I Spent 7 Days With The Richest Men In Texas

Shaan Puri 0:00 He was showing us around his house. He's like, "That's my nap room." And I was like, "You're a nap guy? I'm a nap guy." Uh, and he's like-

Sam Parr 0:05 [laughs]

Shaan Puri 0:05 "Oh, yeah, nap, been- I take a nap every day for the last 30 years."

Sam Parr 0:07 He's like, "Do, do you wanna nap together?" [laughs] All right, you're back from Austin. You were there for seven days. How was it?

Shaan Puri 0:20 It was great, dude. I had, uh, one conversation. I gotta ask you this. I got put on the spot. So, I was talking to- I did an episode with Tim Ferriss, and he said something in the middle of the interview. He goes, he goes, "I wanted to ask you this. What do you say, what, what do you think is the, um, the brand of your podcast?" And he goes, "What I mean is, if you're not in the room, and someone was just telling their friend about it, how would they describe it? I- ideally, to you, how would they describe it?"

Sam Parr 0:44 You actually did this before, and I actually thought it was great. You said, "Hey, look, we're doing these meetups. And if you are the type of person who goes to a restaurant, and you wonder, 'How could they make this a little bit more efficient?' Or, 'How much money do they make per meal?' Or, 'How much profit do they make, and how can they expand this?' And you also like to joke around, you're perfect for MFM." And that's sort of the person who I would describe is into it. I would say that we're this weird combination of making silly dumb jokes and deconstructing interesting companies and pointing out different trends.

Shaan Puri 1:11 [laughs] Okay, that's pretty good. Yeah, I like the restaurant thing where it's like if you went to a restaurant with four friends, and three of them would be looking at the menu trying to figure out what to order, and you'd be looking around f- counting the tabletops and trying to figure out how much money this place makes, that's us. [laughs] We are that friend. [laughs]

Sam Parr 1:27 Why? What did you say on the air?

Shaan Puri 1:29 Well, luckily, he let me off the hook because he asked it, he's like, "I wanna ask you this. And you don't have to answer, but you can do the..." And then he just kinda kept going. And in my head, I was like, "Okay, the master of podcasting asking me what is my podcast about." And it's sort of like, you know, if, uh, Leonardo DiCaprio comes up to you and he asks you what your name is, and you're like, "I have one. I just don't know what it is right now." [laughs] You know, the panic ensues.

Sam Parr 1:50 I had to go out of town, so it was a weird timing. I wasn't able to make it. But you interviewed four or three people, but you hung out with a ton of people. How, how was, how was Tim, for one? You al- you also interviewed, interviewed Joe Lonsdale. How were these guys?

Shaan Puri 2:03 So, I took notes. I always take notes when I go. I take a little journal with me. And basically, I'm not taking notes on what happened. I'm only taking notes on what are the new epiphanies, what are the new golden nuggets, what's the one phrase somebody said that I'm gonna remember? And, um, I'm looking for a high rate of revelation. I think that's also, by the way, a, a, a good move for the podcast. What is the rate of revelation? Per minute, how many interesting things are, are coming out to you?

Sam Parr 2:28 RPM, baby. RPM.

Shaan Puri 2:30 Y- yeah. Yeah, exactly. This is a very high RPM, uh, uh, trip for me. I wrote down a bunch of names on our doc. And for each one, I had one, one big revelation. And so, uh, you can prompt me and go for whichever one looks interesting to you, not in order.

Sam Parr 2:46 Person. So Mohnish, from what I know, he is a, uh, what's his book called? The Dhando, uh, Investor. Uh, ba- basically, what I know about him is that he started maybe in the '80s investing in companies because I think he made some money, uh, through his own business. And then he's sort of like a Indian Warren Buffett, and he's got this huge following. And, uh, he seems really fascinating type of guy.

Shaan Puri 3:07 Yeah, so th- exactly. I wanted to talk to him because my mentors consider him a mentor. [laughs] Right? Like, if you like this podcast and you like, uh, you know, either Andrew Wilkinson or Sayed Balkhi, like both of them look up to and learn from Mohnish. When I, when I was going out there, I texted Andrew. I was like, "Hey, what should I ask him?" Or I was like, "You, you know him, right?" And he's like, "Dude, he was my first value investing man crush." [laughs] And, and, like, you know, somebody whose, whose brain you got really attracted to 'cause he has very interesting philosophies and thoughts. If you Google his net worth, it says like b- you know, almost two billion. Um, I don't know. You know, Googling net worth is not, not a exact science, but he's up there. More like a B than an M. And, um, he's an interesting guy. Like, his story is basically he's working at a company. His dad is like, "Son, it's time to quit." And he's like, his dad was an entrepreneur. He's like, "Dad, I don't wanna do what you did, man. Your, your life was crazy. Like, uh, it was ups and downs. Don't you remember as a kid, we were being brought into the living room at, when we were 12, 13 years old, trying to figure out how to, like, let the business survive one more day?" He's like, "I'm traumatized from that. I just wanna work here, save, uh, money in my 401 [k] every year, and in 35 years I'll be set." And his dad was like, "Okay, you're not wrong, but you took the lo- wrong lesson away from, from what you learned. What you, you actually got a crash course in how to do business and how to not do business. Maybe you should just take that and actually learn from it and do it right. Do it better than I could do it." And he told him, he's like, "You know, at this company, there's 2,000 people here. You're just a cog in the machine. Like, you could die tomorrow, and no one would even know." [laughs] And so he's like, "You know, you're, you'll never reach your potential just sitting there." So he's like, "All right. Shit, he's right." Goes, starts a company. It was a IT, like, consulting company. So, this was, like, during the dot-com boom run-up when the internet was really exciting, computers were really exciting. He creates a, a, an IT consulting business. And so-

Sam Parr 4:55 Crazy. Mark, uh, Mark Cuban also had an IT services business that he sold for 6 million, I bet around the same time. So, it was enough to be comfortable, but not enough to do nothing.

