Puri 25:09 Is it just dad content?

Sam Parr 25:10 No, listen. A lot-

Sahil Bloom 25:11 Dude, it's just hair. It's just mostly hair-

Sam Parr 25:13 And shirtless pics

Sahil Bloom 25:13 ... that type of stuff

Sam Parr 25:14 And, uh, abs.

Sahil Bloom 25:15 Thirst traps.

Sam Parr 25:16 But, uh, around the same time... So Sahil and I, uh, both around the same time were like, "All right. Let's take Instagram seriously." So I started doing it, and I was beating him nicely at adding 1,000 people a day. I think I started with 5,000 people, and I got to like 48 or 50,000 in a very short amount of time. And he was doing his thing, and I was like, "You need to post twice a day, I think." And he starts doing that, and then he just kinda like has rocketed past me. Now he's got to 62,000 followers in a very short amount of time, adding 1 or 2,000 people a day, and he's doing this exact same thing where he's taking his tweets that do well and just posting them on his Instagram.

Shaan Puri 25:48 [laughs]

Sam Parr 25:48 And like, so two points here. One, there's a world where this is just total vanity nonsense and a complete distraction from people who have like their main thing. On the other hand, what I'm curious about is how much revenue can this drive to people if their goal is not to be a famous per- person, their goal is just to sell more shit of whatever their own- they own already. And so I'm curious, Sahil, is, have you, if ca- well, does, does this actually drive revenue for things other than your ego?

Sahil Bloom 26:17 Yeah, I mean, right now, right now it's generating about a th- so Instagram this past month I think generated 1,000 newsletter subs for me just through the link in my bio. Um, and that's like, you know, on average I probably had 35,000 followers, um, during the month, and it generated that many, so conceivably as it continues to scale it'll drive, you know, well north of that as it, uh, as it moves. And if you think a newsletter subscriber form is worth, you know, just off of my sponsor revenue, probably like three to four dollars per sub, and then if you take into account my book that's gonna come where it's like extremely valuable to me if they buy a book, um, I mean, it's a bunch of money a month that's coming off this that scales over time, right? And that's just Instagram. And you think about LinkedIn, that's another big driver. Um, you know, all of these platforms.

Shaan Puri 27:05 So I'm, I'm torn-

Sahil Bloom 27:05 And like they're g- I mean, there are ghostwriting agencies, there are people selling product mostly on Instagram without ever posting like their face. These guys are literally like making carousels of images and stuff, and they're doing 50 to 100K of revenue through it.

Sam Parr 27:19 Crazy.

Shaan Puri 27:19 What's an example of that?

Sahil Bloom 27:20 There's this guy, uh, Dakota Robertson, like @WrongsToRight I think is his like Twitter handle, and maybe that's his Instagram handle too. Um, and he's got like, I don't know, 250,000 followers now on, on Instagram, and like blew up real fast there just from posting his viral tweets over to, over to Instagram, like almost never shows his face. Um, and dude is r- has a thriving ghostwriting business through this.

Shaan Puri 27:43 Gotcha. I'm torn because on one hand, uh, you are like perfect execution of a strategy that I now hate, and so I'm like, respect to you-

Sahil Bloom 27:54 [laughs]

Shaan Puri 27:55 ... but I'm like, I don't even wanna talk about this, 'cause I know what's gonna happen is there's now gonna be 9,000 new people who go, this podcast is gonna breed 9,000 new people that are gonna go be like, "This is my thing. I'm gonna do this. He said I could make, you know, X amount of money per month," and their execution is gonna be nowhere near yours. Um, and in general, this is like a, it's like a pathway that definitely works, but it's like, um, like the wi-

Sahil Bloom 28:22 Soul-sucking

Shaan Puri 28:22 The soul-sucking

Sam Parr 28:23 Yeah, it's like, it's like getting-

Shaan Puri 28:24 The window of opportunity's closing, and it provides like-

Sahil Bloom 28:26 Well, I think the window of opportunity is closing

Shaan Puri 28:28 ... zero value.

Sahil Bloom 28:28 That's an important point.

Shaan Puri 28:29 Yeah.

Sahil Bloom 28:29 I do think like, look, I mean, when I started writing the threads, I mean, Shaan, you were the same way, right? Like any thread you wrote would blow the hell up early on.

Sam Parr 28:37 Right.

Sahil Bloom 28:37 'Cause there just weren't that many of them, and so it was like, it's like a market. It wasn't saturated. Now it's pretty hard to get a thread to like really take off, unless you're doing the like, "10 YouTube channels that will change your life-"

Sam Parr 28:47 Right

Sahil Bloom 28:47 "... for free."

Sam Parr 28:48 Yeah, but that's his point-

Sahil Bloom 28:48 Or like Chrome extensions

Sam Parr 28:49 ... which is the things that w- it, it's like getting fit through power walking. Is power walking gonna burn calories? Yeah. Yeah. For sure. Are you probably not gonna get injuries? Yeah. But like you have to look like a doofus doing it in the process.

Shaan Puri 29:01 [laughs]

Sam Parr 29:01 Everyone in the neighborhood's gonna know you as that weirdo power walking.

Shaan Puri 29:04 Like I-

Sam Parr 29:04 You know what I mean?

Shaan Puri 29:05 And I, I'm guilty of this too, right? Like, I did this strategy as well of being like, oh, I'm gonna create content for, for f- you know, for fun initially, this podcast, Twitter, that sort of thing. And then, oh, shit. Okay, if I kinda sell 5% of my soul or 10% of my soul to the algorithm, I think I can get this bigger. Okay, I started doing that. And then it's like, oh, I can make good money doing this, and I, you know, make some money doing that, and that feels fun. But like I just wanna say as a public service announcement, there's some people who are gonna go do this, but let's say you're somebody who's awesome. I'm just gonna say this now. This was awesome to do when it wasn't figured out. Now that it's figured out, this is a certified official small boy stuff, and I do not recommend this to anybody else.

Sam Parr 29:46 [laughs]

Shaan Puri 29:47 Uh, and I myself have stopped doing this too. I haven't posted a thread in, in months and months-

Sahil Bloom 29:50 But if you are interested in this lame-ass shit, Sahil's the guy. [laughs]

Shaan Puri 29:53 [laughs]

Sam Parr 29:54 [laughs]

Shaan Puri 29:54 And Sahil, Sahil is perfect execu-

Sahil Bloom 29:56 That's the difference, though. Anything, like I, I, I've tweeted this- I'm sitting in this house because of it.

Shaan Puri 30:00 I, I tweeted this the other day.

Sam Parr 30:01 It's a lovely house.

Shaan Puri 30:02 I go-

Sam Parr 30:02 It's a lovely house.

Shaan Puri 30:03 I go, I, I go, I write tweets-

Sahil Bloom 30:04 No, I mean, look. You, you- You, you have to figure out what the, what the area is where you're gonna do it that's not crazy saturated in cringe. And, and to your point, like you gotta figure out what percent cringe are you willing to be. Like, if writing a thread is 10% cringe, like what level above that just natural baseline are you willing-

Shaan Puri 30:21 And, and are you talking-

Sam Parr 30:21 D- well, how are you gonna figure that out?

Shaan Puri 30:22 Are you talking [laughs] ...

Sahil Bloom 30:23 Me? [laughs] What?

Shaan Puri 30:26 No, I'm joking.

Sahil Bloom 30:26 No, I mean, but like I'm, I'm willing to accept that, um, already, like 10% of people just immediately see it and are like, "Oh, this is super cringe." And then you just have to decide, like what level are you willing to go above that. If 100% is like 10 Chrome extensions that'll change your life, and 50% is like, uh, y- you know, here are like the TED Talks that changed my life, what's like 20%? Is it some of the stuff I post? Probably. And like if that helps a few people out there and like a bunch of people get pissed and think that it's not for them, I don't really give a shit personally. Like, if I help one person and, you know, someone hits me up and says like, "Hey, that changed my perspective on X, Y, or Z," that's what Gary Vee's been doing for decades, man. That guy's a legend of putting out content that's like listicles and like, you know, like motivational stuff. Tony Robbins, like Grant Cardone, these guys, like they get hate because it fricking works and it helps people, right? So, I don't know. I mean, I like-

Shaan Puri 31:17 The thing I, the thing I would say, like have you ever been to a Tony Robbins event?

