Why Podcasting Is The Most Underrated Business Model (#448)

David Senra 0:00 I am probably the most optimistic person in terms of, like, how good bus- of a business podcasting can be. And I start talking crazy, and then, uh, I have some friends, uh, that have built giant businesses on the back of podcasts. I was at dinner with them last week, and they literally pulled me to the side and they're like, "Shut the [beep] up. Stop telling people all this shit." [upbeat music]

Sam Parr 0:29 All right, everyone. Today's podcast is special. The guy's name is David Senra. He's got a podcast called Founders. I've listened to dozens, and dozens, and dozens of episodes. He basically breaks down different biographies that he read about business people, artists, whatever. Anyone who's, you know, the 1% of the 1% of their field. And on the pod today, we talked about the difference between people who are, like, somewhat successful, and the people who are absolute killers, and what traits they have and what the commonality is. So it's super fascinating to hear from someone who's read literally 300 or 400 biographies and studies this for a living. He talks about the commonalities of these killers, whether that's UFC fighters or billionaires. It's really fascinating. I think you're gonna dig it. My favorite part is when we talk about, um, [smacks lips] he has this really cool quote from Joe Rogan describing, uh, Jon Jones, who's this, like, amazing UFC fighter, and the difference between, like, Jon and the rest of the people. And then somehow David weaves that in with business people, and he li- lists out all the business people who he says are the, the 1%, the 1%, the killers of the killers, and he talks about what traits they have and what you can learn. I think you'll dig it. Check it out. Talk soon. Yeah, you know, it's, uh, I, um, I understand why you'd live in Miami if your family's there. That, I, that's... I don't love, like, New York, but I'm eventually gonna move there for family. So I, the f- family pres- you know, supersedes all the other stuff.

David Senra 1:49 That, that's the only reason we stay here. My wife is Colombian, so 70% of Miami-Dade County is Hispanic. All her family's here. Like, I've been traveling a lot more for work, and, like, the day I leave, my kids wake up, her mom is here, her grandmother's here. So, like, from my kids' perspective, like, Colombians are, they, with South Americans in general, what they do is, like, they're very... I like their multi-generational, like, housing. My wife grew up in a house connected to her grandparents' house.

Sam Parr 2:13 Yeah, I dig that too.

David Senra 2:14 Oh, that's incredible. Like, I had nothing like that when I was a kid. Uh, and so I was like, "Man, I really wanna live in California, but I'm just gonna stay here for family and then, you know, spend my summers in California."

Sam Parr 2:24 What'd you do before Founders Pod?

David Senra 2:27 Uh, I've r- done a t- a shit ton of businesses, like, since I was, like, 18 years old. Like, I think me and you are around the same age. I might be a few years older than you. Um, the business I was working on right before, I actually started Founders while I was doing it, was this thing called RoboDB, which is a way to track, uh, the origi- the true origination points of robocalls through the payment network. Um, and it was just, like, a, a business that was, like, kind of like a clever hack, but I wasn't interested in it the way I was podcasting. So, like, I was obsessed with podcasting for, for years. I remember my friend Eric, he invited me over to his house one time. This is like 2010. He's like, "Dude, you gotta come over and watch this new podcast. Do you remember the guy from, uh, from Fear Factor?" And I'm like, "Yeah, I watched Fear Factor when I was in, like, high school." Uh, and we went to his house, and it's like when Joe Rogan was on, like, the white couch, and he was on, like, Ustream, and then he'd have, like... There'd be, like, things falling down. He'd have, like, you know, the cheesy kind of, uh, like, there'd be stars or sparkles and stuff like that. I'm like, "What is this?" He's like, "Oh, you can also listen to it on your phone anytime you want." And that just blew my fucking mind.

Sam Parr 3:31 That's early.

David Senra 3:32 I could not believe that. Yeah.

Sam Parr 3:33 But were you-

David Senra 3:34 And then I was obsessed

Sam Parr 3:35 ... were you successful or w- were you kinda like a struggling entrepreneur and then this is like your... Is this your first, like, breakout?

David Senra 3:41 This is the first thing that's gonna make, like, I'll make a lot more money. I was, like, making, like, dentist or doctor money for, like, a long time. You know, like, not struggling, but not nearly, like, you know, what a podcast could, could do. Like, a successful podcast

David Senra 3:55 could do.

Sam Parr 3:56 How big is the pod now in terms of listenership?

David Senra 3:59 It fucking crazy right now. Uh, we, a few weeks ago, I just cracked, uh, over 100,000 individual listeners. Um-

Sam Parr 4:08 Uh, per episode?

David Senra 4:09 No, no, overall. Like, so when I sign into, like, my podcast host, it says, like, "Unique listeners last seven days." That's the only... I don't, I'm not big on metrics. Like, I don't pay attention to them at all. I just try to make what I want and then put it out into the world. Um, but the one number I want to see grow is that number.

Sam Parr 4:25 Mm.

David Senra 4:26 Because Founders is also weird. We had like, you could discover it now, and because the back catalog's evergleen- evergreen, like, I'll talk to people, they'll listen to, like, the first, the latest few episodes, and then they'll go back and listen to shit that I did, like, six years ago, five years ago. Um-

Sam Parr 4:41 And it, it's just you, right? Like, 'cause you're part of, uh, what, uh, Col- Colossal? Is that it?

David Senra 4:46 Colla- [laughs] Colossus.

Sam Parr 4:48 Colossus.

David Senra 4:48 Yeah.

Sam Parr 4:48 Sorry.

David Senra 4:49 Mm-hmm.

Sam Parr 4:49 Uh, and so they, like, sell your ads and they take a cut, and so-

David Senra 4:52 Yep

Sam Parr 4:52 ... is it just you and a producer or what?

David Senra 4:54 Nothing. Just me. So, um, Pat, I, I love, we were talking a little bit about this yesterday. Like, um, the one thing I love about podcasting industry is how, uh, positive some everybody is. So I listened to Pat podcast, uh, Patrick's podcast for years. Like, uh, I was taking notes on his podcast. I went back and looked, since like 2019. And last year in May, uh, my podcast was a subscription podcast, right? You could listen to the first 30 minutes. If you wanna listen to all of it for the first six years of, in its existence, you had to pay to upgrade, right? I had no-

Sam Parr 5:25 Yours?

David Senra 5:26 Yeah, yeah.

Sam Parr 5:26 What, y- wait. Oh, I didn't know you... So you've been doing this for six years?

David Senra 5:30 Yeah, I started in 2016.

Sam Parr 5:32 Oh, wow, that's crazy. I, to, to me, like, you just got on my radar like a year ago maybe.

David Senra 5:36 Everybody was like that. So Patrick played, played a big role in that. Uh, the, David and Ben from Acquire, they played a big role. That was just on your pod, uh, your podcast. Um, but what happened was, um, Patrick just randomly tweeted it out. You know, he's got, you know, this massive, very valuable audience, like, in size, in terms of size and then average net worth. Like, he's got one of the most, I would argue he's got the most valuable business podcast audience in the world, right? If you fact-

Sam Parr 6:01 Mm

David Senra 6:01 ... if you keep, if you, uh, like the fact, the, the average net worth of his audience is [beep] extreme And, uh, he just randomly tweeted out like last May, "Hey, um, I never find new podcasts to listen to. I think David Senra's Founder's Podcast is excellent. You should listen." And I was like, "What the [beep] Like, I know you, dude. Like, I watch, listen to your podcast. Like, this is crazy." And so I had become friends with this guy named Sam Hinkie. Sam Hinkie's the former general manager of the, uh, Philadelphia 76ers. Now he's an investor in Silicon Ba- Alley, and I knew he knew Patrick. And so I screenshotted that. I was like, "Oh, shit. Look what your friend Patrick said." And then Sam immediately put me in a group chat with Patrick, and he's like, "You two should know each other." And so Patrick, we... The first time we talked, we talked for like an hour and a half. We had like the same interest for addicted podcasts, addicted history, addicted entrepreneurship, all this other stuff. And so we were just friends for a long time. And then, uh, I had, uh, several people, Rob Moore being one of them, we should probably talk about. Uh-

Sam Parr 6:54 Yeah. Rob and I-

David Senra 6:54 David Ben Maguire

Sam Parr 6:55 ... uh, Rob's been h- hooking me up constantly. Like, I'll talk to him and we'll email back and forth. He's always helping me.

David Senra 7:02 Okay. So this is the positive sum nature of podcasting. I've started talking to Ben about this.

Sam Parr 7:06 And for those who don't know, Rob Moore, Rob Moore and Andrew Huberman are partn- are partners on the pod.

David Senra 7:12 Ro- Rob is the co-founder of the Huberman Lab podcast. So, okay, there is... This is the interesting thing. One of my favorite quotes, I've read every single thing I could find on Steve Jobs, right? And one of my favorite quotes that really describe, uh, Steve's, one of his superpowers, was that Steve, uh, was gifted at finding markets full of second-rate products. And what you, what you guys realize, I think as well, is like people, people have essentially, like when you're inside podcasting, the perception inside of it is completely different than when it's outside of it. It's like everybody's like, "There's too many of them. Uh, it's too late to get in, and, like, you need to start a long time ago." And what happens is like everybody who starts a podcast quits, right? And when you get in there, podcasts in general are full of second-rate products. Rob Moore and Andrew Huberman, uh, and I put David and Ben up here with as well, it's like they're first... They have first-class products and a first-class approach to building their business.

Sam Parr 8:05 Mm.

David Senra 8:05 So Rob, I've never talked to Rob less than two hours. Every single [beep] time we talk, he, he... Look, dude, look what I have on my desk. Like-

Sam Parr 8:16 What's that? Oh, uh, uh, Rob-

David Senra 8:18 It's-

Sam Parr 8:18 Is that a Huberman tweet?

David Senra 8:19 Yeah. It's Rob and Andrew have been so [beep] relentless with supporting me for no... Like, they have no benefit, right? They just, they keep... Like, every time Andrew tweets about me, the fact that he lists one of his favorite podcasts is Founders. He sends me up to church just from his tweets. And so-

Sam Parr 8:37 It's crazy, right?

David Senra 8:38 Rob's like, "Hey, um, we have this new studio. Next time you're in Califor- uh, next time you're in California, come out, and, like, I'd love to give you a tour." And our mutual friend, Andrew Wilkinson, had invited me to Victoria. So I was like, "Oh, I'm actually flying to Victoria, like, next week. That's a pain in the ass to get to from Miami. I'll just stop in California for a few days to see you." We... I meet up with Rob. We talked podcasting-

Sam Parr 8:58 Is Rob in LA? Is Rob in LA?

David Senra 8:59 Yeah, yeah. Rob's in Malibu. I met up with Rob. We talked podcasting for seven straight hours.

Sam Parr 9:05 That's crazy.

David Senra 9:06 Literally, we meet up to have lunch. We stay at the same spot. They're like, "Uh, it's dinner now." We're like, "Let's [beep] have dinner." And then we stay there the whole time, and then he's like, "Let's go to the [beep] studio." They are... Like, to me, I think, uh, not only is Huberman's, the size of his audience is [beep] crazy, but if you break down on how they think about the quality of the product, how they think about the quality of the business model. Like, there's ideas I got from Rob that I told Andrew, or that I told, um, Ben and David that they're now using that's gonna wind up making them millions of dollars. Like, the, the way they set up their business, their ads, everything. They're just fucking first-class dudes.

Sam Parr 9:36 Are you, uh... I see that you're always tweeting out, it looks like a screenshot

Sam Parr 9:41 from Kindle. Uh, how many books a month are you reading to, to pull this off?

David Senra 9:45 Okay. So I think this is, um, me and you were talking about the advantage I think you have at Hampton, which is really fucking special. Um, and it, it's an echo of what Bloomberg used to build his very unique business. Like, your business is going to produce a lot of proprietary information that's extremely valuable to other founders, and then you can repurpose them. Dude, you know how many fucking people I've had dinner with that tell me about the Hampton blog and you guys just, just launched it?

Sam Parr 10:10 Oh, really?

David Senra 10:11 Yes.

Sam Parr 10:11 We, I think we just, we just [laughs] we just, like, I, I threw it together like, I think two weeks ago.

David Senra 10:17 I heard about some guy doing concrete or some shit or-

Sam Parr 10:19 Yeah, yeah, yeah. [laughs]

David Senra 10:19 ... like gravel or something. He, he was like searching. They told me that he was like searching through like a-

Sam Parr 10:24 Like war dogs, uh.

David Senra 10:25 Yes.

Sam Parr 10:25 Yeah. Like looking for the go- looking through a database of government contracts and seeing what he can fulfill.

David Senra 10:30 Yeah. So what I realized is when I text you that or, uh, yesterday, was I'm doing similar things. So, um, I realized what... And it, this is the, the magic of... You said something that was really smart, where you're like, "Rich people read a lot." And it's very true. Our mutual friend, Andrew Wilkinson, just tweeted out. He's like, "I wish I could short entrepreneurs that don't read." And that's what I found as well. It's like not only if the people I studied, it's like they had, they were so good at what they did that somebody wrote a book about them. Like, that's fucking crazy, right? And then you read their books and they're constantly reading biographies, studying great work that came before them. And so the Bloomberg idea was like, he, his business is fundamentally, he's like, "I wanna sell you like a $27,000 a year subscription," or whatever it is. Uh, my bus- his business collects a bunch of unique information, and he made like a bunch of atomic pieces of content, started a media company as a way to get his brand. And so 90% of the people that read his media will never buy a subscription. But his media is spread around everywhere.

