By playing, you agree to uListen's Terms and Privacy Policy and YouTube's Terms of Service.

How To Grow & Monetize A $10,000,000+ Podcast Business (#440)

Episode 440: Shaan Puri and Sam Parr are joined by the Acquired podcast hosts, Ben Gilbert David Rosenthal to talk about scaling to a large podcast, the company they would like to own, the CEO's you don't want to compete against, and the…

Ben GilbertguestDavid RosenthalguestShaan PurihostSam Parrhost

Apr 6, 20231h 22mWatch on YouTube

Summaries, chapters, transcripts, and FAQs on this page are made by uListen, not YouTube.

Great conversations run long. Their best ideas don't have to.

uListen is free on iPhone, iPad, Android, Chrome, and Claude.

See how

Transcript

95 min read · 18,666 words

0:00 – 1:07
Intro
1. BGBen Gilbert
  What could you get for it, you think?
2. DRDavid Rosenthal
  I would not be interested in having any conversations for, you know, less than, uh... Yeah, on the order of, like, what you get, like, The Hustle or, um, uh, Morning Brew or, you know, stuff like that. Uh-
3. BGBen Gilbert
  Tens of millions.
4. DRDavid Rosenthal
  Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Uh, I mean, I just think, like, the value of what we've built, both as a business in revenue, and our audience, uh, and our durability is, you know, is, is in that category. [upbeat music]
5. SPShaan Puri
  All right, what's up? We got a, uh, crossover episode. Call me Tim Hardaway. We got the guys from Acquired. Yeah, you like that. You like that.
6. DRDavid Rosenthal
  [laughs]
7. BGBen Gilbert
  That's good. That's good.
8. SPShaan Puri
  On the fly. On the fly, baby.
9. DRDavid Rosenthal
  [laughs]
10. SPShaan Puri
  So yeah, th- that's for the, uh, the 5% of, of listeners who, who know about basketball.
11. DRDavid Rosenthal
  Oh.
12. SPShaan Puri
  So, so we got, uh, the guys from Acquired are here. We're doing kind of, um, a joint episode, a, uh, the old Alabama wedding, as I like to call it. You know, just we're just getting-
13. DRDavid Rosenthal
  [laughs]
14. SPShaan Puri
  We're getting cousins together here. [laughs]
15. BGBen Gilbert
  [laughs]
16. SPShaan Puri
  Because you guys got a podcast that is, uh,
1:07 – 2:25
Intro to Acquired
1. SPShaan Puri
  pretty awesome. I remember when I was working at a, at our previous startup, a guy came to me, he was like, "There's a podcast you're gonna love. It's called Acquired." And I go, "What is it?" He goes, "It's, like, the backstories of these, like... of all great tech acquisitions, like, how it all went down. They go into, like, all the nerdy details." And then I binged you guys for, like, six days straight. Um, and so that was... That's how I kinda first got into it a couple years ago. So welcome to the show, David and Ben.
2. DRDavid Rosenthal
  Thank you. We did a super fun crossover with you a couple years ago now, but it was just with Shaan. Sam, you were off traveling the world, doing amazing things. Uh-
3. BGBen Gilbert
  Well, that's what he said. He was like, "You're probably doing something amazing." I was like, "Uh, probably just, like, a doctor's appointment or something."
4. DRDavid Rosenthal
  [laughs]
5. SPShaan Puri
  [laughs]
6. BGBen Gilbert
  Like-
7. SPShaan Puri
  Too fake.
8. BGBen Gilbert
  It's probably... Yeah. [laughs]
9. DRDavid Rosenthal
  You guys have totally come up since then. The, uh... I mean, you were big back then, but, uh, that was, like, within the first couple months, I think, of you starting this. And, uh, it's just been awesome to watch how far you've come.
10. BGBen Gilbert
  Yeah, that was kind of in our... Even though it was year four or five for us, that was kind of our early days too, 'cause, uh, Shaan, you're right, that we were mostly about acquisitions at that point, and we talked about the Bebo acquisition-
11. DRDavid Rosenthal
  Right
12. BGBen Gilbert
  ... as part of the episode. And now we do these, like, three-, four-hour entire, you know, history and strategy of a company regardless of whether there was a transaction. But, um, yeah, that, that feels like, uh... I don't know. The funny thing about exponential growth is it feels like a lifetime ago all
2:25 – 7:05
What to do when your schtick runs out
1. BGBen Gilbert
  the time.
2. SPShaan Puri
  I always think about that, like, when you pick a niche, and then you kind of are gonna run out, but the niche can get you somewhere. So for example, I was thinking about this with Coffeezilla, the YouTube guy who exposes people's scams. And I'm like... And then he did one the other day that was like, he DM'd a celebrity to promote some NFT thing. Like, "Hey, we'll pay you to promote this NFT thing." And, like, the whitepaper said, like, "This shit's a scam" or whatever, but he didn't read it, obviously-
3. BGBen Gilbert
  [laughs]
4. SPShaan Puri
  ... just like promoted it. And he's like, "Ha, scammer." And I'm like, but you ki- that's kind of entrapment. Like, you cr- like, you're running out of people to, like, to, to cover here.
5. BGBen Gilbert
  [laughs]
6. SPShaan Puri
  You have to now create scammers? Like, I don't think that-
7. DRDavid Rosenthal
  Like Oli G back in the day.
