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My First MillionMy First Million

This Guy Is Richer Than Jeff Bezos & Elon Musk... (#425)

Episode 425: Sam Parr and Shaan Puri talk about the richest man in the world - not Elon or Bezos, working with people you've never met, and Shaan's latest D2C business idea. Interested in working with Shaan as the CMO for Guts?

Shaan PurihostSam Parrhost
Mar 2, 202354mWatch on YouTube

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Transcript

  1. 0:00 – 0:24

    Intro

    1. SP

      All right, let's do this.

    2. SP

      All right.

    3. SP

      What, uh, what topics you got today?

    4. SP

      I've got a Billy of the Week. [upbeat music] A million dollars isn't cool. You know what's cool? A billion dollars. All right, so I'm gonna tell you some facts about this Billy of the Week, and I want you to see if you can guess who this person is. All right?

    5. SP

      Okay, I'm game.

  2. 0:24 – 10:07

    Billy of the week: Bernard Arnault

    1. SP

      So Steve Jobs appro- So one, one time, Steve Jobs approached him, uh, on advice about designing the Apple stores. And when they discussed each of their products, Steve said to this guy, "I'm not sure if the iPhone is gonna be very popular in 20 years, but I'm certain that your products are definitely going to be popular."

    2. SP

      Hmm.

    3. SP

      So that's one interesting thing about him.

    4. SP

      In- intriguing, okay.

    5. SP

      He's had multiple tennis matches with, with Roger Federer. He lives in 150-year-old castle. And last year, his company did 84 billion in revenue and 22 billion in operating profits. And, this might give it away, this year his company was the fourth-largest company in the world, and oftentimes he's number one on the richest person in the world.

    6. SP

      The Louis Vuitton guy.

    7. SP

      The Louis Vuitton guy. [upbeat music]

    8. SP

      What's his name? Rene or something?

    9. SP

      I don't know how his, how to say his name because it's French.

    10. SP

      [laughs]

    11. SP

      We're gonna call him Bernie. But, uh, it's, uh- [laughs]

    12. SP

      [laughs]

    13. SP

      ... it's Bernard Arnault. Uh, I don't know if the T's silent.

    14. SP

      [laughs]

    15. SP

      [laughs] Sorry, but-

    16. SP

      It's, it's usually not a hard T, but we're gonna go with that. [laughs]

    17. SP

      [laughs] Yeah. Is that a hard T-

    18. SP

      Yeah

    19. SP

      ... or is that a soft T? I, I don't know.

    20. SP

      Bern- Bernie Arnie, you are the man.

    21. SP

      [laughs] Yeah.

    22. SP

      Uh, so, so Steve Jobs really went to this guy, huh?

    23. SP

      Dude, yeah. And a lot of people really respect this guy. So I'll, I'll, like, give you a little bit about his background, but some facts about him. So he owns 46% ... So the Louis Vuitton empire, it's called LVMH. So it's a multinational luxury goods conglomerate deal. Market cap of 430 billion. Oftentimes him, Elon, and, like, Bezos go back and forth. Um, but he's kind of the odd man out because he's not, like... He, like, dresses really nice, and he, like, looks as, like, a-

    24. SP

      Right

    25. SP

      ... someone who owns Louis Vuitton would look. He, like, has this black turtleneck and the nice sports jacket. But he's been called the, um, [smacks lip] uh... Well, I believe it's, like, the, the, the, uh, the wolf in cashmere sweaters or something like that because he's, like, he's pretty ruthless, but he, like, dresses nice. But, um, uh, yeah, I'll tell you a little bit about him. So at 21... The, it's kind of an interesting background. So-

    26. SP

      They call you the denim fox, right?

    27. SP

      The denim fox. Yeah. [laughs]

    28. SP

      [laughs]

    29. SP

      Yeah. I wish. [laughs]

    30. SP

      The j- the jort juggernaut is what they call you. [laughs]

  3. 10:07 – 15:07

    Working with people you've never met

    1. SP

      normal for me, and it's probably normal for a bunch of our friends. So I was thinking about this. We, we... I have this new re- researcher that you're trying to steal from me a little bit.

