How Pomp Makes 8-Figures With A Podcast & Newsletter (434 Part 2)

Anthony Pompliano 0:00 But what I've, over time, started to realize also is, like, and it goes back to kind of, uh, why we wanna start so many of these companies. Investing in other people's companies is great, and obviously the power law takes over, and when that occurs, uh, it's amazing, and angel investing can be really profitable. But actually, you're much more likely to be able to take, you know, 50, $100,000, start a business, and get to, like, a million dollars in revenue, and throw off 500 to $700,000 in profit year after year after year, and do it with, like, a very high degree of, uh, of, uh, probability of success. And so in some way, like, what's better than angel investing in other people's ideas? It may actually be just, like, angel investing in your own ideas or your own companies. And so that's really where I've been focused is, like, yes, I will still on occasion invest in other companies, but now I wanna start these businesses, and I look at it as, what is the competitive advantage? We have capital, but we also have distribution. And so if you have capital and distribution, you basically just need, like, a decent idea, and you need an absolute killer operator. And if you can find those two things, combine it with the capital and distribution, you got a good chance of being able to make some money. [upbeat music]

Shaan Puri 1:15 All right, we got an episode here with Pomp, Anthony Pompliano, who you may know as the Bitcoin guy. He's huge all over YouTube, Twitter, everywhere else. He, uh, came on. We're actually gonna do this as a two-part episode because at the beginning, it was all business. We were business in the front. We were talking about this crazy million-dollar Balaji bet where he's betting that Bitcoin is going to a million dollars in the next 90 days. We talk about that, why Balaji thinks it, what we think about the bet, and Pomp does a, you know, I don't know, Econ 101 where he explains what's going on with the banking system from his perspective. That was good, and then the second-

Sam Parr 1:50 But here's the thing, though. In that episode, the whole episode is about something that's gonna happen inside the next 90 days. So if you're gonna, like... I- it is a little fearful listening to it, and so actually listen to the whole thing because, and do it now, because we're talking about something that's happening in 90 days. And then go ahead. The second episode was way more fun, and it was pretty wild. Go ahead.

Shaan Puri 2:09 We talk about his business empire, you know, what he's building and why he's building it that way, why he gave back all the money from his fund and shut that down, why he's-

Sam Parr 2:16 It's huge

Shaan Puri 2:17 ... turned off all his advertisers, millions of dollars of advertisers, what he's doing instead. So we talked about that, and then we talked about... And then it went off the wall, and, uh, the, the pod got a little crazy but in a great way. I think people are gonna, you're gonna love part two.

Sam Parr 2:30 He broke down, like, all of his businesses and how they work. It's very impressive. It, it was pretty wild. Um, and uh, it was, it was... He's, he's impressive. He's significantly more impressive than a lot of people think, I think, because there's way more behind the scenes.

Shaan Puri 2:42 And he tells pretty funny stories, which Pomp is usually, he's pretty buttoned up on his, on his main channel 'cause he's talking finance, he's talking serious, but he tells some pretty funny stories. So the second, uh, part two is the more fun episode. Part one is the more serious episode. I think you'll like them both.

Sam Parr 2:56 And we have to remind you guys that our episodes, we work really, really hard, and unlike every other type of podcast out there, our stuff's not free. But you don't pay with money. All you have to do is go to our YouTube page. We call this the gentleman's agreement. What is it? The lady's understanding.

Shaan Puri 3:13 The lady's understanding.

Sam Parr 3:14 You go to our, you go to our YouTube page, and the reason it's called that is because it's an understanding. It's an agreement. We can't be there behind your screen to check this, otherwise we would. But everyone's doing it, so just go ahead and do it and click subscribe on YouTube. And then just go ahead and do that on Spotify and iTunes, because the more you do that, the more our volume goes up, and we get more downloads, and we can do, keep doing this type of stuff. Pomp ain't gonna come on to episodes like this if, if we don't have a big listenership. Same with all the other guests.

Shaan Puri 3:40 All right, enjoy. [upbeat music]

Sam Parr 3:43 Can we talk about, instead of value r- uh, ruining, can we talk about value creation?

Sam Parr 3:49 'Cause Pomp owns, like, four companies, I think, that I wanted to ask him about. And my, um, fight or flight mode is, like, too much right now, that I need, like, I need, like, a rags to riches story. I need something interesting. I need, I need Pomp to tell me how he makes, makes the paper now because I, I need to calm down. I need to meditate by-

Shaan Puri 4:07 [laughs]

Sam Parr 4:07 ... Pomp telling me how he makes income.

Shaan Puri 4:08 [laughs] Um, so-

Sam Parr 4:11 Is that all right, Shaan?

Shaan Puri 4:12 Yeah. B- b- but how, what's your question? How do you wanna frame it?

Sam Parr 4:16 Well, so Pomp, he has, from what I understand, you have four or five different companies, and you have this office in Miami. And you have, like... It feels like you have... At first, I was gonna call it a mini empire, but it doesn't sound so mini a- a- actually. Uh, it sounds like you have-

Shaan Puri 4:32 Ma- medium empire?

Sam Parr 4:33 Medium empire, yeah. Uh, m- maybe big empire. I don't know. Can you explain what are, like, the things that you got going on?

Anthony Pompliano 4:41 Yeah, so, you know, for my career, uh, if you really think about, there's kinda three stages to some degree. At first, it was like, "Hey, how do I build companies?" And I basically had enough success where I was like, "Okay, maybe I'm not, like, horrible at this, but I definitely don't know how to, like, build companies to scale, et cetera." Uh, that led to, uh, Facebook, where, like, that was kinda my equivalent of, like, an MBA, right? I literally was with all these super talented people, uh, in 2014, 2015. Um, I was put on a number of different projects where, uh, I got exposed to Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg and a bunch of the leadership of the, the company, and I just learned a lot. It was, like, the best learning experience possible. Um, and shortly thereafter, uh, I started investing. And when I started investing, it was kinda like I didn't have an idea to start a company, so like, "Oh, let's try this investing thing," and I really enjoyed doing it. Uh, ended up building two different asset management firms. Um, and, like, it's fun, but, like, the product is kind of money, and you get to work on a bunch of different ideas. But I think that I keep coming back to, uh, an idea of, like, venture capital is such a slugging percentage game that what you end up doing is you end up actually playing an access game almost more than you do playing a business game. And what I mean by that is outside of the maybe the big five or six venture capital funds, once a company gets de-risked- It is all access, right? It is literally who do you know, how do you get into a deal, how do you actually get an allocation, whatever. And like that's fun, but that to me is more of like a, uh, kind of a status type thing of like, "Oh, what do these people think of me? Will they invite me into the deal?" And like that maybe is like an underbelly of the venture capital industry. And so simultaneous to building those asset management firms, I started creating content on the internet. And in hindsight, like it was optimized initially for learning, then it kinda switched like, oh, there's a lot of deal flow that comes from this, and so I like took it a little bit more seriously. And then there was this like final transition to like, oh, these are like businesses, right? And I think the big aha that I had was historically you built a company by building the product and then going and looking for customers. Now you can find the customers and then build the product. And so that's essentially what we've done, is we've built this very, very large audience. Um, you know, the podcast is 25 million downloads last year. YouTube's half a million subscribers. Uh, one day, you- I think you guys are gonna pass me, so keep going. Uh, the email is big, Twitter's big, et cetera. And-

Sam Parr 7:02 Is your podcast ... Uh, are you bigger than us right now? Are you trying to flex on us or are we already bigger? I think you're still bigger.

Anthony Pompliano 7:07 How many power downloads?

Sam Parr 7:08 Uh, it ranges from 100,000 to 150,000 per episode. And, and that's, uh ... So the, the RSS feed, the actual pod is in the 100,000-ish range, sometimes more, sometimes less, and then the YouTube video's 20 to 50,000. So r- that's why we say 100 to 150,000 downloads per episode.

Anthony Pompliano 7:24 So you guys will do more than me on individual episodes, but I have like this crazy power law. Like we just put up a interview on YouTube, it's got, you know, 100,000 views in the first 12, uh, hours, right? So it's like very much concentrated on like the long tail. Um, and w- which is like also interesting, right? Like would you rather have the consistent 50 to 100,000 YouTube and, and podcast, or would you rather have the breakout like million, you know, views plus every month or so? Like the-

Sam Parr 7:51 Yeah, so may- maybe, maybe you'll catch up to us one day. I don't know.

Anthony Pompliano 7:54 [laughs]

Sam Parr 7:55 [laughs]

Anthony Pompliano 7:55 So, [laughs] uh, so, so the general idea-

Sam Parr 7:59 Yeah

Anthony Pompliano 7:59 ... has just been like how do you build those businesses? Um, and really it's like once you know who the audience is, you can go and build products. But like I very much look at it as a game, and it goes back to the whole idea of like I don't have hobbies, right? Like this is what I do, uh, in my free time, and I really enjoy doing it. And so we've built a number of different businesses. Some of them have been bigger than others. Uh, but really it's like if you have distribution, then you can build companies in the 21st century, and we see, you know, really, really big creators doing this. I tend to think of anyone can do it. Um, and then I guess-

Shaan Puri 8:28 Well, what are the businesses?

Anthony Pompliano 8:30 Uh, so there's the media company itself. Uh, then we have a, uh, we have the two asset management firms.

Sam Parr 8:34 And you, y-

Shaan Puri 8:34 Well-

Sam Parr 8:34 You have a, you have a ... So yeah, let's just ... Listen, so number one, media company.

Anthony Pompliano 8:39 Right.

Sam Parr 8:39 That has ad- that has advertising. Is that a substantial sized business?

Anthony Pompliano 8:43 It used to have advertising. It was a very substantial business. Uh, it probably was one of the best monetized podcasts in the world based on the audience to, to revenue. Uh, it, it, it was a big podcast, and so both on the revenue side and also the, the downloads. Um, I turned all the ads off, and I think there was really two things that fed into it. One was when you have an advertiser, usually you just go and you find companies that you like their product. You then say, "Hey, I use this product. You guys should check it out." And that's like fine if you're doing like a bar of soap or you're doing like Liquid Death or, you know, like what- whatever the, the normal product is. The problem in finance is like people put their money into a product that you then share, and so you're essentially like renting your reputation to someone else, right? And you have no control over the business. You don't know what they're doing. And then it's not like, oh, I bought this, you know, chair that got recommended, or I bought this sweatshirt that, uh, Shaan and Sam said was really cool. I don't like it. Like, ah, idiots, right? But like I'm not that worried about it. When somebody puts their money into a product, then all of a sudden it, it's a whole different game. And so I just didn't wanna be in that world anymore, especially when a lot of them are crypto companies, and crypto companies kept blowing up, et cetera. But the second thing that I realized from a business opportunity standpoint is when I got rid of all of the advertising, I knew that we would take a massive hit. We have a team. We've got an office, like all this stuff. And so I had to commit to personally covering everything. So like once I made the decision, I've been losing money every month, but I'm doing it because the bigger opportunity is to actually own the products and services that you put through the distribution. So think of it like you guys will get paid as a podcast host for an ad. They might pay you $1 to read the ad, but they're making 3 to $5 on the back end as their return on advertising. Now, if you can cut out the middleman and you can just own the product or service, that's a way better deal. The reason why most people don't do it is 'cause they don't have the skill set or the interest in actually building the product or the service. And so I basically just was like, look, we kinda like figured out how to do advertising-based content. I want a hard challenge. I want to do something that is going to be, by most people's accounts, stupid to give up all this revenue and go try this. Um, and like it's, one, intellectually stimulating, but two, is if we figure it out, it'll be a way bigger business, and it'll be a much more sustainable, resilient thing over the long run. It's just you gotta be able to weather the kinda bumpy transition in between ad-based to, you know, owning the products and services yourself.

