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My First Million7 Creators Who Make Over $50 Million/Year From YouTube (#408)
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65 min read · 13,470 words- 0:00 – 5:47
Intro
- SPSam Parr
So he's got, uh, is it The Daily Wire? Is that what it's called?
- SPShaan Puri
Daily Wire. So this is like a subscription media company that he created, 'cause they're just sort of like anti-mainstream media. That became a big thing, like fake news, F- F the mainstream media. Well, why don't we create an alternative? The Daily Wire. And The Daily Wire does some insane numbers. It's like only in year three or four, something like this, very new, and it does over $100 million a year in subscription revenue.
- SPSam Parr
Yeah, and have you heard of their, their spinoff, Jeremy's Razors?
- SPShaan Puri
No. [laughs] What is that?
- SPSam Parr
Dude, you gotta go to this- [upbeat music] Dude, I've had a hell of a, of a, of a day. I'm not gonna say who, but check this out. A friend wanted to come skateboarding with me, so naturally he got a concussion, so I took him to the hospital to-
- SPShaan Puri
By the way, did you even get like an hour of skateboarding in, or was this like five minutes?
- SPSam Parr
I got an hour in. I got an hour in. Uh, yeah, and then he was getting hyped up, seeing me do stuff. He fell, hit his head, take him to the hospital to get his c- uh, concussion checked out. Turns out while we, while we were there, while they were getting the scan, their appendix ruptured and they get rushed overnight, or they get, he, they have to stay there overnight, get rushed to the, a different hospital, emergency appendix surgery. So this head injury basically saved his life. And they were like, "I don't know, like, this is just a gift from God, but you definitely could have died from this."
- SPShaan Puri
Did the appendix get damaged in the skateboard fall?
- SPSam Parr
No.
- SPShaan Puri
Or did it just separately happen to be the same time?
- SPSam Parr
Separate. It's just a weird turn of events, very separate. So that's where I've been. So I'm a little disheveled, but I'm wearing my cool guy jacket now. That's my new thing. I'm gonna be the token cool guy.
- SPShaan Puri
Oh, clever.
- SPSam Parr
You could be the nerd.
- SPShaan Puri
Congrats.
- SPSam Parr
Yeah. No, this is real leather, bro. This ain't the, this ain't Tesla vegan leather. But I'm in my cool guy outfit, so I'm good to go.
- SPShaan Puri
Yeah, um, cool is what I would describe that as.
- SPSam Parr
[laughs]
- SPShaan Puri
So that's [laughs] ... Uh, all right, where, where shall we start? Where do you wanna start? Are we still, is Sam still showing up to the BYOB empty-handed, or is he bringing ideas to the table? Where are we at with this whole, uh-
- SPSam Parr
Well-
- SPShaan Puri
... Sam does research thing? I know you started with a doctor's note there. So is that your excuse for why you don't have any topics?
- SPSam Parr
We, I just went over a lot of my topics. I was the one who did the topics. Um, oh, you wanna talk about your new seed oil only diet? Isn't that what you told me, that you're doing a seed oil only diet?
- SPShaan Puri
[laughs]
- SPSam Parr
Sam.
- SPShaan Puri
All oil diet. [laughs]
- SPSam Parr
Dude, so like seed oils are all the rage right now. Is it just in my world? We started talking about them, and now I'm seeing everywhere. People are so anti seed oils. My friend Dennis was like, "Screw it, I'm only eating seed oils from now on."
- SPShaan Puri
I looked yesterday at the bag of, um... I was like, "You know what? I kinda wanna have one of these, little, little bag of this little pretzel thing for a second. I just, let me just check the, check the stats on this." I was like, "Ah, it's not so bad. Not the, not too many calories, n- whatever." And I looked at the, the ingredients. I saw canola oil on there or something like that, you know, sunflower oil, whatever these things are. And it was a Sam voice in my head that just told me, "These things kill you." And so I decided, I decided to put it down. I drank a big tall glass of water instead. So pretty bi- pretty big net win there for me.
- SPSam Parr
Yeah, I don't know why it's bad for you, but someone on Twitter told me it was, therefore it's true. If it's, if it's written down on Twitter or if it rhymes or if it's like a cute phrase, I automatically believe it.