    2. SP

      [laughs]

    3. SP

      Um, and he, I met him through a friend of a friend, but it all started on Twitter, in the Twitter DMs. And without talking to this person, like, uh, uh, whether phone or, or Zoom or whatever, meeting in person, we just, like, text and we hire them, and we do a business exchange. And, like, you put a lot of trust in one another. And I've realized I've done this, like, 20 times-

    4. SP

      [laughs]

    5. SP

      ... where some of, like, my best coworkers and best, uh, some of my best friends, in fact, it just started, like, through internet culture and we very rarely exchange words, and we've done, like, some relatively big business together where we're, like, exchanging tens of thousands of dollars a month, or we've invested in one another's companies or whatever. Even... So I've done it with the partner of my latest company, uh, Joe. We basically were Facebook friends.

    6. SP

      Have you ever met-

    7. SP

      I've done... Yeah, maybe only, like, six times. Um, but, like, we knew each other for, like, five years before we really, uh, like, talked a lot in person. I've done it with this guy Diego, who, uh, I'm helping him with his agency business. Um-

    8. SP

      I, by the way, I heard a funny story from, about you on this. So, uh, somebody who's worked with you goes, "Yeah, Sam gave me the login to his Instagram," or something like that, or to LinkedIn. I don't know what it was. And what is it that you requested back from this internet stranger, Sam? [laughs]

    9. SP

      I asked for his Social Security number. I asked for his girlfriend's Social Security number.

    10. SP

      [laughs]

    11. SP

      I asked for, uh, a picture ID of both him and his girlfriend, and a utility bill so I knew exactly where he lived. [laughs]

    12. SP

      [laughs] The Sam Parr school of background checks.

    13. SP

      [laughs]

    14. SP

      Like, dude, what, what is your plan? Okay, let's say... What is he gonna do? All right, let's say he p- he posts something or changes the password. What are you gonna do with his utility bill and his Social Security number? What is your, what is your revenge?

    15. SP

      Well, I don't know. But I know it's scary enough that if someone has that-

    16. SP

      [laughs]

    17. SP

      ... I, I don't know, sign them up for a credit card. I would, I would show up to his house, for sure. I would show up to his house.

    18. SP

      I'm gonna commit a crime. [laughs]

    19. SP

      Yeah, I, I don't know. But, uh, I don't know, maybe it's, like, scary enough that it worked. But have you done this? Have you, like, done business with a bunch of, uh, n- it's not anonymous people, 'cause you actually get to know them, but internet.

    20. SP

      Totally.

    21. SP

      It's like a weird internet thing.

    22. SP

      Totally, totally. That's, like, very normal now at this point, which is strange. It shouldn't f- it almost feels like it shouldn't be normal, but it is.

    23. SP

      I don't think it's normal for most people.

    24. SP

      It, I mean, it just seems natural. It's, yeah, I feel like I know these people. I see their writing or I hear their podcasts or they, they email me a bunch of times and we go back and forth, and then they're in my Slack. And then su- sure enough, it's like, "Hey, you know, here's everything. Uh, h- here's the keys to the castle." And once you get that, then w- w- once you're working together or you're doing things together, that builds even more trust, and it just layers on. And then you meet them four years later and you're like, you see them in person, and then you're like, "Nice to meet you." Uh, uh, you know, you don't know what to say. It's like, "Nice to see your f- nice to see your body." [laughs] Like, that-

    25. SP

      Dude

    26. SP

      ... that's a really accurate way to say it [laughs]

    27. SP

      Yeah.

    28. SP

      Nice t- nice to see your face finally. [laughs]

    29. SP

      Yeah, like, "Sick legs."

    30. SP

      [laughs]

  4. 15:07 – 29:12

    Chris Sparling

    1. SP

      too. So did we talk about Chris, uh, Sparling on the podcast yet?

    2. SP

      Yeah, so, uh, we have this great friend named Andrew Wilkinson, who has maybe close to a billion-dollar empire, and Chris is his partner in crime.

    3. SP

      And I had never met him until we went to that event in Vancouver for the show, and I had dinner-

    4. SP

      You guys are really similar. You guys are very similar.