Sam Parr 11:08 So we have fund. We have media company, which sometimes does, sometimes doesn't actually make revenue. Then we have-

Shaan Puri 11:14 Hold, hold on, hold on. The fund, didn't you give all the money back? Aren't you no longer in the fund?

Anthony Pompliano 11:18 So there's two different asset management firms. One was a, uh, joint venture with, uh, Morgan Creek Capital, a, a hedge fund. Um, we invested all the capital, uh, and, uh, um, you know-

Shaan Puri 11:27 See how it played out

Anthony Pompliano 11:28 ... invested in companies like Coinbase and, uh, we bought some Bitcoin, those types of things. Uh, and then-

Sam Parr 11:32 And you get a cut if it ever does well.

Anthony Pompliano 11:35 Correct. And then, um, I had a second asset management firm. I was one of the first people to do a rolling fund on AngelList, which I found was an incredible product for somebody who has a small team and, and kinda wants to punch above their weight. Um, and so I, I think we grew it into like maybe the third-biggest, uh, rolling fund on the platform at the time. Um, made a bunch of investments, and then I just got to the point where I started to do the math, and I was like, "What do I enjoy investing in?" I enjoy investing in like the pre-seed seed. I actually don't like doing like series B, series C stuff, again, 'cause it's more of like this like status and access game. I enjoy meeting someone who's like, "I have an idea," and like talking to them and trying to figure out, like, is this a viable idea? What are the first steps? And so if you actually look at the math, if you can afford to personally invest in those deals, a lot of times it's actually better economically to personally invest than it is to invest out of the fund because of the way that the carry works and, and kind of the management fees, et cetera. And so it was like, if I invest personally rather than do the fund, and also now I don't have to spend time on LPs, on the updates, like, do all the things that go into managing a fund, I get time back plus I could make more money, like, I'll always pick that. And so I gave back all of the uninvested capital out of that fund, and then now just do all of my investing personally.

Sam Parr 12:49 And do you do big checks, or is it, like, the normal, like, 15 to $30,000 angel check?

Anthony Pompliano 12:55 No, I'll do bigger than that. Um, but what I've, over time, started to realize also is, like, and it goes back to kind of, uh, why we wanna start so many of these companies. Investing in other people's companies is great, and obviously the power law takes over, and when that occurs, uh, it's amazing and angel investing can be really profitable. But actually, you're much more likely to be able to take, you know, 50, $100,000, start a business, and get to, like, a million dollars in revenue and throw off 500 to $700,000 in profit year after year after year, and do it with, like, a very high degree of, uh, of, uh, probability of success. And so in some way, like, what's better than angel investing in other people's ideas? It may actually be just, like, angel investing in your own ideas or your own companies. And so that's really where I've been focused is, like, yes, I will still on occasion invest in other companies, but now I wanna start these businesses, and I look at it as, what is the competitive advantage? We have capital, but we also have distribution. And so if you have capital and distribution, you basically just need, like, a decent idea, and you need an absolute killer operator. And if you can find those two things, combine it with the capital and distribution, you got a good chance of being able to make some money.

Sam Parr 14:04 And so you have... Um, and by the way, what's your biggest angel investment? Or what, what, what would end up be so far the most successful one, you think?

Anthony Pompliano 14:11 Um, some of the big... I mean, Bitcoin obviously is probably the one that, uh, will end up making the most money, uh, both in terms of the amount of money I invested, but also, um, uh, kind of just the aggregate dollar, uh, value it'll be worth. I would tend to be in Shaan's camp, like, the dollars aren't gonna matter. It's just gonna be the Bitcoin. Um, I, I think that some that people will find interesting, I don't know the exact math on all of them, and, and one of the things is when it's your own money you probably pay less attention than when it's a fund, right? 'Cause you're kind of just like, "Oh, I invested. That money's gone. Uh, hopefully I get some back later." Um, but I invested in Varda, uh, Delian and a bunch of those guys. Um, they're doing kind of, uh, space manufacturing. I find that really fascinating. Um, a friend and I, uh, we invested in something called Everly Well, uh, based out of Austin, actually. Uh, they do, like, at-home diagnostic testing. Um, I invested in, uh, Howard Lorman's new company Roam. Uh, they're kind of building, like, a, a workspace for remote teams, kind of a Zoom and Slack-type killer that seems to be doing, uh, very, very well, um, and a whole host of other ones.

Sam Parr 15:10 So all right. So we're, and then you've g- so you've got the fund and investing, you've got that thing. Media company. You also have Crypto Academy. You have Crypto Jobs, which parlayed now into, like, a proper recruiting service.

Anthony Pompliano 15:21 Yeah.

Sam Parr 15:21 Are those three?

Anthony Pompliano 15:22 So you can basically think of, uh, the Inflection Points business, a business called Inflection Points, um, you can think of that almost as, like, it's become a holding company for all these different products and services in a specific vertical. So I'm fascinated with Mark Leonard. I don't know if you guys know, uh, Constellation Software. He basically buys these, like, vertically s- uh, uh, vertical specific software companies. Um, well, what happens if you don't have a m- a holding company that ends up buying across the different verticals? What if you just have a holding company within a specific vertical? And so that's basically what we've built. We have a job marketplace that companies can go list their open roles. They pay for it. We then use the distribution to drive traffic. People, uh, can go get a job. We also have a new-

Sam Parr 16:00 And that's, uh, that's pompcryptojobs.com, right? That's that site.

Anthony Pompliano 16:03 Correct.

Sam Parr 16:04 Okay.

Anthony Pompliano 16:05 Correct.

Sam Parr 16:05 And, and that, that's, like, a pretty basic business. It's just a job board.

Anthony Pompliano 16:08 Think of a job board, right? That's how we got started was just a job board. Got it, we launched it. It got to, like, $50,000 in monthly revenue pretty much in, like, the first, like, four weeks. Uh, and it was like, okay, we have a business here, right? We can go and we can try to scale this thing. Um, we then bought a recruiting company, kind of traditional headhunters. Uh, Proof of Talent is the name of that business. Um, and so you can do, like, self-serve. You can go and list the jobs, and people will come to you, or you can go and you can work with the recruiters. They just take a percentage of the first year, uh, fee. Then we started doing corporate training. So there was a very large company that came to us and was like, "Hey, can you train our people?" Um, and so we got into that business. Uh, ended up growing that to seven figures in revenue. Um, and then we just started a research business. The research business, think of it as, like, buy-side research. So, uh, you pay a subscription fee, um, and they deliver research, uh, kind of a couple times a week, uh, called Reflexivity-

Sam Parr 16:58 Can you say what that's-

Anthony Pompliano 16:59 Yeah. We-

Sam Parr 16:59 Can you say what that was called?

Anthony Pompliano 17:00 So that one's, like, that, that one's, like, a perfect example, right? So Reflexivity Research is within that holding company, but I think is a perfect example of, like, what I wanna do now over and over and over again. Uh, so if you have an idea, please reach out to myself, uh, Sam, or Shaan. But, um, Will Clemente is a, uh, a young guy in the Bitcoin crypto world, uh, has done really great analysis. I've worked with him for about a year. I know that he's hardworking. I know that-

Shaan Puri 17:23 How, how'd you find that guy? He was, like, in college, right, when you found him? That guy was great.

Anthony Pompliano 17:27 He was working at Target.

Shaan Puri 17:28 He was working at Target, literally?

Anthony Pompliano 17:30 He was literally working at Target, and he would go in the bath-

Sam Parr 17:32 This story can end either way. This is gonna end wonderfully or not [laughs] .

Shaan Puri 17:35 [laughs]

Anthony Pompliano 17:36 [laughs]

Sam Parr 17:37 50/50.

Shaan Puri 17:37 So the leading Bitcoin researcher was working at Target. Uh, all right. This is either a great underdog story, or it's gonna be, how could you guys trust this guy? [laughs]

Anthony Pompliano 17:46 So [laughs] well, I don't remember every single detail, but he had, like, uh, I don't know, a couple thousand, maybe a thousand followers on Twitter. He was going into the bathroom at Target and, like, tweeting, like, Bitcoin charts and stuff. And so I met him 'cause of the stuff he was tweeting, and then was like-

Sam Parr 17:59 In the bathroom?

Anthony Pompliano 18:00 No, online [laughs] .

Sam Parr 18:01 [laughs]

Shaan Puri 18:01 [laughs] Hey.

Anthony Pompliano 18:02 Then I started being like, "Hey, you know, like, what's your background? What do you do?" Like, all, and he's like, like, "I'm literally, like, in the bathroom at Target tweeting on my lunch break," right, or whatever. I was like, "All right. Like, that's pretty cool." Um, and so we just started to, you know, kind of, uh, interact online. Then I started to bring him on the podcast, and just, like, I got to know him and was like, okay, like, this kid is smart. Uh, he's young, so he doesn't have a ton of experience, but, like, his compounding, uh, rate of learning was, like, off the charts. He would, like, read a book in two or three days, and then, like, send me, "Hey, here's all the things I learned from the book." And he'd like read another one and do it again. And it was just like, all right, the trajectory of this is not linear. This is very much like compounding or exponential. Like, this is a young person-

Shaan Puri 18:39 By the way

Anthony Pompliano 18:39 ... that I wanna spend time with.

Shaan Puri 18:40 Why is a guy who's this smart, this into learning, working at Target in the first place? Like, was he just not interested in school, but only interested in blockchain? What, why does this happen?

Anthony Pompliano 18:48 Oh, he was in college. He- this was like his like job while he was in college-

Shaan Puri 18:51 Gotcha

Anthony Pompliano 18:51 ... was like, you just go to like the local businesses, right? And he got a job at Target.

Shaan Puri 18:55 Cool.

Anthony Pompliano 18:55 So he ended up dropping out of college and kinda like bet on himself. He got a job. Eventually we're like, "Hey, maybe we should like start a company together." And so we figured out kinda the structure of the business. Um, we put some money into the business, and we, in the first six months, got to, you know, 100K of ARR. And I think that we will be at maybe 3 or 400K of ARR after the first, you know, call it nine months. And then I think that maybe we can get somewhere around a million dollars in the first year. And so it's like, if you can do that-

Sam Parr 19:22 And this product, by, by the way, this product, I'm looking at the site. So it, I, I used to own this thing called Trends, trends.co, and we got that to be a good business, but you guys are doing very similar, but you're making not... I made the mistake of being broad. You're doing just crypto. It's $2,500 a year. And what is it, just a weekly newsletter?

Anthony Pompliano 19:40 No. You get like anywhere between four to six different research reports per week, and then there's a weekly what we call like an analyst call. So we've got a bunch of these young people who are like crypto native kids, right? I'll, I'll use kids 'cause they're like under the age of 25, most of them. Uh, and they're super, super smart. They're like in all the Discord channels and, and they really understand like what is happening in the community. And then you take someone like me, who can help them wrap that into something that can be consumed by-

Sam Parr 20:06 [laughs]

Anthony Pompliano 20:06 ... large family offices, hedge funds, you know, large asset managers, individual investors, et cetera. And so not only do you get the research reports, but you also get that weekly call where, uh, you get to get on and just ask them questions.