- SPShaan Puri
Alliterations, rhymes-
- SPSam Parr
[laughs]
- SPShaan Puri
... or four people I don't know. [laughs] Either, any one of those three, and I'm in. [upbeat music] Let me tell you, uh, two things. One, you said something about like, "Oh, it's beautiful, it's well done," and it reminded me, I f- uh, yesterday I found an ama- what would be an amazing D2C product. Not amazing like hundreds of millions of dollars, but uh, a D2C business that is s- I know would just, it would work. It would work really well. It would be very profitable. Um, it, I'm looking, uh, if somebody wants to operate it, I, I'll, I will just simply give you an idea and a playbook, and then, uh, I'll take my share, and we can, we can start this company. But basically it would require somebody who's good at things that are beautifully done. So-
- 5:47 – 23:26
Creators who have made more than $50M
- SPSam Parr
Yeah
- SPShaan Puri
... a YouTube creator who's not just gonna make money off YouTube ad revenue, but has built a business that, they built basically a $50 million plus empire off YouTube. Why did I ask this question? Well, your boy's gonna start doing YouTube content, but your boy also wants to make more than $50 million doing this process. And so I wanted to see who has done this before because I'm not really interested in being a pioneer. The pioneers get slaughtered, right? So I don't wanna be a pioneer doing this. I wanna be sort of a fast follower. So I was looking for examples, and I got a bunch out of this tweet. I wanna read some of them off to you and see, uh, what you think about these. First one-
- SPSam Parr
By the way, wh- when, when you tweeted that, I, I don't know if it's because I know you well or if everyone, like, could read through the lines here.
- SPShaan Puri
[laughs]
- SPSam Parr
But it was very much like, uh-
- SPShaan Puri
Um-
- SPSam Parr
... tell me what to do with my life. [laughs]
- SPShaan Puri
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, "Hey, could you just, um, could you validate my parking pass here?"
- SPSam Parr
Yeah. [laughs]
- SPShaan Puri
I, I need some, I need something.
- SPSam Parr
Yeah.
- SPShaan Puri
So first one's right up your alley. More Plates More Dates.
- SPSam Parr
Love 'em.
- SPShaan Puri
So More Plates More Dates, you probably know this story a little better than I do. I didn't know he was doing this, 'cause I've watched his videos. He doesn't really pump product as much, uh, or at least in the clips that I've seen.
- SPSam Parr
If you watch closely, he does. Not, not in an obnoxious way.
- SPShaan Puri
Right. So this guy, Derek, super likable guy. Uh, puts out great content. I'm not even really interested in, like, testosterone and, like, steroid usage and stuff. You know, occasionally I am with certain athletes.
- SPSam Parr
[laughs]
- SPShaan Puri
But usually not. But I find myself just watching this guy's videos 'cause I like this guy a lot. Um, apparently he's got a brand or maybe two brands. One brand, uh, you know the name of it?
- SPSam Parr
Yeah, one's called Marek Health, and the other one is called Gorilla s- what's it called?
- SPShaan Puri
Gorilla Mind.
- SPSam Parr
Gorilla Mind, yeah.
- SPShaan Puri
So Gorilla Mind, if you go to Gorilla Mind, Gorilla Mind is getting, I wanna say almost 2 million, uh, between 1 and 2 million, uh, visits a month, right? So let's say o- a million visits a month. I think it's pretty safe that this, that this brand is doing about a million dollars a month in revenue, so 12 million a year in revenue on his, uh, supplements brand. Um-
- SPSam Parr
I think more. I, I would take the, I would take the, the more on that one.
- SPShaan Puri
Yeah. Uh, yeah. That's a con- I would say a conservative estimate. I would, I wouldn't be surprised if it was as high as 4 million a month. Um, and supplements are an amazing niche to be in, right? Like, you know, everybody wants to be in the, uh, everybody wants to be in the, in the supplements niche. So, um, so that's great. Just gave you, by the way, two pronunciations of niche, uh, back to back, just to-
- SPSam Parr
[laughs]
- SPShaan Puri
... appeal to both, both sides of the, of the aisle. [laughs]
- SPSam Parr
You totally redeemed yourself. [laughs]
- SPShaan Puri
And then Marek is this TRT clinic. So they basically do kinda like, you know, uh, help men, you know, stay young. So hormone replacement, hair loss, sexual wellness, all this stuff. Um, this thing's gotta be doing pretty well, too, and I think they also do the semaglutide stuff, uh, as well. I don't... Did he start this or what? Because it has, like, 200 employees on LinkedIn. Is he, uh, just a partner or he started it?