Sam Parr 11:25 Right.

David Senra 11:25 Just like there's a ton of people that are gonna read your Hampton blog. Uh, you know, obviously, I think you should do a podcast. If you do fucking short form, whatever, it's like that's gonna be spread out like that. And then, you know, 1%, 5% of those are gonna convert to members. And like, the more members you have, the more data you have. The more data you have, the more members you have, and it just keeps going. So to answer your question, I just hit episode 300. I've read over 300 biographies of entrepreneurs so far. Uh, I have... That's over 100,000 pages. What I realized is like, over time, I'd input all my highlights into this app called Readwise. And so everything you see externally are just, uh, they're essentially, uh, highlights that I... Like the one I, I, I posted yesterday. We were talking about Bloomberg, and I was like, "Oh, fuck. Let me go and, uh- Read back through my highlights on Bloomberg, and I found one where he said that, like, you know, if you, you should try to love what you do, 'cause you love what you do, you do it a lot. And then, you know, that compounds everything. And I put that out and, like, immediately these hit, and then people discover the podcast and they start listening. And so me and you and Bloomberg are kind of running the same idea, but in, you know, different, uh, different industries or different, like-

Sam Parr 12:27 Dude, I use... Up until, like, I... So two years ago, up until two years ago, I was reading a ton. And then I, uh, so I like to listen to books. I, I like to listen-

David Senra 12:38 Yeah

Sam Parr 12:38 ... I'll, I'll listen. I have one that I'm listening to and one that I read at night, and I like to listen while I'm on walks. And there's this one narrator who I love. Have you ever listened to Titan or, uh-

David Senra 12:47 Yeah

Sam Parr 12:47 ... Vanderbilt's book, uh, Tycoon? He, um-

David Senra 12:51 Yep

Sam Parr 12:51 ... the narrator is awesome, and so I was like, "I love this narrator. He's so good." So I went and found books just by that narrator, and I started scrolling through. And I'm like, "Oh my God, this guy's done 1,500 books," or something like that, that he's narrated. And it's like-

David Senra 13:05 Wow

Sam Parr 13:05 ... How to Win Friends and Influence, and, like, all these, like, business-y, self-help-y books. And then I go and looked at his LinkedIn and I'm like, "Huh, if he's reading all these books, why isn't he more successful?" [laughs]

David Senra 13:16 [laughs]

Sam Parr 13:17 And I'm like [laughs] , I'm like, "Huh, that doesn't work."

David Senra 13:21 This is-

Sam Parr 13:21 So I got angry.

David Senra 13:22 No, this-

Sam Parr 13:22 So now I s- I, now I, I read mostly for fun.

David Senra 13:26 Mm-hmm.

Sam Parr 13:26 And if I don't like something, I, I, I, I brush it off. I put it away. Uh, and so I, I quit reading nonfiction books. Now I strictly read biographies or history.

David Senra 13:36 So your friend Ryan Holiday has a great post where he shared, like, his top 25, um, biography recommendations and his, the, the, the intro to that post is excellent 'cause he's like, "Listen, y- you go to the most successful people in the world and look at their bookshelves, they, they read a lot of shit. They all read biographies. A- all of them, without exception." He's like, "Some of the most high-value, um, reading you can do." You notice that as you read through the biographies, like, they're all doing this. Now, here's the thing. Um, this, uh, this actually clicked for me the other day. Uh, you know Eric Jorgensen, right?

Sam Parr 14:08 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

David Senra 14:09 Yeah.

Sam Parr 14:09 He helped Naval write the thing.

David Senra 14:10 Yep. So he gave me this fantastic book recommendation that I had missed, this guy that's named Peter Bevelin, and he kind of... It's a book on Buffett and Munger. It's called, uh, it's just All I Want to Know Is Where I'll Die So I Don't Go There. And there was something that Buffett and Munger were saying in that book that really clicked for me. They kept saying, it's like, "Listen, we're gonna share everything we know with you guys. We know that most of you are just gonna listen or read it and never do anything." And w- I thought about that for a long time. I was like, "Oh, so learning is not memorizing information like the guy you were just describing. Learning is changing your behavior." If you don't change your behavior, then you didn't actually learn. And so therefore, if I'm not applying the lessons I'm learning in this book for my own business, then that means I'm just wasting my whole fucking life, 'cause I'm, I'm working on this seven days a week. Like, I'm giving a lot of my, like, energy to this. And I think that's the important part is it's, like, not just r- these people didn't just fucking read. They took this idea, like, "Okay, how can I apply that to my business?" And then they actually changed their fucking behavior, which is, like, the key.

Sam Parr 15:01 No, I, and I've done that a ton. I mean, I'll, I'll... What I, my, the reason I read biographies is I look for patterns and I say, uh, "What mistake did this person make, and how do I avoid it? And where did they win, and how do I, like, lean in on that?" And then, like, the way that I kind of, uh, this sounds really lame, but we make a joke that I'm, I call myself a manifest cowboy 'cause I'm a little bit-

David Senra 15:20 I love that

Sam Parr 15:21 ... of a redneck. But the reason being is I'm pretty good at, like, setting five-year and 10-year goals and staying focused and working backwards to achieve it. And, like, I can... Like, there's this one book b- called How to Get Rich by Felix Dennis.

David Senra 15:33 Love that book.

Sam Parr 15:33 And, like, I, I, like, lis- I was like, "All right, what..." And he, and he was, uh, he had cancer, I believe, or, uh, I don't know if he had a cancer when he wrote it, but he died soon after. And he was like, "If I could do it all over again, I would try to be financially secure by age 35 and then just putz around." And I was like, "Okay, let's do that." And so I, like, just worked backwards to, like, how do you just, like, have, like, the bills handled, and then everything else is just, you know, icing on the cake. And so I'm pretty good at that. But I, uh-

David Senra 16:06 When's the last time you read it?

Sam Parr 16:08 I read it all the time. I refer... I, I use it like a textbook.

David Senra 16:11 Okay.

Sam Parr 16:11 So, like, wh- when I think about, like, um, equity and how much to pay people, I go and read the sections that he talks about. So I have it. If you just Google How to Get Rich free PDF, there's, like, a website that has it. So I've bought many copies and, uh, I have his, a bunch of his biographies. But I'll just, like, refer to that all the, constantly. I'm like, "All right, what did he say about this?" And he gives, like, pretty practical advice, like on company credit cards. Like, how do you issue your company credit cards-

David Senra 16:36 Yeah

Sam Parr 16:36 ... and, like, uh, office space. And so I refer back to it constantly.

David Senra 16:40 Andrew Wilkinson gave me advice. He's like, uh, what he did, he's like, "I read the book before I got rich, and then you read it after you get really rich." [laughs] He's like-

Sam Parr 16:47 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

David Senra 16:47 [laughs] I just thought that was really great advice.

Sam Parr 16:50 We, uh, so you and I are both UFC fans.

David Senra 16:53 Yes.

Sam Parr 16:53 And I was asking you, I was like, "What should we talk about?" And I was like, "I wanna talk about the difference between the people who are pretty good and absolute killers."

David Senra 17:02 Yeah.

Sam Parr 17:02 And you were like, "Oh, that's just like in UFC. That's kind of the same way." But I, 'cause I'm fascinated with, like, I listened to your s- uh, I think his name is Sam Bronfman, the guy who started Seagram's-

David Senra 17:12 Oh

Sam Parr 17:12 ... which eventually turned into, like, all these other things. And then I listened to-

David Senra 17:16 What a fucking savage. [laughs]

Sam Parr 17:18 He's a savage. You know what? Like, he almost reminded me of myself, not in the savage sense, but he, he did a few funny things. He, uh, he was, like, a hermit, and he, like, didn't go anywhere unless his wife went with him, and I'm the same way. I'm like, I don't go out unless my wife comes with me 'cause I'm, I have, like, some social anxiety a little bit. And, like, but when it came to business, he was, like, pretty, uh, brash and, um, uh, like, told people exactly what he thought. Uh, except, like, when it came to social situations, he was, like, super not confrontational. If I go to the grocery store and I don't see what I'm looking for, I leave. I don't ask. You know what I mean?

David Senra 17:49 [laughs]

Sam Parr 17:49 I'm like, I'm like, "Dude, I can't, I, I just don't even wanna ask for help," like, 'cause it bothers me. Um, but anyway, I listened to him, and then I listened to Napoleon. That one was really good. And-

David Senra 17:58 Oh, dude, look at this book. Sorry. Uh, Sam Altman said the best book he's read in the last few years is this one. It's really hard to find. It's first published in 1955. It's-

Sam Parr 18:08 Is that the concise history one? I can't see.

David Senra 18:09 No, no, no. I'm about, I'm gonna do this in, like, two, um- Two part, two episodes called The Mind of Napoleon. It's, it's Napoleon's own fucking words, and-

Sam Parr 18:19 That's cool

David Senra 18:19 ... uh, yeah. So, 'cause you know, say everybody's obsessed with Sam Altman right now 'cause of ChatGPT. I didn't mean to interrupt you, but Napoleon's-

Sam Parr 18:24 Well, Napoleon had this amazing saying, I forget if I heard it from you or, or Ben Wilson, but it was something like, um, uh, you... He, he was talking to someone, he goes, "You and I are not the same. I am born of a people of conquerors," or something like that. Like, he had this like, uh, like this... He felt like he was just like, "I'm here to conquer. Get out of my way."

David Senra 18:45 Yeah.

Sam Parr 18:45 And he had that at a young age, and I thought that was really insightful.

David Senra 18:48 Um, there is something that you picked up on where people... It's, it's fascinating how, like, uh, you'll listen to founders or you read a bunch of biographies and you realize, like, the most successful people in the world, you're like, "Oh, I don't, I don't, I don't want their life." And that's the way I feel.

Sam Parr 19:00 For sure.

David Senra 19:01 Like out of like, I, I... Exact- First of all, you said something that's really smart, too. It's like people diss, like, manifestation or visualization, and they think it's like w- like willy poofoo nonsense. Okay, that's fine. I can just tell you it pops up in the books over and over and over again. I told you yesterday, I'm reading this fucking insane biography of Tiger Woods. This dude is, like, eight years old, listening to motivational tapes, writing it out, and on his wall it's like, "I am powerful. I will achieve my goals." Like over and over and over again. And you see this from Edwin Land, Steve Jobs, Estée Lauder, uh, Bob Noyce, founder of Intel, Arnold Schwarzenegger. Have you read The Education... I wanna send you... I was gonna ask you for your address to send you this book, but I was like, he might have already read it. Did you ever read The Education of a Bodybuilder?

Sam Parr 19:41 I've heard about it. I've never read it.

David Senra 19:43 It, the first 113 pages, it's, it functions as a, as a autobiography of Arnold when he's 30. And, like, the visualization thing, seeing things and, it, it, like, he said, he's like, he would lay in bed at night and just picture himself on the stage holding the trophy of the Mr. Universe or whatever in his hand. Everybody's, like, essentially, like, bowing down to him. He's a conqueror, to use, like, that example. What I find is that a lot of the people that, um, like even Fe- Felix Dennis, man. Uh, I think his, the advice he gave was wise. Like, that guy had a hole in his heart that could never fill. He spent $100 million in a decade, 10 million a year on cocaine, alcohol, and prostitutes.

Sam Parr 20:20 Yeah. [laughs]

David Senra 20:20 You know? Like, that's a fucking crazy story in that book. And he... What I love about autobiographies of entrepreneurs is usually they write them towards the end of their life. They don't hide shit. They're like, "I was fucked up. I was a bad father. I cheated on my wife. I..." whatever, you know? Um, so the, the, the... Tie this into, like, the UFC thing and, and the, like, the conquering, is that quote, um, I've considered, like-

Sam Parr 20:40 I think it's, uh, "I am of the race that founds empires," is what it is.

David Senra 20:44 So I, I wanna read this quote that you and I were t- uh, discussing, where I think Joe Rogan is obviously, like, the world, the world's leading expert on, you know, MMA. Like, the stuff... I wish I could talk to that guy. Just, I hope I get to... I hope I get the chance just to ask him. I wouldn't... I just wanna talk to him about MMA and all the shit that's in his brain. And I was very curious what was gonna happen with this Jon Jones ser- serial gain fight, right?

Sam Parr 21:09 So for those who don't know, Jon Jones is this very controversial character at age, like, 22, 23. He was, like, the first UFC fighter sponsored by Nike. He was the golden boy. He was the champion when he was 20 or something, and he's just a killer, never lost. But he, you know, has hit his girlfriend before. He's gotten arrested for drinking and driving. He's a mess. He's a killer on and off, uh, the field.

