Joe Rogan Offers Vaccine Expert $100,000 To Debate on His Show (#467)

Sam Parr 0:00 You wanna know what I am pro? A freak show.

Shaan Puri 0:02 [laughs]

Sam Parr 0:03 I love a good freak show. Like, when people start fighting in the middle of the street or there's a car wreck, you know, I'm stopping. I'm gonna ask them to, to pull that wreck a little closer so I can see.

Shaan Puri 0:13 [laughs]

Sam Parr 0:13 Like, "Hey, police, can you, uh, fill me in on the backstory? What's going on?" Like, I love this.

Shaan Puri 0:17 What's going on, fellas? What, what do we got here? [laughs]

Sam Parr 0:27 [upbeat music] We're live. What's going on? How are you? What do you think, uh... I guess w- is this the first time we've talked since Deer Dick?

Shaan Puri 0:34 Since, uh, since you moved into a, a small woman's bedroom or something. What are you... What is this? Where are you? [laughs]

Sam Parr 0:41 I'm visiting family for a month in Brooklyn, and I've had to rent a place. It's impossible finding monthly re- like, like a, like a three-month rental, very hard to find, so we used Airbnb, and this is the best I can do.

Shaan Puri 0:55 All right.

Sam Parr 0:56 How's it look? Does it look like Victorian or something?

Shaan Puri 0:57 Yeah, it looks like, um... I feel like my sister had this little princess bed growing up, so it reminds me of that. Um, [laughs] what, uh, what you got today? You got a, a... I could see you're eager for something. What do you, what do you have?

Sam Parr 1:09 I'm eager for something, and let me preface this by saying I'm not a political guy.

Shaan Puri 1:15 [laughs]

Sam Parr 1:15 I'm not really conservative. I'm not really liberal. I'm not pro-vaccine. I'm not anti-vaccine.

Shaan Puri 1:22 Like, I'm not, I'm not liberal. I'm not conservative. I'm best described as aggressive. [laughs]

Sam Parr 1:26 [laughs] I'm really... I, I like, not only do I... I, I just don't care-

Shaan Puri 1:31 [laughs] Right

Sam Parr 1:32 ... is the thing. But you wanna know what I am pro? A freak show.

Shaan Puri 1:36 [laughs]

Sam Parr 1:36 I love a good freak show. Like, when people start fighting in the middle of the street or there's a car wreck, you know, I'm stopping. I'm gonna ask them to, to pull that wreck a little closer so I can see.

Shaan Puri 1:46 [laughs]

Sam Parr 1:47 Like, "Hey, police, can you, uh, fill me in on the backstory? What's going on?" Like, I love this.

Shaan Puri 1:50 What's going on, fellas? What, what do we got here? [laughs]

Sam Parr 1:54 When I [laughs] yeah. When I flew here, I, I flew here, I, you know, and I download TV on my YouTube app. It was three episodes of Cops.

Shaan Puri 2:02 [laughs]

Sam Parr 2:03 That's the type of guy I am. [laughs]

Shaan Puri 2:05 So what's caught your eye? What's the freak show that's caught your eye?

Sam Parr 2:08 So basically, this Joe Rogan-Kennedy thing. So here's the background. Robert F. Kennedy, uh, you know, he's, he's, he's Kennedy Jr. I don't, I don't know what his acronym is. He needs a good, like-

Shaan Puri 2:19 R- RFK Jr

Sam Parr 2:20 ... RFKJ? Is that it?

Shaan Puri 2:22 [laughs]

Sam Parr 2:22 Um, so basically this guy, he... I actually saw him talk a couple times 'cause I, like, went through an obsession with the Kennedy family. But he's Robert Kennedy's, who's JFK's brother, so he's JFK's nephew. He's running for president now, and he's been doing the pod circuit. He went on All-In, and then he recently went on Joe Rogan. And I don't even know all the things that he said 'cause I don't really care that much.

Shaan Puri 2:47 [laughs]

Sam Parr 2:47 But he said a lot of things that could be clate- catego- categorized as anti-vaccine. So but i- and here's what happened. This is the, the cool part. There's this famous professor and, uh, kinda famous vaccine guy who's been tweeting all of his opinions on everything. He twe- tweeted out that, he says, "Spotify has stopped even sort of trying to stem Joe Rogan's vaccine misinformation. It's really awful. And from all the online attacks I'm rec- I'm receiving after this podcast, it's just absurd, and it's clear many people believe this nonsense." Now, here's where it gets interesting. Joe Rogan is the type of guy who doesn't normally respond to this type of stuff. He kinda... He, he seems like he's got thick skin. He doesn't really get bothered by this. But the same, uh, on the same day, he replied, and he goes, "Peter, if you claim what RFJ Jr. said is misinformation, I'm offering you $100,000 to the charity of your choice if you're willing to come onto the pod and debate him on my show with no time limit." From there, it, it snowballed.

Shaan Puri 3:50 [laughs]

Sam Parr 3:50 So now it's up to $2.6 million of other people. So Bill Ackman put up 150K. Dave Rubin, Rubin 100K. Patrick Bat- uh, Patrick Bet-David, 100K. I think even, like, uh, Andrew Tate is now offering 500K.

Shaan Puri 4:05 Uh, don't, don't forget-

Sam Parr 4:06 So now there's 2 point-

Shaan Puri 4:06 ... Jason Calacanis coming in with a hard 10K. Tried to slip that in and say, "I, I'm with you. Put me down for, put me down for a buck." [laughs]

Sam Parr 4:17 Yeah. Well, here's the thing. I was, like, thinking about this. I'm like, "Should I hop in on this-

Shaan Puri 4:21 [laughs]

Sam Parr 4:21 ... and just, like, say some number?" [laughs] Like, "This is..."

Shaan Puri 4:23 Who's gonna collect?

Sam Parr 4:24 Can I get-

Shaan Puri 4:24 Who's collecting from these people?

Sam Parr 4:25 Yeah.

Shaan Puri 4:25 No one's collecting. [laughs]

Sam Parr 4:27 Yeah. C- how can I insert this in... How can I insert myself into this situation? But now it's $2.6 million to get this guy on the show, and I'm sh- I'm, I think he's said so far that he's not going to do it.

Shaan Puri 4:40 Right.

Sam Parr 4:40 And I just thought, "This is awesome." I love a good freak show. I love, like... I think that, uh, th- we actually have a presidential candidate coming on our pod soon. Um, I don't know if you know this yet-

Shaan Puri 4:51 No

Sam Parr 4:51 ... but I've, I've set it up.

Shaan Puri 4:52 Who? Actually, don't tell me. I'd love to be surprised. [laughs]

Sam Parr 4:55 Yeah.

Shaan Puri 4:55 I love a good surprise. [laughs]

Sam Parr 4:56 He, he's a guy. He, he, he, uh, he started a pharmaceutical company. Uh, his name's Vivek.

Shaan Puri 5:02 Oh, okay.

Sam Parr 5:02 And, uh, he, like, D- he DM'd me, like, 6 or 12 months ago saying he's gonna run for president, and I, like, laughed at it. I didn't laugh at it. I just didn't even respond, which is worse.

Shaan Puri 5:12 You know what I'd love to do? Because, uh, I think that guy's kind of interesting, but I think what would be more interesting is if we have... 'Cause he's kind of, let's say, a, uh, an, you know, an upstart candidate or whatever. Like, he's like, you know, not the favorite. He's not the leading guy. Um, I would... It would be great if we had two of the upstart candidates come on at the same time and so we could debate them. Because it, it's actually kind of boring when you have one candidate come on, and, uh, they just kinda monologue their piece for, for, for a very long time. Like, I've seen a bunch of these guys go on podcasts and, frankly, it's kind of boring when that happens. I would love to have, like, the most pipsqueak debate of all time. [laughs] It's like-

Sam Parr 5:52 [laughs] Yeah

Shaan Puri 5:53 ... us moderating who don't know anything about politics-

Sam Parr 5:55 You don't know nothing. Yeah

Shaan Puri 5:56 ... with two candidates that only, like, half, have half a percent in the polls.

Sam Parr 6:00 [laughs]

Shaan Puri 6:00 And we're just like, "It's, this is the showdown. Hundreds of dollars-"

Sam Parr 6:04 Yeah

Shaan Puri 6:04 "... donated to charity." [laughs]

Sam Parr 6:05 [laughs] What's the question gonna be? Like, "What's your opinion on car crashes?" Like, "We don't know anything." Like, [laughs] "Do you like websites?"

Shaan Puri 6:14 Ending of Breaking Bad.

Sam Parr 6:15 [laughs]

Shaan Puri 6:15 Good or a little underwhelming? [laughs]

Sam Parr 6:18 [laughs] Yeah. Like, what... Yeah. Maybe we could do alcohol.

Shaan Puri 6:22 Call your wife right now. Call your wife right now. I wanna talk to her.

Sam Parr 6:25 [laughs]

Shaan Puri 6:25 I wanna see what she's got to say about you. [laughs]

Sam Parr 6:28 Dude, like we don't know anything. But last time, what was the Asian guy who ran last year who, like, said he loved math?

