CEO Lessons: Bulls**t Mission Statements, Firing People & Saying ‘NO' (#505)

Shaan Puri 0:00 When Moyes was selling Native deodorant, he didn't own the trademark.

Sam Parr 0:03 And it was an issue?

Shaan Puri 0:04 He's got the deal done, and they're like, "Wait, you don't have the trademark?" He's like, "Yeah, but there's no other Native deodorant." He- they're like, "Okay, junior, what are you talking about? That's not how this works."

Sam Parr 0:13 [laughs]

Shaan Puri 0:14 Um, you know. [upbeat music] All right, today we thought it'd be fun to do a episode all about how we actually run our companies. So we've been running companies for, like, I don't know, 10, 15 years now, and like many people out there, at the beginning, we did a bunch of dumb stuff. [laughs] And so we're gonna admit and confess to some of the dumbest things that we did running our companies, and then t- talk about what we do now that's actually, like, we found that works. So the stuff that didn't work and the stuff that works, and this is around, you know, everything from, like, you know, mission statements, how we used to think that these were, like, super important and how we treated them versus what we do now, or branding and naming our companies or goal setting. Um, these are kinda like the shortcuts that we use now. So what, what actually that we found works through the painful process of making embarrassing mistakes. [laughs] That's what I think we're gonna do today.

Sam Parr 1:11 Yeah, we got about, like, five or eight categories of, like, on hiring, on creating comp plans, on having boundaries with staff. These actually sound, like, boring when we're, like, just... And when I'm just reading that off, but I promise you it's actually... We have, like, interesting stories behind each one and stuff we wish we would've done earlier that I deeply regret that I didn't do now or that I didn't do then. But yeah, it's... We'll, we'll go through all the stuff that we actually use on a day-to-day basis to run our companies, the touchy-feely stuff that's actually really important.

Shaan Puri 1:39 So I thought it'd be fun for us to share shit we do when we run our companies. What are our almost, like, management hacks or shortcuts, or, like, the methods that we use, which as a disclaimer, probably not the best. Probably not what they teach you at Harvard Business School or what, you know, like, very polished, you know, seasoned executives would do.

Sam Parr 1:59 I remember when I started, uh, one of my early companies, it was... My, and my internal mission statement was to hire 10,000 people, and I... Then I hired, like, two people and I was like [laughs] "Shit."

Shaan Puri 2:13 "Hey, does anybody got an eraser?" [laughs]

Sam Parr 2:14 [laughs] Yeah. Yeah, like, "How do I make this 10?" Uh, it was horrible. Um, and then it was like, um, and then the mission statement for the employees is like, "Look, like, we're gonna change..." Whatever, like, right now the word is democratize. We're democratizing the financial markets or whatever. It's like-

Shaan Puri 2:32 Yeah. Oh my God

Sam Parr 2:32 ... whatever that equivalent-

Shaan Puri 2:33 God

Sam Parr 2:33 ... is is what I said. Like, "We're gonna change the world one newsletter at a time." And so my missions statement-

Shaan Puri 2:39 Did you really say that?

Sam Parr 2:40 No, but it was probably-

Shaan Puri 2:42 Oh

Sam Parr 2:42 ... like, as lame. I don't... [laughs]

Shaan Puri 2:44 [laughs]

Sam Parr 2:45 That'd be the worst if I said that. But no, they're pretty li-... Now they're way more, um... So here's what I tell people. I go, "Here's my, the mission for the business."

Shaan Puri 2:52 [laughs]

Sam Parr 2:52 This first one is very selfish, which is I wanna work on cool shit with cool people and have a dope life.

Shaan Puri 2:57 Yeah.

Sam Parr 2:57 That's just what I tell people. I go, "So it's very selfish.

Sam Parr 3:00 I just wanna work with cool people o- on interesting things," and that's more so the mission than anything. And then it's like, "And if we are able to do this, this, and this, that will also be cool."

Shaan Puri 3:10 Right.

Sam Parr 3:10 Um, versus a far more grand thing. My mission statements aren't nearly as grand. Are yours?

Shaan Puri 3:15 I am in the exact same bucket, so definitely used to be, like, changing the status quo, you know, on my Steve Jobs shit. And you know, I, 'cause that's who you looked up to, looked up to Steve Jobs, looked up to Elon Musk, and he's like, you know, "Create an interplanetary species." It's like, oh, okay, cool. Uh, what's my version of that? Like, you know, I'm, I'm not trying to get to Mars and, like, make humankind, uh, you know, interplanetary, but I was trying to do that.

Sam Parr 3:41 Dude, but you remember that story of Steve Jobs where he's trying to recruit the guy from Pepsi, and Steve Jobs is like, "You're just gonna sell sugar water for the rest of your life?"

Shaan Puri 3:47 Right. [laughs]

Sam Parr 3:49 [spits] Fuck you, Steve. [laughs]

Shaan Puri 3:52 [laughs]

Sam Parr 3:53 What a dick, right?

Shaan Puri 3:54 Now we're like, "Logan Paul, genius, puts sugar in water-

Sam Parr 3:57 [laughs]

Shaan Puri 3:57 ... sells it to children." [laughs]

Sam Parr 3:59 [laughs] Dude, the audacity.

Shaan Puri 4:02 So I'm like you now. Uh, I... Here was, here's the notes I wrote on my answer for this, uh, on my, on my little cheat sheet. I wrote, "I don't kid myself anymore. I'm honest. I'm building a lifestyle business for me and my team," almost exactly what you just said, which is, "I wanna do dope shit with cool people," right? So do cool shit with cool people and in a way that leads to an awesome lifestyle, meaning I'm not trying to kill myself currently running the business, and I'm trying to have a financial outcome for me and my team that lets us all elevate our lifestyles, right? Like, that's, that is the... This business is a vehicle to have an enjoyable lifestyle, which is really funny, 'cause in Silicon Valley, lifestyle business is the, um, it's the equivalent of saying "no offense," uh, to start a sentence. It's like lifestyle business is how VCs pat you on the head and say, "That's cute. Uh, oh, oh, 1 million of revenue? That, that's cute." You know, "Well, you know, we, we, we don't invest in lifestyle businesses," right? Like, w- if this is just a lifestyle business for you, we're not interested, right? You're, you're low ambition, which in Silicon Valley is l- where I live, is low status. However, for me, I feel like I broke out of the Matrix and I was like, "Wait, what the fuck are all these people talking about?" The point of life is to have a great lifestyle. What i- I don't want another p- I don't wanna do something else with my life. I'm not trying to have a bad life. I'm trying to have a good life for me, for my family, for my team. We all want the good life. Okay, let's do a project that's fun and interesting with fun and interesting people in a way that we all get rich. Is that so much to ask? And so, like, that is now the blanket mission statement on all of my projects. [laughs] And, um, I don't know if that's inspiring to the troops, but it's inspiring to me, and I hope that it just attracts people who are down with that and are not looking for the, uh, the rah-rah, you know, save the world thing.

Sam Parr 5:47 I actually think, I think that is a bit inspiring, to be honest, is, to, like, the right type of person. W- um, and, uh, I, I, I at least when I talk to people, it seems like, yeah, that sounds wonderful. Another thing that changed with me is when I start new companies, I pick business models where I can afford to pay ... hires a lot of money. Because I remember when I was starting a lot of my stuff, I'm like, "Man, I don't ha- I can only... I, I don't have enough money to pay a high quality person a lot of money." I-

Shaan Puri 6:15 It's a trap.

