The 2023 Milly Awards (#531)

Shaan Puri 0:00 This is the most popular episode we do every year. It takes weeks of planning. I'm out 50 bucks 'cause I got this new jacket on. We're all dressed up. And why? Because it is the Milly Awards. It is our end of year episode where we go through about 15 categories, right? Actors, they got the Oscars, and musicians, they have the Grammy’s. Well, what do business people have? They got the Milly Awards, and this is where we share a bunch of different categories like our best and worst investments of the year. You know, where did we take a big L on an investment? What did we win on? Or we'll do a category like person we would most bet it all on. Who would we, if we had to invest our whole net worth on somebody, who would we bet it on? Uh, we got me, Sam, and Andrew Wilkinson. We're all here. We've been doing this for three years now. These episodes are always the favorites. This one went long. We're gonna do it as a two-parter. So in part one we have categories like Billy of the Year, uh, best business that we think somebody else should go do, our favorite moment from, uh, from the podcast this year, and the biggest change that we are making personally in our game in 20... for 2024. And in part two we have a whole bunch of categories like our favorite unsexy business and, uh, wild predictions for next year. So enjoy the Milly Awards 2023. [upbeat music] Okay. What's up, guys? It's my favorite episode of the year. Andrew Wilkinson is here. Sam is here. Sam, you're looking dapper. Andrew, you're looking dapper. Sam, I gotta say, the whole dressing well thing, I'm bought in now. I see it. You don't look like a science teacher. You don't look like you're from a different era. You just look sharp, my friend.

Sam Parr 1:39 Yeah, I couldn't find my cufflinks, so I thought I was gonna look like a farmer on this thing. Thank God I found them right before we started.

Shaan Puri 1:45 [laughs]

Sam Parr 1:46 Do you guys remember how, uh, Trump had, like, the Clemson football team into the White House and they used, like, the Lincoln gravy bowls for, like, barbecue sauce?

Shaan Puri 1:54 [laughs]

Sam Parr 1:54 That's how I feel right now with this person who bought me Tiffany Crystal for my wedding. This is the first time they're being used, and we're-- they're being used for Whole Foods brand LaCroix, so shout out to that person.

Shaan Puri 2:03 [laughs]

Sam Parr 2:05 Um, Andrew, you feeling good? You ready to do this thing?

Speaker 2:08 Feeling great. Yeah. I'm, uh... This is the best I've dressed in years.

Sam Parr 2:12 Well, we're happy that you did it here. All right, so this is the Milly Awards. We've done this, this is now, Shaan, four years running we've done this. Or is it three? I think four.

Shaan Puri 2:19 I believe so. Maybe three. I think it's three.

Sam Parr 2:21 And we've got, we've got 11 or 12 or 13 categories we're gonna do. Favorite MFM Guests, we're gonna do Billy of the Year, Biggest Change for 2024,

Sam Parr 2:31 uh, the Person We Bet It All on. We're gonna do a bunch of different stuff, and we're gonna try and go somewhat fast for each category, but I'm sure we're gonna have interesting stories for each one. Shaan, you wanna kick it off? Where do you wanna go?

Shaan Puri 2:40 Yeah. Category one, this is the Milly Award for our favorite MFM episode or guest of the year. Sam, start us off. Who you got?

Sam Parr 2:49 All right. This was a tie. No, it's not a tie. We're not gonna have ties, but I'm gonna say the top two that I had was Scott Galloway. So by the way, we have a clip that's gone viral on, on YouTube where it's a clip from the Scott Galloway pod where he's talking about how much he made, I'm talking about how much I made, and people are just ragging on us both so hard because they say that we sound so depressed. But I'm gonna give it number one to Kevin Ryan. Kevin Ryan's the founder of Gilt, Business Insider, MongoDB. I think Kevin Ryan was the best episode. I think he was the most wise person and well-balanced person we've had who's had crazy success.

Shaan Puri 3:20 You know what else he did that I liked? At the end of the episode, he was like, "Here's how I set up my company to maximize, um, like, kind of the gain I get out of these companies and pay the least taxes." And I'll tell you what, no rich guy ever says that. No rich guy ever tells you, [laughs] "This is the structure I use." And he said it on, on air, and he's like, "Here's what it does. It lets me live in a high-cost state, and I'm effectively only paying 14% and my kids are only paying 0% on what they're getting out of our, our capital gains due to QSBS." So he owns the share. He, he's like, "I only work on projects that are QSBS eligible and long-term capital gains. I'm not looking for, uh, cash flow or income," 'cause he's like, "I got to a point where I, I have that, like, you know, day-to-day needs set, uh, settled," so, so you have to get to there. He's like, "But once you're there," he's like, "You, um, you ha- take your QSBS, you live in a high-cost state. You then, uh, gift, uh, your stock to your kids' trust. So you set up kids' trust, you gift your stock to them before you raise a financing round. So you're taking only, like, let's say 100K out of your, uh, lifetime gift tax, and your kids now own QSBS eligible stock. When you sell, you're gonna end up paying only the state tax, so you'll pay 14% California or New York. You'll pay no federal, um, and then your kids will pay 0% wherever, you know, likely whenever they, they get it out of the trust, uh, at their, at their given point in time. And you're getting QSBS, you know, the $10 million tax-free for you times each of your kids. I can get to 50 million tax-free if I got, you know, three or four kids or whatever." And I was like, "Oh."

Sam Parr 4:49 I don't think they've got... I don't think they have QSBS in Canada land, do they?

Speaker 4:53 No, we don't have... We have... There's all sorts of other stuff and benefits and stuff, but, um, there's a great saying on this stuff. Um, whales only harpoon, uh, whales only get harpooned when they surface, right?

Shaan Puri 5:03 [laughs]

Speaker 5:03 He just surfaced in a really obvious way, and you know there's just some anal retentive IRS guy listening to the pod-

Shaan Puri 5:08 Stroking his beard right now

Speaker 5:09 ... yeah, actually strike that all from the record. [laughs]

Sam Parr 5:12 What, uh, what's yours, Andrew?

Speaker 5:14 Uh, my favorite was Sarah Moore. So Sarah Moore, uh, she's a crazy story. She, um, had a really troubled childhood, basically got adopted by this wealthy family. They ended up putting her through Harvard Business School, and she went out and she bought this business called eggcartons.com, and this story was just incredible. I feel like, um, so many people hear these wild stories about tech bro billionaires, you know, raising a bunch of money and hitting it big, making trillions of dollars, and I think her story is much more realistic for a normal person. You know, anyone. She really kind of, uh, is a testament to the fact that anybody can teach themself business and can go buy a business, that it's really not rocket science. And I loved how simple and tactical all of her stuff was. Uh, she's so honest that I love that story.