David Senra 21:35 Did you ever see the video of him where... Remember, like, during the, the pandemic, people were, like, lighting shit on fire. There's all these riots, and they did it in, uh, Albuquerque where he's at.

Sam Parr 21:44 And he stopped them, and he-

David Senra 21:45 There's two-

Sam Parr 21:45 Yeah.

David Senra 21:45 You saw that?

Sam Parr 21:46 Yeah.

David Senra 21:46 Could you imagine if those two guys, there was two small guys, like, young kids were, like, spray painting and vandalizing shit, and Jon is just walking around, he's like, "Give me the can. Give me the can. Give me the can." Like, dude, if you know who that is, you'll give him the can. [laughs] 'Cause you don't want-

Sam Parr 22:00 Yeah

David Senra 22:00 ... him telling-

Sam Parr 22:00 Jon Jones is, like, 6'2", probably... Well, now he weighs 260 pounds. I mean, he's, like-

David Senra 22:05 [laughs]

Sam Parr 22:05 ... one of the scarier people you could ever see, and he's athletic. The guy's a freak. He's a freak. But he comes off, this is why this is interesting, he, he, he tries to come off like a nice guy a lot of times in interviews, and he... and when you listen to him talk, you think, or at least I think, this is learned behavior, and you are actually a l- more sociopathy than you are n- not, and you will kill someone easily and sleep like a baby at night.

David Senra 22:32 100%. So this is the, the fascinating thing about studying history. So this is what Jo- Joe Rogan said about Jon Jones, which I think is gonna rem- it reminds me, like, of young Bill Gates, which we can talk about. He says, Joe, Joe's like, "Listen, there's human beings that have a ruthless competitive drive that is terrifying to the ordinary person. Jon Jones is a bad guy who is trying to be a good guy. If he were living a thousand years ago, he'd be on a horse with a battle axe chopping the heads off of everyone, and everyone would be running. These dominators have always existed. He's a fucking conqueror. That is the thing that's inside of him that leads him to be the GOAT, greatest of all time. Without that, you don't get there. There's a thing inside of some people that is a driving force that allows them to overcome the greatest people around them." When I heard that, I wasn't thinking about Jon Jones. I was thinking, like, that's Michael Jordan, that's Jeff Bezos, that's a young Bill Gates, that's Edwin Land, that's Arn- uh, John Rockefeller, that's Carnegie. That's all of them. They ha- they have this ruthless competitive drive. To me, they're a different species than an average person. Um, and so the example of that is, like, I did this, uh, this excellent biography of a young Bill Gates, right? In my opinion, the perfect biography, it's like, I don't need to know what their great-grandfather did for a living, right? It's like, tell me the struggle. The reason we're lear- Like, give me a little background to what family they were born into, then tell me the struggle, and then once they're rich, end the book. And so there's a book called Hard Drive: Bill Gates and the Making of the Microsoft Empire that covers the first 35 years of Bill Gates' life, right?

Sam Parr 23:55 Mm.

David Senra 23:55 So it ends right after the, the Microsoft IPO. And I'm obsessed, the reason I have a solo podcast, uh, is because my podcast idol is Dan Carlin, Hardcore History, right? And-

Sam Parr 24:07 Is, is he by himself?

David Senra 24:09 100%. He's got a giant audience.

Sam Parr 24:11 Wow.

David Senra 24:12 Um, we should actually talk about podcasting if you're interested in that. He, he, a lot of people don't share numbers. He had said, uh, don't let me forget the thread on Bill Gates, by the way. Um, he had said The latest episode, this is like two years ago, uh, that got published, he got nineteen million downloads on.

Sam Parr 24:29 That's insane.

David Senra 24:30 And then he said, "Oh, wait." Then he said, "Oh, wait, uh, it turns out some of them were double counted." So i-in any case, cut it in half, that's nine... He's got an audience of probably ten million people that listen to him. Right? That is-

Sam Parr 24:42 That would be one of the biggest episodes of the year for m-most every podcast.

David Senra 24:45 Yes.

Sam Parr 24:45 You know, the big dogs-

David Senra 24:46 Yes

Sam Parr 24:47 ... get a million or one point five per episode, but rarely... You know, Joe Rogan, if he interviewed, like Ber- when he interviewed Bernie Sanders or someone like that, that maybe got five or, or eight or something like that.

David Senra 24:57 So Joe, Joe's audience, and Joe has more data than anybody else does, and all the Spotify exclusives has more data than anybody else does. He said, uh, remember when they tried to cancel him? This is also the magic of podcasting, man, uh, which I know we don't, like... We, we have to be careful here 'cause we talk about it forever. Um, y- the problem is, is like you, you have people that don't... If you listen to Joe or you listen... Like, I've listened to you and fucking Shaan forever. I know, even before we met, I, like, I know who you guys are. I know Manifest Cowboy, I know the fucking terminology. We have an idea of who you are. Like the personality before you meet them, right? That's the magic of podcasting. It's like we're not creating content, we're creating relationships at scale, which is very fucking powerful and still, uh, people, most people, uh, don't, they, they underestimate how powerful this is. Um, and so what happens, like you have, you know, people saying, "Joe Rogan's a racist." You know, they, they, they cut the clip and then, you know, he's anti-vax, everything else. And so they try to cancel him, and then somebody's been listening to him for fucking ten years and listens to him ten hours a week, he's like, "You're not gonna tell me anything about Joe that I don't know." And so what happens is he said his audience added two million people. I think went from twelve million subscribers to fourteen million subscribers on Spotify. Those are-

Sam Parr 26:00 That's crazy

David Senra 26:00 ... the numbers I've heard. Yeah. Um, and it speaks to like this... He's still the biggest by far because even like the top, you know, humans, everybody else, like yours, one point five without YouTube and everything else. So it's still just crazy how big and successful Joe's show is. Um-

Sam Parr 26:18 But what about Bill?

David Senra 26:18 The-

Sam Parr 26:19 Back to Bill.

David Senra 26:21 Uh, so Bill Gates is... W- I was doing an e-episode on him, and I had just been listening to Dan Carlin's, uh, Wrath of the Khans series on Genghis Khan for like the fifteenth time. And it r- I realized, it's like, oh, like you, you see Bill Gates as like a little nerd, and Bill, Bill Gates is not who you think he is. It's like this is Genghis Khan in a Mr. Rogers costume. He's in a disguise.

Sam Parr 26:42 [laughs]

David Senra 26:43 And he is unbelievably relentless. So there's this guy named Michael Moritz who was, uh, now he's a billionaire. Uh, he's one of the guys that helped scale Sequoia, but at the time he was just a journalist. And this is a perfect example. He's giving, uh, he's just a journalist, I think he's wr- writing for Time Magazine, and he's meeting Bill. You know, Bill's probably, maybe, I don't know, twenty-eight, something like that. They do an interview. Bill's like, "Hey, I'll give you a ride to the airport." They get in Bill's car, and Michael's like, "Oh, shit, somebody broke into your car. What happened here?" He's like, "What are you talking about?" He goes, "Your radio." He's like, "Somebody stole your radio." And he's like, "No, I, I ripped it out." He said, "Why would you do that?" He's like, "From my house to Microsoft of-office is seven minutes. That's fourteen minutes a day. From Microsoft's office to the airport, I go there three times a week. That's fifteen minutes round trip. You know, thirty, thirty minute, or fifteen minutes each way, thirty minutes round trip." And he adds this up, he's like, "So that's like two hours in the car. And if I have a radio, then I'd listen to it. And then I'm spending two hours not thinking about Microsoft."

Sam Parr 27:36 Huh.

David Senra 27:36 And there's all these fucking crazy stories because somebody asked the other day, like, "What's the largest bootstrap business of all time?" And Paul Graham answered, "Microsoft." And people were like, "Oh, they took VC." No. No. They were printing money, and they sold a million shares of Microsoft for a million dollars to a VC. They did not need the money, right before they went public to get expertise. That was a bootstrap business. The year before, this is in 1980 money, the year before Microsoft IPOs, they did a hundred and forty million in revenue and thirty-eight million in profit. Like-

Sam Parr 28:05 That's insane, right?

David Senra 28:06 It's insane. And then so this extreme... John Gotti, the serial game thing, when you hear about how he thinks about his fucking competitors, it's not just enough that he needs to win. He's like, "I have to fucking destroy you." So there's a t-this spooky fucking, um, this spooky story that's in one of Bill Gates' biographies. I've read two of them. And, uh, Bill would be able to tell you, like in the software industry, he's like, "I know the CEO of every single software company. I know what their revenue was. I know what their, where their product is right now. I know everything about them." And so they a- they, he had a bunch of like frenemies. He's like, "I wanna destroy you," but he would talk to you. And a lot of them were getting customers at these, uh, in the early days of like these, uh, these software, uh, conventions, which is very, like very new. And so this guy, Philippe Kahn, that he was trying to fucking destroy. He, he literally wants to put you out of business, 'cause he's, he told his employees, he's like, "If I, if we lose a fifty thousand dollar contract, that's not fifty thousand. That's a hundred thousand, because we lost fifty and our fucking enemy got a hund- got fifty. So you just cost me a hundred thousand dollars." He was like, that psychotic about it. And so Philippe goes over, sees Bill sitting by himself in like a foldable chair, just looking at nothing. Philippe walks up to him, and he goes to say hi to Bill, and he realizes what Bill's looking at. He's looking at a picture of Philippe Kahn. He's in public in a fucking corner of a convention center staring at a fucking picture of his enemy. Like the, what Joe said about John, a thousand years ago, we lived at a zero sum. If you wanted to build wealth, what'd you do? Like you, you took their land or took their resources from somebody else.

Sam Parr 29:38 Pillage. Conquer.

David Senra 29:39 Yes. Yeah. So a thousand years ago, that personality type, Bill Gates, would've been lead... He would've been a Napoleon. He would've been leading an army. It just so happens that this same personality type that is, that exists today, has existed forever, will exist forever in the future, can run companies and build wealth. And when you, when you study the personalities of these people, it's like they're all like that. Thank God we are living a free market economy, or else there'd be j- they'd be pillaging and raping and, and doing everything else.

Sam Parr 30:03 Well, that's why my favorite era of American history is like, um, 1890. So r- that's, uh, uh, thirty or twenty years after the Civil War, so we're, America's kinda getting back to it. Uh, up until like 1920. Because in 1920, um, like the Sherman Act, which was the Anti-Monopoly Act, uh, started coming about, and then the SEC was invented And so between like 1890 and 1920, America was really the Wild West where we had some technology. You know, we had cars, we had, uh, I think phones were coming about, telegraph, so we could communicate-

David Senra 30:39 Railroads

Sam Parr 30:40 ... railroads.

David Senra 30:40 Yeah

Sam Parr 30:40 We could... And the stock market w- existed, so we could, like, make wealth, but there was a few things that you could do. So for example, Andrew Carnegie and, um, uh, who's his partner? Frick. Like-

David Senra 30:53 Henry Clay Frick.

Sam Parr 30:54 Yeah. Like, when people would, uh, when the union workers would boycott and protest, they killed them. Like, they, they hired a, a private police team, and they went out-

David Senra 31:04 Private army

Sam Parr 31:05 ... a private army-

David Senra 31:06 Yeah

Sam Parr 31:06 ... and they, and they literally beat, like, 10 of them to death, and I don't think anything happened. I don't know if anything happened.

David Senra 31:12 No, because they also owned the politicians.

Sam Parr 31:14 Yeah. And it was wild. And then, like, there was a time where JP Morgan loaned the US government money. And-

David Senra 31:20 Yeah

Sam Parr 31:20 ... and then there was a time, a lot of people don't know this, but JFK, John, John F. Kennedy, the, uh, president, his father, Joe Kennedy, was like the seventh richest man in America at one point. He got rich from insider trading. Then after he was already rich, he created, or he was the first head of the SEC that made insider trading illegal. Like, it was, like, hardcore crony capitalism. That's one of the reasons why I like reading about John Rockefeller is because of all the things he did, he was dishonest once or twice, but for the most part, he was a ruthless competitor and he didn't lie and he was honest, other than, uh, one big time he lied. But besides that, he was pretty straight.

David Senra 31:58 And how crazy was it that his employees nev- he, they, like, he never, we never heard him raise his voice and he never said an unkind word to us. Now, his competitors, different story. He's completely ruthless with them. But inside of his... You're not gonna find anybody that worked inside of Standard Oil and then obviously they, they hid all the things they owned. This is actually an idea I stole from, uh, Rockefeller-

Sam Parr 32:17 By the way, his competitors, he wasn't really... I mean, he was ruthless, but he would go to them, he goes, "Hey, I would like to buy you. This is a very fair price. Come and join me and I'll make you rich," of which many did, and they got rich. And he said, "If you don't join me, I'm gonna destroy you. So let me know if you..." And so to me that's like ki- he's like, "Look, we can work together or I'm gonna end you. You can pick." But he wasn't, like-

David Senra 32:37 Yeah

Sam Parr 32:37 ... necessarily, like, rude about it.