Sam Parr 6:16 Yeah.

Shaan Puri 6:16 Yeah.

Sam Parr 6:16 I'm like, "I wish I could afford to pay someone three or $200,000 a year so I could recruit a certain type of person so I could spend time with them." Um, and so that has changed as well.

Shaan Puri 6:27 Well, like, what's an example? So, like, The Hustle, traditionally, you know, media companies, uh, when they start, they obviously, they don't make a ton of revenue. You're, you're putting out free content. Um, and writers are typically not that well-paid. However, like, so would that count as it was more in the, towards the bad end of the spectrum, or was it on the good end? 'Cause you did hire people like Steph Smith and Trung and a bunch of interesting people.

Sam Parr 6:49 I hired great people eventually.

Shaan Puri 6:50 Yeah.

Sam Parr 6:51 I hired great people eventually, but, like, for example, um, a good media... Like, you could r- you could run your media company a few different ways. You could, particularly for sa-

Sam Parr 7:00 sellers, for ad sales people, you could pay them 60 grand a year and say they have a quota of only $400,000 and they get, they make 105 grand when they hit their on target earnings. Or you could go hire someone who you're gonna pay $200,000 base plus a higher commission, and their ex- expectation is that they're gonna sell two or three million dollars worth of stuff. And typically, those people who are more competent and capable I find are more enjoyable to be around. And so, like, things like that, where I'm building a business that hires less people who I pay more, 'cause that setup I think is more enjoyable.

Shaan Puri 7:31 So I had the same problem, 'cause my first business was in the restaurant industry, and the restaurant industry is basically, like, you know... What is, what, what is the worst type of business you could, you could select? Uh, it's probably... I don't know if it's the worst, but it's down there. It's hanging out with the worst, whatever it is, right?

Sam Parr 7:48 [laughs]

Shaan Puri 7:49 So almost all of them fail. Um, even when they succeed, they have, like, 10% net margins typically, and you've gotta open up, like, multiple locations to get, to ever make it big or have enough cash flow from a business like that to hire high quality, like, hi- h- uh, you know, highly seasoned people. And so w- I remember meeting the guy who ran Chipotle. I think he was the CEO or COO of Chipotle at the time, and we were trying to create the Chipotle of sushi. And I was like, "All right," you know, like, "Give me your advice." I don't even know what question I asked, but I was like, "Give me your advice." And he's like, "Well, think of it this way. Your entire product is in the hands of somebody who makes $9 an hour and doesn't wanna be there." [laughs]

Sam Parr 8:26 [laughs]

Shaan Puri 8:26 "And, and every cust- e- everything you're telling me right now about how great the user experience is gonna be, that's true for restaurant one. It might be true for restaurants two and three. By restaurant four, it's no longer true, 'cause you're not there anymore, uh, to do the, all those amazing things and give that amazing user experience." He goes, "The trick in this business is whoever can figure out how to get minimum wage employees to give somebody a good experience, uh, they, you get, you get to win. That's the winning condition." And he goes, "So, you know, for, like, Chipotle, we ended up doing a bunch of things to try it, try to improve that." He's like, "You know, I'm not, I don't know if we did it fully," but, like, they did a couple things. Like, for example, if anybody, if you're a manager at Chipotle and anyone you manage becomes a manager of a restaurant, you get $10,000 whether you work at that company or not, just, like, ever. He's like, "You had a hand in-

Sam Parr 9:15 Oh, that's sick

Shaan Puri 9:15 ... in leading that person to be a, to..." I don't know if they still do this, but at the time they did. Um, they also changed the title, so, like, their manager was called, like, Restaurant Tour or something like that, and they paid them above market. And they're like, "You know, we're doing all these things to try to fix it." Starbucks did the same thing, giving people benefits so that they stick around and actually stick with the job versus really high churn. But nobody's really figured that out. Point is, I remember it w- just wasn't a lot of fun to be in that business 'cause I couldn't relate. You know, all the things I love, I'm an entrepreneur, I'm thinking about ideas or, um, you know, raising capital. I got big goals, big dreams, and I'm coming into work every day with somebody whose goal and dream is to get off work early. That is the, like... Their, that would be the, the best thing that could hap- happen to them at work that day. And I was like, shit, that's not that inspiring every day to, like, kind of... And I, I don't mean that to knock anybody. It's just the truth. It's like you, you're gonna hang around certain people when you run a business. Ideally, you would be around people who are very, very like-minded to you in the sense of they share similar values and goals and aspirations, and then it becomes contagious, and then they're sharing learnings w- with you. And, like, I remember we interviewed, I remember interviewing people for, like, this position 'cause we kept having people flake out. They would just leave or they would steal or stuff like that. [laughs] And my, my buddy who was interviewing, he goes, "Well, I like this person. Um, they had all their teeth." [laughs] I was like, "What?" And he's like, "I don't know." He's like, "I'm l- I'm just looking for symbols." I just, he's like, "Last three people stole from us and that sucked. I just want somebody who's not gonna steal from us. Like, that's my new bar first. And, like, after that, I could figure out, uh, higher, higher level requirements." And so-

Sam Parr 10:44 Did you see on, um, did you see on the TV show Bear where they hire this, you know, this guy, and on the first day they catch him outside smoking crack?

Shaan Puri 10:52 [laughs]

Sam Parr 10:52 And they're like, "I think I need to fire you."

Shaan Puri 10:54 Yeah. [laughs]

Sam Parr 10:55 "But I sh- I should go, but I should go ask." [laughs]

Shaan Puri 10:57 [laughs] Yeah. Yeah. And he's like, "Yes, chef, fire him." [laughs]

Sam Parr 11:01 [laughs]

Shaan Puri 11:02 Um, yeah. And by the way, there's one lesson in there, which is my dad told me something. He goes, "Look, uh, you're building a small business." And he goes, "But look, but think about it. You're still spending, like, every waking moment thinking about how to make this thing successful." He goes, "If you worked on a big business, you don't have to spend double the hours. You're still gonna spend every waking moment trying to think of how to make it successful. A big business and a small business both take the same amount of time. Why would you choose a small business?" And that, to me, was the right advice for me for who I was. That's not the right advice for everybody, but, like, somebody out there needs to hear that right now, which is that, like, this idea that a, a small thing is somehow easier or, or less painful is just not true.

Sam Parr 11:41 It is not true, and it, it feels nice to be able to, like, pay people a lot of money or hire a certain type of person. That makes your day-to-day far more enjoyable. Um, talk about the naming thing. My opinion has changed on that to align with yours.

Shaan Puri 11:55 So one, one thing we have here is branding or naming at the beginning. So, um,

Shaan Puri 12:00 I've evolved my philosophy. So I, I used to try to get the whole thing right right away. I was very precious about my idea, and I wanted it, my baby, to be cute and be ready for its first day of school. And then I realized that- Nobody cares about my baby and n- the, I have no customers, and nobody's paying attention. This thing could be called Dog Crap, you know, it doesn't matter, uh, until it matters. And so now here's the balance that I've figured out for me. Um, in most cases I try to get the name right off the bat 'cause changing the name is kind of annoying, you lose the brand recognition. Um, and I try to get the trademark 'cause I made that mistake before of not owning my trademark and having to change my name a year or two in because I realized, oh, I'll never be able to sell this without owning the trademark. And so that was a big mistake. Uh, but I don't-

Sam Parr 12:44 I don't know if that's true, dude.