Sam Parr 6:00 She also said on the pod, she goes, "I'm trying to stay low-key and under the radar," and I think it's been our, one of our most downloaded and viewed episodes with like 500,000-

Shaan Puri 6:08 It's like 500,000 listens to that episode. [laughs]

Sam Parr 6:10 [laughs]

Shaan Puri 6:11 Whoops. Well, so-

Speaker 6:14 The smartest thing she did is she, like, she did the, um, the Michael Jordan, like, "I'm retiring-

Sam Parr 6:19 Yeah

Speaker 6:19 ... this is the last thing." Like, you know, "I'm never going out again." And now she, it, it immediately, as soon as you said that in the intro, I was like-

Sam Parr 6:26 Yeah

Speaker 6:26 ... "I have to listen." Right? There's definitely episodes I kind of check out of or don't do.

Sam Parr 6:29 Yeah, it was a great one.

Speaker 6:30 That made me lean in.

Sam Parr 6:31 I, I, I think that's a great one.

Shaan Puri 6:33 The, uh, by the way, there's a quick follow-up to that, 'cause that stor- that, uh, that story, the Sarah Moore story was, falls in the category of kinda like too good to be true. So you know, look at all the elements. It's basically like here's this super hot woman who grew up, you know, super poor, couldn't even get into college, somehow ends up at Harvard Business School, there must have been something happening there. Uh, family had, adopted her along the way, that's like the plot of the movie Blind Side. Then it was buys a business but has no money, remember, 'cause she grew up super poor, so bought the business with $0 cash down. How she found the business was she hi- you know, hired 50 interns off of Craigslist and like snuck them into the Harvard, uh, Business School, like, library to work with her on this. It ha- and, and he applies this business, eggcartons.com for millions, you know, it's a millions, multimillion-dollar business, super successful. There's no pictures of her on the internet. There's no interviews of her on the internet, right? We're like the only guys who have, like, done this. So there was a lot there that like I came out be- thinking, "Did I just get Elizabeth Holmes'd?" This is, I, I might have, oh God, this, I might be part of the documentary here. All right, let me, uh, let me at least make sure I look good if this is gonna end up on Netflix one day. And she flew out after the episode. She's like, "I gotta meet you." I said, "Okay, why?" Uh, and she's like, "I just w- I need to know who I'm dealing with here."

Sam Parr 7:51 [laughs]

Shaan Puri 7:52 And so she flies out. We go get lunch here in the 'burbs, uh, in California. She flies all the way from Boston. And everything checked out. It was, i- if she is Elizabeth Holmes, she's the greatest Elizabeth Holmes you've ever seen. Uh, you know, she looks like what she sa- shows like, she s- told the story, she showed me the old photos. Like, you know, she, everything. And she's like, "I'm so glad, you know, people have been pretty respectful 'cause I said on the episode, please don't bother me." Um, and we, we did a form instead of her like email address. Like here, s- type your questions in this form and then we'll, we'll answer the form.

Sam Parr 8:26 How many d- how many messages did she get?

Shaan Puri 8:28 A lot. She had said after the first appearance on it, she got like, like t- the Netflix, Bravo, like other people had reached out to be like, "Can I do, uh, we wanna do a show on you or a movie on you."

Sam Parr 8:38 Wow. All right. Well, kudos to Sarah Moore. What is, what's yours, Shaan?

Shaan Puri 8:42 All right. My MFM guest of the year that's gonna surprise you guys is Connor Price. And Connor Price is a, was a guy who was working in a warehouse. He was stacking boxes in our friend's warehouse, in Ramon's warehouse, and he was like a wannabe rapper, white guy. And you know, like that's kinda cliche, but he actually made it, and he made it in a very interesting way. He figured out how to go viral on TikTok, and he was not a social media guy. He refused to even post on social media. He was too shy. His wife was like, "You gotta do this. It's a great way to get the word out, and let's just have some fun with it." She kinda became his like m- his manager, and they now have racked up, I don't know, like a billion views on TikTok going viral. And the reason I say Connor Price is not just 'cause that's an inspiring story, but I took away one big lesson of like the, it's like I realized that the puck has moved, and I'll give you guys the short version of it. I think era one of marketing was sort of like, um, let me interrupt your programming in order to tell you about my product, right? That's commercials. That's like radio ads. That's how things used to work. Era two became, um, hey, let me send this to an influencer. They'll kind of hold up the product and make a post about the product. So now I'm not interrupting your programming, I'm kind of using this trusted influencer, um, but it's clearly, you know, still an ad. The, the content is, "Buy this product, it's great." And what Connor Price is doing is a little bit different. He tell, he creates a little skit and in the middle of the, the payoff of the skit, the hero of the skit, the one that saves the day, is this dope song, and the 15 seconds of the dope song and that gets people to go and actually want to go find the product. And now I see this everywhere. This is how MrBeast sells chocolate too. He doesn't hold up his candy bar and say, "This is a delicious candy bar. You should go buy it." He says, "I recreated Willy Wonka's chocolate factory, and inside this factory is..." He makes, like the product is baked into the content. The content is entertainment around the product. And now that I see that, I can't unsee it. I see it everywhere, and it's part of my kinda core business strategy now.

Sam Parr 10:46 You gotta give a shout-out to his-

Shaan Puri 10:46 Even our own ads, we changed like that. Instead of saying, "We're gonna stop and we're gonna tell you about this thing," we created a segment called The Thrill of the Shill. We te- we teach a lesson or an entertaining story, and then we tell you about the product in that story. And, uh, that's how I think marketing goes now. Connor Price got it there.

Sam Parr 11:00 Gotta give a shout-out to his, uh, wife too, just a total shark in the best possible way.

Shaan Puri 11:04 Yes, absolutely.

Sam Parr 11:05 Yeah, she was hardcore.

Speaker 11:06 [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.

Sam Parr 11:28 All right, you wanna move to the next one?

Sam Parr 11:30 Billy of the Year. How do we describe this one? Just a billionaire who's fascinating?

Shaan Puri 11:35 [laughs] It's just someone who's balling out of control. You don't even have to be a billionaire. You just have to have that, that billionaire strut, the ability to, to walk with some swagger and play the game a little differently. So it's somebody who is s- uber successful, but in a way that we really respect. Let's go with Andrew first. Who you got?

Speaker 11:51 So mine is very obvious. It's, um... [beep] Sorry, guys.

Sam Parr 11:54 Got a landline over there? You still have a landline?

Shaan Puri 11:56 Dude, you go public and you have to install a landline?

Speaker 11:58 Sorry, yes. My, the gate, the gate, the, the gate of my house is like this super old-school system, so I have a landline just for that.

Shaan Puri 12:04 [laughs] Dude, you o- you better only be talking to presidents on that thing.

