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WHAT IT’S REALLY ABOUT
How paid speaking works: fees, bureaus, and a niche acquisition story
- Sam Parr and Shaan Puri explore the economics of paid public speaking, anchoring the discussion with rumored seven-figure per-speech rates for Barack Obama and Oprah.
- They compare real-world fee examples and structures—from paying Casey Neistat $25,000 plus a private flight to hearing that Gary Vaynerchuk asks for $100,000 or equivalent book purchases.
- Shaan Puri argues some people use books and bestseller positioning primarily to raise speaking fees, while also describing an earnest motivation: getting paid to be “professionally curious.”
- They discuss speaker bureaus as a scalable middleman business, citing Washington Speakers Bureau’s reported revenue growth to $150 million in 2017 and proposing a similar model for creators and podcasters.
- The episode ends with an update on EggCartons.com via Sarah Moore’s emailed Q&A, detailing her unconventional search process, debt-heavy acquisition structure, and the company’s broader “specialty packaging” identity beyond eggs.
IDEAS WORTH REMEMBERING
5 ideasTop-tier public speaking can command seven-figure fees.
They cite rumored rates around $1M+ per speech for Barack Obama and around $1M for Oprah, framing it as the top end of the speaking market for globally recognized figures.
Speaking fees vary widely, and “pricing” can include non-cash terms or bundled requirements.
Sam Parr shares what he paid or heard quoted in different contexts: $25,000 plus a ~$6,000 one-way private flight for Casey Neistat at HustleCon, an asking price of $100,000 from Gary Vaynerchuk (or a requirement to buy $100,000 worth of books), and an implied ~$150,000 fee for Ashton Kutcher at an event he attended.
Some people treat books as marketing assets to unlock higher-paid speaking gigs.
Shaan Puri recounts meeting someone who said writing a book is often a way to raise speaking fees, including paying to climb bestseller charts to gain labels that increase perceived credibility and rates.
Public speaking sits on a spectrum between genuine expertise-sharing and performative “guru” incentives.
Shaan frames a generous interpretation of the circuit as people trying to get paid to be “professionally curious,” while also acknowledging a skeptical view where it becomes “motivational speaker” guru behavior.
Speaker-bureau middlemen can be large businesses by aggregating supply and demand.
They describe speaker bureaus as middleman agencies that aggregate demand for a roster of speakers, with Sam citing Washington Speakers Bureau revenue growth from $15M (around acquisition era) to $150M in 2017.
WORDS WORTH SAVING
5 quotesObama is not gonna get out of bed for less than a million.
— Sam Parr
Just don't say anything, dude. Don't talk to anyone. That's like the only motto is do a podcast with your friend and speak to nobody else. That's the only way to win.
— Shaan Puri
Life, the meaning of life is to just avoid those exact moments that we're talking about.
— Shaan Puri
I had over 50 unpaid interns come from Craigslist, and I had them sift through over 400,000 private companies for a year and a half before I found EggCartons.com.
— Shaan Puri
At one point, I took a photo of myself wearing a sweatshirt that said, 'I wanna buy your business,' with a massive grin, and I faxed it out to thousands of businesses a day.
— Shaan Puri
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SPEAKERS
Sam Parr
hostCo-host of My First Million and entrepreneur known for founding The Hustle and HustleCon.
Shaan Puri
hostCo-host of My First Million and entrepreneur/investor (went to Duke, formerly with Twitch).
High quality AI-generated summary created from speaker-labeled transcript.