Sahil Bloom 31:20 Yeah.

Shaan Puri 31:21 And, uh, I'm sure if you went to like, you went to what? Like an Unleash the Power Within or something?

Sahil Bloom 31:25 Yeah.

Shaan Puri 31:25 Great. Uh, I went to, loved it, thought it was amazing.

Sahil Bloom 31:28 Yeah.

Shaan Puri 31:28 I don't know if you liked it. You can give your quick reaction, but I have a different point.

Sahil Bloom 31:30 Yeah.

Shaan Puri 31:31 Um-

Sahil Bloom 31:31 I love it. I mean, I love Tony Robbins stuff.

Shaan Puri 31:33 Me too. And he gets on stage and he's doing all the things that you could criticize somebody for. He's, he's clapping. He's saying, "Get up and, and jump." He's saying, "When I say," uh, you know, he's gonna ask a very basic question and the only answer is yes, but the whole crowd says yes like a cult. And you're like, "Oh, he's doing all the things." But he's doing it at like an A++ plus level. He is-

Sahil Bloom 31:54 Totally

Shaan Puri 31:54 ... probably, in my opinion, the best public speaker I've ever seen. Uh, and I've f- seen a lot.

Sahil Bloom 31:59 Next to like Obama.

Shaan Puri 32:00 Yeah. Yeah. He, he is, he, he... I think he's even more powerful than Obama, 'cause Obama is smooth-

Sahil Bloom 32:05 Yeah

Shaan Puri 32:05 ... but Obama doesn't get people... Tony Robbins will get you to walk across coals and like shout your greatest fear out loud.

Sahil Bloom 32:10 Yeah.

Shaan Puri 32:10 I've, I've never seen Obama control a crowd for 12 straight hours like Tony Robbins will do at an event. But here's what happens. You look around in the crowd and you're like, there's a whole spectrum of people. At the one I was in, it was like there were celebrities there. You know, the, the guy from 300, what's his name? Gerald Butler, he was there. He was like-

Sahil Bloom 32:26 Right

Shaan Puri 32:26 ... two rows down from me. I was like, "Wow, this is interesting. There's some interesting people here." And then in the hallways, I would meet a bunch of people that thought they were the next Tony Robbins, and they were life coaches and motivational speakers, and they were, uh, you know, change consultants, and every cringe name you could think of. And then you go look at their stuff and it's the same concept, but not executed at that level, because they didn't have the hard-won life experiences that that guy had to actually like create this content. They didn't have 40 years of sharpening their craft and becoming the best. They didn't have the natural talents and charisma and, you know, larger than life presence. And so you can f- you can look at the best, you can look at the Gary Vees and the Tony Robbins, you can look at you on Twitter and say, "That's dope," you know, "I could do that." And some people, a very small amount of people can do that, but for most people, they will fall into the pit of cringe because they're not gonna execute it at that same level. They didn't have those hard-won lessons of actually knowing what they're talking about and, uh, and they're gonna end up in this like weird middle ground. And, uh, I, I think that's the scary part. [upbeat music] I can't find this client info.

Speaker 33:28 Have you heard of HubSpot? HubSpot is a CRM platform, so it shares its data across every application. Every team can stay aligned. No out of sync spreadsheets or dueling databases. HubSpot, grow better.

Sahil Bloom 33:42 I mean, that's kind of like, um, that's like any market though, right? Like, you know, so- someone starts a company and it's the A-plus version of some, like a restaurant chain. Someone starts a restaurant chain that's like the A-plus of that thing.

Shaan Puri 33:53 Yeah.

Sahil Bloom 33:53 And then a bunch of people come in to try to mimic it, and it's like the B-plus version and, you know, like whatever. Like say say In-N-Out is the A-plus burger version, and then someone co- tries to come in and start the like Five Guys or whatever next. I'm probably gonna get hate for saying In-N-Out's better than Five Guys but, you know, whatever. Like, you kind of have the diluted versions. And the question is like, A, do you care that you're the diluted version of Tony Robbins if you're making money doing it and taking care of your family? 'Cause like I, I know a lot of people that are just like, "I don't give a shit." Like, you know, "I grew my audience, super cringe stuff, and I'm making 25 grand a month. I was making five doing my prior job, or 10 doing my prior job. I'm making this sitting at home and I get to spend time with my kids. What do I give a shit if a bunch of tech people think that I'm cringe? Like, I'm making money. It is what it is." And so I kind of, I appreciate that too. The other thing I would say is like, what game are you playing? Like, what is the long-term game you're playing? And for me, I was always thinking about like, what is the thing I'm trying to build long-term? Like, I wasn't trying to be, you know, a Twitter thread, like the, a thread guy. Like, that's not my long-term vision of what it was. It vaulted me from being a nobody private equity guy, as you said, to like, I signed a book deal last month, like a big book deal last month. You know, like I raised a fund. I never would've been able to raise a fund as like this nobody VP in private equity. And so to me it's like, what are you actually parlaying that shit into as you continue to go? If you're able to find the thing that you think you're A-plus at, even if it's for a short period of time, like how are you using that to vault yourself into that next level where you're like, "I'm not even in the same class as these other guys that are doing the thing I was doing previously," 'cause I moved into whatever that next, you know, that like upper echelon is.

Sam Parr 35:25 Dude, are you worried about, uh, Elon screwing it up for you?

Sahil Bloom 35:29 Not really.

Sam Parr 35:30 You know, it's funny. Well, did you see what he... Really quick. He, he, like said something and then Steph, my old coworker, said like-

Sahil Bloom 35:36 [laughs]

Sam Parr 35:36 ... "Does this mean that like the thread boys are gonna go away?" And I actually forget his reply. What did he say? But it sounded like he was saying yes.

Sahil Bloom 35:42 I think he did like a crying emoji. I mean, yeah, like I think it was something about, he said, um, you know, you could basically like put a long form text onto a tweet so you don't have to like... People were used to take a screenshot of like their notes app on their phone to post a long form thing. I think all that stuff is good. I mean, like, look, I, I've already benefited from being early to a market. Like, I grew to a big level. I built a brand that now extended into things that I own, like the newsletter, you know, that's gotten quite large and is growing faster, like the fund or like the book, whatever it is. Um- I would be more worried if I was like just starting out in any one of these things and like had dedicated all this time. You know, if you've rewound me a year and I was like just starting to get all these things going, I'd probably be a little more worried. Um, but the reality is it's like eat or be eaten, man. If you're, [laughs] if you're not like figuring out the new way to d- to, uh, you know, be on the front of something and be building in these other areas, um, you're in for a tough time

Sahil Bloom 36:35 no matter what.

Sam Parr 36:35 Let's talk about this newsletter thing.

Sahil Bloom 36:38 Um, so this is the second idea. Um, biggest issue I have with my newsletter is I wanna write it. Like I li- I love writing. That's my number one thing that gives me a lot of energy. I fricking hate thinking about and dealing with any of the like business or growth side of the newsletter. The business side is very easy to outsource. There's like, I mean, you know, there's, there's ad agencies now. ConvertKit has an ad network where they'll manage the whole back end of your newsletter. They'll bring in sponsors for it. They'll send you the money. It's like super, super easy. It's amazing. Nathan crushed it getting that thing out there. But the like growth side of newsletters is completely untouched. There's no one out there that I've been able to find that is like a full suite growth service for your newsletter. And when I say growth suite, I literally mean like s- I want someone thinking about my landing pages and optimizing that. I want someone thinking about referral networks, newsletter swaps. I want someone thinking about paid ads, you know, SEO for my website to drive subs, how to optimize it across my different social channels. Literally just someone that's sitting around thinking about growth for the newsletter so that I can just focus on writing. And I'd literally be willing to pay, I mean, my willingness to pay at the size of newsletter that I'm at now and given what newsletter subs are worth to me is very high. Like, I would easily pay 10 grand a month to someone that could figure that out and do it in one place on top of whatever I would spend on paid ads, et cetera.