Shaan Puri 6:33 Andrew Yang. [laughs]

Sam Parr 6:34 [laughs] Yeah, dude. Andrew-

Shaan Puri 6:36 I think he just... [laughs] Did he run and say, "I love math"? I mean, that's just like-

Sam Parr 6:41 I think that was like his slogan

Shaan Puri 6:42 ... he clickbaited himself

Sam Parr 6:42 ... was like m- "Make math great again." I thought that's what it was. But he, he messaged me also-

Shaan Puri 6:48 He's cool, actually

Sam Parr 6:48 ... like a year bef- well, he messaged me before, like, one of our events, Hustle Con. He's like, "Hey, I'm gonna run for president. Can I come talk?" And I was like-

Shaan Puri 6:55 He wanted you to be VP.

Sam Parr 6:56 [laughs] I was like-

Shaan Puri 6:57 [laughs]

Sam Parr 6:58 ... "Dude, you're gonna make me look stupid by some crazy guy saying he's gonna run for president. You're like that guy on the street who like holds up a sign, you know, that says like, 'Aliens are coming.' I can't associate with that." And then turns out he kinda made a good run. And so this time I was like, "I have to take this at least a little seriously," and so that's why we have to have Vivek on. But yeah, what are we gonna have two guys being like, uh-

Shaan Puri 7:17 Arm wrestlers

Sam Parr 7:17 ... .coms or .govs. [laughs]

Shaan Puri 7:19 [laughs]

Sam Parr 7:19 Yeah. [laughs]

Shaan Puri 7:21 We could ask about their workout routines. Just we're gonna compare you on things that we value a- in other men. So, [laughs] you know, like here's a situation, person breaks into your house, [laughs] and we just see how they react.

Sam Parr 7:32 And

Sam Parr 7:33 the reason I'm bringing this up is I'm not one of these guys that says like, oh, like I think Jason Calacanis said this, he's like, "Podcasts are gonna shape the next presidential election."

Shaan Puri 7:43 Uh, not even shape

Sam Parr 7:43 I'm, uh-

Shaan Puri 7:43 He said, "The next president will be d- will, will be decided off of podcasts," or something ridiculous like that. Let me, let me, let me look up the exact-

Sam Parr 7:50 Yeah, so I'm not like an abs-

Shaan Puri 7:51 By the way, do we have a little beef with Jason Calacanis? He's kinda sliding into our mentions here. He-

Sam Parr 7:57 What's he doing?

Shaan Puri 7:57 He's coming in a little hot, I gotta say. I like Jason Calacanis, but, uh, if, if he'd like some internet beef, I would happily be the recipient of some internet beef.

Sam Parr 8:06 Yeah. [laughs]

Shaan Puri 8:07 [laughs]

Sam Parr 8:08 Yeah, you're the Chef Boyardee of internet beef.

Shaan Puri 8:09 Yeah, exactly. [laughs]

Sam Parr 8:10 Let's do this.

Shaan Puri 8:10 Grade A grass-fed internet beef. I mean, sign me up. [laughs]

Sam Parr 8:14 [laughs] I like Jason too. I've only hung out with him a couple times, and he's always, he's always been nice to me, but he's been nice to me in like a rude uncle type of way, where it's like-

Shaan Puri 8:21 [laughs] Pat you on the head-

Sam Parr 8:22 He's like-

Shaan Puri 8:22 ... and give you a compliment

Sam Parr 8:23 ... yeah, yeah, yeah. He's like, "Oh, that podcast you have, it's really great. I think it's precious."

Shaan Puri 8:27 Yeah, yeah.

Sam Parr 8:27 You know what I mean? Like, he's like... [laughs]

Shaan Puri 8:28 It's like, yeah, Jason said he loved my startup, but then he said it was cute at the end. [laughs]

Sam Parr 8:33 Yeah. [laughs]

Shaan Puri 8:34 What's up with that? Um-

Sam Parr 8:36 Yeah, so but if, if, for the sake of entertainment, I'm happy to, I'm happy to, to call him out. Um-

Shaan Puri 8:42 Well, I wanna do two things. So first, uh, on your birthday I tweeted out, um, you know, just a little thing, and then he, he c- he came into... I, I tweeted out a thing, I was like, "Yeah, happy birthday to," and I, I, I made up a bunch of nicknames, I was like, "The Vanilla Gorilla, the Long Arm of the Law," you know, whatever, "The 2% Milk himself, Sam Parr," and I was like, you know, gave, gave you a little shout-out like that, just freestyling. And, um, he, [laughs] he replies with the, the, the like, "Hmm," think face as if... Because I think, and I, I was like, "What the hell is this? What does this mean?" And then somebody me- they were like, "Oh, I think he thinks you stole his shtick from All-In where he, he gave them nicknames like, uh, The Sultan of Science, The Queen of Quinoa," whatever, right? And, uh-

Sam Parr 9:25 Is that a Jason Calacanis trademark nicknames?

Shaan Puri 9:27 Yeah, yeah. No, I was like, "Oh, oh, [laughs] you think you started nicknames?" [laughs]

Sam Parr 9:32 Can I nickname like the like Turning Left?

Shaan Puri 9:34 [laughs]

Sam Parr 9:35 Like, is that a thing? Like c- [laughs] can we, can we trademark Blue?

Shaan Puri 9:38 [laughs] Yeah, ridiculous.

Sam Parr 9:40 That's a little weird.

Shaan Puri 9:41 Um, so yeah, I, I do think he pats us on the head and thinks he's great, but then, uh, [laughs] there's another, another hilarious Jason Calacanis moment I gotta say from Twitter. So, um, so I just replied and I said, uh, I said, "All-In, billionaires talking about billionaire shit. MFM, millionaires talking about millionaire shit." And, uh, you know, just like that's a, that's a description. So people liked it and then-

Sam Parr 10:03 But someone-

Shaan Puri 10:03 [laughs]

Sam Parr 10:04 Someone said, "Except Jason."

Shaan Puri 10:05 Yeah, they go, "Oh, y-," they go, "All-In, three billionaires and their friend Jason." [laughs]

Sam Parr 10:10 [laughs]

Shaan Puri 10:10 I was like, "Okay, that's a good burn." And then he came back [laughs] and said, you know, a, a, a bottom five lamest thing you could say, he goes, "More like one billionaire and three centimillionaires." Ugh.

Sam Parr 10:23 Oh, whatever.

Shaan Puri 10:24 [laughs] Just-

Sam Parr 10:25 Roll with the punches, man

Shaan Puri 10:27 ... yeah, just-

Sam Parr 10:27 Roll with the punches

Shaan Puri 10:27 ... you never wanna say centi- centimillionaire.

Sam Parr 10:30 [laughs]

Shaan Puri 10:30 That's just like, that's like [laughs] if I had to insult-

Sam Parr 10:35 Yeah

Shaan Puri 10:35 ... someone with $100 million, I would call them a centimillionaire. [laughs]

Sam Parr 10:39 Yeah, like 5'11" and a half.

Shaan Puri 10:40 Yeah, exactly. [laughs]

Sam Parr 10:46 [laughs] Is that what that is?

Shaan Puri 10:47 That's got big 5'11" energy. Oh, that's, that's so good.

Sam Parr 10:50 [laughs]

Shaan Puri 10:51 I do wanna challenge, by the way, I wanna challenge the All-In, uh, podcast to, um, to a poker game, by the way. I will play all of the All-In podcast, I'll play them all heads-up in a game of poker. So I will play them heads-up, I'll put up $100,000, and, uh, and if they beat- if, if t- if two out of the four beat me, uh, they get that, they get the 100, 100 grand. But if I beat three or four out of the four, I get 100 grand from them. They each ha- they only have to put up 25K each, and I'll play them heads-up. We'll live stream the whole thing.

Sam Parr 11:24 You really think you can win?

Shaan Puri 11:25 We'll live stream the whole thing, and I will go in order from centimillionaire to billionaire. So I'll play Jason first, [laughs] I'll make quick work of Jason, and then I'll go Friedberg, Sacks, and then Chamath at the end, 'cause I think they think Chamath is the best player, uh, out of them, so.

Sam Parr 11:40 Are you good? I mean, I, I, I, I know nothing about poker. Are you good?

Shaan Puri 11:44 I'm better than them. That's all they need to know. [laughs]

Sam Parr 11:48 I mean, they named their pod after it. I mean, they're, they're basing their, a little bit of their, their brand on that. You, you, you can beat 'em?

Shaan Puri 11:54 My nickname is The Nuts, and if you know about poker, you know what that means.

Sam Parr 11:56 [laughs]

Shaan Puri 11:56 So, so, you know, we, we have our own nicknames for ourselves. Um, all right, let's get back to it. I, I don't know why I got on this Jason Calacanis rant.

Sam Parr 12:02 So we could wrap it up, we could wrap up this little part, but I'm not one to say, like I'm not gonna make an absolute statement like Jason did, but I do think that there is like, th- we are gonna see that this h- th- this little freak show that's going on right now is awesome for RFK. Um-

Shaan Puri 12:18 Yeah, beneficial to him, for sure

Sam Parr 12:19 ... and I think-

Shaan Puri 12:20 I-

Sam Parr 12:20 For sure. And I think we'll see a little bit more of podcasting have a f- and, and here's why I think that. This is inside baseball. A lot of people don't realize this, but so The Hustle now is read by, let's say, three and a half to four million people I have 250,000 followers on Twitter. I think Sh-

Shaan Puri 12:36 Precious.

Sam Parr 12:37 Yeah, it's precious. Shaan, you had, uh, 250,000. I've got 250,000 followers on Twitter. You have 350,000. The pod, let's just say, has 100,000 listeners per episode. The pod consistently out-punches in terms of engagement all of those things, I would say. Would you agree with that?