- SPSam Parr
I think he's an equity owner. I don't know if he's the guy, but I think-
- SPShaan Puri
Right
- 23:26 – 31:32
Bring a trailer
- SPSam Parr
ago.
- SPShaan Puri
You were like, "Dude, there's this thing called Bring a Trailer. It's sick. You can just buy a car on this auction thing." I don't even know how it works exactly. You're like, "It's started by this guy, Doug De- Doug DeMuro."
- SPSam Parr
No, you're, you're confusing two things. It, it, it was-
- SPShaan Puri
Oh, no, it was the guy from, uh, Inbox or whatever, right?
- SPSam Parr
It, yeah, yeah, yeah. So, uh, it was started, the main guy, I forget his name. Nathan, I think. The, the non-main guy but also co-founder, I think his name is Gentry Underwood.
- SPShaan Puri
Right.
- SPSam Parr
And he started, uh, this company called Mailbox, which is, like, an email thing that sold for, uh, reportedly $100 million to Dropbox, like, before it even launched, because it built up such a huge wait list. And it sounded like a cool product. I don't even think it got launched. But anyway, it's this website called Bring a Trailer, and if you go to it, it just looks like, almost like a blog. It's, it's fairly unsophisticated. Honestly, I think it's WordPress. And what they do is there's this neat niche of car enthusiasts who like things from, like, the '70s to, like, early '90s, which-
- SPShaan Puri
Like your jacket
- SPSam Parr
... uh, I don't... Like my jacket, yeah, yeah. Exactly. Like my jacket. [laughs]
- SPShaan Puri
[laughs]
- SPSam Parr
And it started out small, but it sold recently, and it was recently-ish announced that they, last year, in the trailing 12 months, sold something like $1.2 billion worth of cars in one year. And they made something like $100 million in net revenue with like 80 employees. And you go to their website and it's so basic, and people love it. And there's this guy named Doug DeMuro who has a YouTube channel where he reviews all types of cars, and he does it just with an, like an iPhone. And he like always has like... Have, you know what, like a bacon collar? Have you ever heard of a, a bacon collar? It's like where you wear an undershirt on your, on your shirt, on your white shirt. The collar's all like shuffled or like the, the, the white sleeves are like coming down below your polo. You know what I'm talking about?
- SPShaan Puri
Like, okay, so your undershirt is showing? Is that the idea?
- SPSam Parr
Yeah, where you're like under, like he's like, it's like where you're wear- Like imagine a guy wearing cargo shorts-
- SPShaan Puri
[laughs]
- SPSam Parr
... and like an Old Navy T-shirt with like a Hollister polo above it and like you have a bacon collar. Like, he just to- looks totally disheveled. It's incredibly unprofessional looking.
- SPShaan Puri
Okay.
- SPSam Parr
But it's-
- SPShaan Puri
I got the definition. Shirts that have a wavy neck [laughs] due to being stretched out or from improper care. [laughs]
- SPSam Parr
Yeah, it's just like, it's just like, uh, the very typical like, uh-
- SPShaan Puri
This is how all of my shirts look, dude. [laughs]
- SPSam Parr
Yeah. You're a bacon collar guy. So that's what this guy is. He, Doug's a d- a, a bacon collar guy, but he's hilarious, and he's lovable, and he's likable, and he's built this YouTube channel. Like, he'll r- review like a $2 million Ferrari, as well as like a $30,000 Honda Pilot.
- SPShaan Puri
That's right.
- SPSam Parr
And it's pretty hilarious. He's got three or four million subscribers on YouTube now. I told you about two years ago, maybe, I forget when, maybe three years ago, he launched this new company called Cars & Bids, and it's very similar to Bring a Trailer. And so I predict that this is actually gonna be a multi $100 million exit, and I wanna make my prediction there now that that's gonna happen. But what's really interesting here is curated auctions. I think that's very fascinating. Because the reason it's fascinating is if you go to eBay... Have you ever been to eBay in the last like five years?