8. SPShaan Puri
  Yeah, [laughs] exactly. But, like, that wasn't his original schtick, but I was like, yeah, you're not gonna... Like, you're trying to be on this YouTube once-a-week treadmill, and there's not once a week gonna be a giant Logan Paul, like, celebrity name did this bad thing, and I'm gonna be the exposer. It's like, what are you gonna do next Tuesday? [laughs] 'Cause there's not, like... This isn't that, that current. Uh, but you guys did a good job of, of switching it up.
9. BGBen Gilbert
  People said that to us, Shaan. They go, "You're gonna run out of ideas." And I was like, "Yeah, we might." But then it just kinda, like, morphed into, like, us saying a lot of, like... It's like people are... When I, I... Someone yesterday was like, "What's your podcast about?" I was like, "Well, the name's pretty bad."
10. DRDavid Rosenthal
  [laughs]
11. BGBen Gilbert
  "It's definitely a lot about business, but we also make a lot of horrible jokes too."
12. DRDavid Rosenthal
  Right.
13. BGBen Gilbert
  "So people kind of like it for that reason."
14. SPShaan Puri
  [laughs]
15. BGBen Gilbert
  Yeah, I've been thinking about this a lot. Your niche earns you the right to exist, but it's... I- in, in media, but it's your, um, y- your sort of demeanor and your th- the way that you look at the world that then gives you license to expand from there. So, like, if David and I had-
16. DRDavid Rosenthal
  It's called flavor, my friend. It's j- flavor.
17. BGBen Gilbert
  There. There we go.
18. SPShaan Puri
  Flavor. [laughs]
19. BGBen Gilbert
  I, I just think if David and I had started with, like, "We're a podcast that talks about businesses," it's like, "Cool."
20. DRDavid Rosenthal
  Right.
21. BGBen Gilbert
  "Next." But if you, like, pitch people on really specifically what they're... what you'd like the job to be done of your show in their life is, then you can sorta, like, expand and f- explore from there.
22. SPShaan Puri
  Right. Like, Ben sh- Ben should've, the... Ben, producer Ben should've been like, you know, th- you know, Mormons taking over the world. Started with the Mormon community, then expanded from there.
23. BGBen Gilbert
  [laughs]
24. DRDavid Rosenthal
  [laughs]
25. SPShaan Puri
  I remember talking to the guys from Wait But Why, that great blog.
26. DRDavid Rosenthal
  Yeah.
27. BGBen Gilbert
  Yeah.
28. SPShaan Puri
  And, um, this guy-
29. DRDavid Rosenthal
  Wait, guys? Is there a team? It- it's not just Tim?
30. SPShaan Puri
  It's Tim, and then it's his childhood friend, Andrew, who does, like, the back end, all the business stuff. They have, like, a really interesting business. They, like, acquire companies that are completely unrelated to Wait But Why. Like, that's how they make their money, and then they just do-
7:05 – 14:07
How to scale to a big podcast
1. SPSam Parr
  Yeah, and we were like, "We're in." And then he did it his way. It was called My First Million, 'cause it was like first million users, revenue, whatever. And it was great. It was great as it was, but, like, there, there was one time, like three months in, where a guest didn't show up, and he was like, "Uh, I booked the space. Do you just wanna come and, like, talk?" And I was like, "I guess." And we did that, and then it kinda, like, did well. But, like, our... The first episode he did by himself, it got 65,000 downloads, and we were like, "Dude, podcasting-"
2. SPShaan Puri
  Wow
3. SPSam Parr
  ... "podcasting's easy. This is gonna be awesome."
4. SPShaan Puri
  [laughs]
5. DRDavid Rosenthal
  Yeah, yeah.
6. SPSam Parr
  And then over the next 12 months, it basically went down to, like, as low as, like, maybe 10 or 15,000. And then since then it's basically just been a slow grind. Now we're anywhere from 100 to 200,000 per do- per episode if you include the YouTube. Our YouTube is, is pretty weak. It's, like, 20 to 50,000, 20 to 100,000. And then the RSS feed, which is, like, iTunes and all that stuff, that's, um, maybe 100, uh, or something like that. What, uh... Where are you guys at? Because, like, no one talks about this stuff. Like, uh, whenever-
7. SPShaan Puri
  Yeah, yeah
8. SPSam Parr
  ... you Google... I remember we were googling, like, how do we get to 100,000 downloads? But everyone out there was like, "Here's how you get your first thousand, first 10,000." I was like, "Okay, but, like-
9. SPShaan Puri
  Yeah
10. SPSam Parr
  ... how do we get bigger?"
11. SPShaan Puri
  Right.
12. DRDavid Rosenthal
  We're, we're almost the exact same scale with a very different journey. I mean, every journey is unique on this stuff. Uh, so our episodes get about 200,000 downloads, listens, whatever you wanna call it, um, uh, which is interesting, 'cause Spotify has become so much more of the market now-
13. SPSam Parr
  Yeah
14. DRDavid Rosenthal
  ... uh, per episode. But unlike you guys, we do, like, one episode a month. You know, one to two episodes a month, and they're really, really long. [laughs] So, uh, we have, w- with a few exceptions that we can talk about, we've never had, like, kind of big spike, viral, you know, breakout moments. It's been a, you know, eight-year journey from, like, zero up to that. Um-
15. SPSam Parr
  We don't really have spikes. Like, there's spiky stuff, but it's not-
16. DRDavid Rosenthal
  Oh
17. SPSam Parr
  ... like a true, like, virality moment.