    5. SP

      Me and him?

    6. SP

      A little, uh, you have similar, some, some similar, uh, parts of you.

    7. SP

      Yeah, yeah, for sure. Um, a couple of, couple of observations I would say about him. Um, I wanna, I want you to tell me if you, 'cause you've interacted with him, right? You've, you've met him?

    8. SP

      Only a couple times, but yeah, in, in, yeah.

    9. SP

      And we're both very interested in these kinda, like, high performers, especially in this case it's a high performer who went and built their own island, and did, they won in their signature way. I think that- that's particularly what's interesting to us. Like, if somebody's just, like, I don't know, some VP at Google, I'm a lot less interested than somebody like Chris, who basically-

    10. SP

      Made their own path

    11. SP

      ... I think, I think h- uh, he, you know, Andrew met him when he was working at a bank. He was, like, a banker. Uh, not like a cool investment banker, but, like, a go to the bank, I need to write a check banker. And they started talking about cars, 'cause Andrew had drove up in a cool car, and, uh, they both nerded out about cars, and then they were like, "Okay, what's going on?" You know, "What, what do you need for your, you're getting, like, a line of credit or whatever for your business. What's your business?" Uh, Chris was like, "Yeah, I'm, like, studying to be, like, a CPA," or like, "I'm t- I'm about to get my, my license to be an accountant," or something like that. And, um, Andrew was like, "Hey, you wanna just leave here with me and, like, you know, work with me?" [laughs]

    12. SP

      [laughs]

    13. SP

      And Ch- uh, you know, Chris tells the story-

    14. SP

      That actually happened at the bank?

    15. SP

      Uh, he didn't say it like that, but he, you know, he offered him a job. He said, "You should come work with me." Uh, like, "I need help." Uh, he, at the time, Andrew just had Meta lab, his design agency. It was doing well, and, um, had gotten to maybe a couple million dollars a year of profit. Um, you know, uh, let's call it, I don't know, four or five years in, something like that. Uh, but so, so he hadn't started what became Tiny, which was acquiring a bunch of other internet companies. And so Chris tells this story. Here's the some of the things that I took away from this, uh, this, this meeting. So one interesting part of the story, he goes, "So my first day at work, I show up. Uh, Andrew's not there. I'm just, like, waiting at the door. And, um, 30 minutes go by, Andrew's not there. Andrew rolls up in a Uber with, like, you know, one AirPod hanging out of his ear or whatever, and he's got, he opens up the trunk, he takes out this giant box full of papers."

    16. SP

      Oh, no.

    17. SP

      And he's like, he's like, "You're here. Okay, fantastic. Here's, uh, all of our papers for, like..." [laughs] You know, "Here's the business finances. Um, I gotta go to a meeting, and there's no office space for you, so I talked to my neighbor. They have room in their basement, so just go knock on the door, tell them you're with Andrew, and, like, there's a desk in their basement-

    18. SP

      [laughs]

    19. SP

      ... and, like, here's this box of papers."

    20. SP

      [laughs]

    21. SP

      Then he's like, Andrew left, and then Chris was like, "Man, I made a huge mistake. Uh, who is this guy? What, what is happening here?"

    22. SP

      [laughs]

    23. SP

      He goes, he knocks on the door. He's like, "Hey, um, do you have, like, a basement desk for me?" And they're like, "Yeah, yeah, come on in." [laughs] And they, like-

    24. SP

      It's like, when you see the guy with the hole in his boot, you know you're there. Make a right.

    25. SP

      [laughs] The hole in his boot, exactly.