Shaan Puri 20:18 So like, um-

Sam Parr 20:18 And they're wa- and they're, they're-

Shaan Puri 20:19 So-

Sam Parr 20:19 ... waiting to report?

Shaan Puri 20:20 Yeah, J- Jason here-

Anthony Pompliano 20:21 Right

Shaan Puri 20:21 ... from JPMorgan. Um, just quick question for, uh, ComeSquat69.

Anthony Pompliano 20:25 [laughs]

Shaan Puri 20:26 You, you mentioned that you were [laughs]

Sam Parr 20:29 Yeah. Literally says vaping on the call.

Shaan Puri 20:32 Would love, would love, yeah, would, would love to hear you expand on that. And also, whoever's vaping, can you please, uh-

Anthony Pompliano 20:37 [laughs]

Shaan Puri 20:37 ... mute, mute the microphone. [laughs]

Sam Parr 20:39 They just call everyone bro. Like, "'Sup, bro. Uh, yeah, it's good." [laughs]

Anthony Pompliano 20:43 We, we literally, we, we literally have like public company CEOs who are subscribers, and they get on the call and they're like trying to like, you know, learn and all this stuff. And, uh, when you have these businesses, I think that there, there's like pros and cons to these like internet, uh, native businesses that are starting, especially with young people who want to work, who, who kind of have this desire to kind of push forward. The good thing is like they're young, they're like too naive to know all the things that would stop someone else from doing it. They have a lot of time on their hands. And like frankly, they're willing to make mistakes, right? They don't get embarrassed because they did something. You're just like, "Hey, don't do that." And they're like, "Okay," like, "thanks," and they just go and do something else. The downside to it is like at one point we literally had to have like a little bit of an internal session on like, "Hey, here's how you write." You know, like, like grammar. And like, "Here's how to like use punctuation and spacing," and like all these ki- types of things. And so you go into these businesses understanding that like it's all about momentum, and then you have to look for the rate of, uh, or the compounding rate of learning. And if you can set it up correctly, these businesses can grow to be pretty substantial. They can be profitable. And also, the thing I enjoy the most is like if I could go back and be 22 again, like I don't wanna go get a fucking job, right? I wanna like kinda bet on myself and use this internet thing and try to make money and make more money than I could make at a regular job. And so in many of our different businesses, we have people who have made enormous amounts of money compared to what they could make if they went and got a normal job doing the exact same skill, but it's all comes down to incentives. And so in every business, what I try to do is I try to create upside where we take a portion of revenue or profit, depending on the business, we put it into a pool, and then we try to split that among the team. And so if you have a profitable business and you're able to incentivize people and you're like, "Hey, when you win, I win, and when I win, you win," people will do incredible quality and velocity of work. Because ultimately, the capitalistic incentive takes over and they just simply wanna make money, and they wanna do good work to make that money. And so it ends up aligning interest, and these businesses can absolutely explode.

Sam Parr 22:42 But why do five things instead of just one thing that, that could maybe like just grow a little bit faster or have more of your focus?

Anthony Pompliano 22:48 I am doing one thing. So I think this is like a, a different way of looking at it. I'm providing capital and distribution. That's the only thing I do, right? When I start the research business, Will and the people he has hired, they're doing the research. They're doing kind of all the different things. I'm really, really good at putting together the deals and the capital and then pushing a high-quality product through my distribution. And hopefully that'll grow to not just be my distribution, but be other people's distribution. But I couldn't run the recruiting business, I couldn't run the research business, I couldn't run, you know, a lot of these different businesses. I have to kinda stay within that circle of competence, and it's just like provide capital, have a huge megaphone, and I guess maybe pick correctly, right? Pick the people that you're gonna do it with correctly, and then just like get out of the way and let them be great at what they do. And if you have the stars align, like they can become pretty big businesses.

Sam Parr 23:39 Shaan and I are kinda in like a similar spot as you, and the thing I keep asking myself is like, "Yeah, this is awesome." Uh, we, you know, and Shaan and I each separately are doing s- very similar to things as you. But I think to myself, "But when are people gonna stop listening to me? When, when, when am I not gonna be cool anymore?" Do, does that, do you get that fear of like, uh, your clout won't matter?

Anthony Pompliano 24:00 Well, I, I think that I've now been on the internet long enough where like I've gone through peaks and valleys. Like 2021, I could have literally tweeted, "Sup," and it was going mega viral-

Sam Parr 24:11 [laughs]

Anthony Pompliano 24:11 ... during like the Bitcoin bull market, right? Like, literally I could just breathe on the internet, everything went viral. But like that's not me, and you have to be grounded enough to understand like that's Bitcoin bull market, you know, uh, product. That's not 'cause I'm some genius. Now, when that stuff crashes, you know, I have this saying of like, "If you get the praise on the way up, you gotta eat the shit on the chin on the way down." And so like you naturally-

Sam Parr 24:33 And you've eat- you've eaten a lot of shit-

Anthony Pompliano 24:34 Yeah

Sam Parr 24:34 ... because you're, you're so charismatic and you make all these bold claims. I mean, you get a lot of crap

Anthony Pompliano 24:39 Yeah, but like i- if you view that from the perspective, like, "These people are attacking me," like you'll be super depressed, and you'll like run away and, and be quiet. And a lot of people do that. When the Bitcoin, you know, bear markets come or other asset markets come, like there are people who just disappear, right? Instead, I look at those opportunities as kind of a defiant way to say like, "It does not matter what happens, I'm not leaving." And so, you know, in this last one, when FTX blew up and all this stuff happened, I went on national television and was grilled by a reporter for 20 minutes and in a completely unscripted thing. He, like he wasn't friendly. But it, to me, like that's where my skillset shines, is like I will debate anyone at any time on topics that I think I understand, and it's even better if it's on live TV. Because guess what we did? I went on television. I did it. I got off. Twitter was like on fire. People were like, "That was the greatest segment of all time. These two guys just went at it." And I emailed them and I said, "Send me the video." I took the video and immediately uploaded it to YouTube, the full thing, and I said title, Pomp Destroys TV Host on Bitcoin, and published it.

Sam Parr 25:42 [laughs]

Shaan Puri 25:43 [laughs]

Anthony Pompliano 25:44 Right? And so like why go on television? It's to get the clips, to get the content, to then post on your own stuff, right? So I, I think that the hate, you have to also realize, like, oh, like that's the president of my marketing team. That guy, there's a guy yesterday, true story, who created an entire thread of hate. He had videos. He had tweets. He literally filmed himself unfollowing me, right? Like he filmed his phone screen record unfollowing me. And I almost DM'd him and said thank you, right? But I was just like, dude, do you not understand how the internet works? The more you attack people, the bigger the audience gets. And I don't wanna be attacked. Like I'm not seeking controversy. I'm not seeking to be attacked. But what ends up happening is if you have that view of that lens, the haters are actually on your team. They just haven't realized it yet. And so like let them do their thing. Let them keep hating. And naturally the audience gets bigger and bigger over time.

Sam Parr 26:40 What distribution channel is gonna be the most effective to you and the one that you're, when, when you talk about this distribution, and if you only had one of them, let's say Twitter, email list, podcast-

Anthony Pompliano 26:49 Yeah

Sam Parr 26:49 ... YouTube, which one would you say this is the most powerful and this is the one I'm focused on growing?

Anthony Pompliano 26:54 So the one that I wouldn't give up is the email. Uh, but I don't necessarily think that's the one I'm most focused on growing. I think that audio is a really interesting medium where you're basically whispering in someone's ear for like an hour. Like it's super intimate, and people really come to trust you and things like that. And so I think-

Sam Parr 27:12 There's probably someone out there like just doing reps at, at the gym and just grunting right now-

Anthony Pompliano 27:16 [laughs]

Sam Parr 27:16 ... and listening to us right now.

Anthony Pompliano 27:18 Yeah.

Sam Parr 27:18 We, we get that a lot.

Anthony Pompliano 27:19 Hu-

Sam Parr 27:19 So you're, we're in people's ears as they're bench pressing

Anthony Pompliano 27:21 ... I mean, somebody's bicep curling right now, but also someone's like literally at the bottom in their deep squat, and they're like-

Sam Parr 27:27 [laughs]

Anthony Pompliano 27:27 ... "Damn these guys." [laughs]

Sam Parr 27:28 [laughs]

Anthony Pompliano 27:29 "They're calling me out right now," right? But like you're, you're basically just, uh, you- you're in people's ears, or in email you have direct communication and also you can write. Like i- if you understand what your best quality is, some people it's writing, some people it is video, some people it's just audio and talking. I know people who have podcasts who script out every single word of the episode. I don't think you guys do that, right? And like if you guys did do that, one, it would take you guys forever, but also two, like it wouldn't be as entertaining. It wouldn't be as fun. And so it's kind of trying to figure out like what is the match between like the participant and the medium. So like if you guys were sending an email and like you two wrote it, you didn't hire anyone, like sorry, but it'd probably suck, right? [laughs] It would just be like, eh, there's no magic here. Because actually what makes this so magic is that like there's the serendipity and the like iterative nature that you guys have back and forth. And so I just think that as people start to get onto the internet and try to build these audiences, you gotta really question like where is my advantage and where do I actually have something that can cut through the noise? Because now there's so much noise, if you don't cut through, then you might as well not get started.

Shaan Puri 28:36 [upbeat music] This data is wrong every freaking time.

Sam Parr 28:41 Have you heard of HubSpot? HubSpot is a CRM platform where everything is fully integrated.

Shaan Puri 28:47 Whoa, I can see the client's whole history, calls, support tickets, emails, and here's a task from three days ago I totally missed.

Sam Parr 28:55 HubSpot. Grow better. [sighs] I'm exhausted.

Anthony Pompliano 28:59 [laughs]

Sam Parr 29:00 I'm just exhausted.

Shaan Puri 29:02 I hate when you have to end the episodes that way. Y- y- you-

Sam Parr 29:05 I just, like that's how I feel, 'cause-

Shaan Puri 29:07 Like imagine, imagine watching a TV show and, uh, they're, they're putting on a show. They're trying to have a good time, and at the end they're like, "Fuck, man." [laughs] You'd be like, "Well-"

Sam Parr 29:18 I just feel like I just got like-

Shaan Puri 29:19 ... if he's down, I'm down. Sam, you are a-

Sam Parr 29:21 I'm not down

Shaan Puri 29:22 ... you're a, you're a, a y- people will follow your lead. If you had a good time-

Sam Parr 29:26 No

Shaan Puri 29:26 ... they'll have a good time. You, you gotta have some-

Sam Parr 29:28 I'm down be-

Shaan Puri 29:28 ... as we say, showmanship.

Sam Parr 29:30 [laughs]

Shaan Puri 29:30 A showman wouldn't be tired at the end of his episode.

Sam Parr 29:34 Dude, I'm not down, I'm amped, and it's like I got to go and like, it's like, it's like I just got done working out. I gotta go like r- rest for a minute and then get up and like implement all this stuff. I feel like, uh-

Anthony Pompliano 29:43 [laughs]

Sam Parr 29:44 ... I need to go and like I, I, I'm, maybe I'm into crypto now. I don't know. I, like he, he's just Malcolm Gladwelled my ass. Like I just-

Anthony Pompliano 29:51 Right

Sam Parr 29:51 ... I just got got, you know? Like I just feel good about like what I heard, and uh, you, you're just, you're full of energy. Do you nap?

Anthony Pompliano 29:59 No.

Sam Parr 29:59 Are you a napper?

Shaan Puri 30:00 [laughs]

Anthony Pompliano 30:00 No.