Sam Parr 12:08 Yeah. [laughs]

Speaker 12:09 It's red. It's red, like the Batphone. Um, so mine is pretty obvious. It's Charlie Munger. I think we all know who he is. Uh, for those of you that don't, he's Warren Buffett's longtime business partner. He just died last week. I think he was- 15 days or something short of his 100th birthday. He was 99, and the guy was completely sharp to the end. I think a week before he did an interview with Jesse, or, um, what's her name? Becky Quick, um, from CNBC. And I just wanna tell you a story about this guy. This is how sharp this guy was. So Chris and I were having dinner with him one night, and all of a sudden this guy bursts into the room and he's like, "Charlie, I gotta... I'm doing a deal right now. I need to know, uh, an answer to something." And this guy walks in, he's like 30 years old, and he just starts rattling off a bunch of questions. He's like, "Okay, um, we need to do it at, uh, 5.6% interest for this many doors." And Charlie just asks a couple questions and he says, "Okay, good. Cool." And then the guy just, like, says bye to us and leaves. And Charlie explains that it's this neighborhood kid who, he is a Hasidic Jew, tried to convert him to Judaism 20 years ago, going door to door with a Bible, uh, with, with, uh, Bibles, and they ended up becoming friends. He mentored him. They... He started buying apartments, Charlie backed him on this, and now they own a billion-

Shaan Puri 13:34 What?

Speaker 13:34 ... dollar real estate portfolio of Los Angeles apartments. And he's just this neighborhood kid, uh, his name is Avi. And, uh, and they built this huge business together. And Charlie started doing this-

Shaan Puri 13:45 That's insane

Speaker 13:45 ... when he was, like, 90 years old.

Shaan Puri 13:46 His 90-year-old side hustle is a billion-dollar real estate portfolio? Goddammit. [laughs]

Sam Parr 13:51 Andrew, is this gonna be like a, a couple that's been married for 80 years and they both die at the same time? Is, is Warren gonna... Like, is he, uh, distraught, you think, in the same way a marriage would be?

Speaker 14:02 I don't know. I mean, yeah, Buffett's really old, too. And I think, um, if you think about the actuarial tables, they really don't have much... or Buffett wouldn't have much time left. But, uh, hopefully he keeps going for-

Sam Parr 14:12 Yeah

Speaker 14:12 ... a few more years.

Sam Parr 14:12 I think he named hi- uh, or he said he has a successor and everything lined up, but I wasn't sure if it was gonna be like a marriage where, like, he- he's gonna go, like, next week. But I guess we'll see.

Speaker 14:20 What's funny is they've had successors since they were, like, 60. Everyone's been saying they'll die at any time.

Shaan Puri 14:25 [laughs]

Speaker 14:26 So they've gone, they've gone a lot longer than everyone thought.

Sam Parr 14:29 Um, all right. Mine's Palmer Luckey, the CEO of Anduril. So we had Palmer Luckey on, I think, two years ago now. It was an amazing episode. But here's why I like Palmer Luckey. He says what you'd wanna say if you were a billionaire, but you'd be too afraid to say it. And so he has got a lot of really good quotes of him. He's kind of a loose cannon in a, in a few ways. Like, him and Jason Calacanis have gotten into it. But frankly, I love it. So he's got this great thing that he did. He spoke at a conference recently, and he goes, "Do you guys know what the number one profession that children wanna be? It's social media influencer. The next is professional gamer. The next is a YouTuber. And the problem is is that you can't tell kids to follow their dreams when their dreams suck." Uh, which is, like, a great line.

Shaan Puri 15:09 [laughs]

Sam Parr 15:09 And he goes, "Do you know what the number one dream for kids in 1971, in 1971 was? It was an astronaut. We had just gone to the moon. These guys were fighter pilots, PhD mathematicians, supermen, who all were also really good, good-looking and well-spoken. It was the ultimate American hero ideal. For a kid to see that and say, 'That's what I wanna be,' okay, then I say yes, you- we should tell kids to follow their dream. But when it's social media influencers, I should tell, we should tell them their-

Shaan Puri 15:32 [laughs]

Sam Parr 15:33 ... their dreams suck and don't follow their dream." So he's got these really, like, articulated, wonderful points that I appreciate. He dresses silly. He's got a mullet. I'm a big Palmer Luckey fan.

Shaan Puri 15:43 Yeah, I like that one. Uh, that's now two years in a row. Andrew gave him the nod last year for Billy of the Year, and now Sam comes in again with Palmer. I love it. He's, uh... We gotta get him back on, man. He was, he was really good on the pod. He had super interesting ideas and also, like you said, speaks his mind.

Sam Parr 15:59 He says that he flies commercial and that he prefers to seat, to sit by the bathroom. He goes, "'Cause that-

Shaan Puri 16:05 [laughs]

Sam Parr 16:05 "... 'cause my, my gram..." He goes, "My grandpa was a pilot, and I just love being around everyone." I don't truly believe that, but he con- continually con- claims that's true. What's yours, Shaan?

Shaan Puri 16:15 Um, all right. My Billy of the Year is gonna be an entrepreneur who I think has a... I don't know how close they are to the Billy number. I think they're probably close when you include their wife. That's a little hint for you. I wrote down a couple of bullet points on why this person is a badass, and you know you're a badass when your couple bullet points goes to the Roman numeral 13. Let me just read these off in rapid succession. Okay. This person has been a rapper, an entrepreneur, an investor, an author. They are a motivational speaker. They have a badass wife who's even more successful than them. They somehow married up even though they're super successful themselves. Four kids. And when I called this person to prep for the podcast, they were on their way, you know, like, taking care of the kids, uh, taking them to their soccer game, yelling at, at them, "Where's your shoes? How, you where, where'd you put your shoes yesterday?" And that just told me they're p- they're plugged in as a dad versus, uh, you know, four other people are raising their kids. Um, they own an NBA team. They're a part owner in an NBA team. They built a coconut water brand, a private jet company. They discovered David Goggins before he was David Goggins. They, they actually invited David Goggins to live in their house and train them every single day for 30 days. Uh, they like running, so they created a running festival. They like pickles, they're creating a pickle brand. They created a fake Mount Everest 'cause he's like, "I can't go f- uh, climb Everest, but I'll take this mountain and I'll climb it 14 times, and it's the same height as Everest." Um, he came on the pod and had one of the all-time classic lines about some other competitor, uh, of his, and he goes, "Keep the money warm. Thank," you know, "Thank you for keeping the money warm for me. I'm coming."

Sam Parr 17:54 [laughs]

Shaan Puri 17:55 And keep the money warm has just... It warms my soul. Uh, he is just having fun out here. He's got great life, uh, uh, philosophies that, about having adventures multiple times a year to f- to have a life well lived. He is-

Sam Parr 18:07 He also got angry at me for asking him what his monthly burn was.

Shaan Puri 18:10 Yeah. He called Sam out-

Sam Parr 18:12 [laughs]

Shaan Puri 18:12 ... for, uh, badgering him. We had to cut it out of the episode 'cause it got-

Sam Parr 18:15 I didn't badger him

Shaan Puri 18:16 ... so awkward. [laughs]

Sam Parr 18:17 I didn't badger him. I, I said, "I'll ask whatever I want, and I respect your, I s- I respect you to say no."

Shaan Puri 18:21 You're like, "I'll ask you the same question seven different ways-

Sam Parr 18:23 [laughs]

Shaan Puri 18:24 ... until you finally wilt." He didn't wilt. He was like, "That's personal shit, Sam. You're pissing me off." And, uh, he, he is Jesse Itzler. That is my Billy of the Year.