Sam Parr 37:56 Do, do you think that that thing Workweek is gonna do that?

Sahil Bloom 37:59 Uh, no. Dude, I mean, like, uh, [laughs] I, I don't know how much you guys know about Work- I, I don't know a whole ton about Workweek, but from what I can tell, it's mostly the like back end services of newsletters. And there's another one called Smooth Ops that I think spun out from Morning Brew. Didn't Work- Workweek spun out of the Hustle, didn't it?

Sam Parr 38:17 Not spun out. They, uh, they worked for the-

Sahil Bloom 38:19 The guy was there. Yeah, s- same thing with the Morning Brew, um, Smooth Ops. Like, my understanding of all of those is that they're much more focused on like helping you monetize and, um, you know, managing your like business that you can focus on writing. I literally just want someone that just all they think about all day, like a, a, an absolute killer that just all they think about is growth. I mean, Shaan, did you have someone? I mean, or was Ben like that at, at Milk Road?

Sam Parr 38:41 My guy was, right, Shaan?

Shaan Puri 38:43 No. Ben, Ben was the guy. He woke up every day and just said, "How do we get more subscribers?" And like, you know, that's, that was his mission and that's what he did. So, uh, you know, that's the... But, you know, we needed... It's like-

Sahil Bloom 38:54 But if you don't have a Ben-

Shaan Puri 38:55 ... that was like more of a company. Uh, whereas like, you know, most people's personal things are not... Like, you're at a size where there's just not that many newsletters that are at your size, um, that can afford to pay for something like that. Um, you know, how many people, how many people could afford to pay 10K per month to try to drive growth?

Sahil Bloom 39:14 Well, the, so I think a lot. So my hypothesis is, so I tweeted this, um, and a bunch of people were like replying saying they would pay for it in different ways. My hypothesis is that there's a ton of like successful founders and entrepreneurs that want to build a newsletter, an owned list, or like an essay type thing like what Sam Altman or Paul Graham have where they have, you know, SEO-

Shaan Puri 39:36 Yeah

Sahil Bloom 39:36 ... and newsletter, you know, like emails that are coming to them and they're willing to pay a lot 'cause they actually have been successful and just have a bunch of money. They don't need it to be revenue generating out- at the outset. Um, and I think you c- I mean, I bet if you developed some sort of core competency and basically like partner, say, say someone partnered with me and proved it out over like two, three months, had drove this and then were able to use me as a case study. Maybe I own a percentage of it, you know, on the upside and so I'm incented to like bring them new referrals. I bet you could grow a pretty big business there quickly.

Shaan Puri 40:06 Mm-hmm. Yeah, and you only need like 20 clients basically [laughs] to make this like, you know, worth your while.

Sahil Bloom 40:11 Yeah, I mean, if it's a personal business you don't even need 20 clients. I mean, you can get 10 at five a month or 10 at 10 a month-

Sam Parr 40:16 Right

Sahil Bloom 40:17 ... and you have like a, you know, it's 80, 80 plus percent margin probably business if you're-

Sam Parr 40:20 Do you have the-

Sahil Bloom 40:21 ... just running it simple.

Sam Parr 40:21 But are you having the headache of having a service business?

Sahil Bloom 40:26 Y- yeah.

Sam Parr 40:26 R- I mean-

Sahil Bloom 40:27 Yeah, it's definitely not productized.

Shaan Puri 40:28 Like, I've thought about starting an agency like maybe 20 times in my life and then literally five minutes later every single time I'm like, "Don't go in the service business. Don't go in the service business." Now I d- it, we have several friends that have done it, right? Like, you know, Andrew Wilkinson did it with Metalab. Our buddy Greg is doing a great job with it with Late Checkout. You're doing it now with your thing. So, you know, maybe I have the wrong bias here. What do you think?

Sahil Bloom 40:50 I mean, what you have to do is hire a great operator. If you wanna be the like owner of some percentage of it and not have the headaches, you gotta just recruit a killer operator who's gonna run all of it. I mean, that's what we're doing with the s- spin out agency that we're doing now around LinkedIn stuff is like just gonna hire someone exceptional and give them like 15% of the ups and just say like, "You're a hustler. You're a killer."

Shaan Puri 41:11 [laughs]

Sahil Bloom 41:11 "You can get a whole ton of-"

Shaan Puri 41:12 [laughs] That was awesome.

Sahil Bloom 41:13 What, man? That was my finance jeans, man.

Shaan Puri 41:15 I've never, never heard that. [laughs] That was awesome.

Sahil Bloom 41:16 Really? Oh, that's the, that's the, uh-

Shaan Puri 41:18 [laughs]

Sahil Bloom 41:18 ... that's the no-name PE guy coming out of me right there. Um-

Shaan Puri 41:21 Yeah, dude-

Sahil Bloom 41:21 Did he give him a bu-

Shaan Puri 41:22 I thought a PE guy-

Sahil Bloom 41:22 Earlier-

Shaan Puri 41:23 ... was a guy who likes to play, like, dodgeball in recess. Like that's what PE is to me. [laughs]

Sahil Bloom 41:27 [laughs] Earlier he was talking about beta and I was like, "You talking about nerds? I don't understand what..."

Sam Parr 41:31 [laughs]

Sahil Bloom 41:32 "What the, what the hell is beta?" [laughs]

Shaan Puri 41:34 Beta's a good thing. [laughs]

Sahil Bloom 41:35 Yeah.

Shaan Puri 41:36 Hold up.

Sahil Bloom 41:36 You're talking about beta as like a g-

Shaan Puri 41:37 [laughs]

Sahil Bloom 41:38 ... a good thing. I was like, "I don't understand what that means."

Shaan Puri 41:39 [laughs]

Sahil Bloom 41:40 You're kind of a low beta guy actually-

Shaan Puri 41:42 [laughs]

Sahil Bloom 41:42 ... Sam, if I think about it. Like, you kinda, you're kinda like even keel. Like, I feel like I know within a band what I'm gonna get out of you any, any given day.

Shaan Puri 41:48 [laughs]

Sam Parr 41:49 I, I, I think you're complimenting me but I don't under-

Sahil Bloom 41:52 Yeah

Sam Parr 41:52 ... I, I, I, I-

Sahil Bloom 41:53 You know, you like you show up. You tweeted about that recently. You hate when people say they're gonna do something and then not do it. Like you, so you take pride in being low beta, like people know what they can expect from you on a given day.

Shaan Puri 42:02 Dude, by the way, what a, what a stupid thing to tweet. Yeah, like I like long walks on the beach and movies. Like who, who likes somebody who says they're gonna do something and doesn't do it? What an obvious tweet.

Sam Parr 42:12 Yeah. First of all-

Shaan Puri 42:14 [laughs]

Sam Parr 42:14 ... give me the clout that I deserve.

Shaan Puri 42:16 [laughs]

Sam Parr 42:16 Like, don't hate. What did, what did Sahil say? Don't hate. Number two- I'm not saying... It's like people who say they're afraid of heights. Like, yeah, everyone's afraid of heights, but, like, you just, like, some people that just, like, I, you know, it's like what's high on your list.

Shaan Puri 42:29 Gotcha.

Sam Parr 42:30 I don't think that, uh, I don't know. Like, like there's a lot of things that annoy you, Shaan, that, that don't annoy me and vice versa.

Shaan Puri 42:36 Like what? Name one.

Sahil Bloom 42:36 What's, what's one thing that annoys you, Shaan, that you don't think annoys Sam?

Sam Parr 42:39 I don't think anything annoys him.

Shaan Puri 42:41 Nothing annoys me. [laughs]

Sahil Bloom 42:43 [laughs]

Shaan Puri 42:44 That's it.

Sam Parr 42:45 I, I-

Shaan Puri 42:45 That's the beauty of it

Sam Parr 42:46 ... did... Wait, really? You don't think anything bothers you?

Shaan Puri 42:48 Nah, things-

Sahil Bloom 42:49 Yeah, now I wanna dig into this

Shaan Puri 42:49 ... things bother me.