Shaan Puri 12:45 What do you mean?

Sam Parr 12:45 I don't own tr- I, I sold The Hustle without owning that trademark.

Shaan Puri 12:49 You didn't own a trademark for The Hustle as a media company? You didn't own anything?

Sam Parr 12:52 I don't-

Shaan Puri 12:52 'Cause I know they have it now, we looked it up.

Sam Parr 12:54 They have it now.

Shaan Puri 12:55 But w- but what happens is if they look and they see that they can't get it 'cause it's taken, now you have a problem. Now you're either gonna get negotiated down-

Sam Parr 13:03 Is that true? I, see, I didn't even know that

Shaan Puri 13:05 ... like when Moyes was selling Native Deodorant, he didn't own the trademark.

Sam Parr 13:09 And it was an issue?

Shaan Puri 13:10 He's got the deal done, and they're like, "Wait, you don't have the trademark?" He's like, "Yeah, but there's no other Native Deodorant." And he's, they're like, "Okay, junior, what are you talking about? That's not how this works."

Sam Parr 13:19 [laughs]

Shaan Puri 13:19 Um, you know. And so they, then he's like, "Okay, uh, who the..." He, he's like, "I'll just go file for it." They're like, "Nope, it's taken by some guy, some woman or some guy sitting in Palo Alto doing nothing, just squatting on it." And he goes to that person and he's like, "Hey, I'd like the trademark." He tells the story on the, on his episode of the pod, I think, uh, as like one of the first 10 episodes of this podcast. But the short version is he goes and he offers the person some, like, you know, he's like, "Hey, can I have it?" And they're like, "No." And he's like, "Okay, I'll buy it like, you know, for two grand." And they're like, "No." And then they figured out that he's selling his company, and then the, the price went like way up. And I think he ended up having to buy it for like, either like a quarter million dollars or like one or two million dollars he had to buy the trademark at the last minute.

Sam Parr 14:02 That's so crazy.

Shaan Puri 14:03 Uh, you know, it's fine when you're, he's selling the company for 100 million, but like very painful process, um, you know, to, to do that. Better off just having it.

Sam Parr 14:10 You taught me something. I, I thought that they were nonsense, but I, but I also used to think na- I mean, look, I na- my company was called The Hustle. That's a horrible name. One time I had this conference called ConCon, The Content Conference.

Shaan Puri 14:21 [laughs]

Sam Parr 14:22 Like I'm, [laughs] I'm, I, I, I... My first, the first business that I started making money online it was called Itch Juice, baby. Like I, like I'm horrible with names. Um, and, uh, but now I do actually think they're way important. Before I was like, "Names are bullshit. It doesn't matter what you call it, someone's gonna come." Uh, now I'm like on board with naming and branding is, is very valuable.

Shaan Puri 14:42 So I don't think a bad name kills you, but a good name lifts you.

Sam Parr 14:46 I completely agree.

Shaan Puri 14:48 I think great design is a huge value add and costs almost nothing. To have great design versus okay to bad design, it's not actually more money that it takes, it's taste. You just have to have the right people to do it. You can pay for that taste, like you can pay a, a fancy agency 'cause you know they have the taste, but you could also just have taste yourself or find somebody that's cheaper that has taste. My feeling on design is I don't start with fancy design, I start with like, you know, whatever simple design, and then I set a milestone almost as a reward, which is if we get to X, then I'm gonna fancy pants my design. 'Cause it's more for me than it is really for anybody else at that moment. Um-

Sam Parr 15:27 Yeah

Shaan Puri 15:27 ... but it, you know, if you're in, if you're a consumer packaged good or something like that, then the packaging obviously is super important. If you're a SAS tool for whatever, your design, uh, you know, doesn't matter as much.

Sam Parr 15:37 Before I, I launched Hampton I paid an agency. I found an awesome agency overseas, so it was like I think 15 or 20 grand, and we did a whole branding thing. And I'm like, "I can't believe I'm doing this," and it was totally worth it. Did I send you that presentation?

Shaan Puri 15:49 You did. You did.

Sam Parr 15:49 It was really good.

Shaan Puri 15:49 And I liked it. Um, I was like, "Oh, this is cool, and that's different." You wouldn't have, you would have never done that before. I have-

Sam Parr 15:54 I never would have done that-

Shaan Puri 15:55 And-

Sam Parr 15:55 ... and it was totally worth it

Shaan Puri 15:56 ... we both were very, um, cheap with things before. I wa- I wasn't cheap with spending money, but I was cheap with my time, meaning I placed no value on my time. And I think you were cheap with spending money even though you had a bunch of cash in the bank.

Sam Parr 16:10 Not anymore.

Shaan Puri 16:11 N- then when I saw you spend 20k on your branding before and I was like, "Oh, that makes sense. He's got a killer name for his community, Hampton, and then he's got like a really classy design that makes it feel elevated," which is my word of the year. Um, then I was like, "Oh yeah, what are the areas where I've been cheap?" And one of mine, for example, was in recruiting. So I used to take pride in just recruiting myself by hand, hunting, and I would just be like, "Yeah, I'm gonna go find people, and I'm gonna like message them, and I'm gonna cold email them, and I'm gonna convince them, and I'm gonna interview them, and I'm gonna f-..." And now I hire recruiters. [laughs] And I'm like, "Oh."

Sam Parr 16:47 For which roles? For every role?

Shaan Puri 16:49 Anything. If I ha- if I need to hire, first thing I do, I just text my recruiter, this guy Carson. I'm like, "Yo, Carson, I need X." And, uh, he's like a great e-com recruiter. And so I'm like, "Carson, I need a, I need X," and he's like

Shaan Puri 17:00 on it, and he's like super aggressive. And so he's just like instantly will start sending me LinkedIns. I'm like, "Yes, no, yes, no." He does-

Sam Parr 17:06 Is he a full-time employee-

Shaan Puri 17:08 No, no, no

Sam Parr 17:08 ... or do you just pay him or?

Shaan Puri 17:08 He's just, he's got his own agency. Um, he's his own recruit- he's his own solo shop. And so, um, so I use him to hire for these roles, and it just saves a ton of time and then I'm able to... And I have him, sometimes I'll be like, "Yo, join this call so that you see what I ask, so that when you're screening candidates you just ask these questions before me," right? And I'm getting a way better result using recruiters. And yeah, you pay the commission when, when, when you hire the person, but like hiring a great person faster is, uh, is totally worth it.

Sam Parr 17:39 So how do you, without blowing up this guy Carson's spot, how do you pay him? Do you pay him a percentage of, uh-

Shaan Puri 17:44 Yeah, it's, uh, same as all recruiters. You pay a percentage of their first year salary. And if they don't-

Sam Parr 17:48 And then do you pay him like six months later?