Shaan Puri 5:05 Exactly, exactly. And so what he did was, um, he takes that money, a- and he starts investing his own money. And he compounds his own money, his own money. He turns, like, whatever, I think at first he had sold $1 million of secondary. He turns $1 million into $13 million. So, he knew the Indian tech scene pretty well because he had his, his consulting company had, uh, you know, overseas staff, so he's paying attention to it. So, he invested in one, and it was 140x. And so he's like, "Wow, that's insane. I should get out." He pulled out like a million or two million bucks from that. That's how he made his first million, million bucks, then he just reinvested. And along the way of, you know, he's giving his friends, like, stock tips. He's like, "Yeah, I'm buying this for this reason. I'm buying this for this reason." They're doing really well. But they're like, "Mohnish," like, you know, "We can't just listen to your tips because you're not telling us when to sell. We don't know what you're not telling us. Can we just give you the money?" And so he, he takes a, he takes a million bucks from his friends. He's like, "Okay, I'll just, if I'm investing in my shit, I'll just put their money in the same thing." But he's like, "That was the side thing." He's like, "I had 13 million. That was one million. I didn't really care about it." He proceeds to basically over the last, whatever, 20 years, 30 years, whatever, run that million dollars up. He now has, like about, uh, just under a billion dollars of assets under management of the compounding of that, plus people-

Sam Parr 6:13 Insane

Shaan Puri 6:13 ... bringing more assets in, obviously, along the way. So, okay, that's a long story about Mohnish, but that's not what was interesting about him. What's interesting about him is I call him the relaxed billionaire, because I go to this guy's house, he's just chilling. He's just there. He's in his basketball shorts. No, no shoes. He's just walking around. He's like, "All right, um, sup?" Like, and we were... 'Cause I went the day before to hang out with him. I was like, "We're gonna do the podcast tomorrow, but I wanna get to know you a little bit. Let's hang. Let's... Can I swing by for a little, you know, let's just have some, some, some, uh, some tea." So I go over to have, have a tea at his house. He calls it chai with Pabrai, and he's like, uh, he's like, "Yeah, I do this from time to time. I just have, uh, I make, I make a really good chai. I'll just have it with random interesting people. One out of every 10 proves to be, like someone really compelling I wanna hang out with more, and, uh, you know, 9 out of 10, no, no problem. I just had some chai."

Sam Parr 7:03 And he just moved to Austin, right?

Shaan Puri 7:05 Uh, he's been there for a little bit, yeah. Um, so he, he, he relocated from, I think, LA or something.

Sam Parr 7:10 Got it.

Shaan Puri 7:11 So I was like, "So what are you doing today?" Uh, 'cause like he's hanging out with us for like an hour, and I was like, "What's... You don't... There's nobody here. Where's your team? Where's your schedule? Where's your assistant coming, tapping you and be like, 'You have a call.'" And he's like, "I don't have any of those

Shaan Puri 7:25 things." He's told me a couple interesting. He goes, "Investing is not a team sport." And he goes, "I, uh, I have a few folks, analyst-type people, and they'll, they'll do specific things that, you know, I need them to do, but they don't make decisions. Uh, they don't make investment decisions. I make the investment decisions." And he goes, "Why?" He goes, "To be a great investor, you need to make a contrarian bet, meaning you have to believe something's good when other b- people believe that it's bad." Fundamentally, that's how it works, right? If you think it's good, but everybody thinks it's good, you'll never make any money. The price is too high. Um, if it's bad and you think it's good, you'll never make it right. The only way to make money is you think it's good and other people think it's bad. He calls it, "I look for things that are hated and unloved." He's like, "Last year, I made one big bet," or whatever, "last two years, like, on coal." Coal. He's like, "Man, coal. Nothing is more hated and unloved than coal." Uh, he's like, "And before that it was this. Before that it was this." Um, and so he's, he's like, "I look for the hated and loved things." He goes, "If you have a team, everybody just centers around the safe picks that, uh, we can all agree on." And he's like, "You know, you'll never find the truly, truly contrarian, un- hated and unloved things if you, if you invest as a team because it's not a team sport."

Shaan Puri 8:31 Number two, he goes, uh, he's like, he was showing us around his house, he's like, "That's my nap room." And I was like, "You're a nap guy. I'm a nap guy." Uh, and he's like, "Oh yeah, nap, been na- I take a nap every day for the last 30 years."

Sam Parr 8:42 Do you wanna nap together? [laughs]

Shaan Puri 8:43 Yeah. He's like, he's like, "Every 30 years," he's like, "For 30 years I've been napping every day." He's like, "I love it. Just knock out in the afternoon, eh, 20, 30 minutes, an hour, whatever it is."

Sam Parr 8:50 [laughs]

Shaan Puri 8:51 He's like, "It's good for my brain." He's like, "I don't make good decisions if I'm not, if I'm not well, well rested." He's like, "I don't need-"

Sam Parr 8:56 Did you guys like high, high five and hug over that?

Shaan Puri 8:58 Yeah. I was like, "Finally, this guy's my people." And he's like, "Oh yeah." He's like, "I used to live in Dubai. That's how they do it. It's too hot during the day. You just nap." And he's like, "Uh, it's, it's a no-brainer." But overall he was like, "You know, I have a f- clear schedule. I spend my time, I read, I think, I m- maybe I'll go teach or talk to somebody." He goes, "I teach not because I wanna be a teacher." He goes, "Because if I wanna learn something, the best way is to go try to teach it."

Sam Parr 9:20 Where does he teach? At, like a school or online?

Shaan Puri 9:22 Yeah, he'll go give a talk at a university or, like to some group of-

Sam Parr 9:24 Got it

Shaan Puri 9:24 ... you know, aspiring investors or whatever. Um, and so I was just fascinated by this guy. I was like, this is the relaxed billionaire. I love this guy's style. I love his MO. I go to his library, he's got just thousands of books. And he's like, "Yeah, this is my, like biology and science section. This is my investing book section. This is my business book section." And, uh, he's like, you know, just recommending different books to me. I just thought it was pretty fascinating to see this guy, 'cause it's high contrast to all the other people I've met on this trip who are like, "Go, go, go," you know? Hey, real quick, as you know, we're big on ideas here. We love bringing new ideas, business ideas, brainstorming ideas for the podcast. Well, a lot of people ask, "What do you do with all those ideas? Can we go find them? Is there a list somewhere?" The great people at HubSpot have put together a business idea database. It's totally free. If you just click the link in the description below, you can go download a collection of over 50 plus business ideas that are from the archive, listed out for you, curated. And so, uh, what are you waiting for? Go download it. It's free. Check it out. It's in the description below. All right, back to the show.

