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My First Million

I Spent 7 Days With The Richest Men In Texas

Episode 572: Sam Parr and Shaan Puri talk about the 10 revelations learned from spending a week with Texas billionaires.

Shaan PurihostSam Parrhost

Apr 12, 202440mWatch on YouTube

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CHAPTERS

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Chapter summaries

Tim Ferriss Asks Shaan to Define the Podcast
Sam welcomes Shaan back from his seven days in Austin. Shaan recounts being put on the spot by Tim Ferriss about the brand of his podcast, and Sam offers his own description of the show.
- •Tim Ferriss asked how a listener would describe the podcast to a friend
- •Sam describes it as silly jokes mixed with deconstructing interesting companies and trends
- •Shaan likens the audience to the friend who counts tabletops at a restaurant to figure out how much money it makes
- •Shaan compares the panic to Leonardo DiCaprio asking you your name
Taking Notes for a High Rate of Revelation
Shaan explains how he journals on trips, recording only new epiphanies and memorable phrases rather than events. He frames this as a high "rate of revelation" and says the trip scored high on it.
- •He notes only epiphanies and golden nuggets, not what happened
- •"Rate of revelation" means interesting things per minute
- •He had one big revelation for each person he met
Mohnish Pabrai's Origin Story
Shaan explains why he wanted to meet Mohnish Pabrai, whom his mentors look up to. He tells how Mohnish left a corporate job at his dad's urging, started an IT consulting firm, and turned the proceeds into a large investing track record.
- •Andrew Wilkinson and Sayed Balkhi both learn from Mohnish, and Andrew called him a "value investing man crush"
- •His dad told him he had taken the wrong lesson from the family business's ups and downs
- •He built an IT consulting company, then invested his own money, with one pick returning 140x
- •Friends asked him to manage their money, and he now has just under a billion in assets under management
The Relaxed Billionaire: Investing Is Not a Team Sport
Shaan describes visiting Mohnish at home, where he found him relaxed, with no team or schedule. Mohnish explained that great investing requires contrarian bets, which teams tend to water down, and Shaan shares his habit of napping daily.
- •"Chai with Pabrai" is how he hosts random interesting people
- •Analysts support him but make no investment decisions
- •Contrarian bets mean liking what others find hated and unloved, such as coal
- •He has napped every day for 30 years and says he decides worse when not rested
- •He teaches because teaching is the best way to learn something
What Billionaires Read All Day
After a HubSpot sponsor read, Sam asks what people like Warren Buffett and Andrew Wilkinson actually read all day. Shaan says Mohnish's reading is broad, covering annual reports, macro, psychology, science and science fiction.
- •Reading includes company annual reports and industry deep dives
- •It also covers psychology, business and science books
- •Science fiction predicted things like cryptocurrency and video calls
- •Mohnish has a library with thousands of books
Joe Lonsdale: Five Billion-Dollar Companies and a Candid Upbringing
Shaan introduces Joe Lonsdale, co-founder of Palantir, who claims to have created more billion-dollar companies than anyone else in America. They discuss his candid answer about an easy, privileged childhood and how he seeds multiple companies.
- •Joe co-founded Palantir and says he has created more billion-dollar companies than anyone in America
- •He described his childhood plainly: great parents, school came easily, he was 99th percentile in math and science
- •Sam recounts his path through Stanford and Peter Thiel's orbit
- •Shaan says he seeds companies by bringing the idea, team and initial capital
- •His companies span wealth software, government software and defense
Joe Lonsdale's Five Takeaways: Saving the World and Focus
Shaan shares five takeaways from Joe, starting with Joe's genuine drive to fix big problems, and recounts a day that included a workout and Elon Musk walking in. He then explains Joe's second point, that Joe questions whether spreading across companies was right, and his rule of limiting how many things he does.
- •Joe has said the same things about wanting to help society since his school-era writing
- •Shaan hung out with him from an 8 AM workout through the interview
- •Peter Thiel's lesson: put effort into your main compounding thing
- •Joe thinks he might have built something bigger with one company, but optimized for solving needed problems
- •His rule is six things for him, three for his partners, and one for a CEO
The Final Level of the Money Game
Shaan describes Joe's lavish lifestyle and what the top of the money game looks like. He singles out a basketball court, a LAN gaming room, and a private chef as the number one wealth luxury.
- •Joe has a baller house with a full staff and chef
- •Basketball court and gaming room stood out
- •Shaan calls a private chef the top luxury for time saved, health and taste
Nick Gray's Two-Hour Cocktail Party
The group threw a 15-person house party organized by Nick Gray, author of Two Hour Cocktail Party. Shaan describes his structured mingling techniques, the knife-handle phone gag, and the closing circle where Nick draws out interesting stories.
- •Name tags with colors are used to mix people into groups
- •Nick plays a harmonica to signal structured activities
- •His gag involved a phone hidden in a butcher knife handle case
- •At the end he gathers everyone and prompts people to share things he overheard
- •Shaan finds the structure a relief since he finds social gatherings exhausting
Hasan Minhaj and the Power of Asking Questions
Sam admits he finds Hasan Minhaj intimidating, while Shaan loved hanging out with him. Shaan credits humor, presence and endless questions, contrasting this with another billionaire who asked just one question in two and a half hours.
- •Hasan's comedic speed makes him a pro among JV players
- •He is fully present, not on his phone or eyeing the room
- •He asks lots of questions, which Shaan finds attractive
- •Sam explains the other billionaire's behavior as a status shift where successful people are used to being the one answering
- •Shaan takes away a reminder to never make others feel that way
Competitive Gamers Make the Best Entrepreneurs
Shaan describes the PeachyBbies founder, a former Yu-Gi-Oh and poker champion who revived a shuttered slime business. This leads to his idea for an event gathering young competitive nerds, which he'd fund with $100k.
- •PeachyBbies sells tens of millions of dollars of slime and has 10 million TikTok followers
- •The founder went from Yu-Gi-Oh to poker to slime
- •Competitive gamers who pick a better game tend to win at it too
- •Joe Lonsdale was a mathlete and the Traba founder was a spelling bee kid
- •Shaan wants someone to organize the event and he would be the first investor
Pay Attention to What Others Pay Attention To
Shaan tells of a TikTok shop operator who wrote down his offhand comment about a hook. He draws the lesson that what successful people lean into reveals what matters in their world, and asks Sam what he would write down.
- •After three hours, the operator took out a notebook only for the TikTok hook comment
- •He said one hook can make a whole company
- •Shaan saw this pattern about five times on the trip
- •What someone writes down reveals how their brain works
- •Sam would note things about retention and newsletter ads
Ben Levy's Superpower: Connecting and Being Useful
Shaan describes watching his business partner Ben Levy connect with people by finding one thing they are passionate about beyond what they are famous for. Ben also follows up by trying to be useful, and Shaan and Sam joke about how he never turns off his curiosity.
- •Ben brings up a side passion, such as microplastics with Joe Gebbia instead of Airbnb
- •He talks less than 10% of the time, and that one thing opens people up
- •After meetings he looks for ways to be useful, like making an introduction or sending a link
- •Mohnish said Charlie Munger wanted his tombstone to say he tried to be useful
- •Ben asks questions even mid-basketball game
Closing Thoughts: The Payoff Is the Journey
Sam says he is excited to hear the Joe Lonsdale and Mohnish episodes. Shaan reflects that the real value of the trip was the research and time with these people, not the episodes themselves.
- •Sam is excited about the Joe Lonsdale and Mohnish episodes
- •Shaan says the episodes are gravy compared to getting to know the guests
- •The valuable thing along the journey is often not the one you expected

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