18. DRDavid Rosenthal
  In- interesting.
19. SPShaan Puri
  And you guys... So one thing that's interesting about content and media is everybody measures the number, nobody measures the quality, 'cause the quality's way harder to-
20. DRDavid Rosenthal
  Yep
21. SPShaan Puri
  ... understand.
22. SPSam Parr
  Yeah.
23. SPShaan Puri
  But clearly there's a difference between 200,000 people listening to an episode of Acquired versus 200,000 views on a TikTok. Okay, we get that, 'cause it's kinda short versus long. But even if it was a podcast about sports versus a podcast about business acquisitions, the type of people that are gonna listen to your thing are just inherently more valuable. Um-
24. SPSam Parr
  Yeah
25. SPShaan Puri
  ... have you guys thought about that, seen that? Do you guys-
26. DRDavid Rosenthal
  Mm-hmm
27. SPShaan Puri
  ... feel better compared to that?
28. DRDavid Rosenthal
  Oh, totally. I mean, that's the whole, that is the whole business.
29. SPSam Parr
  Yeah.
30. DRDavid Rosenthal
  Not that we started or do this for the business side, although it's become a great business. Um, that is the whole business side. And, and also on the content side, too. Like, we made... We started doing this for us to learn, and then we were like, "Well, who, you know, would also wanna learn?" You know, people like us, and that's kinda who we make it for. Like, um, so we struggle with YouTube, with TikTok, with Twitter. Like, we're not good on any of those other platforms, even though we do atomize content and do it now, because, like, we don't... It, it's just not kinda how-
14:07 – 22:46
How big do you have to be to be at the top of the business category?
1. SPSam Parr
  measure it. Is there anyone else in the business category that's in the 200, fi- I mean, All In's probably 400, maybe 500,000. Do you know, like-
2. SPShaan Puri
  Yeah
3. SPSam Parr
  ... how big do you have to be to be some of the biggest? Of course, there's Dave Ramsey. He's, he's in a whole different category.
4. BGBen Gilbert
  Yeah, it's funny. It depends, 'cause, like, business kinda gets lumped in with all these other, like, personal finance type categories. But I think in our ilk, um-
5. SPShaan Puri
  Yeah, they should make a separate-
6. BGBen Gilbert
  ... you know, Invest Like the Best is up there
7. SPShaan Puri
  ... budgeting category and move Dave Ramsey's ass over there.
8. SPSam Parr
  Yeah, yeah. Out of there.
9. BGBen Gilbert
  [laughs]
10. SPShaan Puri
  [laughs]
11. SPSam Parr
  [laughs]
12. SPShaan Puri
  Uh, you know, and it's, it's... All In, too, like, has been an amazing breakout. They've become more of a mainstream news and political show, too.
13. SPSam Parr
  Right.
14. SPShaan Puri
  I mean, they still talk tech and business, but, um, that, I think, is a lot of their audience, and they're huge now. But yeah, our category, I would say, like, Invest Like the Best probably is the most directly comparable in terms of size and audience makeup. Also, Founders and David Senra, um, who's... And he's part of the Colossus network with Patrick. Um, [smacks mouth] who else? Uh, Jason's other show, This Week in Startups, uh, that we go on all the time. Um-
15. BGBen Gilbert
  But Logan Bartlett has, um, a much smaller audience, 'cause he's much newer, but, like, A+ guests, and really... I mean, he's, I think he's, he's got the, the most valuable niche of niche in terms of the people who listen to his show.
16. SPShaan Puri
  Why, because of VCs?
17. BGBen Gilbert
  Uh, it's, like, Silicon Valley insiders, for lack of a better... I mean, it's VCs, it's founders, but I think, like, his interviews-
18. SPShaan Puri
  [blows raspberry]
19. SPSam Parr
  Oh, yeah
20. BGBen Gilbert
  ... I always feel like he pulls out-
21. SPShaan Puri
  [laughs]
22. SPSam Parr
  [laughs]
23. BGBen Gilbert
  [laughs]
24. SPShaan Puri
  The most valuable, jeez.
25. BGBen Gilbert
  [laughs]
26. SPShaan Puri
  Small boy stuff right there. Let me-
27. SPSam Parr
  Jeez
28. SPShaan Puri
  ... Sam, let me ask you a different question that I've actually never asked. So, so you, so David said something a second ago which was kinda like, the paraphrase would be, "We made the podcast for people like us," or, "We made the podcast that we would wanna listen to." Is that fair to kind of summarize y- your position, David?
29. SPSam Parr
  100%.
30. SPShaan Puri
  And I feel like that with this podcast. I started The Milk Road that way, but it quickly transformed into, like, crypto news, which is actually not what... Like, I actually, uh, people know this, I've said this, I don't read or consume the news. So it's really funny that we made a news, like, thing, and got it big, and then sold it. But, like, truthfully, it didn't end up becoming the thing that, like, I made this for me, for people like me out there. Sam, do you subscribe to that? Like, I guess, like, in theory, you could say the best thing to do is to scratch your own itch, to build the product you want, be the... you know, make it for people like you. Then you're not guessing. But then in practice sometimes, you know, the mass market is not where you're at, and you go for that. So w- Sam, what's your take on that?