Sam Parr 10:21 W- so I've heard this so often where people say, for one, people will say, like Warren Buffett, they're like, "I just, I read like 500 pages a day."

Sam Parr 10:28 And then I'll talk to our friend Andrew Wilkinson and a few others, he goes, "I just wanna read all day." And in my head I'm like, okay, reading, does that like... Like I, I just read this like awesome like science fiction book about like aliens. Like, is that counting? Like what, what do they read, I wonder, all day? Like, is it only work-related? Is it like the equivalent of you and I skimming Twitter? Is it-

Shaan Puri 10:50 I, no, it's both. No, no, I think it's less Twitter. Uh, but I do think it's, you know, some percentage of that is company's annual reports, uh, right? Like going in and diving in and looking at a company or looking at an industry trying to understand it. Some of it is understanding the macro, the psychology of humans, and about business and about whatever. And he's got business books, psychology books, all that. Some of it's about science and he's reading about that. And some of it's just for fun, just to kind of like expand the brain. Like science fiction is actually quite, quite interesting a- as an example because a lot of the things that are happening today were predicted by science fiction, you know, 20, 30 years ago. Everything from cryptocurrency to, you know, video calls to things like that, that at the time seemed far-fetched. You know, predicting video calls when you don't even have a cell phone, right? It's like, uh, it took, took some, took some thinking there. And so, so I, yeah, I do think it's a w- it's a wider breadth. It's not just reading, you know, 10-Qs.

Sam Parr 11:40 Yeah, that's what I was worrying. I'm like, is he just reading, is he just read- is he just reading those all day? 10-Ks, I think, by the way. We don't wanna look like a total fool.

Shaan Puri 11:47 Uh, I'll give you a couple of takeaways from Joe Lonsdale. So f- for those people who don't know, Joe created Palantir. He's the co-founder of Palantir, which is a $50 billion company, but his actual claim to fame when I was talking to him, he said something, he goes, "I've created more billion-dollar companies than anyone else in America."

Sam Parr 12:05 Bold

Shaan Puri 12:05 Let that sink in.

Sam Parr 12:07 Bold

Shaan Puri 12:08 And I was like, "Cool, cool, cool. I got a podcast. What's up?" [laughs]

Sam Parr 12:12 [laughs]

Shaan Puri 12:12 I've created more episodes than, than most podcasters. Uh, I thought that was a really amazing, amazing, you know, achievement. Uh, and it's true, he's done like at least five billion-dollar companies, and those are all, like, in the last, you know, like, short period of time.

Sam Parr 12:27 His background is, I think he went to Stanford, and he somehow got into Peter Thiel's orbit when Joe was just, like, 21 or 20 or still in college. He kind of, like, right-hand Peter and was almost like an in-

Shaan Puri 12:37 He's his protege

Sam Parr 12:37 ... yeah, was his protege, intern, whatever, at his hedge fund, I, I think.

Shaan Puri 12:42 By the way, the story's really hilarious 'cause he's like, uh, somebody asked him in an interview when I was doing my research. They, they were like, "What were you like as a kid?" And everybody, like, if I asked you, successful person gets asked what it was like growing up, what's the typical response?

Sam Parr 12:56 Selling stuff.

Shaan Puri 12:57 It's usually humble origins of some kind, right? Like, "I grew up middle class. Uh, you know, maybe I, I had a reading impediment, but that led me to, you know, really working on something." There's usually some rags to riches. Uh, [laughs] the guy asked Joe, and he goes, "Yeah, grew up, had great parents, great family. Um, I was... I j- stuff came pretty easy to me. I was, uh..." Basically, "I just was really good. I just aced all my tests. I was 99 percentile math, 99 percentile science. [laughs] I was a programmer." Um, he's like, "You know, there were smarter kids than me, but, like, you know, I, school was pretty easy. I focused on it. I did well. I got into Stanford. I did..." It's, like, that was his story, which I found to be hilariously candid, um, because there... Of course that exists, but most people don't wanna say that. They're so busy virtue signaling-

Sam Parr 13:39 Right

Shaan Puri 13:39 ... that they'll, like, they'll try to bend their awesome upbringing to be, to focus on some one bad thing, where he's like, "No, my parents love me, and they really put me in a position to succeed, and I was super competitive, and I fucking won." [laughs] That was his story.

Sam Parr 13:52 And then he, you know, he got in Peter Thiel's orbit, and he did, uh, uh, he was probably was wildly successful just as an employee at PayPal. But then he spun off, and they created Palantir together. And then off the backs of that or off the success of that, he cr- created, like, eight or six other companies, right, that he, like, quote, "co-founded," which I don't understand what co-founded means, uh, with- in his case because he's done it so often that I don't even understand the logistics of how, like, he has time to do that.

Shaan Puri 14:18 Yeah, he, like, seeds them basically. So he's like, "Okay, I have, uh, you know, either the idea. I'll bring the team together. I'll have the initial strategy. I'll recruit the initial talent. I'll recruit the initial capital." And then, you know, over time he either is CEO or not CEO of the, these different companies. So he's done Adapar, he did Palantir, he's done Epirus. He's done, like, a whole bunch of different things in different spaces. One is financial, you know, s- software for wealth managers. Another one, one is, like, software for spies for the government. Another one is, you know, um, it's like Anduril. They're making, like, a weapon, uh, for the government. You know, like, they, they do different things, uh, in totally different spaces, like trucking and logistics. They've done all kinds of shit.