David Senra 32:39 Yeah, so, uh, I, the one thing he said was so badass, he was trying to buy somebody out, they re- resisted. He's like, "I have ways to make money that you know nothing about." He was-

Sam Parr 32:47 Yeah

David Senra 32:47 ... he be- I always say, like, there's a, there's a very common theme that, common themes that reappear in the history of entrepreneurship, and so I have maxims for a bunch of these. Like, my favorite one is excellence is the capacity to take pain. It's just like you're not gonna achieve large success without being able to tolerate pain for extended periods of time, right? Another one is bad boys move in silence. Like, they find an advantage and they shut up about it. This is what, um, Steve Jobs realized when he was build, trying to build Pixar. He's just like, "We can't get any fucking data on how profitable," 'cause they're transitioning from selling hardware to just pure animate- like, trying to build a first computer-animated movie. And Steve Jobs is like, "I don't get why, like, we can't get any information on this." And then he realized, he's like, "Oh, the reason that you can't go to the library and check out a book that says, like, the business model of animation is because there's only one, uh, company ever did it well, and it's Disney, and they don't want anybody else to know how lucrative it is." And so he realized that because they had, they had made, like, Snow White like 60 years before. And right when he's doing these negotiations with Pixar and Disney, they re-released it and were selling, like, VHS tapes, and I think that they might have had DVDs at this point. And they're like, "Wait a minute. You just sold 28 million copies of a movie you made 60 years ago. That's all profit." And they made two... He said they made a quarter billion in profit on that one movie-

Sam Parr 33:57 That's insane

David Senra 33:57 ... releasing it for, like, the j- new technology. And so I actually took an idea from John D. Rockefeller. Rob Moore plays a role in this. Is like, um, what, what, um, Rockefeller would do is, like, he had these secret allies, right? And so he entered into an industry where he thought was very disorganized. And so he wound up building relationships and allies with all the people in the oil... Remember, the oil business when he jumps in, it's not what we think is oil. He was, he was like refi- he was a refiner. He was selling kerosene for fucking, like, lighting and stuff.

Sam Parr 34:25 Yeah.

David Senra 34:26 He, he made a, he actually made more money in retirement because after he retired, he still owned a shit ton of, um, equity. Goes back to Felix Dennis. Uh, and then the ambition of the core. And so now like, oh, this, this, my, my stock's even worth more. Uh, but what he would do is he'd go around and he'd organize all the other people in the industry. So like, I do this with a bunch of podcasters, like me and you just started doing this, like texting about this. It's just like you just share information. Like, you build secret allies and you just say, "Hey, this guy figured out this for your podcast. You should use it." And like, everybody in the podcast industry is extremely positive sum. I listened to your, um, your interview with Brendan Schaub. He said the same thing about... He's like, "Joe told us we have an obligation to help each other out." And so for business podcasts, it's like they're all kinda like satellites and, like, loosely defined. And so me and Patrick have been going around building relationships with these people and just sharing information. Like, uh, I was at The Choir Guys house in San Francisco a few weeks ago. They're like, "We give Patrick..." They have one of the most profitable, uh, they, Ben and David, who are fantastic, I'm actually we- wearing their merch right now. Um, they have one of the most profitable podcasts in, compared to audience size of how much they make. And they're like, "Well, Patrick told us that we weren't charging enough, so we tripled our prices. Then we tr- and then we still sold ads, and then we tripled them again. And then it's like, holy shit, he was right." And so that idea is like we're no gatekeeping, just share information and try to help people as much as possible. Um, that's an idea from Rockefeller.

Sam Parr 35:48 When you read about some of these killers, do you think they are different than me or do you start becoming that? Like, do you think that, uh, just surrounding yourself with them is gonna change your behavior or is it just like aliens exist and I am not them?

David Senra 36:02 No. Here's the thing. We, I don't know if we were recording. I, I like how you guys just jump right in, by the way. Uh, um, so I don't, I think most of our discussion was caught on the recording. But, um, I am very glad that I have a wife and two kids. Um, up and down, like here's, here's my thing. It's like the, the thing that I don't like and that's very present in a lot of these books is like if you're an adult, it's your job to figure it out and, like, not let people take advantage of you, right? So if, like, John D. Rockefeller gives you a bad price and for your business you accept it, that's on you What I'm in-- You hear this on the podcast, like, I'm induced into state of rages when people fuck with kids. I can't stand that. And so up and down my family tree, like, I was the first person to graduate high school in my family, much less college. I'm the first, uh, male in my three generations not to go to jail, right? And so, like, up and down both sides of my family tree, I just see a lot of, like, terrible parenting. And this is not necessarily my parents, they did the best they can because they're, both sets of their parents were shitty people. But, like, I saw drug abu-buse, I saw sexual abuse, I saw people going to jail, cocaine, all this crazy shit, right? And so I was like, "If I'm gonna have kids, I'm not gonna be a shit father." And I think the fact that I have a kid and a wife that, like, we get along really well, it saves me from not... I think if I didn't have that, I would literally work from the time my eyes open in the morning till the time they close. And I would just fucking... Like, I think the scary part is, like, I s- and I'm trying to compare myself to, you know, can't compare myself to Rockefellers. But like, I have a little bit of that in me too. And I think I hear from a ton of people that listen, they're like, "I think like that, too." The whole thing is, like, learning from their experience, like, "Hey," but they get to their life, they're not necessarily happy. You know? Like, so I don't want that. Um, I don't wanna destroy everything around me because I, I chased professional success. But I think men in general, you know, type A aggressive men, like that's what... Successful people, super successful people are crazy. Like, they're not normal humans, and it's probably one to five percent of the population that are borderline sociopathic. You know, I'm not saying murder people, that's, that's a little bit extreme but, like, they're willing to do whatever they can if you get in their way. And-

Sam Parr 38:07 So I, I'm-- I've been lucky that as we've... It's, it's, it's funny that as we've, I've gotten more popular for, like, content and business shit, a lot of people in different fields who I previously looked up to, like, for example, a Lance Armstrong or someone like that, uh, they'll like message me, and I'll get an opportunity to hang out with them. And this isn't-

David Senra 38:28 Yeah

Sam Parr 38:28 ... about Lance, but this is, I've been lucky that it's been a bunch of different people. And I'll go and hang out with them a couple of times, and then I think, "I don't wanna be around you ever again." Like, and so... Like, I don't enjoy being around them. And so-

David Senra 38:42 Yeah

Sam Parr 38:42 ... I've had a bunch of people who, if you told me when I was 12 that these people wanna talk to me, I'd be like, "That is sick." Now I just, I'm just like, "I don't like being around you." It's actually not enjoyable being around some of these people, um, because it feels like... Well, I don't know exactly how it feels like. Like, it feels like we, um, we're in a pissing match when we're, when we're with each other. Um-

David Senra 39:04 Yep

Sam Parr 39:04 ... and I simply don't enjoy it. And so now I have, I have a rule in my household, which is no new friends. Um-

David Senra 39:11 Mm-hmm

Sam Parr 39:11 ... so I default. Whenever I talk to someone, I default to I'm not gonna be friends until it's like, all right, maybe after a while w-we can, we can, we can cross the threshold. But by default it's, "I don't trust you and I'm not gonna let you in." Um, whereas before it was like, "Oh, anyone who wants to holler at me? Yeah, I'm in." And then I go and hang out with some of these ballers and these killers and I think, "Oh, this is a, this is a very unenjoyable hang." You know, there's a bunch of people who, maybe Ben might know who we're talking about, um, but there's like a couple people that are like some of the most famous and successful people in the world, and we've been lucky to hang out with them. And then we'll go hang out with them after the pod and I'm like, "Oh, this is just miserable. I don't wanna be around you at all." And so my point being is for the, to, to what, what you said about the most successful people being crazy, not only are they crazy, I don't wanna be around them. It's not fun. They're not fun to be around. And so you really see that there's a price to pay, which is you are in the one percentile or ninety-nine percentile of this, of these other traits, which usually, not always, means you're gonna be lacking in a handful of other traits. And sometimes that's like whatever the traits are of you wanting to be near someone, I guess, like physically and hanging out with someone.

David Senra 40:18 That, that's my big... Everybody's like, "Okay, uh, like, are you doing all this? Are you, do you wanna run like the next Apple? Like, what are you doing this for?" And I'm like, "No." Like out of the three hundred people that I've studied, the, the person that I wanna be the most like is the, the closest person that I've studied and read about that has come to mastering life is this guy named Ed Thorp. Right? And so it's up-

Sam Parr 40:38 Who's he?

David Senra 40:40 Uh, this, this is a fucking crazy story. So it's episode two twenty-two, and the crazy thing is, like, usually the, the episode titles are just the book I read, right? This says, "My Personal Blueprint," right? And because what he did is like, first of all, he's a... Ed Thorp is one of-- He was the guy that made the first quantitative hedge fund, right? Uh, the reason I liked him is because what I think you were talking about earlier, like you have varied interests, right? Where you need a balance because I've also heard you speak enough where I'm like, okay, he's clearly type A and driven. And like, if you didn't have your wife or you didn't have these other things, I could also see you going, uh, not sociopathic, but like, you know, no limit to the kind of empire-

Sam Parr 41:17 Yeah

David Senra 41:17 ... you wanna build. You have a chip on your shoulders just like all of them. I do too. So I see that. Um, Ed Thorp, essentially like what he did is, like, he made a ton of money, uh, as a quantitative investor, right? But once he had more money, like he didn't need to worry about money anymore, he refused to trade time to make more money because he understood. He's like, "More money is not gonna make me happy," but by time his limit. He was a good father. He was a good husband. He was... He followed his own intellectual interests. Like he, he had fun. He, the, um, Tim Ferriss just interviewed him, and I would highly recommend going to YouTube and just type in Tim Ferriss, Ed Thorp. And look at that guy's picture and tell me how old you think he is. I've done this a bunch. I did it with my wife. I go, "How old do you think he is?" She's like, "I don't know, sixty-five?" He's fucking ninety. Because he learned when he was really young that physical fitness was really important, and so he gave me the best heuristic, uh, for health. He goes, "I view every hour in the gym as one less day I'll spend in the hospital at the end of my life."

Sam Parr 42:12 Right.

David Senra 42:12 And the guy's still doing like pull-ups. He looks fucking fantastic, right? He's like ni- I think he might be like ninety-two. Um, and so this whole balance of like, your friend Ryan Holiday actually, I, I learned this from hi-his content, was like what it means to be a completed human. We've known that forever. We just get distracted. It's like you want work that has meaning, you want good relationships, you wanna have fun, and you wanna make sure that your body's healthy and you should feel good. That's it. There isn't anything else. I love what you just said because the same thing. When you have a successful podcast, you get hit up on all kinds of fucking crazy experiences, which is actually, you know, a huge benefit. But it's like, man, I'm not gonna build 1,000 relationships that are like an inch deep. I just talk to the same people over and over and over and over again. It's like you have a limited amount of people you can actually be friends with, and yet we're all connected, so we're like, we're hugely distracted. So I was like, "Okay, I'm not smart as a Thor. He's way smarter than me, so I'll just fucking copy his blueprint. I'll write that down. I'll be a good father, I'll be a good husband, I'll take care of my health. I'll have work that I'm really fucking obsessed with, but I put guardrails on," right? And like, I'm not going to keep trading money or time, which I'm, we're gonna run out of, for more money when I'm not even spending the money I have. [upbeat music] Our software is the worst.

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Sam Parr 43:39 I wanna, um, I wanna ask you some more questions about history, but a story really quick. I, I have a friend who's 40, low 40s, worth a billion dollars, um, has a publicly traded company, and he was telling me this story about how he had this phrase called, "It's never enough." And he was telling me a story about how he went to one guy's home who was worth $50 million, and the guy was complaining about how he lives in this fancy neighborhood and he can't... His home is, his $6 million home is less good than, or is, is worse than the other people in the neighborhood. Then he's like, "I went to another guy who's worth like half a billion," and he was saying like, "Yeah, but you know what I don't have? A super yacht."

David Senra 44:18 Yep.

Sam Parr 44:18 And then there was another guy who had like one or two billion, and this guy was complaining. He's like, "Can't get a sports team though. It's, it's not enough." And so-

David Senra 44:27 Yeah. I don't wanna be around people. I think you hit it. Don't be... Like, I don't wanna be around people like that.

Sam Parr 44:32 It's never enough, and that's what I've also learned because, like, I've thought that when I've hit certain points, I'm like, "Well, I won't want anymore." It's, you always want more. It, it's a very challenging thing.

David Senra 44:42 So it doesn't have to be that way though. I had the advantage because, like, this is the crazy thing about podcasts you just said. Like, you never know

David Senra 44:47 who's listening. So I got, uh, invited to have a two-hour lunch with Sam Zell, right? And that's fucking crazy. Um, it came inbound. Sam had listened to the podcast I made on his autobiography, and he's like, "I wanna meet that guy." And so I got invited-

Sam Parr 45:01 So Sam Zell, Sam Zell's a real estate guy. He's got a great book called, uh, Am I Being Loud Enough? Or-

David Senra 45:06 Am I Being Subtle?

Sam Parr 45:07 Am I Being Subtle Enough?