22:46 – 27:12
What commonalities are there between weird companies?
1. SPSam Parr
  Are there any odd commonalities that you've seen amongst, like, the savages that you've done stories on? So for example, Ben Wilson has, you know, he does, uh, How to Take Over the World, and it's historical figures. And he's like, "You know, it's r- weird. John Rockefeller, Edison, N- and Napoleon, a bunch of these other people, they ate really lightly. Like, they didn't eat a ton of food-
2. DRDavid Rosenthal
  Hm
3. SPSam Parr
  ... because they said that when they overate, they felt brain fog and, uh, b- for a bunch of different reasons. Are there any, uh, strange commonalities that you've, you've found amongst, like, these conquerors of the world?
4. DRDavid Rosenthal
  Well, we talk more about companies than we do about people. Like, Ben and David Senner over at Founders Like, they cover the people.
5. SPSam Parr
  Or, or, or companies.
6. DRDavid Rosenthal
  Yeah.
7. SPSam Parr
  Or c- or companies.
8. BGBen Gilbert
  I mean, it's the classic, like, being contrarian and right, and you have to be both contrarian and right. But the people that we're studying and the companies that we're studying are such extreme outliers. Like, they're such the, they're, they're four standard deviations from the mean in terms of, like, how did a company do. And so th- they were, they're sort of like an N of one. Like, there's one TSMC in the world. There's one LVMH who owns all the most valuable luxury brands except Hermès. Uh, and th- th- it sort of happens in a unique way every time. And so I guess the, the biggest takeaway for me is, like- It usually is the founder doing something that, like, literally everybody else had left for dead. And, and, and when I say that, I mean, like, Bernard Arnault going and buying Christian Dior from the French government out of bankruptcy in... When was that? The '80s, David.
9. SPShaan Puri
  Uh, '80s. Yeah, yeah.
10. BGBen Gilbert
  Or, uh, like literally no, no one else was bidding on this, like, dead asset. Or, uh, the, the example for starting TSMC is, like, zero other people thought that you should be starting a foundry when you have no chip IP to make other people's chip designs. Like, that was-
11. SPShaan Puri
  Yeah
12. BGBen Gilbert
  ... there were zero other people that thought that was gonna be successful.
13. SPShaan Puri
  I think that's, that's a big one. Like, there is no, there is no formula. Every story is unique. But a big, big category is, like, something that has been left for dead. Ver- Like, sometimes it's inventing something new whole cloth, but, like, really big category is like, "Oh, this thing is over and done with."
14. BGBen Gilbert
  Oh, David, Nintendo.
15. SPShaan Puri
  But the... Yeah, Nintendo-
16. BGBen Gilbert
  Like, the, the-
17. SPShaan Puri
  ... Google, like, totally
18. BGBen Gilbert
  ... video game crash of, of 1983. Like, the market for video games in the United States went from $3 billion to $100 million over the course of two years. Everybody was running screaming from the industry, and they thought, "Oh, video games were a fad, and it's over." And then you have Nintendo that comes in, launches the NES, and then within five years has 95% market share and has grown the industry back to a $3 billion industry.
19. SPShaan Puri
  Hm.
20. BGBen Gilbert
  It's these, like, nut job bets.
21. SPSam Parr
  Has that, has that, like, given you guys any confidence to succeed, do you think? Like, 'cause-
22. BGBen Gilbert
  [laughs]
23. SPSam Parr
  ... Shaan and I talk to all these awesome people, and, like, we'll talk to... There, there are a handful of people, and I, I said this a bunch. There's a handful of people who we talk to, and we say, "Oh, you're definitely, like, significantly smarter than we are."
24. SPShaan Puri
  [laughs]
25. SPSam Parr
  Or, "You're, you're signifi- you have this part that's more significant than us." And then there's other people who we'll talk to that are worth hundreds of millions or billions of dollars, and it's like, "Well, you're not, like, 20 times smarter than us, even though you're 20 times richer. But, like, you might be a little bit or sometimes a little bit less." And that's given us confidence, at least me for sure, because I'm like, "Oh, you definitely are insecure. You, uh, question yourself. You doubt yourself, but you still went through with it."
26. BGBen Gilbert
  It's a good question. Like, I know how to be contrarian. I'm not sure I know how to be right yet.
27. SPShaan Puri
  [laughs]
28. BGBen Gilbert
  Like... [laughs]
29. SPShaan Puri
  We're halfway there, baby. [laughs]
30. SPSam Parr
  Yeah, yeah, yeah.
27:12 – 34:40
How to tell a real from a fake contrarian
1. SPShaan Puri
  on contra- How do you tell a real contrarian versus a wannabe contrarian? This is a-
2. SPSam Parr
  Ooh
3. SPShaan Puri
  ... a tell I've picked up over time, which is-
4. SPSam Parr
  Yeah, yeah
5. SPShaan Puri
  ... uh, in the tech world, I think because of Peter Thiel, there's this, like, kind of like real sex appeal to-
6. SPSam Parr
  Fetishization
7. SPShaan Puri
  ... to be contrarian.
8. SPSam Parr
  Yeah, for sure.