Sam Parr 14:56 Let me show the, the, the viewer. If you're on, uh, iTunes or whatever, go to YouTube to see this. I get this text message from Ben. Um, all right. So Joe has, I don't know what his home is like, but the room that he's in is elaborate. It... When you think of, like, old money and, like, the boys club of men smoking cigars and, like, you're just surrounded by encyclopedias. There's a picture of Joe, and he's sitting there. He's got a, a suit with a high collar. He looks like a hedge fund guy.

Shaan Puri 15:24 He looks like the president. And we had an awesome, awesome interview. He's, he was like, "That was the best podcast I think I've, I've ever done." Um-

Sam Parr 15:29 He said that?

Shaan Puri 15:30 He said that, and his, his right-hand man, who's, like, his media guy, said that. I don't know if they're just being nice, but I'll take it either way.

Sam Parr 15:36 What did he... What was, like, the one revelation you

Sam Parr 15:39 got from him?

Shaan Puri 15:40 I'll, I'll give you five points. I'm just gonna read them fast. Number one, um, some people actually just wanna save the world. So I am very, very suspicious when people talk about, you know, they wanna just really help people, they wanna improve society, they wanna fix America, all those things. Joe is that guy. Uh, he actually is that guy. That is actually what drives him. Um, I went back and read his, like, early blog posts and Quora posts, stuff, you know, 10 years ago, uh, 15 years ago, stuff he wrote when he was in school. Um, he's been saying the same thing the whole time, and that's usually the, the giveaway is not somebody who's, um, you know, changing their tune once they make it, but somebody who's saying that before they make it. And, um, and I think he looks through everything through that lens of, like, "What are the biggest gaps, and then how do I fill them?" When we were on our way out, it was like, "Oh, dude, we've been hanging out all day." Like, we hung out, we went there in the morning, which was my, my hack. We went and did his, um, workout, or did a workout with him at 8:00 AM. And then we-

Sam Parr 16:39 Was he fit?

Shaan Puri 16:40 Yeah, of course. Uh, he's super fit. And so we, we worked out together. We cold plunged together. We got breakfast together. We hung out. Then we did the interview. So by the time we do the interview, we were totally, like, you know, in, in high rapport, I guess. And so I'm hanging out, and I'm like, "Dude, I could hang here all day." Uh, but I could tell, like, I think it's my time to leave now after this thing is done. He's gotta go do other shit today. And, um, we're walking out, and fricking Elon Musk is walking in. [laughs] That's, that's what was going on [laughs] in that moment, so pretty insane.

Sam Parr 17:06 And all right, what were the other points?

Shaan Puri 17:07 Number two, um, he's still wrestling with the idea of focus. So one of the things he said I thought was really interesting. He's cr- like I said, he's created more billion-dollar companies than anyone else, uh, uh, in America, let's say. I, I, I take his claim at, at face value. Um, and he brought up honestly, he was like, "You know, but I'm not sure if that was right." He goes, "One of the lessons I learned from Peter Thiel is that you should r- be really, really careful putting effort into new things. Almost always it's a better idea to put money into your main compounding thing that's got a lot more room to run. Like, there's more area under the curve to kind of like fill, um, of, of something that's really working than to go take that same unit of effort onto something that's, uh, uh, s- starting from zero." And he's like, "Honestly, I probably, if I had just done one of those companies, I probably would've built a bigger thing than all five combined or all six combined or whatever it is," which I thought is a pretty interesting thought.

Sam Parr 18:00 And that makes me feel good to know that people I admire or look up to or who are ahead of me, uh, ha- struggle with the same stuff that everyone else struggles with.

Shaan Puri 18:07 I think he was at peace with it 'cause he was like, "But at the same time, that would be if I was optimizing just for money and valuation, but that's not what I'm optimizing for. Like, I thought these companies needed to exist, so I built them. I'm glad I did. It's more fun to do multiple things, and those were problems that needed to be solved, so, like, I'm glad I did it." But just do the math here for a second. So it's f- Palantir now a $50 billion company market cap-wise. Even if you take Adapar, which I think a $3 billion company, or OpenGov, which he just sold for 1.8 billion, it's like- Those are, let's say, those two together, each one took, you know, seven, eight years, 10 years to, to kind of build, um, let's say. Um, on average company, let's just say it takes seven years to do. And he, even if he totally wins and he gets to a $3 billion, uh, outcome or $2 billion outcome, if he had just put that same energy into Palantir, like taking Palantir from 50 billion to 53 billion is a hell of a lot easier, and he probably would've taken it to 70 or 80 billion if he had put all of his same entrepreneurial energy into that versus starting these new things. So I think he's actually kind of right on the math, but I think he's also right in how he decided to do it. He had an interesting rule, which he's like, "I only do six things," and that was like his definition of focus. He's like, "I can only do six things." Uh, he's like, and he's like, "They're not all equal. I have like my main one or two things, like 8VC and, and starting, you know, one company." But he's like, "I, um, I can only do six things." He's like, I think for his, his like team, his like general managers or his partners in his company, um, like the high level exec people, like they are all... There's like some number where like they're only allowed to have three or they're only allowed to have six things on their plate at any, any given time. And, um, I think three was the number for them and six was the number for him 'cause he's not, he's not operational as the CEO. By the way, his rule was if you're the CEO, you have one thing and it's your company. That's it.

Sam Parr 19:46 [sighs] This is awesome. I'm so... D- you know he's only 41?

Sam Parr 19:50 This guy's a m-

Shaan Puri 19:50 He's a machine

Sam Parr 19:51 ... like so prolific. He's a machine. I'm so excited to listen to that.

Shaan Puri 19:54 Also, by the way, just next level awesome in terms of lifestyle, like baller house, full staff, chef, all the good, all the good shit, all the shit you would want. Uh, like for me, as somebody who's like, you know, you do play the money game, it's interesting to see like what does the final level of the money game look like for these people. Like, oh, that's interesting. It's cool to, it's cool to get to sample it.

Sam Parr 20:14 What do you think was worth it of what he spent on?