- SPShaan Puri
I have not.
- SPSam Parr
Dude, no, like not a lot of people do. Of course, a lot of people do, but like not a lot of people do.
- SPShaan Puri
[laughs]
- SPSam Parr
And it's because it's one of those things, no one goes there anymore.
- SPShaan Puri
Perfect, perfect description.
- SPSam Parr
Yeah. [laughs]
- SPShaan Puri
It's got like 100 million visitors. You don't know any of them. [laughs]
- 31:32 – 50:05
Billy of the Week: Sam Altman
- SPShaan Puri
All right. I think I've kind of done this, but I went even deeper down this rabbit hole, so I gotta bring him back as a new Billy of the Week. [upbeat music]
- SPSpeaker
A million dollars isn't cool. You know what's cool? A billion dollars.
- SPShaan Puri
The new Billy of the Week is an old Billy of the Week. It's Sam Altman. And you would think, "Sam, what, uh, Shaan, what, you know, you got nothing new to say here. Well, it's Sam Altman. We all know Sam Altman. We've talked about Sam Altman." Dude, Sam Altman's, Sam Altman's onion status, he's got layers. Um, okay, so I wanna read you some of the interesting... I went down a Sam Altman, uh, rabbit hole last night. Here's why. He did an interview, and I was, I was watching it and s-
- SPSam Parr
Well, expl- you gotta explain who he is for the noobs out there.
- SPShaan Puri
Okay. For people who don't know who Sam Altman is, he's, uh, like an entrepreneur in Silicon Valley. He created one company, didn't go that far, called Loopt. Uh, sold it for 40 million bucks. Then he, but he had ma- he went through Y Combinator, the big accelerator down here.
- SPSam Parr
When he was like 19.
- SPShaan Puri
And the founder of, of Y Combinator was super impressed with him a- kept him on as a partner, and eventually named him president of YC, which is like one of like, it's like being named the Dean of Harvard after being a Harvard student, because the dean thought you were so special. And so that's literally what he did. He became the, the president of YC, grew YC. He then created, he then created the nonprofit OpenAI. He then left to go work on OpenAI. OpenAI is now behind ChatGPT, which is like one of the fastest growing, like tech waves that's out there. Basically an artificial intelligence, um, platform that's... I think they launched ChatGPT d- ChatGPT, and I think got 10 million users in like 10 days or something ridiculous like that.
- SPSam Parr
It's worth $40 billion, uh, in private market.
- SPShaan Puri
The company's worth, you know, somewhere between $20 billion and $40 billion now, and, uh, he's the, you know, the leader of that thing too. Plus, he's a prolific investor, was an investor in a bunch of things. All right, so I got some of those facts coming. But that's... and most people know Sam Altman. I'm not bringing up a surprise. Uh, if you listen to this pod, you probably know who he is. Okay. But here are some of the things I didn't know. Um, I was listening to this interview, and they go, "Um, you invested in this fusion company." And I'm thinking, "Okay, fusion. I still don't know what the hell that is, but I know smart people talk about it. Okay, great." And they go, uh, "You led the investment." Okay, that's fine. He led the investment. "You put, you wrote a $375 million check into Helion." Uh, and I was like-
- SPSam Parr
What?
- SPShaan Puri
... you know, " [imitates record scratch] Like rewind. What, what did this person just say?"
- SPSam Parr
[laughs]
- SPShaan Puri
And I literally went back and I re-listened to it, and I, and-
- SPSam Parr
[laughs]
- SPShaan Puri
... and I was like, "Oh, I didn't know Sam Altman has like a giant venture fund." Like, uh, surely he's not writing a $375 million check himself. As far as I could tell, that is what he did. He wrote a $375 million check himself.
- SPSam Parr
No way.