9. SPShaan Puri
  And, um-
10. SPSam Parr
  If you put it in your Twitter bio, you're probably not it.
11. SPShaan Puri
  [laughs] Yeah, exactly. Uh-
12. BGBen Gilbert
  Same with polymath.
13. SPShaan Puri
  Yeah, polymath's-
14. SPSam Parr
  Yeah
15. SPShaan Puri
  ... another one of them. Um, [laughs] as me and S-
16. SPSam Parr
  Or visionary
17. SPShaan Puri
  ... as me and Be- as me and Sam have, have joked about. Like, or, like, if you're an engineer being, like, slightly on the spectrum. It's like, "Oh, yeah, yeah. That's a- another indicator of success." It's like, here we go. The one that is, I think, a tell when it comes to being contrarian is how excited are you that you have this contrarian idea, because that shows people who are contrarian for the sake of being contrarian, meaning, like, they're really excited to tell you how th- they think everybody else thinks A, but it's actually B. Um, whereas the real people I've seen that are contrarian, they just see A, and they're almost like, "I'm confused why people don't think A. A is clearly right."
18. SPSam Parr
  Mm.
19. SPShaan Puri
  Um, uh, they're not... They don't spend time trying to, like, convince the whole world of it. Like, you know, if, if they're asked-
20. SPSam Parr
  Right
21. SPShaan Puri
  ... they tell the truth, and then when people react in a big way, like, "Oh, man, I can't believe you think that," they're like, "I can't believe you don't think that." Um, it just seems like the truth to them. And so that's what I've noticed is, like, if you, if you watch old videos of, like, you know, Peter Thiel talking or, like, I think Balaji is, is somebody who's like this today. Um, they sp- they, they're happy to explain their point of view, and they explain it like, "This is just what's gonna happen," or, "This is what I th- I believe to be true." But they don't, um, get high on the idea of, of being a contrarian.
22. BGBen Gilbert
  Right.
23. SPShaan Puri
  It is a subtle difference. There's a bunch of people I've met in real life that, that I kind of... I've noticed this on. It's hard to explain, but you'll s- Next time you kind of run into somebody who's, who's overeager and overexcited about the fact that they have this contrarian opinion, it's... They're kind of just performing socially-
24. BGBen Gilbert
  Yeah
25. SPShaan Puri
  ... versus they actually b- believe that.
26. BGBen Gilbert
  It reminds me a lot of, um, it's like we all know this guy or girl who likes the idea of a relationship more than they like their current relationship.
27. SPShaan Puri
  [laughs]
28. BGBen Gilbert
  And they're, they're very excited to, like, have this particular lifestyle, and you can sort of tell you're into that new lifestyle you have more than the person you're actually with.
29. SPShaan Puri
  Right.
30. BGBen Gilbert
  So it's, it, it, it's, uh-
34:40 – 38:15
Nintendo
1. BGBen Gilbert
  wait, wait, real quick. Do either of you know the origin story of Nintendo?
2. DRDavid Rosenthal
  No.
3. BGBen Gilbert
  Or, or have a guess at how old Nintendo is?
4. SPShaan Puri
  I think it's really o- I remember reading it once. I don't, I don't remember off the top of my head, but it was... Is it like Sony where they were, like, selling rice or something, and then now they're who they are?
5. BGBen Gilbert
  Yes.
6. DRDavid Rosenthal
  It's even better, yeah.
7. BGBen Gilbert
  It's 130-year-old company.
8. DRDavid Rosenthal
  Yeah.
9. BGBen Gilbert
  Started in, what, 1890?
10. DRDavid Rosenthal
  1889, I think. Yeah.
11. BGBen Gilbert
  And their original business was making hanafuda cards, which is the Japanese version of US playing cards, but US playing cards were illegal to import, like, because people from the US could... It was not legal to be in the country. And David, I think you at this point, they literally would execute you-
12. DRDavid Rosenthal
  Yeah
13. BGBen Gilbert
  ... if you came into the country with them.
14. DRDavid Rosenthal
  Well, Nintendo started right after this, but before the Meiji Restoration, like, Japan went through this multi-hundred-year period of strict isolationism where, like, you would be executed if you were a foreigner and you entered the country. Likewise, if you were a Japanese person and you left the country and came back, you would also be executed. [laughs] Like-
15. SPShaan Puri
  Wow.
16. BGBen Gilbert
  So m- but, like, playing cards are this thing that, like, has product market fit, so they're like-
17. DRDavid Rosenthal
  Yeah, gambling
18. BGBen Gilbert
  ... how do we make something like playing cards?
19. DRDavid Rosenthal
  Universal human need. [laughs]
20. BGBen Gilbert
  So it literally started making hanafuda cards, and their distribution channel was through the Yakuza to illegal casinos.
21. DRDavid Rosenthal
  Yeah.
22. SPShaan Puri
  Yakuza being, like, the mafia.
23. DRDavid Rosenthal
  The Japanese mafia.
24. BGBen Gilbert
  Yes.
25. DRDavid Rosenthal
  Yeah, yeah. They started making these playing cards, and, like, a very small part of the market was like, "Oh, you have a pack of playing cards in your house." But just like everywhere else in the world, the market is casinos, 'cause you use a fresh deck for each-
26. BGBen Gilbert
  Right
27. DRDavid Rosenthal
  ... hand so that there's no cheating. And yeah, so Nintendo is, like, deeply embedded with the Yakuza. [laughs]
28. BGBen Gilbert
  And for, like, 60 years, this was their business before they started making toys.