David Senra 45:08 Or Am I Being Subtle Enough? Yeah.

Sam Parr 45:08 Am I Being Subtle Enough? He's, uh, he's probably close to 90 now. He's kinda-

David Senra 45:12 Eighty-one

Sam Parr 45:13 ... he's kinda got this blue collar-ish vibe about him, but he's worth probably $5 or $10 billion, something like that. He owned, uh, uh, all these real estate things. He created the REIT, I think. Then he, like, owned Schwinn bicycles. He owned the LA Times, I think, or the Tribune, something like that. He, so he's like a, a tycoon.

David Senra 45:31 He-- So you're... And you'd fucking love him. So he's 81 years old. He sold his, his real estate company for $38 billion to BlackRock or Blackstone. I don't fucking know. N- you know, they're all named the same. And so, you know, who the fu-- How, how often do you get to meet somebody that sells their company for $40 billion? And I couldn't believe this was gonna happen. I thought, I was like, "Oh, like this isn't really gonna happen." Then I was like, "Oh, maybe it's gonna be like a lunch I'm invited to, and there's gonna be like 20 people there." It's like, no. He sat eye to eye for two fucking hours, and he's not like that. You would... The reason I, I got back after that lunch and I told my wife, I go, "I want that. I want that." I wanna be 81 years old, completely still unbelievably curious about the world around him, still doing deals. Doesn't give a fuck. He's not one of these, like, media trade guys, right? So-

Sam Parr 46:14 He only wears blue jeans, I think.

David Senra 46:16 He invented... He, he takes, [laughs] he takes credit. He's like, "I invented business casual." I'm like, "Sam, I don't know if you should invent business casual. There's fucking layers that you would say that you invented business casual." Will not wear a suit, still rides a motorcycle. Uh, still, I think, smokes weed. Like, he's [chuckles] fucking crazy. But the thing, the, the advice that he gave me, he's like, "David," he's like, "The richer you get, what you realize is, one," he goes, "You'd be shocked at how many rich guys I know that aren't having fun," which is de- describing exactly what you're saying. You go to their house and they're talking about other people or what other people have. I'd run the other fucking way. Sam didn't talk about that. He goes, "Listen." He goes, "Money..." He's like, "There's very few true luxuries in life." The richer he got, he's like, "Then I just kept just buying nicer of the same shit. So I'd buy a house, then I'd buy, get richer, then I'd buy a new house." He's like, "This is fucking stupid." So he's like, "I basically own nothing." He has a place in Chicago, and he has a compound in Malibu. That's his words, by the way. He's, he's like, "I have a compound in Malibu." Um, he's like this... He's like... The advice he gave me over and over again, he said it five or six times every two hours. He's like, "Optimize for freedom. If you get freedom, you get to choose what you do, and then you'll have fun. And if you have fun, you'll be really good at it, and the money will come. But do not give up your freedom for money," which so many rich dudes do. It's fucking crazy. And then he goes, the one thing. He's like, "None of that shit matters. I could buy everything I want." He goes, "I rent a bunch of shit," which reminded me of you, 'cause I know you fucking hate owning a house. And so he's like-

Sam Parr 47:36 I like renting, yeah.

David Senra 47:37 He's like, "Don't own a bunch of shit. Just rent it when you need it." Like, and he's like, "'Cause if you own it, then you gotta take care of it." This is advice from fucking the guy that, you know, obviously owned assets. He was buy- he's still buying a ton of businesses. The day before I saw him, he, he's like... He-- Dude, he's 81. He just, his eyes lit up. He's like, "I just spent $300 million buying 75% of this company who makes 50 million a year," or some shit. Like, he just loves the deal. He's like, "I'm gonna be doing deals till I die," just 'cause he likes the game. He's like, he treats it like a game. But he's like, "There's only tr- one true luxury in life." He goes, "Try to get the private jet money." [laughs]

Sam Parr 48:06 Really?

David Senra 48:07 Yeah.

Sam Parr 48:07 What, what are... What was it like meeting Charlie Munger?

David Senra 48:11 So that was fucking crazy too. Um, and again, because, like, Andrew and his partner, Chris, um, it was fascinating 'cause, uh, I heard your podcast where you guys had met Chris and spent time with him. Um, and I got to have, uh, the, the, the, the few hours before we had dinner with Charlie Munger, I had, like, a super long lunch one-on-one with Chris, and that dude is fascinating. I wonder if he'd ever come on your podcast. Because-

Sam Parr 48:37 I'm gonna hang out with him tonight. I'm gonna be with him tonight.

David Senra 48:39 Okay, yeah. Like, you should... I w- I know he's more private. He's another guy where I think he knows Like, one of the things I loved about Chris, not only is he wicked smart, but one of the things I thought was so cool is, like, he showed me his calendar when we had lunch. He's like, "Look at my calendar." He's like, "Every day at 3:00, I'm picking my..." I think it's his son, his son up from school. Like, he's not going to be... You know, he's, like, obviously rich and successful, will continue to be more rich and more successful as he, he carries on. Um, but he's not doing it at the detriment of being a shitty dad, which, like, I admire a lot. I fucking hate shitty dads. Like it's-

Sam Parr 49:12 So what was Munger like? He, he was, he was present?

David Senra 49:15 So Munger was, uh... He has this line where he's like, "Oh, I didn't succeed in life because of intelligence, I succeeded because of a long attention span." Definitely has a long attention span, but that dude is way smarter than me. Like, if anybody's gonna have-

Sam Parr 49:28 Even, even at 98? Or what, how old is he? 95?

David Senra 49:31 So he's 99. Anybody is gonna have, uh, some level of cognitive decline at 99, and so all I could think about is, like, if that is who he is at 99, imagine trying to compete with that dude 30 years ago.

Sam Parr 49:43 What was his house like?

David Senra 49:45 Uh, I have to be careful 'cause I got into a little bit of, like, they want me to keep some of that stuff private, so, like, I can't answer that question. Um-

Sam Parr 49:52 Was it fancy? Was it wha- uh, was it as you'd expect?

David Senra 49:55 No, he, he-

Sam Parr 49:55 Which is very, very, very nice

David Senra 49:56 ... no. He li- he's very authentic. He... If you read Munger and talk about Munger, he's like, "Hey, don't have a lot of silly needs in your life." Uh, his whole thing is just, like, I, I truly believe that he just wanted to show what he could do with his brain, that he could make a ton of money with his mind because he's really smart. He, like, wears, like... You know, he, he loves Costco.

Sam Parr 50:15 Wears flannel in your, in your picture I think. Like-

David Senra 50:18 So-

Sam Parr 50:18 ... flannel from Amazon

David Senra 50:19 ... so the Costco, like, his... One of his favorite entrepreneurs is Jim Sinegal, who I, I love a lot too, and one of his favorite companies, Jim Sinegal, are, is Costco because of that Costco could have made more money but passed the, the benefit of their group buying onto the customer. And so Charlie is who he says he is. He's just like, he's not, doesn't have a fancy watch, doesn't have fancy clothes. He just buys books, as far as I can tell, and talks to interesting people, and makes a ton of money. But he's not in it for the money. He just want... He's inde- He says, he's like, "I didn't want the Ferraris, I wanted the independence."

Sam Parr 50:51 Who all that you've... So besides Ed Thorp, who all have you, who have you listened to or, uh, spoken about that you think is, like, in your top five people of, like, they will conquer the world if given the chance? Like, they are, they are the, the, the, the top... They are the 1% of the 1%.

David Senra 51:10 I mean, I, I think the selection here is that every single person is in the top, you know, .0001% because you're onl- the onl- to get on Founders, you have to live a life so remarkable somebody wrote a book about it. What I would say is, like, I just got done reading James Dyson's autobiography for the fourth time, and it is my number one book recommendation by far for entrepreneurs, and he's written two autobiographies. The second one's fine. There's nothing wrong with that. It... I'm talking about the first one, because the first one he writes after 14 years of struggle. Like, what I admire so much about this guy is, like, he's not necessarily, like, a conqueror in the sense that, like, he's gonna go around. I don't think he'd be like a Napoleon in other times. But what I loved is, like, my favorite entrepreneurs are very adamant about what they want to do in life and how they wanna run their business. It's not formulaic. They're not going around asking people advice like, "What do you think I should do? What does my product look like? What is... How should I run the business?" Like, no, I have a very set, uh, mindset of, like, how I wanna build the product, how I wanna build my business, how I wanna s- to, uh, to, like, spend my time. And their will-

Sam Parr 52:11 You know what I call that? I, I call that they bend reality to their, to their will. You know, they kick their dent in the universe. That's what I always call that. I'm like, they know what they want, and they bent reality to fit what they wanted.

David Senra 52:23 Read, read that d- dude, you could read his bio- autobiography in a weekend. It'll fucking blow your mind because it's like, why is this guy not quitting? Well, what is, what is happening here? He's borrowing... He's got two mortgages on every single house. He's got, he's crying at the end of the night, never thinks he's gonna be successful, and he just won't quit. And what happens is, like, you fast-forward now, James Dyson is 75 years old. He owns 100% of Dyson Company. He's like, you know, one w- that company's probably worth $20 billion. It makes supposedly, you know, a couple billion a year for profit for his family that, like, they take out of the company. What I love is, um, he... The, the company he owned before Dyson Vacuums, it was this thing called a ball barrow, which looks like a wheelbarrow with a, a ball at the front, and he goes and rents, uh, does a photo shoot for the ball barrow at this, like, massive estate that has been in, in England for, like, 300 years. 25 years later, he buys it. He's like, "This is my shit now." [laughs] Like, "It's mine."

Sam Parr 53:15 Dude, I, I've talked to a lot of people who love that book. One thing that, one thing... So I remember, like, when I've just got started in my career, I was, like, firmly in the, in the field of, like, I'm gonna pull myself up from my bootstraps and I'm gonna, I'm gonna make this into existence. And then I remember when we were selling our company and everything got done, and that was the first time in my life where I thought luck is so important. And even though I, I think I'm a badass, and that I would... A- and I think that I could will myself to a very... I think I could will myself to a really nice amount of success. But in order to have the uber success, which we'll describe as, like, liquid hundreds of millions of dollars, there's lots of people who are these types of killers who do have these attribute, attributes. But one or two things, both in their control and out of their control, went wrong or right, and that can, like, absolutely change things. Like, it could be, like, like, you know, John Rockefeller didn't know that a car was gonna be invented. Uh, or, like, with, with Zuckerberg, like, he would've kicked ass no matter what, but it just so happened that, like, the phone came out, and that, like, has helped a ton. Or, uh, you know, someone, like w- you know, I'm sure we've seen a lot of fortunes get created during a pandemic. Like, luck is real. Like, when we sold our company, and that was my first big win, the CEO, Brian, got into a nearly fatal accident afterwards. And I'm like, dude, if that happened, like, four weeks prior, I don't know if this would've gone through. And I still think I will be-

David Senra 54:44 That's crazy

Sam Parr 54:44 ... very successful, but imagine if I was selling my company for a billion or $2 billion and the CEO or the buyer got

David Senra 54:52 Killed or quit.

Sam Parr 54:54 Do you think that with these guys, luck is real?

David Senra 54:56 Of course. You, you said something great on the Acquired podcast. You're like, "I've met a lot of these guys." It's like they're 20 times richer, but they're not 20 times smarter.

Sam Parr 55:03 Yeah.

David Senra 55:04 And a lot of ... Ro- you-- Rockefeller's a great example, right? Like, so, uh, the best way to describe it is like moderate level success. Like, you know, you could probably get to tens of millions of dollars in net worth. That's like playing poker, right? This is like, that's a skill set you can get. But like to, like Jeff Bezos, like the funniest thing, I had dinner last night with two founders. It was like, do you guys know that Jeff Bezos's private jet, has a private jet. Like he takes off and there's another one. Like that level of shit, like there's so many things that gotta break. The idea is like he knew he was gonna do the Everything Store-

Sam Parr 55:30 Why, why does he have a second private jet?

David Senra 55:32 I'd love to ask him. I don't know. Like, so you know how this is like people track private jets now?

Sam Parr 55:37 Yeah.

David Senra 55:37 Some YouTuber made a video, and they noticed that every time Jeff's plane ... Maybe it's like the people he doesn't want on his plane. I don't fucking know. [laughs] But like there's a jet that follows his other jet around, and like it's ... Somebody put all this together from public information. So, uh, that level of success, like he knew, okay, the internet's growing. We ... The Everything Store was a code name in the hedge fund that he, for Amazon, they, they were gonna incubate it in the hedge fund. He was working for David Shaw, a billionaire, uh, hedge fund guy in New York. And so he knew, it's like we could sell books, and then he also knew he could sell other things mo- likely, but he didn't know, like he could invent AWS. Like, there was no, like all that stuff that happens. Rockefeller is a great example.

Sam Parr 56:12 Well, Bezos, when he pitched the first investors, he goes, "I think this could make $100 million a year, if we're lucky."

David Senra 56:17 Yeah. He, uh, he, he ... It took him 50 meetings for venture capitalists to get his first million dollars, and he said the most common question he was asked is, "What is the internet?"