Sahil Bloom 42:50 What bothers you?

Shaan Puri 42:50 I, uh, I, I guess what, what bothers me is, uh, only usually things with myself. So, like, if I find myself in a bad mood or, like, getting annoyed with something or getting bothered by something or getting impatient with something, that's actually the thing that bothers me. I'm like, "Oh, man, I let this get to me?" Like, for, like, that second, that's the thing that gets to me, right? So usually it's not something that frustrates me or annoys me, it's usually either impatience or boredom or, um, feeling cranky or tired or something like that. You know, like, and I'm like, "Oh, no, I, I don't wanna be that way." That, that bothers me.

Sam Parr 43:22 So for years I used to say that Shaan, I was like, I was like, "I think I'm gonna have a pretty steady path to wealth creation, and Shaan, you either gonna, like... It's not gonna be as extreme." I think we s- we joked around with Mr. Beast where, like, you know, 6 out of 10 times if you were reborn you would be a degenerate, like, gambler or drug addict.

Shaan Puri 43:39 [laughs]

Sam Parr 43:39 And, like, 4 out, 4 out of 10 times you'd be successful. With Shaan, it- it's not that bad, but it's like, you know, you're gonna... You're, you're the type of guy who can roll the dice and, like, you might actually hit it big. There's a good chance. Or you might, like, just be only okay for a long time. And now, uh, so I was basically saying, yeah, your likelihood, I think, of being a billionaire is actually higher than mine. Um, but your likelihood of being, like, a degenerate is probably-

Shaan Puri 44:00 [laughs]

Sam Parr 44:00 ... also higher.

Shaan Puri 44:01 Yeah, high beta. [laughs]

Sam Parr 44:02 Yeah. But here's the problem with Shaan I've just realized over the past handful of months. He is too emotionally healthy to probably be incredibly successful. He has this problem that few people have, which is he's just happy. You know what I mean? He's got this... It, it's just this massive-

Sahil Bloom 44:19 It depends on your definition of success, man. I would argue that Shaan is the most successful then, man, if he's, like, super happy and-

Sam Parr 44:26 Yeah, if you define sex by, su- success by these superficial things like happiness and wellbeing and all that bullshit.

Shaan Puri 44:31 [laughs] The stupid stuff. [laughs]

Sahil Bloom 44:33 Yeah. I do, I will say that Shaan has had more, like, high highs and low lows this year, at least from my, like, perceived view of Shaan through our group texts.

Shaan Puri 44:43 But he's not upset by it.

Sahil Bloom 44:43 And, like, and he's totally unfazed. Like, Shaan, I mean, look, flashback to, like, you know, a, like, crypto crash, right? I'm like, "Yo, Shaan's down bad."

Shaan Puri 44:51 [laughs]

Sahil Bloom 44:51 I'm texting Sam. I'm like, "Is Shaan okay?"

Shaan Puri 44:53 [laughs]

Sahil Bloom 44:53 Like, Shaan's texting the group chat totally fine. I'm like, "Yo, is Shaan broke?"

Shaan Puri 44:56 [laughs]

Sahil Bloom 44:56 Like, "Is Shaan getting margin called right now?" Like, I have no idea what's going on. And then Shaan's like, "Yo, I sold all my stock."

Shaan Puri 45:02 [laughs]

Sahil Bloom 45:02 And I was like, "Holy shit, Shaan sold the bottom. Shaan sold the bottom." Like, market's roaring in June, and then the market crashes again and Shaan's a genius trader that, like-

Shaan Puri 45:11 [laughs]

Sahil Bloom 45:11 [laughs] You know, sold the top of the market or something.

Sam Parr 45:13 Do you-

Sahil Bloom 45:14 This dude is just like-

Sam Parr 45:15 Does that stuff bother you at all, Shaan? Like, first of all, what pers- uh, prior to selling a business recently, but what, uh... Was your net worth down just a significant amount?

Shaan Puri 45:24 Yeah, probably... I mean, it's hard to calculate that sort of thing, so but let's say liquid- of the liquid stuff, so not counting equity in companies, uh, you know, it's probably down 50% or something like that. I mean, I, most of the investments, I, I didn't keep much cash. This was my investment strategy pre-2022, right? So my investment strategy pre-2022 was cash is trash and, you know-

Sam Parr 45:44 [laughs]

Shaan Puri 45:44 ... fist bumps all around to my boys who thought cash was trash. Then, um, oh, dude, n- is there a safer investment than Amazon? This blue chipper, right? Like, [laughs] that's my version of, of safety is, yeah, I'm gonna put it in some boring tech companies, you know, the, the Amazons, Googles, Facebooks of the world. What could go wrong? And, um, and then lastly, you know, then, you know, a huge amount of startups that were, uh, that were, you know, getting marked up like crazy. Fist bumps all around. Getting my ups, getting my ups was going ups.

Sam Parr 46:13 [laughs]

Shaan Puri 46:13 And then the last thing was crypto. And I was like, "Oh, well, see, your boy's a genius," and moved a huge percentage of his net, net worth into, you know, Bitcoin and Ethereum. And, um, oh, and then this Luna shit, that's popping. I'm doing great. So, you know, that's, that was me before. So basically every single thing I had invested in has gone, you know... What's my, you know, what's that thing? Like, my terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day. Like, I was basically having that for this year in terms of investments. But, you know, whatever.

Sam Parr 46:39 Did it bother you?

Shaan Puri 46:40 Well, I didn't like losing money, but, like, you know, did I let it bother me? No. Like, you know, I basically took steps.

Sam Parr 46:46 Did you lose sleep?

Shaan Puri 46:47 No. I took steps. I was like, "Okay, well, what matters here?" Like, "Okay, let me just first get perspective. Uh, you know, am I in any kind of hardship? Is my family doing poor? No, they're good, they're fine," right? Secondly, what should I actually do? Do I need to make some adjustments? Was I wrong about certain things, or should I do some things to give myself more comfort? So why did I sell? I sold... I basically margin called myself. I was like, "You know what? I think things are gonna go lower, and I don't wanna sweat this all the time, so I'm gonna sell this amount here so that I don't have to worry about anything. I'm gonna move more into cash, and I'm gonna book this loss 'cause I think that'll, that'll offset against some gains that I have this year. And, um, you know, then I won't have to think about this stuff for a little while. Uh, I will focus on these other things that I wanted to be focusing on 'cause I'm not a trader. I'm not a, like, investment genius, so that's not gonna be my goal." And then, um, yeah, then, you know, just, I don't know. The, I, I never got my happiness from when it was going up, so why would I get my sadness from when it's going down? Didn't make sense to me.

Sahil Bloom 47:38 You must have felt good when Luna, like, I think you, you originally plugged Luna in Milk Road at, like, 40. And I, like, I bought some. I was like, "Yo, Shaan's pretty smart. He knows this crypto shit-

Shaan Puri 47:48 Yeah

Sahil Bloom 47:48 ... hands down."

Shaan Puri 47:49 [laughs]

Sahil Bloom 47:49 And so I, like, I bought a bag. Like, I, you know, I'm not, like, I'm not really a degenerate crypto guy, but I, like, bought a bag of Luna, and that shit went up to, like, 118. And I was like, "Yo, Shaan is my god."

Shaan Puri 47:58 [laughs]

Sahil Bloom 47:58 Like, "Uh, Shaan, what other, what other ideas do you have?" And then I, we were supposed to interview on our old pod. We were supposed to interview Do Kwon. Like, I had hit him up on Twitter. He's supposed to come on the pod on, like, a Thursday. And on that Sunday, like, Luna had been wavering. Like, it had come down to, like, 80 or something. And I get an email from his assistant that just says, uh, "Unfortunately, uh, Do will have to reschedule the interview for this Thursday." And I'm sitting in bed and I'm like, "Ah, I got a little bit of the heebie-jeebies. Like, I don't know what this is." So I go downstairs and I sell my entire bag at, like- I don't know, a small gain. Like, not, not good. I sell the whole thing. Next morning, I wake up and that shit's at, like, five.