29. SPShaan Puri
  Wow.
30. BGBen Gilbert
  And then what? Some, like, visionary within the company was like, "Uh, hey, this new, this new thing is cool"?
38:15 – 42:12
Which company would you most want to own?
1. SPSam Parr
  discussed? Number one, which company of all, of everyone that you've, uh, went over would you want to own? Like, which, which one... What's the one that you envy?
2. DRDavid Rosenthal
  Well, wait, those are two different questions.
3. SPSam Parr
  [laughs]
4. DRDavid Rosenthal
  Which would you want to-
5. SPSam Parr
  Okay
6. DRDavid Rosenthal
  ... like, own the stock of, and which do you want... Or which do you wanna, like, uh, oh, be an investor in or, or actually own the company?
7. SPSam Parr
  Yeah, yeah. The second.
8. DRDavid Rosenthal
  Mm.
9. SPSam Parr
  Actually own, and which one do you envy most?
10. SPShaan Puri
  Hmm.
11. BGBen Gilbert
  Actually own, I think, is the NFL.
12. DRDavid Rosenthal
  Yeah.
13. BGBen Gilbert
  I think that has-
14. DRDavid Rosenthal
  For sure
15. BGBen Gilbert
  ... the most, like, durable franchise. And own is always a funny question, 'cause what's your entry price? Like, do I have to buy stuff at today's prices, or... But if I think about sort of, like, durability of the asset, and I sort of ig- ignore, um, w- where things are trading and what market value is today, the NFL i- is s- seven layers of entrenched in our society. And to be an American at this point means to have the NFL in your life. And they also... David, you pointed this out on our episode. Everyone thinks it's really cute to, like, stack rank all the, the media franchises. Marvel's worth this, and, you know, all the way at the top of the charts, Pokemon's worth this. But, like, the NFL is worth so much more than any of those.
16. DRDavid Rosenthal
  [laughs]
17. BGBen Gilbert
  The NFL TV contract alone is $12 billion a year. The most recent set of rights they parceled up was, like, 100 and-
18. SPSam Parr
  No, isn't it, uh... Now it's, like, 18 or 19 billion a year, I think.
19. BGBen Gilbert
  Something insane.
20. DRDavid Rosenthal
  It's a big deal, yeah.
21. BGBen Gilbert
  But, and they recently signed a 10-year deal, so it's, like, a $150-
22. DRDavid Rosenthal
  Lot of dough
23. BGBen Gilbert
  ... billion deal just for the TV rights.
24. DRDavid Rosenthal
  It's like a venture firm, but it's-
25. SPShaan Puri
  Yeah, the NFL has all the franchises, but is there basically, like, this, like, top level holdco that owns, like, the p- the media rights and the franchise fees?
26. DRDavid Rosenthal
  It's communist capitalism. They all own it all together. But the NFL, unlike any of the other leagues out there, is... This is... There's starting to be a few little cracks in this, but, like, they negotiate with the TV contracts and now all the streaming and everything-
27. SPShaan Puri
  Right
28. DRDavid Rosenthal
  ... unified as a league. So there's no, like... You know, like, how the Yankees have the YES Network-
29. SPShaan Puri
  Right
30. DRDavid Rosenthal
  ... like, their own TV network? There's none of that in the NFL. It's all together, and it's all equal revenue sharing.
42:12 – 52:42
Who would you least want to compete against?
1. DRDavid Rosenthal
  history.
2. SPSam Parr
  Is there, is there a certain founder, CEO, leader who you would rank as the l- the person you'd least want to compete against?
3. DRDavid Rosenthal
  [laughs]
4. SPSam Parr
  Whether they're, wh- whether historical or modern.
5. SPShaan Puri
  H- here, here's another way of phrasing that-
6. DRDavid Rosenthal
  Oh, yeah
7. SPShaan Puri
  ... that I heard that I like. There was somebody who was talking about the NFL Draft, and there was, like, four QBs that were competing, and they're like, "Well, this guy's got good arm. This guy's good at running. This guy's a great leader. Blah, blah, blah, blah." And then this guy asked this question that I loved. He goes, "Let's say they all went on vacation and they rented a car and they're walking out to the, to the Jeep. Who th- who do they throw the keys to to drive this car?" It's like, who's the leader? Who's the alpha-
8. DRDavid Rosenthal
  Yeah
9. SPShaan Puri
  ... amongst alphas a- amongst these QBs? So, so who's that in the CEO world?
10. DRDavid Rosenthal
  I think we gotta say Jensen. Uh, Jensen Huang from NVIDIA. Like, he's such a badass.
11. BGBen Gilbert
  So-
12. DRDavid Rosenthal
  Uh, like, I don't know anything about NVIDIA because I just know it's a killer stock. So NVIDIA makes the chips that are in computers and, and, and dis- it involves display.
13. SPShaan Puri
  GPUs.
14. DRDavid Rosenthal
  Like, you can get like a NVIDIA G... Yeah. Is, is that right?
15. BGBen Gilbert
  Yeah.