Shaan Puri 12:56 In terms of, like, uh, people who actually, like, trust and, um, will take action on things, uh, yes.

Sam Parr 13:05 Yeah, 100%. So I do think that for people who don't realize, or who aren't in the game, they don't realize that podcasts have significantly more influence over people than I think any other medium that I've used, uh, or that I have access to. I don't, I don't have a big YouTube-

Shaan Puri 13:21 Yeah

Sam Parr 13:21 ... following, so I can't-

Shaan Puri 13:21 I think YouTube would do the same, but, um, but yeah, podcasts definitely do. I, I agree with you. I think podcasts are a bit, bit of a s- a l- a little bit of a sleeper still, which is, you know, uh, depending on who, on, on who you are. But I, I think people are sh- are shocked at how effective podcasts are at swaying opinion. Um, I want to point out a couple other things. So some people are saying, "Oh, Joe Rogan, you're just doing this self-serving thing. You're just trying to have this, this freak show, this debate to, like, pump your ratings." I would say not true at all. Um, look at somebody's actions, not their words. Joe turned down having Trump on his podcast. He turned down having, uh, other presidential candidates on his podcast that he thought would just kind of be promotional or not a good conversation or bring unwanted attention, um, to the pod. Like, saying no to Trump is saying no to ratings, especially in the last election when he was, uh, or, or, or when he was kind of on the rise. And, um, he just said, "You know, I'd rather not. I'd rather not do that. I'm not sure I'm the right person to moderate that debate, and, um, you know, I don't think that they would be truthful. I think they would talk talking points, you know, if I had Hillary or Biden on. Um, so I'm not sure that that, that would be a good thing." So I think you can't really say that Joe's just doing this for ratings. I think Joe actually, I think Joe actually thinks RFK, I think he actually sides with RFK and says, "All right, if you're gonna say this guy's full of shit, come explain why, and let him re- let him argue with you, and let's see where, where it lands." Uh, that's the first thing. The second thing is, have you seen this guy, this, the scientist?

Sam Parr 14:55 I saw what he looks like. He looks like I would think a sci-

Shaan Puri 14:57 [laughs]

Sam Parr 14:57 Like, I mean, he just looks like a, a, a nerd, right? Like an older nerd.

Shaan Puri 15:00 Yeah, he looks like a guy, like, cosplaying Neil deGrasse Tyson. So he, um, so check out this clip. Do you take care of your immune system in other ways? Do you take probiotics? Are you cautious about your diet?

Speaker 15:12 I'm not as cautious about my diet as I should be. I'm a junk food-aholic.

Shaan Puri 15:17 That seems ridiculous for someone who works with health.

Speaker 15:20 Yeah. Yeah. Sometimes-

Shaan Puri 15:21 What's going on with you, man?

Speaker 15:22 Some- sometimes, man, I just don't get it right. [laughs]

Shaan Puri 15:24 Sometimes. Hmm. So you-

Speaker 15:26 Living large, we call it

Shaan Puri 15:27 ... like that mouth pleasure so much, you're willing to sacrifice a little bit of health.

Speaker 15:31 I am. Yeah, I, uh, you know, I, you know, I, I con- I have to concede that's the case.

Shaan Puri 15:37 Do you take vitamins?

Speaker 15:38 I don't take vitamins.

Shaan Puri 15:39 Really?

Speaker 15:39 Yeah, I don't take vitamins.

Shaan Puri 15:40 Wow.

Speaker 15:40 I don't think they do-

Shaan Puri 15:41 What about essential fatty acids-

Speaker 15:43 Mm-hmm

Shaan Puri 15:43 ... which are great for your brain, fish oil-

Speaker 15:45 I-

Shaan Puri 15:45 ... all these different things that are fantastic for your inflammation

Speaker 15:47 I'm, I'm not gonna ar- I'm not gonna argue with you. You got-

Shaan Puri 15:50 What is going on with you, doctor?

Speaker 15:50 You, you, you, you got it han-

Shaan Puri 15:52 Come on, man

Speaker 15:52 ... you got, you got it over me. Yeah. Yeah.

Shaan Puri 15:53 You gotta sw- L- listen, but it would, you would have a much better argument, don't you think?

Speaker 15:57 Y- you're, you're making my wife's day here. So-

Shaan Puri 15:59 If you're taking care of yourself-

Speaker 16:01 Yeah

Shaan Puri 16:01 ... 100% instead of just concentrating-

Speaker 16:03 But you still need, but you still need your vaccines.

Shaan Puri 16:04 I'm sure you do, but-

Speaker 16:06 Mm-hmm

Shaan Puri 16:06 ... vaccines aren't gonna prevent cancer.

Speaker 16:08 No, that's true.

Shaan Puri 16:09 We gotta get you healthy, buddy.

Speaker 16:10 Yeah.

Shaan Puri 16:11 Can't be pushing only chemicals in injectable forms to facilitate health.

Speaker 16:16 Fair enough.

Shaan Puri 16:17 Yeah.

Speaker 16:17 Or not chemicals. They're vaccines.

Shaan Puri 16:19 Oh, I'm sorry. [laughs] What's in them?

Speaker 16:21 What?

Shaan Puri 16:21 It's not, I mean, it's some sort of chemical, no?

Speaker 16:23 No, they're antigens, right?

Shaan Puri 16:24 Right.

Speaker 16:24 They're, they're-

Shaan Puri 16:25 What's the fluid?

Speaker 16:26 Ma- macromolecules.

Shaan Puri 16:28 What's the liquid stuff?

Speaker 16:28 Uh, typically it would be saline or, you know, salt water and, uh-

Shaan Puri 16:32 And so it's him on Rogan. That's, it's the same scientist, I believe, on Rogan and, um, in the past.

Sam Parr 16:38 Peter? His name's Peter, I think.

Shaan Puri 16:39 Peter Hotez or Hotez. Um, so he's, he's talking-

Sam Parr 16:41 Yeah

Shaan Puri 16:41 ... and he's talking about vaccines and, um, he says something about, [laughs] he says something about he- he's very pro-vaccine. Uh, so he's like, says something vaccines, and Joe's like, "Yeah, but, you know, like, not everybody feels good, like, putting chemicals in their body." He's like, "Oh, it's not chemicals. It's, uh, these are antigens. These are ce- you know, cells." And he's like, "Okay, well, you know what I mean, like, just putting something else in your body, like, you know, are you taking care of the main things?" And he asks Peter, he goes, he goes, "Do you, do you do other things, uh, to be healthy?" 'Cause, like, Peter's kind of, like, you know, he's circular in shape. And so, uh-

Sam Parr 17:11 [laughs]

Shaan Puri 17:12 And he's like, "Well, you know, I, I do, I, I dabble in junk food." And Joe just starts pressing him. And I've never really seen Joe do this, but I think he wanted to make a point. He's like, "How, how much are we talking? Like, once in a while or, like, every day?" He's like, "No, not every day." Like, he's like, "So how often?" And he's like, "I, I don't know, like, every other day." And he's like, uh, "What do you, what do you have?" He's like, "Uh, potato chips or, you know, candy or whatever." And he's like, "Do you exercise?" And he's like, basically this guy over, like, a two-minute period is like, "Yeah, I eat like shit, and I don't exercise." Um, and Joe's like, "Isn't that crazy? Like, shouldn't you... Like, you know better than that, right? Like, you're saying people are crazy for not taking vaccines or pushing against them, but, like, you are not doing the basics of human health. Like, you're not exercising. You're not eating in a nutritious way. Like, don't you see that that's a problem?" He's like, "Yeah, I should. You know, no one's perfect." Uh, and he's like, he's like, "Do you really just love that mouth pleasure so much that you..." [laughs] He, like, goes in on him a little bit, which-

Sam Parr 18:11 Oh, he goes hard

Shaan Puri 18:11 ... which I've never seen Joe do. He's, like, uh, generally, like, quite, like, amenable. Like, you know, he's not really, doesn't really do that. But I think for him it is, like, a, you know, he plants a flag around, like, you gotta... He's like, "It's non-negotiable." Like, you know, he's like, "You know, for me, I travel somewhere, first thing I do is I go to the gym. It's just a non-negotiable. It's just something I do." And then the gu- other guy goes, "Yeah, I do that, too." [laughs] And Joe's like, "No, I don't think you do that, too." [laughs] Like, you could just tell from the look on his face, he's like, "Yeah, but it's different maybe the way I'm doing it and the way you're doing it because [laughs] look at what's happening here." [laughs]

Sam Parr 18:44 Dude, whenever I, uh, when I go and pick which doctors I'm gonna use, uh, like when I move to a new city or something, I definitely Th- their body matters to me

Shaan Puri 18:53 Right, right

Sam Parr 18:53 You know what I'm saying?

Shaan Puri 18:54 Yeah, you don't want the bald barber. Um-

Sam Parr 18:56 Yeah, like I, I went to this one doctor and she had this, a beautiful vein up her bicep.

Shaan Puri 19:00 [laughs]

Sam Parr 19:01 And I was like, "But [laughs] I'm in. [laughs] I'm in, veiny."

Shaan Puri 19:06 [laughs]

Sam Parr 19:07 Uh, I was in. [laughs]

Shaan Puri 19:08 Say no more, veiny. [laughs]

Sam Parr 19:10 [laughs] Yeah.