Shaan Puri 20:17 He's got a basketball court in his house. Thought that was pretty awesome. He's got a, a, a, he likes to... He's like, "Oh, I like gaming, so I got a game, like a gaming room, like a LAN room," where he's got like six computers [laughs] and he's like, "Yo, me and my cousins all come here and play or whatever." Um, I, I think like I've always been a big proponent of like a chef. Like I think, uh, it's the, to me it's the number one wealth luxury is to have a private chef because of the amount of time it saves, the health benefits for you and your family, and the taste, like all three, it's a win, win, win. And so, yeah, I thought that was pretty cool too.

Sam Parr 20:53 And then you got to hang out with Nick Gray. Nick Gray is one of my favorite people on earth, and you got to see his magic, uh, what he does with his parties. That was... It's pretty cool, right?

Shaan Puri 21:02 Yeah. So when we... The, the end here is, uh, you know, we do all the interviews, we do all the one-on-one meetings, and at the end it's like, dude, there's like a list of 100 people that are interesting and awesome we w- we could, we'd wanna hang out with, but, you know, there's just no time. So we were like, "Let's just do a small house party." So we did like a small 15-person house party, and we asked Nick to organize. So I got to see Nick Gray, the legend, run one of his famous two-hour cocktail parties. Go buy his book, uh, Two Hour Cocktail Party. This guy is so... He is such a legend in just his vibe.

Sam Parr 21:30 It's awesome, right? He makes you feel good.

Shaan Puri 21:32 [laughs] I gotta tell you this hilarious story. So he does all the normal Nick Gray things. I walk in, he puts a name tag on my shirt. The name tag is yellow so that after we all do our kind of intro, he's like, we're just chatting and, you know, like normally you're just kind of chatting, you're mixing and mingling, and like everybody, our own social prowess is, is somewhat limited. You know, some people are really good at it, some people feel awkward. You don't know how to exit conversations. Nick makes that easy 'cause he'll be like, [claps] "Great." Harmoni- he plays the harmonica. He's like, "We're gonna do a structured activity. Look at the color of your name tag. Join that group, and I want you to talk to those people now." And so he like mix, he like ar- he like will stir the pot basically to mix you, mix you up. So he's doing his thing and then he's like, um, at the end [laughs] we reach, he's like... We're trying to leave and he's like, um, he's like, "Hey, uh, Shaan, can you call my phone? I wanna do a gag."

Sam Parr 22:19 [laughs]

Shaan Puri 22:20 And I'm like, "You want what? What do you wanna do?" He's like, "I have a gag. Call my phone."

Sam Parr 22:24 [laughs]

Shaan Puri 22:25 And I call his phone, and he reaches into his bag and he pulls out this giant like handle of a butcher knife, but it's a phone case and his phone is on the other end of it. [laughs] And he's, and he's like, "Hello?" This is my gag. I thought this was really funny.

Sam Parr 22:38 [laughs]

Shaan Puri 22:38 And I was like, not only was that funny, I've never heard someone say, "Hey, hold on, I wanna do a gag." [laughs] That is just so funny.

Sam Parr 22:45 Dude, he's great, right? Nick's a special person and he makes the, he al- he makes his parties fun. Did you guys like do the introductions and then he like cuts people off if they talk for more than 10 seconds?

Shaan Puri 22:54 Yeah, he's, he's awesome. We did a thing at the end where I guess he had been just like slinking around the party to like listen for interesting things. So he pulls out his note pa- notebook. He's like, gets everyone in a circle, and he's like, "All right. Shaan, you were saying you discovered this amazing hack for your, you know, business and it was just like, it was so effective. What was that?" And he gets you to share the thing. He's like, "You mentioned you were doing an art show. Can you tell us about the art show?" And he had four or five people just like do a thing. It's, uh, it's definitely like I feel like I'm in second grade and my teacher's like, it's, you know, "Put up your bunny ears," and like, you know, just, "Everybody quiet now. We're gonna do a structured activity." But honestly, it's such a relief because I hate social gatherings. I don't even leave my house most times. And when I do, it's kind of an exhausting thing. But he's, uh, he's really got this shit down to a science. I kinda love it.

Sam Parr 23:45 But your takeaway in Austin, it's, it's a pretty special place, isn't it?

Shaan Puri 23:48 Fishing for a compliment. Yeah, sure. It's a s- very special place. [laughs]

Sam Parr 23:51 It's, it's cool. It's like there's, there's, there, there's a lot of cool people there. And you, I didn't know you did this. You hung out with one other person, Hasan, uh, Hasan Minhaj. Dude, I do not like hanging out with him because he is so smart and so funny-

Shaan Puri 24:04 [laughs]

Sam Parr 24:04 ... that I get int- I get intimidated being around him.

Shaan Puri 24:06 [laughs]

Sam Parr 24:06 Do you not feel that way?

Shaan Puri 24:07 No, I had the opposite reaction. I walked away and I was like, "Dude, Ben, like that is one of my favorite people on earth to hang out with." Like, if you said, "Hey"... And it was perfect. It was like a breakfast before I caught my flight. Uh, I basically missed my flight 'cause I was having so much fun at the breakfast. I was like, "Fuck it, it's worth it." Um, like it was... He is so great and, uh, I'll give you the, the kind of three reasons why it, what stood out to me. Number one, obviously humor. Like it's unfair. He's a ringer. Like i- hanging out with anybody who's funny is great, but hanging out with a professional comedian, it's sort of like, you know, he brought a, brought a gun to a knife fight.

Sam Parr 24:36 It's intimidating when you hang out with him or when I hung out with him because I, like he just makes little small comments and I'm like, "You're just so much You're so much quicker and funnier than me that-

Shaan Puri 24:45 He's so much quicker, dude. He's so much quicker [laughs]

Sam Parr 24:47 He's so fast. He's so fast. It's like a JV athlete hanging out with a pro where it's like, "I don't even wanna play with you. This isn't, this isn't fun." That's how fast he is.