Sam Parr 30:00 You don't nap?

Anthony Pompliano 30:01 No. Hell no. Why would you nap?

Sam Parr 30:03 You don't nap?

Anthony Pompliano 30:03 Got shit to do.

Sam Parr 30:04 Oh.

Shaan Puri 30:05 Dude, team nap over here.

Anthony Pompliano 30:06 I, I, I-

Shaan Puri 30:06 Napping's the greatest

Sam Parr 30:07 ... yeah, I take a 30 minute nap every day. [laughs]

Anthony Pompliano 30:09 Do you guys both take naps, for real?

Sam Parr 30:11 Yeah.

Shaan Puri 30:12 I nap every other day.

Sam Parr 30:13 Since '99.

Shaan Puri 30:14 I'm trying to shoot for every day. Once I get to every day, I know I've made it.

Anthony Pompliano 30:17 How many hours do you guys sleep a night?

Sam Parr 30:20 Seven. Normal?

Shaan Puri 30:21 Same.

Anthony Pompliano 30:23 Oh, man. I don't think I could nap during the day, but I also drink, uh, coffee in the morning, so, like, that might screw it up, too.

Shaan Puri 30:29 I, I gotta tell

Shaan Puri 30:30 you guys a hilarious story, uh, before we go. So, so Pomp was talking [laughs] about his, like, analyst team. He's like, you know, the, the, the high-quality analyst team that's all, like, you know, uh, you know, two years out of, out of undergrad. And, uh, we at Milk Road, we basically had a super lean team. It was me, Ben... But I wasn't active day-to-day, really. I was, you know, just kind of guiding. Um, Ben was running it, and then there was a, our, our lead writer, Diego, who's awesome, and then we hired one guy. We were like, "Maybe we should do social media." And so we put out a thing being like, "Hey, um, I don't know how to use TikTok, but if you do, come work for us." And so this guy Billy uploaded [laughs] this am- incredible video. It's on the, it's on the internet. You can go, go look on Twitter. But basically, he uploads this video-

Anthony Pompliano 31:11 Chugging milk

Shaan Puri 31:11 ... of him just chugging milk shirtless and just, like, doing... It was just, like, a ridiculous video. He's like, he would find somebody, be like, "Hey, can you hold this phone? I'm trying to get a job." And then he would chug the milk, and they'd be like, "A job? What is this?" And so anyways, we hired Billy. We tried to do the TikTok thing. Didn't fully work out, but it was okay. Uh, but Billy's, Billy's a great guy. He helped, ended up hi- helping write the newsletter. So two hilarious things just happened. First, they did a Milk Road team offsite, like something we never did, 'cause m- my whole ethos building The Milk Road was like, "I'm not trying to be a CEO anymore." Like, I'm not trying to, like, stand up in front of the company with a T-shirt with our name on it and tell everybody how great everything is. Like, I just don't wanna even have to do all that stuff. But the, the new guys who bought it, they wanna do the company building, so they invited everybody out. And, uh, I asked Ben, I go, "How was the offsite?" And he goes, he had one, one insight from the whole thing. He goes, "Billy showed up in a wifebeater, but not as a joke."

Anthony Pompliano 32:01 [laughs]

Shaan Puri 32:01 He just showed... [laughs] That's just what he wore to the event, and no one said anything. And I was like, "No one said anything?" I go, "Wow, that's incredible. I can't imagine not saying anything." And then let's fast-forward three weeks. Uh, Billy, Billy [laughs] they offered Billy a raise, and he quit instead. And I was like... And so Ben goes, "Billy, you c- you got a raise and you quit? Like, this guy's a conundrum, man. What, what's going on?" He goes, he goes, w- he goes, "You quit. Like, what's, what's the plan?" And he just replied [laughs] to Ben in a text message, and he goes, "Do I look like a guy with a plan?" [laughs]

Anthony Pompliano 32:32 [laughs]

Shaan Puri 32:33 And that became the most badass thing I've heard all week. Do I look like a guy who has a plan? [laughs]

Anthony Pompliano 32:39 But Shaan, I, I tend to think that we over-index a lot on, like, uh, people wanna always hang out with their heroes, right? They wanna hang out with the older people. They wanna hang out with the people who have done the thing that they are trying to do, and there's a lot of value you can get from that. But I do think that we drastically under-index on, like, go find the young, energetic person who you're like, "You are literally an idiot, but damn, are you gonna be an awesome idiot who's gonna-"

Shaan Puri 33:03 Right

Anthony Pompliano 33:03 ... run through 20 walls and eventually find something on the other side. And what it does is it, like, it forces you to up your game. Like, have you ever talked to, like, a 21-year-old and you're like, "Okay, so, uh, uh, let's get this done by Wednesday," and they're like, "Okay," and then they send it back to you, like, two hours later?

Shaan Puri 33:19 Right.

Anthony Pompliano 33:19 And you're like, "Damn, why do we wait till Wednesday? Like, this kid is actually correct. We should just get it done now." And so I do think that the internet companies or these native companies, that's one of the big advantages they have. Like, I, you know, you guys had, uh, Nick Huber. You've had Andrew Wilkinson, like a, a bunch of people who are doing this. When you find the right person who can just, like, get shit done, you are unstoppable with the internet now, and I think that that is something that more and more people are gonna wake up to. And, like, it wouldn't surprise me if we, like, bankrupt Main Street businesses because they all move online as people just realize, like, "Why am I gonna have, like, a physical store that people have to walk into when I can just do this online thing?" And it is a big concern for these local communities, but at the same time, like, there's way more economic opportunity online for, uh, for people who wanna do that.

Shaan Puri 34:07 One of the other guys we tried to hire at Milk Road, he was a young guy, 20, 21 years old. He was working at Main Street at the time. And I loved this guy's tweets. I thought he was interesting, and he would tweet out these, like, little random websites he was making on the weekend that were, like, just super simple, like, kind of like it's either gonna go viral or this is the dumbest thing ever. Uh, there's no in between. There was no, like, kind of core product service. It w- it made no sense. Nothing he did made any sense, and I was like, "Dude, I love this guy." So I told Ben, I was like, "Hey, we should hire this guy." He's like, "What's he gonna do?" I go, "I don't know. We should just have him do what he's doing now but without his full-time job." [laughs] Like, what if we just gave him more time to do the stupid shit he's doing on the weekends Monday through Friday instead? And so I talked to him-

Anthony Pompliano 34:46 Just an attack dog. He'll figure it out

Shaan Puri 34:46 ... I talked to him and I was like, "Hey, you, uh, you know, h- dude, I think this Milk Road thing's gonna work." It was super early. We were, like, I don't know, four weeks into it or something. And I was like, "I think this thing's gonna work. You should join." He's like, same thing, "What am I gonna do?" I go, "Just do y- do, do weird, uh, you know, Rohan stuff that you do. Go, just go ahead and do that." And, um, he's like, "All right, cool. L- let me, let me, like, let me g- let me hit you up," or he's like, he's like, "When do you wanna start? Like, tomorrow?" And I was like, "No, no, no, like, I got... Like, I'm traveling. I'm gonna be back on Wednesday. Let's talk on Wednesday," which was, like, four or five days away. Fatal mistake. Classic 34-year-old mistake, thinking that, that the world's not gonna change in four days. This guy's entire... He l- uh, in those four days, he ends up launching an NFT project that goes super viral, ends up making so much money. He goes and becomes this anonymous account, Frank Degods. [laughs]

Anthony Pompliano 35:33 [laughs] I know exactly who this is.

Shaan Puri 35:35 And, and he, and, and he created the Degods project. I can talk about it now 'cause he's, like, out publicly. But for a while I was like, "What the fuck is this?" And so I kept trying to hit him up, being like, "What happened?" I didn't know he was the guy behind Degods, and so I was like, "Dude, what? You ghosting me? Like, we, we were, we had such a good idea." He's like, "Hey, man," like three weeks later, he just resurfaced. He's like, "Sorry, bro." Like, like it t- it was like no time had passed between our conversations. He's like, "Oh yeah, about that, um, I don't know, man. I, I-"

Anthony Pompliano 35:59 [laughs]

Shaan Puri 36:00 "... n- now I'm doing this other stuff. I gotta do this."

Anthony Pompliano 36:01 [laughs]

Shaan Puri 36:02 And I was like, "Tell me about it." So he, he screen shares, and he shows me how he's growing it. And one thing [laughs] I'll never forget that was, like, the classic, like, this is a, this guy's an idiot, this makes no sense, but I, I'm down and I m- I wanna be in this car. Um, and so I [laughs] he shows me the site, and I go, "How do you stop people from just selling it, like, you know, right away? Like, what, what are you getting..." 'Cause nothing holds value unless the The people who buy it hold, which is why like for Bitcoin, the genius meme is the, the HODL meme, right? Because it became culturally the normal thing to do to just hold the thing. And he goes, "Oh, yeah, I had the same thought, so I created something called the paper hands bitch tax." [laughs] I go, "What?"

Anthony Pompliano 36:43 [laughs]

Shaan Puri 36:44 He goes, "Basically, if you sell at a loss, if you sell for less than the mint price, not only do you get just like, you know, you take the loss on the principle, but we also apply a 25% tax because you had paper hands and we applied the bitch tax to you for selling on the, on the dip."

Anthony Pompliano 36:58 [laughs]

Shaan Puri 36:58 And I was like... And he's like, "People loved it." [laughs] I was like, "What the fuck?" And it totally, it totally worked. It became like, again, he, he created a meme and it, and it, it was a monetized meme in his case, and I just thought it was awesome. So yeah, I, I'm totally-

Anthony Pompliano 37:11 Pomp, do you-

Shaan Puri 37:11 ... down to, uh, hang out with these guys.

Anthony Pompliano 37:14 Shaan, while all this was happening, uh, I just looked at my DMs, so I have like a another perspective on, uh, the exact same situation, which was, uh, one of the hacks that people have figured out is if they post something on their Instagram story, like a lot of times people with bigger audiences will just like share it, but in the DMs it looks like they like messaged you, so now there's like they posted something, then you posted something. And so he did that and he-

Shaan Puri 37:42 Mm

Anthony Pompliano 37:42 ... uh, he posted something, I reposted it, and then he followed up with, he's gonna kill me for reading this out loud. He goes, "If you have any ideas for some more fun tools for us to make that you think would be helpful, would love to chat, man." And he said it like we were like boys, right?

Shaan Puri 37:53 [laughs]

Anthony Pompliano 37:54 Like, he just like was kinda like saying it like of course, like you're gonna engage. So I didn't respond. Maybe I didn't see it or whatever. And so I guess I went to LA, uh, for the Super Bowl, and then he follows it up with, "Yo, we gotta kick it while you're out here." [laughs] Like, like again, like we're like boys.

Shaan Puri 38:09 [laughs]

Anthony Pompliano 38:09 And I'm like, "Who is this like 20-something-year-old kid, right?" And so then he just keeps messaging me until finally in July he just starts DM'ing me things, and he just keeps saying, "Yo."

Shaan Puri 38:21 [laughs]

Anthony Pompliano 38:22 And so I met him in person in Miami and I was like, "Who are you?" basically. And he's like, "Oh, I'm into Bitcoin or whatever, but like I have this secret to tell you."

Shaan Puri 38:30 [laughs]

Anthony Pompliano 38:30 And he told me about the NFT thing, and I was like, "What is going on?" And he was showing up at conferences with like, uh, handkerchiefs over his face.