Shaan Puri 19:12 Dude, um-

Sam Parr 19:12 Yeah

Shaan Puri 19:13 ... that's, that's [laughs] hilarious. I also think that, uh, there's some other strange stuff about this guy. Like, uh, his daughter has autism, and he wrote a book called, like, Rachel's... Vaccines Didn't Cause Rachel's Autism or something like that, which I just thought was, like, a really... I don't know. I can't imagine as a parent doing that. That sounds, like, just very aggressive.

Sam Parr 19:33 Yeah.

Shaan Puri 19:33 Um, so anyways, this, uh, I, I would say... And it's funny to see the, the debate here because some people are like, there's, on both sides, there's Rogan, you know, macho bro, which is basically like, "Yeah, bro, showdown. Let's go. B- you know, you and me in the b- [laughs] behind the school at 3:00 PM." They wanna see a fight happen.

Sam Parr 19:49 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Shaan Puri 19:50 And they really just wanna see him, like, get punked, uh, is kind of like one energy. And then the other energy is like, [clicks tongue] "This is, uh, stupid. This is not what scientists..." Like, trying to bully a scientist into debating when that's not his skill. Like, this other guy's a pr- he's a politician. He's gonna have talking points written for him, all this stuff.

Sam Parr 20:09 Well, he's not a politician. He's not a pol- he's a wannabe politician.

Shaan Puri 20:12 Oh, well, he's, yeah, I guess trying to be currently. Um, but, but they're basically like, this one guy's like, you know, uh, this is what he's doing. He's going around talking about the stuff. He's been doing that. He's been giving talks on this stuff for, for a long time, and this guy's just, you know, trying to just be a scientist. He didn't sign up to be a, like, kind of a debater of this stuff. Um, so that's, like, the other point of view, and they're sort of, like, anti-bro in that way of, like, you can't... Like, uh, stop trying to make this a fight. That's, like, anti-science to do that. [clicks tongue] This one guy who I really like, his name's Yishan Wong. He used to be... He's, like, from the, the, uh, from the tech world, and he, [clicks tongue] um, he worked at Facebook early on. He was the CEO of Reddit.

Sam Parr 20:54 Oh, d- he has a, he, he has a new company where he's trying to plant trees, right?

Shaan Puri 20:57 Yeah, exactly. Uh, he's trying to change the cli-

Sam Parr 20:59 I like that guy

Shaan Puri 20:59 ... change climate by, by planting trees. Uh, I just wanna read you what he said. I thought he had a, I thought he had a good point. So here he goes. "Every science and tech person who's currently on the bandwagon calling for the vaccine doctor to go on Rogan to debate should be ashamed of themselves. Um, if you care about the truth or science, a, like, a, a kind of a podcast debate is probably the worst thing to advocate for. Usually, that argument goes something like this. 'If you're the vax doc and you're so sure you're right, you should be willing to go on and defend it. Otherwise, you lose credibility.'" That sounds like a good statement, but he's like, uh, it's an example of what Plato, the philosopher, would call, uh, rhetoric's oral spell. In simple terms, what he's explaining is, like, there's a difference between what is actually the truth and what can be said in a very persuasive way. And-

Sam Parr 21:43 Right. Right, right, right

Shaan Puri 21:44 ... you shouldn't want a medium where it's all about who could be most persuasive. You should want to... If you want a debate to the truth, you should do it in a way where persu- your charisma, your persuasiveness, your loudness, uh, your on-the-spot thinking is deprioritized compared to just, like, making your most logical argument and then letting somebody take time and refute it. And he's basically like-

Sam Parr 22:05 I call it the Malcolm Gladwell effect. You know? Like, he, he writes so well, and even though it's theories, I'm like, "Oh, it must be true."

Shaan Puri 22:11 Right. Yeah, exactly.

Shaan Puri 22:12 Exactly. You, when you hear somebody who's so eloquent, you can, you can conflate how nice it sounds and how persuasive it sounds for how true the actual argument is, and vice versa. Somebody could be so dry and boring that even though they're saying something that's really, uh, on point, the message is not received by the, by the market. So he basically says, uh, he's like, you know, "If you really wanted to do this, this is what you would do." Uh, so I, I guess, like, just to finish the Plato thing, it's basically, um, [clicks tongue] uh, oratory, so just going and verbally, you know, giving, like, a speech or a presentation, um, is the medium where you're most likely to have people fall under a great orator's spells. And he's like, "People are more like sheep than you, than you wanna think, and a great orator can get people to do crazy things." And if you've s- ever seen Hitler give a speech or, uh, you know, Mussolini give a speech, you could see how a great orator from... And you've seen it in the good direction and the bad direction, how a great orator can move people to do something and believe something that may not, they may not have actually believed otherwise. Uh, so anyways, his, his point was, like, if you really wanna do this, they should do it through long-form, boring writing. One person should write down their argument with s- s- uh, sources cited, give the other person time to respond to each line, each paragraph of that argument, and then you'll have basically both sides of the argument written out. Uh, nobody wants to do this because this is boring, and, um, if you actually wanted the truth, though, that would be the way. And I thought that that was really good, and it reminded me of something that was in companies that I had also seen from, [clicks tongue] from, uh, Yishan's blog, which was he was like, "Yeah, in companies the same thing happens. Um, the person in a meeting who is tall, charismatic, uh, willing to put their opinions forward, basically they are 100% confident in their opinions-

Sam Parr 24:00 What's up?

Shaan Puri 24:00 Yeah, [laughs] exactly. Sound familiar? [laughs]

Sam Parr 24:04 [laughs]

Shaan Puri 24:05 No, I'm not holding up a mirror right now. Um-

Sam Parr 24:08 [laughs]

Shaan Puri 24:08 ... but basically that person is going to, like, disproportionately sway what actually happens, and, um, and actually there's another method. So he basically, it's called the Delphi method, and the Delphi method-

Sam Parr 24:19 What's that?

Shaan Puri 24:19 ... is basically this method where, um, you bring up a topic. Uh, everybody sort of presents, everybody gets the same set of facts. Then you write down your initial thoughts and statements, and then they're circulated. Everybody reads everybody's initial thoughts and statements anonymously. You don't know who said this, so you can't just go, "Oh, the CEO thinks this. Okay, I guess it's right." Uh, you just judge it by the merits of the argument anonymously. Everybody reads it, and then you can go revise your statement based on new information that you've got, and you update it and you pass it around again until you get to, you know, a, a sort of, like- You know, what, what, what people believe is the strongest, strongest meritocratic, um, a- argument after several rounds

Sam Parr 24:58 H- how do you spell that? It's called the what method?

Shaan Puri 25:00 Delphi, D-E-L-P-H-I. And there's a couple benefits of this. First, anonymous, so it's not just like the, the, the highest ranking official gets their way. Second is its time delay, so you don't reward ti- Like, for a great decision, you don't need to think of the answer, like, right on the spot. Like, if it takes you five minutes to think of something, five minutes is nothing. But in a meeting, five minutes is everything. You can't just sit there quietly thinking and formulating an, a idea for, for 15 minutes or an hour. Um, the meeting's over by then. And so the argument has moved on by then. So this time delay and anonymity is really important, and I love this. And, um, I'll tell you, I, I shared this with, uh, with the CEO at Twitch, and I was like, "I think we should do this." He was like, "Dude, I love this. This actually would solve one of our biggest problems I think we have in our meetings, which is people think that my opinion is the answer, and it shouldn't be. I'm actually usually the least informed on the topic 'cause I'm the furthest away from the data." Um, and secondly, like, we reward the loudest, the loudest mouth and not maybe the most thoughtful person who, who could have an answer. And it's really hard in a, in a normal meeting setting to get that person to speak. Um, then I'll give you one more data point. Josh Elman, who's a, an awesome dude, friend of the pod. He's a, he's a VC plus, like, now he works at Apple. But he was basically, like, the growth guy at Twitter, the growth guy at LinkedIn, the growth guy at Facebook. Like, he, like, led growth at, like, three or four of-

Sam Parr 26:24 Robinhood, I think. Yeah

Shaan Puri 26:24 Robinhood. Dis- uh, he invested in Discord. He led growth at, like, four of the biggest consumer hits there's ever been. He, for fun, the other... You know, while he's kind of like, you know, just kind of goofing off now. He for fun built this Slack app that does the same thing. He's like, "Yo, Slack is, kind of rewards the same thing." Like, whoever's online the most gets to, like, say the thing in Slack. Um, and he, he created this app that was like a time delay. So you, anybody could prompt a question, and then everybody has a certain amount of time. Like, in the question it'll say, "You have, you know, we'll, we'll read the answers in four hours." So anybody could write their answer within the four-hour period.

Sam Parr 26:58 What's it called?

Shaan Puri 26:59 Oh, Thinking Time is the name of it. Um, so just Google Josh Elman Thinking Time. It's a Slack app. And thinkingtime.org is the, is the URL. And basically it just gave you time and then you could say, "All right. Here's what I think. I think X." And then it tells you all the answers will be released together in 30 minutes. And then in 30 minutes it posts everybody's answers at the same time to prevent group think. And I just love this 'cause I think these little, like, nuances actually can really change the way any group of people interact. Um, 'cause I know I'm guilty of it all the time. I'm, I'm loud, I'm persuasive, but that doesn't mean I'm smart. It doesn't mean I'm right. And, uh, I, like, actively look for methods or tools to counteract that.