Shaan Puri 48:37 [laughs]

Sahil Bloom 48:37 Like, the whole, the whole thing unraveled overnight. And then I get an email from his assistant saying, like, he's gonna have to cancel the interview. And I'm like, "Yeah, well, this dude has a red notice out for him."

Shaan Puri 48:45 Yeah.

Sahil Bloom 48:45 No shit he's not coming on our podcast at this point.

Shaan Puri 48:48 Yeah. That was, that was a bad day. [laughs] I was on vacation.

Sahil Bloom 48:51 [laughs]

Shaan Puri 48:51 I was in Hawaii with my family, and I'm watching my t- and I'm, like, I don't even have my... I'm not even at my computer. Like, I can't even get to my crypto. Like, it's not, like, on my laptop or whatever. So I'm like, "Well, couldn't, couldn't make a move if I wanted to. Uh, so I guess I'll just, like, you know, lose all this money here and, [laughs] uh, you know, just enjoy this vacation. There's nothing else I can do at this point."

Sahil Bloom 49:10 You were remarkably cool about it. I remember texting with you that day. The, um, the framework you've talked about in the past that I love around this stuff is your, um, local versus tourist thing. I think that's so good of, like, you know, uh, tourists, like, freak out when the seasons change and just bounce.

Shaan Puri 49:25 Yeah.

Sahil Bloom 49:26 And locals are aware that there are seasons, and that, you know, it, they, it comes in swings, and they're aware of the environment, so they can stick it out and be fine through it. I've always just thought there's a third one, which is the, like, stubborn local, like the dude that lives in the coastal village and is like, "Oh, global warming's not real."

Shaan Puri 49:43 Right.

Sahil Bloom 49:43 And then he's fucking underwater and, like, drowning. And he's like, "Uh, global warming's not real," as he drowns. And so I'm always just like, how do you make sure that you don't go from being the, like, the local and you're proud of being a local to the stubborn local that just sits there until you die?

Shaan Puri 49:56 Yeah, that's the hardest thing. Uh, and I remember with startups, this was always the question, 'cause you'll hear a story like Pinterest had no traction for over a year, then finally started to work 'cause he walked into an Apple Store and, like, started putting Pinterest as a default homepage on these-

Sahil Bloom 50:10 [laughs]

Shaan Puri 50:10 You know, he hustled. He was determined. And it's like, oh, okay, got it. So determination. Just keep going even when all the data's telling you that this ain't working. And then there's, like, the exact other, uh, advice, which is like, "Yo, you gotta be super data-driven, feedback-oriented. You gotta listen to the market. All that matters is are you making something people want? And if you have no users, you gotta, like, you know, make adjustments. You gotta pivot." And so the hardest question as a founder is to know, am I being the right kind of stubborn, right? So am I being stubborn because I'm right and I need to, you know, just tweak, just make small adjustments and just stay at it and be determined and be persistent? Or am I banging my head against a wall and I need to listen to the, to the signals and I need to be changing my mind? And nobody can give the generic advice about when to do what. It's super, it's, like, super context-dependent, super circumstance-dependent. Same thing with investing, right? Like, you know, am I, a- a- about should I, should I s- should I still believe in something even... You know, do I believe in Facebook stock now that it's getting crushed, right? And for me, I went and bought more recently 'cause I was like, uh, you know, d- what do I believe about this company and d- has that changed? So the tourist versus local, right, is you gotta ask yourself, like, does the thing I believed about this, has that changed? Do I have new information that makes me update my thinking here? Um, do I, am I, you know, am I holding onto this position just so that I don't feel like I'm wrong, right? Like, you know, am I, am I willing to accept, ac- accept being wrong? You gotta ask yourself all these questions and be able to be honest with yourself. And, uh-

Sahil Bloom 51:34 Has that changed, uh, with crypto?

Shaan Puri 51:36 Has what? Sorry.

Sahil Bloom 51:37 Has your opinion of crypto changed and your conviction?

Shaan Puri 51:40 Um, no. My c- my opinions and my conviction has stayed the same. But that's about crypto as a whole, right? Then on each specific maybe project or coin, you might have, like, a slightly different opinion. You know, it w- it definitely-

Sahil Bloom 51:50 What, what, well, what's-

Shaan Puri 51:50 It definitely was-

Sahil Bloom 51:51 ... what's one thing that you think is bullshit now that you didn't think was bullshit a year and a half ago?

Shaan Puri 51:55 So I'll give you an example where that's not true, then I'll give you an example where that's true. So the not true one is, like, let's take Luna, for example. The, the bet on Luna was always knowing that there's this... The way it was architected was this thing is gonna rocket up because the sort of the, what they call the ponzinomics, right? Like, the-

Sahil Bloom 52:11 Oof

Shaan Puri 52:11 ... game theory incentive. Uh, yeah, but people don't understand. Like, the, basically it's this, like, economic, a series of economic accent... in, uh, incentives. And so the incentives were dr- were s- aligned such that this thing should go up during the, during, you know, when p- a- as, as certain participants behave a certain way. And from the beginning, there was always these blog posts out there about what does the death cycle look like. So what if this reversed course? Would this not c- because Luna's the collateral, would it not cause it to, you know, collapse really fast? And the question was, like, will that happen? Won't that happen? So even when you invest in it at the beginning, we wrote our little investment memo to ourselves about, like, "Here's our one-pager, why we think this is a good idea, and why we think this could go horribly wrong." When it crashed, it wasn't, like, something we nev- had never thought of. It was, "Oh yeah, that downside scenario we talked about, that's exactly what happened," right? Like, basically, there was a giant, you know, sell pressure that cr- that ca- car- caused that cascading down cycle. Yep, that we always thought that could happen. We had hoped it wouldn't happen. We had thought that maybe there was a, you know, there would be a way to, to put buy pressure back against it, but nope, it wa- wasn't gonna work. And so this is very fast example of basically just because it turned out bad doesn't mean that the, um, doesn't mean I change my position, 'cause actually at the beginning we said, "Well, here's why I'm not putting my entire net worth into this," right? I put 250k into it. That's not, like, a, a massive bet for me. Uh, it's a solid size bet, right? So it's, like, you know, I put a appropriately sized bet 'cause I thought it had upside and I thought there was some, some key risks with it. The thing that I would say I've changed my opinion most on is I thought, "Man, if people start to worry about inflation, and they look at, man, uh, you know, I have the same 100k in my bank, but it just doesn't buy me the same amount it used to," right? They'll realize, like, people will, will become more aware that the money they have is diminishing, the cash they have, the US dollars they have is diminishing in value, that they will probably look to go to a mo- a monetary system that doesn't have that problem. And so the idea that Bitcoin will do well if people start to, if, if inflation becomes something that people are more and more worried about with the US dollar. And that hasn't happened. Inflation got as bad as it's ever been, but people's response was more conservative than aggressive. People did not make a change to the Bitcoin monetary system, which would not have that problem. Um, they sort of, you know, sort of [laughs] stuck with it, and actually, the US dollar's gained strength re- because other currencies got crushed even worse. And so the dollar's gained strength. So that was one that I had thought that this was, this was what would happen, and it makes me reassess, was my logic incorrect or, um, or something else? You know, what, what, what did I get wrong about this idea that in a high inflation environment, Bitcoin should be something that people start moving more into?

Sahil Bloom 54:50 I mean, the Bitcoin one is actually pretty interesting, Shaan, 'cause I, I've thought about that a lot too, of is there, [clears throat] is there something just, like, in the segmentation of how the price went up that is impacting that? 'Cause I still think ... Ba- basically, my assumption of why that didn't happen, like, why that, you know, scenario of high inflation and people fled into this, is that most of the price increase was actually just driven by this, like, number go up, you know, crazy, uh, you know, loose monetary policy, people just pump into speculative, you know, high-risk assets, and that it wasn't really driven by, like, believers like you who underlying were like, "Oh, there's really good fundamentals. The technology really makes sense," driving it up. It was mostly just, like, my random friends who were like, "Ha, ha, Bitcoin number go up. This is great," and then they freaked out when it went the other direction and, and pulled out. You know, interest rates rise and you pull out. I wonder whether, like, if you segmented it somehow of, like, the true underlying technology believers, my guess would be that the picture would look different. Like, people that really are, like, thinking about the technology and thinking about the underlying, um, you know, kind of like monetary policy that exists on the network, my guess would be those people think that this is a great time to be accumulating and buying.