- SPShaan Puri
And that got me down this rabbit hole of where did Sa- how did Sam Altman get so wealthy? Uh, because I've heard several stories now. So for example, when he started OpenAI, or even when he was president of YC, he donated $10 million to, um, a re- a science research, uh, like, um, a project that he created, right? Like a science re- research nonprofit. To donate $10 million means you got a lot more than $10 million. And at that time I was like, "How did he get $10 million?" 'Cause again, his first startup, which he was like, whatever, 18 or 19, sold for $41 million. Out of that-
- SPSam Parr
I, I-
- SPShaan Puri
... he said that he got $5 million. So somehow he parlayed $5 million, and in a very short amount of time, about four or five years, was now donating $10 million. So that was the first thing-
- SPSam Parr
Oh, wow. It was that short?
- SPShaan Puri
That didn't make sense. And I was like, "Okay, so he's, you know, this is now, you know, maybe six years max later?" Okay, then what else did he do? He also, um, donated to, you know, when he started OpenAI, but they didn't say how much. And then this $375 million check. So I started going back and trying to figure out what's going on. So starts Loopt, sells it, nets about $5 million. From there he-
- SPSam Parr
How old was he, uh, at that $5 million? Like 22, 23?
- SPShaan Puri
Yeah, something like that. I don't have the exact timeline, but I think he's in his young, uh, early, early 20s is, is pretty safe to say there. Um, he then, uh, starts investing in startups. And so he's investing in startups. Second investment is, drum roll please, the best investment of the decade, Stripe. So he's one of the first investors in Stripe. Um, that was his second investment. And, and there's this like thing that I've noticed, which is, um, in D2C brands, they call your first kinda like couple months, um, your golden cohort. It's like I notice this about our customers and my, my e-com brand, but I notice this across many brands, uh, which is your first, uh, that first batch of customers you get, for some reason, their LTV is way higher. And it kinda makes sense 'cause it's actually like the people who immediately get it with your message are willing to adopt your thing before you're a big brand. They probably really have the problem or they're heavy enthusiasts. Um, there's so- there's the equivalent thing in investing. For some reason, it's very common for people's first sorta five to 10 investments to do extremely well, uh, in the world of angel investing. When you're, for, for great investors, often their best hits come early. Like, uh, Chris Sacca, who's one of the best early-stage investors of all time, his ear- one of, some of his earliest investments were basically, you know, the combination of Twitter, Uber, Instagram, you know, things like that. And they came in the, kind of the first 10, 15 deals that he did.
- SPSam Parr
And I feel like that's the only stuff he did. Like those were the hits, and then everything-
- SPShaan Puri
He, he did so well, he retired, right? He-
- SPSam Parr
Right
- SPShaan Puri
... became a billionaire and essentially retired from the game 'cause he was like, "Well, my first fund was like a, whatever, 6,000X. I'm, [laughs] I'm good." Um- Sam said that in his first 40 deals, um, at that, at that time he had invested in 40 deals, um, he was two years in, and he said that, uh, five of the companies were doing really good. And then it was like, "What's really good mean?" It was over 100X. [laughs] So like-
- SPSam Parr
So what's that mean?
- SPShaan Puri
By the way, that's not really good, that's ridiculously good.
- SPSam Parr
So what's a, what's a $50,000, how big of a... Maybe 25,000? What's 100 times, uh, 25,000?
- 50:05 – 58:11
Suli quotes
- SPSam Parr
still pretty stupid.
- SPShaan Puri
Yeah.
- SPSam Parr
So I'm glad-
- SPShaan Puri
And I do it from time to time. I, I'll often do it in my e-com biz. Like, um, Suli is my, like, kinda like mentor coach on that side, and I f- I feel like he's the Jedi guy. Uh, I know he's the Jedi guy 'cause he's like, he says something about frameworks. He goes, "Everyone in Silicon Valley talks about frameworks. I don't know what a framework is." And, um, at first I used to think, "Maybe I'm too dumb." Like, uh, should I learn this thing? I don't understand what everyone's talking about, and now I realize they're all dumb. [laughs] And I think that he- he's 100% right. Like, uh, I'd be like, you know, "Hey, should we do influencer marketing for the brand? Blah, blah, blah, blah." He's like, "Remember I told you Facebook ads? Just write the word Facebook ads on your computer, and then every time you think about doing anything else besides Facebook ads, look at that sticky note again." [laughs]
- SPSam Parr
That's hilarious.