    26. SP

      [laughs]

    27. SP

      He's like, "So that's how I started." And then I go, "Okay, so then that time he's just doing Meta lab, so what, how did this become Tiny?" And he goes, uh Well, we looked at the business, and the business was good. The business was generating revenues, generating profit. It was like, okay, well, like, what do we do with this profit? Um, what are we supposed to... You know, should we reinvest this in some way into the business? Like, can we grow? Could we... Should we hire people? He goes, "Oh, I don't know. What do all agencies do?" He goes, "Agencies hire a bunch of people, uh, and they buy fancy offices, and they put a basketball hoop in the office. Like, you know-

    28. SP

      Yeah

    29. SP

      ... they put a p- a play pit in the office." And he's like, "Yeah, that doesn't seem like a good idea. We should not do that." That's kind of the only thing they agreed on. L- let's not do that. They go, "Well, okay, we can't follow agencies to figure out what we should do. Like, you know, how should we think about this?" And they go, "Well, look, we're a business that has clients, and we have, you know, like, a service team, and then we have some profits." Like, we are a boring law firm. Let's just pretend we're a boring law firm. Uh, let's not try to be a cool agency. Let's be a boring law firm and not get too high on our own supply. Okay, so what, what could we do with, uh, these profits if we weren't gonna, like, try to just get flashier and flashier with the design agency? Um, and that's where they decided, let's buy a better business than our current business. So, like, let's buy a business that has recurring revenues, maybe that has less service orientation, is more a product, and let's use the profits from the service business to buy increasingly better businesses. So I th- I like that story, that frame. I, I enjoyed that.

    30. SP

      And, and what was the first thing that they bought? Was it Dribbble?

  5. 29:12 – 39:40

    Are you learning the right lesson from this?

    1. SP

      up fine, right? It's like, it's a story that doesn't have a lot of like... It's not like a meaningful story, it's an entertaining story. And, um, and so person's telling this story about like this business romp. So somebody was like gonna get rich, and then they like went, almost went broke, and then now they're okay, and like, you know, whatever happened. And he goes, and, and the, the takeaway was, you know, that, you know, that person f- they said, you know, yeah, they could've, they could've sold the top and made a bunch of money, but they said, you know, "Well, if I had done that, then I wouldn't have blah, blah, blah, blah." And he said something that has stuck with me, which he goes, "Do you think that's the right lesson to learn out of that?" [laughs]

    2. SP

      [laughs]

    3. SP

      And he goes, he goes, "I wonder that sometimes." He goes, "People always talk about like how the lessons that they learned and-"

    4. SP

      Chris said this?

    5. SP

      Chris. And he goes, um, he goes, "A question I f- often ask is like, is, is this person somebody who's learning the right lesson out of things?" [laughs] And I, and I thought it was so funny. Uh, it was like a blunt thing to say, a- and so I loved it already. The second thing was it's so true. I look around the people around me in life that I encounter, and very rarely, like if, if, like a lot of people have exper- go through experiences and think they learned a lesson, but if I was to measure like the hit rate of are they actually having the correct takeaway out of a situation, it's shockingly low. And I think that that is one of the greatest indicators of success is are you actually able to learn the correct lesson from your life experiences? Um, nobody's 100% on that, 'cause we all have weird things where we'll blame other people or we'll glorify ourselves and not realize that we just got lucky. We'll, we'll do weird things like that, but, um- I realized, oh, I wanna only be around and work with people and hire people who are high on this score. I don't really care how much experience you have, but if you don't take away the right lesson from the experiences you're going- that you have, uh, and that you're going to have, your rate of learning is just gonna, like, it- it- it'll be a different rate, or you'll just end up in some weird trajectory where you'll just do dumb shit 'cause you're taking away the wrong lessons from your life experiences. And I've, I just never heard somebody say that out loud, and it really stood out to me, and it's like, and now I see it everywhere.

    6. SP

      That's a, that's a really good question. I wonder if that is something that he came up with or, like, was inspired by. I mean, that's a hard thing to- that's a real unique, that's a really unique question.

    7. SP

      Well, he said it kind of as an offhand comment. It w- this one wasn't one of his, like, frameworks or, like, go-tos. I could tell. It was just like, he literally just asked the question 'cause he was cur- 'cause it was so... He heard, like, it was kinda like s- you know, when somebody starts a sentence, and you kind of, your brain is trying to fill in the blank of the last thing they're gonna say, and then they say something totally different, and you're like, "That is not where I thought you were going with that." That's what happened in this story. It's like 90% of it kinda made sense, and then the last 10% at the conclusion was, like, some other weird conclusion, and he was like, "What? Is that the way... That was the conclusion? The, I feel like the conclusion should've been X, but you're saying their takeaway was Y. What?" Uh, and, and, and so I don't even think he really meant it that way or he really put that much weight into it, but that was my, my golden nugget of that dinner, was that one question. And, uh, and I can't s- I literally can't stop seeing it everywhere now. Like, my kid does something, my wife does something, I do something. And I, I tr- I started to think back. I was like, in what areas did I take away the wrong lesson? Like, I don't know. If you think back in your life, can you think of an example where if y- if you're honest with yourself, it's like, yeah, actually, I kinda learned the wrong... I, I kinda... Did I even learn the right lesson from that? Was that the right-