Shaan Puri 55:58 Yeah. Y- I, I think you're right. Um, I think you're right. But basically it's just, in my mind, uh, it was, like, a very simple picture. It was like you're playing one game, and the rules of this game are that the bank gives you some money. It's m- a game of Monopoly where the bank gives you some money, but every year your money becomes worth a little bit less by design. They're trying to make it 2 or 3% worse per year, but sometimes I think it's 10% worse per year, right? Or 9% worse per year, right? [laughs] That's the ... The game is, is set up that way. And hey, oh, yo, there's this other new edition of Monopoly that came out where that doesn't happen to your money. My assumption was like, oh, people will just start to move to the new edition 'cause they're not gonna like when their money becomes less valuable over time. Uh, but eh, I, I don't think that's the message that's got across. It was basically Bitcoin's how you get rich, or Bitcoin's how you lose your money, and that's the narrative that actually, like, played out. Uh, 'cause it was more, it was more aggressive. But, uh, Bitcoin will make you rich was the easier sell [laughs] uh, to, to people.

Sahil Bloom 56:51 Yeah.

Shaan Puri 56:52 And it was also the reason why they'll start to sell their Bitcoin when they real- when they feel like, oh, Bitcoin's crashing.

Sahil Bloom 56:56 By the way, I've got one more non-agency business idea for you guys-

Sam Parr 56:59 What is it?

Sahil Bloom 57:00 ... non-services, but, uh, maybe it's slightly serve- not that much services. More product. Uh, mobile, uh, podcast and video studio.

Sam Parr 57:07 Yeah, man.

Sahil Bloom 57:08 Like-

Sam Parr 57:08 Dude, it's such a pain in the butt.

Sahil Bloom 57:09 Dude, huge pain in the ass. Buy, like, a few vans. Kit them out with, like, a pretty fire setup.

Sam Parr 57:16 [laughs]

Sahil Bloom 57:16 Just in the back of, like, a normal sized van. Doesn't even have to be an RV. For, like, two to three people could fit. Deck it out with, like, a few good DSLR cameras that can do the recording, like dual camera setup so that you have, like, a few mics hanging off the sides, and basically go and post it up in a couple of major cities. Like, one van in each major city. It has, like, dope backgrounds, cool lighting, like, you know, whatever. Do the neon signs and shit in there, and rent it out for, like, 500 bucks for two hours to do podcast recordings or, like, you know, a couple hundred bucks to do, like, people going in and filming Instagram shorts, TikToks, shit like that. Like, if you put one in LA and you put one in New York City, I bet you could kill it on a cash on cash return on one of those.

Sam Parr 57:53 Man, I, I just joined this gym called The Collective in Austin, and it's, like, this, like, fancy whatever. Like, and everyone there looks like an Instagram model, and they have, uh, like, co-working there as well. But they also have three studios for podcasts a- and picture taking. Like, they just, they just really kn- know their audience. And I went there, and everyone looks like they're the type of person who is like ... I- if you follow a shirtless ripped guy on, uh, Instagram and they live in Austin, they're probably a member here. And-

Sahil Bloom 58:20 I mean, if you catch them on bad lighting, they don't even look that good.

Sam Parr 58:23 [laughs]

Sahil Bloom 58:23 But it, uh, like, somehow in that lighting you'd look unreal.

Sam Parr 58:27 W- I, I, I, I think you're making fun of me. Uh, I don't know. [laughs]

Sahil Bloom 58:30 No, no, you would. Like, the lighting makes a huge difference with, uh, with these, like, Instagram models, right? So, like, you just get good lighting on one of those things, I bet you could kill it.

Sam Parr 58:37 Wait, let-

Sahil Bloom 58:38 I do think these, like, mobile studio, though, you could crush it.

Sam Parr 58:40 So let me ask you a question.

Shaan Puri 58:41 I'm looking at these, uh-

Sam Parr 58:41 Go ahead

Shaan Puri 58:42 ... U-Haul box trucks. So how much do these cost to buy? So it looks like you could buy a used one of these for, like, 25 grand, right?

Sahil Bloom 58:50 Yeah.

Shaan Puri 58:50 So 25 grand, and let's s-

Sahil Bloom 58:53 And you only have to put five down.

Shaan Puri 58:55 Yeah, you put five down. You're probably gonna need to put another five into the kit, like, to make the, the thing work. Uh, and you probably need a dude operating the thing, but maybe, maybe you could get rid of that. Probably not. You probably have to have an operator on site. So I think that's the, that's the tricky part, where you gotta sell it as a, as a membership, basically. It's gotta be a gym membership. Uh, so it's like you could use this studio. You could just book it when it's free. Um, but you gotta be, like, a monthly member if you're ... You know, if you're doing it $500 a month or whatever and you have a studio on demand.

Sahil Bloom 59:23 Well, that's a genius idea to do it as a membership, actually. 'Cause dude, the thing that made me think of this is, like, in New York now there's these couple of studios where people are doing all, like, in-person podcasts. Like, there's this, like, What the Fuck Media is one of them.

Sam Parr 59:34 Yeah, I go to that.

Sahil Bloom 59:35 And Podstream. And they're, like, they're solid. They're not great. But they're having to pay New York City rent-

Shaan Puri 59:40 Yeah

Sahil Bloom 59:40 ... to, like, to do this, and so I can't imagine the economics are that great. And if you got a truck and you just bought it, you could go post this thing up in a parking lot, and every two hours just move to a different parking lot. And, like, you never have to pay rent. You're paying the, you know, like, carrying cost of the, of the truck, and you're paying the whatever five to 10 grand it takes you to actually-

Sam Parr 59:57 We're gonna-

Sahil Bloom 59:57 ... like, get the truck out

Sam Parr 59:58 ... we're gonna call it Moodio, the mobile studio. Moodio, the Moodio boys. That's what-

Sahil Bloom 1:00:03 We might get a branding agency to work on the name.

Shaan Puri 1:00:04 Yeah.

Sahil Bloom 1:00:04 But yeah.

Sam Parr 1:00:05 Wait, let me ask you something about branding.

Shaan Puri 1:00:07 Take our, our deafening silence as feedback on your name.

Sam Parr 1:00:09 [laughs]

Sahil Bloom 1:00:10 [laughs]

Shaan Puri 1:00:11 [laughs]

Sam Parr 1:00:13 But Sahil, let me ask you a question. So Shaan and I are trying to get popular on YouTube right now with this, with this thing, and one thing that's kind of the elephant in the room when everyone talks to you, I mean, I know Shaan talks about this constantly, is that you are just ridiculously good-looking.

Shaan Puri 1:00:29 [laughs]

Sam Parr 1:00:30 Uh, do y- [laughs] do you think that y- this schtick of yours of having good hair and being good-looking, is, is that image working for you? And what aesthetic schtick should Shaan and I have?

Shaan Puri 1:00:42 [laughs]

Sahil Bloom 1:00:44 I, first off, calling it a schtick is pretty hilarious to me. Um-

Sam Parr 1:00:47 You know, this schtick you have.

Sahil Bloom 1:00:48 No, look-

Sam Parr 1:00:48 This, like, "Oh, I'm so hot" schtick

Sahil Bloom 1:00:49 ... it's a whole face thing.

Sam Parr 1:00:50 Yeah, yeah. This whole-

Sahil Bloom 1:00:51 Look, look

Sam Parr 1:00:51 ... whatever you got in between your ears.