Shaan Puri 24:55 I loved seeing it. Uh, it was amazing. He's so quick. And then, uh, number two, present. Uh, he, he is so present when you hang out, which is great, like not looking at his phone, not thinking about what to do next, not, you know, eyeing the room. Fully locked in, fully present, which I thought was really great. And the other thing is, uh, he asked a ton of questions. So we had a different hangout with, uh, we did a breakfast thing with, um, a different billionaire-type of guy. Nice guy, had a great time, but I shit you not, dude, this guy literally asked one question in a two and a half hour hangout. And, um, it was, it was not difficult because, like, I had tons of questions for him, so it was no, no problem. But it was difficult to sit there and be like, "Is this person just really just doesn't give a fuck about being here?" Like, do they not wanna be here? 'Cause they could leave. I don't need to do this if they just don't wanna be here.

Sam Parr 25:42 Here's what I think it is. I think that... So when you and I host, like, MFM meetups, I go there and I'm like, "I'm just gonna get peppered with questions, and I'm gonna ask other people questions to be cordial and everything." But I, I feel like, you know, there's like a status, like, game here. They're here to see me, so I'm gonna be answering the questions. And then you go hang out with someone who's above you in status, and it's like I'm, I'm the one who's the, the mentee in this situation. I'm gonna be asking you all the questions. And I think when you're as successful as this person who you went and hung out with, you're just used to being the, the, [lip smacks] I don't know, not particularly wise one, but you're the one that's supposed to have a lot more answers, and y- you have what others are seeking, and so you're used to just being the one who's, "I'm gonna be an open book. I'm gonna answer. Uh, what do you got?" You know what I mean? And that, that, that shift, it's like an alpha shift.

Shaan Puri 26:25 [laughs]

Sam Parr 26:25 It is, it is kind of... It, it is, it is really uncomfortable, but it, it-

Shaan Puri 26:28 I think it's totally understandable.

Sam Parr 26:31 But I understand exactly what you're saying.

Shaan Puri 26:31 Um, but I also think, you know, I, I kind of wish, I almost wish I had said it, but, like, I kinda wish people are aware what that makes the other person feel like, 'cause a good re- reminder to self of like, never make other people feel that way. I think Hassan was the opposite, where he asked so many questions. His cup is not full, right? Like, he's, he's here and he's like, "Pour some water into me." Like, "Give me some- something to think about, something to learn, something to whatever," and he's asking tons of questions. And I think that's such a attractive trait in people, and it was just a good reminder of that. Like, uh, on this trip I was... You know, got to be in both positions. Some, some places where, you know, the, the status game was sort of shifted one way, and others where it was totally shifted the other way. It was a great reminder of what it feels like and how easy it is to just make somebody feel amazing. Like, um, I think Hassan does that, you know, really, really well. Um, I have a couple others.

Shaan Puri 27:17 Can I give you two others real quick?

Sam Parr 27:19 Yeah.

Shaan Puri 27:20 Do you know this guy, the PeachyBbies guy?

Sam Parr 27:23 No.

Shaan Puri 27:23 You haven't met this guy? Okay. So he's in Austin. I thought you might have met him. His name's Tyler. So there's this company called PeachyBbies, and they sell slime on the internet. Not just a little slime on the internet. They sell a lot of slime on the internet. Tens of millions of dollars worth of slime gets sold from these guys. They got like, if you go to their TikTok, they have 10 million followers on TikTok, and the reason why is because they create awesome content, the content drives sales. It's just this, like, great engine. So anyways, I was pretty fascinated. I'm talking to this guy and I'm like... He was at the house party. So I was like, uh, "What's the story?" And he told me a pretty fascinating story. He's like, "Well," um, I, uh... He's like, "I was..." He's like, "Before doing this, I was a poker player, pro poker player. I was looking to transition out." And he said, "Before I was a pro poker player, I was the best Yu-Gi-Oh player in the country." So he's, he goes from the top, like, Yu-Gi-Oh player to a t- one of, one of the top poker players.

Sam Parr 28:14 What's Yu-Gi-Oh? Is Yu-Gi-Oh like Pokemon?

Shaan Puri 28:16 Yeah, it's like a Pokemon-type thing.

Sam Parr 28:18 Got it.

Shaan Puri 28:18 And then, um, then he comes b- he meets this, this girl and she's telling him about this slime business she used to have but she shut down. And as he asked some questions, he was like, um, "Hmm. [lip smacks] That actually sounds kind of promising. What if we revived that?" Which I thought was just, like, a pretty impressive to take a business that somebody else shut down and be like, "I don't know. Seems like there might be legs there. Let's try it." And they tried it, and they ended up, you know, crushing with it. And, um, the m- only takeaway I have from this guy was he totally pattern matches to what I've been saying so many times on this podcast, which is that people who have a background as a competitive either gamer or in some competitive niche, spelling bee, Yu-Gi-Oh, poker, whatever. Um, those people who know, who learn how to win that game, learn how to win at League of Legends or, you know, they're the number one sneaker flipper in California or some shit like that, as soon as they just pick a better game, they're gonna win that too.

Sam Parr 29:10 Hmm.

Shaan Puri 29:11 And that really gets me to, like, something I really wanna do, and it's a call to action I have for anybody that's in the audience, is I really wanna organize some kind of event that pulls together the people that are young and doing those types of things. The mathletes, the, the best Pokemon players, the best League of Legends players, you know, whatever, best Fortnite players, 'cause it's just a matter of time till they get the spark to shift their game. And I wanna do two things. I wanna invite other people who have that background. For example, Joe Lonsdale, he was a competitive mathlete, and that's what he was doing, right? Super dork, uh, at that age, but, like, those types of people are always gonna make it. The, you know, the f- uh, founder of this company called Traba, he's the spelling bee kid, right? We talked about that, uh, on the Pomp episode. [lip smacks] As soon as they decide to play a better game, they have a great ability to do, you know, like, e- excellent things. I'm sure some percentage of them never shift games. They, they kinda stick in that world too long or they just become a coach in that world. They never really start to apply it to the world of business. But if they did, they would do phenomenal. So I wanna organize some event.