Sam Parr 56:25 Yeah. It's, it's, it's insane.

David Senra 56:26 He's, he's a fucking savant. He is the closest to me. Bezos reminds me so much of Rockefeller. Like if you read Bezos' shareholder letters are excellent, uh, because he's, he's telling you what he's ... Just like the, the Arnold books that I recommended earlier. Arnold says, "This is my blueprint. This is what I'm gonna do." He calls the shot, and then he goes and does it.

Sam Parr 56:41 Mm-hmm.

David Senra 56:41 Bezos does the same thing. But the Rockefeller 20 times richer but not 20 times smarter thing, I think is obviously you're talking about randomness. You're talking about luck. Uh, Rockefeller was gonna be successful no matter what. Like the, the business he was in, as you know, it's like he was, they were wholesaling like produce and other stuff, right? They were just traders. And one thing that he did that I think is really smart is like he's work- he's like 19 years old working for two founders. He's, he's just an employee. He goes back and reads all of their books, goes back and studies their entire company history, memorizes all the finances and everything, and then knew more about the business than the founders did. Like that kind of personality is gonna win wherever he's gonna go. Now, he could've stayed in that business and made millions of dollars. Is he gonna build the, arguably the most successful company of all time if it wasn't for the, the random discovery of oil? No. Like, he didn't control the fact that he was in the r- ... What I always say in the podcast is like, you find these people that are the right, right person, right set of skills at the right place at the right time. If you're missing any of those, you're not gonna build, you know, a trillion dollar company or a, you know, $200 million, or $200 billion net worth. You need things to break through for you that are outside of your control.

Sam Parr 57:42 What do you think you're gonna do next? Like where, you know, where, what's your blueprint for 10 years?

David Senra 57:49 Okay, so this is where I start talking reckless because, um, I am probably the most optimistic person in terms of like how good bus- of a business podcasting can be, and I start talking crazy. And then, uh, I have some friends, uh, that have built giant businesses on the back of podcasts. I was at dinner with them last week, and they literally pulled me to the side, and they're like, "Shut the [beep] up. Stop telling people all this shit." [laughs] So-

Sam Parr 58:15 What, what's an example of a great business built on the, on the back of a pod?

David Senra 58:18 I'll, I'll, I'll tell you. I, I ca- I'll tell you o- off. I can't, like ... There's a, there's ... Well, okay. So, so there's one that I don't have any intimate knowledge on. Uh, I can give you an example of that. Um, because there's some that I have intimate knowledge on. I'm not sure what I know that could be public and I don't. But like ButcherBox, bootstrap $500 million of revenue largely expanded from podcasting, and there's a ton of those, uh, indus-

Sam Parr 58:41 Through pod-

David Senra 58:41 A new one-

Sam Parr 58:41 Bu- bu- buying podcast ads.

David Senra 58:44 Yes.

Sam Parr 58:44 Got it.

David Senra 58:45 Yes. Um, and then look at, uh, this is something I actually learned on your podcast, which I think you guys do an excellent job with, was, uh, when you guys were talking about how Unilever came and bought Onnit, right?

Sam Parr 58:55 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

David Senra 58:56 Um, I didn't, I didn't know that happened. I knew about Onnit. I knew about Joe. I, I knew he owned like 30%, rumored to be owned 30% of the company. But think about it, like Joe has a ton of, um, ad slots. Just that one ad slot that he randomly put in, he probably netted just on that ad slot, I don't know, $75 million, like depending-

Sam Parr 59:11 Yeah

David Senra 59:11 ... on what the actual purchase price was. Um, Joe, so this idea is like I start talking shit where like people are like, everybody knows 'cause of MrBeast thing, they're like, oh yeah, there's gonna be ... I could see why there's gonna be like some billionaire YouTubers, right? Like that, I think that is obvious now given where MrBeast-

Sam Parr 59:25 Yeah

David Senra 59:25 ... highly likely that dude, unless he dies, he's gonna hit that. My point is just like that the, the, the, the, the deep relationship people have with podcasters is not comparable to the relationship they have with YouTubers. It's not at all comparable. And this is not at all new what, like what anything that what we're doing.

Sam Parr 59:40 What do you mean? People are deeply, are more, uh ... They, they like podcasters more? Like there's more affinity?

David Senra 59:45 It's ... So do you know Blake Robbins from, uh, he's at Benchmark?

Sam Parr 59:50 No.

David Senra 59:50 He has this ... Okay. So, um, he'd be actually interested, somebody interesting to talk to. He's the one that gave me the spectrum idea. He's, uh, helped incubate, uh, I ... What's the, what's the, uh, professional Call of Duty team? 100 Thieves or 40 Thieves?

Sam Parr 1:00:02 Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. I know. I know who you mean.

David Senra 1:00:04 They went from zero to like 80 million in revenue I think in like 18 months or some shit like this. So they, uh, was, uh, developed an audience on, you know, Twitch streaming. And so, so Blake has this spectrum, and this comes to you. Like, uh, there's people out there that have heard you and, uh, Shaan talk way more than they've heard their best friend's voice. There's a ton of-

Sam Parr 1:00:26 Yeah, because when they, when they put the headphones in, w- it's just us and them, and it's usually for 50 or an hour, minutes, uh, you know, 60 minutes at a time, whereas a YouTube video, it's, uh, maybe eight.

David Senra 1:00:38 I've heard you talk for 100 hours. Like, so like we've text, exchanged messages online, but never talk in person. I was like, "Oh, I fucking know Sam." Like I know what he's into. We have the same interests. Like I think we'll be able to talk about a bunch of shit, a bunch of shit, right? So his whole point is like on the spectrum is like how much do pe- how much time do people spend with you? He's like, "On the far end all the way to the left is like TikTok dancers," right? TikTok dancers You know, they might have millions and millions of followers, but they spend 30 seconds, and if they try to, like, sell tickets, they can't even fill a room with, like, 3,000 people, even if there's thou- you know, millions of followers. On the far end of the spectrum, all the way to the right, is Twitch streamers. People spend literally 40 hours a week with their favorite Twitch streamer, right? Or 30 hours a week or 20 hours. He goes, "David, podcast and you, you're just one, uh, one, one step towards the left." He goes, "There's gonna be people that have listened to you speak for hundreds of hours."

Sam Parr 1:01:25 Right.

David Senra 1:01:25 And that parasocial relationship is unbelievably deep and comprehensive to... Like, you saw this. I saw, um, people had said that you're doing a, a public meetup, I think, in Austin, right? And, or a show, and there's people flying in from fucking Dubai.

Sam Parr 1:01:39 Yeah, it's crazy, right?

David Senra 1:01:40 Okay. So, so think about that. Like, they're not flying in to Dubai to watch, like, a TikTok dancer. They're not flying in... And your podcast is technically a business. You have all this other stuff you could do. It's like, how many brands do people identify with so much that they'll fly across the world? I just did this. I'm introverted as fuck, right?

Sam Parr 1:01:56 Yeah, you seem like it.

David Senra 1:01:57 Yeah, so [laughs]

Sam Parr 1:01:59 Yeah. You seem like an introvert.

David Senra 1:02:00 I am on one-on-one. Yeah. But on one-on-one. But with groups, I hate it. So, uh, Shane Parrish from Knowledge Project, Burner Street, was in Miami. He's like, "Dude, let's do a public meetup." I'm like, "Oh, fuck." And I agreed just 'cause he's did it.

Sam Parr 1:02:13 How many people came?

David Senra 1:02:15 Uh, like, 70. Like, I think around, like, 70 people came.

Sam Parr 1:02:19 It's awkward, right?

David Senra 1:02:20 It's not awkward. Uh, I, I don't think I'd do it again, but, like, this is the thing. Like, I, the only thing I did to promote it, Shane was supposed to send it out to his newsletter. Never did. Thanks, Shane. But, um, I just made, like, this one minute... I up- I was like, like, five days before the event or something, I, I upload it to my podcast feed. I was like, "Hey, you happen to be in Miami area, we're gonna do this. Here's where we're gonna be." And, like, I'm like, all right, there's no, like, my audience is in, like, you know, California, New York. There's like, Miami's not, like, the spot for it. It- people flew down from New York, Washington, D.C., drove for hours, and I'm like, "What are you in town for?" They're like, "This." I'm like, "Why?" Like, "What are you talking about?"

Sam Parr 1:02:57 Mm.

David Senra 1:02:57 And so it's this deep level relationship. So to answer your question, like, my 10-year plan is just like, I'm gonna be making podcasts till I fucking die. I love doing it. It's the best job in the world. I think Sean tweeted out something that he's like, "Podcasting is the best job in the world." It's like you get to be curious to learn all the time, and then you package up what you learn, and you send it out to the world, and all this good benefit comes r- back to you. You know, relationships, investment opportunities, businesses you can launch, whatever the case is. Um, and so m- I'm just gonna run the same playbook that, like, Rockefeller did. It's like right now, um, you scale with ads. People pay a very high dollar amount because your audience is valuable. It-

Sam Parr 1:03:32 And thank you for, uh, for promoting Hampton, uh, on your pod. That, that-

David Senra 1:03:36 That was more than my first car, buddy [laughs] for free.

Sam Parr 1:03:39 I, I appreciate-

David Senra 1:03:39 But it's done.

Sam Parr 1:03:40 Hey, I, I... Look, hopefully you get more, hopefully you get, uh, more than enough value i, i, in this way.

David Senra 1:03:46 No, that's, that's, that's a perfect example. I did it. You wouldn't, you didn't have to ask me to do that because I got so much value from you. The weird thing that you probably experienced too, that p- this is what people... Dude, the conversations you have with podcasters, you can't... If you're not on this side, you don't understand. A listener does not understand the shit that, like, why every single person you talk to that's a podcaster or has a successful podcast is like, "I'm never fucking not gonna quit." Like, "I'm never not gonna do this. This thing is, it's like magic." Um, and so when, when I was like, "Dude, I think Hampton, first of all, is a great idea because, um, entrepreneurs have to be around other entrepreneurs." Like, we do not think like anybody else. You go to a... You're gonna have, uh, you said you're, you're gonna have a family. Once you start having kids, you go to these birthday parties, and then you're back into, you're outside of your bubble, and now you're in, like, random distribution of people. And every time I'm like, "Where's the, where's the entrepreneur in the room?" And if there's not an entrepreneur, I gotta leave. Like, you have to be around them. Paul Graham has that great line where he's like, "Ambitious people are starved to be around other ambitious people. If you put them together, they bloom like dying plants with water," which is exactly what you're doing with Hampton. The funny thing, he's like, "Oh, thanks for doing that." I was like, "No, no, thank you for making your fucking podcast." I s- every day I get messages like, "Thank you for doing it." I was like, "Dude, if you didn't listen, like, I get to read books for a living. I need to be thanking you." So that's the power of podcast. So to answer your question is, like, I'm gonna vertically integrate, um-

Sam Parr 1:05:07 What, what, what's that mean?

David Senra 1:05:09 So, like-

Sam Parr 1:05:09 What product are you gonna create?

David Senra 1:05:10 By, by next year at this time, um, like, you're not gonna be, no one's gonna be able to buy an ad on Founders, right? Um, so, and this is the, the crazy thing about having a podcast. So, like, you have all... You, you hit on it. You're like, uh, super successful people read all the time. Um, they also listen to business podcasts all the time. And you're able to build relationships with them, where like, uh, I just met, like, give you an example. When I talked to Chris and Andrew, I was like, "You guys can advertise for as long as you want," but eventually, like, what you, I think ideally is like, find a business. You guys buy businesses for a living. You hire managers for a living. Like, we'll partner up on distribution as opposed to, like, just doing an ad. Uh, you have people like Patrick O'Shaughnessy from Invest Like The Best, like, literally saying, "Hey, uh, whether we have to buy a company and we scale it, or we incubate a company," like, basically, he's like, "We need to found, we need to find Founders version of Tegus," right? And what does that mean? This is something that I think is public now, so I don't think I'll get in trouble for saying this.

Sam Parr 1:06:10 I've heard about this. You know what? I can say it so you can, you don't get in trouble if you want.

David Senra 1:06:13 Go ahead. Go ahead.

Sam Parr 1:06:13 So this is just rumors. So here, let me tell you the rumors that I heard.

David Senra 1:06:17 Okay.

Sam Parr 1:06:17 So there's this company, and you can let me know, so this way you won't get in trouble for revealing anything. Tegus is a company where I think what they do is if you wanted to talk to an expert, you pay them money, and they connect you with an expert. But they record all the conversations and transcribe them, and so instead of paying money to talk to an expert, you could just read the transcriptions they had with any other of the, uh, experts, whatever. I heard that they advertised on Patrick O'Shaughnessy's podcast, and he saw how good it was going, and he goes, "Screw this. I want some type of equity, and I'll, I'll invest a little bit, but I want to add a sweetheart deal." And it was a sweetheart deal, and he continued sending them tons of customers to the point where his equity hol- holding in the company has been worth, is worth tens of millions of dollars. Is, is that roughly accurate?