    8. SP

      Well-

    9. SP

      ... answer?

    10. SP

      There's a few things. Like, you know how that phrase, like, "fail fast"?

    11. SP

      [laughs] Yeah.

    12. SP

      Like, I used to believe that that was cool, and then I'm like, I'd rather succeed fast.

    13. SP

      [laughs]

    14. SP

      Like, uh [laughs] like it's a-

    15. SP

      Hang on.

    16. SP

      Yeah. Like, I'd rather not fail, and, like, how could I succeed faster than I fail? And I remember thinking it, like, for years, I was thinking, "Well, it's okay. I tried something." And I'm like, but, like, if I'm a baseball player and I take lots of swings, but I don't get any hits, like, that's bad. That's not good. That's very bad.

    17. SP

      Right.

    18. SP

      So the lesson here is I should swing and also have a high batting average, and I remember thinking, like, oh, just shots on goal. That's all, that's all that matters. But I'm like, no, I need a score, too. And so for years, like, I thought it was okay to fail 'cause I'd be like, "Oh, I'm, I'm failing fast. I'm moving fast. I'm breaking things."

    19. SP

      [laughs]

    20. SP

      Whatever. And then I'm like, maybe I shouldn't break things, and I should actually, like, succeed fast. And I remember, like, that-

    21. SP

      [laughs]

    22. SP

      Like, it changed, like, five years ago.

    23. SP

      Yeah. [laughs] Yeah, totally.

    24. SP

      [laughs]

    25. SP

      Uh, [laughs] yeah, I can think of a bunch of examples in my life where I've, I've, I think, messed that up. But now-

    26. SP

      Did, did you, um-

    27. SP

      ... going forward, that's not the case.

    28. SP

      Did you learn the li- the right lesson when you got roasted by some people for posting your private chef? Dude, you posted this picture of this nice-looking food-

    29. SP

      [laughs]

    30. SP

      ... and people are like, "Dude, your blood glucose is gonna spike, and you're gonna be so unproductive because you're eating rice." Uh, I thought that was pretty funny. All the, all, some of the hate you got.

  6. 39:40 – 45:11

    Who generates more ideas? Sam or Shaan?

    1. SP

      thing. But yeah.

    2. SP

      Why do you think it is that I generate so many more ideas than you? Let's go, let's... It, it... Did your mommy not love you?

    3. SP

      Do you-

    4. SP

      Or your daddy not love you? [laughs]

    5. SP

      If we look at the three years that we've done this, I think it ebbs and flows. I think that each person goes on a-

    6. SP

      No chance, dude.

    7. SP

      Dude, each person goes on a three-month, like, run.

    8. SP

      [laughs] Period?

    9. SP

      Dude, 100%. I think you talk more, but I don't think that-

    10. SP

      [laughs]

    11. SP

      [laughs] I don't think that you necessarily bring more topics.

    12. SP

      Right. Right. Uh-

    13. SP

      I think that when I was selling-

    14. SP

      I'll let you believe that

    15. SP

      ... what, what, what-

    16. SP

      But... [laughs]

    17. SP

      [laughs] Thanks for your permission. When I was selling The Hustle, you carried me. When you were selling Milk Road, my shoulders got tired.

    18. SP

      [laughs]

    19. SP

      That's all I'm gonna say. [laughs]

    20. SP

      These delts weren't, weren't gonna come from nothing.

    21. SP

      Yeah.

    22. SP

      These are Milk Road delts.

    23. SP

      Yeah. [laughs] That's all I'm gonna say. So I think it ebbs and flows.