- SPShaan Puri
And he'd be like, um, "If you're gonna call me and talk to me about another idea, you better have, be doing 500,000 a month. And don't call me about another idea until Facebook ads has got you to 500,000 a month." And it's like the J- the Jedi simplicity is something I, uh, like, you know, revere now. So he, he had a few, um, a few Jedi quotes in this I'm gonna read you. He goes, "Uh, founders will come up to me and be like, 'Oh, you know, what if, what if, um, you know, I'm worried about saying this to my investors 'cause then they're gonna think this, that might affect our Series B raise,' blah, blah." He goes, "Just tell them." [laughs] And then he goes, um, "People are worried about, uh, you know, you don't know h- how your customers are gonna feel about this? Just ask them. Um, you're worried about competitors? Don't worry about them until they're beating you in the market." Um, and he's like, "Oh, you wanna do these five things you're trying to decide? Like, just pick one and do it. Most people just simply do too many things. Do a few things relentlessly." Another one, he goes, "You need to every, every year you need to think about how you're gonna add one zero to what you're doing, but don't think beyond one zero." And I thought that's a good Jedi-ism. It's like a way to think big-
- SPSam Parr
It is great
- SPShaan Puri
... but without being kind of like just a delusional talker and, like, you know, living in fantasy land. Um, so he had a bunch of those as I was reading this, uh, that I thought was, was pretty dope. Um-
- SPSam Parr
He's, um, he's great, man. He... I always see pictures. There's that famous conference in Idaho, like the Sun Valley thing, and you'll see pictures of him-
- SPShaan Puri
Is it the Warren Buffett thing?
- SPSam Parr
Uh-
- SPShaan Puri
Oh, no, the rich guy one.
- SPSam Parr
The rich guy one. It's like where, like, it's almost like a Davos but, or something like that. But it's like all, like, the who's who. I think it's mostly media, though, which includes everyone, so, like, the Murdoch family and, like, the people who run CNN and, and you see, like, you know, uh, there's pr- ex-presidents there, and then you see Sam Altman, and he's wearing, like, cool running shoe- shoes with, like, cool sunglasses, and, like, his hair is all disheveled. He is, uh, he's very, he's a very interesting character. Sam Altman's cool. He's kinda been, like, g- uh, a little bit under the radar while he's been building his company, but he said something the other day. Uh, someone was like, "We're really hyped about GPT-4. Can you tell us?" He goes, "All I can say is, like, people are setting themselves up for a lot of disappointment. I have n- I don't think we're gonna live up to your expectations," or something like that. And I was like, "Oh, that's a pretty cool response. Now, now I'm interested."
- SPShaan Puri
Yeah, he goes with, he goes, "With AI, there's people who think, um, AI's changed the whole game and everyth- Google Search is dead, AI's gonna change everything. GPT-4's gonna be, like, you know, fricking, uh, sentient and whatever. It's gonna be amazing." He goes, "That's, that's wrong." And people who think, "Oh, ChatGPT, this thing's overrated. It's a big nothing burger. It's, uh, you know, look, it makes this mistake, it makes this mistake, it can, you can trick it into saying this stupid thing." And he goes, "They're also wrong. They're also being dumb, but in a different way. Uh, you know, they're being dumb because they're not realizing how fast this thing's gonna improve, and the other guy's being dumb because they think it's already there, but it's not there yet. Uh, you know, the truth is, like, somewhere in the middle." And, um, I just thought that was, like, a, you know, a much better, like, reply. Um, I also thought there was, like, a couple of kind of remarkable little things that I wanna share as well, things that I didn't know about Sam Altman. So that first fund that Peter Thiel gave him $21 million for, uh, in, I think, three years or so, um, let's see, three years or so, he, uh, the fund, no, four years the fund was up 10X already. Um, so, you know, that's, like, what people want after, like, you know, a 10-year period, and, and in four years he had done that. Um, the second thing was h- how did he do it? He made, like, pretty ridiculous bets. So he, he was like, "All right. If I wanna, if I wanna help create, like, you know, trillions of dollars of progress, that's gonna come from science and technology, not just, like, the next random app." And so he's like, uh, "All right. I gotta invest in more science and technology." So he goes for, he goes to Cruise, uh, which was a self-driving car company that eventually got bought by GM for a billion dollars, but at the time nobody was funding Cruise. Nobody was funding self-driving cars. Um, it just seemed too hard. Like, hardware-