Sam Parr 18:35 That's a good one. Yeah, I, uh, I had him on my list. I thought you were gonna pick him, so I, I backed off.

Shaan Puri 18:41 Thank you.

Sam Parr 18:41 I think Jesse's an amazing person. He also has this calendar. I keep getting Facebook ads for it, and I'm gonna buy one. Where he like sa- what did he say? He goes, "I'm 50 years old. I only have 30 summers left. I'm planning exactly how I'm gonna spend them." It, it was good.

Shaan Puri 18:54 Yeah, exactly. I think it's called Big Ass Calendar. Um, all right, category number three,

Shaan Puri 19:00 what is the biggest change you're making for 2024? But before we do it, we have to say what we said last year. Andrew, you said being better at responding to iMessage. You were like, "I've, I've gotten my email system under wrap," but, you know, you're like, "I have so many text messages, I'm bad at replying. It makes me feel like a bad person and a bad friend." Uh, Sam, you said, "I'm gonna be less of a dictator." [laughs]

Sam Parr 19:23 [laughs]

Shaan Puri 19:23 Uh, you said, "I'm gonna lead this company without being a dictator and being less metrics obsessed. I'm gonna be more vibe driven, more calm."

Sam Parr 19:31 I nailed it, by the way, just for the record.

Shaan Puri 19:33 Yeah, I was gonna say, and I said, um, I know I'm... I don't know what I s- I think I said something else, but I think I said knowing when to use my impulsiveness and when to ignore it. Um, that, so those were our three. Sam, you wanna go first? So you said you nailed it.

Sam Parr 19:50 I nailed it. I've, I've been way less metric focused. I try not to talk about sales or anything like that.

Shaan Puri 19:55 You're a vibe CEO?

Sam Parr 19:56 I'm a vibe CEO. You know? I'm not the CEO, but my CEO is metrics driven, but I'm not as much. So I, I, I calm down, and I think I'm very easy to be around at this moment. But next year, so I'm making a few changes. One, I'm gonna move eventually. I think I'm gonna do the most tuxedo guy, tuxedo thing ever. I think I'm moving to, like, Greenwich, Connecticut. That's not a joke. That's serious. So that's gonna be a big change. But you know what I'm gonna do in 2024 is I'm gonna get... I'm trying grades, grayscale. You know what... You guys know what grayscale is? It's when you, m- there's like a... If you go to... Just Google it and you'll see the directions on how to do it. But if you type in on your phone, like, color, you should see it where you can switch your iPhone to only be black or white. So I'm doing that right now because I've been using my phone to read books to my daughter, and I hate having that bright, all those colors 'cause she stares at them. But the bigger switch I'm gonna do is I'm gonna get a dumb phone. Have you guys seen dumb phones? It's like a Nokia or a light phone. I cannot stand phone addiction. It's really bothering me. I'm totally addicted, and I'm afraid to set a bad example for my children. So this year I'm gonna move to a dumb phone, which is similar, I guess, to what you're saying, Andrew. You're breaking up with email.

Speaker 21:05 So two, well, two thoughts on that before you jump to that. So one, um, the bright light you get at night, you wanna actually... Peter Attia recommends switching your phone so that it's a red screen instead of grayscale. Uh, I can teach you how to do that. You tap your au- uh, power button twice, and you can make it a shortcut to make your screen red, and red light doesn't affect your night vision. So that's what I do. Um, uh, that said, there's been studies on, um, color, and if you decolorize your phone, if you make it grayscale, it's less stimulating. You're less likely to click into stuff. Uh, what I've done is actually installed something called Freedom, and Freedom plus Screen Time basically block everything.

Sam Parr 21:44 I've been doing that but with Opal. You know Opal?

Speaker 21:46 Yes.

Sam Parr 21:46 I think it's the same thing.

Speaker 21:48 Yeah, similar. So it's like I basically have no ability to get through it. Like, there's... I, I, I ca- I have not been able to figure it out. And so I have no email on my phone. Um, I've blocked a lot of texting. I've blocked every basic- basically every fun app. Uh, and I feel like an addict. Like, I, I feel, like, really irritable. I'm going through withdrawal right now. Um, but the change I'm trying to make... So I, I nailed texting last year. I got this amazing app called text.com, which is basically like Superhuman for texts.

Sam Parr 22:16 Dude, you've been twe- you've been tweeting out, like, links. You're like, g- like, you like refer five people and you get a T-shirt or something.

Speaker 22:23 I love it. I lo- I absolutely love it.

Sam Parr 22:24 [laughs]

Speaker 22:25 But the problem with that is that I've now gotten so responsive with texts, I'm so good with texts, that I'm getting more texts. So, you know, you send more emails, you get more emails. I'm now getting too many texts. And because I built my email system last year, um, I don't respond on email as fast, and so I'm getting more and more texts. So I have that problem. The big thing I'm trying to do this year is I'm trying to break up with email fully. So what I've been doing for the last two weeks is I can't access my email, and my assistant sends me screenshots literally of any important email that she thinks I need to respond to, and I just tell her what to do with it. And what's interesting about that is when you're in a flow state, when you're working or writing or doing something, you'll often have the thought, "Oh, shit, I have to remember to send that email." And so you jump over to Superhuman, you send the email, and then, you know, you might see 10 other subject lines. And before I know it, I'm, like, down a rabbit trail reading, like, a Packy McCormick newsletter or responding to a problem or something like that. And so what I'm, what I'm hoping is that this new system will only be the things that I absolutely need to respond to, and there's no additional distraction. So we'll, we'll see how it works.

Shaan Puri 23:34 Let me just tell you two wonderful rich guy things that Andrew just did that are true rich guy things, not these fake ass, not these wannabe rich guy things. First thing is he said, "You know what Peter Re- Attia recommends?" Which is great 'cause he didn't say, "You know what my doctor [clears throat] Peter Attia recommends?"

Sam Parr 23:51 He recommended it to me. [laughs]

Shaan Puri 23:53 That was, that w- that, yeah, recommends to me when I see him because, again, he's my doctor. So that was the first great thing you did. You didn't brag when you could have bragged. The, it's the words not said. It's the dogs that didn't bark, right? That, that you really gave yourself away as being a, a truly comfortable with yourself, secure person, and I appreciate that. The second thing, you're basically at the stage of Trump and others that are just like, "I just get my email printed out and put on my desk, and I just quickly mark with a pen, and then somebody goes, 'I don't... What is email, actually? I, I actually don't understand how the system works.' It just shows up on my desk." You're basically at printed email, and printed email is like you got Lo- Louis Vuitton, you got, like, you know, Birkin bags, you got... At the very top of the luxury pyramid is printed email, and you're basically there

Speaker 24:38 You know, it's crazy though. It's really not, it's not an inaccessible thing. Like, um, so I have an assistant in the Philippines, and it's like $1,000 a month, and she does it, right? So it's like it is something that a lot of people could be doing.