Shaan Puri 38:38 Right. [laughs]

Anthony Pompliano 38:38 And like completely disguising-

Shaan Puri 38:39 I saw that guy

Anthony Pompliano 38:40 ... his identity. And I was just like, do you understand how you cannot have like any degree of success or, uh, reputation or anything to be willing to like go to the lengths of success that he went to? And I think that's why like young people are so empowering to be around. It's just like that kid was willing to do a bunch of stuff. No matter how cool we think the three of us are, we would never do 50%, 60% of the things that he did because we're like, "Ah, I can't do the paper hand bitch tax," 'cause then everyone's gonna like, "Pomp, fuck you."

Shaan Puri 39:10 [laughs]

Anthony Pompliano 39:10 You know, like, like yelling and screaming or whatever. And this kid's just like, "Dude, this would be hilarious. Watch this. Do, do, do, do."

Shaan Puri 39:15 Right.

Anthony Pompliano 39:15 Implement, and it works. And so I don't know. It's just like how do we find more of those? If you're like a young kid who has a idea of like-

Shaan Puri 39:22 Well, I'll-

Anthony Pompliano 39:23 ... paper hand bitch tax, please DM us

Shaan Puri 39:24 ... I'll tell you, I'll tell you where I, where I messed up. So I had met, I think, I think I told a story, I've told stories on the pod about like four people like this. I basically had four people that I kind of like either did hire or were trying to hire as like a ju- really junior kinda like intern, mentor type, type situation, that have all gone on to become like multimillionaires, done super in- interesting things. And I was like, "How do I have more of this young energy in my life?" Because these people are awesome. They're flawed, for sure. They do a lot of dumb shit.

Anthony Pompliano 39:50 [laughs]

Shaan Puri 39:51 But the things they do do are all, it's always interesting. It's never boring, right? It's like, you know, it's reality TV in a way to me. So I'm like, all right, I wanna be... I, I, I don't wanna just get older, and as you become more successful you start hanging out with older and older people, then you become old. And so I'm like, no, no, I'm trying to fight that. So I did this dumb thing, which was I tried to recruit, I tried to like put out the call for people like this. I was like, "Hey, if you're young, you're smart, uh, you know, like join. Like, you know, I just wanna hang with you. I'll invest in your stuff, or I don't know. I'll mentor you. I'll do something." I put out a Typeform, and I got all these smart people applying, but they were all the wrong people because I had done it in a way that was like, it was like the high achiever path. It was like, "Here's an admission form," and they're like, "Ah, a test. I know how to win the, I know how to apply for things and get picked and be like..." And so they just said all the, the, the right-sounding things, which was, "Here's my background. Here's my pedigree." They're well-spoken. And I recruited like 20 of the wrong people, and I just had to like abandon ship. I was like, okay, I need to find a way to get like the shitheads and-

Anthony Pompliano 40:55 The wrong, yeah, they, they're, they're the wrong type of nerd.

Shaan Puri 40:57 Exactly. Like, I don't want high achiever nerd that's used to che- ticking all the boxes and getting good scores on all the standardid, uh, standardized tests and, you know, getting picked for the, the, the, like the, the thing that their parents wanted them to do or school wants them to do. It's like you need the person who's gone off the path. You know, Will in the bathroom at Target, you know, [laughs] who's tweeting out like reckless Bitcoin stats and shit like that. Like, you need, you need somebody who's a little bit off the path, uh, because they're the ones who do more interesting things. And so I don't know. I haven't figured out how to recruit that except for, um, like referral. Basically I'm like-

Anthony Pompliano 41:32 It, it's, uh-

Shaan Puri 41:32 ... "Who do you hang out with?"

Anthony Pompliano 41:33 It, it's Marshawn Lynch. The, like his famous quote of like, uh, "I'm about that action, boss," or whatever.

Shaan Puri 41:39 I'm about that action, boss.

Anthony Pompliano 41:40 Right? Yeah.

Shaan Puri 41:40 Yeah.

Anthony Pompliano 41:40 And like, uh, there's a young person I know. I, I won't use his name or, or what he built, uh, but people may be able to figure it out. Um, he, I think he like moved to Miami or something, uh, or like was visiting Miami maybe. Uh, and I saw him on Twitter. He was like tweeting some interesting things. I just DM'd him. I was like, like basically like, "What's your deal?" Right? And, uh, similar to Sam's like, "Let's fuck," I was just like, you know, like, "What's your deal?" And- No, I, I, I usually say, "What, what's your story? Tell me your story."

Shaan Puri 42:05 [laughs]

Anthony Pompliano 42:07 Uh, Shaan, you let me-

Shaan Puri 42:08 The let, the, the-

Anthony Pompliano 42:09 Sam, Sam and I were texting

Shaan Puri 42:09 ... the let's fuck is for friends. [laughs]

Anthony Pompliano 42:10 When, when I was in Austin, we were texting and he was like, "Uh, should we do dinner?" And [laughs] I responded with, "Let's fuck."

Shaan Puri 42:15 [laughs]

Anthony Pompliano 42:16 And then he... [laughs] And he was like, "Goddammit." Um, but so this kid, he like comes to the office and I don't know, he's probably like early 20s, and he's literally like, "Yeah, so me and my friend, we like built this app. It has, been downloaded 75 million times."

Shaan Puri 42:30 [laughs]

Anthony Pompliano 42:30 It's like making like millions of dollars. And I was like- What are you doing? Like, like, he's like, "Yeah, I'm gonna like figure out a new thing to do," and I was like, "Well, what about the thing that's working?"

Sam Parr 42:39 [laughs]

Anthony Pompliano 42:39 He's like, "Oh, it's like on autopilot. Like, I'm gonna like figure out this new thing." And I was just like, "Man, you are so cool. I hope that you are so successful. We need like 100,000 of you in the world." Because he literally could care less about the money and like all that stuff. He just was like, "How do we build cool shit?" And so I was like, man, imagine if one of us had built an app that had 75 million downloads. We'd be talking about it nonstop. Like, that'd be our main purpose.

Sam Parr 43:02 I'd retire.

Anthony Pompliano 43:03 Yeah. [laughs]

Sam Parr 43:04 [laughs]

Shaan Puri 43:05 Ben, update my LinkedIn. [laughs]

Anthony Pompliano 43:07 [laughs]

Sam Parr 43:08 [laughs]

Shaan Puri 43:09 Endorse my skill. [laughs] Dude, I have the craziest version of the story. I know we're way over, but I gotta tell the story. It's, it's too good. So that guy Rohan, I'm like, how do I meet more people like him? So my strategy was, let me just hang out with him, and I told him, "Bring a friend."

Anthony Pompliano 43:23 [laughs]

Shaan Puri 43:23 So he drives from LA down to San Diego to where we're hanging out at this house, and he brings a friend. Of course, the friend is, you know, the 24-year-old version of the Dos Equis guy. He's the most interesting man in the world. So this guy comes in, and I'm like, "All right. What's your deal, guy who like, you know, has curly hair and maybe still has pimples? Like, you know, you must be the best."

Sam Parr 43:42 [laughs]

Shaan Puri 43:42 And he, of course, was the best. So he, he's like, "Yeah, my name's Luka." And I'm like, "What's your story?" And he goes... So I went in reverse order 'cause he brought in these guns, like these, uh, uh, Nerf-type guns, like gel blasters. I don't know if you've seen this, but like it's a gun called the gel blaster. It's basically like, um-

Sam Parr 44:01 They're everywhere.

Shaan Puri 44:02 Yeah, it's everywhere now. I didn't realize this.

Sam Parr 44:04 Like, it's like, it, it, it's like a $50 million a year business.

Shaan Puri 44:06 So he basically, he was like, "Oh, right now I'm working on this like D2C product," this like, you know, thing. "Oh, yeah, we just g- we're in Walmarts nationwide," or whatever. You know, like, I don't know, some, some shit like that, where basically it's like if you're 13 year olds, years old, this is your like number one thing you want for Christmas. It is like this... It's kinda like less painful than a paintball gun but like cooler than a Nerf gun where it's just a foam thing. It's like this little pellet that's like a gel pellet, and it shoots like a machine gun. So already he brought two over. The party became way more fun. People are shooting each other. It's great. So I'm like, "All right. You're doing this. That's crazy." He's like, "Yeah, you know, I was trying to do this, but then we got ripped off. We got sued by this one thing," blah, blah, blah. I was like, "All right, what'd you do before this?" He goes, "Oh, yeah, I'm into crypto. That's why I know, you know, why I know you guys, you know. Um, I bought Pudgy Penguins." So he did like a hostile takeover/buyout of Pudgy Penguins, this NFT project, which again, it's not what you're... It's, you know, you don't usually think, "I'm gonna go spend millions of dollars to buy Pudgy Penguins NFT IP."

Sam Parr 45:02 [laughs]

Shaan Puri 45:03 But he decided that that was a good use of time. I said, "How'd you get millions of dollars?" And he goes, "Well, before that, I, um, I started this online e-commerce brand where I was selling gold chains, you know, like rappers' gold chains and grills and shit like that." And I go, "What?" [laughs] He's like, "Yeah, I just like, I just realized that you could just buy these like kind of crazy blinged out rapper gold chains and like, uh... And I sold them, and then I sold my company to this company ShopGLD, which, uh, which does like 300, 400 million a year." I was like, "300 or 400 mil?" I've seen these people like sponsor, you know, like kinda like, you know, random Instagram influencers and stuff. Like, wow, this is all crazy. I go, "But how'd you get started doing that?" And I got one level deeper. He goes, "Well, I, um, I had to, like, you know, for family reasons, you know, me and my mom were like homeless for a couple years, and I had to like-

Sam Parr 45:50 Oh, my God

Shaan Puri 45:50 ... he's like, "I just quit school, in high school, and I had to go make money. So I went down, uh, the street, and I started knocking on doors, trying to get a job. I got rejected everywhere. The last door I knocked on was a startup called Ring, and the guy Jamie was, was there. It was a tiny office." And he's like, "Who are you? What do you need?" He's like, "I need a job badly, like, to pa- help pay, like for family stuff. Uh, I'll do anything." And he's like, "Okay, well, I got like, I gotta box up all these orders. Can you just help me with that?" And so he like started boxing up the orders. He was like the first employee at Ring, and then was like with Jamie for a few years before going off and doing his own thing. And I was like-

Sam Parr 46:23 And now he, and now he's your son

Shaan Puri 46:24 ... he's 24 years old. So this was all-

Sam Parr 46:25 You should have adopted him

Shaan Puri 46:26 ... before like 25. He was like 24 or 25 when I met this guy, uh, you know, a couple months ago, and I'm like, "You have lived three lifetimes in, in, of career epicness and just really interesting things." Like, I can't wait to see what this guy's gonna do next.

Anthony Pompliano 46:39 But like that to me-

Sam Parr 46:39 Dude, that's baller

Anthony Pompliano 46:39 ... that to me is the future, right? Is like all these young people who have that skillset. It's not for everyone. Like, some people just wanna go be the accountant or go be, you know, kind of a mid-level manager, and that's their career aspiration. That's fine. Um, but for the people who wanna do this, like that guy literally knows more about business and like IP and, you know, uh, physical store distribution and like all these things than most people coming out of MBA schools, right?

Shaan Puri 47:01 Totally.

Anthony Pompliano 47:01 Like, good for that kid.