Sam Parr 27:40 This is, um, A, awesome. I'm gonna use these things. I like that. B, in real time I just wanna call out what just happened. This is called a good partnership-

Shaan Puri 27:50 [laughs]

Sam Parr 27:51 ... where [laughs] I bring kinda shit and Shaan just kinda polishes that shit-

Shaan Puri 27:57 [laughs]

Sam Parr 27:57 ... and, and we somehow get something amazing.

Shaan Puri 27:59 [laughs]

Sam Parr 27:59 This is, this is, this is called chemistry, my friend.

Shaan Puri 28:02 [laughs]

Sam Parr 28:02 This is, this is how it's done. That was, that was beautiful. I didn't know you knew all the, that stuff, and you tied it around perfectly. I'm actually y- was asking those questions and I'm writing notes. I'm actually gonna go use this thing. Thinking Time.

Shaan Puri 28:12 Thinking Time. Yeah. It's good.

Sam Parr 28:14 Um, and the Delphi method. That's awesome. Um, I've got a few more things, but you wanna go to the winners?

Shaan Puri 28:17 Yeah. Let me do

Shaan Puri 28:18 a quick one first. Uh, I got a simple business opportunity for people. So I don't know if you know this dude, but, uh, so Google Analytics, which is the most popular-

Sam Parr 28:26 Ugh

Shaan Puri 28:26 ... analytics tool on the planet, is, is just like-

Sam Parr 28:30 It changed

Shaan Puri 28:30 ... basically shutting down. They're not saying it's shutting down. They're like, "It's changing," for the worse. [laughs] Like, I would love to see...

Sam Parr 28:37 [laughs] Yeah.

Shaan Puri 28:37 Actually, I wanna film a commercial on behalf of all marketers out there of the Google, fake Google, a fake Google Analytics commercial where it's like, "But what if we made it worse in every way?"

Sam Parr 28:49 [laughs]

Shaan Puri 28:50 "What if we rethought it-

Sam Parr 28:51 Dude

Shaan Puri 28:52 ... and removed all the key functionality and replaced it with vague-

Sam Parr 28:56 It's impossible to use

Shaan Puri 28:56 ... with vague analytics?" Wouldn't that be better than precise analytics? [laughs]

Sam Parr 29:00 [laughs] Yeah.

Shaan Puri 29:00 It's like... And-

Sam Parr 29:01 Yeah

Shaan Puri 29:01 ... and so people are wondering why. I think the reason why is because of all the privacy stuff, the cookie stuff. So basically the same thing that happened to Facebook where Apple changed their rules, the iOS 14 tr- uh, rules, and all of a sudden Facebook ad performance went down, and it was like, "Yo, geniuses over there, why, why is, why is performance down and why don't you have attribution? Like, why don't we know if I spent $1,000 on this ad, did I make 900, 1,200? What did, what did I make? Why can't you just tell me that?" Uh, you know, I put your pixel on my website. You know, you're Facebook. You're the biggest geniuses in the world.

Sam Parr 29:33 It's impossible.

Shaan Puri 29:34 And the reason why is because now legally they're not allowed to, like, use this type of tracking that they used before where it's not a technical problem, it's a regulation problem. Meaning the site that serves the ads can't also track the users on third party websites. And this is why portfolio company Triple Whale exploded. Uh, one of my investments exploded in popularity and is now, like, you know, on track to be this huge winner because let's say you owned an e-commerce store and you were using Facebook and you're spending, like, we spent hundreds of thousands on Facebook ads every month. Um, we, we have to know is, you know, how, how our Facebook ads are performing. And when Facebook's ability to track that got cut off due to regulation, people were like, "What's another solution?" And Triple Whale was like, "Hey, we have this thing called Triple Whale Pixel. We can tell you more accurately than Facebook how your ads are doing." And so everybody signed up. Triple Whale takes off. It does amazing. And so, uh, I think the same thing happened to Google where Google had to because of the privacy reasons be like, "All right. You know what? We c-"

Sam Parr 30:35 Yeah, they're just gonna ballpark it from now on.

Shaan Puri 30:35 "Yeah, because of the ads business we gotta just, you know, lick a finger and, and, and guess, you know, roughly you got about this much, uh, traffic conversion, et cetera." And so, um, not great. So they're upgrading to this thing called GA4.

Sam Parr 30:50 It's called, uh, Google Analytics Lackadaisical.

Shaan Puri 30:52 [laughs]

Sam Parr 30:53 That's like the new update. Yeah. [laughs] They're like... [laughs] That's the update

Shaan Puri 30:57 Yeah. Google Analytics after six beers and it needs a nap. Um-

Sam Parr 31:00 [laughs] Yeah

Shaan Puri 31:01 ... and every marketer I know hates this thing, and also nobody knows how to migrate from Google Analytics to GA4. It's like a... There's like every time you log into Google Analytics, there's literally like a ticking countdown like it's, you know, season four of 24. It's like, doot, doot. Your sh- like your analytics are about to explode. You need to go learn this new tool that, by the way, sucks, and you need to migrate everything over 'cause in 14 days, there's no more Google Analytics for you. And, um, so me and a bunch of other people are like, "How do you do this?" And we try to migrate over, didn't l- We're like, "Does, is this working? I don't know if this is working out of the box." And I think right now there's a very simple business opportunity for somebody to go be the GA4 export- expert, put out a ton of free content and be like, "I will handle your migration for you." And you just cold email every business owner that you can think of. It m- maybe in the e-commerce space, that's where I would start. But if not e-commerce, SAS businesses, whatever. And be like, "Hey, do you want help migrating over to GA4? I'll do the whole thing for you. It's done for you turnkey. Just pay me, uh, you know, $1,500 and, uh, and I'll do it." I think you could... I think somebody can make a million dollars in the next six months just migrating people over to GA4 and auditing their GA4 to be like, "Hey, is this set up correctly?" Um, just as a one-person service business or a two-person service business.

Sam Parr 32:14 I agree. I need it. I need it. We've been trying to, like, figure this out. I, I don't even know how to set up reports. I was out of the game for about a year and a half, and then I came back [laughs] and everything done changed.

Shaan Puri 32:23 [laughs]

Sam Parr 32:24 Like, I don't know how to do it. Dude, you, you know what, you know what else has changed? Is n-

Shaan Puri 32:27 Sam's like, "Um, pronouns and Google Analytics, what the hell just happened?" [laughs]

Sam Parr 32:31 [laughs] Yeah.

Shaan Puri 32:32 I take two years off-

Sam Parr 32:33 Everything has changed

Shaan Puri 32:33 ... and business doesn't work the same way anymore. [laughs] There's no office. [laughs]

Sam Parr 32:38 Dude, everything has changed. Another thing that's changed is newsletters. Like, people are asking me, like, "What do we do for this newsletter?" And I'm like, "Dude, I don't know. It's been two years and in that amount of time everything has changed." Like, when we started The Hustle, it was us Morning Brew and The Skimm, and I always... I don't like saying it this way because it sounds like it's a bigger deal than it is, because it's not. But we kind of, like, pioneered this very small industry, and now people take it seriously and there's all these, like, agencies around it, and they tell me what they're doing and I'm like, "I don't, I don't get any of that. I, I don't understand how any of this works." It, it just... Things have changed very quickly.

Shaan Puri 33:10 Yeah, yeah. Um, [laughs] I was gonna say something, but I decided to, to, to, um, take the high road on, on something. I was gonna call someone out on Twitter, but I just decided not to do it. I, I think you'll know who it is, but, uh, yeah-

Sam Parr 33:24 Yeah

Shaan Puri 33:24 ... I'll avoid it.

Speaker 33:25 [upbeat music] This data is wrong every freaking time. Have you heard of HubSpot? HubSpot is a CRM platform where everything is fully integrated. Whoa, I can see the client's whole history. Calls, support tickets, emails, and here's a task from three days ago I totally missed. HubSpot. Grow better.

Shaan Puri 33:47 Um, okay, I got another thing for you.

Sam Parr 33:49 What?

Shaan Puri 33:50 How would you like to hear about a business deal that, uh, involves one of the GOATs, uh, that involves-

Sam Parr 33:58 I like GOATs

Shaan Puri 33:58 ... billions of dollars, that involves a messy divorce?

Shaan Puri 34:02 Let me tell you s- the story about Michael Jordan selling, uh, his team right now, the Charlotte Hornets.

Sam Parr 34:07 That was related to a divorce?

Shaan Puri 34:09 In a roundabout way. So the story actually s- so, so a lot of people are looking at the story right now and they're like, Michael Jordan bought this team for I think $275 million, and it's about to sell for $2 billion.

Sam Parr 34:21 The, the, the whole thing? Did he sell the whole thing? Or buy the whole thing?

Shaan Puri 34:24 The majority owner. I, I don't think anybody... No, I don't think any of the NBA owners own 100%, but I think he's the majority owner. So he, um, the valuation of the team at the time was 275 million, and he bought it, and now it's gonna sell for $2 billion. MJ strikes again. The GOAT, the GOAT strikes again. The guy's gonna make, you know, more money doing this than he ever made playing, and pr- more money on this probably than he made through his Nike deal as well. So, you know, found a new, found a new way to, like, you know, double his wealth. But what's interesting is actually who owned the Hornets before MJ did. Uh, so I don't know if you know, uh... Do, do you know this story? Do you know who his owner was? This guy Bob Johnson.

Sam Parr 35:01 No.

Shaan Puri 35:01 Does that sound familiar? Most generic name in the race. [laughs]

Sam Parr 35:05 I mean, I know, I, I know eight Bob Johnsons.