David Senra 1:07:03 So I, I don't know the prices. I know he, he says this publicly. He put $20 million into his company. He's got a giant fund, too. Um, my point is, like, I don't know the valuations. I, I'm sure if I asked Patrick, he would tell me, but, you know, it's none of my business. Um- My point is that, like, okay, Michael Ellnick, who's a co-founder of Tegus, the CEO, and a fucking savage. Like, he is, he is like the guys we study, right? I was... We, we talk- I was talking to him one time and, um, he was just telling me like, "Oh, like, what do you do to, like, decompress? Like, you're in a..." Like, he's building an incredibly valuable company. He's got a, like, and he's completely dedicated to it. And him and his brother both ran track at Brown, so like they blow off stress by, like, running, like Phil Knight did in Nike. And then you ask him, he's like, "Oh, so like how much do you work?" He's like, "Oh, no, I take time off. Like, I take Saturday mornings off."

Sam Parr 1:07:48 Ah.

David Senra 1:07:48 It's like, [laughs] "Oh, Saturday mornings." So he's on it. I love his intensity, but he said, he's just like one a- one podcast they only advertised, they had their first few customers from like, you know, word of mouth or their network. But, you know, the first probably 50 to $60 million of revenue, whatever it is, like Patrick's podcast, because of who's in his audience, helped them scale. And as a result, like, then there's just a relation- there's a million things you could do. So in Patrick's case, he's running a fund, like you can do equity. Um, I'm not an investor. You said the other day when you were talking to, um, can't remember who you were interviewing, like you don't like investing in, in people's companies. Like, you wanna like build your own shit. I understand.

Sam Parr 1:08:30 Yeah, investing doesn't entirely give me a dopamine rush. Like I- I'm, I'm in the game for adventure and that, and I'm searching like, uh, like a little bit of a rush and-

David Senra 1:08:39 Yeah

Sam Parr 1:08:39 ... I find it to be very, it's so boring. You give someone money and you don't hear from them for six years.

David Senra 1:08:44 I'm the same way. I, I'm, like I'm not interested. I get so much deal flow of like, "Hey, do you wanna angel invest?" I'm like, "No." Like I... Why? I would just like do my own shit. And people say I'm stupid on doing that, and they have to understand, it's like I'm not also running my life to maximize for most dollars made. Like, that doesn't make any... Like, it... We talked about learning is not just memorizing information, it's changing behavior. How many fucking times you get to these super rich people that do things they don't like for money, and then get money and they wonder why they're not happy anymore. All that matters is how you spend your time. And so like, I'm-

Sam Parr 1:09:11 So what's your... What, what's gonna be your Tegus though? What's gonna be your product?

David Senra 1:09:14 I don't know what that... See, that's the thing is like we, I was having a conversation with two founders about this last night. The, the good thing is, is like, I, we have some ideas. Uh, obviously like we'll share that when the time comes, but like, I have all these really smart, successful people that like the podcast that wanna help. You know, like Andrew and Chris at Tiny. Uh, I just met with their EIR. I think they have more than one, but I just had a conversation with their, uh, EIR. Um, uh, Patrick's trying to help me. The guy that connected me with Sam Zell, he's got like $20 billion of assets under management. He's just like, "Well, we can fucking buy a company. We can do whatever you want," you know? He's also has investments in some companies that scale up podcasting, so he understands the power, and he just likes the product. So the point being is like that's where I'm going, but I'm not doing it for money. I'm doing it 'cause I'm completely obsessed with podcasting. I think it's a miracle. Like when I say I start talking shit about podcasts, I'm like, podcasting's fucking s- uh, it's, to me, it's like the printing press for the spoken word. It's like as big a revolution as Gutenberg's fucking printing press. And it's just like, it's on-demand audio that you can educate yourself anytime you want all over the world. That's fucking crazy. That didn't exist when you and I were kids. It didn't exist. I had to fucking wa- I, I remember like being obsessed with talk radio and just having to listen to whatever was on the three or four dials at the time it was on. And then they go from that to like streaming it in the browser. I remember when that happened. I was a fucking grown man. I was like, "Oh, this is amazing." And then when my friend Eric's like, "Oh no, you can listen to Joe's podcast anytime you want." I'm like, "What the fuck did you just say?"

Sam Parr 1:10:33 [laughs]

David Senra 1:10:34 "What the fuck did you just say?"

Sam Parr 1:10:36 [laughs]

David Senra 1:10:36 That's crazy. And think about that, like if somebody... Like this is, um, a young kid, so me and you both know Michael Sekund.

Sam Parr 1:10:42 Who's Michael Sekund?

David Senra 1:10:43 From our future.

Sam Parr 1:10:44 Oh, oh, oh.

David Senra 1:10:44 From our future.

Sam Parr 1:10:45 Yeah. Dude, he's in my phone as Michael Future.

David Senra 1:10:49 [laughs]

Sam Parr 1:10:49 And I never refer to him as Sekund, his last name. Never.

David Senra 1:10:53 That's [laughs] ...

Sam Parr 1:10:53 I was like, "Sekund?"

David Senra 1:10:54 I don't even, I don't know-

Sam Parr 1:10:55 I was like, "Who is that?"

David Senra 1:10:55 I don't know if I'm pronouncing it e- correctly.

Sam Parr 1:10:58 Dude, he's at my house-

David Senra 1:10:59 He's the king. He's-

Sam Parr 1:10:59 He's at my house like twice a week, and I just call him Michael Future.

David Senra 1:11:03 [laughs]

Sam Parr 1:11:04 I, like it's crazy.

David Senra 1:11:05 He is, I, I love how arrogant he is.

Sam Parr 1:11:06 Dude, I had a guy at my wedding, and I didn't even, I barely even knew how to say his, I didn't even know his last name. I just, I just called him Siever Russia.

David Senra 1:11:14 I, I love Michael's confidence and my point being is like imagine being, you know, 20, 20... Because he, he would cold DM both me and you, and-

Sam Parr 1:11:23 Yeah

David Senra 1:11:23 ... he, he's really good at it. He sent me a DM and he's like, "Hey, I love your podcast. I took a, an idea that I got from your podcast, made a video about it, and it got 10 million views. Can we talk?" I go, "You did what? What the fuck-"

Sam Parr 1:11:33 Yeah, it's a-

David Senra 1:11:34 "... are you talking about?"

Sam Parr 1:11:34 That's an impossible message not to...

David Senra 1:11:36 Yeah.

Sam Parr 1:11:36 Dude, I always tell him.

David Senra 1:11:37 And so-

Sam Parr 1:11:37 He's at my house all the time and, like, I'm not old. I'm 33, but he, he's 23. M- I mean he, whatever, he's fresh just out of college. He'll come-

David Senra 1:11:44 No, he's, yeah, young.

Sam Parr 1:11:45 And he'll come over-

David Senra 1:11:46 Yeah

Sam Parr 1:11:46 ... and me and Sarah will be like, "Michael, just tell me what's, what are the young kids doing nowadays?" And he'll literally just sit there for two hours and just tell Sarah and I like all these phrases and words, and I'm just, I'll just listen. I don't even say a thing. I just say, "Just talk. Just tell me, like, what's up with young people?" And he's like, he'll just tell me.

David Senra 1:12:02 Yeah.

Sam Parr 1:12:02 And, and, and I'll ask him about his dating life. He just ta- And so I always try to, this sounds always weird whenever I say this, I, I always try to sur- surround myself with young, like younger people, and I'm like, "Just tell me. I just wanna listen. Just tell me what's going on." And he always does that to me.

David Senra 1:12:14 He's, he's, he's like you, you tweeted at him one time and he says something like, "Oh, what are you gonna be doing in 10 years?" He's going, "I'm, I'm gonna be landing my helicopter on your lawn or something." [laughs]

Sam Parr 1:12:21 [laughs]

David Senra 1:12:21 But like I love his confidence 'cause like you, at the beginning-

Sam Parr 1:12:23 One time he said, uh, he goes, "Got some really bad news today. Just got back from the chiropractor. They said that the chip on my shoulder is permanent." [laughs]

David Senra 1:12:32 He, he's, he's fu- He actually gave me a really good b- book recommendation. He texted me yesterday that I never had found. It's like all these like, um, I-

Sam Parr 1:12:39 Which one was it?

David Senra 1:12:40 The, the, the ones that, um, I'm obsessed with the, the history of the American West and like-

Sam Parr 1:12:44 Yeah

David Senra 1:12:44 ... all that personality type that's like, "Oh no, fuck the East Coast. I'm gonna go across and do this crazy journey in the West."

Sam Parr 1:12:49 It was the one written by, uh, Philip Anschutz or Anschu- the guy who owns-

David Senra 1:12:53 Yeah

Sam Parr 1:12:53 ... um, [smacks lips] the biggest ticketing company in the world or something. It's called like AWE. Whatever it is, it's like-

David Senra 1:13:00 Yeah

Sam Parr 1:13:00 ... one that every- everyone know. I think they own Ticketmaster, I think. Something like that, whatever. Multi-

David Senra 1:13:04 He says they own the Lakers and the Coachella. He says, I don't know if that's true, but it's called Out-

Sam Parr 1:13:08 Yeah, yeah, yeah. They own-

David Senra 1:13:09 Out Where the West Begins.

Sam Parr 1:13:10 Yeah, and they own-

David Senra 1:13:11 Um

Sam Parr 1:13:12 ... um, uh, Coachella. Anyway, this guy, Philip, a lot of people don't know this, it only has 10 reviews on Ama- Amazon, this 80-year-old, $20 billion guy, he has a book about the West.

David Senra 1:13:24 Yeah. And I'm, I already ordered it. The, the reason I brought up Michael though is because, one, I think it's smart to be... Like, I, I think we have a, an epidemic of people that don't believe in themselves. People think we have an epidemic of arrogance. I, I believe the complete opposite. It's like there's so many more people that can create businesses. 'Cause, like, the best d- description of a, what a business is came from Richard Branson, I've ever heard came from Richard Branson. He goes, "A business is just an idea that makes somebody else's life better." And if you look at it from there, like, there's limitless opportunity. And so to, to have the belief that you can do that, something that you s- that pops up in these books all the time is that belief comes before ability. But society wants you to show me that you're, you should have, like, show, prove that you should have, your confidence is deserved. It's like, no, you don't under- actually understand. It's like they, the belief comes before the ability.

Sam Parr 1:14:04 Well, then that's why a lot of people were, like, amongst my entrepreneurial friends, they watched the Billy McFarland Fyre Festival documentary, and they were like, "Yeah, he did the wrong things, but it almost worked." And the reason why, like, a lot of my entrepreneurial friends were like, were like, oh, forgiving of him was it's like, yeah, but I've been there. I've faked it until I made it type of vibe. And like, because I remember I did this for my conferences too. I would kind of fib. I would tell these 15 speakers individually the other 14 had already confirmed, which they hadn't, and luckily I got them all to confirm and it worked out, so it wasn't en- it didn't end up being a lie. But there's, like, so many examples where I promised something that wasn't real where I'm like, "Oh, shit, I got to, I hope I can deliver on these things." You know what I mean?

David Senra 1:14:47 Yeah.

Sam Parr 1:14:47 That, that happens a lot.

David Senra 1:14:48 The, the, the point I was making with Michael though is imagine being his age, right, and being able to listen to every single episode of My First Million, every single episode of Founders or what, or how, How to Take Over the World. We got to give Ben a shout-out because fucking I think what he's doing is incredible. And, like, perfect example is like, dude, you should just make as many episodes as possible because, like, you have M- you have Sam Parr saying your shit is really good, right, which is fucking incredible, and you have MrBeast, literally the biggest creator on the [laughs] fucking internet saying to only listen to one podcast. So I hope that, like, lights a, a fire under, uh, Ben as well. But, like, just the abil- like, I would kill. I would have fucking killed for... That's why I think podcasting a miracle. I don't want to do anything else. Let's say I never launch any businesses, Shaan, it's your tenure plan, which I, I, I, I don't see how that's even possible because there's a ton of entrepreneurs I know that, like, want to partner on these things. Um, but even if I just made podcasts and I just continue to grow the audience and I just made money on ad revenue, like, whatever. I fucking... That's, that's plenty fine for me. That's the, the way I like to live

David Senra 1:15:47 my life. Do you ever read, uh, do you ever heard of Chuck Yeager?

Sam Parr 1:15:50 Uh, Chuck, is that the guy who broke the, uh, sound barrier?

David Senra 1:15:52 Yes. So the fucking crazy thing is the, the miracle, uh, books is like you never know, like, when you're gonna read some random sentence that you never fucking know.

Sam Parr 1:15:59 Everyone loves that guy's book.

David Senra 1:16:01 Okay.

Sam Parr 1:16:01 All business people love his book.

David Senra 1:16:03 So I didn't know who the fuck he was. I kept noticing this, this old guy on Twitter in a, in a pilot suit talking hella shit, like unfiltered. And I fucking love these people that, like, really talk who they are. They're authentic. And I s- I read his book. It turns out he fucking, it sold like five million copies the first year it came out in the '80s. Like, it's one of the most successful autobiographies of all time. It is-

Sam Parr 1:16:23 Well, he was famous back then when he did that. He, I think he broke the sound barrier, is that right? Or-

David Senra 1:16:27 So, so he broke-

Sam Parr 1:16:28 Mach 2 or something.