Shaan Puri 17:50 Uh, y- I pay him up, I think I, what I do with him is I pay him like 30 days after they join, but if they don't work out, like, uh, like we had one person didn't, it didn't work out three months in. So if it, if they don't make it three months, then he just reimburses or credits it back or whatever. Uh-

Sam Parr 18:03 And then do you, um, do you do it for all, like even an entry-level position?

Shaan Puri 18:07 Everything. Anything I need. Anything I need now. I'm like, w- whatever I would spend the time doing, this guy is going to spend all of his time doing. And, um, so it just moves faster and he's better, and I'm like, "Why the fuck wasn't I using a recruit... " I used to t- I used to take pride, and I was like, "What am I trying to save here?" The, like, you know, let's say you s- hire somebody for 100 grand, let's say the recruiter fee might be 15 or 20%, so you're gonna pay 15, 20 grand. That's a lot of money, yes. But I do it, my bus- w- if, if your business is working, then it makes total sense to be using recruiters to g- increase your pipeline and s- and save time and get the, get good butts in seats faster versus trying to do it yourself. That's time you're not focused on the business. That takes longer.

Sam Parr 18:50 Uh, the biggest thing that's changed with me with hiring is, um, reference checks. So, like for example, I, uh, messaged someone two days ago. I go, "Hey, I'm thinking about, um, hiring this one person. Uh, do you think that they'd be decent at managing a small team?" And it says, "I don't think they could manage anyone, let alone themselves."

Shaan Puri 19:08 [laughs]

Sam Parr 19:08 That was the reply. [laughs] And my reply to, my r- or r- my reply to that was, uh, "All right, thanks."

Shaan Puri 19:15 [laughs]

Sam Parr 19:15 And I don't hire that person. Like, it's just so easy.

Shaan Puri 19:16 No, your reply to that should be, "Thank you so much. What's your address? I'm sending you something," because most reference checks will not give you honesty. The f- when somebody goes out on a limb who's actually like, "Yo, let me save you some pain here and give you my honest truth," even though it doesn't feel good to take a opportunity away from somebody, it's like, yo, sweet baby Jesus, thank you so much. I, I, I owe you one.

Sam Parr 19:37 So, like, yeah, I was like over the top, like, nice to this guy. But, uh, I, reference checks are so important, and I do two things differently. The one, I always ask for, like, three, and then I call those three and I go, "Who else did this person work with?"

Shaan Puri 19:51 Yeah, exactly.

Sam Parr 19:51 I don't give a shit about-

Shaan Puri 19:52 You

Sam Parr 19:52 ... the three that they gave me

Shaan Puri 19:54 Yeah. [laughs]

Sam Parr 19:54 I'm just trying to, like, m- I'm trying to, like, figure out who I can referen- who I can speak to that they didn't provide, but also I won't blow up the applicant's spot, where if it's like-

Shaan Puri 20:03 Yeah

Sam Parr 20:03 ... you know, it's, like, someone who I, that will be a little bit secretive and not tell their current employer. Um, and then so I do that like crazy, and then here's what I a- ask consistently. Here's h- the, basically the point is, is I wanna hear bad shit about the person, and I wanna figure out if the bad stuff is, I'm okay with. And so I say, "What are they on a scale of one to 10?" They always say an eight or a nine. And I say, "All right, how can they be a perfect 10?"

Shaan Puri 20:24 Yeah.

Sam Parr 20:24 "Like, what's missing?"

Shaan Puri 20:25 Yes.

Sam Parr 20:25 And then that's typically when they'll tell me, like, bad stuff, and I'm always looking for that bad stuff. And I'm like, "Um, well, uh, you know, they've made, like, mistakes doing X, Y, and Z." It's like, okay, I could put up with those types of mistakes. Or, "They, um, they, um, they, like, miss deadlines all the time." I'm like, "Well, I, I'm not gonna put up with missed deadlines. That's-

Shaan Puri 20:43 Right

Sam Parr 20:43 ... I'm not willing to put up with that." So I, like, I do t- a shit ton of reference checks now.

Shaan Puri 20:47 So someone taught me a good way to do reference checks. I don't remember the exact question, but it's something along the, there's, there's two things that I do on the reference check. One is you're just trying to figure out, is this person one of the best people that they worked with at that company? And so I'll ask a question. I ask the following types of questions. I'll say, "You know, my experience is at, at every company there's like, you can look around the room and there's two or three people inevitably in every single company who like, they just have the team on their back, and you're just, you just look at them and you think, 'Man, if we didn't have this person, we would be in a rough spot.'" Uh, or like, the, the, you know, these thing, these good things that are happening just probably wouldn't have happened if not for their force of will. Um, and I would be like, "You know, who are the people a- and I use this to recruit too. I'm like, "Who are the people like that at your company?" Or I'll be like, "Would, w- would you count this person as one of those people?" And, um, I would, I just try to see how much conviction they have of being like, "Oh, yeah, for sure," or like, "Yeah, you know, they're good," right? And it's like, you could say yeah two different ways. I'm looking for which one of those it is. The second thing I'll ask is, I'll be like, um, "You know, I'm thinking about hiring this, like I'm leaning towards hiring them," uh, 'cause I'm kind of trying to disarm them. I'm trying to not make them feel like what they say is gonna, like, mess it up. But I'll be like, "But, you know, but what I don't, but what I don't feel comfortable with is I don't know what they're not good at, and everybody has things they're not good at. I'm not sure what I... Well, you know, like, I know that they must have things that are gonna disappoint me or are gonna be, uh, things that they're not strong at. I just don't know them yet. What are they for this person so I can kinda feel like I have the full picture before I, before I go ahead and pull the, pull the trigger and hire them?" And that's how I get them to kinda tell me those things.

Sam Parr 22:19 Why'd you write paid tests? What's that?

Shaan Puri 22:22 So my thing with hiring is, uh, I would say two things have improved my hiring. Number one, paid tests instead of interviews. So I will spend the time, I'll spend three, four hours creating a paid test. So cr- I create a doc that's, "Here's a brief," and I'll say, "I'm gonna pay you." And then depending on the role, it might be two-

Sam Parr 22:44 Oh, yeah

Shaan Puri 22:44 ... 200 bucks. It might be $2,000. I'll pay you to spend a day on this, um, 'cause I wanna see what you do, because I just wrote words equal lies. It's like I don't really... I'd, I'd rather just see your work than hear you tell me that you're good at work. And so paid tests is, uh, now I lean towards that. I, that, in the end, that saves me a ton of time. The second thing I did, I have a buddy who I let invest in one of my companies that I didn't really need as an investor, but I kinda tho- I, I kind of realized that, like, as a CEO, your job is just decision-making, good judgment over and over and over again.

Sam Parr 23:16 Are you the CEO of your e-com business?

Shaan Puri 23:19 Um, no, I'm more like a chairman, so I'm not active day-to-day now.

Sam Parr 23:23 Got it.

Shaan Puri 23:23 But, um, I will, I don't, uh, so what I'll do is I'm like, "Oh, CEO's job is just decision-making," or any leader. Let's just forget the word CEO. Just any leader's job is decision-making. How do I get my decision-making to be better? And, like, the difference of making 10 to 20% better decisions every single month adds up. That, that creates a very different outcome. So I brought this guy in and I, and what I told him, I go, "You know, I really want your help hiring." And he's like, "Yeah, sure, I'll, you know, see if there's anyone in my network." I go, "No, no, no. I want you to do three interviews for this one role for me. I'm hiring a CMO, and I r- uh, chief marketing officer, and I think this is the make or break hire for this business. I want you on the call, and I want you to lead the interview, and I wanna listen." And so we did two things. First, I would interview them separately.