Shaan Puri 35:06 [laughs] Well, do you know the one that was the richest Black man in America at a, at a given time?

Sam Parr 35:11 Well, okay. We're narrowing it down.

Shaan Puri 35:13 [laughs]

Sam Parr 35:13 No. But may- maybe.

Shaan Puri 35:14 He's the guy who started BET.

Sam Parr 35:15 Bob Johnson.

Shaan Puri 35:16 So-

Sam Parr 35:17 Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I listened to his, uh... His wife was, uh, his wife was, like, also the, the head honcho, I think, right? Him and his wife kind of ran it.

Shaan Puri 35:26 Maybe. I'm not sure about that. So he starts, um, BET with like a... He has $15,000 of his own money. He puts that in. He gets $500,000 from a guy named John Malone, and he's like, "Look, there's no cable network, there's no channel that ca- caters towards Black Americans." And he's like, "You know, we can do this. We can build this up." And so they had music, obviously, so it's basically like the Black M- MTV. So they had music, they had award shows, culture, whatever. BET's a winner, and BET wins. He sells BET to Viacom for $3 billion, which is just an incredible outcome.

Sam Parr 36:02 Wow.

Shaan Puri 36:02 Right? So he-

Sam Parr 36:04 Did he own the whole thing?

Shaan Puri 36:05 Yeah, they were the... Uh, I don't know what John Malone got. I don't know if it was a loan or equity, but, like, yeah, he owned the majority of it. So after everything is all, all... or after everything settles, Bob Johnson is reportedly worth, you know, ab- about a billion and a half dollars. $1.3 to $1.5 billion, and he diversifies. He puts a bunch of money into, uh, real estate. He owns hotels, so he owns hotel chains. He owns, um, uh, you know, a, a bunch of different, like, assets basically. But they're all kind of like cash, cash-heavy assets. So building hotels, that was a lot. Um, he had, like, I think a casino type thing or like some, some gambling thing or whatever. He needed money for that. Um, so he's putting out a lot of cash. Then he gets divorced. He gets divorced, and his wife gets 400 million out of the 1.3 billion awarded to her in the judgment. So that judge made a, a, you know, gave her a very nice, uh, settlement or a very nice, uh, ruling. Guess who she marries a few months later? [laughs] The judge. So [laughs]

Sam Parr 37:06 Whoa. No way.

Shaan Puri 37:06 Wife gets divorced-

Sam Parr 37:07 No way

Shaan Puri 37:07 ... gets a quarter million dollars, and, I don't know if it was a few months later, I shouldn't say that, marries the judge, [laughs] which is just an incredible-

Sam Parr 37:13 Wow

Shaan Puri 37:14 ... just an incredible anec- I wa- I honestly wasn't gonna tell the story till I heard that. I was like, "Oh, I gotta tell this story," just 'cause that is-

Sam Parr 37:21 That's how thankful he was

Shaan Puri 37:22 ... that is amazing. So, so [laughs]

Sam Parr 37:24 Did, did, did, but didn't they, did they freak out afterwards and appeal it? Or is that a thing that went in civil court?

Shaan Puri 37:30 Nope. I don't think so.

Sam Parr 37:30 I don't know.

Shaan Puri 37:30 I don't think it was done. So, [laughs] so he, so this happens. He buys an NBA team. So he buys the Bobcats at the time, um, for $300 million. And, um, I think they were, like, the expansion franchise, basically. And so, but they're burning money, so he's losing $20 to $25 million a year. He loses another 200... So he buys it for 300, then he loses 200 million operating the thing in just operating expenses, which is crazy because there's this famous phrase when it comes to NBA teams that nobody's ever lost money running an NBA team, and all the owners claim they're losing money, but it's really just, like, a negotiation thing against the players. They don't want anybody to know how much money they're actually making. Or they'll run it at, like, a slight loss, but the franchise value's appreciating like crazy, so they're like, "Oh, poor us. How could we ever afford to pay for our stadium?" It's like, dude, you're, you bought this for 300 million, it's now worth three billion. Like, I think you can, uh, I think you can afford it. Um, so he's losing money. He's got all his money tied up in investments. He's got a ton of debt. He's using a ton of debt to, uh, build this thing. He's like, "All right, look, I need to turn this team around." He hires Michael Jordan. So he's like, "Mike, come, come work for the Bobcats. You're from Charlotte, and, um, you know, come work for the local team. You, you run the team." So he's, Michael's running the team, but Bob is getting stretched for cash, and basically he's got too much debt and his shit's all about to come due. And so he's about to lose his entire empire because he can't come up with enough money to pay off his, his, uh, his note, and they're about to take all of the collateral. So he's about to lose all his hotels and his, his team.

Sam Parr 39:02 Do you think that in those situations, which has happened a lot, they go to the ex-wife and they're like-

Shaan Puri 39:06 Listen [laughs]

Sam Parr 39:07 ... "Hey, uh, do you remember that time that I tried to make sure you got nothing but you still got something?"

Shaan Puri 39:14 [laughs]

Sam Parr 39:15 "Can we talk?" You know what I mean? Like, I wonder if there's any, I wonder if the, I've never, like, been close to a divorce, but that-

Shaan Puri 39:19 Yeah, we, this is where we had our first date. Uh, you know why I brought you here.

Sam Parr 39:22 [laughs]

Shaan Puri 39:23 I just wanted to [laughs] see if you had any of those feelings left for me because, uh, I'm about to lose it all. So he's about to lose it all, and he's like, "Okay, I need to, like, sell the team or something," but the team is losing money and they're the worst team, they're the sorriest team. So he wants to sell it for, like, you know, 350 million or something like that. Can't find a buyer. MJ comes to him and says, "All right, I'll buy it. Um, I'm gonna buy, I'm gonna buy it for, I'll put down 25 million in cash. Just 25 million, and I want it at a $275 million valuation." So he gets, like, a 25, 30% discount on the team 'cause Bob's under pressure and has no other choice, basically. He's like, "But here's what I'll do. I'll assume all the debts of the team. So I'll get you off this debt, which will relieve the pressure on you." So MJ buys this team for only 25 million down, and now he's gonna sell this thing for two billion, which is like a, you know, 100x cash on cash return-

Sam Parr 40:18 Wow

Shaan Puri 40:18 ... for him buying this team, which is just an incredible move, and yet another reason MJ is one of the GOATs. [laughs]

Sam Parr 40:23 Just a shark. Is that story popular? I've never heard that.

Shaan Puri 40:26 No, that's not popular. That's, uh, that's a, that's a MFM original, an MFM classic, soon to be copycatted by all of our little fanboys everywhere who will, uh, take this and turn this into a thread, a newsletter, a TikTok, and a, an IG Reel for themselves. [laughs] And so, you know, it'll be everywhere soon. The one thing that, now another interesting twist-

Sam Parr 40:46 It's gonna be... Here's what it's gonna be called. It's gonna be called, like, Michael Jordan Made Money, He Became a Billionaire in Ways That You Didn't Even Realize Were Possible, and It Has Nothing to Do with Him Playing, and It Has Nothing to Do with Nike.

Shaan Puri 40:57 [laughs]

Sam Parr 40:57 Here's the story of how Michael Jo- Michael Jordan turned $25 million into a billion.

Shaan Puri 41:00 There you go. See, I've wrote your hook for you, too. Um, there's, there is more to the story potentially. So the team has sucked ever since Jordan bought them, and, like, basically he actually underperformed. Like, the team sucked, the franchise values are down. Uh, his franchise value should be up more than it is. Uh, he, so he didn't actually maximize the value on it. Uh, but it just shows when you, when you buy right, it's hard to, you know, hard to lose money at that point. Um, the other rumor is that MJ is only selling the team because he himself owes a bunch of money. [laughs] That's the other rumor. Uh, I don't know if this is true or not, but-

Sam Parr 41:37 Well, there's always these crazy conspiracy theories that he's, like, a degenerate gambler and, like, there's always, there was a, I listened to a podcast called Conspiracy Theories, and it was how the mob, um, made him retire from the NBA or something like that, and then they, there was even theories that they killed his father.

Shaan Puri 41:54 Right. Yeah, that's, that's the conspiracy-

Sam Parr 41:56 Not, uh-

Shaan Puri 41:56 ... is that they killed his father 'cause he owed money, and that the commissioner told him, "You need to take a couple years off 'cause w- we could suspend you, but that's a bad look for you and us 'cause, you know, y- you have this gambling problem, so you just disappear." So, you know, that's the, that's the conspiracy theory. Who knows if that's true. The other version of this is the guy who bought the team now, this guy Gabe Plotkin, he's the guy that ran Melvin Capital, which is the, the hedge fund that the Redditors, the, the WallStreetBet guys blew up in the GameStop thing. And so Gabe lost, like, $500 million in that. They were, his fund was about to go under, and then he gets bailed out by, what's his name, Ken Griffin. The rumor is that Michael had given Melvin Capital a lot of money, hundreds of millions of dollars to invest on his behalf, and that they had lost it. And so, um, he needed cash, and so that, that's why he sold it. And now he sold it to that guy. He sold it to Gabe, which is pretty crazy.

Sam Parr 42:49 This is, this is juicy, man.

Shaan Puri 42:51 [laughs]

Sam Parr 42:51 This is, this is a, this is a juicy grape. This is a, this is a grape of a story.

Shaan Puri 42:55 [laughs]

Sam Parr 42:56 I love this.