Shaan Puri 47:04 Hu- 100%, 100%. And I was like, "Hey, uh, I'm trying to think about influencers," and I just, I literally felt like someone being like, uh, like it's like if some- it's like when my grandfather comes to me, and he's like-

Sam Parr 47:14 Yeah, they're, they're, they're gonna start calling you Graybush.

Shaan Puri 47:16 [laughs] Yeah, exactly.

Sam Parr 47:17 [laughs]

Shaan Puri 47:17 Well, it's like, it's like when I've helped my grandfather like set up FaceTime, you know, just so he could see his grandkids.

Sam Parr 47:23 [laughs]

Shaan Puri 47:23 And it's like, uh-

Sam Parr 47:24 Yeah. [laughs]

Shaan Puri 47:25 ... and it's like, uh, I don't know, just push the green button. Like, that's all, that's as far as you're gonna get here. Like, that's how I felt by the end of talking to this guy about how to like, how to do online marketing through like influencers on Instagram. Like, by the end of it, he was like, "You know what? Just like send me the link, dude. I'll take care of it for you. [laughs] You know, you're not gonna, you're not gonna be able to do this stuff." [laughs]

Sam Parr 47:44 [laughs] Dude, that's crazy. These are, these are some good stories. I'm, I'm, I'm back. The energy's back, baby.

Shaan Puri 47:50 [laughs] Okay.

Anthony Pompliano 47:50 Can we just-

Shaan Puri 47:51 Yeah, I'm back

Anthony Pompliano 47:51 ... can we just go forever? Like, just do like a-

Shaan Puri 47:53 [laughs]

Anthony Pompliano 47:54 ... 10-hour rip, see what happens?

Shaan Puri 47:55 This would be like 30% of Pomp's morning show. He would still be sitting there with his brothers-

Anthony Pompliano 48:00 Dude, we can talk about the morning show

Shaan Puri 48:00 ... and still have like two hours of airtime to fill.

Anthony Pompliano 48:02 You wanna know the craziest part about the morning show? It was the greatest thing I ever did and the worst thing I ever did, 'cause it took so much time, to your point. But man, there is no better thing than just hanging out. Like, imagine if we every single day just live streamed for two hours-

Shaan Puri 48:18 [laughs]

Anthony Pompliano 48:18 ... about whatever the fuck was going on. You had never had more fun than doing stuff like that.

Shaan Puri 48:22 [laughs]

Anthony Pompliano 48:23 The problem is you start to just say what's actually on your mind, and like [laughs] you-

Shaan Puri 48:28 Get a little loose

Anthony Pompliano 48:29 ... make you look real dumb later.

Sam Parr 48:31 Well, one time I was on, one time I was on your show, and I like totally ruined it for your sponsor. Do you remember that?

Shaan Puri 48:36 No, what'd you do?

Sam Parr 48:38 I think you had SoFi on as, like, a sponsor.

Anthony Pompliano 48:42 Yeah.

Sam Parr 48:42 And I, I, I, I, uh... Like, something wasn't going well with them, and I was like, "SoFi, more like so fucked."

Anthony Pompliano 48:48 [laughs]

Shaan Puri 48:48 [laughs]

Sam Parr 48:48 And, uh [laughs]

Anthony Pompliano 48:51 I do remember that.

Sam Parr 48:52 And then I saw your face, I saw your face freak out, and I go, "Oh, wait. SoFi marketing people, if you're listening to this, this is me, Sam. I'm saying this, not Pomp.

Anthony Pompliano 49:01 [laughs]

Sam Parr 49:01 So don't, don't yell at him."

Anthony Pompliano 49:03 Dude, they-

Sam Parr 49:03 "Dude, you guys suck," or something.

Anthony Pompliano 49:04 They, they were incredible, and, uh, it was like they had the stadium and the whole thing, but like, you know how it is, right? There's probably people who have said things about sponsors or, like, maybe a company you're an investor in or whatever, and you're always like, "Man, I wish you hadn't said that, but, like, here we go." And that was definitely one of those moments where I was just like, "Well, there's a lot worse things that Sam could have said."

Sam Parr 49:24 [laughs]

Anthony Pompliano 49:24 So, like, I guess on the grand scale of, like, what is possible, that was, like, not great, but still, you know, we'll just keep moving here.

Shaan Puri 49:31 Well, Sam, Sam Parr's smart.

Sam Parr 49:32 Well, I made sure, I mean, right, I, well, I talked to him. Go... Sorry, go ahead.

Shaan Puri 49:36 You- you've got the, the Donald Trump thing where it's like if you're crazy from the beginning, if you just say wild shit all the time, there's no penalty.

Anthony Pompliano 49:43 [laughs]

Shaan Puri 49:44 It's only, like, Pomp, you, you're a little too smart and, like, responsible. If you slip up even a little, people are gonna get on you. But, like, if you're just wild all the time, there is no penalty. You somehow get out of jail free. And I think I, I've been trying to steal that from Sam now of, uh, how, how to, how to just keep it, keep it loose and somehow, like... Sam does it to guests that'll come on, he'll be like, "You know, you're really good-looking for, like, an ugly tech guy." [laughs]

Anthony Pompliano 50:09 [laughs]

Sam Parr 50:10 [laughs]

Shaan Puri 50:10 Like, like they're already, their head's spinning. Or he'll just be like, he'll be like, "You're, you're not rich, but you, you got a little bit of money." And they're just like, "What, what did you say to me?" [laughs]

Anthony Pompliano 50:21 Shaan, they'll appreciate this. Whenever people, uh-

Sam Parr 50:23 Nailed them.

Anthony Pompliano 50:24 No. Whenever people are like, "Hey, uh, I wanna start a podcast," and I'm, like, kinda talking through with them for a few minutes in terms of, like, what to do, I use Sam as an example. So I'm like, "Well, you can have, like, you know, a show where you just talk yourself. You can have, like, an interview show. And then, like, within those different categories, like, you know, you can have a, a really serious, intelligent podcast where you ask really smart questions, uh, or you can be, like, really blunt. Like, you know Sam Parr, like, he'll just have guests come on and just be like, 'How much money's in your bank account?'" [laughs]

Sam Parr 50:51 [laughs]

Shaan Puri 50:51 [laughs]

Anthony Pompliano 50:52 And, and I always think of, like, man, 50% of people are like, "Ah, I'm good. I'm not gonna answer that." And then 50%, like-

Sam Parr 50:59 Just say it

Anthony Pompliano 50:59 ... literally tell you the answer. [laughs]

Shaan Puri 51:00 [laughs]

Anthony Pompliano 51:01 And I'm like, what a genius way to get great content. It's just, like, ask the questions that no one will answer.

Shaan Puri 51:06 And then he'll, then he'll follow up with something that's like, "Well, and the, the reason I ask is 'cause, 'cause I wanna know." [laughs]

Anthony Pompliano 51:12 [laughs]

Sam Parr 51:13 [laughs]

Shaan Puri 51:14 It's like there's more justification, but there's just none.

Anthony Pompliano 51:16 [laughs]

Shaan Puri 51:17 " 'Cause I'm always curious. Like, you know, I, I've been following you for years, and I just, I was always curious, like, w- what is it?" [laughs]

Sam Parr 51:24 [laughs] Well, in that book Influence, they say, they say if you, if you, if you give someone a reason for why you're doing something, the more likely you'll do it.

Anthony Pompliano 51:31 Right.

Sam Parr 51:31 And so I got in the habit of saying like, "Yeah, and I'm asking that because I'm curious."

Shaan Puri 51:35 Right, it doesn't matter what comes after because.

Anthony Pompliano 51:36 [laughs]

Sam Parr 51:37 [laughs]

Shaan Puri 51:37 Yeah, because is just the magic word.

Anthony Pompliano 51:39 All right, can I, can I ask you guys one question before we, uh, before we break here?

Shaan Puri 51:43 Yeah.

Anthony Pompliano 51:44 Can each of you point, who's the one person that's, like, on the internet? So not like, you know, Mark Zuckerberg or, or Jeff Bezos or whatever. Who's, like, the one internet entrepreneur that you're like, man, that person seems to have figured it out, and, like, I can't wait to see what they continue to do over the next 20, 30 years? And, like, extra points if it's somebody that no one really knows.

Sam Parr 52:04 My obvious one is Huber, but, Nick Huber, but let me think about, let me think about, uh, an, a-

Shaan Puri 52:08 Wait, why is that obvious? I don't think that would've been obvious. Wait, why is that obvious?

Sam Parr 52:11 Well, ev- er- everyone knows him. Um, I also think that, um, if I had to bet money on, like, one operator, um, I think it would be Austin Rief at Morning Brew. Like, I've gotten to know him really well, and he's one of the few people where I'm like-

Anthony Pompliano 52:23 He's a winner

Sam Parr 52:23 ... uh, I'm, like, afraid of him.

Anthony Pompliano 52:25 Yeah.

Sam Parr 52:25 Like, if I hear that I'm gonna compete with him, I would be like, "Shit, it's on." So he, he, he... I would say those two, but let me try to think of someone who's a little bit more anonymous. What about you, Shaan?

Shaan Puri 52:33 Let me ask a different question, Pomp, before I answer.

Anthony Pompliano 52:34 [laughs]

Shaan Puri 52:35 What would be the, what would be the type of answer that would be interesting to you here?

Anthony Pompliano 52:40 I just, just somebody who, like, either nobody knows or somebody who's been, like, successful doing something that isn't like, oh, I set up a newsletter, and now I have a bunch of, like, ad revenue.

Shaan Puri 52:50 Yeah.

Anthony Pompliano 52:50 Like, the, the pellet gun, you know, is, like, fascinating, right? You're just like, man, who even knew that was a market? So, like, somebody who's out, uh, kind of out of the mainstream.

Sam Parr 53:00 All right, here's one. We have this... We both have a friend, but I'm gonna hurry up and say it so Shaan doesn't. There's a guy named Mark Jenney-

Shaan Puri 53:05 [laughs]

Sam Parr 53:05 ... um, who started this company called RVshare, and he sold it for hundreds of millions of dollars. Now he owns, like, $50 million worth of Airbnbs. And we'll, like, message him, like, "Hey, do you wanna come on the pod?" He's like, "Oh, I can't. For the next three months, I'm traveling the world with my kids and their homeschool, their homeschooling teachers. Talk later." And, uh, he, uh, I think he's, he's kind of one of the guys who I look at who's just kind of won life. And the, and the last one is the guy who started, um, WP, uh, Forms. What's it called, Shaan? His-

Shaan Puri 53:35 Saïd?

Sam Parr 53:35 It's called... Saïd. Uh, he started, um, this company that owns maybe $100 million a years, $100 million a year business where he owns all these WordPress forms, and he... or WordPress plugins. And he says he works five days a week, so one day a week, one day a month, or one week a month, he takes some meetings with all of his CEOs. And then besides that, he's giving away a lot of his money, and he's, like, 30 years old, married with kids, super low-key.

Anthony Pompliano 53:59 That's a great answer. Shaan?