Sam Parr 24:04 Wait, you, you, the, an investor? You, you let an investor do that?

Shaan Puri 24:08 He's my, one of my best friends, and yes, he invested in my company.

Sam Parr 24:10 Got it.

Shaan Puri 24:11 Uh, and he's a, he's himself a founder and, and, and whatever. So he's just got a lot of experience, and he, I've seen him make great hires. And so what happened was I would interview them, then he would interview them. I would like them, and he'd be like, "No, trash." And I'm like, "What? Interesting." Uh, what makes you say that? What did I like? What did you, what not, not like? And h- the thing for him was always like, uh, yeah, I pressed him for specifics and he didn't have any. And he's like, "And what I realized was he presses for specifics way more than I was previously doing." So I would say like, um, I would try to figure out, "Do you have experience doing this? Uh, you know, how would you rate yourself in this? Tell me a story." They would tell me one story. What he would say is like, um, "Cool, what are the re- what was the revenue when you started? What was it?" You know, and then, "How did it grow in the first 18 months?" And they're like, he's like, "If they don't even know that number, then they're out. You know? [laughs] If you're, if you're a CMO and you don't know how much the revenue changed from day one to da- you know, month 12 or whatever, you're out." And then he's like, they would say the number, he'd be like, "Cool. What were the three things that you did that most impacted that?" And he's like, "You know, if you can't tell me three wins you've had in the three years you've worked there that, like, most impacted the, the..." And then he would say, "Oh, you did that thing? Okay, cool. Can you screen share real quick and just show me? Like, uh, you're saying you did this. Can you just show me how you think about this? I wanna hear you talk out loud." And I was like, "Oh, okay, there's a different level, level of specificity here that I need to be doing in my interviews." So a very useful thing was seeing how a master does it so that I could up my game.

Sam Parr 25:39 That's kind of an interesting thing, 'cause I've changed, I did a 180. I used to-

Shaan Puri 25:42 What was your before, what's your after?

Sam Parr 25:45 I would create, my before is I would create, like, the most ambitious goals, um, because it was just like, it was like mental masturbation of, like, just using this spreadsheet and-

Shaan Puri 25:55 Yeah

Sam Parr 25:55 ... like saying like, "Yeah, we're gonna 3X this year."

Shaan Puri 25:57 Yeah.

Sam Parr 25:58 And then like-

Shaan Puri 25:58 No, no, 5X. Yeah, five, look at that.

Sam Parr 26:00 Yeah. I'm like-

Shaan Puri 26:00 [laughs]

Sam Parr 26:01 [laughs] I'd be like, "Yeah, can you, like, change that three to a five and change this zero to a nine?"

Shaan Puri 26:06 [laughs]

Sam Parr 26:07 And like, it's like, boom, we're there. All right-

Shaan Puri 26:09 [laughs]

Sam Parr 26:09 ... get after it, guys. I'm like, I, and I didn't understand that, like, A, they're the one doing the work, so it's kinda bullshit that I'm, like, creating these crazy goals that I, there's no math behind it. I also thought that, like, really ambitious goals were inspiring. Um, I, I actually think, uh, a- a- achievable goals are inspiring, and I try to hit, like, 75% of the goals that we set. If, if I'm, if I'm not hitting about 80%, um, my goal setting was quite bad. So I, I, hitting goals, hitting, hitting goals that are not that ambitious, I think gets you a better outcome than missing incredibly ambitious goals.

Shaan Puri 26:45 I-

Sam Parr 26:45 Like, it creates more momentum.

Shaan Puri 26:46 I agree with you. Momentum is, momentum is key.

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Shaan Puri 27:08 My goal thing now, um, so every time I start a project, whether it's a company or inside of a company, just like a initiative, I got this thing called the kickoff doc. It's a one-page doc that I fill out religiously, and it's basically like, starts as just like, what are we trying to do here? Uh, we're trying to do this. In plain English, what are we trying to do? Then, what does winning look like? And this is where I set, uh, two goals. So I have a floor goal and what I call the F-yeah goal. The floor goal is basically like, you know, if it was below this, I'd be surprised and I'd be a little disappointed. And then the F-yeah goal is what would have us running around here chest bumping, being like, "Oh my God, I can't believe it happened"? And now I have this range, and I have kinda like my min and my dream. And of course we're gonna shoot for the dream, but we're gonna make sure that we also understand that, like, a win is a win, and anything above this floor is a win. And we have the two targets, and we ask ourselves, "What would it take to get to the floor? What would it take to get to the, to the, to the F-yeah goal, to get to the ceiling?" And so that's the first thing I do. The second thing I do is I set an anti-goal. Learned this from Andrew Wilkinson, which was-

Sam Parr 28:12 Yeah, that was smart

Shaan Puri 28:13 ... you could achieve, uh, you know, you could double revenue, but if I wake up every day and I'm stressed out, or if I doubled revenue but profits went to zero 'cause I spent so much on marketing, uh, well, then I kind of lost while winning. So anti-goals, like, you know, I'm not trying to work so hard I don't see my kids, right? Like, in life, I think anti-goals are really important to counterbalance. W- and what the, the specific thing here is what are the understandable traps we could fall into while trying to achieve those goals? So for example, with this podcast, you could be like, "Oh, I wanna double rev- uh, double downloads." Great. What's a trap you could fall into? Every day I'm on the algorithm trying to figure out what clickbaity shit I could do where I'm knocking on neighbors' doors asking them how they made their money, and then I pants them and then I put a pie in their face. Like, yeah, that would do it, but I would sell my soul and lose some dignity and not have that much fun doing it, so that's like losing while winning. So I think anti-goals are really important. I started doing those. The next thing on goal setting is I realized that much more important than the goal, like, it's like I would do these, like, big bursts where it's like we do this planning and d- set this goal, then, like, three months later, it's like, "Hey, what's the goal?" And then, like, it's not even on the tip of anyone's tongue. And I'm like, "Oh, shit, this is backwards." Like, first of all, I shouldn't be the one setting the goals, um, because, like, you know in Game of Thrones the opening scene where Ned Stark has to, like, execute the guy and his son is like, "Oh, do you have to do this? Like, can't someone else do this?" And he says, "No, like, he who speaks the sentence must swing the sword." And it's like I can't expect you to go do all the work for some goal I set sitting in my boxers in Excel, right? Like, uh, now it's like if I'm gonna set a marketing goal, I'm gonna set it with and really, like, the CMO has to own that goal. They have to know that that's what they want, that that's what they think is achievable. Um, I'm gonna push back or hold the standard, but they're gonna ultimately speak the sentence 'cause they're gonna be the ones who swings the sword. So I make them do it, and then the se- second thing I do is I enforce that it's how do we keep this top of mind and at the tip of our tongue? And that's, like, creating rituals where we're seeing things daily and weekly that, um, tracks to it. 'Cause it's far more important to regularly look at the KPIs and ask g- ask the right questions versus trying to set a great goal once and then never thinking about it or n- not really looking at it on a religious basis.