- SPSam Parr
Seems like an obvious bet now looking back, right? I mean, that team was, like-
- SPShaan Puri
Obvious now
- SPSam Parr
... A+
- SPShaan Puri
Completely non-obvious back then, and they were struggling. He puts $3 million directly into that one company. [laughs] And the same thing with this $375 million check. The, like, the lady was like, "Most people can't write that big of a check." He goes, "Especially not into a, uh, extremely risky thing like nuclear fusion." And it's, it's completely right. Like, that's gonna be, like, you know, a zero or massive, and he's writing massive checks into it, and he did this several times. He puts, like, millions of dollars into single bets that he, like, had conviction on. He then reflected on it and he goes, "Of all the biggest winners, um, uh," he goes, "I looked at the five biggest winners, uh, that I have had in that early portfolio." He goes, "Four of the five nobody wanted to fund. They were not oversubscribed. People generally thought they were bad ideas. In fact, I almost got talked out of doing them because smart people were telling me why these are bad ideas. Only one, Optimizely, was an idea everybody thought was a good idea that turned out to be a good idea."
- SPSam Parr
It didn't even do that well, I think.
- SPShaan Puri
Well, it did okay. I think Optimizely did go public, I think, in the end. So, you know, it did make it, but, um- And maybe, maybe I'm wrong about that, but like-
- SPSam Parr
I thought it got bought by PE, but like it was ... It compared to the other ... Oh, no, it says they have 1,000 employees. I'm wrong. Yeah, it must've been a hit.
- SPShaan Puri
So, so, uh, the other ones, you know, Zenefits, uh, Cruise, um, you know, things like that, uh, basically he was like Stripe, he's like, "At the t- now Stripe's e- everything," but he's like, "At the time it was 18-year-old kids saying we're gonna like work with banks and change the payments industry," and the everybody was like, "These guys don't know what they're getting into," except for like, you know, a handful of people that believed in them. Same thing with Airbnb. He was an early investor in Airbnb. That was non-obvious. So he kinda got really into this like non-obvious but correct mentality, which is the, the Peter Thiel like school of thought too. Like, um, he's like, "The investments that didn't work out, people also told me those were bad ideas. [laughs] So it's not that all bad ideas are good ideas, it's that some bad ideas are actually great ideas, and that that's where all the returns are. And so you need to be willing to go where it's unpopular." And I thought-
- SPSam Parr
Which is so easy to like talk about, and it sounds like, oh yeah, just do non-obvious things, therefore any bad idea I see I should invest in. I get so many bad ideas, and I think I would say, "No, these are actually all bad ideas." That's such a challenging thing to figure out. That's, uh, that requires so much talent or skill. I don't know what it is, but it's really, really, really impressive and really hard. Because looking back, Airbnb, that sounds, that sounds incredibly obvious, but, uh, it's just crazy that he was able to pull that off.
- SPShaan Puri
Yeah. It's insane. So anyways, that's a giant, you know, Sam Altman-gasm, but, uh, the guy's just really interesting. He's one of the more interesting characters I think that exists in the tech world. So, uh, so yeah, I like some of those quotes.
- SPSam Parr
I think this was a 10 out of 10 pod. You know, so here's how I know it's a good pod. So it's, uh, 12:30 in Texas where I'm recording this. Usually I go and take a nap till about 2:00 after we have a good pod. Um, I, I require, I require sleep and rest, and that's how I feel after this pod. I'm like, "I need to take a nap," and that's how I know it's good.
- SPShaan Puri
[laughs] All right, great. Glad to hear it.
- SPSam Parr
Um-
- SPShaan Puri
Oh, and by the way, I'm gonna, uh, show my tax return on the YouTube channel. Go subscribe and then you'll see it. Go.
- SPSam Parr
[laughs]
- SPShaan Puri
My first million on YouTube. Go, go, if you wanna see it-
Episode duration: 58:11
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Transcript of episode _Qcg8K1sVLE