Shaan Puri 24:50 It's not that it's inexpensive. It takes a certain level of-

Speaker 24:53 Yes

Shaan Puri 24:53 ... confidence in your lifestyle that you're not missing stuff, right? You, you are not lacking something, and so you're able to do this s- type of system.

Speaker 25:02 So what, what's interesting though is I've done this... I've been in this cycle for 15 years, right, of getting overwhelmed. Usually once a year I get overwhelmed, and I dial everything back. And Sam, I've actually had a flip phone. I've tried the dumb phone. At the end of the day, you need to order Door- DoorDash and Uber and do basic things. So it didn't work for me. But I had this moment where I was going through one of these cycles, and this was in 2010, and my friend asked me out for sushi. So I, I live in Victoria, uh, Canada, and I... And, uh, Vancouver is about, I don't know, a 35-minute flight away or a two-hour ferry away. And so I go out for sushi with my buddy, and I'm in this mode where I put my phone in my car and I don't look at it. So I, um, go have sushi. We have a great time. We're catching up. At the end of the, uh, sushi, I get in my car and I look at my phone, and I've received an email from Mark Zuckerberg. Mark Zuckerberg at the time was famous, but not famous famous, not like he is today. And I'd emailed him because I heard he was coming to Vancouver, and he didn't respond for two days, and then at 8:00 at night or 7:00 at night, I got this email that said, "Hey, do you wanna go for a drink?" From him, from Zuck. And there is... And I checked this email at 8:30 or 9:00, and there's literally no way to get to Vancouver after 9:00 PM. The ferry leaves at 9:00 PM, there's no flights, et cetera. And so I missed my opportunity to go out for a drink with Mark Zuckerberg one-on-one while he's out of his element in my hometown.

Sam Parr 26:33 [laughs]

Speaker 26:33 And so I always think about that story. Whenever I block my email and do all these things, I still always think about that.

Sam Parr 26:40 That's insane.

Shaan Puri 26:41 That's, that's so funny. Imagine somebody who's like, "Yeah, I really wanna make this lifestyle shift. It'll be good. I'm gonna get off my phone. But you know what, if Mark Zuckerberg just emails me-"

Speaker 26:49 [laughs]

Shaan Puri 26:49 "... and I happen to be at sushi and I miss the one time he's in my hometown in my neighborhood, you know? And then like Jessica Biel was there afterwards and she wanted to hang out, but then I just didn't have my phone on me." But it actually happened to you.

Speaker 27:00 It's a very-

Shaan Puri 27:00 That's incredible. [laughs]

Speaker 27:01 It's a very sad story. It's a very difficult life.

Shaan Puri 27:03 Have you tried to like catch up with him and be like, "Mark, um, hey, uh, yeah, I was doing a dumb phone thing. You know how it is."

Speaker 27:12 [laughs]

Shaan Puri 27:13 "Uh, um, I'm walking around Menlo Park until I see you. Uh..." [laughs]

Sam Parr 27:20 You have to do the, uh... Andrew, what I want you to give up next year, at least when you're around me, maybe Shaan as well, is that stupid thing you al- you and Chris always do where you make everyone put their credit cards in at the end of a dinner.

Shaan Puri 27:31 [laughs]

Sam Parr 27:31 You did that with me, Shaan, and I'll... I won't name the other person, but the dinner that one time, it was probably $600. And I don't know this personal, this person's finances, but I, I know they aren't where you are, and this guy ended up paying for like a $600 meal. And I didn't wanna be a bitch and be like, "Call everyone out."

Shaan Puri 27:50 Well, the funny thing is we were at sushi, and this person doesn't eat fish. [laughs] So they paid for the meal-

Sam Parr 27:56 What? [laughs]

Shaan Puri 27:56 ... but they don't even eat seafood. [laughs]

Speaker 27:57 I think, I think it's such an awkward... It's born... So what, basically the story is, uh, we were all out for dinner, and Chris and I said, "Hey, we're, you know, instead of fighting over the bill, let's just all put our credit cards in. We'll let the w- the waiter choose the card at random."

Sam Parr 28:10 I wouldn't have fought you. We didn't have to fight.

Speaker 28:12 Yeah.

Sam Parr 28:12 [laughs]

Speaker 28:13 But, but what ended up, what I, what I noticed, one of the weird things about making money is that there's this weird dynamic that happens where when the bill comes, if you pay the bill, you're showing off or you're implying they can't afford it, and if you don't pay the bill, you're an asshole 'cause you can afford to. And so that's why we do that.

Sam Parr 28:33 Well.

Shaan Puri 28:34 Yeah. So Canadian of you.

Sam Parr 28:35 Yeah. [laughs] Well. All right, Shaan, what's yours? [laughs]

Shaan Puri 28:40 Um, what am I at? Uh, biggest change? Okay, biggest change I'm making. This is something I started to do, but I'm doubling down on it. So, this year I turned off two profit streams that I think combined were making like 1.2 to 1.5 million a year of profit. I just turned them off. Nothing was wrong with them. I just turned them off. I lied, actually. There was something wrong with them. They were just okay. Uh, they were just okay, meaning it wasn't something I really loved to do, it wasn't something I hated to do. It was making good money, but it wasn't making amazing money.

Sam Parr 29:15 Can you say what those are?

Shaan Puri 29:16 Yeah. One of them was, um, my course. So I, I was teaching this like power writing course and, uh, you know, I was only teaching it basically two to three weeks out of the year, you know, roughly 10 days on average a year, but it would generate, you know, whatever, a million bucks a year of profit. And, um, but I didn't like being a course sales guy. Like, I like teaching, but I'd rather just kind of like maybe just do it for free on the pod or something like that, do, do like a masterclass episode instead. Um, so I j- I just decided I'm not doing it and I was like, okay, that's just like [beep] less coming in this year. All right, then that matters to me. Uh, so I'm like, but I'm willing to do that. And I also just announced that I'm shutting down my rolling fund. So I'll only be investing personally now. I'm not taking any more outside money, um, just because it was like kind of another thing to manage. Like here's a group of investors, gotta write these updates. I gotta keep it like, you know, I gotta keep it organized. Oh, should I do this deal or should I not do this deal? I just decided I'm just gonna invest my own money. I don't, I don't need to do this anymore. And with that comes like a steady stream of fees and carry that would come with a fund. I turned it off. Again, didn't have to turn it off, just chose to turn it off. And I, the reason why was I realized, I was talking to somebody that was... I had one day like, you know, uh, what's that like A Christmas Carol movie where like he gets visited by the ghosts, uh, and they're like, they kind of tell him the story. Like, I talked to one friend who's in a bad relationship and they're not getting out. And I'm like, "Dude, this is not what you want." And they're like, "Yeah, but it's not terrible." I'm like, "But not terrible isn't your goal." And they're like, "Yeah, but like, you know-" I don't know who else is out there. When-- If I meet somebody else, then maybe, you know, I-I-I'll feel... And I'm like, "You're just not gonna meet somebody else 'cause you're dating this person." And then I met another person who was in a job they didn't like. Same thing. It wasn't a terrible job, so they didn't quit, and they would-- they'd be open to a better job, but they weren't seeing a better job 'cause they were so occupied with the one that they had. And so I just kind of realized, if you want something great, you gotta make space for great. You can't just wait till your current thing gets so bad that you have to end it, or that this new amazing thing shows up at your doorstep and it'll be obvious to switch. And you gotta just say no to some s- some things that are just okay in order to literally create space so that a better thing can come and land in your lap and, and be there. You have the time, you have the mind share, you have the availability to take the meeting, and something better lands. And that's exactly what's happened this year. Better things have landed because I've done that. And so now I'm like, next year, what else is there that's like kind of in that middle tier, it's good, not great bucket that I should just, I should just get out?