Shaan Puri 54:01 I'll give you a couple names that come to mind. So I think, um, so Amjad from Replit, I think he's sitting on a monster business that is kind of hidden in plain sight. Like, people know about it, but it's not yet considered to be big just because they haven't come out with a really flashy headline of being worth X billions of dollars. Like, I think when they raised their last round, it was at, uh, almost, like, strategically shy of a billion number. It was, like, 800-and-something million instead of a billion. Um, I'm sure they could have negotiated it up, but I actually really like that he didn't. And it's one of these things that's just like, I think it's a... I think it's just gonna be a really important company, and I think it's gonna be different than, uh, um- I think it's gonna be different than the, the previous winners looked like 'cause, uh, you know, like, what happens is, uh, you know, Amazon takes off, then you think the next big thing is gonna be e-commerce, but no, it's actually Google. Then Google takes off, then you think the next thing's gonna be search and information. No, it's actually Facebook. It starts off as, like, a college social network thing. Then you think Facebook's the big thing, and then it actually turned out to be Uber. It was like, you know, U- Uber and Airbnb. It was, like, real world shit that you can use your phone as a magic button to do. So it's kinda like the next interesting thing is not gonna look like what the last interesting things look like, and I think that, uh, what Replit is, which is this, like, coding environment for oftentimes beginners, teenagers, um, I think is, like, a stealth really, really big deal. Uh, but it's kinda boring. So I wouldn't say, like... I wouldn't say he's the one I'm looking at 'cause I kinda know what he's gonna do for the next 10 years. I almost don't have to look. It's like I, I could just check in in 10 years and be like, "Yep, the hockey step c- the hockey stick kept going," and, like, you know, obviously that, that had big implications. Um, there's-

Anthony Pompliano 55:43 Well, I'm an invest- I'm an investor in Replit, and I think that you're spot on of, like, it's way bigger than people realize. But also, uh, the most important thing is, like, they capture new coders, and then they try to keep them in that environment.

Shaan Puri 55:58 Right.

Anthony Pompliano 55:58 And so, like, if they get you early on, it's like kinda like going to, like-

Shaan Puri 56:00 Lifetime

Anthony Pompliano 56:00 ... the source. Yeah, it's just like that's your lifetime infrastructure. It's a fascinating business. I'm an idiot and should've invested so much more money because, uh, I completely agree. It's gonna be a massive, massive company.

Sam Parr 56:11 So who are your other ones, Shaan?

Shaan Puri 56:12 Uh, the other ones, so I would've said a couple years ago Sam Altman, but now I think that's obvious, so I'm gonna say somebody who I think is on par with Sam Altman but doesn't have the same shine and doesn't have the clear, like, open AI type of, like, f- interesting bit, which is Daniel Gross. So Daniel Gross is one of the more, most interesting and impressive people that I've met. Um, I think that he fits your category because he's still young enough. He's ambitious, super, super ambitious like Sam Altman, but he's free. He's not, like, currently committed to, like, one company for, like, a really long time or, like, in the middle, or, you know, hasn't, like, picked one path that he has to stay in. And so I just can't imagine that in the next 10 years Daniel Gross doesn't do something that is, like, just epic. Uh, and I think it could be in some field that you don't, that maybe he's not even working in today. It could be, like, longevity or some biohacking thing. So I think that you need people who are willing to go into these other spaces that pull off some impressive shit. I think bi- bio and, like, sorta this longevity space is really interesting, and there's gonna be some tech entrepreneur that's like, "Forget, like, you know, forget the newsletter, podcast, Twitter, forget software with VCs, forget investing. I'm gonna go and do something else with my time." And I, I like people who just choose to play their own game and ideally a game that not everybody else is playing. I think Daniel Gross is gonna be that guy.

Anthony Pompliano 57:36 That's a great one. A- and he is kinda like hidden in plain sight, but I think that Sam was at the same time.

Shaan Puri 57:42 Like, he came on our podcast really early on, like, at The Hustle's office. He s- I don't even know how we got him in, on. We just... I don't even know who knows him, maybe me or you, Sam. I don't remember. But he just walked in. I don't think he had any idea what we were doing. I'm pretty sure we, like, shared a microphone. Like, we did the thing where you like-

Sam Parr 57:55 I think we were on our iPhone

Shaan Puri 57:56 ... I'm gonna pass it to you. Like, we were dow- definitely down one mic. [laughs] It was like, 'cause we'd only ever done two people, uh, episodes. It was this tiny room, and we're sitting at this-

Sam Parr 58:05 We gave him, like, uh, AirPods

Shaan Puri 58:05 ... little table. Like, you, you, you, you know, like, it looks like Lunchables should be on top of the table. Like, it was that baby of a table. And our show is not for everybody. It's not like you could sit down most people and be like, "Cool, let's brainstorm. Like, what's, what's an interesting startup idea you have? What's, what are some spaces you think are cool? Why do you think this is gonna work?" And this guy was able to riff for like two hours on everything from, like, running to why somebody should create a new Apple competitor with creating a new laptop to his investing strategy and why it's different, like, how he's gonna beat YC, all these different topics, and he just went for, like, two hours effortlessly. And I thought, "Okay, that's impressive. That's, you know, the type of person I, I like to follow and be around."

Anthony Pompliano 58:43 But is, is that, like, a signal you actually should surround yourself with one, young people, but two is, like, the most interesting people you can find? Like, I hate going to dinner. Sam and I were talking about this, uh, when we went to dinner. Like, I hate going to, like, the classic business dinner where everyone's like, "Oh, what do you do? What's going on at work?"

Shaan Puri 59:01 [laughs]

Anthony Pompliano 59:01 Whatever. Like, I love the person who shows up to dinner, and they have some wild thing that makes everyone disagree and argue and, and, like, a, a debate what's gonna happen and this and that and whatever, and then you find, like, the person who has that usually has, like, a whole bag of them.

Shaan Puri 59:15 [laughs]

Anthony Pompliano 59:16 Right? Like, they literally are like, "Oh, okay, we're done talking about this one. Like, here's my next, you know, ace out of my back pocket." And those people somehow always figure out how to be successful. Like, very rarely do you find the, like, most interesting man, kinda like the kid with the gun, right, that ends up not figuring it out. They may fail 100 times, but eventually they do it. And is that just, like, they think differently, and that is kind of the prerequisite to actually finding true success?

Shaan Puri 59:44 Yeah, independent-mindedness. Like, Jack Smith was the other guy I was gonna say 'cause he's like this. I don't know, Pomp, do you know Jack?

Anthony Pompliano 59:49 No. Who's that?

Shaan Puri 59:50 He's, uh, Jack Smith. He started Vungle, which was, like, a big ad network. Um, but he's a kind of young British guy who is, I don't know, super interesting.

Sam Parr 59:58 He sold that company for $900 million when he was 28 years old.

Anthony Pompliano 1:00:02 Ooh.

Shaan Puri 1:00:02 And, and, and so he... But, but, like, if you talk to him, he'll never mention it 'cause it's not because he's being humble. Like, he is humble, but it's because it's just not interesting to him. I don't know even know if it was interesting to him. He left m- like, a few years before it sold because he's like, "Cool, I'm gonna do whatever." And any time you talk to Jack, he's up to a new, as Sam would call it, a new caper. And it's like, uh, it's not, like, f- usually for profit. Like, sometimes it's for profit, but it's more like, "Dude, Jack, you don't care about this money." He's like, "But I'm trying to beat this game." And so, like, one time you'll talk to him, and he'll be like, he spent the last two months in his garage trying to build the perfect computer chair. It's like the, like l- like the thing where zero gravity, like, floating on your back chair, and he tried every product, and he's tinkering with it until he gets it right. And then next time you talk to him, he's like- Really into the world of collectibles, and he's, like, got this arbitrage going where he's buying and selling baseball cards. And you're like, "Sam," or you're like, "Jack, do you even know about baseball?" He's like, "Couldn't tell you the first thing about baseball, but I could tell you that this card right here is undervalued, and my, like, team in the Philippines is, like, flipping them right now for profit." Then the next time you talk to him-

Sam Parr 1:01:04 Or he made, he, he made, he, he made like a list where he put in a spreadsheet all the companies that you can buy pair, a pair of clothing from, and you could return it within 365 days.

Shaan Puri 1:01:13 [laughs]

Sam Parr 1:01:13 He's like, "I wanna see if I can, like, live for free for a year off these cloth- off this clothing and return it." Or, you know, just, like, weird schemes. He just loves, like-

Shaan Puri 1:01:20 Or, or like he, he had a baby, and then he didn't name the baby. They just called it Baby [laughs] for the first year until the baby could pick its own name by crawling to, like, one of the names. And it's like this guy's not gonna do anything in the, like, just standard version, and he's not doing any of these... Like, he's not talking about them. We are the ones who talk about them. Maybe he doesn't even want to. Maybe we should take that out. But, like, he doesn't do it for the effect. Like, he just does it 'cause he just got curious about that path or wanted it to... Like, just thought that makes more sense to him than the other way, and then he'll do it. And he's not... Like, what you don't want is the guy who's at the dinner to immediately say the crazy thing 'cause they're, like, trying to seem a little bit out there and, like, they're trying to build their brand. Like, that's the worst. You want the person who's almost aloof to the fact that it sounds batshit crazy. And you're like, "Dude, do you realize what you're saying?" And they're like, "What? What's wrong with that?"

Sam Parr 1:02:12 Well, the... By the way, the baby thing was, like, the... I, I made fun of him. I go, "Jack, for once in your life, be normal." And then, um, like, I, I, you know, like, the time passed, and I was like, "That's actually a great idea." Uh, 'cause he said, he goes, "Why would I name my kid before I even know them? I should, like, see, like, what type of name fits."

Shaan Puri 1:02:27 Right.

Sam Parr 1:02:27 And I was like, "Oh, yeah, you're actually right. It is weird that, like, we don't get to know them." Uh, and so anyway, he does things all the time where at, at first glance, I'm like, "This is the stupidest thing ever. Just be normal for once." And then he'll, uh, he'll... Like, I, I actually think he's right a lot of times.

Anthony Pompliano 1:02:43 But I th- I, I think that there's, like, somebody who has that proclivity of, like, always doing things in a different way, one, it isn't necessarily different to them, but two, is that those individuals are the ones who actually end up figuring out, like, what is the best chair. Or they're the one who, like, they'll convince a whole friend group to, like, not name their kids for a year. Or you know what I mean? Like, there's almost this, like, lack of, uh, importance we put on, uh, the courage to be different. So, like, even in friend groups, like, do you ever notice, like, everyone thinks something, and then once one person says, uh, something else, then a bunch of people, like, flip?

Shaan Puri 1:03:23 [laughs]

Anthony Pompliano 1:03:24 And you're almost, like, this, like, kinda like, oh, where, where's the magnet, right?

Shaan Puri 1:03:27 Right.

Anthony Pompliano 1:03:27 Like, oh, this viewpoint is popular. Like, they just kinda mosey on over here. And then they're like, "Oh, this other person said this." They mosey on over there. And so I do think that we need those people in our society, but also, like, man, what a boring friend group it would be to have where, like, everyone just gets together on Friday night and they're like, "What'd you do this week?" "I don't know. Went to work."

Shaan Puri 1:03:46 Right.

Anthony Pompliano 1:03:46 Right? Like, "What, what are you doing this weekend?" Like, "I don't know. Gonna, like, just watch the games." Like, it, it just would not be fun. And so I think that a lot of people who listen to this podcast but also just, like, are, quote, unquote, "on the internet," they're escaping what could be, like, their local life of that, and they're trying to find other interesting people, they're trying to find other ideas, and it's, like, exhilarating for them. And so, like, this Jack guy sounds amazing, but, like, how do you find 100 of them?