16. SPShaan Puri
  Yes. [laughs]
17. BGBen Gilbert
  So NVIDIA is, uh, is in their sort of third major act-
18. DRDavid Rosenthal
  Third chapter
19. BGBen Gilbert
  ... as a company.
20. DRDavid Rosenthal
  Yeah, third act.
21. BGBen Gilbert
  That, but loosely defined as, like, they, um, popularized the idea of a GPU in addition to the CPU, and originally the use case was for video games in the '90s. And, you know, I think everyone who ever built PCs remembers like, "Oh, man, I gotta get this hot new GPU to slide in the card 'cause it's better than the integrated graphics thing from Intel." Um, and so that was sort of their market for a while, and, uh, it was all about, uh, gaming PCs. But then, like, again, five, six, seven years before the rest of the market, Jensen basically made this bet where he saw researchers using the, the GPUs, the gaming graphics chips-
22. DRDavid Rosenthal
  Yeah, they're like going to Best Buy and buying [laughs] a bunch of NVIDIA graphics cards
23. BGBen Gilbert
  ... to do AI research, and he was like, "I think we should lean really heavily into this." And so he spent billions of, of dollars and thousands of headcount for five years to build up this, like, whole software stack called CUDA that if AI and ML was gonna become a thing, then people were going to use CUDA to develop e- exclusively on NVIDIA's hardware. And so by the time it did become a thing, like five years ago, NVIDIA had this enormous moat around it as being the platform to develop AI on, and it just so happened that the technology, this like super heavy parallel processing matrix math technology that makes gaming graphics chips work, is the very same math that powers what ML is all based on.
24. DRDavid Rosenthal
  But other than... So NVIDIA, for the listener, it's... I just looked it up. It's a $650 billion company, so one of the, I don't know, top 20, 30 biggest businesses in the world. But other than him being correct, what makes this person like a savage or, or-
25. SPShaan Puri
  Oh.
26. DRDavid Rosenthal
  Th- that they're just like... There's so many points in history. Like, he is a-
27. SPShaan Puri
  He has 19 wives. [laughs]
28. DRDavid Rosenthal
  Let me... [laughs] No, he ac-
29. SPShaan Puri
  [laughs]
30. DRDavid Rosenthal
  Like, he's a total family man. He's been married to the same person he met in college. They have two kids. Like, he's... Uh, but, like, he's got a giant tattoo of the company's logo on his shoulder.
52:42 – 58:17
Business ideas
1. SPShaan Puri
  accent, right? Like, he's, uh, doesn't he have like kind of a-
2. BGBen Gilbert
  Yeah, yeah. He's got this Italian-
3. SPSam Parr
  Italian. Yeah
4. BGBen Gilbert
  ... New York, uh, vibe.
5. SPShaan Puri
  Yeah, that's cool.
6. SPSam Parr
  Well, are there, are, are, are there any more of these like tough guys or tough women, like, that are out there now? I mean, when I hear that, it's, I always think like, "Oh, that was a different generation."
7. SPShaan Puri
  [laughs]
8. SPSam Parr
  Uh.
9. SPShaan Puri
  Do they ma-
10. SPSam Parr
  I mean, I kind of think it was
11. SPShaan Puri
  Do they make Doug Leone nowadays? [laughs]
12. SPSam Parr
  Yeah.
13. SPShaan Puri
  Like on a-
14. SPSam Parr
  You gotta, Elon's like tough
15. SPShaan Puri
  ... you gotta hide it now. Yeah.
16. BGBen Gilbert
  You do have to hide it.
17. SPSam Parr
  Well, Elon's tough. He ain't, he ain't like tough tough. Like Travis Kalanick I think was pretty-
18. BGBen Gilbert
  I think Frank, Frank Slootman is still like this.
19. SPShaan Puri
  Yeah.
20. SPSam Parr
  Yeah.
21. BGBen Gilbert
  And he, he's like a-
22. SPShaan Puri
  But it's a dying breed, though
23. SPSam Parr
  The CEO of Nutanix.
24. SPShaan Puri
  Like we, we need more of these.
25. BGBen Gilbert
  Yeah.
26. SPShaan Puri
  It's like, "F- Frank, uh, my, my badge is not working to get into the office." "You still got teeth, don't ya?" [laughs] He's like...
27. SPSam Parr
  [laughs]
28. BGBen Gilbert
  [laughs]
29. SPShaan Puri
  [laughs] You know, that's like a... When you read that guy's book, you're like, "All right, yeah, this would be a pretty hardcore boss to work under." [laughs]
30. SPSam Parr
  Yeah. It's totally a lost art, though. Like, um, yeah, I don't, I don't think they make them like that anymore unfortunately.
58:17 – 1:07:24
Will you ever sell Acquired?
1. SPSam Parr
  Right.
2. DRDavid Rosenthal
  Do you think, and this will be the last question from me, do you think that there's a world where you're gonna sell Acquired or do one of these Spotify deals or anything like that?
3. BGBen Gilbert
  Ooh.
4. DRDavid Rosenthal
  Have you been approached?
5. BGBen Gilbert
  Good question.