David Senra 1:16:29 He was the first pilot to break the sound barrier, and I think he was the first pilot to become ace in a day, uh, in World War II. He's like, "I love killing Nazis." He says, he's like, "One of my favorite things to do is kill Nazis." And so, yeah, he w- there's a great line in his book where, um, he's like, from this like, this is what I also love, is like great can come from anywhere. He lived in, like, this rural, um, what's that area in, in West Virginia? It's like a Appalachian where there's like a map.

Sam Parr 1:16:52 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

David Senra 1:16:53 So he lived in, like, the Appalachians, completely, like, isolated, right? And so he describes, the way he describes in this book about killing all these Nazis, he, he shot down five. To become an ace in a day, you have to shoot down five enemy planes. And he goes, "The Nazis came up, uh, into the skies, and they met a goddamn West Virginia buzzsaw," [laughs] is the way he described himself. But he gave me a, another blueprint. Um, let me see if I can get the quote exactly right. This is the magic of having Readwise too because I can just think up something and pull it up immediately. It's like a giant search engine for everything I've read. Um, and he gave me this idea where it's like, it's how you and I should avoid what you just described. You, you get around all these rich guys. They never, it's never enough. They don't seem to be enjoying life, which is, what's the point of being rich at that point? Um, they, it seems to be surprising to them that they're not enjoying life because they don't actually like what they do day to day, but they make a ton of money, so why the fuck... How the fuck could you take, one third of your life is gonna be spent working, right? You, you hate what you do. You think, how is it possible that you think you're gonna get your end of your life and like your life? It's impossible. And so he says, he goes, "I wasn't a deep, sophisticated person, but I live by a basic principle. I did only what I enjoy." And here's the part. He... "I wouldn't let anyone derail me by promises of power or money into doing things that weren't interesting to me." And so it took me years-

Sam Parr 1:18:10 Isn't that funny how that's like business people say it, pilots say it, it doesn't matter. Like, people, a lot of people who I talk to, they, they, they ask me what my pod is, if it's all about business. I'm like, "Not really," because, like, I don't give a shit if you're an artist. As long as you're, like, kicking ass, and you've, like, defined what success is, and you've achieved it, I think that's, I think that's dope.

David Senra 1:18:27 It's all the same personality type just applied to different things. Like, I could show you this. I don't know if you can see on the camera. But, like, this is one of my favorite dudes. He's my fucking watch-

Sam Parr 1:18:34 Who is that? I can't see.

David Senra 1:18:34 His name's Ernest Shackleton. I love reading about polar explorers.

Sam Parr 1:18:38 Yeah.

David Senra 1:18:38 I like reading about athletes. I like-

Sam Parr 1:18:40 That's the best book I've read in, in probably three years.

David Senra 1:18:42 Endurance?

Sam Parr 1:18:43 Yeah.

David Senra 1:18:44 Yeah, it's excellent. I lo- I'm gonna make a shirt, and I might sell it, but I'll just make it for myself with that fucking picture where he's just, like, covered in snow and looking like shit. And I love the fact that he came up with his own motto, "By endurance, we conquer." And he's like, "We're just gonna win because we're never gonna quit." And I think that could be applied to everything that you fucking do, assuming that you like to do it. But, um, yeah, I, I think Chuck Yeager is just smart, where, like, so many people buy into this, this... I feel prestige is a myth, right? Where they're like, "I'm gonna go do this. I'm gonna do activity X because it'll give me prestige." And what prestige is, is you think other people are thinking about you And no one is thinking about you. You, like, humans are self-absorbed. That is our human nature. So, like, think about the person you... I listened to your Ariel Hawani, uh, interview. You're a big fan of his.

Sam Parr 1:19:28 That was awesome, right?

David Senra 1:19:29 Yeah.

Sam Parr 1:19:29 I love Ariel Hawani.

David Senra 1:19:30 You're, you're a big fan of his. How much of your life is spent thinking about... You're a huge fan. You buy all his shit, you listen to his stuff. Less than two-tenths of one-millionth percent-

Sam Parr 1:19:39 Yeah

David Senra 1:19:40 ... of your life.

Sam Parr 1:19:40 Right.

David Senra 1:19:41 The, I wish people understood is how few people are thinking about them, and therefore, you wouldn't chase prestige 'cause prestige doesn't ac- All that matters is, like, the people around you, do they, do, do they think you're a good person? Do they approve of what you're doing? And then your work, all that really matters is, like, your own opinion, right? Like, Ben texted me the other day about an idea for his podcast, and I was like, "Dude," 'cause he's like, he added music. Ben, do you care if I say this? Okay. So Ben added music, and he's like, "What do you think of it?" And I was like, "I don't love it, and I don't hate it. I don't care about it at all. I thought your episode was fantastic. It was excellent. I shared it with friends." But I was like... He's like, "Well, the, the, the reviews are mixed." So you go, I saw the, I went to the tweets, and it's like some people are like, "This is great." Some people are like, "This is bad." Exactly. Fucking exactly. All that matters is what you like. If you like the music and they don't, then let them go find another fucking podcast to listen to.

Sam Parr 1:20:28 Did his music-

David Senra 1:20:29 Like-

Sam Parr 1:20:29 ... though, on that first, on his, uh, on How To Take Over The World, that's the best intro song in podcasting.

David Senra 1:20:35 Yeah.

Sam Parr 1:20:35 That, that intro song has helped make, uh, make his podcast popular.

David Senra 1:20:39 The UFC, like that, going back to the UFC thing that, that connected us too. Like, go wa- Like, I know you have, but, like, everybody out there needs to go talk about Manifest Cowboy. Conor McGregor is a, he is literally in the documentary. The fact that he was, had somebody film him when he was flat broke living at his mom's. He owed money to every single fucking agency in Ireland, and he's like, "I'm gonna be the fucking world champion one day." He's like literally manifesting this shit. Remember when he got the double belts and he's like, he, Joe's interviewing him, and he's like, "I saw this in my mind." He goes, "Oh, look at that." He's like, "I dream." He's like, "I literally saw it, and I fucking made it real."

Sam Parr 1:21:14 Yeah, that's why people like him.

David Senra 1:21:16 That, that, that documentary is fucking incredible. It's a, 'cause he called his shot. It's like this fucking acne.

Sam Parr 1:21:20 He just ruins it by do, he ruins it by doing all the other dumb stuff, though. But it certainly, he's, he's, he, he's a lo- I have, he's, I have a love-hate relationship with him where it's like you've got all this amazing stuff. I admire you so much, and I also can't stand some of this other behavior. You know what I mean?

David Senra 1:21:37 Well, I think that's where your wisdom is, is like, okay, I, I sold my company. Like, I'm rich as fuck. Uh, you're still, like, you have a massive advantage. Like, uh, you can launch businesses. You work, work on whatever you work on. But you're realizing it's like, but I also, like, take care of my health. I wanna spend time with my wife. I wanna have a family. I wanna, like, be able to, like, have freedom. I've heard you describe, like, what's important to you. And this is like, yeah, that's, that's how I feel too. Because, like, it's, my issue is like I'm not impressed by somebody successful for a year, five years, ten years. It's like, I like the people that fucking never fucked it up. And, um, there's a great line that Charlie Munger said. He's like, "It's not getting rich that you have to worry about. It's staying sane." He's like, "It's not part," and this is in a book, "It's not normal to human nature to have unlimited resources or be so much rich, richer and then not fuck it up through dru-" He, he, he says, uh, "Through ladies, leverage, and liquor is usually how rich men go broke." Right? He's like-

Sam Parr 1:22:29 That's what Munger said?

David Senra 1:22:30 Yeah. Well, it's in, it's in his book. He didn't say it in person. But, um, my point being is, like, I think there's a sense of wisdom there where it's like, okay, I already have this. How do I keep building on it? People like Conor and, and Kanye West is in, in this example too. It's like they're gifted at a young age, and then their, their superstar success is so disorienting that like, again, it's not getting rich you have to worry about, it's staying sane. They weren't able to stay sane. I wanna stay sane, dude. I wanna get to the end of my life when I'm... I try to make decisions like when I'm 80 years old, my, like, I knew for a fact, uh, part of the reason I, I felt comfortable to, like, jump all in on the podcast, even though I didn't know if I was gonna make a success or not, was that when Jeff Bezos was like, "Well, I was making a ton of money as this hedge fund. I was 30 years old. I had an apartment on the Upper West Side. I'm best friends with a billionaire who's, like, mentoring me." Like, he's already set for life, right? But he's like, "I knew if I quit now and forego my quarterly bonus and move across the country to Seattle and try to sell books on the internet," he's just like, "I feel that the internet is a life-changing technology, and I wanna play a role in that technology." And the 30-year-old self, you can convince yourself to think, "Oh, it's not pre- as prestigious as working at a hedge fund. It, I'm gonna miss out on, you know, a couple million dollar bonus," whatever it is. He's like, "Your 85-year-old self is gonna be like, 'You had a shot to play a role-"

Sam Parr 1:23:48 Love it.

David Senra 1:23:48 "... on the internet, and you didn't do it.'" That's how I feel about podcasting, is it's just like I believe it's a miracle. I wanna play a role, and therefore, like, I wanna get to the end of my life. I know 80 year old's like, "Damn, David, I'm glad you fucking risked it."

Sam Parr 1:24:00 Dude, we, um-

David Senra 1:24:00 I'm glad you fucking did that

Sam Parr 1:24:01 ... I'm happy you came on here. You're, um, you're very fascinating to me. I've listened to dozens of your episodes. Um, I'm very eager to see what you become. I think it's cool. I didn't know that you're doing it for six years. I know that I've listened to, like, episode, like, number 10 as well as, like, 300. So I guess I should-

David Senra 1:24:20 Yeah

Sam Parr 1:24:20 ... have done the math. But, like, congratulations on your success. It seems like you're kicking ass. It seems like you're in the groove, and, like, it's really cool to see someone, like, it's really fun to see someone, um, like right when it's happening. And that's, like, kind of the cool thing about podcasting and, like, Twitter and all this stuff is, like, you can catch stuff in the middle. Not before and not after, but as it's happening. That's where you are right now, and I appreciate you doing this. Where, um, what do you, what do you promote? Just Founders. I call it Founders Pod. It's a Founders-

David Senra 1:24:48 Yeah

Sam Parr 1:24:48 ... Podcast. Founders. The-

David Senra 1:24:50 Yeah

Sam Parr 1:24:50 ... Twitter, you're Founders. Uh-

David Senra 1:24:52 Just-

Sam Parr 1:24:52 You're always tweeting good shit.

David Senra 1:24:54 Uh, um, I wanna say thank you for having me on. Like, seriously, I love your fucking podcast. I would just say that, um, one thing that podcasters, uh, like, it's obvious who has the magic, and I've been telling people way before I ever fucking messaged you. I was like, "You need to watch what Sam and Shaan are doing. It's clear they have the magic. They have insane chemistry." I remember listening to you guys when you're like, "Oh, I'm only getting 60,000 downloads an episode," which is still super impressive, and now you guys are fucking blew right past that. Um, it's extremely obvious that you guys are really good at it. I hope you, like, do a, a ton of it. I swear, and I know you're not, might not be interested in this, but, like, there's a, there's a massive hole in podcasting for, like, the Pat, Pat McAfee version of business podcasts.

Sam Parr 1:25:35 I agree.

David Senra 1:25:37 And I-

Sam Parr 1:25:37 I agree.

David Senra 1:25:37 And I think you and Sha- you and Shaan, like h- like, dude, there is going to be a business podcast where you have Pat McAfee gets paid, like, 30 million a year by whatever his presenting sponsor is, whatever, like, I forgot what it is. Um, Dan Lovettard got that $50 million contract from, like, DraftKings. You see Spotify gave, uh, Al- Alex Cooper 20 million a year. The, the reported number for Joe Rogan is way bigger than it's reported. But my point being is, like, there's a gap in the fucking business podcast space, which I think you and Shaan have the best way to... Like, if you did it every day, just like you did. Like, your hour show is the perfect length. The research, the, it feels like you're hanging out with your smart friends, and you guys are brainstorming together. There's nothing else that's like what you guys are fucking doing.

Sam Parr 1:26:22 Hey, Spotify, if you're listening, I'm, uh, I'm, I'm easy to contact. You, you, just DM me on Twitter. Uh, we can talk.

David Senra 1:26:28 [laughs]

Sam Parr 1:26:29 Thanks again, Br-

David Senra 1:26:30 So yeah, I apprec- I appreciate you inviting me on. That was fucking super cool of you.

Sam Parr 1:26:33 I appreciate you doing this, and, uh, yeah, it means a lot. And, uh, yeah, it was awesome.

David Senra 1:26:40 Thanks, man.

Sam Parr 1:26:40 That's the pod. That's the pod.

David Senra 1:26:42 Yep. [outro music]