Shaan Puri 42:56 A lot of the-

Sam Parr 42:56 This is a big, fat grape

Shaan Puri 42:57 ... a lot of that is, uh, a lot of what, what I just said is stitching together pieces, 'cause th- people don't come out and say everything, uh, but they do say pieces, and then you kinda have to assume things in between the gaps.

Sam Parr 43:06 And he's protected. Jordan's protected pretty hard. Like, I remember, uh, you, you remember that rapper Chamillionaire?

Shaan Puri 43:12 Yeah.

Sam Parr 43:13 Uh, he told this story. He, he, like... 'Cause, you know, rappers love, uh, Jordan because of, well, he's like a good, like-

Shaan Puri 43:20 He's icon, yeah

Sam Parr 43:20 ... you know, a Black, a Black man succeeding, and they love his brand. And Chamillionaire was like, "Nah, man, Jordan's the worst. One time I tried to get an autograph from him," and Jordan goes, "Nah, I don't give autographs or take pictures with N-words."

Shaan Puri 43:33 Yeah.

Sam Parr 43:34 And, uh, like, there's, like, this story. And Chamillionaire was like, "Huh?"

Shaan Puri 43:37 [laughs]

Sam Parr 43:37 And he's like, "I..." At the time, he was like, "I was famous. Like, not famous enough that I thought, like, Jordan would bow down to me, but famous enough that, like, I thought maybe I would get, like, a, 'Oh, nice to see you,' type of..." And he's like, "I, I got nothing. I got nothing from Jordan, and he's an asshole." And I... And, and I, I don't remember how he explained it, but it basically, I was like, "Oh, Jordan, not a nice guy."

Shaan Puri 43:57 [laughs]

Sam Parr 43:58 Not, not, not nice at all. I would've thought that it was, like, a story of, like, everyone knows that he's a jerk on the court. But I would've thought, like, oh, maybe that just, like, ends once you retire, but it sounds like maybe that's not the case.

Shaan Puri 44:07 [laughs] Yeah, I don't know why that would end when he retires. Um, [laughs] okay. Yeah, so that's the, uh, that's the Jordan story. Where do you wanna go next?

Sam Parr 44:15 All right. I have got one interesting thing. So everyone wants to say, "Shaan, what's your e-com store? Tell me all about it." And you give out little nibbles, and you kinda tell people, you know, things are going well. But you wanna know what the problem with e-com, and also a lot of other businesses that we talk about. The things that are somewhat easy to start, the valuations are shit. Like, a, a, a decent e-com business right now, what do you think it sells for? Five times profit?

Shaan Puri 44:43 Yeah, one times revenue, which is usually... Which is the same thing as five times profit for most of these.

Sam Parr 44:48 So the thing is about... Is, like, a l- a lot of these businesses that we talk about, and what people initially start, particularly, like, the really crap ones like a drop shipping or, or things like that, or an agency, they don't really sell for a lot of money. And so I like to research businesses that, A, can last a really long time. A lot of e-com businesses... Well, a lot of businesses in general don't last long, particularly ones built off of Facebook and things like that. Um, or it's a struggle at least. And also, B, they sell for shit. One

Sam Parr 45:15 type of business that I've brought up consistently is trade shows, and the reason why is I've noticed a trend where a trade show business can last many, many, many decades. Sometimes there's many examples of them lasting 100-plus years. And these businesses that are okay, like, they're not that fast-growing, but they're good, man, they're consistently selling for 10, sometimes 15 times profit, which is pretty good. That can be three times revenue. Whereas a media property, like The Hustle, if it's only okay, that will sell for five times profit sometimes, six times profit. It, it depends how fast it's growing. But I was reading, um, Flash & Flames. It's this, like, tiny, tiny, tiny trade publication that I read, and they were telling this story about this guy named Tony Robinson. He started this company in 1991. He started this company called UKi. I believe it's UKi Media-

Shaan Puri 46:08 That guy's, uh-

Sam Parr 46:09 ... and even-

Shaan Puri 46:09 His SEO is screwed. [laughs] You don't wanna be Tony Robinson. [laughs]

Sam Parr 46:15 Yeah. Yeah, he's screwed for a bunch of reasons, but he, like, nev- never gives interviews. He's, like, a pretty low-key guy. But it's called UKi Media & Events. And you could go to the website. If you click it, it's like, it looks old. It doesn't look special, and most of the people in the pictures look like they're above 60 years old. Um, so it's, like, not, like, particularly new-looking. You know, they're not at least trying to, like, be cool. Um, and but here's what's interesting. So they own 17 B2B, uh-

Shaan Puri 46:43 Trade shows

Sam Parr 46:44 ... trade shows, and they own a couple magazines. But almost all the revenue comes from these trade shows, and their biggest one is a 24-year-old thing called the Automotive Testing Exposition, or Expo. And it's basically, this is, like, a niche amongst, uh, niches. It's not a car show. It's a trade show and c- a core exhibition that has, uh... It's where the people making the machines that help you test if your car works. So if you're building a Tesla or a Ford or whatever, you're constantly testing, like, your new self-driving system, or you're testing, like, I guess, um, uh, different n- new components in the LCD screen, things like that. There's people who are building machines to test that. This is a trade show for those people. And I was, like, doing more research about this, and he was saying, he goes, "I chose s- uh, I chose to specialize in transportation and avoid developing products in m-" Uh, or what's he say? Uh, uh, the... Whatever. Uh, actually, I was gonna quote something. It's not that interesting of a quote. But here's... Listen to the revenue. 2019, they did 32 million with 30% margin, so they made $10 million in profit. Let's skip 2020 and '21. They only did eight million in revenue. How they still did eight million in revenue during those periods, I don't know. 2022, post-COVID, revenue of 26 million, same margin of around, uh, 26, so they did 6.7 million in profit. 2023, the expectation is 30 in revenue, nine in profit. And there's a rumor that they're about to sell for around 12 times profit. So th- this $30 million a year trade show business is about to sell for somewhere between 100 and $120 million in revenue, and he's done this multiple times. So he had one for Aircraft Interiors Expo. So, like, people building aircraft interiors. He sold that for 10 times profit. He also had a magazine company that he sold for only four times profit, but he's done this multiple times. And there's this, there's this guy in Hampton. His name's Jonathan Wiener. He's done the same thing. He did Money 20/20. He did ShopTalk, and I think he did one more. He sold each of them for around 100 to $150 million, and it was, like, 13 times profit. I'm gonna ask him to come on the pod. But it's just crazy that these, uh, trade shows are consistently selling for 10 or 13 times profit. Now, here's the, the opportunity. If I'm one of the... If I'm listening to this pod and I'm trying to start a business, what I would do, there's a whole lot of niche Twitter handles. There's the strip mall guy. There's, uh, the used car salesperson guy. There's the used watch guy. I don't know this for sure, but I bet, uh, it's not just you and I, like a, a pop culture type of person who's just like paying attention 'cause it's fun and we're outside, but I bet there's people like the strip mall guy, and I bet there's dozens and dozens of other people like that who are in these really niche in which the actual industry insiders follow them and they get, they get a kick out of them. It could be like the motor home guy or it could be the, I don't know, whatever it is. I think you could partner with some of these people and build these trade shows because the way these, these particular- this guy Tony Robinson, the way that his thing works is I think access to the events are free. But what they do is they hire salespeople and they pay their salespeople a lot. You give them, I think he even says in the article, it's like 80 grand a year base, but up, up, you, they can earn $300,000 a year. But what they do is they sell spots or booths at the, at the trade show and they create a map where you can like see it all and, and diff- it's just like real estate.

Shaan Puri 50:19 Right

Sam Parr 50:19 Different locations can get higher prices. And it's basically like, you know, it's not like a conference like what I used to do, HustleCon or TED Talk where you're going to like watch content. Like the content's not important. You might have speakers, but that's just to attract the right type of people. It's really to do business. And so this small... I bet you there's a lot of like 10, 30, $40 million a year businesses that sell components that sell to Toyota. It's like just your door handle. I don't know, something. And they do business there and they say, "All right, great. I got five leads. That was five leads. I can probably get a few million dollars if I can close one of those leads, so it's worth it for me to pay $50,000." I think someone could do some of these trade shows with a lot of these industry insiders on Twitter, and I think that's an interesting opportunity and I think it's significantly better than many of the other opportunities, including agencies that a lot of people are starting online. It's harder, like if it, if there's bad weather you're screwed, or if there's a pandemic you're screwed. But these things can sell for way more money and they can actually last for dozens and dozens and dozens of years.

Shaan Puri 51:21 Right.

Sam Parr 51:21 So that's my pitch on trade shows and, and a small opportunity.

Shaan Puri 51:24 Yeah, love it. I, I think that's great. Um, nobody talks about trade shows more than you [laughs] in my life. And uh, I was stunned when I heard about that guy who did Shoptalk, Money20/20, and I think they did the healthcare one. I forgot what that one was called. Um, uh, those are... It's really, really remarkable. I don't fully understand it, meaning um-

Sam Parr 51:46 What don't you understand?

Shaan Puri 51:47 Like, uh, let's kind of walk through it. So basically, um, what's the draw to get the attendees to attend? How do you tell the... What, what is the value prop for the attendees? Is it meet others in your industry? Is it see these vendors up close and personal? Is it listen to these famous peop- three fa- famous people talk? What is the core draw?