Sam Parr 30:33 Do you lose your temper and yell? Have you ever made someone cry, like an employee? Have you ever made an employee cry 'cause you yelled at them?

Shaan Puri 30:40 Not 'cause I y- no, I never yell, but, uh... I've never made them cry 'cause I yell or-

Sam Parr 30:43 You've never done that?

Shaan Puri 30:43 I, I've n- I don't think I've ever yelled, no. Um, I could be, I could be, like, kind of... I'll s- I, I can... I'll curse. Like, I'll be like, "Hold on. Like, w- what the fuck are we doing here," right? But it's more of that, that or just be like-

Sam Parr 30:56 You've never been like, "You're an idiot." You've never insulted someone-

Shaan Puri 31:00 Uh

Sam Parr 31:00 ... or beat them up or just-

Shaan Puri 31:01 I am sure that I've been rude

Sam Parr 31:02 ... rubbed- you know, just punched them in the face or just spit in their eye. [laughs]

Shaan Puri 31:04 [laughs] I'm sure I've been rude, but I, but it's, you know, there's some finesse to my rudeness where it's like a, uh, it's a backhanded slap, not a front-handed slap type of thing.

Sam Parr 31:13 There's been many times in the past where I've lost my anger, and I'll be really just a huge bitch to someone.

Shaan Puri 31:19 [laughs]

Sam Parr 31:19 And, uh, [laughs] and, uh, [laughs] it's like, I deeply regret that. Not only do I regret that because it was just silly, but like... So, m- the way that I used to, like, uh, react to bad news is I would, um, I would yell at people sometimes, and I would lose my temper, and I would freak out, and I realized that that is just so weak for so many... That is just a bad... One, you c- I, I, I c- I come to this, I've come to the conclusion I can't change people. So if I think someone is just repeatedly not screwing up, I, I just, I shouldn't have hired them. I made that mistake. I, someone who's either great... You, you're normally a great executor who sometimes makes mistakes, or you're just never gonna change and you're just not good. Like, I think losers exist, and I don't wanna surround myself with them. Um, that's kinda like my, my attitude. Um-

Shaan Puri 32:10 It's like your sign. It's like a, a store that's like, you know, "No shoes, no shirt, no service." It's like, "Losers exist. We must avoid them." Like, [laughs] "Keep them out." [laughs]

Sam Parr 32:17 Yeah. Like, I think that that's real. Uh, like, losers exist, and sometimes I've been a loser.

Shaan Puri 32:21 I tweeted this out when I was working at Twitch. I go... Or, or like right after I left Twitch, I think. I tweeted this out. I go, "Well, you know, uh, seems to be a pattern." You know, basically there's a pattern now which is that when someone's great, odds are they're great kind of right away. Like, um, of course there are exceptions, but the, I would say the general rule is that the best people I've ever hired, it's pretty obvious within three, four weeks that they're amazing and that they just stay amazing. And of the people that were late bloomers, the key there was just... The, the only w- consistent pattern I found was I hired somebody before I even understood what role they should have or what the role is, and like when they had an undefined role, they didn't really do very well. But then when I defined a role for them and I said, "Look, this is what you gotta do," they performed. And it, what I found is that when I have a defined role for someone and they're not very good, it never, never really changes for me.

Sam Parr 33:13 Yeah, you can't change them. You can't change people. And I used to be m- I used to lose my temper, and I would like curse and I would, and I definitely made people feel stupid, and that was, that's such a bad mistake because, uh, A, that's just wrong. That's just not how you should treat people, but B, I, the, I'm not gonna get my desired outcome. They're not gonna change.

Shaan Puri 33:29 Exactly. I, I, I still suck at that, I would be honest. I, I'm not like a yeller, but I can make people feel small, and I kinda realized this the other day. I was like, in every interaction, you're either gonna walk away... Like, you're gonna leave someone and they're either gonna feel a little bit sm- like, they're gonna feel either smaller or bigger based on how that interaction went, how you treated them. And I was like, damn, I pr- I think I make people feel small a lot. And you know, I'm, I think I'm doing it in service of like we're doing dumb shit; we need to do the right thing, but I'm definitely not... Like, I've seen people who are really good at s- still getting the thing done without ever making people feel small, and I wanna learn that Jedi magic.

Sam Parr 34:09 Who's an example? Who's an example of someone who does that?

Shaan Puri 34:12 Um, our buddy Suli I think is pretty good at that. I don't know what he's like inside of a company, but like I've seen him kind of like as a advisor type of guy, and, um, I know what he's thinking in the moment. I'm like, oh man, he's gotta be looking at this being like, "What in the actual fuck is going on here?" But that's not what comes out of his mouth, and he will finesse his way there, and I don't think it's 'cause he's a kinder, nicer person. I think it's 'cause the, the last thing you said, which was I think he's realized that's not how you get to your desired outcome. [laughs] Um-

Sam Parr 34:44 It just, that's not how you get the desired outcome.

Shaan Puri 34:46 That's not, not at all. Uh, exactly. So, so I think that that's, uh, that's definitely a, uh, a, an area to improve. And in fact, like the one time I did make somebody cry was when I was firing somebody, and I realized in that moment, I was like, oh, he's not crying 'cause he's sad that he's getting fired. Obviously

Shaan Puri 35:00 there's that part of it, but like he's very surprised, and that's on me. Like, um, I was too scared to be clear upfront that, hey, this isn't going the way we need it to go, and it's gotta go differently, and here's what the level is, and this is not, like this con- currently not at the level. And so I wa- I avoided that tough conversation there, and now I'm having a tougher conversation because I avoided that one.

Sam Parr 35:25 How many people have you fired?

Shaan Puri 35:27 Uh, I don't know. Like 20.

Sam Parr 35:30 Really? [laughs]

Shaan Puri 35:30 [laughs] Yeah, I've been-

Sam Parr 35:32 That's, that's a lot, right?

Shaan Puri 35:33 I don't know. I've been going for 16 years. Like, you know, one a year is not th- not, not that a lot, [laughs] not that much.

Sam Parr 35:40 I've not fired that many people. I'm such a punk.

Shaan Puri 35:42 [laughs]

Sam Parr 35:42 So there's a story about Dave Po- there's a story about Dave Portnoy, and, uh, like Dave Portnoy's like, "I don't fire people. Like, it's, it's impossible to get fired by me. I ra- I'll just pay you and you just are lazy and a bum-

Shaan Puri 35:53 [laughs]

Sam Parr 35:53 ... and I'll just make fun of you, and it's good content." I kinda feel the same way. I suck at firing. I, uh, I have a good script. I basically say, like right off the bat I go, "All right, this conversation's gonna stink, but I'm firing you today, and we can talk about why if you want." Um, now I don't even say why. I'm just like th- this isn't working out. Because it doesn't benefit me to say why. It only hurts you 'cause I can sue you. But, uh, I'm horrible at firing people. Like I, I like, I'm such a punk. I like am, I, I, I hate having that conversation that I avoid it.

Shaan Puri 36:20 Yeah, but it's just like anything else. Like you just stretch the pain out longer versus ripping the Band-Aid off.

Sam Parr 36:25 Oh, I know.