6. DRDavid Rosenthal
  Uh, yes, but not, uh, not in, like, a, um, not in, not recently and not in a way that... Like, not since we've become a real business. Uh-
7. SPSam Parr
  What could you get for it, you think? Like-
8. BGBen Gilbert
  Qu- Quibi tried to get-
9. SPSam Parr
  ... you know, call it down to, I think-
10. BGBen Gilbert
  Quibi tried to give them 5 million bucks, but they said no. [laughs]
11. DRDavid Rosenthal
  [laughs] God, Quibi, oh, wow. Um-
12. BGBen Gilbert
  [laughs]
13. SPSam Parr
  We, we, we'd, we would say no to that, for sure.
14. DRDavid Rosenthal
  We would for sure say no to that. Um, I don't, like, if, uh... We could talk about... Like, I, I don't, uh... I would not be interested in having any conversations for, you know, less than, uh, you know, on the order of, like, what you guy- like The Hustle or, um, uh, Morning Brew or, you know, stuff like that. Uh-
15. SPSam Parr
  Tens of millions.
16. DRDavid Rosenthal
  Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Uh, I mean, I just think, like, the value of what we've built, both as a business in revenue and our audience, uh, and our durability is, you know, is, is in that category. I think it's very much an open question. Like, it's gotten so much bigger than we ever imagined. How much farther can it go? Uh-
17. BGBen Gilbert
  Right. It's, it's one of these things where-
18. DRDavid Rosenthal
  I'm curious how you guys think about this too
19. BGBen Gilbert
  ... would, would, would we trust our own underwriting more than an acquirer's underwriting? Because what has happened for us is it has doubled every single year for eight years, basically no matter what we do. Like, we can't make it grow faster or slower than that. Uh, it's a great business.
20. DRDavid Rosenthal
  We've got idiots running the business here. [laughs]
21. BGBen Gilbert
  [laughs]
22. DRDavid Rosenthal
  And, uh, it still doubles.
23. BGBen Gilbert
  [laughs]
24. SPSam Parr
  That warm body quote.
25. BGBen Gilbert
  Right.
26. DRDavid Rosenthal
  Yeah.
27. BGBen Gilbert
  It's, it's cash generative. It, uh-
28. SPSam Parr
  Well, have you guys built any businesses off the back of it?
29. BGBen Gilbert
  So that's-
30. DRDavid Rosenthal
  Yes
1:07:24 – 1:22:55
Best ways to make money as a podcast
1. SPSam Parr
  drunk off that.
2. SPShaan Puri
  How do, how do you think about the business of the pod, of My First Million?
3. SPSam Parr
  So the podcast is owned by HubSpot, and we get paid a-
4. DRDavid Rosenthal
  Right
5. SPSam Parr
  ... we get paid strictly a performance fee. And so when it kicks ass, which it has, we get paid good money, as if we have had advertisers.
6. DRDavid Rosenthal
  Yeah.
7. SPSam Parr
  Um, and so, but HubSpot's been great. Like, not one time have they ever censored us or said, "Hey, you made a bad joke. Don't say that." And so it's been pretty good. It, it, it, there's definitely, I wouldn't say complicated, but it, it's a new relationship that we're definitely trying to figure out of, like, what to do because frankly, HubSpot's an awesome partner. But at the same time, if Shaan and I bounce, they, they don't have shit.
8. DRDavid Rosenthal
  Right, right.
9. SPSam Parr
  And so I think we're both, both sides of that, of that are trying to understand what we can do and how far we can push things and, and-
10. DRDavid Rosenthal
  What about for-
11. SPSam Parr
  ... we're definitely still figuring that out
12. DRDavid Rosenthal
  ... there are, you have some, and, and there probably are potentially more monetization options for the pod, right? Like, how does that revenue get split up?
13. SPSam Parr
  Uh-
14. DRDavid Rosenthal
  Like, uh, YouTube ads, um-
15. SPShaan Puri
  Today we just don't. We, uh, we turned off YouTube ads.
16. SPSam Parr
  We just don't.
17. SPShaan Puri
  We can't-
18. SPSam Parr
  Ah
19. SPShaan Puri
  ... like, if somebody wants to sponsor it, we don't, right? So, like, we leave a lot of money on the table in that regard. Um, but you get other benefits, right? So you gotta, like, kinda-
20. DRDavid Rosenthal
  Right
21. SPShaan Puri
  ... weigh those out over time and be like-
22. DRDavid Rosenthal
  Right
23. SPShaan Puri
  ... does this make sense?
24. SPSam Parr
  So yeah, like, the, the benefit, the benefits that we have are basically we don't do any of the work, so we record, and then it goes on the internet.
25. SPShaan Puri
  Right.
26. SPSam Parr
  Um, that's a pro and a con because if we don't like how it's done, then it's like, shit, we don't like that. Let's fix it. But as long as it's working well, it's awesome. We get paid without having to have any expenses, but then the flip side is, shit, we have all these, this advertiser interest, and we know it works really well. Let's take more deals. And so I think there's a, there's a world where we do come, come, actually come to a compromise and we have more ads, but, uh, that's like a, it's a, it's a conversation.
27. DRDavid Rosenthal
  Yeah, yeah.
28. BGBen Gilbert
  It- is there, is there a tension at all with you guys wanting to use the pod to do stuff that generates value for yourself that doesn't accrue back to the MFM pod, like you launching businesses off it? Or is that all great 'cause-
29. SPSam Parr
  No, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're great with that, and any revenue outside of the pod is 100% ours, events-
30. BGBen Gilbert
  Right