Sam Parr 52:06 Well, I think it's all of the above, but let's go through each one. First one you didn't mention is I think sometimes it's like, "Oh, sick, I could justify a free trip to Florida."

Shaan Puri 52:16 [laughs]

Sam Parr 52:16 Like I'm gonna go hang out with people and also, "Oh, hey Bob, who is not really our competitor, but he's in our industry, he might be there so maybe I can go and shoot the shit with Bob and hang out with him. But I could bring like eight of my teammates and we could justify this trip." I think that's definitely a thing. The second way that you get the... So it's all about this is a marketplace, so you need the attendees to be there. The second place or second way you get there is you need like interesting speakers. So it could even be someone who's not even related-

Shaan Puri 52:41 Yeah

Sam Parr 52:42 ... but it's like, "Oh wow, this one person, like Gary Vaynerchuk, like that's not really in our industry, but like whatever, like I would... I've always wanted to see what he had to say. Like all right cool, I can get that person." And then the third one is let's just see the latest and greatest technology and so we can spend one day like getting to know what's going on in our industry. But I really think a lot of times it's rooted in I want to get out of the office and I can justify this $3,000 ticket and I can get five of my coworkers to go and it's an easy justification.

Shaan Puri 53:09 But in this one, they're giving away the passes for free. Is that correct? The, this UKi thing?

Sam Parr 53:13 Cor- Uh, when I went to their website they advertised free passes, so that's the extent of my research.

Shaan Puri 53:20 Gotcha. Okay. And then-

Sam Parr 53:21 In Money20/20 they charge people.

Shaan Puri 53:23 Right. And so, uh, how do they sell those tick- how do they, how do they build the brand from scratch? Is it content first? Uh, free content, then they lead up to it? Or are they just cold emailing? What do you, what do you know about how that guy, Jonathan Wiener or whatever his name was, uh, how they did it?

Sam Parr 53:40 Well, so that's why, uh, it helps to have some type of audience. And so what you'll notice is a lot of these companies, they're trade show and media businesses. So oftentimes they'll create a blog or a magazine in order to get some type of audience, and then they'll use that to like use their authority to sell tickets. But other times I think what you can do is you can just cold email a bunch of people to be honest. I think that in order to get... Look, I st- when I, the first year that I did HustleCon I charged $300 and I was a nobody, so like I didn't have an email list, I had nothing. I got the right speakers and I was able to get 400 people to come and that was only in six weeks time. I think it's actually significantly easier than you think if you go into a niche to just tell a handful of people and those handful of people tell a handful of people because a really successful show in a particular, in a small-ish niche, you can do a lot of damage with 1,000 or 2,000 people but then you really start making revenue after year four, five, and six.

Shaan Puri 54:37 What trade show would we do off MFM? Let's say we could get, magically get somebody to organize this whole thing 'cause we don't wanna do it. What could we use our distribution for that would be awesome?

Sam Parr 54:47 Well, I would never wanna do this 'cause I think this, 'cause the, the value here is low, but podcasting. So you could do a podcasting one. You know, we have 30 friends who are big-ish name podcasters. You could do a podcasting trade show where you have like... What are we using now? Riverside? Riverside would be a booth and like-

Shaan Puri 55:05 [laughs]

Sam Parr 55:06 Fuck, I don't know, like all the shit that we use.

Shaan Puri 55:09 [laughs] All right.

Sam Parr 55:10 What?

Shaan Puri 55:10 It's just like [laughs] the podca- the business side of podcasting is just so small that it's like [laughs] oh man.

Sam Parr 55:17 But small is good. Small is good. The pro- the problem is, is that the contract value is lower.

Shaan Puri 55:21 Yeah, exactly.

Sam Parr 55:21 That's the issue. You need something where people spend millions of dollars.

Shaan Puri 55:23 Exactly.

Sam Parr 55:24 So the podcasting would s- But like- But would you ever wanna go... You don't leave your house, so, but hypothetically, a person like you, would you wanna go and, like, shoot the shit with some other guy who's a little bit ahead of you and, like, just hear best practices?

Shaan Puri 55:35 Yeah. Yeah, that's fine.

Sam Parr 55:36 Maybe.

Shaan Puri 55:37 Okay, so podcasting is one. What else?

Sam Parr 55:39 I don't know, dude. What, what, what are you interested in?

Shaan Puri 55:42 Oh, it's not what about. What-

Sam Parr 55:43 Uh

Shaan Puri 55:43 ... what I'm interested in. So what do you think, what niche do you think, what type of niche do you think would work? So for example, these, these guys are doing auto parts and au- the automotive industry because it's B2B and a bunch of people are selling, uh, you know, high-priced things. We've seen that, um, Money 20/20 was like, "Hey, fintech is gonna be a thing. Let's just make the number one..." I, I don't even know if those were trade shows as much as they were conferences, but, like, let's make the Fintech Conference. Let's, uh, let's make the E-commerce Conference. That's kinda what they tried to do with those to, like, ride an upstart wave. Um-

Sam Parr 56:16 We could probably do something either involving investing or high net worth people, so where... And your, your booths are, uh, different type of, like... A question that you and I and our friends constantly ask each other is, like, does anyone have, like, a, a, an accountant who they trust?

Shaan Puri 56:32 Right.

Sam Parr 56:32 Or I am having this tax issue. What are some lawyers that I can trust? I think you could do something in that vein. I would have to narrow in on what it would, what it would be. I think you could do something like that, um, where, like, one customer for a particular law firm could earn hundreds of thousands of dollars in a lifetime of fees, or, or, or a net worth, uh, or a, um, financial advisor could. I think you could do something-

Shaan Puri 56:53 Right

Sam Parr 56:53 ... in that vein.

Shaan Puri 56:54 And by the way, we've been to a couple of these. FarmCon I think is, uh, is exactly this. So that's for the agriculture industry. We went to that. Uh, another one is, um, back when I was doing the sushi restaurant, I remember we somehow were at the QSR... I don't even remember what it's called. It was the QSR event, and I just remember that the CEO, the guy who created it, his last name was Hamburger, and I was like, uh, like... I forgot. What, what's the name of that effect where people end up living up to their name? Um, like, there's [laughs] like some, uh, there's, like, a whole subreddit about this. [laughs] Uh, Reddit, people, uh-

Sam Parr 57:27 [laughs] Was he just a big, juicy guy? I mean, what would, what was it like?

Shaan Puri 57:29 I mean, just, just basically the, [laughs] just the idea of, um, [laughs] like, somebody who's named John Hamburger ends up creating the quick, the, the fast food trade show. [laughs] Like, you, you know, Usain Bolt is the fastest man on, on Earth. Like, this is just, it's too good to be true. Um-

Sam Parr 57:46 Like, if you're that Wolf of Franchise guy who we like on Twitter-

Shaan Puri 57:49 Oh, yeah

Sam Parr 57:49 ... like, you definitely could pull off-

Shaan Puri 57:50 This is what he should do

Sam Parr 57:51 ... you could pull off, you could pull off something like this. Now, it's really, the, logistically it's still, like, this isn't easy. This is, this, there's some challenges, but it's a-

Shaan Puri 57:58 Simple, not easy

Sam Parr 57:58 ... it's a problem that's been solved tons and tons of times. Like, it's a, it's not like you're inventing, we're not inventing anything new. This is a, a S- this is, we're selling T-shirts, you know? It's still, like, revolves logistical issues, but, like, it, it's, it's not, you're not inventing anything.

Shaan Puri 58:11 Yeah. Yeah, that's cool. Um, all right. Well, I think that's, that's good. I'm gonna save my other topics for the, for the next episode.

Sam Parr 58:18 Did that not tickle your fancy?

Shaan Puri 58:19 It does.

Sam Parr 58:20 It seems like-

Shaan Puri 58:21 You, you know it's good when I'm slacking in the background 'cause I'm just like, oh, here's a half-baked idea. Here's a half-baked idea, uh, of what, what could happen. I think the trade show stuff is actually pretty fascinating, and I like, you know, I think there's two ways to approach a business. One is, like, what do I love to do, and let me just follow the, like, follow my curiosity, follow my natural, like, scratching my own itch type of thing. And then the other is, like, the cold, calculating, like, all right, let me work backwards from businesses that sell with high multiples, and I'm just gonna go fishing over there 'cause, uh, I don't know what, I don't know what my passion is, so might as well just go calculate the best opportunity. I've actually done both in my life. Both can work. You can win both ways. I think it is better to win when you follow your passion, but, like, um, but I, [laughs] but if you're not gonna do that, [laughs] this is a fun way to, to reverse engineer what business you should be in.

Sam Parr 59:08 And I don't wanna say this as, like, an absolute thing, but it appears as though the com- the, there's lots of buyers for these businesses because the way that, like, there's a handful of publicly traded companies as well as, um, some really, like, uh, heavy, heavy, heavy-backed PE companies where what they do is they just buy, like, eight of 'em, and they put 'em together, and they do syner- synergistic stuff to reduce costs and whatever, and it seems as though it's a very, very high buyer-

Shaan Puri 59:38 Right

Sam Parr 59:38 ... market, whereas, like e-com for example, I don't know if agencies are like this. I, I, I don't know. They might be. They may not be. But some of the things that people start, they're, they seem a little bit more difficult to sell, whereas these things aren't as difficult to sell.

Shaan Puri 59:50 Totally. That's right. Um, good stuff. All right. That was a good episode. I like that one.

Sam Parr 59:54 That's the pod. [upbeat music]