    24. SP

      There was a, there's a guy who basically took every idea from the podcast and put it in a database. This is how I know I win, because he took every idea from the podcast and to- put it in a database, and he said it was 75% me, 25% you. But that's specifically on ideas, not topics.

    25. SP

      But that's maybe ideas.

    26. SP

      Yeah.

    27. SP

      Yes. Like, this Bernie guy, that's not an idea.

    28. SP

      Right.

    29. SP

      But come on, that's, that, that's, that's a 7 out of 10.

    30. SP

      You're definitely, you're definitely the king of the Billionaire of the Week. I think, uh, you somehow know a bunch of these old ass motherfuckers in different spaces and, uh, and you, you f- you find these guys. I don't know how you find these guys or how you think of these different people.

  7. 45:11 – 54:06

    Shaan's DTC idea

    1. SP

      works.

    2. SP

      So I, um, so I bought this domain, drinkguts.com.

    3. SP

      Great.

    4. SP

      And I have this idea for this brand called Guts, and Guts is basically a drink that, uh, that you drink for... Uh, it's like pro- it's like a protein powder and you drink it for gut health. And, um, it helps with digestion, so a lot of people who are either constipated or going to the bathroom all the time. Uh, it helps with weight loss, it helps with, uh, sugar control, it helps with those, those sorts of things. Um, so yeah. So I think I'm gonna create this brand, and I just need an amazing marketing CEO, and so I'm looking for that. Um-

    5. SP

      Have you, um, have you heard of Olipop?

    6. SP

      Uh, I've heard of Olipop. I've drank an Olipop before, yeah.

    7. SP

      So Olipop is basically, it looks like a soda or a seltzer. It looks exactly like this. I'm drinking Spin- Spin Thrift right now. It's just like water with a little bit of fruit in it. It looks just like that, except it says, like, probiotic on the can.

    8. SP

      Yes.

    9. SP

      Which always turns me off, by the way. I'm like, "Nah, I don't want that weird stuff."

    10. SP

      Oh, dude, turns me on. Probiotic? Dude, you know.

    11. SP

      No.

    12. SP

      Who's antibiotic? You? [laughs]

    13. SP

      [laughs] Dude, I'm antibiotic. I'm not probiotic. [laughs] I'm neutral on the biotics at least, but I'm definitely not pro. But, uh, you know how big they are?

    14. SP

      How do you feel about oxidants? You anti?

    15. SP

      Oxidants? [laughs]

    16. SP

      Or are you pro-oxidant? [laughs]

    17. SP

      [laughs] Dude, I'm... What does Michael Scott say? He goes, "I wouldn't say I'm superstitious, but I am a little stitious."

    18. SP

      [laughs]

    19. SP

      Uh, [laughs] uh, Olipop, do you know how big they are?

    20. SP

      I think they're huge, dude. I see them in every grocery store.

    21. SP

      100 million plus, and they're doing a very smart thing.

    22. SP

      There's a new one, by the way, called Poopi or Poppy. You seen this one?

    23. SP

      No. What's Poppy?

    24. SP

      It's like an even more, uh, it's like a gut health soda or like a, um, probiotic, like, LaCroix, and uh, I see that one popping up at Whole Foods now.

    25. SP

      Dude, when I think probiotics, I think diarrhea. Like, you're gonna do something to my poop. Like-

    26. SP

      Yeah, so that-

    27. SP

      You're gonna-

    28. SP

      I think that's where the branding opportunities come in, uh, to, to, to fix that. Um-

    29. SP

      Guts doesn't exactly help your cause here.

    30. SP

      I know, but I think it's a loud, um, splashy name that can be almost, like, so bad it's good. And, uh, I don't think it's very trademarkable. I think that's the, the, the problem with it. But I kinda wanna work with a designer just to make a fake DTC, like, packaging of this. I kinda wanna crowdsource this idea through MFM. So basically I'm like, let's find a marketing CEO through this. I have, I have a guy in mind. Um, let's get somebody who's a design agency. Like, let's make the packaging for fun and, uh, and see what we could do. Somebody who's like a supply chain guy. Let's go find the formulation lab.

Episode duration: 54:06

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