Sahil Bloom 1:00:53 I, I-

Sam Parr 1:00:53 Like, that schtick. Like, let's talk about it

Sahil Bloom 1:00:56 The platforms that are visual, it obviously helps to... Like, when people are scrolling through things for, like people to stop and say, "Oh, the person is, like, attractive," right? Like, it just... I mean, when you're scrolling through TikTok-

Sam Parr 1:01:07 So you agree

Sahil Bloom 1:01:07 ... and you see attractive girls-

Sam Parr 1:01:08 You're saying you're hot

Sahil Bloom 1:01:09 ... it helps. [laughs]

Sam Parr 1:01:10 [laughs]

Sahil Bloom 1:01:11 [laughs] Oh, so, so you agree. Was that a Mean Girls reference, Sam?

Sam Parr 1:01:14 [laughs]

Sahil Bloom 1:01:15 Did you just drop a Mean Girls reference on me?

Sam Parr 1:01:16 Dude, I'm a Millennial through and through.

Sahil Bloom 1:01:18 [laughs] The fact that I knew that it was a Mean Girls reference is just, is telling, actually.

Sam Parr 1:01:22 You are a mean girl.

Sahil Bloom 1:01:23 Um, no, look, I, I mean, for you guys, uh, you're both good-looking dudes. I'm not gonna sell you short. Sam, you've got, like, a little look with the, like, fake glasses. I don't think those have a prescription on them-

Sam Parr 1:01:33 [laughs]

Sahil Bloom 1:01:33 ... so it's, like, a little bit of a look.

Sam Parr 1:01:34 Dude, why does everyone think they're fake?

Shaan Puri 1:01:35 They're poking straight through. Th-

Sahil Bloom 1:01:36 I... They're definitely fake, dude

Shaan Puri 1:01:37 [laughs] No.

Sahil Bloom 1:01:38 And then, and then Shaan, Shaan's got the, like... You know, my favorite line that Shaan ever had is, uh, you know, "If you're not gonna be good-looking, be interesting-looking."

Sam Parr 1:01:46 [laughs]

Sahil Bloom 1:01:46 And I tell that to, like, everyone that I give advice to in life.

Sam Parr 1:01:49 But Shaan's not interesting-looking right now

Sahil Bloom 1:01:51 I mean, like, like, he looks like-

Shaan Puri 1:01:51 I used to be when I had long hair

Sahil Bloom 1:01:51 ... Shaan's interesting-looking, man. Look at this beard. He's got the salt and pepper beard going.

Sam Parr 1:01:53 Dude, he's wearing a Duke hoodie. Like, he looks like literally every single person who shops at, like, a generic grocery store in the suburbs.

Shaan Puri 1:02:00 [laughs]

Sahil Bloom 1:02:01 What's wrong with that, man?

Shaan Puri 1:02:02 That's Safeway.

Sahil Bloom 1:02:03 That's a, that's a vibe a little bit.

Shaan Puri 1:02:04 You better be coming to Safeway right now.

Sahil Bloom 1:02:04 Like, in the tech world, that's a little bit of a vibe.

Sam Parr 1:02:06 But, but that's not interesting.

Sahil Bloom 1:02:07 I don't know, man. I mean, I think you guys can play up the whole, like, your shtick of these two guys that look completely different that are, like, somehow friends. Like, you guys are like CatDog, man. You remember that show back in the day?

Shaan Puri 1:02:18 The-

Sahil Bloom 1:02:18 CatDog?

Shaan Puri 1:02:19 You know what we're going for?

Sahil Bloom 1:02:19 Yeah.

Shaan Puri 1:02:19 We're going for, like, "Why are these guys famous?" That's what we need to do.

Sahil Bloom 1:02:24 [laughs]

Shaan Puri 1:02:24 If we just get over the hump-

Sahil Bloom 1:02:26 So accessible

Shaan Puri 1:02:26 ... people will be like, "This? These guys? The... What... There's nothing special about them." But that's our thing, though, that there's nothing special about us.

Sahil Bloom 1:02:34 I don't think you have to be that good-looking on YouTube, by the way. Like, you guys don't need to be, like, models on YouTube. Um, g- if you, like, look at the people that have crushed on YouTube, it's not, like, hot dudes and hot chicks on YouTube necessarily.

Shaan Puri 1:02:47 That's true.

Sahil Bloom 1:02:47 Not that you guys aren't hot. I don't want you to come away... I don't want Sam to text me later being like, "Hey, man, what you said, that wasn't nice."

Shaan Puri 1:02:53 Sam's super sensitive about this, actually.

Sam Parr 1:02:54 [laughs]

Sahil Bloom 1:02:54 Uh, 'cause I know I'm gonna get that text later tonight from Sam.

Sam Parr 1:02:57 Wait, but you're wrong.

Sahil Bloom 1:02:58 But, no, I'm not saying that.

Sam Parr 1:02:58 Like-

Sahil Bloom 1:02:58 I don't, I don't-

Sam Parr 1:02:59 ... hot dudes do better on YouTube

Sahil Bloom 1:03:01 I don't think they do better. I don't think that's tr-... I, I mean, I'm not on YouTube yet. I'm gonna get on YouTube here soon, and I'll let you know whether we think that's true.

Sam Parr 1:03:07 [laughs]

Sahil Bloom 1:03:08 So you're saying you think you're hot.

Sam Parr 1:03:09 [laughs] Yeah. You're, you got this real burden you're carrying, my friend. [laughs]

Sahil Bloom 1:03:15 [laughs]

Shaan Puri 1:03:16 [laughs]

Sam Parr 1:03:17 Well, like, Alex Hormozi's got the thing where he wears, like, those stupid cutoff jeans now, and, and he's just, like, yoked.

Shaan Puri 1:03:22 Dude, that, that nose, nose strip and, like, the-

Sam Parr 1:03:24 The nose strip

Sahil Bloom 1:03:24 The nose strip is a choice

Shaan Puri 1:03:25 ... absurd level of, of being, being muscular, that's perfect example of you don't have to be great-looking. You gotta be interesting-looking.

Sam Parr 1:03:32 Yeah, dude, he's pe- peacocking hardcore, and it, and it's working.

Sahil Bloom 1:03:35 It's kind of just a look. It's a look, man. And, like, each of you guys has a look, and if you can just stick to a consistent look. It's like Chris Sacca with his cowboy shirts. Like, you need your thing.

Shaan Puri 1:03:43 Yeah. I, I've been actually... I've been thinking about this for a long time. I've been needing a uniform. I tweeted this out. I go, "I, I'm looking for a uniform." I wanna look the same every time I'm on this podcast, so I need something that from here up-

Sam Parr 1:03:55 Like a robe?

Shaan Puri 1:03:56 ... is, is gotta be... Yeah, maybe a robe. It's gotta be signature. And, um, I'm in the market, so I am taking suggest- I'm gonna put a bounty on this, actually. I'm gonna give a $1,000 bounty to anybody who can help me develop my, the, the chest-up look. That's what I'm looking for.

Sam Parr 1:04:12 [laughs]

Sahil Bloom 1:04:13 I kinda wanna see you do, like, traditional Indian attire for it.

Sam Parr 1:04:17 [laughs]

Sahil Bloom 1:04:17 Like, it could be kinda fire if you were wearing, like, a dope, like, kurta-

Sam Parr 1:04:20 [laughs]

Sahil Bloom 1:04:20 ... or, like, you know, some sorta, like, Indian, you know, up top. I mean, I, I think that'd be kinda fire. Shaan Puri, it could be part of your whole, like, angle with the name-

Shaan Puri 1:04:27 That's true

Sahil Bloom 1:04:27 ... and stuff.

Shaan Puri 1:04:28 That's true. It, it... Okay, I... You're, you're eligible for the bounty, uh, [laughs] d- right now in the first place.

Sahil Bloom 1:04:33 $1,000 bounty. I, I might, I might throw into it. I also might match it, just 'cause I think it's gonna be funny to see-

Shaan Puri 1:04:37 Okay

Sahil Bloom 1:04:37 ... whatever your next signature thing is

Shaan Puri 1:04:38 You heard it here first.

Sahil Bloom 1:04:39 So I'll throw-

Shaan Puri 1:04:39 2 grand, baby

Sahil Bloom 1:04:40 ... I'll throw in 1,000.

Sam Parr 1:04:41 [laughs]

Sahil Bloom 1:04:41 I'll throw in 1,000 on top of it.