Sam Parr 30:09 Oh. What's that channel or the show you like? P- uh, something 100.

Shaan Puri 30:12 Physical 100.

Sam Parr 30:13 Uh, Physical 100.

Shaan Puri 30:13 Yeah, exactly.

Sam Parr 30:14 You gotta, you g- what, what the, the unphysical 100? [both laugh]

Shaan Puri 30:19 The Laptop 100. [laughs]

Sam Parr 30:21 Yeah. [laughs] And so what are you gonna do? You're gonna, like, host, like, a, like-

Shaan Puri 30:25 So I need a name and a frame, right? Like, uh, I need a name and a frame for the thing, and then I want somebody to organize it. I'll put up 100 grand to, like, pay for all the event stuff, and I, um, I just really wanna... For those people, I wanna give them exposure to, "Hey, here's 20 people who have the same background as you that then shifted their game and now do amazing things in the world." So I wanna, I wanna have them meet- And then I wanna scout that talent and be like, "Hey, whenever you're ready to go do something new, I'll be your first investor." And so that's what I wanna create.

Sam Parr 30:54 You can get like a, like a cargo short company as a sponsor or like a wrist guard, uh, company as a sponsor.

Shaan Puri 30:59 Purple tunnel shields.

Sam Parr 31:00 This'll be... Yeah. Yeah. [laughs] That's awesome.

Shaan Puri 31:03 You make fun of these, these nerds. Watch, Sam. Watch. You'll be groveling to them years from now.

Sam Parr 31:08 I, uh, I, hey, I acknowledge that they're all gonna be the, the, the, the big shots, but I'm still gonna tease them. What was the last person?

Shaan Puri 31:15 All right, I'll give you a quick one, and then I have a, a little bit longer

Shaan Puri 31:17 one. So quick one is a little lesson. So I was talking to a guy who also is doing, you know, tens of millions, um, this year on, on TikTok shops. And, um, so they're crushing it on TikTok. Not a, not a game I play, but it's a, it's a very lucrative game for those who, who cracked it. And I said something in passing. I was like, "Oh, yeah, I saw this TikTok that had this hook." The hook being like, you know, the first three seconds of the video. I was like, "Oh, I thought that was a great hook." And like, I had been talking to this guy for three hours. I had tho- I had thought I had said 50 interesting things by then. He didn't make a, he didn't flinch at any of the 49, but on this 50th one, he immediately goes, "Wait, wait, what was that again?" And he takes out his notebook and he writes it down. And he's like, he, and he goes, um, he's like, "Did you tell your friend that they should do this? I, uh, you should definitely tell your friend that they should do this." And, um, and I was like, "No, I, I just, I don't know, I just thought it was just a silly TikTok." And he's like, "No, no, no, that's not a silly TikTok." He goes, "One hook like that can make your whole company." And I... It was a great lesson that I actually, I saw five times during the trip, which was when you fi- when you meet a really interesting or successful person, pay attention to what they pay attention to. So like he leaned into that and, you know, maybe Mohnish would not have leaned into that, but he would've leaned into something else that I said. And if you start to pay attention to what people lean into, it teaches you a lot about what matters in their game and in their world and how their brain works. And maybe something to you just looks like, you know, rubbish, but to them it's gold. And, um, so it just was a good reminder of pay attention to what other people pay attention to. Like, if somebody was talking to you, what would they see you whip out your phone to write down or notes that you would wanna take?

Sam Parr 33:00 That's a good question. Um, well, something related to my current business, but, uh, yeah, like, like, like, you know, if someone says something about retention or something, or how, how to create a breakthrough amongst a group of people who don't know each other.

Shaan Puri 33:12 Right. Right. Or before for you it might've been something in writing. Oh, I love the way he phrased that. It's like, oh-

Sam Parr 33:17 Yeah, or like a, a really good ad for, uh, acquiring newsletter subscribers.

Shaan Puri 33:21 Right. Like you had a note or a doc that was like you... a swipe file of awesome ways that people phrase things, r- beautiful writing, little phrases. Most people don't pay attention to those things. They don't collect those. Well, it makes sense that you ended up being a guy who's known for writing and wrote a newsletter that millions of people read, right? It's, it kind of like makes sense once you add, add, once you connect the two. And so I just thought that was really, really indicative. Uh,

Shaan Puri 33:47 last one. I got to watch Ben cook. So Ben Levy, my business partner, who, um, is the, the secret to my, to anything that I'm able to do, Ben's superpower is connecting with people. And I wanted to share with you one little thing that he, he does. So every time we would go to a meeting, 'cause like B- imagine our schedule is basically like we, we meet with somebody for, let's say two hours, there's like a 10-minute Uber ride before we're gonna meet somebody else. And we were just doing that nonstop for four days. And, uh, you know, I, I got to feel like the president 'cause I'd be like, "Who are we meeting now? I don't even know the schedule." And he'd be like, "We're meeting this guy." And he's like, and then he would always have his one thing. And I'm like, "Uh..." 'Cause I'd be like, "Oh, what are we gonna talk about? Oh, maybe we tell him about what we're doing, about this." But Ben's focus was always what's the one thing we could connect with them on? And so, um, he was just really good at this. Anytime we'd go meet with somebody, Ben would have his like one thing that he would bring up and the person would immediately crack open like, you know, a pistachio shell. And it'd be like all of a sudden they're excited, they're talking, and like would open it up, and Ben probably wouldn't even say anything else for the rest of the meeting. It's like Ben talks less than 10% of the time when we go to these things. But it's the one thing he says which like cracks the person open.

Sam Parr 34:55 So what's an example of one thing?