Shaan Puri 36:25 The key is, and I say this because everybody who... But every manager, everybody who c- becomes a manager of any people, like don't worry, you suck. Everybody sucks as a manager at the beginning. Nobody is naturally just like an amazing manager right off the bat. It is a learned skill, and, uh, the key to firing, though, if you learn nothing else about firing, uh, is in the first 10 seconds, you need to say the news. Just do not beat around the bush. Uh, you know, "The reason we're here today is because we're gonna let you go," and, um, you know, th- that has to come out of your mouth in the first 10 seconds. And if you say anything else-

Sam Parr 36:58 Right away

Shaan Puri 36:58 ... in the first 10 seconds, just realize you're being a complete asshole 'cause, uh, when it does come and they realize, "Wait, what were you just saying all that stuff about? Why didn't... What?" And you're gonna blindside them in a much worse way. It's, it's key. Absolutely key. Um, I have a couple other areas I wanna ask you about. One is, I think, probably the key to making shit work, keeping things simple and focused and knowing what to say yes to and what to say no to. Do you have anything that you actually do to make that, to like do that better now?

Sam Parr 37:30 I think that I'm so good at focus and I'm bad at it. I've missed a lot of interesting opportunities, but by default I say no to everything, and it's actually cost me, um, a bunch. Um, like for example, um, at The Hustle, we thought about launching multiple newsletters, and I was like, "Nope, we're just gonna do this one thing and we're gonna do it well because Scott Belsky told me to focus-

Shaan Puri 37:51 [laughs]

Sam Parr 37:52 ... and to only do this one thing, so I'm literally gonna say no to everything." And our competitor did, and they scaled their revenue significantly

Sam Parr 38:00 faster. So I said no to too much-

Shaan Puri 38:02 Hmm

Sam Parr 38:02 ... actually. But, um, my, my default was just I'm gonna say no to everything. [laughs]

Shaan Puri 38:06 That's interesting. I'm the opposite. I'm a shiny object, you know, syndrome kinda guy, and so-

Sam Parr 38:12 By the way, The Hustle didn't, we didn't even have an Instagram ch- handle until like four years in.

Shaan Puri 38:16 [laughs]

Sam Parr 38:17 Like, I like, I was like, "No, we're not even gonna do social media. We're doing nothing."

Shaan Puri 38:20 [laughs]

Sam Parr 38:22 It was like, "We're doing nothing. We're just gonna do this one stupid newsletter all the time."

Shaan Puri 38:26 Like, "Can we have lunch?" "No." [laughs]

Sam Parr 38:29 [laughs] Dude, one of my biggest, one of my... Speaking of, by the way, I used to be really cheap. One of, deep in my soul, the thing that hurts me most is one time I bought all this supplies from Costco for a conference, and I ended up returning $2,000 worth of like canned soda and stuff, and like the lady at the front desk was like, "You're pathetic." [laughs]

Shaan Puri 38:52 [laughs]

Sam Parr 38:52 And, and because... I was like, "What?" [laughs] And she's like, "You know we throw all this stuff away. Is this just some, from some party that you threw?"

Shaan Puri 38:58 [laughs]

Sam Parr 38:59 And it was like my answer was even worse, which was like, "No, it's for a business conference. I made a lot of money."

Shaan Puri 39:04 [laughs]

Sam Parr 39:04 And like, and like it hurts my soul that I was so cheap that I returned opened cans of soda to Costco for $2,000.

Shaan Puri 39:13 [laughs] Opened?

Sam Parr 39:14 It, it like crushes me. Like, like the 24, like the 24 case was like, uh-

Shaan Puri 39:19 Partially used

Sam Parr 39:19 ... like things were... Yeah. And, and, and like I was like, "I can't believe. That was such a punk move. I can't believe I did that."

Shaan Puri 39:26 [laughs]

Sam Parr 39:27 Uh, that's one of my biggest regrets. The, uh, that's next to this one time I tipped this t- taxi driver and he said, "Oh, no, you don't need to do this," and I said, "Oh, no, you need it"-

Shaan Puri 39:36 [laughs]

Sam Parr 39:36 ... instead of you earned it. Like, those two things are like the two things that like crush my soul. I'm like, "I can't believe I said that." Um, but what, what, what, what, what were you saying? You were talking about, um-

Shaan Puri 39:47 Focus.

Sam Parr 39:48 What were we talking about?

Shaan Puri 39:48 [laughs]

Sam Parr 39:49 Focus. Fucking A. Focus.

Shaan Puri 39:50 [laughs] As we get back on track. [laughs]

Sam Parr 39:53 [laughs]

Shaan Puri 39:55 Um, I create, I, I now have a, a thing which is I, I create a, a, a doc for every business every year that's called the, the Big Bet doc, which is basically like we, we are gonna make some bets this year, we're gonna do some things, um, but let's be super, um, conscious about what we're saying yes to and what we're saying no to. So my Big Bet doc, and I'll literally write it like this. I'll say something like, we... Uh, bet number one, um, we really suck at inventory management. Today, forecasting is just me looking at the spreadsheet and making up numbers based on what I hope happens. Uh, I know there's probably a smarter way to do this. Other people certainly have solved this problem. Um, I need to figure out how to hire people who know how to do this. So the bet is I'm gonna hire two people, and that's gonna lower our waste from X to Y, and I write a sentence like that. And then that's my bet. I'm gonna make this hire for this outcome because of this problem, and I write in a bet number two. Um, you know-

Sam Parr 40:53 You keep talking about businesses, though. Are you, what, how many are you, what, how many-

Shaan Puri 40:57 Well, like I, I would do this even for the podcast, right? Like big bets, right? Um, hiring Ari. Okay, why? Why, why'd you do this? Why did you make this bet? Or we just launched the Clips channel. Okay, why am I going through this effort where I'm sitting here clipping my favorite parts of podcasts? Because I hope that somebody out there wants to just listen to the best parts on YouTube when they come up, 'cause that's how I like to listen to things. And so I'll write it out. And I'm like, the, if I'm gonna invest my effort, my time, my money into something, uh, then I write it out. Or like, you know, maybe it's for Shepherd. For Shepherd, hey, here's the bets that we're gonna make. Um, and so I'll do this exercise 'cause it's so useful. So I write the big bets, and it's like here's the three to four big bets that we're gonna make, the things that we're gonna bet on, that we're gonna do, that we're gonna invest in, and we're gonna try to do really, really well. And then I'll make the no list right before that. And the no list I write, "There are a bunch of other things that we could talk ourselves into doing that are easily justifiable. However, we're gonna say no to these things this year because we wanna do the, we actually want the things above to happen." And then I'll make the no list. Here's the things we're not gonna do this year that we c- totally could've talked ourselves into. So for me, that was a very useful exercise. And then when I bring people on, everybody, I sit down with them with this big bets list. I'm like, "Here's what we're doing," and then if they're the one responsible for it, I'm, I treat it like a commercial 'cause I'm like, "I need to make this memorable. I need this person to wake up and remember," 'cause it's not just for me to be focused. I need my whole team to be focused. How do I do that? I basically shrink down one of these bets into a almost like a, like a slogan or a jingle for their role. It's like your, your mission is this. Remember that. And I'm gonna say that to you probably 100 times in the next three months. And, um, we're just gonna keep checking in on that, and that's how I'm gonna bonus you is if you did that or not. And that's how I'm gonna assess your performance, is if you did that or not. And if I ever, if w- if I ever... What's a priority? It's that. That's the priority. And I took this 'cause like Peter Thiel said that he did this at PayPal. He's like, "Yeah, I don't know, whatever. Management's not my favorite thing, so here's my shortcut to management. Everybody at any time has one priority, and if you ever try to talk to me about not that priority, I will just simply leave the room." [laughs] And I thought that was, just the visual of that was so funny to me.