Shaan Puri 1:04:42 Sam's about to have internet issues-

Sam Parr 1:04:43 It is

Shaan Puri 1:04:43 ... before he's on the hook for 1,000.

Sam Parr 1:04:45 Yeah, no.

Sahil Bloom 1:04:46 [laughs]

Sam Parr 1:04:46 I'm not... I don't, I don't give into peer pressure.

Shaan Puri 1:04:48 Sam's like, "Shh, shh, shh, shh. You're breaking up. You're breaking up."

Sam Parr 1:04:49 I don't give into peer pressure.

Shaan Puri 1:04:50 "What did you guys say?"

Sam Parr 1:04:51 This is the stupidest thing ever. I'm not gonna give someone $1,000 so they can sell, tell Shaan what T-shirt to wear.

Sahil Bloom 1:04:56 [laughs]

Sam Parr 1:04:56 Like... [laughs]

Sahil Bloom 1:04:57 Well, you have a signature look already, so it's easier for you to say.

Sam Parr 1:05:00 Yeah. What? My muscles, you mean?

Sahil Bloom 1:05:01 You've got the, like, kinda like... No, you've got, like-

Sam Parr 1:05:03 [laughs]

Sahil Bloom 1:05:03 ... the little, like, the pretty boy thing going with the, like, non-prescription glasses-

Shaan Puri 1:05:06 Like the grandfather who's, like-

Sahil Bloom 1:05:07 ... sweater

Shaan Puri 1:05:07 ... not a grandfather type of thing. Yeah, it's good.

Sam Parr 1:05:09 [laughs]

Sahil Bloom 1:05:10 Yeah.

Sam Parr 1:05:11 Uh-

Sahil Bloom 1:05:11 You are gonna be, like... You're gonna be a quintessential father. You're gonna have a lot of stern talks with your child. I already know it's coming.

Sam Parr 1:05:16 Uh, I don't know what to say to this.

Shaan Puri 1:05:18 Sahil, um-

Sam Parr 1:05:19 Thank you?

Shaan Puri 1:05:20 Yeah, yeah. Wait, I wanna hear this before

Shaan Puri 1:05:22 you go. What is the grand plan? What is the grand vision for yourself? So you went from no-name PE guy that, as we established, to, to, to legendary thread boy to, uh, now CNBC contributor, book deal guy, author. I think you're gonna be president. Is that... I, I, I joke about that a lot, but I, I genuinely believe you could become the president someday if you wanted to. Do you have a grand plan for yourself? What's the vision?

Sahil Bloom 1:05:48 I could see that being in the cards long term, running for public office. I don't know if president is-

Sam Parr 1:05:52 It's crazy

Sahil Bloom 1:05:52 ... a role that you necessarily want. I think it's, like, probably one of the hardest and worst jobs in the world.

Shaan Puri 1:05:58 Don't go Nikita on us.

Sahil Bloom 1:05:58 Like, to see how guys go in. Like, Obama went in looking young, and then he le- you know, leaves all gray, like, looking, you know, looking rough. It's, like, the s- highest stress job in the world. Running for governor would be... I don't know. That could be pretty fun-

Sam Parr 1:06:10 Dude-

Sahil Bloom 1:06:10 ... to be a governor of a s- of a state.

Sam Parr 1:06:11 Do you know anything about politics?

Shaan Puri 1:06:12 Governor.

Sam Parr 1:06:13 I've never known you to be a-

Sahil Bloom 1:06:14 I studied public policy. I did, uh, I did my master's in public policy, dude.

Shaan Puri 1:06:17 Oh.

Sam Parr 1:06:17 Yeah. So?

Sahil Bloom 1:06:18 That was always, like, what I wanted to do.

Sam Parr 1:06:19 I mean, I took a class on basket weaving. Like, that doesn't... Like, what... Like, you know what I mean?

Sahil Bloom 1:06:23 Do you think the people that are serving in public office today know a lot about politics? It's like, what is po- it's sort of like the Naval thing of, like, you don't read a business book to know business. Like, there's no such thing as politics. It's like, you know, are you a reasonable thinker? Do you have the ability to change your mind? Which right now, politicians do not. And can you inspire people?

Sam Parr 1:06:40 Do you... Would you be-

Sahil Bloom 1:06:41 And get people to move on things

Sam Parr 1:06:42 ... which party would you be? I don't even know.

Sahil Bloom 1:06:44 I'm an independent, man, so I mean, I've, I've voted Democrat, I've voted Republican in prior elections, so I actually, I actually don't No. What party? I, I prob- I'm hoping that a third party rises over the next 20 years before I actually go do this, 'cause I hate the direction that, you know, like, polar politics has gone. Um, I, you know-

Sam Parr 1:07:01 I, I mean-

Sahil Bloom 1:07:02 ... it's just, like, the loudest minority on each side.

Sam Parr 1:07:03 I could see you being a good politician because you pretty much never take a stand on anything, kinda like what you just did.

Sahil Bloom 1:07:08 [laughs]

Sam Parr 1:07:08 You're like... I, I always call it, I'm like, "You're a PC like The Rock, man. You never say anything inappropriate. Like, you, you, you, you are like-

Sahil Bloom 1:07:15 Dude, I love it like The Rock.

Sam Parr 1:07:17 Well, yes. But Sahil, he never takes a stand on anything. He's always, he hedges everything he says. You, you could be beautiful for a politician.

Sahil Bloom 1:07:25 All right. Well, I'm counting on your fundraising support, Sam. [laughs]

Sam Parr 1:07:28 [laughs]

Sahil Bloom 1:07:29 I'll even introduce you as my hot friend, Sam, when you come up to give a speech at my, uh, at my future campaign event.

Sam Parr 1:07:34 Look, you're already-

Sahil Bloom 1:07:34 How about that?

Sam Parr 1:07:35 You're already-

Sahil Bloom 1:07:35 Will you do it for me then?

Sam Parr 1:07:36 You're already lying.

Sahil Bloom 1:07:37 Will you do it for me?

Sam Parr 1:07:37 You're already lying like a good politician.

Sahil Bloom 1:07:39 [laughs]

Sam Parr 1:07:40 Uh, well thanks for coming on. Where... What do you wanna... Do you wanna promote something? Is that a thing? Do you have something to promote?

Sahil Bloom 1:07:44 I don't know, man. People kinda know where to find me. I'm @SahilBloom on every- everything, and my newsletter is at my website, sahilbloom.com.

Sam Parr 1:07:52 Well, I'm happy we finally got you on. Uh, we'll have to do it again. We're gonna get another g- I'm gonna ask Austin Rief to come on. That'll be another group chat guy. We've asked Nikita to come on a few times, but he's, you know, weird.

Sahil Bloom 1:08:03 Nikita's-

Sam Parr 1:08:03 Uh-

Sahil Bloom 1:08:03 He's busy right now, man.

Sam Parr 1:08:04 Yeah, right.

Sahil Bloom 1:08:04 Nikita's busy, like, basking in the glory of his Gas app fame.

Sam Parr 1:08:08 [laughs] No, he's just, thinks it's cool to tell me no, I think. [laughs] Uh, Nikita-

Sahil Bloom 1:08:13 I mean, Nikita, Nikita right now, like, Nikita's been that guy that's like, "Oh my God, guys, I hate running this app. This is so tough." And then, like, you'll see, like, on his Instagram, him, like, having a photo shoot at his house, like, posing out, like, looking like this, looking like this.

Sam Parr 1:08:26 [laughs] And his girlfriend in the, behind the scenes says, "Oh my God, this looks like an album cover." [laughs]

Sahil Bloom 1:08:32 Nikita's living his best life, man. More props to him, 'cause that dude had called his shot and has actually gone and done it, so big shout-out.

Sam Parr 1:08:37 So we'll get him on. We'll get Austin on. We gotta get through a few more. We've had Huber on, but, uh, dude, thanks for coming and doing this. We appreciate it.

Sahil Bloom 1:08:42 Yeah. Thank you, guys.

Sam Parr 1:08:43 Yeah, man. [outro music]