Shaan Puri 34:57 So, um, we will meet with somebody who's known for X. Let's say they're a YouTuber with 10 million subscribers. But what Ben knows is that they started this side channel that's just starting and it's getting, it's not that popular yet, but it's about one thing. Uh, you know, like th- their, their hobby, their interest in this one area. And he'll be like, "Oh, you're really into that, right?" And he wouldn't even phrase it as some like profound question. Uh, but he'll just ask them, he'll just try to connect with them about the one thing where clearly their passion is, they have some passion around it, but it's not the thing they're famous for. I noticed he would do that over and over again. Oh, you know, we, we, um, we hung out with, uh, Joe Gebbia, and he's known because he's the cr- creator of Airbnb, and so we're hanging out, and instead of asking about Airbnb, he would say, um, "You're really into like microplastics, right? Like, aren't you like really trying to figure out a way to not have, you know, micro- what's that about?" And then all of a sudden, Joe, who's told the Airbnb story a million times, and every time I was asking about Airbnb, it was like I'm forcing him to play his greatest hits. All of a sudden he lights up 'cause he's like really into this right now. He's learning things. It's like more of a, more of an area he's really into right now. So he would just find that one thing, and then afterwards he had his one thing too, which was after the meeting, I'm like, "Okay, where are we gonna go eat?" Like, that's where my brain goes. Whereas Ben's like, "Oh, we should connect him with this one person," or, "We should send him a link to this," or, "We should send him that example we have of the thing he said he wanted to do." Um, or like, "Oh, you have, you've talked about that. You should send him a note about that thing." And it really, I was like, "What are you doing?" And he's like, "Oh, I'm just trying to be useful." And then when we talked to Mohnish, he talked about, you know, he was really good friends with Charlie Munger. He said when Charlie Munger died, on, I think on his tombstone it is written or he wanted to have it written like, you know, Charlie Munger, you know, he tried to be useful. And to me, I'm like, that's what Ben does. He just tries to be useful for people. Like, oh, we can help them with this per- we can help this person with this one little thing. He just keeps doing that, and then that's how he builds these amazing connections with people, just by trying to be useful to them in a way that I am so bad at it.

Sam Parr 36:56 Ben has this other quality to him, which is he's always, like, mostly happy. Uh, I've never seen Ben not... Like, I've never s- really seen him in a bad mood. You know, he's alwa- He- And so when he asks these things, it's, uh, he'll- Sometimes he'll ask me that are, like, pretty private, but because he's always so happy about it-

Shaan Puri 37:11 [laughs]

Sam Parr 37:11 ... I'm like, "Oh, uh, well, yeah, whatever. Like, we can talk."

Shaan Puri 37:13 [laughs]

Sam Parr 37:14 You know, this is a safe space.

Shaan Puri 37:15 Yeah, he's, he is a safe space. Um, the last thing that's hilarious that he does is he never turns it off. Like, we will be playing in a pickup basketball game, and it's like, we're going to 11, it's 10-9, it's game point, and he'll be guarding some guy, and he'll be like, [laughs] he'll just be like, "So what was revenue last month?" Or he'll just, like, be asking you questions like, "Oh, I heard you, uh, I saw you tweeted about this thing." And the guy's, like, so thrown off. Like, "Dude, what? Now? Still?" And, like, it's just, like, so endearing. He's like, dude, he, he's just so curious, he just can't turn it off. He's always... He never turns it off, even mid-game, which is so funny to me.

Sam Parr 37:49 I was with Ben at a family's birthday party, and he, and he, and he was, uh, it was in on mode. And I was like, "Ben, let's ask this fricking 12-year-old..." We were with, we were with a friend who was dating a new woman, and she brought her daughter around. And I go, "Ben, ask the daughter, like, about school or something." I was like, "I don't know, like, engage the kid. Don't... I'm not talking about my revenue in front of this new lady." [laughs]

Shaan Puri 38:10 [laughs] It was so funny.

Sam Parr 38:14 And he was like, he was like, "So what's churn like?"

Shaan Puri 38:15 Yeah.

Sam Parr 38:16 Uh, "How much money do, how much money do you have?"

Shaan Puri 38:17 [laughs]

Sam Parr 38:17 I'm like, "Ben."

Shaan Puri 38:19 Well, it's not always personal. Like, sometimes it's just like, um, "How was Austin?" Right? But it's like, dude, n- now is not the time for the how was Austin conversation. It's like, it's not even that it's always personal questions, it's just that the curiosity, there is no... You go, he was in on mode. There's no off mode. I've never seen him in off mode. [laughs] I hang out with the guy 24/7. It's amazing.

Sam Parr 38:38 All right. You had a good trip. I mean, I'm, uh, I could actually listen to these stories all day, and I'm gonna listen to the podcast. I never listen to our podcast. I don't know if you do or you-

Shaan Puri 38:45 [laughs]

Sam Parr 38:46 ... or, or what you do. Uh-

Shaan Puri 38:47 When I'm, when I'm not on it, I'll, I'll listen to it. Yeah, I do listen to them.

Sam Parr 38:50 I'll, I listen to yours as well, but if I'm on it, I will never listen to it. I'm incredibly excited about Joe Lonsdale. I know you talked to Tim Ferriss. Uh, I know Tim a little bit, so I'm less excited about that just 'cause I know him already. But I'm excited about, uh, Mohnish.

Shaan Puri 39:01 Yeah.

Sam Parr 39:02 Uh, I'm excited about his a- and, and Joe Lonsdale. So con- I'm happy that you got to hang out with them. It seemed pretty good for y- for you personally to be able to experience that.

Shaan Puri 39:10 Yeah, the funny thing is, uh, it's like most things in life, you think the payoff is over here, but actually it's over here. Like, I think every time I go into these episodes, I think the payoff is, oh, I'm gonna make a great episode. But it's like, by the time I've done the research on these fascinating people, gotten to know them, gotten to hang out with them at their house, like, that was all the value. The episode itself is gravy for me. Uh, and I hope they turn out great and, you know, I, I think that, that these ones did. But the reality is, like, is, is... And I think it's a principle of most things in life. Like, you, you have some goal, you have some idea you think is the reason you should do it, but it's like, you know, something along the journey is actually the valuable thing. You just couldn't have known that. You just have to go to, go pursue it at full force, and then, then it happens. So hopefully this episode was me sharing some of the random nuggets along the way, um, besides the episodes that, that you'll get to see when they come out.

Sam Parr 39:58 All right. That's the pod. [upbeat music]