Sam Parr 31:48 What's it gonna be?

Shaan Puri 31:50 Um, I'm thinking about what that, what that might look like. I, I don't wanna say just yet. But yeah, there's, there's maybe some other things I could do to free up more time or create some space.

Sam Parr 31:59 What do you think about that, Andrew?

Speaker 32:00 Well, I actually... Well, I, um... Yeah, it's funny you mention that. So one of the problems with having a fund or raising money is that you owe people things, right? There's people that have given you millions of dollars, and I actually had a moment yesterday where I had a really busy day, and I woke up, and I actually felt really excited and creative, and I made this big list of all these things I wanted to dig into that I was excited to learn about and work on. And then, um, there's a really wonderful guy who invested in, uh, a fund that we raised, and he gave us, I think, five million bucks or something. And he wanted to get on the phone and understand what was going on with an investment that we made. And so me and Chris had to stop everything we were doing and talk to him, and we had a, you know, we had a really nice chat with him. But it interrupted my flow state. It interrupted what I really wanted to be doing in my day. And the problem with raising money is that at the end of the day, there's people who can call you, and you owe it to answer the phone, and they can interrupt you at any given time. And especially in a rolling fund, there's like fifty of those people. And so I feel the same way. I really think that, um, when you give your time to something like that, you're taking away from something else.

Sam Parr 33:09 But that's... We're gonna get to best investment, or maybe we can go right there. But some of the things that you're doing contradict that, and same with me.

Speaker 33:18 Totally. Yeah, like I'm doing the Twitter subscribers, for example, but the thing about it is that I actually enjoy... A, I don't-- nobody can email me and say, "I'm a Twitter subscriber. I demand your time." I've made it very clear that I'm only doing an AMA once a month. I don't respond to tweets necessarily. I don't guarantee any response. And so most months, I spend an hour doing an AMA that I find really fun anyway. So for now, I'm gonna continue doing that. But, um, but I've certainly considered that.

Shaan Puri 33:45 Oh, by the way, I have an up- I have an update on my biggest change from last year that I'd said, where I was gonna be less im-- I was gonna learn when to use my impulsiveness and when not to. Totally failed at that. Um-

Speaker 33:55 [laughs]

Shaan Puri 33:55 ... we, there was a business idea that we had that we were like, "Oh, maybe we should do this business." And I was like, "Here's the reasons why. I'm super excited about it." But I was like, "You know what? Old Shaan would've just started it now. New Shaan, here's what I'm gonna do. This business isn't going anywhere. I'm gonna give myself a two-week cooldown period where I-I've, I've done all the meetings. I'm kind of like I know what's there. I have the information I need, but I still have to decide, is this a business?" Because you, you know, you don't date a business, you kinda marry a business for, like, at least a couple years. And so I said, "Let me give myself a two-week cooldown period to get off the impulsiveness." And I made it two days into the impulsiveness period before I had my first customer, and I was running, and it was so good, and I was like, "Oh, I definitely didn't do the thing that I would've advised me to do," which is to say, "If you still wanna do this in two weeks, then you know this is a great business for you." And, uh, I, I kinda failed at that, I gotta admit. So still working on that one. I, I'm gonna keep that one on the list for this year.

Sam Parr 34:51 [laughs] And impulsively shut down your rolling fund. Um-

Shaan Puri 34:53 [laughs]

Sam Parr 34:54 Let's do person you'd bet it all on. Uh, so mine was between two of our guests actually,

Sam Parr 35:00 Jason Yanowitz and Austin Rief. Jason Yanowitz started Blockworks. It's a crypto media company. I don't even like crypto, but I love Jason, and I love his media company. He's scaled it to, I don't know, tens of millions in revenue. And then Austin Rief started Morning Brew, who was my competitor. Now I've gotten really close to him 'cause he's in my core group at Hampton. But I'm gonna give it to Austin 'cause he's already sold most of his business, Morning Brew. I think he was twenty-six when he sold it at a seventy-five million dollar valuation. The company now is doing high eight figures in revenue. I think whatever Austin Rief does, I would, I would blindly put money in. I would, I would invest in him blindly.

Shaan Puri 35:38 Wow, that's not who I thought you would pick. Austin's amazing, but, uh, that's, uh, well, you've come full circle. Your, you, your former competitor now turned, dare I say it, hero?

Sam Parr 35:49 Well, look-

Shaan Puri 35:49 [laughs]

Sam Parr 35:50 ... I love these people that have the perfect balance of optimism and pessimism. You know? Like, they're like optimistically pesta- pes- pessimist, like where they think something amazing is gonna, is gonna happen, but they're fairly conservative, and they plan for the downside. So, uh, he's interesting to me.

Shaan Puri 36:06 Cool. Who you got, Andrew? Who would you bet it all on?

Speaker 36:08 So mine's not really a business person necessarily. Um, you know, I've been thinking a lot about, like, AI disruption, and I think that if I had to bet it all on one business, that would be incredibly hard 'cause I think in AI, there's so many second order and third order consequences and levels of disruption. So my thought was actually if I could just be an investor in a podcaster, someone with a personal monopoly, and my idea was Andrew Huberman. So I think he's got a incredible brand, uh, and he's doing the thing that he loves and is kind of made for. He's insanely likable. He loves talking ab- to all these interesting people about all these interesting things. People have this inc- incredible affinity for him, and they will basically do anything that he says. If people advertise with him or he talks about a product, everyone will buy it, which means that his ads... Like, we tried to buy an ad for AeroPress a year ago. We just got an ad for AeroPress literally yesterday. Uh, and I think we paid some, you know, very high number because his audience is huge. So-

Sam Parr 37:10 Did you see results from it yet?

Speaker 37:12 Uh, I don't know yet. I can report back. Um, but anyway, he, his business, I'm like, that is a completely undisruptable business unless he gets hit by a bus or something.

Sam Parr 37:22 The best line was from r- Rob Dyrdek. We asked him how much it costs to advertise Momentus, uh, on the pod, on H- on Huberman's pod. And he goes, "I don't remember how much it was, but I could tell you whatever it was, it probably wasn't enough," 'cause he-

Speaker 37:34 [laughs]

Sam Parr 37:34 ... moved the needle for us that much.

Shaan Puri 37:38 Yeah, that's amazing. All right, my, uh, person I'd bet it all... Sam, are you sitting down?