Shaan Puri 1:04:13 Well, it's usually you find one-

Sam Parr 1:04:14 You don't need 100, though

Shaan Puri 1:04:15 ... and then you just realize that they're gonna do this forever. Like, there's this one Russian guy who started this social network back in the day called KuB. I don't know if you ever saw it, but, like, KuB was TikTok before TikTok. It was amazing. It was only in Russia, Ukraine. Um, I only found out about it because I randomly met up with this group from Ukraine that was touring the, touring Silicon Valley, and I was like, "Hey, come to our office. I'll give you a talk." And I, at the end, I asked them, I was like, "What's the hot shit in Ukraine that I should be knowing about?" I don't even know why I asked this question. Turned out to be a great question, but I didn't really expect them to have a good answer. But they're like, "This thing called KuB blowing up." And this was, like, two years before TikTok. And, um, a- and so anyways, he built that thing. It, it d- it didn't end up going huge, I think 'cause of other reasons, like with Russia and the way they control things, but, uh, I'm like, this guy's gonna always, always do interesting things. So last week I checked in, I was like, "What's that guy Anton doing?" Of course, he's doing the craziest shit. So he now is doing f- He's like [laughs] , "I'm trying to change the way people eat fruit." [laughs]

Anthony Pompliano 1:05:13 [laughs]

Shaan Puri 1:05:13 I was like, "What?" He's like, "You ever seen someone eat a mango, cut a mango? It's disgusting." I go, "What?" He goes, "The way Americans eat mangoes is terrible. A mango is s-" He's like, he just goes on this thing. He's like, "Mangoes are beautiful. They're the most delicious thing." And he ha- he's basically, he did this th- He has some process that cuts, like, the juiciest part of a mango into a perfect little ball. And so you g- y- you look at it, you're like, "That looks delicious." And basically, his mission is to make fruit more fun and delicious to eat by just cutting it better. And you cut it better and you package it that way, you f- you, you store it in a certain way. He's like, "I'm gonna reinvent the way people eat fruit." [laughs] And I'm like, "Of course you are. Of course guy who created TikTok two years before TikTok is now gonna change the way I eat f- like, mango." But, like, you know, sure enough, like, he, he's gonna just keep doing interesting things. He can't not.

Anthony Pompliano 1:06:01 That's an investment thesis.

Shaan Puri 1:06:02 Dude-

Anthony Pompliano 1:06:02 Weird shit that makes money. It's amazing

Sam Parr 1:06:04 Pomp, you were messaging me before this, and you're like, "It's only an hour, right?"

Shaan Puri 1:06:08 [laughs]

Sam Parr 1:06:08 And I was like, "Yeah, give or take." And, uh, give or take an hour. Uh, this is now our longest episode ever, I think. Hopefully you didn't miss any meetings. We're gonna, we're gonna break this up into two episodes, I think. I think we have to.

Anthony Pompliano 1:06:19 Two episodes?

Sam Parr 1:06:20 Because... I think. I think 'cause the first thing was awesome, and the second thing was, uh, was awesome. This is a... I don't want people to miss the, the second half. The second half was maybe better than the first half.

Anthony Pompliano 1:06:30 Well, you guys are too kind. I, uh, I listen every week. I always enjoy listening to you guys give each other shit, and then having the guests come on.

Sam Parr 1:06:37 Who's funnier? [laughs]

Anthony Pompliano 1:06:38 Well, see, the whole thing about humor is that you guys have your moments, but-

Sam Parr 1:06:42 [laughs]

Anthony Pompliano 1:06:42 ... I just enjoy wh- I enjoy when the, uh, when the guests come on, and then you both, you can just feel it. Like, uh, one time I heard, uh, Joe Rogan and Naval on, uh, on the podcast, and I said to my wife, I was like, "Man, Joe Rogan's super smart." But like, this is like a Ferrari and a Corolla.

Shaan Puri 1:06:57 [laughs]

Anthony Pompliano 1:06:57 You know? Like, literally, like McCall was just like, he was like hitting his A-game, right? And even Joe was just kinda like, "Hmm, tell me more." [laughs]

Shaan Puri 1:07:03 [laughs]

Anthony Pompliano 1:07:04 Like he just had nothing to, to really go. And, uh, sometimes I can feel you guys are like, man, you guys are just absolutely killing it, and then a guest comes on and you're like, "Hmm, tell me more."

Shaan Puri 1:07:13 [laughs]

Anthony Pompliano 1:07:14 And you just let them ride. So I appreciate all the work you guys are doing, and, uh, you give me a li- something to listen to every morning.

Shaan Puri 1:07:20 Sam, the funnier guy is the one who didn't have to ask who's funnier, just so you know.

Anthony Pompliano 1:07:23 [laughs]

Shaan Puri 1:07:25 A general rule. [laughs]

Anthony Pompliano 1:07:27 It's better than you asking me-

Sam Parr 1:07:28 I don't know, man

Anthony Pompliano 1:07:29 ... who's uglier, which, uh, which I'm sure is the next question.

Sam Parr 1:07:32 I don't know, man. I get texts, I get at least one text a month saying I'm hilarious.

Anthony Pompliano 1:07:37 Have you guys done the analysis of who talks more?

Sam Parr 1:07:40 Him.

Shaan Puri 1:07:40 It's gotta be me.

Sam Parr 1:07:41 I don't have...

Shaan Puri 1:07:42 Yeah.

Anthony Pompliano 1:07:42 Is it?

Shaan Puri 1:07:42 It's gotta be me.

Anthony Pompliano 1:07:43 Oh, I'm sure some- somebody in the audience probably could do it, and then you can argue over that too.

Sam Parr 1:07:47 It's, it's him.

Shaan Puri 1:07:48 Yeah.

Anthony Pompliano 1:07:48 They did it on-

Shaan Puri 1:07:48 So we don't even need data science. We don't need Will Clemente at Target to know this one. [laughs]

Sam Parr 1:07:52 Yeah.

Shaan Puri 1:07:53 You talk and, and interrupt more. Um, dude, Pomp, this is great. Uh, what were you saying? You were saying that everybody should subscribe to our channel or they're gonna lose all their money or something like that? Some... What was the agreement?

Anthony Pompliano 1:08:02 [laughs]

Sam Parr 1:08:02 [laughs]

Anthony Pompliano 1:08:03 The gentleman's agreement. If you don't fulfill the gentleman's agreement, like, what's going on? Come on.

Shaan Puri 1:08:06 [laughs]

Anthony Pompliano 1:08:07 Well-

Sam Parr 1:08:07 The gentleman's agreement and the lady's understanding

Anthony Pompliano 1:08:09 ... well-

Shaan Puri 1:08:09 The lady's understanding, exactly.

Anthony Pompliano 1:08:11 What, what you guys should start telling people is like, "Help me help you," you know? Is, uh, just-

Shaan Puri 1:08:15 Hmm. Chair McGuire

Anthony Pompliano 1:08:16 ... go subscribe. Yeah. Get the, uh, get the video in the feed. Now that, uh, Susan, CEO of, uh, YouTube, has stepped down, Neal has stepped in. He's bringing back all the distribution. He's gonna send you guys to the moon, so don't, uh, don't worry.

Sam Parr 1:08:29 I wish I could, uh, be on a first-name basis with these people.

Shaan Puri 1:08:32 [laughs]

Anthony Pompliano 1:08:33 Well, you-

Sam Parr 1:08:33 I mean, it's like, what are you, like a, what are you... You're like a, call it Dave Matthews Band Dave too?

Anthony Pompliano 1:08:38 Well, the, the beauty is you just call them by their first name, and then they, similar to Rohan DM'ing me, you just think that you're boys.

Sam Parr 1:08:44 Ugh.

Anthony Pompliano 1:08:44 And so I'm hoping that maybe they'll, uh, turn our volume up a little bit on YouTube if, uh, he hears this.

Shaan Puri 1:08:49 Yo, Susan. Suz, yo.

Anthony Pompliano 1:08:51 Yo. Wait, can I tell you guys actually a really funny story very quickly? Uh, oh, what is, um, what is the guy who, uh, he used to walk around with, with, uh, the clock? What is that guy's name?

Shaan Puri 1:09:04 Flava Flav?

Anthony Pompliano 1:09:04 Like the big one.

Sam Parr 1:09:04 Flava Flav.

Anthony Pompliano 1:09:05 Flava Flav. So, uh, I'm pretty sure, yeah, I, I'm like almost 99.9% sure it was him. Uh, I was working at Facebook. Joe Montana came to, like, do, like, this veterans event, and so they need, like, an escort, kinda like a, almost like a babysitter for any guest who comes on campus. So another guy was gonna take Joe Montana, and they were like, "Hey, you, uh, are gonna go with Flava Flav." And I was like, "Oh, that sounds cool." Like, okay.

Shaan Puri 1:09:26 [laughs]

Anthony Pompliano 1:09:26 So I'm like walking around with him, kinda like nervous to talk to him 'cause he's, you know, like a celebrity, but also like is he cool, is he not, whatever. Do the event, and at the end he goes, "Yo, before I leave, where's that Instagram dude at?" And I was like, "What?" And he was like, "The Instagram dude." And I was like, "Uh..." And he was like, "The Instagram guy. Where is he? I know he works here." And I was like, "Do you mean, like, the founders?" And he was like, "Yeah, the tall one. I met him. I know him."

Shaan Puri 1:09:53 [laughs]

Anthony Pompliano 1:09:53 And I was like, "Oh, boy." [laughs]

Shaan Puri 1:09:55 [laughs]

Anthony Pompliano 1:09:56 And so he was like... I was like, "Uh, Kevin?" And he was like, "Uh, yeah, that one." So I'm like, I genuinely, I generally know where the Instagram team sits, so I like walk through the whole campus, right? We get there, and I'm like, "Please don't be at your desk. Please don't be at your desk. Please don't be at your desk," right? Never talked to the guy before. And then, uh, sure enough, he's like there. He's, like, taller than everyone. You can see him the second you walk in the door. And I got Flava Flav with me, and I walk over and I go, uh, "Ex- excuse me, Kevin? Uh, uh, Flava Flav says he knows you."

Sam Parr 1:10:22 I am Mr. Flav.

Shaan Puri 1:10:23 Mr. Flav.

Anthony Pompliano 1:10:23 "Mr. Flav would like to..." [laughs]

Shaan Puri 1:10:24 [laughs] Like a word.

Anthony Pompliano 1:10:25 "He knows you. He would, he would like to say hi." And Kevin turns to me, he's like, "Oh, man. What's up?" Like, whatever, and he's like super nice to him. And Flava Flav just goes, "What's up? Yo, you need to turn my volume up on Instagram." [laughs]

Shaan Puri 1:10:38 [laughs]

Sam Parr 1:10:39 [laughs]

Anthony Pompliano 1:10:40 And I'm like, "I'm definitely being fired." Like, holy shit, this is so bad. And, uh, and Kevin was like a consummate professional. He's like, "Let me go, like, introduce you to our partnerships team," like blah, blah, blah, whatever. And I remember, like, on my way out I was like, "Hey, man, sorry about that. Like, did you know him?" He was like, "I think we met, like, one time, like five years ago at a party, but, like, sure." [laughs] And so I always just think about, like, yeah, if you ever get to talk to the leaders of any of these products, like that's the question that you gotta ask. You gotta shoot your shot. It's like, "Yo, turn my volume-

Shaan Puri 1:11:05 Turn my volume up? That's so good. [laughs] That's so good.

Sam Parr 1:11:08 That's my new phrase. [laughs]

Shaan Puri 1:11:09 That and, "Do I look like a guy with a plan?" That, those-

Anthony Pompliano 1:11:12 [laughs]

Shaan Puri 1:11:13 Those are just, those are just epic.

Anthony Pompliano 1:11:16 All right, fellas, appreciate it. [upbeat music]