Sam Parr 43:05 What a fucking weirdo.

Shaan Puri 43:06 That I was like-

Sam Parr 43:06 He's like, "Peter, can you, can you be normal for what?" Like, yeah, w- if someone walked up, walk- stood up and walked away when I was telling, telling them about stuff, I'd be like, "Dude, can you just be normal for 30 seconds?"

Shaan Puri 43:16 "Hey, boss, I had an idea about a new program that we could do," and he just like drifts away like a hot air balloon. [laughs]

Sam Parr 43:23 [laughs] What a weirdo, man. Uh-

Shaan Puri 43:26 But I love it

Sam Parr 43:26 ... there's stories of-

Shaan Puri 43:27 I dig it

Sam Parr 43:27 ... there's stor- there are stories of Elon doing that, too, where like in an interview, like within 30 seconds he would be like, "Oh, I'm not interested in this person." And so he would just hang up. [laughs]

Shaan Puri 43:37 Yeah. He, he emailed out at Tesla, too.

Sam Parr 43:38 You just see the laptop closing. [laughs]

Shaan Puri 43:39 He was like, um, "If you're in a meeting and in the first few minutes of the meeting you realize that this is not useful to you or to anybody, please stand up and leave. Uh, like your time is valuable. These meetings are a drain, and, uh, vote with your feet. Just get up and go. That is a completely acceptable behavior here at Tesla." [laughs]

Sam Parr 43:57 Do you ever send emails w- with the, one of those emails where the subject is the body of the email?

Shaan Puri 44:03 [laughs] Yeah, of course. It's just like a pager-

Sam Parr 44:05 So-

Shaan Puri 44:05 ... basically. You're treating it like a pager. [laughs]

Sam Parr 44:08 I had one of the only jobs I ever had, my boss sent me an email like that, and I was like, "Is this how we send emails?"

Shaan Puri 44:14 [laughs]

Sam Parr 44:14 And then I, [laughs] I, I sent them an email. I go, "What's the status on this, this thing?" And it was in the subject, and the reply was, "Don't ever send me an email like this again." Uh, it was a very embarrassing-

Shaan Puri 44:26 Dude, I love those emails. I, I actually, I think there are those levels. So basically what I realized is that rich people and busy people treat email like texting, so their email is like, uh, lowercase, on their phone, one line, totally fine. That's like their normal way of, of emailing. And then v- v- mega rich people treat email like it's letters. They'll have somebody actually screen them, print them out, and then they'll kinda like review them at their desk in paper. This is like the old school way of, of, of doing things.

Sam Parr 44:54 Who do you know who does that? I think Mark Lore does that, if I had to guess.

Shaan Puri 44:57 I, I-

Sam Parr 44:57 Because-

Shaan Puri 44:57 I feel like he did tell us that. Uh, Trump does that. There's some people-

Sam Parr 45:00 He, well, no, he told us he didn't even own a computer.

Shaan Puri 45:01 He didn't own a computer, yeah. But like I, I've, I've met a couple people. One, one of my old bosses used to do that. Like he used to print out his important, his, his assistant would print out his important emails and just put them on his desk so that he could like see them, and he would just leave a sticky note on them and she would go figure out what to do. Um, I, you know, I worked for a guy who had four women at the office with giant TV screens just managing his inbound emails, and he would just stand and walk around. They would be like, "Oh, this person said this." They'd pull it up on the screen, and he would just orally dictate his reply, and then he would walk away, and then they would just keep managing. It was insane.

Sam Parr 45:32 Man, most of the day I feel like I'm responding to stupid ass messages like on Slack, Twitter, text, email. It, I cannot stand it, man. It is so hard. So I actually think printing out that thing and replying, it could be kinda cool, actually.

Shaan Puri 45:46 Yeah, or creating s- you need some kinda firewall. Like for me, it's like my assistant is the firewall. She triages all the emails, and then I only check my email for 30 minutes a day, like, you know, 'cause it's already taken care of. And if there's something that needed a faster reply, she'll tell me. She'll text me, and then that's it.

Shaan Puri 46:00 Um, l- uh, there was one other thing that I was gonna share, which is, um, there's a big difference I think that's worth saying, which is pre-product market fit and post. So pre-product market fit, what you do versus post, is very different. I think most of this call has been about post, but actually, like most of my life has been about before you have product market fit. Before you have product market fit, you don't do any of these things. You literally just figure out what your product is, and you go try to sell it and get customers, and then you basically get rejected, and, you know, you handle that, and you iterate until you figure out what the product should be and who the customer should be, and you've proven how to get product and customers to go up, um, or, you know, to connect and, and get more customers. Like I think that's worth saying, too. And then after you have figured that out, after you have figured out that this product actually has a market and you know how to communicate it to customers and you know how to get customers, then you hire people to like, do more of that. And I would say like I saw you firsthand with Hampton doing this, where like there was a couple months where you showed me your calendar and it looked like a Jenga tower. It was 20-minute calls-

Sam Parr 47:09 [laughs]

Shaan Puri 47:09 ... stacked on top of each other, sometimes overlapping. And I was like, "What is this?" Like, "Where do..." And you're like, "Yeah, I'm trying to go get the members for Hampton. I'm trying to figure out what Hampton is." And you, you sent me like a, like a kind of a script or like a landing page. You were writing it yourself-

Sam Parr 47:25 Yeah

Shaan Puri 47:25 ... trying to explain what the benefits are and who it's for, and you considered like, you know, "Should I take this angle or this angle or this angle?" And I like would help you, you know, like reply on the Google Doc, whatever.

Sam Parr 47:34 Well, it's kinda like, um, it's kinda like being a comedian, you know what I'm saying? Like when you, when Hasan Minhaj finally does his Netflix show, he's done 200 before that, and you see which angle hits.

Shaan Puri 47:44 Right.

Sam Parr 47:45 And it's the same thing. It's like I gotta see which ang- which angle is hitting. Um, someone tweeted out something. They're like, um, "Product market, product market fit is like sex. If you have to ask, you're not having it," or something like that.

Shaan Puri 47:57 Yeah.

Sam Parr 47:57 And I was like, "That's so stupid. I've definitely asked in both of those situations if I have it or not." [laughs]

Shaan Puri 48:05 [laughs]

Sam Parr 48:06 I was like, "That's one of those lines, that's one of those lines that sounds good, but, uh, that ain't true." [laughs] I was uncertain multiple times about both of them things. [laughs]

Shaan Puri 48:18 [laughs]

Sam Parr 48:20 Is it happening? Is this it? Is this happening? Do, are we doing it? [laughs]

Shaan Puri 48:25 And on that note, that's the pod. [laughs] [upbeat music]