Sam Parr 37:44 Yeah.

Shaan Puri 37:45 It's you, bro.

Sam Parr 37:46 Me?

Shaan Puri 37:46 It would be you. It would be you, and let me tell you why. Let me tell you why. Not just for the reasons that you think. You're talented, but there's a lot of talented people. You're smart, but there's a lot of smart people out there. I, this year, have really come to appreciate more than ever, and I think it's because I've moved out of the I'm-gonna-be-CEO-and-operator role to more like I'm gonna be investor, uh, and other, and trust other people to operate, uh, you know, these businesses that we own. Um, you... L- t- the underrated trait that I had been severely underweighting in my little mental model was s- like are, is this person gonna be focused? Are they gonna get distracted? Is this person gonna be loyal, and are they gonna take this seriously? And when it comes to that, like, we have a lot of friends that are, [smacks lips] you know, they're talented and they're successful, but they have shiny object syndrome. I'm one of them. Uh, we have a lot of people that will, uh, if they, i- if they do something, they kinda know they got 10 more shots on goal, and they're just gonna keep trying different stuff until they figure out the little thing that works. Every time you talk to them, if you catch up with them every quarter, they're gonna have a new narrative. You're not like that, and I've now learned that people like that, they just win. And the pe- the people, uh, the people who are steady and solid, and I, and I feel like to have a certain level of seriousness about them, uh, when it comes to doing something. Like, I don't really care what it is. Like, when you were writing your blog posts for The Hustle early on, even before the newsletter, just like, "Yeah, we're gonna write a blog post that needs to get a bunch of people to, um, subscribe and follow us," and you took it incredibly seriously. And when you were hosting events, you took it incredibly seriously. And we're doing Hampton, you take it incredibly seriously. You do one thing, and you take it very, very seriously. And if I'm gonna bet it all on somebody, that's really what I want, is a certain level of seriousness. It's something I... It's a trait I've come to admire. Like, we hired a CMO into our e-commerce business, [smacks lips] and, uh, this guy Chris, and he's amazing, uh, not because he's the most talented marketer. And like, if you go on Twitter every day, there's these, like, e-com guys. I don't know if you guys see this, or it's just my feed, of guys just bragging about this, like, campaign they did and this new ad technique they did, and he's not like that. He's just blocking and tackling every day with a certain level of seriousness. And the th- beautiful thing is I know this guy's gonna stay focused and only work on this. He doesn't have three side hustles. He doesn't have his own podcast and rolling fund. He's just gonna stay focused on this for the next four years. And when he does that, and he takes it seriously, and he's gonna, like, do all the obvious things, he's gonna win bigger than the kind of like talented person who's all over the place. And I know that's a big contrast to me 'cause I'm more of the talented person who's all over the place, but I've seen the value on the other side now, and I'm like, "That's who I need to surround myself with," 'cause those people win.

Sam Parr 40:21 Well, I appreciate you. I love the love, and I love you for saying that. That's very kind. I, um, well I, we had a M- we, like, we did these MFM meetups recently. Um, and I called in to one, to, to one last night, Shaan. And apparently, the thing is, is they put on their badge who they like more [laughs] you or me.

Shaan Puri 40:38 [laughs]

Sam Parr 40:39 And-

Shaan Puri 40:39 They'll never tear us apart, bro. I don't even wanna know the results.

Sam Parr 40:42 Listen-

Shaan Puri 40:42 They'll never tear us apart

Sam Parr 40:43 ... obviously, every brown person, every Indian person-

Shaan Puri 40:46 [laughs]

Sam Parr 40:46 ... had Shaan. [laughs]

Shaan Puri 40:47 [laughs]

Sam Parr 40:48 But I was shocked. Maybe I shouldn't have been shocked. You were a, you were a fan favorite.

Shaan Puri 40:54 [laughs]

Sam Parr 40:54 So by you liking me and them liking you, they are now my fans too, maybe, I hope.

Shaan Puri 40:59 [laughs]

Sam Parr 41:00 Um, but I, I appreciate that. Thank you very much. I think that, um, focus will change your game, Shaan. And if you want, you know, like, this is a little crude, but you know how you're supposed to, like, rub one out before you have-

Shaan Puri 41:10 [laughs]

Sam Parr 41:10 ... before you, like, do something bad with your [laughs] with someone that you're not supposed to? [laughs] If you want-

Shaan Puri 41:14 This is why I love you. [laughs]

Sam Parr 41:15 [laughs] You, you could do that to me. I will help you. [laughs] I'll be your hand. [laughs]

Shaan Puri 41:20 [laughs]

Sam Parr 41:20 I'll keep you focused. [laughs]

Shaan Puri 41:22 I don't know what that offer was, but that was kind, I think. Um...

Sam Parr 41:27 [laughs] I just offered my hand to you.

Sam Parr 41:30 Yeah, I, I got you. [laughs]

Shaan Puri 41:32 All right.

Sam Parr 41:32 Um, all right. What's the next one? Best business for someone else to go into.

Shaan Puri 41:37 Yeah. What, you know, [laughs] what's a great business idea that someone else should go do? [laughs]

Sam Parr 41:41 [laughs] Do you know what we said last year? I think mine was [laughs] a washer and a t- [laughs] a washer and dryer that's two in one. Uh-

Shaan Puri 41:48 Yeah. [laughs]

Sam Parr 41:49 ... Andrew said empty [laughs] empty leg flights, and then Shaan said school for starving artists, like turn art into commercial things. For example, photographers.

Shaan Puri 41:58 Yeah. All right. So, uh, I don't think anybody did any of those three. [laughs] So, uh, what do we got this year, boys? We got, [laughs] we gotta step it up.

Sam Parr 42:05 [laughs] All right. I think I-

Shaan Puri 42:06 Sam, what's yours?

Sam Parr 42:06 I've got a pretty p- it's, I think it's practical. So since the beginning of this pod, Shaan, I've said that I think privacy is gonna be more important, and it's gonna, this is a mega trend. I said that, uh, things like DuckDuckGo are gonna get a lot bigger. I think they have gotten huge, but not as big as I thought, because it hasn't been easier than... It's been more like, um, a vitamin, not necessarily a painkiller. I still think s- uh, it's gonna get big, the, that space, and I think in particular what you're gonna see is companies who are tailored for... It's gonna start with first, like, executives and people like us who, uh, are, have audiences, and it's gonna be something like where they protect your information online. So I've gotten, like, I've signed up for a few of these services, and I'm alerted if one of my, uh, passwords gets hacked, or they'll say, like, "Hey, um, we know where you live because we saw you post a picture of your car, and then we did Google Maps, and we see your car in front of the house, and we just predicted where you live." And we, and, and, and so I'm using a bunch of these. I'm testing a lot of them out. I think these are gonna be really popular. So for example, cyberhealth.co. I've not used these guys yet, but I like, like, the premise that they provide. But I think what's gonna happen is there's gonna be, it's gonna start with, like, 5 or $10,000 a year services that are a little bit more towards executives, and then it's gonna trail down, and I think Gen Z is gonna be all about privacy in the next 10 years So that's what I'm interested in

Shaan Puri 43:25 Dude, that's a great one. I like that one a lot. I, I totally agree with you. This feels a little semi-glue tidy, like, uh, hey, wait a sec, I'm onto something here. I think you, I think you might be onto something. Uh, Andrew, what you got? What's the best business for someone else to go do?

Speaker 43:37 So I love this one. I think I would do this if, um, if I was gonna start a business. And, uh, my idea is AI Tinder. So imagine you go on Tinder... And so, so what got me thinking about this is, um, DALL-E and all these image generation tools can now create photorealistic images. And I don't know if you guys have seen them, but there's now Instagram influencers, um, who are beautiful men and women who make $10,000 a month on Instagram. And it's all generated-

Sam Parr 44:04 Dude, I kept getting this, I kept getting this lady come up on my Twitter, and I'm like, "This lady's very attractive. What's her story? Like, why do I keep getting the same person going on in my story?" And it, they don't say she was fake, but I'm like, this is definitely fake. This person's not real. Then I had to Google it, and it, and she was fake.

Speaker 44:20 Yeah. I mean, and, and they, they can... I mean, it basically, you can look at the image and almost not know. So my... Here's my idea. So you basically generate, um, like thousands and thousands and thousands of fake digital men and women. And then you have Tinder, and you basically, um, you make it like a casino, right? So you're swat- you're swiping, and let's say you match with a, a really hot digital girl, and then you have to text with her. And there's some sort of algorithm where you have to win her over to exchange photos and start talking or whatever. And I just think if you gamify dating, right? I mean, it's kind of... It's something that like, you know, people in relationships can even do this, right? It's just kind of like scratching an itch. I think that's something that would just absolutely blow up.

Shaan Puri 45:04 But you're saying they know it's fake, right? You're saying, uh-

Speaker 45:06 You know it's fake

Shaan Puri 45:07 ... the game is to... It's almost like, you know, flirting as a skill. It's just-

Speaker 45:10 You're getting better. And like people might see this as like creepy, and it's like, no, these bots can train people how to not be creepy, right? 'Cause you're never gonna get another photo if you're creepy.

Shaan Puri 45:20 [laughs]

Sam Parr 45:21 We've talked about Replika. Do you remember Replika? It was like a-

Speaker 45:24 It's not very good

Sam Parr 45:24 ... digital girlfriend or a boyfriend, and they like changed part of their algorithm or something about like what they allowed people to talk about. And one of the, one of the guys killed himself. Like one of the [chuckles] customers killed himself. Like these people fell in love with these women, these fake women. So it's pretty wild.

Shaan Puri 45:41 Yeah. That's crazy. All right. Uh, best business for someone else to go do. Okay, I had a couple ideas. I think anything in the guns and ammo space I think is a great one. Um, but I didn't wanna pick that one. I think distressed venture capital, Andrew, I think you guys are on top of this, which is a bunch of companies that are good products, have revenues, but they are not gonna be able to raise their next round, and they're gonna go die. And so, you know, creating a business around that is good. But the one I picked is TikTok Shops. So I don't know if you guys are paying attention to this.

Sam Parr 46:11 They're killing it.

Shaan Puri 46:12 But the number one book in the world right now, do you know what it is? It's The Shadow Work Journal. Number one book in the world. What is The Shadow Work Journal, you ask? Well, it's this goddamn book that you can't s- you know, it's just going crazy on TikTok. It's basically... Well, and what it is, is, uh, TikTok not just launched the ability to shop, they launched the ability for anybody to be an affiliate of any product without having a relationship with the company. So it created this giant, like, you know, uh, network sales thing. It's like almost like an MLM. Uh, TikTok has turned into a giant MLM. So basically, you can, as a creator, just find a product in the shop that's eligible for commission. You make a video about it, and you get a commission every time they go buy it. That's why this, this journal is the number one product in the world. They sold over half a million copies of this journal.

Sam Parr 46:58 Yeah, it sold...

Shaan Puri 46:58 Um-

Sam Parr 46:59 TikTok tells you how many it's sold. Half a million. This is crazy.

Shaan Puri 47:02 And that's, that's through the TikTok shop. Then you have Amazon. It's the number one book on Amazon too. So you add another half a million on that, right? That, that's e- easily a million copies have sold of this, of this one journal, and this is like in a two-and-a-half, three-month span. This is not very long. And, um, you know, I'm the type of person where I meet people, like I meet Moyes and, uh, you know, he's like, "Yeah, I did Facebook, uh, ads for Native Deodorant." And it's like, "Okay. Well, what worked?" It's like, "Yeah, back then, you know, c- the clicks were just super cheap. There weren't very many people advertising on Facebook, especially a product like this. It was just mobile games or something." And you're like, damn, man, that was the, the glory era of Facebook ads. Now it's all so expensive. Now it's so competitive. But, you know, if I was doing this in 2012, that was the time. And, you know, oh, I wish I bought Bitcoin back in 2011 or 2012 when my friend first mentioned it. Back, back when it was, you know, $130. That was the time, and I always wish I was there back in the time. Well, guess what? There's a golden era that's happening right now, and it's TikTok Shops, right? TikTok Shops is currently in that like it's very cheap, it's not that saturated, and TikTok is very motivated to promote these things, and TikTok customers are not like fully acclimated to the fact that now a bunch of the TikToks they see are selling products. And so the conversion rate's gonna be higher. And these windows don't last for very long, but they do last, you know. And when... You know, you can go make hay during these periods. And so I think if I was, uh, you know, 23 years old, there's nothing else I would rather be doing than trying to create something that's gonna sell through the TikTok shop platform. TikTok is even paying for... Like, they'll subsidize your product. So if you have a $60 product, it'll be for sale for $30, but you're still getting 60, 'cause TikTok is subsidizing products that they wanna promote and, uh, and giving you the full value of them. So you're getting TikTok to pay for half the, half the product sometimes or, or 30% of the product sometimes. It's pretty insane.

Sam Parr 48:47 Yeah, this is wild. And I see that guy Isaac from Mini Catan or whatever. What's it called?

Shaan Puri 48:52 Katana. Yeah.

Sam Parr 48:53 Mini Katana like sharing all of his TikTok shop details, and it's wild. It's pretty crazy.

Shaan Puri 48:59 Kind of like when the iPhone came out, people start making apps for the App Store, but you could see the charts. You could see what's getting downloaded. And same thing with shops. You can go see what's selling well and how many units it's sold, and you can kind of either use that to either create a competitor or like just sort of like abstract away and be like, oh, it's this type of product that's doing well at this pri- price point that's doing well on TikTok. Let me go, let me go after that. All right. That is part one. I gotta go take a pee break, get some water, take a rest, but we got so many trophies still on the table that have to be given out for the Milly Awards. We got six or seven of my favorite categories. We saved the best stuff for last. So after this, go listen to part two of The 2023 Milly Awards. [upbeat music]